Out of the Silence (Sci-Fi Classic). Erle Cox

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СКАЧАТЬ brown hand, he said: "You'll stop to lunch, old man?" Bryce nodded. "Might take the cheek out of you if I say that was partly my reason for calling in." Dundas only grinned; he knew just how much of the remark was in earnest. "I am very sorry, Hector, but I am 'batching' it again, so it's only a scratch feed."

      "You unfortunate young beggar; what's become of the last housekeeper? Thought she was a fixture. Not eloped, I hope?" They had turned towards the house. "Wish to glory she had," was Alan's heartfelt comment. "Upon my word, Bryce, I'm sick of women. I mean the housekeeping ones. When they are cold enough to be suitable for young unattached bachelors, and have settled characters, those characters are devilish bad. The last beauty went on a gorgeous jamboree for four days. I don't even know now where she got the joy-producer."

      "Well?" queried Bryce, with some interest, as Dundas paused.

      "Oh, nothing much. I just waited until she was pretty sober. Loaded her and her outfit into the dogcart, and by Jove," with a reminiscent chuckle, "she was properly sober when I got to the township and consigned her to Melbourne. Billy B.B. was in topping good form, and tried to climb trees on the way in."

      "But, Dun, this is all very well," said Bryce, laughing. "You can't go on 'baching.' You must get another."

      "No, I'm hanged if I do. The old 'uns are rotters, and, save me, Hector, what meat for the cats in the district if I took a young one."

      "I'm afraid it would take more than me to save you if you did," said Bryce, laughing at the idea.

      They had reached the house. Dundas ushered his friend in. "You make yourself comfy here while I straighten myself, and look after the tucker."

      Bryce stretched himself on the cane lounge, and glanced round the room. It was a room he knew well. The largest of four that had formed the homestead that had originally been built as an out-station, when the township of Glen Cairn had got its name from the original holding, long since cut up. It was essentially a man's room, without a single feminine touch. Over the high wooden mantel were racked a fine double-barrelled breechloader and a light sporting rifle, and the care with which they were kept showed that they were not there as ornaments.

      The walls held only three pictures. Over the cupboard that acted as a sideboard hung a fine photogravure of Delaroche's "Napoleon," meditating on his abdication, and the other two were landscapes that had come from Alan's old home. From the same source, too, had come the curious array of Oriental knives that filled the space between the door and the window. What, however, attracted most attention was the collection of books that filled the greater part of two sides of the room, their shelves reaching almost to the low ceiling.

      The furniture was simplicity itself. Besides the sideboard, there were a table and three chairs, with an armchair on each side of the fireplace. The cane lounge on which Bryce was seated completed the inventory. Above the lounge on a special shelf by itself was a violin in its case. To a woman, the uncurtained windows and bare floor would have been intolerable, but the housekeeping man had discovered that bare essentials meant the least work.

      Presently a voice came from the kitchen. "Hector, old man, there's a domestic calamity. Flies have established a protectorate over the mutton, so it's got to be bacon and eggs, and fried potatoes. How many eggs can you manage?"

      "Make it two, Dun; I'm hungry," answered Bryce.

      "Man, you don't know the meaning of the word if two will be enough." Five minutes later he appeared with a cloth over his shoulder and his arms full of crockery.

      A thought of his wife's horror at such simplicity flashed through Bryce's mind. "You're a luxurious animal, Alan, using a table cloth. Why, I don't know any of the other fellows who indulge in such elegance. Or am I to feel specially honoured?"

      "No, Bryce; the fact is that I know that a man is apt to become slack living bachelor fashion," returned Dundas seriously, "so I make it a rule always to use a table cloth, and, moreover," he went on, as if recounting the magnificent ceremonial of a regal menage, "I never sit down to a meal in my shirt sleeves. Oh, Lord! the potatoes!"

      With two dishes nicely balanced, Dundas arrived back again, and after another journey for a mighty teapot, he called Bryce up to the table. To an epicure, bacon and eggs backed by fried potatoes, for a midday meal with the thermometer at 112 deg. in the shade, may sound a little startling, but then, epicures rarely work, and the matter is beyond their comprehension. Bryce stared at the large dish with upraised hands. "Man, what have you done? I asked for two."

      "Dinna fash yersel', laddie," answered Dundas mildly. "I've been heaving the pick in that hole since 7 o'clock this morning, and it makes one peckish. The other six are for my noble self. Does it occur to you, Bryce, that had I not scrapped an unpromising career at the bar, I might also have regarded this meal as a carefully studied attempt at suicide?"

      "Humph! perhaps–I believe you did the best thing though, and I own up that I thought you demented then."

      "Lord! How the heathen did rage."

      "True. But don't you ever regret or feel lonely?"

      "Nary a regret, and as far as for the loneliness, I rather like it. That reminds me. I had George MacArthur out here for a week lately. He said he wanted the simple life, so I put him hoeing vines. More tea? No? Then, gentlemen, you may smoke." Dundas reached for a pipe from beneath the mantel, and then swung himself into an armchair, while Bryce returned to the comfort of the creaking lounge.

      "By the way, Alan," said Bryce, pricking his cigar with scientific care, "you haven't told me the object of your insane energy in that condemned clayhole." Dundas was eyeing the cigar with disfavour. "I can't understand a man smoking those things when he can get a good honest pipe. Oh, all right, I don't want to start a wrangle. About the condemned clayhole. Well, the fool who built this mansion of mine built it half a mile from the river, and that means that in summer I must either take the water to the horses or the horses to the water, and both operations are a dashed nuisance. Now observe. That condemned clayhole is to be ultimately an excellent waterhole that will save me a deuce of a lot of trouble. Therefore, as Miss Carilona Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs so elegantly puts it, you found me 'all a muck of sweat.'"

      "Yes, but my dear chap, you can afford to get it done for you."

      "In a way you are right, Hec, but then I can't afford to pay a man to do work that I can do myself."

      "Don't blame you, Alan." Then, after a pause, and watching him keenly: "Why don't you get married?"

      Dundas jerked himself straight in his chair, the lighted match still in his fingers. "Great Scott, Bryce! What's that got to do with waterholes?" The utter irrelevance of the question made Bryce laugh. "Nothing, old chap–nothing. Only it just came to my mind as I was lying here." Lying was a good word, had Dundas only known. "You know," he went on, "there are plenty of nice girls in the district."

      "You are not suggesting polygamy, by any chance?" countered Alan serenely from his chair, having recovered from the shock of the unexpected question.

      "Don't be an ass, Alan. I only suggested a good thing for yourself."

      "Can't you see the force of your argument, Hector, that because there are plenty of nice girls in the district (I'll admit that) I should marry one of them."

      "You might do a dashed sight worse."

      "You mean I mightn't marry her?"

      "You Rabelaisian young devil! I'll shy something at you in a minute if you don't talk sense."

      "Well, СКАЧАТЬ