Lillipilly Hill (12 page)

‘You must know the district very well,' he said, carefully avoiding asking questions. ‘I had no idea that swamp was there.'

‘I could find my way across in my sleep, now,' said Clay. ‘But it's dangerous for people who don't know it. That's why we're waiting till it's light.'

‘You don't have to come with me,' said Aidan. ‘If you just point out the path—'

‘There ain't just one path,' said Clay, with exaggerated patience. ‘There's about a dozen, and you have to know them all. Part of that swamp is so deep you'd sink in half a minute. Anyhow, I've got to go into Blackhill with some skins—it might as well be tomorrow. I need more flour and tea and stuff, too.'

‘Are there many rabbits here?' asked Aidan vaguely.

‘Plenty, if you know where to hunt. There's fish in the creek, too, and wild duck on the swamp. I don't starve, if that's what you mean. I grow my own potatoes, and make my own damper. When the fire dies down I'll show you how.'

‘I wouldn't know how to begin, if I lived up here like you,' said Aidan humbly.

‘It comes easy to me,' said Clay, with a return of his former boastfulness. ‘My grandpa was an abo—
king of the tribe, Ma reckons. He lived off the country all his life. I take after him.'

He broke off and glanced at Aidan suspiciously.

‘I ain't talked as much for years. Mostly I just talk to Patchy.'

‘I swear I won't tell a soul about you, or anything you've said,' promised Aidan.

‘All right, I believe you,' muttered Clay. ‘But why don't you talk, for a change? What about that steamship you came to Sydney in? Is it bigger than the packets that go from Blackhill?'

So Aidan told him of the journey from London, and the storms at sea, and the crossing of the Bight. He told him, too, about the Wilmots' home in London, and his old school, and even about Harriet and Rose-Ann. To all of this Clay listened open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

‘You mean you like school, and reading, and all that?'

‘Yes,' admitted Aidan. ‘I brought two books with me—see?'

Clay stared in astonishment at the two volumes.

‘What did you bring those for? You should of brought a water-bag, and a gun. You're like my Pa—he always had a book in his pocket. He didn't have no sense, either. I never read anything in my life—I didn't stay at school more'n a week.'

‘Your father must have gone to school, though,' Aidan said.

‘Oh, yes, he went to some place back in England or somewhere. He talked like you, real high-falutin'. I dunno what he'd think of me,' said Clay, in genuine wonderment.

Aidan took off his jacket and folded it to make a pillow. He would never have believed that he could have been so comfortable, stretched out on the bare, sandy ground. Presently he dozed, and Clay sat on by the fire, as if keeping watch.

Aidan awoke to find the cave lit by something more than the glow of the fire. He groped for his watch, and discovered that it was a quarter to six. Already the trees outside had definite shapes and colours, and the sky was a creamy shade, soft and pure.

Clay knelt by the fire, raking away the ashes. As Aidan watched, Clay, with the aid of two sticks, drew from the fire a round, blackened object which he carefully set on a piece of bark to cool. Looking round, he saw Aidan gazing at him, and grinned.

‘This is your breakfast—come and see.'

Aidan peered at the object, which Clay was cutting with his pocket-knife. Inside, it was white and doughy.

‘Damper,' said Clay briefly. ‘Have some.'

It was still steaming, and the outside had a distinctly smoky flavour, but it was certainly satisfying, and Aidan was far too hungry to be critical. He and Clay ate in silence, until nothing remained of the damper but a rather meagre portion for Patchy, who sat hopefully between the boys, watching every mouthful.

‘I was going to give you a bit for your dinner,' said Clay. ‘But I reckon you'll just have to make do with a bit of old biscuit. That's all I've got left. We should be in Blackhill before midday, anyhow. Come on.'

He threw sand on the dying fire, picked up his pile of skins and his gun, and was off, followed by the eager Patchy. Aidan stopped to look rather wistfully back at the cave, and the sentinel gum, before he too crawled into the tunnel.

As they clambered down the hill-side, the full immensity of the swamp became apparent. Reed-beds and mangrove clumps were dark patches on a silver-grey inland sea. A faint line at the edge of the sky marked the lagoon where the swamp finally met the shore. For a moment, half-way down the hill, Aidan stood still. Clay and Patchy progressed with such practised quietness that they were hardly audible, and the only sound in all that wilderness was the gentle lapping of water upon rocks and mud-flats.

With a growing feeling of excitement, Aidan saw the shining disk of the sun sliding up over the horizon, and the surface of the swamp changing to palest pink. The first rays of the sun caught a pair of birds, poised on a half-sunken log—they were tall, long-necked, graceful as resting dancers, and snowy-white.

Aidan hurried after Clay, who plunged ahead without a glance at the scene before him.

‘Those birds,' said Aidan, pointing over the swamp. ‘What are they?'

‘They're white cranes,' said Clay. ‘You see a lot of them on the swamp. Those other ones, the black ones, are shags, and there are dozens of herons. You can't eat them, though.'

‘Eat them!' repeated Aidan in horror. ‘That's the last thing I'd want to do! They're beautiful.'

Clay stared at him in amazement.

‘Well, even if they are, we haven't got time to stand here looking at them. It's getting late.'

They emerged on to the rocks at the edge of the swamp. The cranes, startled by their approach, rose into the air and flapped clumsily away, no longer graceful, but still lovely to watch, with the sunlight glinting on their wings. All over the swamp darker shapes rose up against the sky, and the herons rent the silence with their indignant croaks.

Aidan turned to look at the creek, and the track he had followed the night before, and knew that he could not go with Clay.

‘I'm going home, after all,' he said. ‘I want to stay.'

Clay merely tipped his elderly hat forward and scratched the back of his head.

‘Make up your mind, then. I've got things to do.'

Aidan held out his hand.

‘Thank you for the tea and the damper and everything. And I won't tell.'

Clay shook the proffered hand in some embarrassment, and whistled to the dog.

‘Come on, Patchy. And watch where you're going—no chasing birds.'

‘Perhaps I might see you again later on,' suggested Aidan, not very hopefully.

‘I know where to find you if I want to,' said Clay, over his shoulder. He stepped lightly from one clump of grass to the next, not looking back, and soon he was well out on the swamp, with Patchy close behind him, the only objects moving now between Aidan and the horizon.

Clay had not asked the reason for Aidan's decision—and had he done so, Aidan would have found it difficult to give him an answer. Clay would never have understood if Aidan had told him that a sunrise and
a pair of white cranes had had something to do with it. For the first time Aidan had seen the beauty of his new country, and could begin to realize why Harriet loved it so much.

But it needed more than that to shake Aidan's resolve. He had left Lillipilly Hill because he had shown himself a coward to his school-mates—that did not matter now. What he wanted was to prove to Clay, not to the others, that he still had courage. And the way to prove it, he reasoned, was not to go on to Blackhill, which would have meant he was running away once again, but to return to Barley Creek and the school, and face the taunts and jeers.

‘That's what Clay would do himself,' reflected Aidan. ‘Only he would never have given up the fight in the first place.'

He might not meet Clay again. He knew too little about him to be certain that he could always be found on Maloney's Hill. He and Patchy together might vanish like a dream, and Aidan would not have been surprised. But Clay was his friend, and as long as the Wilmots remained on Lillipilly Hill, there was a chance of renewing that friendship.

Thus it was that Harriet, standing at her mother's window, feeling guilty and fearful and altogether miserable, could hardly believe her eyes when she
saw her brother climb through the orchard sliprail. After she had spread the glad news, and rushed to meet him, she suddenly realized that Aidan looked oddly different. It was not just that his clothes were torn and dirty, and his eyes shadowy from weariness. He walked with a new confidence, as if he had never heard of Paddy Tolly, or fighting, or punched noses.

The inevitable question burst from the excited Harriet.

‘Wherever have you been?'

‘I've been to Maloney's Hill, and seen where the bunyip lives,' replied Aidan calmly. ‘Has everyone gone out to look for me?'

‘Father and Boz are out in the buggy,' said Harriet. ‘But Mother has sent Polly to the Rectory to ask Charles to go after them. Charles has a pony—did you know? Did you
see
the bunyip? What did it look like?'

‘No, I didn't see it. I only saw its cave. And there's a swamp, Harriet, an enormous one, and hundreds of birds—'

‘Will you take me there one day?' asked Harriet wistfully. ‘I know I don't deserve it, after helping Charles arrange the fight, but I really did think it was the best thing to do.'

‘It doesn't matter now,' said Aidan. ‘But next time I'll pick my own fights, thank you.'

‘I expect Mother's got your breakfast ready,' said Harriet, relieved to let the subject drop. ‘You must be hungry.'

‘No, I'm not,' said Aidan dreamily. ‘I've had breakfast.'

Aidan apologized to his father for the trouble he had caused, was readily forgiven, and returned to school that afternoon. The others stared, whispered, and one or two sneered, but Aidan ignored them all until lessons were finished. Then he walked up to Paddy Tolly.

‘If you want another fight, then just tell me the time and the place. I promise you I won't run away this time—if you promise to fight fair.'

Thoroughly flustered, Paddy looked to his little band of followers for support. At last the smallest, one of the urchins from the second form, spoke up: ‘What d'you want to fight 'im
for
, Paddy? 'E never did anything to you, did 'e?'

‘That's right, he didn't,' broke in Dinny. ‘Why don't you forget about the bloomin' fight? Charley Farmer wants us all for cricket practice—don't forget, he's playing against Deacon's Flat on Sat'dee.'

And Aidan, allowed the privilege of bowling the first ball to Charles—a doubtful privilege, for Charles drove it right outside the school grounds—heard no more of fights. The coming cricket match was of much greater importance.

8

The Cricket Match

On Friday Harriet set about persuading her father to take all three children to Deacon's Flat on the following day. Always extremely alert to what was happening around her, Harriet had succumbed to the cricket fever at present raging in the Barley Creek school, although she had never watched a game of cricket in her life.

‘You see, Father,' she said earnestly, having followed Mr Wilmot to the orchard sliprail after tea, ‘this is the most important match of the year. It's the last, and whoever wins get a—what do you call it?—a sort of prize, only it's just to look at—'

‘Trophy,' suggested her father, puffing serenely
at his pipe, and gazing over the orchard towards the mauve and misty hills.

‘That's it, a trophy, and Deacon's Flat have won it for the last three years, only this year Barley Creek have a much stronger team, Charles says. Joe O'Brien's to be playing, and he's the best bat in the district.'

‘All this is very interesting, Harriet,' observed Mr Wilmot. ‘You seem to have been studying the game. Am I to understand that you would like to go and watch this contest tomorrow?'

Harriet peered up at him sideways in an unsuccessful attempt to discover if he were smiling. Pipe and beard combined to hide his expression.

‘Don't you think we should, Father? If we are to live here, then we should be interested in the things the Barley Creek people do, shouldn't we?'

To her relief, her father laughed.

‘You needn't sound so smug, Harriet. Very well, let's assume we are to stay at Lillipilly Hill, and support the Barley Creek cricket team. Have you decided how we are to travel to Deacon's Flat?'

‘Oh, that's quite easy,' said Harriet cheerfully. ‘Charles will ride his pony, and that will leave room in the Farmers' buggy for Rose-Ann and me, if we squeeze. Then Boz can take you and Aidan.'

Her father stared at her in unwilling admiration.

‘There's no doubt, Harriet, that you have a genius for interference.'

‘Yes, Father,' murmured Harriet, uncertain whether this was a reproof or a joke. After all, this could hardly be called meddling, not the sort of meddling that had led to Aidan's disappearance. She waited.

‘You have overlooked just one thing,' said Mr Wilmot. ‘Your mother and I have already discussed this match, and decided to go. It will be an outing for your mother, and she has had few enough since we came here.'

Harriet thought for a moment.

‘Well, perhaps Aidan could ride behind Charles on the pony—it's quite a strong pony, and when it got tired, Aidan could walk for a bit. Charles will have to ride, because of keeping his strength for the cricket—'

‘It won't be necessary for the poor animal to carry a double load,' said Mr Wilmot. ‘As a matter of fact, Boz is staying behind, and I'm driving the buggy. That will leave room for Aidan.'

Harriet's thin, freckled face glowed with excitement.