A Little Bush Maid | Page 5

house before the big dog was silently brushing the grass by her side. His greatest joy was to follow her on long rides into the bush, putting up an occasional hare and scurrying after it in the futile way of collies, barking at the swallows overhead, and keeping pace with Bobs' long, easy canter.
Puck used to come on these excursions too. He was the only being for whom it was suspected that Tait felt a mild dislike--an impudent Irish terrier, full of fun and mischief, yet with a somewhat unfriendly and suspicious temperament that made him, perhaps, a better guardian for Norah than the benevolently disposed Tait. Puck had a nasty, inquiring mind--an unpleasant way of sniffing round the legs of tramps that generally induced those gentry to find the top rail of a fence a more calm and more desirable spot than the level of the ground. Indian hawkers feared him and hated him in equal measure. He could bite, and occasionally did bite, his victims being always selected with judgment and discretion, generally vagrants emboldened to insolence by seeing no men about the kitchen when all hands were out mustering or busy on the run. When Puck bit, it was with no uncertain tooth. He was suspected of a desire to taste the blood of every one who went near Norah, though his cannibalistic propensities were curbed by stern discipline.
Only once had he had anything like a free hand--or a free tooth.
Norah was out riding, a good way from the homestead, when a particularly unpleasant-looking fellow accosted her, and asked for money. Norah stared.
"I haven't got any," she said. "Anyhow, father doesn't let us give away money to travellers--only tucker."
"Oh, doesn't he?" the fellow said unpleasantly. "Well, I want money, not grub." He laid a compelling hand on Bobs' bridle as Norah tried to pass him. "Come," he said--"that bracelet'll do!"
It was a pretty little gold watch set in a leather bangle--father's birthday present, only a few weeks old. Norah simply laughed--she scarcely comprehended so amazing a thing as that this man should really intend to rob her.
"Get out of my way," she said--"you can't have that!"
"Can't I !" He caught her wrist. "Give it quietly now, or I'll--"
The sentence was not completed. A yellow streak hurled itself though the air, as Puck, who had been investigating a tussock for lizards, awoke to the situation. Something like a vice gripped the swagman by the leg, and he dropped Norah's wrist and bridle and roared like any bull. The "something" hung on fiercely, silently, and the victim hopped and raved and begged for mercy.
Norah had ridden a little way on. She called softly to Puck.
"Here, boy!"
Puck did not relinquish his grip. He looked pleadingly at his little mistress across the swagman's trouser-leg. Norah struck her saddle sharply with her whip.
"Here, sir!--drop it!"
Puck dropped it reluctantly, and came across to Bobs, his head hanging. The swagman sat down on the ground and nursed his leg.
"That served you right," Norah said, with judicial severity. "You hadn't any business to grab my watch. Now, if you'll go up to the house they'll give you some tucker and a rag for your leg!"
She rode off, whistling to Puck. The swagman gaped and muttered various remarks. He did not call at the house.
Norah was supposed to manage the fowls, but her management was almost entirely ornamental, and it is to be feared that the poultry yard would have fared but poorly had it depended upon her alone. All the fowls were hers. She said so, and no one contradicted her. Still, whenever one was wanted for the table, it was ruthlessly slain. And it was black Billy who fed them night and morning, and Mrs. Brown who gathered the eggs, and saw that the houses were safely shut against the foxes every evening. Norah's chief part in the management lay in looking after the setting hens. At first she firmly checked the broody instincts by shutting them callously under boxes despite pecks and loud protests. Later, when their mood refused to change, she loved to prepare them soft nests in boxes, and to imprison them there until they took kindly to their seclusion. Then it was hard work to wait three weeks until the first fluffy heads peeped out from the angry mother's wing, after which Norah was a blissfully adoring caretaker until the downy balls began to get ragged, as the first wing and tail feathers showed. Then the chicks became uninteresting, and were handed over to Black Billy.
Besides her own pets there were Jim's.
"Mind, they're in your care," Jim had said sternly, on the evening before his departure for school. They were making a tour of the place--Jim outwardly very cheerful and unconcerned; Norah plunged in woe. She did not attempt to