Once, when he passed a plate to Challis, she noticed his hands against the snow of the tablecloth—hands she did not know at all, so rough and weather-marked and deeply brown they were. But she asked no question; instinctively she felt there was something to be told to her, and she hung back from the knowledge, knowing the telling would be pain to him.
’Oh dear,’ said Challis, ’if only you had brought Bart down, too, daddie, and he was sitting just here on this chair next to me!’
’I thought it was Hermie you wanted most,’ the mother said.
’Ah, Hermie! I want Hermie to sleep with. No, not to sleep with, for we sha’n’t shut our eyes at all, but just to lie in the dark and talk and talk.’
’Roly wanted to come,’ Cameron said. ’He’s war mad, of course. He’s painted the name Transvaal Vale on the sliprails.’
’What else does he do? I want to know about Roly,’ Challis said eagerly.
’He wears a football jersey most of the time,’ said the father, ’and is to be met at any hour of the day hung all over with the table-knives and the tin-opener and the cork-screw and the sharpening-steel. Also, he carries round his neck a string of what I think he calls double bungers. These are his cartridges. And he came possessed of an old tent in some way—the railway navvies gave it to him, I believe—and he has pitched it just outside the back door, and sleeps in it all night.’
’Oh dear, oh dear! The night air; he will catch a dreadful chill!’ cried the mother, used now to English nights.
’Not he! He’s a hardy little chap,’ said Cameron.
’More, more,’ said Challis. ’He’s great fun, I think. Tell some more about him, daddie.’
’A neighbour, young Stevenson—you remember the Stevensons of Coolooli, Molly?—gave him half a crown the other day, and of course he went off to Wilgandra and laid in a stock of crackers. He made a rather ingenious fortification that he called Spion Kop, and invited us all out to see it. You don’t know Darkie, the cattle dog, of course—we’ve only had him four years; Darkie naturally came too. He’s rather a curiosity in his way, old Darkie; seems to have a natural love for fire, and goes off his head with excitement whenever a cracker is let off or the boys make a bonfire. Well, he made enough noise barking and yelping over Roly’s display to satisfy even that young man. Presently Roly Put a whole packet of his double bungers on the top of his fort, and—what he did not tell me till afterwards—a quantity of blasting powder he had purloined from the navvies. Then he put a lighted match near a long piece of string, and cut down to us as hard as he could. Just at the critical moment, when we were getting our ears ready for the big explosion, Darkie gave a frantic bark of delight, bounded to the fort and seized the whole packet in his mouth. There wasn’t time even to shout at him; there came a tremendous explosion, and the air seemed full of stones and earth and Darkie. The old fellow must have been blown six feet up in the air. I think we all shut our eyes, not liking the thought of seeing the poor old dog descend in a thousand pieces. But when we opened them he was down on the ground barking and yelping with more furious delight than ever, and except for a badly singed coat and a burnt tongue, not a bit the worse for his elevation.’