A Little Bush Maid

CHAPTER XIII.
THE CIRCUS

The days went by, but no further word of the Winfield murderer came to the anxious ears of the little girl at Billabong homestead. Norah never read the papers, and could not therefore satisfy her mind by their reports; but all her inquiries were met by the same reply, “Nothing fresh.” The police were still in the district—so much she knew, for she had caught glimpses of them when out riding with her father. The stern-looking men in dusty uniforms were unusual figures in those quiet parts. But Norah could not manage to discover if they had searched the scrub that hid the Hermit’s simple camp; and the mystery of the Winfield murder seemed as far from being cleared up as ever.

Meanwhile there was plenty to distract her mind from such disquieting matters. The station work happened to be particularly engrossing just then, and day after day saw Norah in the saddle, close to her father’s big black mare, riding over hills and plains, bringing up the slow sheep or galloping gloriously after cattle that declined to be mustered. There were visits of inspection to be made to the farthest portions of the run, and busy days in the yards, when the men worked at drafting the stock, and Norah sat perched on the high “cap” of a fence and, watching with all her eager little soul in her eyes, wished heartily that she had been born a boy. Then there were a couple of trips with Mr. Linton to outlying townships, and on one of these occasions Norah had a piece of marvellous luck, for there was actually a circus in Cunjee—a real, magnificent circus, with lions and tigers and hyaenas, and a camel, and other beautiful animals, and, best of all, a splendid elephant of meek and mild demeanour. It was the elephant that broke up Norah’s calmness.

“Oh, Daddy!” she said. “Daddy! Oh, can’t we stay?”

Mr. Linton laughed.

“I was expecting that,” he said. “Stay? And what would Brownie be thinking?”

Norah’s face fell.

“Oh,” she said. “I’d forgotten Brownie. I s’pose it wouldn’t do. But isn’t it a glorious elephant, Daddy?”

“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “I think it’s too glorious to leave, girlie. Fact is, I had an inkling the circus was to be here, so I told Brownie not to expect us until she saw us. She put a basket in the buggy, with your tooth-brush, I think.”

The face of his small daughter was sufficient reward.

“Daddy!” she said. “Oh, but you are the MOST Daddy!” Words failed her at that point.

Norah said that it was a most wonderful “spree.” They had dinner at the hotel, where the waiter called her “Miss Linton,” and in all ways behaved precisely as if she were grown up, and after dinner she and her father sat on the balcony while Mr. Linton smoked and Norah watched the population arriving to attend the circus. They came from all quarters—comfortable old farm wagons, containing whole families; a few smart buggies; but the majority came on horseback, old as well as young. The girls rode in their dresses, or else had slipped on habit skirts over their gayer attire, with great indifference as to whether it happened to be crushed, and they had huge hats, trimmed with all the colours of the rainbow. Norah did not know much about dress, but it seemed to her theirs was queer. But one and all looked so happy and excited that dress was the last thing that mattered.

It seemed to Norah a long while before Mr. Linton shook the ashes from his pipe deliberately and pulled out his watch. She was inwardly dancing with impatience.

“Half-past seven,” remarked her father, shutting up his watch with a click. “Well, I suppose we’d better go, Norah. All ready, dear?”

“Yes, Daddy. Must I wear gloves?”

“Why, not that I know of,” said her father, looking puzzled. “Hardly necessary, I think. I don’t wear ’em. Do you want to?”

“Goodness—no!” said his daughter hastily.

“Well, that’s all right,” said Mr. Linton. “Stow them in my pocket and come along.”

Out in the street there were unusual signs of bustle. People were hurrying along the footpath. The blare of brass instruments came from the big circus tent, round which was lingering every small boy of Cunjee who could not gain admission. Horses were tied to adjoining fences, considerably disquieted by the brazen strains of the band. It was very cheerful and inspiring, and Norah capered gently as she trotted along by her father.

Mr. Linton gave up his tickets at the first tent, and they passed in to view the menagerie—a queer collection, but wonderful enough in the eyes of Cunjee. The big elephant held pride of place, as he stood in his corner and sleepily waved his trunk at the aggravating flies. Norah loved him from the first, and in a moment was stroking his trunk, somewhat to her father’s anxiety.

“I hope he’s safe?” he asked an attendant.

“Bless you, yes, sir,” said that worthy, resplendent in dingy scarlet uniform. “He alwuz knows if people ain’t afraid of him. Try him with this, missy.” “This” was an apple, and Jumbo deigned to accept it at Norah’s hands, and crunched it serenely.

“He’s just dear,” said Norah, parting reluctantly from the huge swaying brute and giving him a final pat as she went.

“Better than Bobs?” asked her father.

“Pooh!” said Norah loftily. “What’s this rum thing?”

“A wildebeest,” read her father. “He doesn’t look like it.”

“Pretty tame beast, I think,” Norah observed, surveying the stolid-looking animal before her. “Show me something really wild, Daddy.”

“How about this chap?” asked Mr. Linton.

They were before the tiger’s cage, and the big yellow brute was walking up and down with long stealthy strides, his great eyes roving over the curious faces in front of him. Some one poked a stick at him—an attention which met an instant roar and spring on the tiger’s part, and a quick, and stinging rebuke from an attendant, before which the poker of the stick fled precipitately. The crowd, which had jumped back as one man, pressed nearer to the cage, and the tiger resumed his quick, silent prowl. But his eyes no longer roved over the faces. They remained fixed upon the man who had provoked him.

“How do you like him?” Mr. Linton asked his daughter.

Norah hesitated.

“He’s not nice, of course,” she said. “But I’m so awfully sorry for him, aren’t you, Daddy? It does seem horrible—a great, splendid thing like that shut up for always in that little box of a cage. You feel he really ought to have a great stretch of jungle to roam in.”

“And eat men in? I think he’s better where he is.”

“Well, you’d think the world was big enough for him to have a place apart from men altogether,” said Norah, holding to her point sturdily. “Somewhere that isn’t much wanted—a sandy desert, or a spare Alp! This doesn’t seem right, somehow. I think I’ve seen enough animals, Daddy, and it’s smelly here. Let’s go into the circus.”

The circus tent was fairly crowded as Norah and her father made their way in and took the seats reserved for them, under the direction of another official in dingy scarlet. Round the ring the tiers of seats rose abruptly, each tier a mass of eager, interested faces. A lame seller of fruit and drinks hobbled about crying his wares; at intervals came the “pop” of a lemonade bottle, and there was a steady crunching of peanut shells. The scent of orange peel rose over the circus smell—that weird compound of animal and sawdust and acetylene lamps. In the midst of all was the ring, with its surface banked up towards the outer edge.

They had hardly taken their seats when the band suddenly struck up in its perch near the entrance, and the company entered to the inspiring strains. First came the elephant, very lazy and stately—gorgeously caparisoned now, with a gaily attired “mahout” upon his neck. Behind him came the camel; and the cages with the other occupants of the menagerie, looking either bored or fierce. They circled round the ring and then filed out.

The band struck up a fresh strain and in cantered a lovely lady on a chestnut horse. She wore a scarlet hat and habit, and looked to Norah very like a Christmas card. Round the ring she dashed gaily, and behind her came another lady equally beautiful in a green habit, on a black horse; and a third, wearing a habit of pale blue plush who managed a piebald horse. Then came some girls in bright frocks, on beautiful ponies; and some boys, in tights, on other ponies; and then men, also in tights of every colour in the rainbow, who rode round with bored expressions, as if it were really too slow a thing merely to sit on a horse’s back, instead of pirouetting there upon one foot. They flashed round once or twice and were gone, and Norah sat back and gasped, feeling that she had had a glimpse into another world—as indeed she had.

A little figure whirled into the ring—a tiny girl on a jet-black pony. She was sitting sideways at first, but as the pony settled into its stride round the ring she suddenly leaped to her feet and, standing poised, kissed her hands gaily to the audience. Then she capered first on one foot, then on another; she sat down, facing the tail, and lay flat along the pony’s back; she assumed every position except the natural one. She leapt to the ground (to Norah’s intense horror, who imagined she didn’t mean to), and, running fiercely at the pony, sprang on his back again, while he galloped the harder. Lastly, she dropped a handkerchief, which she easily recovered by the simple expedient of hanging head downwards, suspended by one foot, and then galloped out of the ring, amid the frantic applause of Cunjee.

“Could you do that, Norah?” laughed Mr. Linton.

“Me?” said Norah amazedly; “me? Oh, fancy me ever thinking I could ride a bit!”

One of the lovely ladies, in a glistening suit of black, covered with spangles, next entered. She also preferred to ride standing, but was by no means idle. A gentleman in the ring obligingly handed her up many necessaries—plates and saucers and knives—and she threw these about the air, as she galloped with great apparent carelessness, yet never failed to catch each just as it seemed certain to fall. Tiring of this pursuit, she flung them all back at the gentleman with deadly aim, while he, resenting nothing, caught them cleverly, and disposed of them to a clown who stood by, open-mouthed. Then the gentleman hung bright ribbons across the ring, apparently with the unpleasant intention of sweeping the lady from her horse—an intention which she frustrated by lightly leaping over each in turn, while her horse galloped beneath it. Finally, the gentleman—whose ideas really seemed most unfriendly—suddenly confronted her with a great paper-covered hoop, the very sight of which would have made an ordinary horse shy wildly—but even at this obstacle the lady did not lose courage. Instead, she leaped straight through the hoop, paper and all, and was carried out by her faithful steed, amidst yells of applause.

Norah gasped.

“Oh, isn’t it perfectly lovely, Daddy!” she said.

Perhaps you boys and girls who live in cities, or near townships where travelling companies pay yearly visits, can have no idea of what this first circus meant to this little bush maid, who had lived all her twelve years without seeing anything half so wonderful. Perhaps, too, you are lucky to have so many chances of seeing things—but it is something to possess nowadays, even at twelve, the unspoiled, fresh mind that Norah brought to her first circus.

Everything was absolutely real to her. The clown was a being almost too good for this world, seeing that his whole time was spent in making people laugh uproariously, and that he was so wonderfully unselfish in the way he allowed himself to be kicked and knocked about—always landing in positions so excruciatingly droll that you quite forgot to ask if he were hurt. All the ladies who galloped round the ring, and did such marvellous things, treating a mettled steed as though he were as motionless as a kitchen table, seemed to Norah models of beauty and grace. There was one who set her heart beating by her daring, for she not only leaped through a paper-covered hoop, but through three, one after the other, and then—marvel of marvels—through one on which the paper was alight and blazing fiercely! Norah held her breath, expecting to see her scorched and smouldering at the very least; but the heroic rider galloped on, without seeming so much as singed. Almost as wonderful was the total indifference of the horses to the strange sights around them.

“Bobs would be off his head!” said Norah.

She was especially enchanted with a small boy and girl who rode in on the same brown pony, and had all sorts of capers, as much off the pony’s back as upon it. Not that it troubled them to be off, because they simply ran, together, at the pony, and landed simultaneously, standing on his back, while the gallant steed galloped the more furiously. They hung head downwards while the pony jumped over hurdles, to their great apparent danger; they even wrestled, standing, and the girl pitched the boy off to the accompaniment of loud strains from the band and wild cheers from Cunjee. Not that the boy minded—he picked himself up and raced the pony desperately round the ring—the girl standing and shrieking encouragement, the pony racing, the boy scudding in front, until he suddenly turned and bolted out of the ring, the pony following at his heels, but never quite catching him—so that the boy really won, after all, which Norah thought was quite as it should be.

Then there were the acrobats—accomplished men in tight clothes—who cut the most amazing somersaults, and seemed to regard no object as too great to be leaped over. They brought in the horses, and stood ever so many of them together, backed up by the elephant, and the leading acrobat jumped over them all without any apparent effort. After which all the horses galloped off of their own accord, and “put themselves away” without giving anyone any trouble. Then the acrobats were hauled up into the top of the tent, where they swung themselves from rope to rope, and somersaulted through space; and one man hung head downwards, and caught by the hands another who came flying through the air as if he belonged there. Once he missed the outstretched hands, and Norah gasped expecting to see him terribly hurt—instead of which he fell harmlessly into a big net thoughtfully spread for his reception, and rebounded like a tennis ball, kissing his hand gracefully to the audience, after which he again whirled through the air, and this time landed safely in the hands of the hanging man, who had all this while seemed just as comfortable head downwards as any other way. There was even a little boy who swung himself about the tent as fearlessly as the grown men, and cut capers almost as dangerous as theirs. Norah couldn’t help breathing more freely when the acrobats bowed their final farewell.

Mr. Linton consulted his programme.

“They’re bringing in the lion next,” he said.

The band struck up the liveliest of tunes. All the ring was cleared now, except for the clown, who suddenly assumed an appearance of great solemnity. He marched to the edge of the ring and struck an attitude indicative of profound respect.

In came the elephant, lightly harnessed, and drawing a huge cage on wheels. On other sides marched attendants in special uniforms, and on the elephant’s back stood the lion tamer, all glorious in scarlet and gold, so that he was almost hurtful to the eye. In the cage three lions paced ceaselessly up and down. The band blared. The people clapped. The clown bowed his forehead into the dust and said feelingly, “Wow!”

Beside the ring was another, more like a huge iron safe than a ring, as it was completely walled and roofed with iron bars. The cage was drawn up close beside this, and the doors slid back. The lions needed no further invitation. They gave smothered growls as they leaped from their close quarters into this larger breathing space. Then another door was opened stealthily, and the lion tamer slipped in, armed with no weapon more deadly than a heavy whip.

Norah did not like it. It seemed to her, to put it mildly, a risky proceeding. Generally speaking, Norah was by no means a careful soul, and had no opinion of people who thought over much about looking after their skins; but this business of lions was not exactly what she had been used to. They appeared to her so hungry, and so remarkably ill tempered; and the man was as one to three, and had, apparently, no advantage in the matter of teeth and claws.

“Don’t like this game,” said the bush maiden, frowning. “Is he safe, Daddy?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” her father answered, smiling. “These chaps know how to take care of themselves; and the lions know he’s master. Watch them Norah.”

Norah was already doing that. The lions prowling round the ring, keeping wary eyes on their tamer, were called to duty by a sharp crack of the whip. Growling, they took their respective stations—two on the seats of chairs, the third standing between them, poised on the two chair backs. Then they were put through a quick succession of tricks. They jumped over chairs and ropes and each other; they raced round the ring, taking hurdles at intervals; they balanced on big wooden balls, and pushed them along by quick changes of position. Then they leaped through hoops, ornamented with fluttering strips of paper, and clearly did not care for the exercise. And all the while their stealthy eyes never left those of the tamer.

“How do you like it?” asked Mr. Linton.

“It’s beastly!” said Norah, with surprising suddenness. “I hate it, Daddy. Such big, beautiful things, and to make them do silly tricks like these; just as you’d train a kitten!”

“Well, they’re nothing more than big cats,” laughed her father.

“I don’t care. It’s—it’s mean, I think. I don’t wonder they’re cross. And you can see they are, Daddy. If I was a lion I know I’d want to bite somebody!”

The lions certainly did seem cross. They growled constantly, and were slow to obey orders. The whip was always cracking, and once or twice a big lioness, who was especially sulky, received a sharp cut. The outside attendants kept close to the cage, armed with long iron bars. Norah thought, watching them, that they were somewhat uneasy. For herself, she knew she would be very glad when the lion “turn” was over.

The smaller tricks were finished, and the tamer made ready for the grand “chariot act.” He dragged forward an iron chariot and to it harnessed the smaller lions with stout straps, coupling the reins to a hook on the front of the little vehicle. Then he signalled to the lioness to take her place as driver.

The lioness did not move. She crouched down, watching him with hungry, savage eyes. The trainer took a step forward, raising his whip.

“You—Queen!” he said sharply.

She growled, not stirring. A sudden movement of the lions behind him made the trainer glance round quickly.

There was a roar, and a yellow streak cleft the air. A child’s voice screamed. The tamer’s spring aside was too late, He went down on his face, the lioness upon him.

Norah’s cry rang out over the circus, just as the lioness sprang—too late for the trainer, however. The girl was on her feet, clutching her father.

“Oh, Daddy—Daddy!” she said.

All was wildest confusion. Men were shouting, women screaming—two girls fainted, slipping down, motionless, unnoticed heaps, from their seats. Circus men yelled contradictory orders. Within the ring the lioness crouched over the fallen man, her angry eyes roving about the disordered tent.

The two lions in the chariot were making furious attempts to break away. Luckily their harness was strong, and they were so close to the edge of the ring that the attendants were able, with their iron bars, to keep them in check. After a few blows they settled down, growling, but subdued.

But to rescue the trainer was not so easy a matter. He lay in the very centre of the ring, beyond the reach of any weapons; and not a man would venture within the great cage. The attendants shouted at the lioness, brandished irons, cracked whips. She heard them unmoved. Once she shifted her position slightly and a moan came from the man underneath.

“This is awful,” Mr. Linton said. He left his seat in the front row and went across the ring to the group of white-faced men. “Can’t you shoot the brute?” he asked.

“We’d do it in a minute,” the proprietor answered. “But who’d shoot and take the chance of hitting Joe? Look at the way they are—it’s ten to one he’d get hit.” He shook his head. “Well, I guess it’s up to me to go in and tackle her—I’d get a better shot inside the ring.” He moved forward.

A white-faced woman flung herself upon him and clung to him desperately. Norah hardly recognised her as the gay lady who had so merrily jumped through the burning hoops a little while ago. “You shan’t go, Dave!” she cried, sobbing. “You mustn’t! Think of the kiddies! Joe hasn’t got a wife and little uns.”

The circus proprietor tried to loosen her hold. “I’ve got to, my girl,” he said gently. “I can’t leave a man o’ mine to that brute. It’s my fault—I orter known better than to let him take her from them cubs to-night. Let go, dear.” He tried to unclinch her hands from his coat.

“Has she—the lioness—got little cubs?”

It was Norah’s voice, and Mr. Linton started to find her at his side. Norah, very pale and shaky, with wide eyes, glowing with a great idea.

The circus man nodded. “Two.”

“Wouldn’t she—” Norah’s voice was trembling almost beyond the power of speech—“wouldn’t she go to them if you showed them to her—put them in the small cage? My—old cat would!”

“By the powers!” said the proprietor. “Fetch ’em, Dick—run.” The clown ran, his grotesque draperies contrasting oddly enough with his errand.

In an instant he was back, two fluffy yellow heaps in his arms. One whined as they drew near the cage, and the lioness looked up sharply with a growl. The clown held the cubs in her view, and she growled again, evidently uneasy. Beneath her the man was quiet now.

“The cage—quick?”

The big lion cage, its open door communicating with the ring, stood ready. The clown opened another door and slipped in the protesting cubs. They made for the further door, but were checked by the stout cords fastened to their collars. He held them in leash, in full view of the lioness. She growled and moved, but did not leave her prey.

“Make ’em sing out!” the woman said sharply. Someone handed the clown an iron rod sharpened at one end. He passed it through the bars, and prodded a cub on the foot. It whined angrily, and a quick growl came from the ring.

“Harder, Dick!”

The clown obeyed. There was a sharp, amazed yelp of pain from the cub, and an answering roar from the mother. Another protesting cry—and then again that yellow streak as the lioness left her prey and sprang to her baby, with a deafening roar. The clown tugged the cubs sharply back into the recesses of the cage as the mother hurled herself through the narrow opening. Behind her the bars rattled into place and she was restored to captivity.

It was the work of only a moment to rush into the ring, where the tamer lay huddled and motionless. Kind hands lifted him and carried him away beyond the performance tent, with its eager spectators. The attendants quickly unharnessed the two tame lions, and they were removed in another cage, brought in by the elephant for their benefit.

Norah slipped a hot, trembling hand into her father’s.

“Let’s go, Daddy—I’ve had enough.”

“More than enough, I think,” said Mr. Linton. “Come on, little girl.”

They slipped out in the wake of the anxious procession that carried the tamer. As they went, a performing goat and monkey passed them on their way to the ring, and the clown capered behind them. They heard his cheerful shout, “Here we are again!” and the laughter of the crowd as the show was resumed.

“Plucky chap, that clown,” Mr. Linton said.

In the fresh air the men had laid the tamer down gently, and a doctor was bending over him examining him by the flickering light of torches held by hands that found it hard to be steady.

“Not so much damaged as he might be,” the doctor announced, rising. “That shoulder will take a bit of healing, but he looks healthy. His padded uniform has saved his life. Let’s get him to the private hospital up the street. Everything necessary is there, and I’d like to have his shoulder dressed before he regains consciousness.”

The men lifted the improvised stretcher again, and passed on with it. Norah and her father were following, when a voice called them. The wife of the circus proprietor ran after them—a strange figure enough, in her scarlet riding dress, the paint on her face streaked with tear marks.

“I’d like to know who you are,” she said, catching Norah’s hand. “But for you my man ’ud ’a been in the ring with that brute. None of us had the sense to think o’ bringin’ in the cubs. Tell me your name, dearie.”

Norah told her unwillingly. “Nothing to make a fuss over,” she added, in great confusion.

“I guess you saved Joe’s life, an’ perhaps my Dave’s as well,” the woman said. “We won’t forget you. Good night, sir, an’ thank you both.”

Norah had no wish to be thanked, being of opinion that she had done less than nothing at all. She was feeling rather sick, and—amazing feeling for Norah—inclined to cry. She was very glad to get into bed at the hotel, and eagerly welcomed her father’s suggestion that he should sit for a while in her room. Norah did not know that it was dawn before Mr. Linton left his watch by the restless sleeper, quiet now, and sought his own couch.

She woke late, from a dream of lions and elephants, and men who moaned softly. Her father was by her bedside.

“Breakfast, lazy bones,” he said.

“How’s the tamer?” queried Norah, sitting up.

“Getting on all right. He wants to see you.”

“Me!” said Norah. “Whatever for?”

“We’ve got to find that out,” said her father, withdrawing.

They found out after breakfast, when a grateful, white-faced man, swathed in bandages, stammered broken thanks.

“For it was you callin’ out that saved me first,” he said. “I’d never ’a thought to jump, but I heard you sing out to me, an’ if I hadn’t she’d a broke my neck, sure. An’ then it was you thought o’ bringing in the cubs. Well, missy, I won’t forget you long’s I live.”

The nurse, at his nod, brought out the skin of a young tiger, beautifully marked and made into a rug.

“If you wouldn’t mind takin’ that from me,” explained the tamer. “I’d like to feel you had it, an’ I’d like to shake hands with you, missy.”

Outside the room Norah turned a flushed face to her father.

“Do let’s go home, Daddy,” she begged. “Cunjee’s too embarrassing for me!”