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First in the Field: A Story of New South Wales, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 1. One Afternoon |
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_ CHAPTER ONE. ONE AFTERNOON "I say, don't, Green: let the poor things alone!" "You mind your own business. Oh! bother the old thorns!" Brian Green snatched his hand out of the quickset hedge into which he had thrust it, to reach the rough outside of a nest built by a bird, evidently in the belief that the hawthorn leaves would hide it from sight, and while they were growing the thorns would protect it from mischievous hands. But the leaves opened out slowly that cold spring, and a party of boys from Dr Dunham's school, the Friary, Broadhurst, Kent, was not long in spying out the unlucky parents' attempt at house-building and nursery. Still, the thorns did their duty to some extent when Brian Green of the red head leaped across the big dry ditch, rudely crushing a great clump of primroses and forcing them down the slope, for when the freckled-faced lad thrust his hand in to grasp the nest a sharp prick made him withdraw it, while this action brought it in contact with a natural _chevaux de frise_, scarified the back, and made a long scratch on his thumb. "I wish you'd keep your tongue inside your teeth, Nic Braydon!" cried the boy fiercely. "You won't be happy till I've given you another licking. Look here what you've made me do!" "I didn't make you do it," said the first speaker. "Why don't you let the birds alone?" "Because, if you please, Miss Braydon," said the bigger lad mincingly, "I'm not so good as you are. Oh dear, no! I'm going to take that nest of young blackbirds because I want them to bring up and keep in a cage. I'm going to transport them to the shed in the playground." The first boy winced sharply at his companion's words, and the four lads present burst into a derisive laugh at his annoyance; but he smothered it down, and said quietly:--"Then you may as well leave them alone, for they're not blackbirds." "Yes, they are, stoopid." "No, they're not." "How do you know?" "Because I found the nest when it was first built, and saw the eggs and the old bird sitting." "Oh, that's it, is it? Oh, I say, isn't he a nice, good little boy? He doesn't want me to take the young birds because he wants to steal them himself." The others laughed in their thoughtlessness as their schoolfellow winced again, and Brian Green still hung on to the bank, sucking the scratches on his bleeding hand and grinning with satisfaction at the annoyance his innuendoes caused. "I say, boys," he cried, "they don't transport people for life for stealing young blackbirds, do they?" There was a fresh roar of laughter, and the boys watched Dominic Braydon, who stood frowning, to see if he would make some sharp retort, verbal or physical, and perhaps get thrashed again. But he concealed his annoyance, and said quietly: "That's a thrush's nest." "You don't know anything about it, Convict," said Green. The boy winced again; but he went on: "Well, I know that. Blackbirds make rougher nests, and they're not plastered inside so neatly with clay as that is. Then the eggs are different: blackbirds' are all smudgy, dingy green; those were beautiful blue eggs, with a few clear spots on one end. Yes, look," he cried; "there's half one of them." As he spoke he leaped down into the ditch, and picked up a fragile, dried-up portion of an egg and showed it to his companions. "Yah! Old Botany Bay don't know what he's talking about," said Green, dragging a hedge-stake from the top of the bank, and wrenching the upper part of the dense hawthorn growth into a gap, through which he pulled the nest with its contents, four half-fledged birds, looking, with the loose down at the back of their heads, their great goggle eyes and wide gapes, combined with the spiky, undeveloped feathers and general nakedness, about as ugly, goblin-like creatures as a painter could have desired. "There!" cried Green, dropping the hedge-stake and leaping back over the ditch; "aren't those blackbirds? Oh, murder!" There was a great roar of laughter, for the clumsy leap resulted in two of the callow birds being jerked out heavily into the bottom of the ditch, and upon their recovery one was found to be dead. "Never mind," said Green; "three are better to bring up. Now then, in you go, ugly." He placed the bird in the nest with its companions, down by which it snuggled itself at once, so that the three completely filled the bottom. "Fits splendidly, boys. I shall make old Botany Bay get worms for me and chop them up to feed them." "You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" said the first boy, frowning. "You know you let those young starlings die." "You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" retorted Green, "getting yourself put in a school among young gentlemen. I don't know what the doctor was thinking about to take a convict's son." "My father is not a convict," cried Dominic angrily. "Oh, isn't he, just. Transported for life. We know, don't we, boys?" "Yes--yes," was chorused. "Of course he was," cried Green. "You can't keep these things quiet. Pretends his father is a settler. Yes; the judge settled him for life." The boy looked round for applause, and received it sufficiently to make him go on with his banter. "Just as if we weren't sure to find out the truth. Calls him a squatter. Yes; the government made him squat pretty quickly." There was another laugh as the boys wandered on along the edge of the great common, where the quickset hedge divided it from the cultivated land, high above which a lark was circling and singing with all its might. "I want to know why the doctor lets him stop amongst gentlemen's sons." "I know, Bry Green," said a mischievous-looking, dark-eyed boy; "it's because his father pays." "He wouldn't be here long if his father didn't," said Green laughingly. "Unless he supplied the doctor with sugar and soap and candles and soda and blue." There was a roar of laughter once more, in which Dominic Braydon joined, and Green turned so suddenly on the last speaker that the young thrushes were nearly jerked out of the nest. "Do you want me to give you a wipe on the mouth, Tomlins?" cried the boy angrily. "Oh no, sir; please don't, sir," was the reply, with a display of mock horror and dread; "only you said gentlemen's sons, sir,--and I thought what a pity it was Nic Braydon's father wasn't a grocer." "My father's a wholesale dealer in the City," said Green loftily; "and it's only as a favour that he lets old Dunham have things from his warehouse at trade price." "Ho, ho, ho! here's a game!" cried the dark boy, throwing himself down on the velvety turf and kicking out his legs in his delight. "My father isn't a poor parson," continued Green contemptuously; "and if any of you fellows like to call on me during the holidays, any one will show you Alderman Green's big house on Clapham Common. We keep a butler, footman, coachman, and three gardeners." "And the gardeners make all the beds," said Tomlins, at which there was another laugh. "You're a little idiot, Tomlins," said Green loftily. "Yes, sir; but I can't help it," said the boy meekly. "You see my father never brought home turtle soup from the Lord Mayor's dinner so as to make me big and fat." "You won't be happy till I've rubbed your ugly snub nose against the next tree," cried Green. "Get up, you gipsy-looking cub!" He stepped quickly as he spoke to where the boy still lay upon the green and kicked him viciously. "Oh!" yelled the boy, who began to writhe now in earnest as he fought hard to control himself, but in vain, for he rose to his knees at last with the tears coming fast, and then limped slowly along, sobbing bitterly. "Serve you right," cried Green. "Teach you not to be so jolly saucy. Now then, none of your sham. I didn't hurt you much. Go on." "I--I can't yet," sobbed the boy. "Oh yes, you can. None of that. Here, carry these." He thrust the nest of young thrushes into the boy's hand, and forced him to proceed, limping heavily. "Look at the little humbug," cried Green, as they all went on, with Dominic Braydon hanging down his head and gazing hard at the ground to keep from darting indignant glances at the tyrant who had bullied and insulted him till it had been almost beyond bearing. He felt a choking sensation in the throat, and an intense longing to do something; but his ways were peaceful, and Green, was heavy, big, and strong. In addition, he was cock of the school, to whom every one had yielded for a long time past; and Dominic Braydon had still fresh in his memory that day when he had resisted a piece of tyranny and fought at the far end of the school garden, where an unlucky blow on the bridge of the nose had half blinded him and made him an easy victim to the enemy, who administered a severe drubbing and procured for his adversary a birching for fighting--it was before caning days--and a long series of impositions for obstinacy, a trait the doctor said that he absolutely abhorred--Dominic's obstinacy consisting in a stubborn refusal to confess who had beaten him. This his schoolfellows called honourable; but Green had other opinions, and set it down to the fear of getting another thrashing for telling tales. But Green was not quite correct. And so on this bright spring half-holiday the boys went on along the side of the common toward the dense furze clump, Green hectoring, throwing stones at everything he saw, from the donkeys and geese to the yellow-hammers which flitted along the hedge, stopping now and then to twitter out their quaint little song about "a little bit o' bread and no cheese," and looking as much like canaries as they could as they perched upon some twig. "I'll give you a bit o' cheese and no bread," cried Green, as he hurled stone after stone, but fortunately with the worst of aim. "Now then, you Tomlins, stop that miserable snivelling, and walk upright; you're not hurt." The boy hastily wiped his eyes, as he mentally wished that he was big and strong. "And don't you drop those birds, or I'll give you another," shouted Green, as he sent another pebble flying. The boy stifled a sob, and followed limping. "Lean on me, Bob," said Dominic. "Thank you," sobbed the boy; and then in a whisper, "My hip hurts as if it was put out." "Not so bad as that," said Dominic in a low tone; and he helped the boy along till Green looked back, saw what was taking place, and shouted: "Now then, none of that, Convict. He's only shamming. Let him alone." "Don't let him touch me, Nic," whispered the boy piteously; "I can hardly walk." Dominic said nothing, but his brow was full of lines; and he looked down at the ground and supported his companion by tightly holding his arm. "Do you hear?" roared Green, stopping now. "I told you to leave that little sham alone." "I'm not shamming, Nic," sobbed the boy in a whisper; "it hurts dreadfully every time I move my leg." "Oh, you won't, won't you?" cried Green menacingly. "I shall have to give you a lesson too, Master Braydon, and transport you into a better state of mind. Stand aside, will you?" As he came up he struck Nic a back-handed blow across the chest, forcing him backward and making Tomlins utter a cry of pain. "Now then, none of that," continued Green. "Go on, and take care of those birds,--go on!" The boy in his dread and pain, wincing in the expectation of a fresh kick, staggered on for a few paces, and then with a cry of misery fell forward flat upon his chest. "Mind those birds!" yelled Green, starting forward, and bending down he flung the wretched boy over on to his back so as to extricate the bird's nest. But he was too late; the unfortunate callow songsters had been saved from a lingering death by starvation and imprisonment, the sides of the clay-lined nest being crushed in, and the breath out of the tender little bodies. They were quite dead, and in a fit of vindictive rage Green flew at the innocent author of the mischief. "You miserable little beast!" he roared; and his foot was raised to deliver a savage kick. "Get up!" But instead of Tomlins getting up, Green went down. For, quick as thought, Dominic rushed at him. "Let him alone!" he cried hoarsely; and the fierce thrust he gave sent the young tyrant into a sitting position upon a cushion-like tuft rising from the closely cropped grass. But that tuft was only cushion-like in appearance. There were geese feathers about, but they did not form its contents, for it was stuffed with keen, stiff thorns such as can grow to perfection upon a Kentish common; and if Brian Green had been an indiarubber ball he could not have rebounded more suddenly than he did. Raising the now empty nest he threw it with all his might at Dominic, and both his fists after it. The nest missed; the fists took effect, alighting as they did upon Dominic's breast and shoulder, and completely driving all thought of consequences out of the boy, who retaliated with such good effect that, as the lookers-on cheered and shouted encouragement, the fight raged fiercely. Even Tomlins forgot his sufferings, and watched every fluctuation of the struggle with an intense longing to see the school tyrant effectually mastered and dragged down from the pedestal whence he had so long dominated and ill-used all around. The others shared his feelings, and a couple immediately constituted themselves seconds during the few minutes the fight went on fast and furious, Dominic always being ready to dash into the affray after being dragged up at the close of the wrestling bout which ended each round, while Green grew more and more deliberate, as buzzing sounds came into his head, ringings into his ears, and it began to dawn upon him that Nic Braydon had the hardest face he ever touched, and that it was of no use to keep on hitting it, for it always returned to be hit again. At last, to the intense delight of the boys, it became evident that the result of the encounter must be a sound thrashing for Brian Green, and Nic's second kept on whispering to him to do this and do that to bring it to an end. Then came a most exciting finish, in which Nic was following up blow with blow, and Green, backing slowly away, guarding himself ineffectually, and growing confused and helpless, was wondering whether Nic had had enough, when the fight came to a sudden termination, and fists dropped down to sides, for the sonorous voice of the doctor arose from close at hand with: "Young gentlemen, what is the meaning of this disgraceful scene?" _ |
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