VI
THE SECOND HOME
On the 26th of July 1871 we moved into our second home – not more than a mile or so from the first – Dik again helping us. The chance to get a little more breathing-space and elbow-room, much needed since we had become a family, fell to us through the death of our friend the police magistrate. That sad event left his widow with means too small to permit of her retaining her pretty home for a day after she was able to leave it. We took it from her, and lived in it for about four months – until G. was appointed to his first parish; after which our house was provided for us, with no rent to pay any more.
Distance lends enchantment to it, of course, but it is impossible that "Como" could have been other than charming, with its then surroundings. It had been the dwelling of two police magistrates, and the first and longest occupier had made the place, while his wife had been a gardener. My journal reeks of that garden. In the prime of the spring season (October 12th) there is an entry which credits it with "innumerable varieties of everything," including, naturally, "roses all over the house" and "our own asparagus for dinner every other day." The (even then) old house, masked with shrubs and hedges, surrounded by beds and borders full of sweets, turned its face upon a wooded paddock, through which a path led out to the road; the ground behind fell steeply to the "lake" so ambitiously named – a large backwater of the river, preserved by the landlord (who allowed only himself and his tenant to shoot over it), and therefore the sanctuary of native aquatic fowl.
That lake was the region of romance to me. The sunrises out of its mists and shimmers, the moonbeams on its breast at night, that I used to step out upon the terrace-like verandah to feast upon – they are pictures of memory that can never fade. Flocks of black swans used to sail past the kitchen door within reach not of a stone, but of a potatoe peeling; early and late the air was full of the quick beat and rush of wings – wild duck in hundreds and thousands going out or coming home. They quacked and scuffled in the thick reeds at night, as we walked near them. The two sportsmen could not resist the temptation to shoot more than we could eat. I have it down in my diary that on the 28th of July 1871 G. killed three teal with one shot. I saw it done, and it was no great feat, seeing that the little birds were so thick that their flight at the moment was like the flutter of silver cloth. In that watery time the lake was generally brimming. One night we were called up by the bellowing of the cow, and Dik and G. rode naked into the inclosure where her calf had been submerged to its nose by a sudden rise; they were only just in time to save it. We had a roomy boat, in almost constant use. A friend or two would come out to dine, and after dinner we would paddle them about in the moonlight – explore the "North-West Passage," which reminded me of a "fleet" in the Broads at home. We fished sometimes for next day's breakfast; I believe they were catfish and other coarse things, but we seem to have eaten them contentedly; I remember how we used to light a candle to see to bait our hooks. And it was, of course, a very paradise for 'possums. So near the water they swarmed – water being no less attractive to trees, which crowd upon it wherever they can find footing. Under the trees around Como we and the dogs enjoyed such 'possum hunts as we never had elsewhere. It was mostly dark, and on warm nights dangerous – though we never thought of that – snakes being as partial to the water-side as 'possums and trees; many an one did we encounter when looking for something else, and we have seen them undulating in mid-stream like miniature sea-serpents.
But a greater danger than snakes attended these expeditions, as we discovered on a certain night (August 28th). The sportsmen were too well trained to be careless with firearms, but when you carry them in the dark through a thicket of saplings and stumps and prostrate logs, accidents are liable to happen. On this night we were proceeding Indian file, Dik leading, I next, G. protecting my rear, when Dik's gun, carried muzzle down, touched an invisible snag, which jerked it from his arm. In falling forward the trigger was struck or jagged with sufficient force to explode the charge. I saw down the barrel as the flame leaped out, apparently at my breast; and then we all stood still for some seconds, expecting horrors. When nothing more happened, and each was proved unhurt, we returned home very soberly, Dik himself much shaken. I then went to my room, took off the thick shawl in which I had wrapped myself against the night air, and held it up before a light. It was riddled with little holes. I took it back to the sitting-room, and spread it between Dik's eyes and the lamp, and made some joke about his having tried to kill me. I never joked that way again. He could not have felt it more deeply if he had really injured me and done so on purpose. I don't think he ever got over it.
It was at Como that I had my first private snake adventure. I was giving my baby an airing in the garden when a call from the maid-of-all-work sent me hurrying into the backyard. A deadly six-footer (carefully measured afterwards) sat upon a few rings of its tail near the wall of the little dairy – a most enticing place to snakes – the rest of its body upreared to about the level of my waist, its head, with the flickering tongue, distractedly darting to and fro. I often worried about snakes when I could not see them; having this one in the open before me, I was not in the least afraid of it.
"You keep it there," said the girl – for there was no man on the place at the time – "while I go and get the clothes' prop."
For some minutes I stood within a few feet of it, the baby in my arms, cutting it off from its lakeside lair; and it must have been my formidable calmness which kept it from flinging itself upon me, as I have seen other snakes do when thus desperately at bay, although they will always wriggle out of a difficulty if a loop-hole is left to them. We killed it with the clothes' prop and put it under an inverted wash-tub, whence I proudly drew it in the evening when the doctor came to dinner. I gave him the history of the execution, and he read me a serious lecture. I promised him never to "hold up" a cornered snake again.
But if I let myself go with snake stories I shall not know where to stop, so I will only tell one more, which has some features out of the common. This snake lived in the church of G.'s first parish. Its hole was visible to the congregation, and it used to show its head to them in service time (during the sermon, probably) and make them nervous. So it was sought to entice it to its destruction with saucers of milk. The parson used to lay the bait over-night, and go to look for results in the morning. Always the saucer was found empty, but for a long time the snake was not found. At last he saw it coiled asleep upon the white cloth laid over the chancel carpet, where the sun from the east window poured warmly down upon it. So he hewed it in pieces before the altar, as Samuel hewed Agag.
What alarmed me much more, though with less cause, than snakes were the blacks, which at that time wandered into one's life as they never did afterwards. Some remnants of the river tribes remained about their old haunts, apparently in their old state of independence. I had seen them from the deck of the steamer, squatting on the banks in their 'possum skins, or fishing naked from a boat that was simply a sheet of bark as torn from the tree; in W – they trailed about the streets in some of the garments of civilisation, grinning amiably at the white residents, on the look-out for any trifles of tobacco or coppers that a kindly eye might give hope of. They are hideous creatures, poor things, and their attempts at European costume did not improve their appearance. The most extraordinary human figure that I ever saw was a black gin in a bird-cage crinoline. She had something else on, but not much – only what would drape a small part of the lattice-work of steels and tapes, through which her broad-footed spindle legs were visible, strutting proudly. When I, being alone in the house, saw a black fellow evidently making for it, I used to think of all the horrible tales I had read in missionary magazines as a child, and wonder where Dik's revolver was. He only wanted bacca, or an old rag of clothes, or a penny, or a bit of meat – bacca first, always; and there was nothing savage about him except his looks. Some of the stations in that district made a point of protecting and showing kindness to the blacks. On these they made their camps, and swarmed like the dogs about the homesteads, bringing offerings of fish, and receiving all sorts of indulgences in return. I visited at the one of those places which was most notoriously benevolent in this direction. The gins whose husbands had used the waddy to them used to come to the house to have their wounds plastered; the nursing mothers got milk and other privileges; some of the least lazy and dirty young ones were put into the family's cast-off clothes and taken into
