And he called for a long beer,and we drank `Here's luck!'to each other.
`Well,'I said,`I wish I could take a glass or leave it.'And I meant it.
Then the Boss spoke as I'd never heard him speak before.I thought for the moment that the one drink had affected him;but I understood before the night was over.He laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip like a man who has suddenly made up his mind to lend you five pounds.
`Jack!'he said,`there's worse things than drinking,and there's worse things than heavy smoking.When a man who smokes gets such a load of trouble on him that he can find no comfort in his pipe,then it's a heavy load.
And when a man who drinks gets so deep into trouble that he can find no comfort in liquor,then it's deep trouble.Take my tip for it,Jack.'
He broke off,and half turned away with a jerk of his head,as if impatient with himself;then presently he spoke in his usual quiet tone --`But you're only a boy yet,Jack.Never mind me.I won't ask you to take the second drink.You don't want it;and,besides,I know the signs.'
He paused,leaning with both hands on the edge of the counter,and looking down between his arms at the floor.He stood that way thinking for a while;then he suddenly straightened up,like a man who'd made up his mind to something.
`I want you to come along home with me,Jack,'he said;`we'll fix you a shake-down.'
I forgot to tell you that he was married and lived in Bathurst.
`But won't it put Mrs Head about?'
`Not at all.She's expecting you.Come along;there's nothing to see in Bathurst,and you'll have plenty of knocking round in Sydney.
Come on,we'll just be in time for tea.'
He lived in a brick cottage on the outskirts of the town --an old-fashioned cottage,with ivy and climbing roses,like you see in some of those old settled districts.There was,I remember,the stump of a tree in front,covered with ivy till it looked like a giant's club with the thick end up.
When we got to the house the Boss paused a minute with his hand on the gate.
He'd been home a couple of days,having ridden in ahead of the bullocks.
`Jack,'he said,`I must tell you that Mrs Head had a great trouble at one time.We --we lost our two children.It does her good to talk to a stranger now and again --she's always better afterwards;but there's very few I care to bring.You --you needn't notice anything strange.And agree with her,Jack.You know,Jack.'
`That's all right,Boss,'I said.I'd knocked about the Bush too long,and run against too many strange characters and things,to be surprised at anything much.
The door opened,and he took a little woman in his arms.
I saw by the light of a lamp in the room behind that the woman's hair was grey,and I reckoned that he had his mother living with him.
And --we do have odd thoughts at odd times in a flash --and I wondered how Mrs Head and her mother-in-law got on together.But the next minute I was in the room,and introduced to `My wife,Mrs Head,'and staring at her with both eyes.
It was his wife.I don't think I can describe her.For the first minute or two,coming in out of the dark and before my eyes got used to the lamp-light,I had an impression as of a little old woman --one of those fresh-faced,well-preserved,little old ladies --who dressed young,wore false teeth,and aped the giddy girl.
But this was because of Mrs Head's impulsive welcome of me,and her grey hair.
The hair was not so grey as I thought at first,seeing it with the lamp-light behind it:it was like dull-brown hair lightly dusted with flour.
She wore it short,and it became her that way.There was something aristocratic about her face --her nose and chin --I fancied,and something that you couldn't describe.She had big dark eyes --dark-brown,I thought,though they might have been hazel:they were a bit too big and bright for me,and now and again,when she got excited,the white showed all round the pupils --just a little,but a little was enough.
She seemed extra glad to see me.I thought at first that she was a bit of a gusher.
`Oh,I'm so glad you've come,Mr Ellis,'she said,giving my hand a grip.
`Walter --Mr Head --has been speaking to me about you.
I've been expecting you.Sit down by the fire,Mr Ellis;tea will be ready presently.Don't you find it a bit chilly?'
She shivered.It was a bit chilly now at night on the Bathurst plains.
The table was set for tea,and set rather in swell style.
The cottage was too well furnished even for a lucky boss drover's home;the furniture looked as if it had belonged to a tony homestead at one time.
I felt a bit strange at first,sitting down to tea,and almost wished that I was having a comfortable tuck-in at a restaurant or in a pub.dining-room.
But she knew a lot about the Bush,and chatted away,and asked questions about the trip,and soon put me at my ease.
You see,for the last year or two I'd taken my tucker in my hands,--hunk of damper and meat and a clasp-knife mostly,--sitting on my heel in the dust,or on a log or a tucker-box.
There was a hard,brown,wrinkled old woman that the Heads called `Auntie'.
She waited at the table;but Mrs Head kept bustling round herself most of the time,helping us.Andy came in to tea.
Mrs Head bustled round like a girl of twenty instead of a woman of thirty-seven,as Andy afterwards told me she was.
She had the figure and movements of a girl,and the impulsiveness and expression too --a womanly girl;but sometimes I fancied there was something very childish about her face and talk.After tea she and the Boss sat on one side of the fire and Andy and I on the other --Andy a little behind me at the corner of the table.
`Walter --Mr Head --tells me you've been out on the Lachlan river,Mr Ellis?'she said as soon as she'd settled down,and she leaned forward,as if eager to hear that I'd been there.
`Yes,Mrs Head.I've knocked round all about out there.'
She sat up straight,and put the tips of her fingers to the side of her forehead and knitted her brows.This was a trick she had --she often did it during the evening.And when she did that she seemed to forget what she'd said last.
