At last, however, Tracey had finished shoeing the coach-horse,
and Miss Grant, with part of her luggage, took a seat on the coach
behind five of Donohoe's worst horses, next to a well-dressed,
powerfully-built man of about five-and-twenty. He looked and talked
like a gentleman, and she heard the coachman address him as "Mr.
Blake." She and he shared the box-seat with the driver, and just
at the last moment the local priest hurried up and climbed on the
coach. In some unaccountable way he had missed hearing who the
young lady was, and for a time he could only look at her back-hair
and wonder.
It was not long before, in the free and easy Australian style, the
passengers began to talk to each other as the coach bumped along
its monotonous road--up one hill, through an avenue of dusty,
tired-looking gum-trees, down the other side through a similar
avenue, up another hill precisely the same as the last, and so on.
Blake was the first to make advances. "Not much to be seen on this
sort of journey, Miss Grant," he said.
The young lady looked at him with serious eyes. "No," she said,
"we've only seen two houses since we left the town. All the rest
of the country seems to be a wilderness."
Here the priest broke in. He was a broth of a boy from Maynooth,
just the man to handle the Doyle and Donohoe congregation.
"It's the big stations is the roon of the country," he said. "How
is the country to go ahead at all wid all the good land locked up?
There's Kuryong on ahead here would support two hundthred fam'lies,
and what does it employ now? Half a dozen shepherds, widout a rag
to their back."
"I am going to Kuryong," said the girl; and the priest was silent.
By four in the afternoon they reached Kiley's River, running yellow
and froth-covered with melting snow. The coachman pulled his horses
up on the bank, and took a good, long look at the bearings. As
they waited, the Kuryong vehicle came down on the other side of
the river.
"There's Mr. Gordon," said the coachman. "I don't think he'll try
it. I reckon it's a trifle deep for me. Do you want to get across
particular, Mr. Blake?"
"Yes, very particularly, Pat. I've told Martin Donohoe to meet me
down here with some witnesses in a cattle-stealing case."
"What about you, Father Kelly?"
"I'm go'n on to Tim Murphy's dyin' bed. Put 'em into the wather,
they'll take it aisy."
The driver turned to the third passenger. "It's a bit dangerous-like,
Miss. If you like to get out, it's up to you to say so. The coach
might wash over. There's a settler's place up the river a mile.
You can go and stay there till the river goes down, and Mr. Gordon
'll come and meet you."