Steve Brown's Bunyip and other Stories

It was Sunday, and the caravan was spelling for the day.

Greg, having had his dinner—only a half ration, as feed was scarce—and feeling but little inclined for a chat with the tiger, or the lion, or the bear, or any other of the sulky, brooding creatures behind the iron bars, whom he saw every day, and of whose company he was heartily tired, took it into his great head to have a look at the country.

So, unperceived of Hassan Ali, who was fast asleep in the hot sunshine, or any of the rest dozing in the tents, Greg, plucking a wattle up by the roots to keep the flies off, sauntered quietly away. He was not impressed by inland Australia. In the first place it was hot and dusty, also the flies were even worse than in his native Ceylon. Nor, so far as he could discover, was there anything to chew—that is—no tender banana stems, no patches of young rice or succulent cane. All that he tried tasted bitter, tasted of gum, peppermint, or similar abominations. He spat them out with a grunt of disgust, and meandered on.

Presently the scrub grew thicker, and, heated more than ever by the exertion of pushing his huge body through an undergrowth of pine and wattle, he hailed with delight the sight of a big waterhole, still and dark, in the very heart of it. Descending the slope at the far side of the thickly-grassed, open glade, Steve Brown, driving a couple of ‘lost’ horses, paused in dismay and astonishment at sight of the immense beast, black, shining wetly, and sending up thick jets of water into the sunlight to an accompaniment of a continuous series of grunts and rumbling noises.

‘Hrrmp! hrrmp!’ blared Greg, in friendly greeting, as he caught sight of the figure staring fascinated.

And then he laughed to himself as he saw how the loose horses, snorting with terror, galloped off one way, and the horseman another.

But it was getting late; so, coming out of the water, and striking a well-beaten pad, he followed it. Supper time was approaching, and he kept his ears open for the shrill cry of Hassan Ali.

Meanwhile Steve had made a bee-line on the spur for home, with some vague idea surging through his dull brain of having caught a glimpse of an Avenging Power. It is mostly in this way that anything of the sort strikes the uneducated conscience.

‘What’s the matter now?’ asked his wife as he entered, pale, and with hurried steps. ‘You looks pretty badly scared. Did the traps spot yer a-plantin’ them mokes, or what?’

‘Traps be hanged!’ replied Steve. ‘I seen somethin’ wuss nor traps. I seen the bunyip down at the big waterhole.’

‘Gam, yer fool!’ exclaimed his wife, who was tall, thin, sharp-faced, and freckled, like himself. ‘What are you a-givin’ us now? Why, yer gittin’ wuss nor a black fellow wi’ yer bunyips!’

‘Well,’ said Steve, fanning himself with his old cabbage-tree hat, and glancing nervously out of the door, ‘I’ll tell yer how it was. Ye knows as how I dropped acrost that darkey’s mokes when he was camped at the Ten Mile. Well, o’ course, I takes ’em to the water in the scrub—you knows the shop—intendin’ to hobble ’em out till such time as inquiries come this road. Well, jist as I gets in sight o’ the water I seen, right in the middle of it, I seen—I seen—’ but here he paused dead for want of a vocabulary.

‘Well, thick-head, an’ wot was it ye seed—yer own hugly shadder, I s’pose?’ said Mrs Brown, as she caught up and slapped the baby playing with a pumpkin on the floor. ‘Look better on yer, it would, to wind me up a turn o’ water, an’ it washin’ day to-morrer, ’stead o’ comin’ pitchin’ fairy stories.’

‘It warn’t,’ replied Steve, taking no notice of the latter part of her speech. ‘But it was as big—ay, an’ a lot bigger’n this hut. All black, an’ no hair it was; an’ ’t’ad two white tushes’s, long as my leg, only crookt, an’ a snout like a big snake, an’ it were a-spoutin’ water forty foot high, and soon’s it seen me it bellered agin and agin.’

‘You bin over to Walmsley’s shanty to-day?’ asked his wife, looking hard at his pale face and staring eyes.

‘No, s’elp me!’ replied Steve; ‘not fer a month or more! An’ yer knows, Mariar, as it aint very often I touches a drop o’ ennythin’ when I does go over.’ Which was strictly true, for Steve was an abstemious rogue.

‘Well, then, you’ve got a stroke o’ the sun,’ said his better-half, dogmatically, ‘an’ you’d best take a dose of salts at oncest, afore ye goes off yer ’ead wuss.’

‘Hrrmp! hrrmp! hrrmp!’ trumpeted Greg cheerfully, as at this moment, interposing his huge bulk before the setting sun, he looked in at the back door with twinkling eyes.

With a scream the woman, snatching up her child, bolted into the bedroom, leaving Steve quaking in an ecstasy of terror, as Greg, spying the pumpkin, deftly reached in with his trunk and asked for it with an insinuating grunt.

But Steve, pretty certain that it was himself who was wanted, and that his time had come at last, tumbled off the stool and grovelled before the Unknown Terror.

Without coming in further, Greg could not get within a foot of the coveted article. To come in further would be to lift the house on his shoulders, so Greg hesitated.

For ten years—long ago in the days of his youth—he had been a member of the Ceylon Civil Service, and had learnt discipline and respect for the constituted authorities. Also, besides being chief constable of his fellows, he had been a favourite at headquarters, had borne royalty itself, and was even named after Governor Gregory. Therefore, hungry as he was, Greg hesitated about demolishing a house for the sake of a pumpkin; but Steve, now on his knees in the middle of the floor, with that curling, snakelike thing twisting and twitching before his eyes, knew less than nothing of all this.

Had he been able, he would doubtless have prayed in an orthodox manner to be delivered out of the clutches of the Evil One. Being unable to pray, he did the best he could, which was indifferent.

‘Oh good Mister Bunyip,’ he quavered, ‘let’s off this oncest, an’ I’ll takes them mokes back to the n****r. I’ll give up them two unbranded foals as I shook off the carrier larst week, likewise the bag o’ flour off his waggin. If yer’ll go away, Mr Bunyip, I’ll never plant nor shake nothin’ no more. I won’t—s’elp me! An’ if yer’ll go back quiet’—here the wall-plate began to crack, and Steve’s voice to rise into a howl—‘I’ll promise faithful never to come next anigh yer waterhole over yonder to plant hosses.’