The coach from Tarrong railway station to Emu Flat, and then
on to Donohoe's Hotel, ran twice a week. Pat Donohoe was mailman,
contractor and driver, and his admirers said that Pat could hit his
five horses in more places at once than any other man on the face
of the earth. His coach was horsed by the neighbouring squatters,
through whose stations the road ran; and any horse that developed
homicidal tendencies, or exhibited a disinclination to work, was
at once handed over to the mailman to be licked into shape. The
result was that, as a rule, Pat was driving teams composed of animals
that would do anything but go straight, but under his handling
they were generally persuaded, after a day or two, to settle down
to their work.
On the day when Hugh and Mrs. Gordon read Mr. Grant's letter at
Kuryong, the train deposited at Tarrong a self-reliant young lady
of about twenty, accompanied by nearly a truck-full of luggage--solid
leather portmanteaux, canvas-covered bags, iron boxes, and so
on--which produced a great sensation among the rustics. She was
handsome enough to be called a beauty, and everything about her
spoke of exuberant health and vitality. Her figure was supple, and
she had the clear pink and white complexion which belongs to cold
climates.
She seemed accustomed to being waited on, and watched without emotion
the guard and the solitary railway official--porter, station-master,
telegraph-operator and lantern-man, all rolled into one--haul her
hundredweights of luggage out of the train. Then she told the
perspiring station-master, etc., to please have the luggage sent
to the hotel, and marched over to that building in quite an assured
way, carrying a small handbag. Three commercial travellers, who had
come up by the same train, followed her off the platform, and the
most gallant of the three winked at his friends, and then stepped
up and offered to carry her bag. The young lady gave him a pleasant
smile, and handed him the bag; together they crossed the street,
while the other commercials marched disconsolately behind. At the
door of the hotel she took the bag from her cavalier, and there and
then, in broad Australian daylight, rewarded him with twopence--a
disaster which caused him to apply to his firm for transfer to some
foreign country at once. She marched into the bar, where Dan, the
landlord's son, was sweeping, while Mrs. Connellan, the landlady,
was wiping glasses in the midst of a stale fragrance of overnight
beer and tobacco-smoke.
"I am going to Kuryong," said the young lady, "and I expected to
meet Mr. Gordon here. Is he here?"
Mrs. Connellan looked at her open-eyed. Such an apparition was not
often seen in Tarrong. Mr. and Mrs. Connellan had only just "taken
the pub.", and what with trying to keep Connellan sober and refusing
drinks to tramps, loafers, and black-fellows, Mrs. Connellan was
pretty well worn out. As for making the hotel pay, that idea had
been given up long ago. It was against Mrs. Connellan's instincts
of hospitality to charge anyone for a meal or a bed, and when any
great rush of bar trade took place it generally turned out to be
"Connellan's shout," so the hotel was not exactly a goldmine. In
fact, Mrs. Connellan had decided that the less business she did,
the more money she would make; and she rather preferred that people
should not stop at her hotel. This girl looked as if she would give
trouble; might even expect clean beds and clean sheets when there
were none within the hotel, and might object to fleas, of which
there were plenty. So the landlady pulled herself together, and
decided to speed the parting guest as speedily as possible.