Part 27

"She banged away with the strap of the breechin' till she was winded, and then I said I hoped she'd never have to beat me again for acting the goat in other people's gardens that didn't concern me, an' she didn't beat me no more then, but I had plenty as it was," he said, rubbing his seat and the calves of his legs.

"Well done, stick to that, and be thankful for such a grandma!"

"She ain't a bad old sort when you come to consider," he said with that patronage, also an attribute of extreme youth or unsubdued snobbishness, and when compared, snobbishness and youth have some similar characteristics.

Next item on the programme was Mr Pornsch, whom grandma invited to remain to midday dinner, and the old lady being sufficiently human to denounce a swell far more fiercely behind his back than to his face, in consideration of this one's presence, once more entrusted us to sugar our own puddings, regardless of consequences.

After luncheon she interviewed him about his niece's health. Mr Pornsch seemed really concerned, and said perhaps she needed to be diverted, and that he would see about a further change, which might prove beneficial. He then put up his eyeglass to inspect Dawn's beauty, and ogling her, attempted to engage her in conversation; but the girl didn't seem at all attracted by him or thankful for the favours he brought her in the form of an exquisite box of bonbons and the latest song.

"I don't accept presents, thank you," she said uncompromisingly.

"Do you never make exceptions?"

"Only from people I like very much."

"Well, I trust I may some day be among the exceptions," he said, in a gruesome attempt to be ingratiating; but the girl replied--

"Then you hope for impossibilities."

Somewhat disconcerted though not the least abashed, Mr Pornsch persevered by asking if she ever went to Sydney, and stated the pleasure it would be to him to provide her with tickets for any of the plays; but even this could not overcome her unconquerable horror of the various intemperances suggested by his person, so he had to retreat.

Dawn's grandmother remonstrated with her afterwards.

"You ought to be a little more genteeler, Dawn, and you could refuse presents just as well. Even if he isn't the takin'est old chap, that is not any reason for you to be ungenteel."

"Well, I don't care," replied Dawn, whose exquisitely moulded chin, despite an irresistible dimple, was expressive of determination. "If I was a great old podge and had a blue nose from swilling and gorging, and was fifty if I was a day, and then went goggling after a young fellow of eighteen, he wouldn't be very civil to me, or be lectured if he spoke to me the way I deserved, and I think these old creatures of men ought to be discouraged by all the girls. What's sauce for the goose is the same for the gander."

Mr Pornsch had not long departed when Mrs Bray favoured us with a call, so grandma was spared a pilgrimage to her house. She and Carry exchanged a stiffly formal greeting, but the visitor beamed upon the remainder of us and seated herself in our midst.

"Oh, I say, ain't it a blessed nark to the men us going to have a vote? He! he! Ha! ha! It fairly maddens 'em to see us getting a bit of freedom--makes 'em that wild they don't know how to be sneerin' an' nasty enough. Every one of us will just roll up an' use our power now we've got it,--they've kep' our necks under their heel long enough."

"I wasn't thinkin' of the vote at present," said Grandma Clay. "I was just off to see you about what our noble nibbs have been doin' in that old Gawling's orchard; but I beat Andrew already in case. What did you think of 'em?"

Mrs Bray put back her handsome head, decorated by an extremely fashionable hat, and laughed boisterously.

"Fancy the old toad runnin' 'em down,--gave 'em a bit of a scare, didn't it? Old mongrel, to kick up a fuss over a few paltry oranges! As if we don't all know what boys is; why, there'd be no chance of rarin' them without touchin' nothing, unless you carted them off to the back-blocks where there wasn't no one within reach. I told him what I thought of him. 'How dare you!' says I. 'Bring witnesses of this,' said I."

Grandma Clay arose.

"Well, if that's your idea of rarin' a family, it ain't mine. Why, can't you hear the parson's everlastin' preaching and giving examples how taking a pin has been the start of a feller coming to the gallows; and this is a much worse beginning than a pin! If the only way of rarin' them not to steal was to put 'em where there was no possibility of stealing nothink, a pretty sort of honesty that would be; you might as well say the only way to rare a girl modest was to let her never have a chance of being nothink else. Some people, of course, has different views, but I believe in holding to mine; they've brought me up to this time very well."

"Oh, you are terrible strict; you wouldn't have no peace of your life rarin' boys if you cut things so fine as that. Now w'en women gets the rule it might become the fashion for men to be more proper. Look here, the men are that mad--"

Uncle Jake here interrupted her by appearing for four o'clock tea.

"Well, Mr Sorrel, now the women has come to show you how to do things, there might be something done in the country."

"Nice fools they'll make of themselves," he sneeringly replied.

"They couldn't make no greater fools of themselves than the men has always done,--lying in the gutter an' breakin' their faces," said Mrs Bray.

"Wait till the women go at it, they'll fight like cats," continued Uncle Jake, whose power to annoy depended not so much upon what he said as his way of saying it.

Dawn chipped into the rescue at this point.