Nell and Ned.
That harvest of two hundred bags of wheat was the turning-point in the history of our selection. Things somehow seemed to go better; and Dad's faith was gradually justified--to some extent. We accumulated out-buildings and added two new rooms to the hut, and Dad was able to lend old Anderson five pounds in return for a promise to pay seven pounds ten shillings in six months' time. We increased the stock, too, by degrees; and--crowning joy!--we got a horse or two you could ride to the township.
With Nell and Ned we reckoned we had two saddle-horses--those were their names, Nell and Ned, a mare and a colt. Fine hacks they were, too!
Anybody could ride them, they were so quiet. Dad reckoned Ned was the better of the two. He was well-bred, and had a pedigree and a gentle disposition, and a bald-face, and a bumble-foot, and a raw wither, and a sore back that gave him a habit of "flinching"--a habit that discounted his uselessness a great deal, because, when we were n't at home, the women could n't saddle him to run the cows in. Whenever he saw the saddle or heard the girth-buckles rattle he would start to flinch. Put the cloth on his back--folded or otherwise--and, no matter how smart you might be, it would be off before you could cover it with the saddle, and he would n't have flicked it with his tail, or pulled it off with his teeth, or done anything to it. He just flinched--made the skin on his back--where there was any--QUIVER. Throw on the saddle without a cloth, and he would "give"in the middle like a broken rail--bend till his belly almost touched the ground, and remain bent till mounted; then he'd crawl off and gradually straighten up as he became used to you. Were you tender-hearted enough to feel compunction in sitting down hard on a six-year-old sore, or if you had an aversion to kicking the suffering brute with both heels and belting his hide with a yard or two of fencing-wire to get him to show signs of animation, you would dismount and walk--perhaps, weep. WE always rode him right out, though.
As a two-year-old Ned was Dad's hope. Pointing proudly to the long-legged, big-headed, ugly moke mooching by the door, smelling the dust, he would say: "Be a fine horse in another year! Little sleepy-looking yet; that's nothing!""Stir him up a bit, till we see how he canters," he said to Joe one day.
And when Joe stirred him up--rattled a piece of rock on his jaw that nearly knocked his head off--Dad took after Joe and chased him through the potatoes, and out into the grass-paddock, and across towards Anderson's;then returned and yarded the colt, and knocked a patch of skin off him with a rail because he would n't stand in a corner till he looked at his eye. "Would n't have anything happen to that colt for a fortune!" he said to himself. Then went away, forgetting to throw the rails down. Dave threw them down a couple of days after.
WE preferred Nell to Ned, but Dad always voted for the colt. "You can trust him; he'll stand anywhere," he used to say. Ned WOULD! Once, when the grass-paddock was burning, he stood until he took fire. Then he stood while we hammered him with boughs to put the blaze out. It took a lot to frighten Ned. His presence of mind rarely deserted him. Once, though, he got a start. He was standing in the shade of a tree in the paddock when Dad went to catch him. He seemed to be watching Dad, but was n't. He was ASLEEP. "Well, old chap," said Dad, "how ARE y'?" and proceeded to bridle him. Ned opened his mouth and received the bit as usual, only some of his tongue came out and stayed out. "Wot's up w' y'?" and Dad tried to poke it in with his finger, but it came out further, and some chewed grass dropped into his hand. Dad started to lead him then, or rather to PULLhim, and at the first tug he have the reins Ned woke with a snort and broke away. And when the other horses saw him looking at Dad with his tail cocked, and his head up, and the bridle-reins hanging, they went for their lives through the trees, and Blossom's foal got staked.
Another day Dad was out on Ned, looking for the red heifer, and came across two men fencing--a tall, powerful-looking man with a beard, and a slim young fellow with a smooth face. Also a kangaroo-pup. As Dad slowly approached, Ned swaying from side to side with his nose to the ground, the elder man drove the crowbar into the earth and stared as if he had never seen a man on horseback before. The young fellow sat on a log and stared too. The pup ran behind a tree and growled.
"Seen any cattle round here?" Dad asked.
"No," the man said, and grinned.
"Did n't notice a red heifer?"
"No," grinning more.
The kangaroo-pup left the tree and sniffed at Ned's heels.
"Won't kick, will he?" said the man.
The young fellow broke into a loud laugh and fell off the log.
"No," Dad replied--"he's PERFECTLY quiet.""He LOOKS quiet."
The young fellow took a fit of coughing.
