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 Contents

Preface xv
Acknowledgments xix
Acronyms xxi
1 Preliminaries 1
1.1 Digital Video Representation 1
1.1.1 Color Representation 2
1.1.2 Digitization 3
1.1.3 Spatial Sampling 4
1.1.4 Temporal Sampling 4
1.1.5 Quantization 5
1.1.6 Standard Video Data Formats 5
1.2 A Case for Video Compression 8
1.3 Spatial Redundancy 9
1.3.1 Vector Quantization 9
1.3.2 Block Transform 10
1.3.3 Discrete Cosine Transform 10
v
vi CONTENTS

1.4 Temporal Redundancy 12

1.4.1 Frame Di erencing 12
1.4.2 Motion Compensation 13
1.4.3 Block Matching 14
1.5 H.261 Standard 17
1.5.1 Features 18
1.5.2 Encoder Block Diagram 18
1.5.3 Hypothetical Reference Decoder 20
1.5.4 Heuristics for Coding Control 20
1.5.5 Rate Control 22
1.6 MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Standards 23
1.6.1 Features 23
1.6.2 Encoder Block Diagram 24
1.6.3 Layers 24
1.6.4 Video Bu ering Veri er 26
1.6.5 Rate Control 28
1.7 H.263 Standard 31
1.7.1 Features 31
1.7.2 Hypothetical Reference Decoder 33
1.8 Lossy Coding and Rate-Distortion 34
1.8.1 Classical Rate-Distortion Theory 34
1.8.2 Operational Rate-Distortion 34
1.8.3 Budget-Constrained Bit Allocation 37
1.8.4 Viterbi Algorithm 37
1.8.5 Lagrange Optimization 38
2 Lexicographic Bit Allocation Framework 41
2.1 Perceptual and Nominal Quantization 42
2.2 Constant Quality 43
2.3 Bit-Production Modeling and Quantization Scale 44
2.4 Bu er Constraints 45
2.4.1 Constant Bit Rate 45
2.4.2 Variable Bit Rate 47
2.4.3 Encoder vs. Decoder Bu er 48
2.5 Bu er-Constrained Bit Allocation Problem 49
2.6 Lexicographic Optimality 50
2.7 Related Work 51
2.8 Discussion 53
 CONTENTS vii

3 Optimal Bit Allocation under CBR Constraints 55

3.1 Analysis 56
3.2 CBR Allocation Algorithm 64
3.2.1 DP Algorithm 64
3.2.2 Correctness of DP Algorithm 65
3.2.3 Constant-Q Segments 65
3.2.4 Verifying a Constant-Q Allocation 66
3.2.5 Time and Space Complexity 67
3.3 Related Work 68
3.4 Discussion 69
4 Optimal Bit Allocation under VBR Constraints 71
4.1 Analysis 72
4.2 VBR Allocation Algorithm 80
4.2.1 VBR Algorithm 80
4.2.2 Correctness of VBR Algorithm 81
4.2.3 Time and Space Complexity 83
4.3 Discussion 84
5 Implementation of Lexicographic Bit Allocation 85
5.1 Perceptual Quantization 85
5.2 Bit-Production Modeling 86
5.2.1 Hyperbolic Model 86
5.2.2 Linear-Spline Model 88
5.2.3 Hyperbolic-Spline Model 90
5.3 Picture-Level Rate Control 91
5.3.1 Closed-Loop Rate Control 91
5.3.2 Open-Loop Rate Control 92
5.3.3 Hybrid Rate Control 93
5.4 Bu er Guard Zones 93
5.5 Software Simulation Environment 94
5.6 Initial Simulations 94
5.7 Coding a Longer Sequence 106
5.7.1 Independent Coding Simulations 106
5.7.2 Dependent Coding Simulations 114
5.8 Limiting Lookahead 114
5.9 Related Work 121
5.10 Discussion 122
viii CONTENTS

6 A More Ecient Dynamic Programming Algorithm 123

6.1 Encoding the Next Picture 124
6.2 Initial Preprocessing of the Reverse Structure 128
6.2.1 Time and Space Complexity 131
6.3 Incremental Update of the Reverse Structure 132
6.4 Related Work 133
7 Real-Time VBR Rate Control 137
7.1 Optimal VBR Bit Allocation Algorithm 138
7.2 Single-Pass Algorithm 138
7.2.1 Basic VBR Algorithm 139
7.2.2 VBR Algorithm with Bit Budget 141
7.3 Simulation Results 141
7.4 Related Work 142
7.5 Conclusion 148
8 Extensions of the Lexicographic Framework 149
8.1 Applicability to Other Coding Domains 149
8.2 Multiplexing VBR Streams over a CBR Channel 150
8.2.1 Introduction 150
8.2.2 Multiplexing Model 152
8.2.3 Lexicographic Criterion 154
8.2.4 Equivalence to CBR Bit Allocation 154
8.3 Bit Allocation with a Discrete Set of Quantizers 155
8.3.1 Dynamic Programming 156
8.3.2 Lexicographic Extension 156
References 157
About the Authors 165
Index 167
 List of Figures

1.1 Block Diagram of a Video Digitizer 3

1.2 Scanning Techniques for Spatial Sampling 4
1.3 Example of a Uniform Quantizer 6
1.4 4:2:2 Color Subsampling 7
1.5 4:2:0 Color Subsampling 8
1.6 Default Intraframe Quantization Matrix 11
1.7 Zig-Zag Scan 12
1.8 A Simple Frame-Di erencing Coder 13
1.9 A Generic Motion-Compensated Video Encoder 14
1.10 Frame Types for Motion Compensation 15
1.11 Default Interframe Quantization Matrix 15
1.12 Modi ed Interframe Quantization Matrix 16
1.13 Reordering with B Frames 16
1.14 Illustration of the Block Translation Model 17
1.15 Structure of a Macroblock 18
ix
x LIST OF FIGURES

1.16 Block Diagram of an H.261 Video Coder 19

1.17 Intraframe/Interframe Coding Decision Diagram 21
1.18 Motion Vector Decision Diagram 21
1.19 Block Diagram of Encoder Rate Control 22
1.20 Block Diagram of an MPEG Encoder 25
1.21 MPEG Video Bu ering Veri er 26
1.22 Fixed-Delay CBR Video Transmission System 27
1.23 Stored-Video System with Double Bu ering 28
1.24 Block Diagram of an H.263 Video Coder 32
1.25 Rate-Distortion Function for a Gaussian Source 35
1.26 Operational Rate-Distortion Plot 36
1.27 Comparison of Coders Using Operational
Rate-Distortion 36
1.28 Trellis Construction by the Viterbi Algorithm 38
1.29 Graphical Interpretation of Lagrange Optimization 40
2.1 Evolution of Bu er Fullness for CBR Operation 47
2.2 Evolution of Bu er Fullness for VBR Operation 48
3.1 Sketch of Proof of Lemma 3.2 57
3.2 Search Step in DP Algorithm 66
5.1 Hyperbolic Bit-Production Models 87
5.2 Example of a Linear-Spline Interpolation Model 89
5.3 Linear-Spline and Hyperbolic-Spline Models 91
5.4 Guard Zones 94
5.5 Initial Simulation Results for TM5 CBR Coder 97
5.6 Initial Simulation Results for Linear-Spline CBR
Coder 98
5.7 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 1 of
Hyperbolic CBR Coder 99
5.8 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 2 of
Hyperbolic CBR Coder 100
 LIST OF FIGURES xi

5.9 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 3 of

Hyperbolic CBR Coder 101
5.10 Initial Simulation Results for Linear-Spline VBR
Coder 102
5.11 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 1 of
Hyperbolic VBR Coder 103
5.12 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 2 of
Hyperbolic VBR Coder 104
5.13 Initial Simulation Results for Pass 3 of
Hyperbolic VBR Coder 105
5.14 Independent-Coding Results for TM5 CBR Coder 109
5.15 Independent-Coding Results for Hyperbolic-Spline
CBR Coder 110
5.16 Independent-Coding Results for Linear-Spline
CBR Coder 111
5.17 Independent-Coding Results for Hyperbolic-Spline
VBR Coder 112
5.18 Independent-Coding Results for Linear-Spline
VBR Coder 113
5.19 Dependent-Coding Results for TM5 CBR Coder 116
5.20 Dependent-Coding Results for Hyperbolic-Spline
CBR Coder 117
5.21 Dependent-Coding Results for Linear-Spline
CBR Coder 118
5.22 Dependent-Coding Results for Hyperbolic-Spline
VBR Coder 119
5.23 Dependent-Coding Results for Linear-Spline
VBR Coder 120
6.1 Reverse Structure for Determining Nominal
Quantization Scale 125
6.2 Bottom and Top Boundaries Starting at Picture 6 130
6.3 Bottom and Top Boundaries Starting at Picture 5 130
6.4 Bottom and Top Boundaries Starting at Picture 4 131
xii LIST OF FIGURES

6.5 Trace of Execution 132

6.6 Correspondence with Shortest Paths in Polygonal
Channels 134
6.7 Further Correspondence with Shortest Paths in
Polygonal Channels 135
7.1 Illustration of the Single-Pass VBR Algorithm 140
7.2 Simulation Results for TM5 CBR Coder 143
7.3 Simulation Results for Lexicographic VBR Coder 144
7.4 Simulation Results for Open-Loop Single-Pass
VBR Coder 145
7.5 Simulation Results for Controlled Single-Pass
VBR Coder 146
8.1 Illustration of Statistical Multiplexing 151
8.2 Multiplexing Model 152
8.3 Block Diagram of Encoder/Multiplexer 153
8.4 Operation of Multiplexer 153
8.5 Block Diagram of Demultiplexer/Decoder 154
 List of Tables

1.1 Standardized H.263 Picture Formats 31

1.2 Minimum BPPmaxKb as Function of Picture Size 33
5.1 Parameters for Initial Simulations 96
5.2 Summary of Initial Simulations 106
5.3 Parameters for Independent-Coding Simulations 107
5.4 Summary of Independent-Coding Simulations 108
5.5 Parameters for Dependent-Coding Simulations 115
5.6 Summary of Dependent-Coding Simulations 121
7.1 Summary of Single-Pass VBR Simulations 142

xiii
 Preface

In today's information-driven society, video and other forms of information are

being increasingly generated, manipulated, and transmitted in digital form.
This trend is manifested in the increased level of automation in businesses,
the ubiquity of personal computers, the explosive growth of the Internet and
the World Wide Web, and the growing library of multimedia software that
incorporates digital audio, images, and video. Within the past decade, we
have seen secondary storage on desktop personal computers mushroom from
a mere 20 megabytes to tens of gigabytes and beyond. Modem technology has
pushed the transmission bandwidth through plain telephone lines from 300
bits/second to 56,000 bits/second, and with asynchronous digital subscriber
line we can attain transmission speeds of megabits per second on existing
phone lines. Even with technological improvements in transmission bandwidth
and storage capacity, the information explosion is quickly making current
technologies seem inadequate. For example, application software that once t
onto a few oppy disks now demands multi-megabytes of disk space.
Crucial to the management of digital information are data compression
techniques that help make more ecient use of the limited transmission and
storage resources available. For storage applications, data compression in-
creases the e ective storage space, allowing more data to be stored on a given
storage device. For transmission applications, data compression increases the
e ective bandwidth, allowing a higher volume of data to be transmitted over
a given transmission medium. Data compression can be viewed as a logical
transformation of the data and is independent of the underlying transmission
xv
xvi PREFACE

or storage technology. Data compression will not be made obsolete by ad-

vances in these technologies, as there will be an ever-present need for even
more storage and even greater bandwidth.
A basic idea in data compression is that most information sources of prac-
tical interest are not random, but possess some structure. Recognizing and
exploiting structure is a major theme in data compression. The amount of
compression that is achievable depends upon the amount of redundancy or
structure present in the data that can be recognized and exploited. For ex-
ample, by noting that certain letters or words in English texts appear more
frequently than others, we can represent them using fewer bits than the less
frequently occurring letters or words. This principle is used in Morse Code,
where letters are represented using a varying number of dots and dashes. The
recognition and exploitation of statistical properties of a data source form the
basis for much of lossless data compression and entropy coding.
In lossy coding, there is a direct relationship between the length of an
encoding (or coding rate) and the amount of loss (or distortion) incurred.
Redundancy exists when an information source exhibits properties that al-
low it to be coded with fewer bits with little or no perceived distortion. For
example, in coding speech, distortion in high-frequency bands is not as per-
ceptible to the ear as is distortion in lower-frequency bands. As a result, the
high-frequency bands can be coded with less precision using fewer bits. In
Chapter 1 we explore the nature of redundancy for lossy coding, especially as
it relates to video coding.
Video belongs to a class of information called continuous media. Continu-
ous media is characterized by the essentially continuous manner in which the
information is presented.1 This is in contrast to discrete media, in which there
is no essential temporal component. Text, images, and graphics are examples
of discrete media, while movies, sound, and computer animation are examples
of continuous media. Even though a slide show is a time-based presentation
of images, it is not a continuous medium since each image is viewed as an
individual item. On the other hand, a video clip, while also consisting of a
sequence of images, is a continuous medium since each image is perceived in
the context of past and future images.
With continuous media, therefore, the temporal dimension becomes im-
portant. For example, a video sequence compressed with a constant image
quality for every frame is often more desirable than one in which the image
quality varies noticeably over time. However, because the compressibility of
individual frames varies over time, maintaining a constant image quality re-
sults in a variation in coding rate over time. The process of controlling the
coding rate to meet the requirements of a transmissions channel or storage
device, while maintaining a desired level of quality, is called bit rate control.

1 The information may be discrete in representation, but it should be presented to give an

illusion of continuity.
 PREFACE xvii

In this monograph, we focus on the rate control of compressed video.

Speci cally, we present a new framework for allocating bits to the compression
of pictures in an MPEG video sequence.
Existing optimal rate control techniques typically regulate the coding rate
to minimize a sum-distortion measure. Whereas these techniques can lever-
age the wealth of tools from least-mean-square optimization theory, they do
not guarantee constant-quality video, an objective often mentioned in the lit-
erature. In Chapter 2, we develop a framework that casts rate control as a
resource allocation problem with continuous variables, nonlinear constraints,
and a novel lexicographic optimality criterion that is motivated for uniform
video quality. With the lexicographic criterion, we propose a new concept of
coding eciency to better re ect the constancy in quality that is generally
desired from a video coder.
In Chapters 3 and 4, rigorous analysis within the lexicographic framework
reveals a set of necessary and sucient conditions for optimality for coding
at both constant and variable bit rates. With these conditions, we are able
to construct polynomial-time algorithms for optimal bit rate control. Exper-
imental implementations of these algorithms con rm the theoretical analysis
and produce encodings that are more uniform in quality than those achieved
with existing rate control methods. Details of the implementations and re-
sults are presented in Chapter 5. With further analysis of the optimality
conditions, we describe a more ecient algorithm in Chapter 6 that can re-
cover from model errors and operates in O(N log N ) time and linear space for
a video sequence of length N .
In Chapter 7, we modify the optimal VBR algorithm to operate in real-time.
Simulations show that the real-time VBR algorithm performs well compared
with the optimal algorithm. A review of the literature suggests that our
real-time VBR algorithm is well suited for use in conjunction with a channel
rate control algorithm to jointly control source and channel rates in an ATM
setting.
As evidence of the generality and exibility of the framework, we show how
to extend the framework in Chapter 8 to allocate bits among multiple variable
bit rate bitstreams that are to be transmitted over a common constant bit
rate channel and to encompass the case of discrete variables.
The starting point for the research described in this monograph was Dzung
Hoang's Ph.D. dissertation at Brown University, under the supervision of
Je rey Vitter. Some of the initial work has appeared in various journals [29,
31] and conferences and in a U.S. patent [30].
 Acknowledgments
We wish to thank most dearly our families for their love and support, which
helped carry us through this rate control project, even when the desired rate
seemed beyond our control! The work embodied in this book also owes
much to the interactions with and encouragement from colleagues, friends,
and family, most especially Swarup Acharya, Thomas Alexander, Boumedi-
ene Belkhouche, Mark Benard, Tia Chou, Shirish Gadre, Cesar Gonzales,
Johnette Hassell, Chi-Yuan Hsu, P. Krishnan, Elliot Linzer, Daniel Lopresti,
Dimitrios Michailidis, Jim Munro, T. M. Murali, Apostol Natsev, Duc Ngo,
Antonio Ortega, Taner O zcelik, Khai Phan, John Savage, Choh-Man Teng,
Darren Vengro , Eric Viscito, Tu Vu, Min Wang, and Jian Zhou. To all those
wonderful people we owe a deep sense of gratitude.
We gratefully acknowledge the support provided along the way by the Na-
tional Science Foundation through a graduate fellowship and grants CCR{
9522047 and CCR{9877133, by the Air Force Oce of Scienti c Research, Air
Force Materiel Command, USAF, under grant F49620{94{1{0217, and by the
Army Research Oce under grants DAAH04{93{G{0076 and DAAD19{01{
1{0725.
To my parents, my wife Kim, and our newborn Beatrice Huy^en-Tr^an.
San Jose, California D. T. Hoang
November 2001
To my wife Sharon and our kids Jillian, Scott, and Audrey.
New Orleans, Louisiana J. S. Vitter
November 2001
xix
 Acronyms

ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode

BMMC Block-Matching Motion Compensation
CBR Constant Bit Rate
CIF Common Intermediate Format
DCT Discrete Cosine Transform
DVD Digital Video Disk
GOB Group of Blocks
GOP Group of Pictures
HRD Hypothetical Reference Decoder
ITU International Telecommuncation Union
ITU-R ITU Radiocommunication Assembly
ITU-T ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
MB Macroblock
MPEG Motion Pictures Expert Group
NTSC National Television Systems Committee
OBMC Overlapped Block Motion Compensation
xxi
xxii Acronyms

PAL Phase Alternating Line

QCIF Quarter-CIF
RBG Red Green Blue (color system)
SECAM Systeme E lectronique Couleur Avec Memoire
SIF Source Input Format
VBR Variable Bit Rate
VBV Video Bu ering Veri er
VLC Variable Length Code
VQ Vector Quantization
 1
Preliminaries

In this chapter we survey aspects of video compression that will be useful for
understanding the later chapters of this book. After a brief discussion about
the digital representation of video, we motivate video compression with two
illustrative examples that underscore the need for lossy compression. We then
describe basic lossy compression techniques for reducing spatial and temporal
redundancy in video, focusing on techniques commonly used in international
standards for video coding. Next, we present an overview of some of the more
popular standards for video coding, with special focus on the bit rate control
algorithms used in the development and evaluation of the standards. We
conclude with an introduction to rate-distortion theory and the operational
rate-distortion framework that forms the basis of much work on optimal bit
rate control of compressed video.
This chapter is by no means intended to be comprehensive; for more in-
depth discussions of the fundamentals and applications of video coding, the
reader is referred to [2, 26, 55, 57, 67, 73].

1.1 DIGITAL VIDEO REPRESENTATION

For compression to be meaningful, a standard representation should be de ned
for the data to be compressed. In this section, we give an overview of some
of the more popular standard representations for digital video that are in use
today.

1
2 PRELIMINARIES

1.1.1 Color Representation

Although visible light consists of a continuum of wavelengths, it has been
known for several centuries that a small set of primary colors, when mixed in
the right proportions, can simulate a wide range of perceived colors.1 Red,
green, and blue (RGB) light sources form one set of primary colors; this is
an additive color system since the presence of all the primary colors at their
maximum intensities results in the perception of the color white. In painting
and printing, cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) pigments or inks form another
set of primary colors; this is a subtractive color system since the absence of
all primary colors yields the color of the canvas, which is usually a shade of
white.
The phenomenon of color perception re ects the way that the human eye
detects and processes light and makes it possible to represent a visual image
as a small set of intensity signals (e.g., red, green, and blue). For example,
color televisions and computer monitors render a color image by exciting red,
green, and blue phosphors with electron beams of varying intensity.
There are numerous color representation systems in use today. Here we
brie y describe several color systems most relevant to digital video.
In the United States, the National Television Systems Committee (NTSC)
has de ned an RGB color system based upon three types of phosphor that
emit light in the red, green, and blue regions of the spectrum. Normalizing
the RGB components to the range [0,1], the color white is represented as
R = G = B = 1.
The NTSC RGB color components, however, are not used for the actual
television signal transmission. Instead, the color system called YIQ is used for
transmission. The YIQ system was engineered to maintain compatibility with
the preexisting black-and-white television system. The Y component captures
the luminance (brightness) information that can be compatibly decoded by a
black-and-white television. Supplementing the Y component are two chromi-
nance (color) components, I and Q. The I component captures esh tones
and near esh tones, and the Q component captures other colors [13]. In
order to t the color YIQ signals into the same channel bandwidth as a black-
and-white signal, the color components I and Q are transmitted at a reduced
bandwidth compared with the luminance component. This approach takes ad-
vantage of the human visual system's reduced sensitivity to color changes. To
simplify the color decoding of YIQ to RGB, the YIQ components are de ned
to be linearly related to the RGB components as described by the following
linear system of equations [37]:
Y = 0:299R + 0:587G + 0:114B ;

1In the 17th century, Isaac Newton discovered that a small number of colors from the
spectrum produced by a prism can be mixed to produce other colors, including those not
in the spectrum.
 DIGITAL VIDEO REPRESENTATION 3

raster temporal digitized

sensor amplifier quantizer
scanner sampler video

red/green/blue
filter

Fig. 1.1 Block Diagram of a Video Digitizer. This gure shows the typical
processing steps involved in the digitization of video. After signal acquisition and
ampli cation, the key processing steps are spatial sampling, temporal sampling, and
quantization.

I = 0:596R , 0:274G , 0:322B ;

Q = 0:211R , 0:523G + 0:896B:
Outside the United States, the PAL and SECAM television systems are
widely used. The PAL system uses the YUV color system, and the SECAM
system uses the YDbDr color system. In both YUV and YDrDb systems, the
Y component is identical to that of YIQ. As with YIQ, the YUV and YDrDb
components are linearly related to the RGB components. The conversion
equations [26] for YUV are
Y = 0:299R + 0:587G + 0:114B ;
U = ,0:147R , 0:289G + 0:436B
= 0:492(B , Y );
V = 0:615R , 0:515G , 0:100B
= 0:877(R , Y ):
The conversion equations [26] for YDrDb are
Y = 0:299R + 0:587G + 0:114B ;
Dr = ,0:450R , 0:883G + 1:333B
= 3:059U ;
Db = ,1:333R + 1:116G , 0:217B
= ,2:169V:
1.1.2 Digitization
In order to be processed by computers, analog video that is captured by a light
sensor must rst be digitized. Digitization of video consists of three steps: 1)
spatial sampling, 2) temporal sampling, and 3) quantization. A block diagram
of the digitization process is depicted in Figure 1.1 for one color component.
The steps need not be performed in the order indicated and some steps may
be combined into one operation.
4 PRELIMINARIES

(a) Progressive Scan (b) Interlaced Scan

Fig. 1.2 Scanning Techniques for Spatial Sampling. In a progressive scan,

consecutive lines in a frame are sampled in order. In an interlaced scan, the lines are
divided into odd and even sets; the even lines are sampled after the odd lines.

1.1.3 Spatial Sampling

Spatial sampling consists of taking measurements of the underlying analog
signal at a nite set of sampling points in a nite viewing area (or frame ).
To simplify the process, the sampling points are restricted to lie on a lat-
tice, usually a rectangular grid. The two-dimensional set of sampling points
are transformed into a one-dimensional set through a process called raster
scanning . The two main ways to perform raster scanning are shown in Fig-
ure 1.2: progressive and interlaced . In a progressive (or non-interlaced) scan,
the sampling points are scanned from left to right and top to bottom. In an
interlaced scan, the points are divided into odd and even scan lines. The odd
lines are scanned rst from left to right and top to bottom. Then the even
lines are scanned. The odd (respectively, even) scan lines make up a eld. In
an interlaced scan, two elds make up a frame. It is important to note that
the odd and even elds are sampled and displayed at di erent time instances.
Therefore the time interval between elds in an interlaced scan is half of that
between frames. Interlaced scanning is commonly used for television signals
and progressive scanning is typically used for lm and computer displays.

1.1.4 Temporal Sampling

The human visual system is relatively slow in responding to temporal changes.
By showing at least 16 frames of video per second, an illusion of motion is
created. This observation is the basis for motion picture technology, which
typically performs temporal sampling at a rate of 24 frames/sec. For tele-
vision, sampling rates of 25 and 30 frames/sec are commonly used. With
 DIGITAL VIDEO REPRESENTATION 5

interlaced scan, the sampling rate is sometimes expressed as the number of

elds per second, which is twice the number of frames per second.

1.1.5 Quantization
After spatial and temporal sampling, the video signal consists of a sequence of
continuous intensity values. The continuous intensity values are incompatible
with digital processing, and one more step is needed before this information
can be processed digitally. The continuous intensity values are converted to
a discrete set of values in a process called quantization .
Quantization can be viewed as a mapping from a continuous domain to
a discrete range.2 A particular quantization mapping is called a quantizer.
An example is shown in Figure 1.3. In the gure, there are eleven discrete
quantization levels, also called bins. Each bin has an associated size, which
is the extent of the continuous values that map to that bin. In the example,
each bin, except for the bins for ,5, 0, and 5, has the same size, which is
sometimes referred to as the quantizer step size . This type of quantizer is
called a uniform quantizer. A binary encoding can be assigned to each of
the bins. Typically the initial quantization of a continuous source is done
using a number of quantization levels that is a power of 2, so that a xed
number of bits can be used to represent the quantized value.3 This process
of representing a continuous value by a nite number of levels using a binary
code is often referred to as pulse code modulation (PCM).
In conclusion, after spatial sampling, temporal sampling, and quantization,
we have N  M picture elements, commonly called pixels or pels , represented
using a xed number of bits.

1.1.6 Standard Video Data Formats

To promote the interchange of digital video data, several formats for repre-
senting video data have been standardized. We now review some of the more
popular standard representations.
CCIR-601 Standard. Because they are designed for analog television, the YIQ,
YUV, and YDrDb color systems are inherently analog. The CCIR-601 digital
video standard4 de nes a standard digital representation of video in terms of
digital YCrCb color components [3]. CCIR-601 de nes both 8-bit and 10-bit

2 This de nition is intended also to encompass mappings from a discrete domain to a discrete
range.
3 Further quantization of digitized data may use a number of quantization levels that is not
a power of 2 and employ variable-length entropy coding.
4 The CCIR has changed its name to the International Telecommunication Union Radio-
communication Assembly (ITU-R), and the latest revision of the CCIR-601 standard is
formally known as Recommendation ITU-R BT.601-5. We use the term CCIR-601 since it
is still in common usage.
6 PRELIMINARIES

2
Quantized value

-2

-4

-6
-8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Continuous value

Fig. 1.3 Example of a Uniform Quantizer. This example shows a quantizer that
has 11 possible discrete output values, or bins.

digital encodings. In the 8-bit encoding, assuming that the RGB components
have been digitized to the range [0; 255], the YCrCb components are de ned
as follows [26]:
Y = 0:257R + 0:504G + 0:098B + 16;
Cr = 0:439R , 0:368G + ,0:071B + 128;
Cb = ,0:148R , 0:291G + 0:439B + 128:
The CCIR-601 standard de nes a family of digital video formats. The
most commonly used member of the family is the 4:2:2, 13.5 MHz format.
In this format, the luminance component is sampled at a rate of 13.5 MHz
with 720 active samples per line. The chrominance components, Cr and Cb ,
each are sampled at 6.75 MHz with 360 active samples per line. For NTSC,
this sampling yields 486 active lines per frame at 60 elds/sec. For PAL, the
sampling yields 576 active lines per frame at 50 elds/sec.
In terms of pixels per frame, the 4:2:2 CCIR-601 format speci es spatial
sampling of 720  486 for NTSC and 720  576 for PAL. Temporal sampling
is interlaced 60 elds/sec for NTSC and interlaced 50 elds/sec for PAL.
The chrominance components are subsampled horizontally with respect to
the luminance component to take advantage of the human visual system's
reduced spatial sensitivity to color. This subsampling process is referred to
as the 4:2:2 format and is depicted in Figure 1.4.
Source Input Format. The Source Input Format (SIF) speci es spatial sam-
pling of 360  240 and progressive temporal sampling at 30 frames/sec for
 DIGITAL VIDEO REPRESENTATION 7

Luminance samples Chrominance samples

Fig. 1.4 4:2:2 Color Subsampling. With 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, the two
chroma components are subsampled by a factor of two horizontally. The positioning
of the chrominance values relative to the luminance values is shown as speci ed by the
CCIR-601 standard.

NTSC-originated video, and 360  288 spatial sampling at a progressive frame

rate of 25 frames/sec for PAL-original video.5 As with CCIR-601, color is
represented using three components: Y , Cb , and Cr . Each component is
quantized linearly using eight bits. The chrominance components, Cb and
Cr , are subsampled by a factor of two both horizontally and vertically, yield-
ing a chrominance sampling of 180  120 at 30 frames/sec and 180  144 at
25 frames/sec.6 This subsampling format is referred to as the 4:2:0 format7
and is illustrated in Figure 1.5.
Common Intermediate Format. One drawback with the CCIR-601 and SIF for-
mats is that they specify di erent spatial and temporal sampling parameters
for NTSC and PAL systems. As its name suggests, the Common Interme-
diate Format (CIF) was proposed as a bridge between NTSC and PAL. As
with CCIR-601, color is represented using YCrCb, quantized linearly using
eight bits. The CIF format uses 4:2:0 color subsampling with an image size of
352  288. Temporal sampling is set at 30 frames/sec. For use with PAL sys-
tems, the CIF format requires conversion of the frame rate to 25 frames/sec.
For NTSC systems, a spatial resampling may be necessary.

5 For some applications, such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, it is convenient for the spatial
dimensions to be a multiple of 16. For this reason, a horizontal dimension of 352 is often
used.
6 When the horizontal image dimension of 352 is used, the horizontal chrominance sampling
would correspondingly be 176.
7 The 4:2:0 format should not be confused with the 4:1:1 format in which the chrominance
components are subsampled by a factor of 4 only in the horizontal direction.
8 PRELIMINARIES

Luminance samples Chrominance samples

Fig. 1.5 4:2:0 Color Subsampling. With 4:2:0 subsampling, the chroma compo-
nents are subsampled by a factor of two both horizontally and vertically. The position-
ing of the chrominance values relative to the luminance values is shown as speci ed
in the MPEG-2 standard. In the MPEG-1 standard, the chrominance samples are
positioned in the center of four adjacent luminance samples.

For video conferencing and other low-bit-rate, low-resolution applications,

a scaled-down version of CIF called Quarter-CIF (QCIF) is commonly used.
QCIF speci es an image with half the resolution of CIF in each spatial dimen-
sion: 176  144. For many low-bit-rate applications, the frame rate is reduced
from 30 frames/sec to as low as 5 frames/sec.

1.2 A CASE FOR VIDEO COMPRESSION

Now that we have described several standard representations for digital video,
we can estimate the compression ratio required for some typical applications.
For a two-hour movie encoded in the NTSC CCIR-601 4:2:2 format, the
uncompressed video representation would require about 151 gigabytes to store:
bytes
30 frames
3600 sec
2 hrs = 1:512
1011 bytes:
(720
486 + 2
360
486) frame sec hr
In order to store the movie on one single-sided digital video disk (DVD), which
has a capacity of 4.7 gigabytes, we need to compress the video by a factor of
about 32:1. To allow room for audio and other auxiliary data (such as text
captioning), an even higher compression ratio is needed.
As another example, consider low-bit-rate video conferencing over a tele-
phone modem. Assuming that the uncompressed video is encoded in QCIF
 SPATIAL REDUNDANCY 9

format at 10 frames/sec, the uncompressed bit rate is computed to be:

bytes
8 bits
10 frames = 3:041
106 bits :

(176
144 + 2
88
72) frame byte sec sec

To transmit video in this format over a 28.8 Kbits/sec modem would require a
compression ratio of about 106:1. At such a high compression ratio, depending
upon the complexity of the video sequence, the quality of the compressed video
may have to be sacri ced. Alternatively, the frame rate could be reduced to
increase the image quality, at the expense of increased jerkiness in the motion.
The above examples show why compression is a must for some important
digital video applications. For example, without compression, a single-sided
DVD can hold less than four minutes of CCIR-601 digital video.

1.3 SPATIAL REDUNDANCY

Redundancy exists in a video sequence in two forms: spatial and temporal.
The former, also called intraframe redundancy, refers to the redundancy that
exists within a single frame of video, while the latter, also called interframe
redundancy, refers to the redundancy that exists between consecutive frames
within a video sequence.
Reducing spatial redundancy has been the focus of many image compres-
sion algorithms. Since video is just a sequence of images, image compression
techniques are directly applicable to video frames. Here, we outline some
popular image coding techniques applicable to lossy video coding.

1.3.1 Vector Quantization

In vector quantization (VQ) [21], an image is segmented into same-sized blocks
of pixel values. The blocks are represented by a xed number of vectors called
codewords . The codewords are chosen from a nite set called a codebook . This
process is analogous to the quantization described in Section 1.1.2, except that
now quantization is performed on vectors instead of scalar values. The size
of the codebook a ects the coding rate (number of bits needed to encode
each vector) as well as the distortion; a bigger codebook increases the coding
rate and decreases the average distortion, whereas a smaller codebook has the
opposite e ects.
With vector quantization, encoding is more computationally intensive than
decoding. Encoding requires searching the codebook for a representative code-
word for each input vector, whereas decoding requires only a table lookup.
Usually, the same codebook is used by the encoder and the decoder. The
codebook generation process is itself computationally demanding. Some ap-
plications of VQ in video compression can be found in [19, 78].
10 PRELIMINARIES

1.3.2 Block Transform

In block transform coding, an image is divided into blocks, as with vector
quantization. Each block is mathematically transformed into a di erent rep-
resentation, which is then quantized and coded. The mathematical transform
is chosen so as to redistribute most of the useful information into a small set
of coecients. The coecients are then selectively quantized so that after
quantization most of the \unimportant" coecients are 0 and can be ignored,
while the \important" coecients are retained. In the decoder, a inverse
quantization process is followed by an inverse transformation.
Block transform coding can be viewed as an instance of vector quantiza-
tion where the codebook is determined by the transform and quantization
performed. Viewed in this way, for any source, a vector quantizer can be de-
signed that will be at least as good (in a rate-distortion sense) as a particular
block transform. A motivation for using block transforms is that for certain
block transforms with fast algorithms, encoding can be done faster than full-
blown vector quantization. However, with block transforms, decoding has
approximately the same complexity as encoding, which is more complex than
decoding with vector quantization.
Mathematical transforms that have been used for block transform coding
include discrete Fourier, discrete cosine, discrete sine, Karhunen-Loeve, slant,
and Hadamard [37].

1.3.3 Discrete Cosine Transform

For images, the two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (2D-DCT) is a
popular block transform that forms the basis of the lossy JPEG standard [62]
developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. Because of its success
within JPEG, the 2D-DCT has been adopted by many video coding standards,
such as H.261, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. We now describe
the mathematical basis of the DCT and show how it is applied to code an
image.
Forward DCT Transform. The JPEG standard speci es a block size of 8  8
for performing the 2D-DCT. This block size is small enough for the transform
to be quickly computed but big enough for signi cant compression. For an
8  8 block of pixel values f (i; j ), the 2D-DCT is de ned as
7 X
7
F (u; v) = 14 C (u)C (v) f (i; j ) cos u(216i + 1) cos v(216
j + 1) ; (1.1)
X

i=0 j =0
where F (u; v) are the transform coecients and
8
< 1
C (x) = : p2 if x = 0;
1 otherwise.
 SPATIAL REDUNDANCY 11

2 3
8 16 19 22 26 27 29 34
6
6 16 16 22 24 27 29 34 37 7
7
6
6 19 22 26 27 29 34 34 38 7
7
6
6 22 22 26 27 29 34 37 40 7
7
6
6 22 26 27 29 32 35 40 48 7
7
6
6 26 27 29 32 35 40 48 58 7
7
4 26 27 29 34 38 46 56 69 5
27 29 35 38 46 56 69 83
Fig. 1.6 Default Intraframe Quantization Matrix. This gure shows the de-
fault MPEG-2 intraframe quantization matrix to be applied to 2D-DCT coecients.
With this quantization matrix, transform coecients are quantized more coarsely with
increasing horizontal and vertical spatial frequencies.

Inverse DCT Transform. To be useful for coding, a block transform needs

an inverse transform for purposes of decoding. The two-dimensional inverse
discrete cosine transform (2D-IDCT) for an 8  8 block is de ned as
7 X
7
f (i; j ) = 14 F (u; v)C (u)C (v) cos u(216i + 1) cos v(216
j + 1) : (1.2)
X

u=0 v=0
Quantization. Since the DCT and IDCT are transform pairs, they do not
result in any compression by themselves. Compression is achieved by subse-
quent quantization of the transform coecients.
Quantization as applied to transform coecients can be viewed as division
followed by integer truncation. Speci cally, the transform coecients are rst
divided by a (prespeci ed) matrix of integers that is weighted by a quantiza-
tion scale Q. After division, the results are truncated to integer values. In
the dequantization, the quantized values are multiplied by the quantization
matrix and adjusted according to the quantization scale. Typically 8 to 12
bits of precision are used.
An example of a quantization matrix is shown in Figure 1.6. The coe-
cients can be speci ed to exploit properties of the human visual system. Since
the human eye is more sensitive to low spatial frequencies and less sensitive
to high spatial frequencies, the transform coecients corresponding to high
spatial frequencies can be quantized more coarsely than those for low spatial
frequencies. This frequency-selective quantization can be seen in Figure 1.6.
Zig-Zag Scan. Because of the coarse quantization of coecients correspond-
ing to high spatial frequencies, those coecients are often quantized to 0.
An e ective way to code the resulting set of quantized coecients is with
a combination of a zig-zag scan of the coecients as shown in Figure 1.7
and run-length encoding of consecutive zeros. Typically, the DC coecient,
F (0; 0), is coded separately from the other coecients and is not included in
the zig-zag scan.
12 PRELIMINARIES

Horizontal
Frequency
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
DC
0

Frequency
Vertical
3

Fig. 1.7 Zig-Zag Scan. This gure shows a zig-zag scanning pattern for coding
quantized transform coecients as a one-dimensional sequence. A run-length encoding
of the zero values of the one-dimensional sequence is then performed.

1.4 TEMPORAL REDUNDANCY

Successive frames in a video sequence are typically highly correlated, espe-
cially for scenes where there is little or no motion. The spatial decorrelation
techniques described in the previous section only operate within a single frame
and do not exploit the redundancy that exists between frames. We now review
some basic techniques for reducing temporal redundancy.

1.4.1 Frame Di erencing

A very simple technique for exploiting temporal redundancy in a video se-
quence is to code the di erence between one frame and the next. This tech-
nique is called frame di erencing and is an extension of the basic di erential
pulse code modulation (DPCM) coding techniques (see, e.g. [57]). A block
diagram of an encoder that uses frame di erencing is shown in Figure 1.8.
At some initial point, a frame must be coded without frame di erencing and
using only spatial coding techniques. Such a frame is commonly referred to as
an intracoded frame, or I frame for short. Because they do not take advantage
of interframe redundancy, I frames consume more bits than predictive frames
of comparable quality. To prevent degradation in image quality from the
accumulation of prediction error and to allow for easy random access to frames
in a video, frames are periodically coded as I frames.
If there is little motion between successive frames, frame di erencing yields
a di erence image that is mostly uniform and can be coded eciently. How-
ever, frame di erencing fails when there is appreciable motion between frames
or when a scene change occurs. An e ective strategy when frame di erenc-
 TEMPORAL REDUNDANCY 13

Input Frame Output

Encoder

Frame
Frame Buffer
Decoder

Fig. 1.8 A Simple Frame-Di erencing Coder. This block diagram shows a
simple frame-di erencing coder. The frame bu er stores the previously decoded frame
which is used to compute a di erence frame.

ing fails is to switch to intracoding mode. However, this technique does not
improve the compression eciency of frame di erencing.

1.4.2 Motion Compensation

Frame di erencing can be viewed as a predictive coding technique where the
prediction is simply the previous decoded frame. By improving the prediction,
we can potentially obtain better compression. Motion compensation is one
such technique that uses a model of the motion of objects between frames to
form a prediction. Using the model, the encoder performs motion estimation
to determine the motion that exists between a reference frame and the current
frame. The reference frame can occur temporally before the current frame
(forward prediction) or after the current frame (backward prediction). An
advanced technique, called bidirectional prediction, uses two reference frames,
one each for forward and backward prediction, and interpolates the results.
This usually gives better prediction and handles the case where an object is
temporarily occluded.
The encoding process is illustrated in Figure 1.9. After motion estimation
and compensation, the motion information and prediction error are transmit-
ted to the decoder, which reconstructs the predicted frame from the motion
information and the decoded reference frame. Note that the reference frame
must have already been decoded for the decoder to be able to reconstruct the
current frame. As with frame di erencing, an I frame is needed to seed the
motion compensation process.
Frames that are coded using forward prediction are called P frames, short
for predicted frames. A P frame uses as a reference a past I frame or P frame.
Backward prediction is typically not used exclusively, but as an option
for B frames, short for bidirectionally predicted frames. A B frame is coded
from a past reference frame and a future reference frame, as shown in Fig-
ure 1.10. At rst, this might seem to present a causality problem since there
is a dependence upon a future frame. To avert any such problem, the frames
14 PRELIMINARIES

Input Frame Output

Encoder

Motion Frame Frame

Estimation Buffer Decoder

Motion information
Motion Compensation

Fig. 1.9 A Generic Motion-Compensated Video Encoder. This gure shows

a block diagram of a generic motion-compensated video encoder. The dashed box
encloses the motion compensation unit, which consists of a motion estimator and a
frame di erencer.

are reordered so that all reference frames that are required by a B frame or P
frame come before that frame in the reordered sequence. An example is shown
in Figure 1.13. In practice, this reordering introduces some encoding and de-
coding delays and requires two frame bu ers to hold the reference frames.
For non-real-time applications, such as stored video, the additional delay is
not a serious issue. For real-time applications, such as video conferencing,
the distance between successive reference frames are kept small to reduce the
delay. B frames may be omitted altogether to further reduce the delay.
For interframe coding, perceptual weighting as per Figure 1.6 is not usually
applied since the block to be coded is the block of prediction errors, which
does not share the perceptual properties of the original spatial block of pixel
values. The MPEG standards specify a default interframe quantization ma-
trix with uniform values, as shown in Figure 1.11. In practice, the modi ed
interframe quantization matrix shown in Figure 1.12 is often used. In this
matrix, the quantization step size increases gradually as the frequency index
increases. This modi ed interframe quantization matrix works well in prac-
tice and has been adopted as the default matrix in the MPEG-4 visual coding
standard [36].
In the nal step, indicated in Figure 1.9, the prediction error that results
from motion compensation is coded with an intraframe coder, for instance,
one of the techniques mentioned in Section 1.3.

1.4.3 Block Matching

A motion model that is commonly used is the block translation model de-
veloped by Jain and Jain [38]. In this model, an image is divided into non-
 TEMPORAL REDUNDANCY 15

I B B P B B P

Fig. 1.10 Frame Types for Motion Compensation. This gure illustrates three
types of frames use in motion compensation. An I frame is coded using intraframe
techniques and has no temporal dependencies. A P frame is predicted from a previous
reference frame, which may be either an I frame or a P frame. B frames are predicted
from a past and a future reference frame.

2 3
16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16
6
6 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 7
7
6
6 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 7
7
6
6 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 7
7
6
6 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 7
7
6
6 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 7
7
4 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 5
16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16
Fig. 1.11 Default Interframe Quantization Matrix. This gure shows the de-
fault MPEG-2 interframe quantization matrix to be applied to 2D-DCT coecients.
With this quantization matrix, transform coecients are quantized the same indepen-
dent of frequency.
16 PRELIMINARIES

2 3
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
6
6 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 7
7
6
6 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7
7
6
6 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 7
7
6
6 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 7
7
6
6 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 30 7
7
4 22 23 24 26 27 28 30 31 5
23 24 25 27 28 30 31 33
Fig. 1.12 Modi ed Interframe Quantization Matrix. This gure shows a mod-
i ed MPEG-2 interframe quantization matrix that is often used in practice and has
been incorporated into the MPEG-4 standard as the default interframe matrix [36].
With this quantization matrix, transform coecients are quantized gradually coarser
as the frequency increases.

Frame Type: I B B P B B P B I
Temporal Index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
(a) Original Sequence (Temporal Order)

Frame Type: I P B B P B B I B
Temporal Index: 1 4 2 3 7 5 6 9 8
(b) Reordered Sequence (Encoding Order)

Fig. 1.13 Reordering with B Frames. This gure shows the reordering of I and
P frames to allow for causal decoding of B frames. A reference frame (I or P frame)
is moved immediately before the rst B frame that uses it for backward prediction.
 H.261 STANDARD 17

Reference Frame Current Frame

Fig. 1.14 Illustration of the Block Translation Model. In this gure, two
blocks in the Current Frame are shown to be copied from a similarly sized region in
the Reference Frame. This action forms the basis of the block translation motion
model.

overlapping rectangular blocks. Each block in the predicted image is formed

by a translation of a similarly shaped source region from the reference frame.
The source region needs not coincide with the block boundaries. This model
does not consider any rotation or scaling of the blocks, simplifying the motion
estimation procedure at the expense of decreased accuracy. A motion vector
may be speci ed in integer or fractional pixel (pel) increments. Fractional-pel
motion compensation involves interpolation of the pixel values in the source
block. The block translation model is illustrated in Figure 1.14. For each
block, the encoder transmits a motion vector that speci es the displacement
in the translation model.
Motion estimation algorithms using the block translation model are com-
monly called block matching algorithms since the procedure involves matching
(regularly-positioned) blocks in the current frame with (arbitrarily-positioned)
blocks in the reference frame. Because of its simplicity, block matching is com-
monly used in current video coding standards.

1.5 H.261 STANDARD

In 1990, the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee
(CCITT)8 approved an international standard for video coding at bit rates of
p  64 Kbits/sec, where p is an integer between 1 and 30, inclusive [23, 49].

8The CCITT has since changed its name to the International Telecommunication Union
Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T).
18 PRELIMINARIES

Y Y
16 8 CR 8 CB
Y Y
8 8

16

Fig. 1.15 Structure of a Macroblock. This gure shows the structure of a mac-
roblock when the 4:2:0 chroma format is used. The macroblock consists of four adjacent
8  8 blocks of Y samples, a co-sited 8  8 block of Cr samples, and a co-sited 8  8
block of Cb samples. This macroblock structure is used by H.261, H.263, MPEG-1,
MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 for 4:2:0 sources.

Ocially known as CCITT Recommendation H.261, the standard is intended

for low-bit-rate applications such as videophone and video conferencing. We
now provide a summary of some key aspects of the standard.

1.5.1 Features
The H.261 standard uses a combination of block matching motion compensa-
tion (BMMC) and 2D-DCT coding, as described in Sections 1.3.2 and 1.4.3.
Since H.261 is intended for real-time video conferencing applications, there is
a requirement for low encoding delay, which precludes the use of bidirectional
predictive motion compensation. Therefore only intraframe coding and for-
ward predictive coding are used, with a predicted block depending only upon
the previous frame. The real-time requirement also restricts the complexity
of higher-level algorithms, such as motion estimation and rate control.
The Common Intermediate Format (CIF) and Quarter-CIF (QCIF), de-
scribed in Section 1.1.6, are speci ed for video frames. A video frame is
divided into Groups of Blocks (GOBs) made up of a number of macroblocks
(MBs). As depicted in Figure 1.15, each macroblock is composed of four 8  8
luminance blocks and two 8  8 chrominance blocks, one each for the Cb and
Cr color components. Integer-pel motion compensation is performed at the
macroblock level; that is, there is one motion vector per macroblock.

1.5.2 Encoder Block Diagram

A block diagram of a basic H.261 coder is shown in Figure 1.16. At a high
level, the basic encoding process works as follows: The encoder rst decides
whether to code a macroblock M using intraframe or interframe coding. For
intraframe coding, the techniques outlined in Section 1.3.3 are used. If inter-
frame coding is selected, the encoder performs motion estimation to choose a
motion vector ~v (how this is done is left unspeci ed in the standard). If the
 H.261 STANDARD 19

-p 
CC -t
-a
q? - qz
Video In q - m -q q - T - Q q
?
-q
6 Q,1
?  To Video
Multiplex
T,1 Coder
a q - ?m
q -q ?
F  P  -v
6 -f 
T: Transform p: Flag for INTRA/INTER
Q: Quantizer t: Flag for transmitted or not
P: Picture Memory with motion- qz: Quantizer indication
compensated variable delay q: Quantizing index for transform
F: Loop Filter coecients
CC: Coding Control v: Motion vector
f: Switching on/o of the loop lter
Fig. 1.16 Block Diagram of an H.261 Video Coder. This gures shows a block
diagram of a typical H.261 video coder [23].

previous macroblock is intracoded, ~v is transmitted using a static Hu man

code, otherwise the di erence between ~v and the motion vector for the previ-
ous macroblock is sent using a static Hu man code. For each 8  8 block B
contained in M , a lossy version of the block of prediction errors obtained by
using ~v to predict B is then transmitted. This is done by applying the 2D-
DCT to the block of prediction errors, quantizing and scanning the transform
coecients, and encoding the results using a run-length/Hu man coder, as
prescribed in Section 1.3.3.
The encoder has the option of changing certain aspects of the above pro-
cess. First, the encoder may simply not transmit the current macroblock; the
decoder is then assumed to use the corresponding macroblock in the previous
frame in its place. If motion compensation is used, there is an option to ap-
ply a linear low-pass lter to the previous decoded frame before using it for
prediction.
20 PRELIMINARIES

1.5.3 Hypothetical Reference Decoder

In order to place a practical limit on the size of decoder bu ers, the H.261 stan-
dard de nes a Hypothetical Reference Decoder (HRD). Compliant encoders
must generate bitstreams that meet the requirements of the HRD.
One requirement of the HRD is that the number of bits used to code any
single picture shall not exceed a maximum that depends upon the picture
format. The limit is 64
K bits for QCIF and 256
K bits for CIF, where
K = 1024.
Another requirement is that the HRD bu er shall not over ow. The HRD
bu er size is B + 256
K bits, where B = 4Rmax=29:97 and Rmax is the
maximum video bit rate. The HRD bu er is initially empty. The HRD bu er
is examined at display intervals that occur every 1=29:97 sec. If there is at
least one complete coded picture in the bu er, the decoder instantaneously
removes the bits for the earliest coded picture in the bu er. Otherwise, the
decoder waits until the next display interval to examine the bu er. After
removal of the coded picture bits, the bu er fullness must be less than B .
This requirement prevents the encoder from over owing the decoder bu er.

1.5.4 Heuristics for Coding Control

The H.261 standard does not specify how to make coding decisions. However,
to aid in the evaluation of di erent coding techniques, the CCITT provides an
encoder simulation model called Reference Model 8 (RM8) [4]. In RM8, mo-
tion estimation is performed to minimize the mean absolute di erence (MAD)
of the prediction errors. A fast three-step search, instead of an exhaustive full-
search, is used for motion estimation. RM8 speci es several heuristics used
to make the coding decisions. We describe three such heuristics.
The variance VP of the prediction errors for the luminance blocks in M
after motion compensation using ~v is compared against the variance VY of the
original luminance blocks in M to determine whether to perform intraframe or
interframe coding. The intraframe/interframe decision diagram, as speci ed
in RM8, is plotted in Figure 1.17.
If interframe motion compensation mode is selected, the decision of whether
to use motion compensation with a zero motion vector or with the estimated
motion vector is made by comparing the MAD with zero motion against that
with the estimated motion vector. If the zero motion vector is chosen, this is
indicated by a special coding mode and no motion vector is coded. The motion
vector decision diagram, as recommended in [4], is shown in Figure 1.18.
The loop lter is enabled if a nonzero motion vector is used. The decision
of whether to transmit the block transform coecients is made individually
for each block in a macroblock by considering the values of the quantized
transform coecients. If all the coecients are zero for a block, they are not
transmitted for that block.
 H.261 STANDARD 21

160

128
Variance of original block

Interframe
motion compensation
96 y=x

64

Intraframe
32 motion compensation

0
0 32 64 96 128 160
Variance of motion compensated prediction error

Fig. 1.17 Intraframe/Interframe Coding Decision Diagram. This is the

intraframe/interframe coding decision diagram of Reference Model 8 [4]. The variance
of the original source block is compared with the variance of the motion-compensated
prediction error to determine whether to use intraframe or interframe coding for the
source block.

5.5
5
MAD with estimated motion vector

4.5
4 Zero displacement
3.5 motion compensation y=x/1.1
3 2.7
2.5
2 Motion vector
1.5 compensation
1.5
1
0.5
0.5
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
MAD with zero motion vector

Fig. 1.18 Motion Vector Decision Diagram. This gure shows the motion vector
decision diagram of Reference Model 8 [4]. The mean absolute di erence (MAD) is
used as the measure of motion compensated prediction error. A motion-estimation
search is performed to determine a candidate motion vector with the least MAD. The
MAD with the candidate motion vector is compared with the MAD with the zero
motion vector to determine whether the candidate motion vector or the zero motion
vector is used for motion compensation.
Other documents randomly have
different content
He laughed a little. “Life has been too easy for me, Jim: I’m not used
to big decisions.”
“Well, I am a beast,” said Jim, frankly. “I’ve been chewing over
my own disappointment; and about the worst part of it was that I
got hold of the idea that you had put it right out of your mind, and
that you didn’t care. I wish I had known you were up to your eyes in
worry. But you never let us suspect a thing.”
“Well, I kept hoping against hope that each mail would straighten
things out,” his father answered. “Until I was certain I did not want
to cast any shadows on Norah’s holidays. Poor little lass; she’ll have
trouble in earnest now.”
“Well, Nor will face it,” Jim said, confidently. “She isn’t made of
the stuff that caves in—and as far as I’m concerned, Dad, she wants
me to go. She knew I’d only eat my heart out if I didn’t. But to have
you go away is another matter. Don’t you think you can take her?”
“If I were sure England would be safe . . .” mused Mr. Linton.
“You can be very certain I don’t want to leave her.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s much risk for England,” said Jim, with
the cheerful optimism of youth. “And anyhow, there’s always
America—you and she could slip across there if there were any real
fear of invasion. My word, Dad, it would be grand to think you and
Nor were so near. Just think if I got wounded, how jolly it would be
to come over to you!”
“I’ve thought,” said his father, drily. The jollity of the idea seemed
to him slightly exaggerated.
“Well, it would be heaps better than hospital. And then we’d all
be together after the finish, and do London. It would be such a lark.
Fancy old Norah in Piccadilly!”
“Me?” asked a startled voice.
Norah stood in the doorway, with Wally behind her. She had
exchanged her riding-habit for a soft white frock, and her brown
curls, released from their tight plait, fell softly round her face. No
one would have dreamed of calling her pretty; but there was an
indefinable charm in the merry face, lit by straight grey eyes. She
was tall for her age; people found it difficult to believe that she was
not yet sixteen, for she had left the awkward age behind her, and
there was unstudied grace in the slender, alert form, with its well-
shaped hands and feet. Occasionally—when she was not too busy—
Norah had fleeting moments of regret, mainly on account of her
men-folk, that she was not pretty. But it is doubtful if her father and
brother would have cared to change a feature of the vivid face.
“Did you say Piccadilly? And me?” she asked, advancing into a
startled silence. “I’ve always imagined Piccadilly must be rather
worse than Collins Street, and I don’t fit in there a bit. Stella
Harrison says there are rather jolly motor-busses there, and you can
get on top. That wouldn’t be so bad.” She perched on the arm of her
father’s chair. “Why are you talking about streets, Daddy? You know
you don’t like them any more than I do.”
“No,” said David Linton, finding that some answer was expected
of him. Something in his tone brought Norah’s eyes upon him
quickly.
“There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” she asked.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Wally got up quietly and
moved towards the door.
“Don’t go, Wally, my boy,” Mr. Linton said. “You’re so much one of
the family that you may as well join the family councils. No, there’s
nothing exactly wrong, Norah. But there are happenings.”
“Jim’s going?” said Norah, quickly. Her keen eyes saw that the
new and unfamiliar shadow had lifted from her brother’s face. Jim
nodded, smiling at her.
“Yes, I’m going. Dad says it’s all right.”
Norah drew a long breath, and Wally gave an irrepressible
whistle of delight.
“Lucky dog—I’m so glad!” he cried. “Oh, why can’t I be
eighteen!”
“There will be plenty of fighting after you are eighteen,” Mr.
Linton said. “This isn’t going to be any lightning business. But that’s
not all, Norah. Your old father has to pack up, too. I must go to
England.”
“Daddy! You!”
The voice was a cry. Then Norah shut her lips tightly, and said
nothing more, looking at her father.
 “It’s business,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t want to go, my girl. It
may not take me long.”
There was a long pause.
“I can’t ask to go,” said Norah at last, rather breathlessly. “It’s too
big a thing—not like a trip to Melbourne or Sydney. I know it would
cost a fearful lot of money—and there are other things. It’s—it’s all
right, Daddy, if you say so—only I want to know. Have I got to stay
behind?”
There was no answer. Jim was watching the set, childish face
pitifully, longing to help, and powerless. Norah got up from the arm
of her father’s chair at length, and turned her face away.
“It’s—it’s quite all right, Daddy,” she said, unsteadily. “I
understand. Don’t go worrying.”
“Worrying!” said David Linton, explosively. “No, I’m not going to
worry—if I can help it: and I’m not going to leave you, either. We’ll
stick together, little mate.”
“Daddy!” said Norah, very low. She went to him like a little child,
and he put her on his knee, one arm round her, while Jim beamed
on them both.
“I knew you couldn’t do it,” he said laughing. “It was so
altogether ridiculous to think of old Nor here alone, and you and me
at the other side of the world. Things like that simply can’t occur!”
“Well—there may be danger” began his father.
“There would be strong danger of my losing my few wits if you
did it,” Norah said. “I thought I was going to lose them a minute
ago, as it was. Oh, Daddy won’t it be lovely! Think of the ship—and
the queer ports—and England! It’s the most wonderful thing that
ever happened. And we’ll be near Jim, and he’ll get leave and come
over to see us!”
“That’s another thing,” Mr. Linton said. “It’s settled that you’re to
enlist, Jim; that matter is decided. But is there any particular reason
why you should enlist in Australia?”
“In Australia?” repeated Jim, blankly. “Why—where else?”
“Well, if Norah and I are going home, why should we not all go
together? You would have no difficulty in joining the Army in
England, if boys of sixteen are getting commissions there.”
 “What?” burst from Wally.
“Oh, yes—you’d be quite a veteran, judging by to-day’s news,
Wally,” said Mr. Linton, laughing. “There would be no difficulty at all,
I should think, Jim; I know enough people in London to pull a few
strings, though even that would hardly be necessary. But if you
wanted a commission I should think it could be managed. It would
leave us all together a bit longer.”
“That would be ripping,” Jim said, doubtfully. “I don’t know,
though; I’m an Australian, and I rather think Australians ought to
stick together. And I would know such a lot of the fellows in our own
contingent.”
“That counts, of course,” said his father. “But there’s another
point; there are rumours that our men may not be sent direct to the
Front. You might get hung up in Egypt, or the Persian Gulf, or Malta;
I’ve heard suggestions that the Australians should even be used for
garrison duty in India.”
“By Jove!” said Jim. “I wouldn’t like that.”
“No; and it would mean that you might never get to England at
all, to join Norah and me after the show. If you’re going, I don’t
want you to be shelved in some out-of-the-way corner of the earth;
I’d like you to have your chance.”
“Oh, Jimmy, come with us!” said Norah. “Just think how jolly it
would be—not like the voyage in a horrid old troopship, where you
mightn’t be allowed to see a single port. And perhaps we’d be
together quite a lot in England, before you were sent to the Front.”
Wally jumped up with such emphasis that his chair fell over
backwards. He did not notice it.
“Let’s all go!” he cried.
Three pairs of eyes turned upon him for information.
“If it’s really true that boys younger than I am are being taken in
England, I’d have a chance, wouldn’t I, Mr. Linton?”
“I suppose you would—yes, of course, my boy. You’re only a year
younger than Jim, aren’t you?”
“Yes—and he knows as much drill as I do, to say nothing of
shooting and riding,” Jim exclaimed. “Would you come, Wal?”
 “I should just think I would!” Wally uttered. “But you’d have to
join in England, Jim—not here.”
“But your guardian—and your brothers, Wally. Would they be
willing?” Mr. Linton asked. “It’s rather an undertaking to arrange off-
hand. And it would mean your leaving school.”
“I know it would be all right, sir,” Wally answered. “My brothers
were only sorry I couldn’t get into the first contingent; and old Mr.
Dimsdale never worries his head about me, except to look after the
property and send me my allowance. He knows I’m to join as soon
as I can. The money part of it would be all right; I don’t know much
about it, but the money that’s to come to me has been accumulating
since I was a kid, and there must be plenty. If you’d let me go under
your wing, nobody would think of objecting.” He stopped, his brown,
eager face flushing. “By Jove, you must think me awfully cool, sir. I
sort of took it for granted I could go with you!”
“Well, you old goat!” said Jim, disgustedly. David Linton laughed.
“My dear boy, I think you’re pretty well established as one of the
family,” he said. “You have been Jim’s chum for five years, and
somehow we’ve come to regard Billabong as your home. I have liked
to think you felt that way about it, yourself.”
“It’s the only real home I ever remember,” said Wally, still greatly
confused. “And you’ve all been such bricks to me. I’ve quite
forgotten I’m really a sort of lost dog.”
“It’s rude to say you’re a lost dog, when you belong to Billabong,”
said Norah solemnly, though her eyes were dancing. “Isn’t he talking
a lot of nonsense, Dad?—and this is much too exciting an evening to
waste any time. I wish someone would sort me out, for I’m all
mixed-up in my mind. We’re going to England, you and I, Dad.”
“And me,” said Wally, cheerfully disregarding grammar.
“And me, I suppose,” Jim followed. “If you think I’ve as good a
chance there, Dad?”
“Better, I should think—judging from the rush of men here,” said
his father.
“Then we’re all going,” finished Norah blissfully. “In a ’normously
large ship, Dad?”
 “Most certainly,” said David Linton, hastily. “I came out forty
years ago in a five-hundred tonner, and I’ve no desire to repeat the
experience. We’re built on lines that demand space, we Lintons.”
“And when we get to London?”
“We’ll settle down somewhere—where we can be near the boys
until they are sent out to the Front, and I can attend to business.”
“And then——?”
“We’ll wander about a bit until they come back to us. If it’s likely
to be long, you’ll have to resume your neglected education, young
woman,” said her father severely.
“M’f!” said Norah, wrinkling her nose. “How unpleasant!—that’s
the first dismal thing you’ve said, Daddy. But I suppose one has to
take the powder with the jam. And after the war——?”
“Oh, after the war——” said David Linton; and fell silent, looking
at his son.
“After the war,” said Wally, happily, “we’ll all meet in London, and
see the Kaiser led in triumph down Piccadilly. My own preference
leads me to hope that it will be on a donkey with his face towards
the tail of the ass, but I’m sadly afraid the world has grown too
civilised.”
“Well, you can’t call him and his crowd civilised, anyhow,” Jim
said.
“No. But we’ll have to be, I suppose, to show how nicely we were
brought up. Anyhow, after that we’ll explore all the things we’ve
always wanted to see—London, and Stonehenge, and the Dublin
Horse Show, and Killarney, and David Balfour’s country, and
heathery moors, and the Derby, and punts on the Thames, and the
Dartmoor ponies, and——” Wally’s extraordinary mixture left him
breathless, but the others took up the tale.
“And English lanes——”
“And ruins—truly ruins——!”
“And old castles——”
“And woods and hedges——”
“And real hunting country——”
“And real hunts——!”
“And trout-streams——”
 “And Irish loughs——”
“And then,” said Norah, as the dinner-gong clashed out its
summons,—“then——”
“If we’ve any money left!” put in her father.
“Or even if we haven’t,” said Norah, and smiled at him—“we’ll go
back to Billabong!”
 CHAPTER III.
OF A CHESTNUT BABY.

“DO you know where Mr. Jim is, Murty?”

David Linton had just ridden into the stable-yard. It was midday,
and though the night had been frosty, the sun was so warm that the
master of Billabong was in his shirt-sleeves, his coat laid across the
saddle before him. He swung himself to the ground as the head
stockman came across to take his horse.
“At the stockyard, he is,” said Murty O’Toole. “Miss Norah and Mr.
Wally too, sir; they’re handling the new chestnut colt, and it’s the
fun of the world he’s been giving them. Mr. Jim had to lasso him
before he could so much as lay a hand on him, but he’s goin’ nice
and aisy now. Still in all, Mr. Jim’ll have his own troubles when he
comes to ride that one; sure, he’d kick the eye out of a mosquito.”
“Has he saddled him yet?”
“Oh, yes; he’s been under the saddle these three hours,” Murty
answered. “Mr. Jim hasn’t been on him, of course; he believes in
walkin’ a young one round quiet and pleasant, to let him get used to
the feel of the leather. ’Twas as good as a circus to see him when
they girthed him up; he went to market good and plenty, and did his
level best to buck himself clean out of the saddle. He’s the
cheerfullest colt ever I seen.” Mr. O’Toole grinned at the recollection.
“But he’s got his aiqual in Mr. Jim.”
“I’ll go down and have a look at them,” the squatter said. “Put
Monarch in a loose-box and give him a feed, Murty; I may want him
again.” He slipped on his coat and strode out of the yard as the
stockman led the great black horse into the cool dimness of the
stables.
The stockyards of an Australian station form a very important
part of its working establishment. A big “run” may have several sets
of yards to save the trouble of driving stock far on any direction; but
the main yards are always near the homestead—sometimes, indeed,
a great deal too near. The yards at Billabong, however, did not err in
this respect, being planned in a secluded corner whence they
opened upon two paddocks. A belt of dwarfed gum-trees surrounded
and shaded them; and beyond this shelter a little lucerne-field led to
the kitchen-garden and orchard, so that the house itself was
screened completely, and no dust could drift to it, even when, on a
big mustering day, the bullocks had trodden every inch of the earth
of the yards into fine powder.
To an unaccustomed eye they presented a somewhat bewildering
array of fencing. They were completely surrounded by a very high
fence of red-gum slabs, laid horizontally and very close together, and
finished at the top by a heavy, rounded cap of wood, bolted to the
top of the massive posts, and forming an unbroken ring. This fence
was calculated to withstand the rush of the maddest bullock,
infuriated by the indignities of mustering; and at the same time,
being easily climbed, formed a refuge in case of an animal charging
a man on foot. The cap, broad and smooth, formed a pleasant place
from which to watch the exciting manœuvres below; Norah had
spent many a cheerful hour perched upon it.
Within the great ring-fence the space was divided into many
enclosures, large and small; from the big general yard, capable of
holding a mob of bullocks, to small calf-yards, where newly-branded
babies were wont to bleat distressfully for their anxious mothers—
little dreaming that within a very few days they would have forgotten
all about them, in the joy of a wide run, new grass and youthful
light-heartedness. A long race, just wide enough for a single bullock,
led from the main enclosure to the drafting-yards. A gate at its
further end worked on a pivot; Norah loved to watch her father
stand at it as the big-horned cattle came down the narrow lane in
single file, turning the gate with a movement of his supple wrist so
that some bullocks were ushered into one yard and some into
another, according to their class. A man needed a quick eye and
hand, and keen judgment, to be able to work the drafting-gate when
the bullocks were stringing quickly down the race, the nose of one
beast almost touching the tail of the one in front of him. Sometimes
two or three of a kind came down in succession, all bound for the
same yard, and then the task seemed easy; but often they
alternated, and the gate had to go backwards and forwards so
quickly that either the tail of the yarded bullock or the nose of his
successor was apt to suffer. Branding was done through the rails
fencing the race; a brick oven was built beside it, for heating the
irons. But this was one of the details at which Norah did not preside.
On branding days she preferred to mount her special pony, Bosun,
and go for long solitary rides along the bends of the river, or across
plains where an occasional hare gave excuse for a gallop.
Altogether, the Billabong yards were the pride of its stockmen,
and the cause of deep envy in men from neighbouring stations. Too
often, yards are make-shift erections, hastily run up out of any
timber that may be handiest, and generally awaiting a day of re-
planning and re-building that never comes. But David Linton
believed in perfecting the working details of his run; and his yards
were well and solidly built, planned on a generous scale that gave
accommodation for every class of cattle, and equipped with gates
which, despite their massive strength, were so excellently hung that
a touch closed them, and only another touch was needed to send
home a solid catch. Once the owner of Billabong had seen a man
killed, through a gate too stiff to shut quickly before a maddened
bullock’s charge; and as he helped to rescue the poor, broken body
he had vowed that no man of his own should ever run a needless
risk through neglect on his part.
Black Billy was cutting lucerne for fodder as the squatter passed
through the little paddock. He turned on him a dusky face full of
ludicrous unhappiness. The black fellow of Australia takes kindly to
no work that does not include horses; it was gall and wormwood to
Billy to be chained to an uncongenial task almost within a stone’s
throw of the breaking-yard, through the high fence of which he
could catch glimpses of a chestnut coat and hear voices raised in
quick interest. He hewed viciously at the tough lucerne stems.
“That pfeller him buck plenty, mine thinkit,” he vouchsafed to his
employer.
“Master Jim bin ride him, Billy?”
“Baal—not yet. Lucerne plenty enough cut, eh, boss?”
 David Linton laughed outright at the wistful face.
“If I say it’s enough, what’s the next job, Billy.”
“Mine thinkit Master Jim him pretty likely want a hand with that
pfeller chestnut,” said Billy eagerly.
“Oh, do you?—I thought so,” said his master. “All right, Billy—cut
along; but don’t get in Master Jim’s way. He’ll call you if he wants
you.”
“Plenty!” said Billy, thankfully, and fled towards the yards like a
black comet. He was already perched on the cap, a grinning vision of
joy, when Mr. Linton arrived on the scene, and swung himself up
beside Norah.
The big mustering yard was empty save for Jim and his pupil—a
beautiful chestnut colt, rather dark in colour, and with no mark save
a white star. He was fully saddled and bridled, with the stirrups
removed from the saddle and the reins tied loosely back, while in
addition to the bit, bore a pair of long driving reins by which Jim was
guiding him round and round the yard. It was evident that the colt
was not happy. His rough coat was streaked with dark sweat and
flecked with foam, and, though he went quietly enough his eye was
wild, and showed more than a glimpse of white.
“Hallo, Dad!” sang out Jim cheerfully. The colt executed a
nervous bound and broke jerkily into a canter.
“Steady there, you old stupid,” said Jim, affectionately, bringing
his pupil back to a walk with a gentle strain on the bit. “He has a
curious dislike to the human voice if it’s raised, Dad; and as we can’t
expect everyone to whisper for his benefit, the sooner he gets over
it, the better. What do you think of him?”
“He’ll make a good horse,” said his father, surveying the colt
critically. “A bit leggy now, but he’ll mend of that. How is he going,
Jim?”
“Oh, he’s quiet enough; a bit nervous, but I don’t think there’s
any vice in him,” Jim answered. “At present he is exactly like a
frightened kid, but he’s calming down. I drove him, without a saddle
on, most of yesterday, and he graduated to the saddle this morning
—and at first I think he thought it was the end of the world. He’ll
make a topping good hack, Dad.”
 “Better than Garryowen?” came from Norah.
“Better than your grandmother!” retorted Jim, to whom his own
steed represented all that was perfection in horseflesh. “Better than
your old crock, Bosun, if you like!” Which insult, Norah, who knew
his private opinion of her pony, received with a tilted nose and
otherwise unruffled calm.
“When do you think of riding him?” asked Mr. Linton.
“Oh, I’ll get on him this afternoon,” Jim answered. “It’s getting
near lunch-time; and it won’t do him any harm to have another hour
or so getting used to the feel of the leather, and the creak thereof—
which is the part he dislikes. I’m not anxious to scare him by
mounting him too soon. At present he is gradually realising that I’m
a friendly beast; for a good while he was certain I meant to kill him.”
Mr. Linton nodded.
“Quite right—I don’t believe in hurrying a nervous young horse,”
he said. “Scare him at first and he is apt to remain scared. I’m glad
you’re taking him quietly. He will be up to my weight when he fills
out, Jim, don’t you think?”
“Oh, easily,” Jim answered. “When we get back from England
you’ll find him just about right; we’ll get Murty to keep him for his
own use while we’re away. I don’t want him hacked about by any
man who chooses; he is quite the best of this year’s lot.” He shook
the reins very gently, and addressed the colt in friendly fashion. “Get
on, old man.”
The chestnut broke into an uneasy jog, which his driver had
some little difficulty in reducing to a sober walk. He went with sidling
steps, hugging the fence as much as possible, as if longing for the
space and freedom of the paddocks outside. The corners of the yard
had been rounded off, so that he could not indulge his evident
inclination to put himself as far as possible into one and dream of his
lost youth. It was just a little hard on him—last week all he had
known of life was the wild bush paddocks on the outer fringe of
Billabong run, where there was good galloping ground for him and
his mates on the rough plains, and deep belts of timber to shelter
them from the hot noonday sun or the frosty nights of winter. Then
had come a time of mad excitement. Men and dogs had invaded
their peaceful solitudes, and the hills had echoed all day to shouts
and barking and the clear cracks of stockwhips, that ran round the
hills like a fusillade of rifle shots. It was all very alarming and
disturbing. At first the young horses had been inclined to treat it as a
joke, but they soon found that for them it had a more serious
meaning, that gradually they were being surrounded and edged out
of the timber to the open plain, that they had not even time to eat,
and that the deepest recesses of the hills and creeks formed no
secure hiding-place from their pursuers.
Then they grew afraid for the first time. They galloped hither and
thither wildly, to the great annoyance of the men, who had no wish
to see valuable young horses hurt or blemished by running into a
tree or under a low-growing limb, in these wild rushes through the
scrub. They tried to drive them as quietly as possible; but the horses
thought they knew far too much for that, and before they were
finally mustered there had been racing and chasing that had brought
much secret and unlawful joy to Jim and Norah and Wally, but no
little anxiety to the owner of the run. No great damage, however,
had been done; gradually all the wild youngsters had been driven
out of the timbered country, hustled through the gate that
effectually barred them from such shelter in the future, and brought
to the homestead through a succession of peaceful paddocks,
peopled with sleek cattle almost too lazy to move aside for the drove
of uneasy horses. The home paddock had received them at last; and
then every day saw them driven up to the yards, where they were
left for a few hours so that they might grow accustomed to being
close to civilisation, and to the sound of the human voice. One by
one they dropped out; a youngster would be edged away from his
mates into a little yard, presently to find himself alone when the
main mob was let out to go galloping down the hill to freedom. Then
real education began; education that meant bit and bridle and
saddle, and the knowledge that the strange new creature called Man
was master and meant to remain so.
Jim had kept the chestnut colt for his own tuition. Mick
Shanahan, chief horsebreaker of Billabong for many a year, had
gone to the war; and though every man on the station had a settled
conviction of his own ability to break horses, Jim and his father did
not, in every instance, share the belief. The chestnut was too good
to be given to any chance-comer to handle. Most of the youngsters
were destined for use as stock-horses, and might as well be handed
over to the men who were to ride them in their work; but not this
well-bred baby “with the spirit of fire and of dew,” and with all his
nerves jangling from the indignity of being made a prisoner. Jim had
been carefully trained in Mick Shanahan’s methods; besides which,
he had a natural comprehension of horses, and a rooted dislike of
rough-and-ready ways of breaking-in. There was something in the
strong gentleness of the big fellow that soothed a young horse
unconsciously.
He pulled up the chestnut after a few turns round the yard, and
proceeded, as he said, to talk to him, speaking in a low voice while
he handled him quietly, stroking him all over. The colt, nervous for a
moment, soon settled down under the gentle voice and hand; and
so found the bit which he had champed indignantly all the morning,
slipped out of his mouth, and an easy-fitting halter on his head.
Then came Norah, at whom he was inclined to start back, until he
remembered that he had met her twice before, that she also was a
person who moved quietly and had an understanding touch, and
that she always carried a milk-thistle—an article delicious at all
times, but especially soothing to a tired mouth, hot and sore after
even the broad, easy bit Jim always used. Norah said pleasant things
to him and stroked his nose while he munched the cool, juicy thistle;
and then he was led to a bucket, in itself a very alarming object,
until he found that it held water which tasted just as good as creek
water. After that he was tied up to the fence and left to his own
reflections, while the humans who were causing him so much
uneasiness of mind went away, apparently that they might seek
milk-thistles on their own account.
It was nearly a week since the momentous decision to go to
England; and while the life of the station had apparently pursued its
ordinary course, in reality preparations had gone forward swiftly. To
Brownie the news had been broken gently, with the result that for
twenty-four hours the poor old woman had been thrown into a
condition of stupefied dismay; then, rallying herself, with caustic
remarks directed inwardly on “women who hadn’t no more sense
than a black-beetle,” she set herself to overhaul the various
wardrobes of the family with a view to the exigencies of foreign
travel. Brownie’s ideas as to what was necessary for a long voyage
were remarkably vast, and included detailed preparations for every
phase of climate, from Antarctic to Equatorial. Mr. Linton had finally
interfered at a stage when it appeared probable that it would be
needful to charter a whole ship to convey the family baggage, and
had referred the question of Norah’s outfit to an aunt in Melbourne
who was well skilled in providing for damsels of fifteen.
Wally had written slightly delirious letters to his guardian and his
brothers in far-off Queensland, and was impatiently awaiting replies,
in much agony of mind lest these should not come in time to prevent
his going back to school. The end of the holidays was fast
approaching; unless within a very few days permission came for him
to accompany Mr. Linton’s party to England he must pack up and
return meekly to class-room and playground—a hard prospect for a
boy whose head fairly seethed with war, while his pockets bulged
with drill-books. His ordinary sunny temperament had almost
vanished as he wavered from day to day between hope and despair.
To go back would be bad enough in any case; but to go back when
his one chum was about to gain their hearts’ desire, taking away
with him all that meant real home to the orphan lad, was a sentence
worse than banishment. Jim and Norah, themselves torn with
anxiety as to his fate, endeavoured to cheer him by every means in
their power; but Wally watched for the mails anxiously, and refused
comfort.
The question of a suitable ship was causing Mr. Linton no small
perplexity. He disliked the heat of the Suez Canal route, and wished
to go by South Africa; but although it was possible to decide upon a
ship, and even to engage cabins, embarking was quite another
matter, since any vessel was liable to Government seizure as a
transport for troops. No firm of agents could guarantee the sailing of
a ship. The Government was hard-pressed to find transports for the
thousands of men and horses that Australia was hastily preparing to
despatch to the mother-country’s aid; and many a big “floating
hotel” was commandeered within a very short time of her sailing and
transformed by a horde of carpenters into a troopship—losing her
name and identity and becoming a mere number. No one grumbled;
it was war, and war meant business. But undoubtedly it increased
the difficulty of going to England, and daily Mr. Linton knitted his
brows over worried letters from shipping agents extremely anxious
to have the conveyance of so large a party to England, but quite
unable to offer a sailing date.
Jim, meanwhile, was preparing methodically for a long absence.
Under Murty O’Toole the work of the station could be trusted to go
steadily forward, agents being entrusted with the buying and selling
of stock. But there were a hundred threads that Jim kept ordinarily
in his own hands and which, it was necessary to adjust carefully
before he gave up his work. It had been the boy’s ambition to be
indispensable to his father. From the day he had left school he had
worked for that end, succeeding so far that David Linton,
understanding and appreciating his efforts, had gradually put more
and more responsibility into his hands, discussing the management
of the run with him, and treating him in all ways more as a man of
his own age than as a boy newly released from school. Jim was not
new to the work, and he loved it; instinctively he fell into step with
his father, profiting by his experience, and learning every day. “Mr.
Jim’s put his mark on Billabong,” Murty said, ruefully to Mrs. Brown.
“ ’Twill not be an aisy matter to rub out that same.”
For Norah the days went by like a dream. The even current of
her life, that had known no break but school, was suddenly rudely
disturbed. A prospect was opening before her, so vast that she was
almost afraid of it. To every Australian whose parents are British-
born, the old land overseas is always “home.” From childhood the
desire grows to see it—to go back over the old tracks our parents
trod, to visit the spots they knew, and to enjoy the share that
belongs to us, as atoms of Empire, of its beauty and its tradition. It
is ours, even though we be born at the other side of the world;
“home”—and one day we shall go to see it. But when the day
comes, even if we are older than Norah, we are very often a little
afraid.
Norah was torn in more than one way. To go to England! that
was beautiful, and wonderful, and mysterious; to go with Dad and
Jim, and possibly Wally, who was almost as good as Jim, made the
prospect in some way an unmixed delight. There would be the
voyage, itself a storehouse of marvels to the little girl from the Bush;
strange ports, queer people such as she had never seen, famous
sights of which she had heard all her life, scarcely realising that she
would ever see them. A voyage, too, with a spice of danger; there
were German cruisers in the way, only too anxious to sink a fat
Australian liner. It was easier to realise the excitement than the risk,
at all events for people under twenty; and Norah and Jim were not
quite certain that the appearance of a hostile warship might not add
the last pleasing touch of exhilaration.
There was, however, another side to the picture. There was War,
grim and terrible, and scarcely to be comprehended; it threatened to
grip Jim and take him away, to unknown and dreadful dangers. But
War was very far off, and that Jim should not come through it safely
was simply not a thing to be imagined; besides which, many people
thought it would be all over in a very few months—an idea which
caused Jim and Wally acute uneasiness. They had no desire for “the
show” to be finished before they arrived to take a hand.
Then there was Billabong; and at the thought of leaving that
dearest place in the world, Norah’s heart used to sink within her.
Each time she caught sight of Brownie’s face unawares a fresh pang
smote her. Brownie was playing the game manfully, and wore in
public an air of laboured cheerfulness that would not have deceived
a baby; but when she fancied no eye was upon her, the mask
slipped off, and her old face grew haggard with the knowledge of all
that the coming parting meant to her. Norah had never known her
mother. Brownie had taken her, a helpless mite, from the arms that
were too weak to hold her any more; and since that day she had
striven that the baby the little mistress had left to her care should
never realise all she had lost.
 Norah did not realise it at all. Her life had not led her much
among girls with mothers, though she knew instinctively that they
were lucky girls, it was beyond her power to think herself unlucky.
For she had always had Billabong, and Jim, and Dad: Dad, who was
splendid above all people, being father, and mother, and mate in
one. She did not miss anything, because she did not fully
understand. Brownie had been always at hand to supply a kind of
mothering that had seemed to Norah very effective; and Norah paid
her back with a wealth of hearty young affection that made the old
woman’s chief joy on earth. Now her nursling was going out of her
life, so far that her imagination could not follow her, and unknown
dangers would be in her path. They were hard days for Brownie;
and Norah, knowing just how hard they were, was heavy-hearted
herself at the sight of the brave old face.
Nor was it easy to leave Billabong itself, seeing that no place
could possibly be so good in Norah’s eyes. Home had always spelt
perfection to her; and its simple, free life—the outdoor life of the
Bush, with dogs and horses a part of one’s daily existence, the work
of the station better than any game ever invented, and always the
sense that one was helping—surely there could be nothing better. If
there were, it was beyond the imagination of the daughter of the
Bush. So, notwithstanding the fascination of their future plans,
Norah clung to each day that was left to her of Billabong, and tried
to act as though England were as dim and misty a prospect as it had
always been.
Wally ate his lunch with a sober air that sat queerly on his usually
merry face. The mail, to which he had been eagerly looking forward,
had not arrived; but there was a telephone message from the
newspaper office in Cunjee, the nearest township, giving more
particulars of the fierce fighting of the early days of the war, and of
Great Britain’s insistent call for recruits. The first Australian
contingent of twenty thousand men was reported ready to go; there
were rumours more or less vague, of warships, British, Japanese,
and French, waiting at various ports in each state, to convoy the
troopships; but these were only rumours, for the newspapers were
not allowed to publish any information that might possibly be utilised
by German spies—one of whom was said to have been caught at his
pretty seaside home, near Port Phillip Heads, with an excellently
equipped wireless in action. Every one was on the watch, and
suspicious characters found themselves of unpleasant interest to the
police. Small boys in the cities constituted themselves detectives and
“shadowed” unfortunate and inoffensive people whose names
chanced to sound “foreign,” on the principle that anything foreign
might be German, and anything German was to be severely dealt
with. Altogether, there was much excitement; and the station book-
keeper, who had taken the telephone message, declared his
intention of enlisting.
“Another item to be replaced before I can go,” said Mr. Linton, a
trifle ruefully. “And Green knows his work, which is more than one
can say for most book-keepers. Still, I’m glad he’s going. He’s young
and strong, and has no ties; and no man with those qualifications
has any right to be rounding his shoulders over station ledgers
nowadays.”
“He can’t ride for nuts,” said Wally, despondently, “and as for
shooting—well, did you ever see him try? It’s awfully risky for
anyone who goes out with him, but very safe for the game.”
“Oh, he’ll learn,” Mr. Linton said. “He needn’t ride—and shooting
can be taught. Why this sudden outburst against poor Green,
Wally?”
Wally looked abashed.
“I didn’t mean to run Green down,” he explained. “He’ll be all
right, sir, of course. I only meant it was hard luck to think they’ll take
him, and they won’t take me—and I’m partly trained, at any rate.
Silly asses! I’ve been wondering if I got a false moustache—a very
little one, of course—would I pass for twenty, do you think?”
The Linton family shouted with joy.
“Oh, do, Wally!” Norah begged. “It would drop off in the riding
tests, and everyone would be so interested.”
“Great idea,” Jim said. “But why a little one, old man? You might
as well have one with a good curl—and a pair of side whiskers of the
drooping variety. They’d lend a heap of dignity to your expression.”
 “Get out!” said the victim, sheepishly. “All very well for you to jibe
—you’re certain of going just because you’re older. And goodness
knows you haven’t half as much sense!”—modestly. “Wait till you get
into a regiment at home and they give you a platoon to handle, and
see you tie it into knots!”
“Well, you’ll be somewhere handy to take some of the colonel’s
wrath,” said Jim, comfortably.
“Wish I were sure of it,” Wally answered, his face falling. “I can’t
make out why they don’t write; Edward may be up country, but
there’s been quite time to get an answer from that blessed old
slowcoach, Mr. Dimsdale. He said he was sorry I couldn’t get into the
contingent, but he’s quite likely to change his mind now that I’ve
really a chance. Guardians are like that!” And Wally, whose chief
experience of his guardian had been occasional glimpses of a
benevolent old gentleman who paid his bills promptly and tipped him
twice a year, sighed as though his youth had been one long
persecution.
“Oh, he’ll be quite meek, you’ll see,” said Jim. “Give them time—
Queensland is a long way from Billabong. We’re not going without
you, if we have to kidnap you, old man.” He rose from the table. “I
must get back to my patient; I expect he thinks he’s had enough
post-and-rails by now.”
The chestnut colt was looking sleepy, as though a post-and-rail
diet had a sedative effect. He backed and snorted as Jim came up to
him, and Jim stopped and talked to him soothingly until he was quiet
enough not to resent a caressing hand on his neck, and presently
the bridle slipped on so gently that he scarcely noticed it.
“Good lad,” said Jim. “Come and hold his head, Wally, while I
tighten up the girths.”
Wally came, and the broad, soft leather girth was adjusted deftly,
the colt making no further protest than to walk round several times.
Jim ran his eye over him.
“That’s all right,” he said. “Take care, old man, in case he goes to
market.”
Suddenly, quickly, but quietly, he was in the saddle, and his feet
home in the stirrups. The colt stood stock-still, apparently petrified
with astonishment. Wally took himself unobtrusively out of the way,
joining Mr. Linton and Norah on the cap of the fence.
Jim leaned forward, patting the colt.
“Go on, stupid.” He touched the chestnut neck gently with the
rein, and the colt took a few uncertain steps forward, coming to a
standstill in bewilderment. The watchers on the fence were very
quiet. Behind Jim two new faces appeared, as Murty O’Toole and
Black Billy climbed to good positions.
“Baal that pfeller him goin’ to buck, mine thinkit,” said Billy, in low
tones of disappointment. “Him get walk about too much.”
“You let Mr. Jim alone, you black image of a haythen,” said Mr.
O’Toole, affably. “Think you can teach him how to break in a horse?”
“Not much,” said Billy, accepting the epithet and the criticism
cheerfully. “But mine like ’em buck—plenty! Wish Master Jim him
wear spurs.”
“Spurs—on that chestnut baby!” ejaculated Murty, in subdued
accents of horror. “Is it to butcher him ye’d like, then? Sure ye think
every horse needs as much encouragement as y’r old Bung-Eye.
Sorra the horse I’d give you to break, barring it was a camel; I’m
told them needs persuasion.”
“That pfeller mare Bung-Eye no good,” said Billy, scornfully—the
ancient piebald mare on which many of his duties were carried out,
was the chief bitterness of his life. “Mine thinkit she bin fall down—
die, plenty soon.”
“Not she!” chuckled Murty. “Don’t you hope it, me lad. Boss bin
tell me ’tis Bung-Eye for you until you learn to ride a bit—if you ever
do, an’ that’s no certainty, I’m thinking.” Then, as the outraged
aborigine turned his eyes upon him in speechless wrath, Murty
grinned in friendly fashion. “Never mind—there’s a quiet old pony
mare running down in the Far Plain, and we’ll see if you can’t have a
thrifle of a turn on her, if you’re good.”
Billy spluttered.
“Boss him bin say I could ride one of the young ones,” he
protested. Whatever Billy could or could not do, he could sit any
horse that had ever been handled. He had a wild, primeval desire to
smite the broad, good-humoured face grinning at him.
 “The Boss said that, do ye say? Me poor lad, ye’ve misunderstood
him—‘twas to lead one about he meant!” Murty’s tone changed
suddenly and his smile faded. “Yerra now—look at that one!” he
uttered.
The chestnut colt had made several unquiet attempts at
progressing round the yard. The weight on his back troubled him;
there was a feeling pervading him that he was being mastered,
although he could no longer see his conqueror. When he tried to
break into a jog-trot there came on his mouth a steady strain, gentle
but quite determined, bringing him instantly to a puzzled standstill.
Then came a hint that more movement was required of him—that he
was expected to walk. But his mind was far too excited for him to
think of walking; he wanted to jog, to trot—to break into a wild
gallop that would rid him for ever of this strange, perplexing
Presence on his back. He came to a halt again, snorting.
“Go on, old chap!” Jim’s unspurred heel touched his side gently.
A sudden wild impulse came upon the colt. He flung himself
forward, plunging violently—snatched at the restraining bit, felt the
strain on his mouth and the pressure on his sides as Jim stiffened a
little in his seat; and then, quivering with one mad desire to be free,
his head went down and he bucked furiously. To the onlookers he
seemed like a ball—his head and tail tucked between his legs, his
back humped until the rider seemed perched upon the very apex. To
and fro he went in one paroxysm after another; writhing, twisting,
pounding across yard until brought up by the fence; coming to a
standstill with a jerk after a wild fit of bucking and then flinging
himself into another yet more wild. Jim sat him easily, his supple
body giving a little to each furious bound, but never shifting in the
saddle. The five on the fence-cap watched him breathlessly;
however secure the rider may be there is a never-failing excitement
in watching a determined buck-jumper. And the chestnut was
bucking with a determination worthy of his good breeding.
He stopped suddenly, all four feet planted wide apart, panting
heavily, with nostrils dilated. For a moment it seemed as though he
had enough. Then his head went down again, he sprang into the air,
bounding forward with a sudden twist—the hardest buck of all to sit.
It was too much for the chestnut himself. As he landed he crossed
his fore-feet, tripped, and went headlong to the ground. A little cry
broke from Norah, and Wally drew in his breath sharply.
David Linton was off the fence almost before his son touched the
earth. Jim kicked his feet out of the stirrups as the colt tripped, and
was flung clear, not relinquishing his hold on the bridle. He landed
easily, and was up again as quickly as he had gone down, dusty but
uninjured. The chestnut lay on his side, panting, for a moment;
then, with a scramble, he came awkwardly to his feet. As he rose,
Jim slipped into the saddle. The whole incident was over so speedily
that it seemed like a trick of the imagination. David Linton gave an
inaudible sigh of relief, climbing back to his place on the cap of the
rail.
The chestnut was beaten. He had done his worst, culminating in
a display that had shaken and alarmed him a good deal and had
made his shoulder ache badly; and the Presence on his back had not
seemed disturbed at all. It was evident that nothing could be done
to annoy him; at the end of a period which had been exceedingly
trying for the colt himself, the Presence was quite unruffled; not
angry, not in any way moved, but saying soothing things in his quiet
voice, and patting his neck in the same friendly way. The colt gave it
up. Evidently it was prudent and simpler to do as the Presence
desired since in the long run it came to the same thing, after much
personal inconvenience if he resisted. The fire died out of his wild
eye, and the stiffness of his muscles relaxed. In a moment he
answered the rein meekly, and walked round the yard; and when he
found that he was expected to increase the pace to a trot, did so
awkwardly enough, but without any resistance.
Jim trotted him for a few minutes, pulled him up, and slipped to
the ground, talking to him, and patting the wet neck. Then he
grinned up at the trio on the fence.
“He’ll do now, I think,” he said. “That last outburst took all the
inquiring spirit out of him. You know, he hasn’t one little bit of vice;
he only wanted to know who was boss.”
“Did he hurt you, Jimmy?” Norah asked.
 “Not a scrap, thanks. I’m awfully sorry the poor little chap came
down—it scared him. But he had to find out; and now we’ll be first-
rate friends—won’t we, old man?” This to the chestnut, who hung
his head meekly and looked comically like a naughty little boy
released from the corner. “Hope we didn’t give you a fright?”
“You were too quickly down and up for us to have much time for
that,” said his father, disguising the fact that in a moment of paternal
weakness he had moved with equal rapidity.
“There’s a lot of the tennis-ball in our Jimmy,” said Wally, bringing
his long legs over the fence and descending to earth. “Can’t keep
him down—what a nasty bit he’ll be for a solid, earnest German to
tackle! Going to rub him down, Jim?”
“Yes—bring me the things, Billy, and take this saddle,” Jim said,
addressing the dusky retainer, who hovered near, armed with cloths
and brushes. “No, I’ll do it myself, thanks; I want him to get
thoroughly used to me. Got a thistle for him, Norah?” And for the
next quarter of an hour the colt’s toilet proceeded with a
thoroughness bent on impressing the pupil with the knowledge that
the human touch was really a comforting thing and led to a tired
chestnut baby ultimately feeling good all over.
“There you are,” said Jim, giving him a final pat as he slipped off
the halter and watched him trot off into the freedom of the paddock.
“When you find out what to do with your legs and arrive at
something resembling a mouth, you’ll be worth riding. And now I’m
going to give myself a treat by getting on Garryowen and going to
see how the fencers are working in the new subdivision; they want a
cheque on account, and I want to see if they have earned it, before
they get it. Who’s coming?”
“Me,” said Norah, with great and ungrammatical fervour.
“And me,” said Wally.
Jim looked at his father.
“Oh, well, we haven’t much more Billabong time left,” said David
Linton, smiling. “Me, too, I suppose.”
 “Jim stiffened a little in his seat.”

From Billabong to London] [Page 62

 CHAPTER IV.
A BILLABONG DAY.

ONE of the men had found an injured wallaby in an outlying

paddock. It had caught in a sagging fence-wire, and broken its leg;
the man, engaged in restoring the fence to tautness, had found it
lying helpless and starving in a hollow. He was Murty O’Toole, and so
he did not knock the soft-eyed little beast on the head, as most
stockmen would have done. Murty had an Irishman’s tender heart.
Besides, he knew Norah.
“Poor little baste!” he said, picking up the wallaby gently. It made
no resistance, but its great eyes were terrified, and he could feel the
thumping of its heart. He whistled over it. “Well, well—the treachery
of that barbed-wire! Broken, is it then; and me with never a thing to
mend ye! Well, Miss Norah ’ll be glad of the chance; she an’ Mr. Jim
’ll make a job of ye, an’ they afther learnin’ first-aid, near as good as
doctors. Come along home now, an’ get fixed up.”
Norah had welcomed the invalid with enthusiasm. She had
always kept tame wallaby, which make one of the best Bush pets;
and this one was a very pretty specimen, the more attractive
because of its helplessness and pain. Jim set the broken leg deftly,
and Norah took over the care of the patient, which soon grew quite
fearless and healed with the clean thoroughness characteristic of
wild animals. Before long it could hop about the sheltered enclosure
where it lived, never failing to limp to meet her when she came to
feed it.
The wallaby’s midday dinner was late to-day, since a job of
mustering in an outlying paddock had kept everyone out far beyond
the usual luncheon hour. Norah had hurried through the meal,
excusing herself before the others had finished, so that she might go
to her patient. She was coming back through the sunny garden,
swinging her empty milk-tin, when a curious sight met her gaze.
 On the first verandah were two revolving figures; one immensely
fat, the other so thin that he seemed lost in the capacious embrace
of the first. As she came nearer, looking with puzzled eyes, it was
evident that they were Mrs. Brown and Wally; and that Mrs. Brown
was not, indeed, the embracer, but the most unwillingly embraced.
From the open window of the smoking-room came the voice of the
gramophone, playing a waltz in time more suited to an Irish jig; to
which melody Wally was endeavouring to tune his laggard partner’s
footsteps. The unfortunate Brownie, purple of face, did her best;
but, for a lady weighing seventeen stone, the task of emulating
Wally would not have been easy at any time—and just now Wally
appeared to be compounded of quicksilver and electricity. His long
legs fairly twinkled; he gambolled and caracoled rather than danced.
Glimpses of his countenance, seen over Brownie’s shoulder as he
twirled, showed a vision of delirious joy. At the window behind him
was Jim’s face, scarcely less joyous. Mr. Linton, grinning broadly, was
in a doorway.
“Oh, Wally, aren’t you an ass?” Norah ejaculated, helpless with
laughter. “Brownie, dear, don’t let him kill you!”
“If she dies, it will be in a good cause,” Wally returned.
“Nevertheless, a substitute will do, and you’re a light-weight, Norah.
Thank you, ma’am”—to Mrs. Brown, whom he deposited in a chair,
where she subsided gaspingly. “Come along, Norah—let her go, Jim!”
He seized his hostess, and they spun up the verandah in a mad
waltz, the wallaby’s milk-can, which she had not had time to drop,
banging cheerful time.
The gramophone having come to the end of its tether, ended in a
scratching howl, and Jim disappeared precipitately from the window.
Wally came to a standstill regretfully.
“I could have gone on for quite a while,” he uttered. “Bother you,
Jimmy—why couldn’t you keep her wound? Before we begin again,
Norah, do you mind laying aside that tin? It’s full of corners.”
“I’m not going to begin again,” said Norah, firmly, “so don’t
delude yourself. Now will you tell me why you’ve suddenly gone
mad?” Then her eye caught a leather bag lying open on the floor,
and her face suddenly flushed with delight. “Oh, Wally, it’s the mail—
and you can go!”
“Of course it is,” Wally said, almost indignantly. “Do you think any
other cause could have induced me to waltz with Brownie at this
hour of day, no matter how much she wanted it?” There came a
protesting gurgle from Brownie, to which no one lent hearing.
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Norah caught Wally’s hand, and they pumped
each other enthusiastically. “I knew it must be all right, all the time,
of course—but it’s lovely to be sure. Were they nice, Wally?”
“Sweet as old pie,” said Wally, happily. “Mr. Dimsdale had waited
to communicate with Edward—and Edward was infesting a sugar mill
somewhere in the cane districts, and appeared to have taken special
precautions to dodge letters. However, he telegraphed to Mr.
Dimsdale as soon as he did hear—and he’s sent me an awfully jolly
letter, and one to your father. And old Dimmy’s written in his best
style, giving me his blessing. And they’ve sent word to school—won’t
the Head kick! And they’ve fixed up money. And everything’s
glorious. Have another waltz, Brownie?”
“No, indeed, thank you kindly,” said Brownie, hastily, grasping the
arms of her chair in the manner affected by those about to have a
tooth pulled. “Me figure’s against it, Mr. Wally, my dear, and it isn’t
hardly fair. If the day ever comes when you’re seventeen stone,
you’ll know—not as it seems likely, but you can’t be sure, and I was
thin once meself. Came on me like a blush—and me that active! Ah,
well, I’ll be thin enough with worry by the time you’re all safe home
again.”
“Rubbish, Brownie,” said Jim, and smiled at her affectionately.
“You and Murty will be so busy managing the place that you won’t
have time to think of worry.”
“And there’ll be letters every week,” Norah added. “We’ll have
such heaps to tell you. And you’ll have to write to us.”
“Me!” said Brownie, visibly shuddering at the prospect. “Gettin’
letters’ll be all we’ll have to look forward to, Miss Norah, my dear—
but when it comes to writing them, it’s another thing. I never was
’andy at the pen, as you know. In my day our mothers thought a
sight more of making us ’andy about the house and with a cooking-
stove. Girls is very different nowadays. Even Mary and Sarah, though
goodness knows I’ve done me best with them.”
“Oh, they’re quite good girls,” said Mr. Linton. “They should be,
too, after the years you’ve trained them.”
“And they’ll write and say all you want if you’re tired, Brownie
darling,” Norah put in.
“I dunno,” said Brownie, despondently, “I’m stupid enough
writing myself, but I’d be stupider yet dealing with a—what is it, Mr.
Jim dear, when it’s someone as writes for you? Something about
ham.”
“Amanuensis?” hazarded Jim.
“Yes, that’s it. No, I’ll have to do my own letters, an’ they’ll be
bad enough. You’ll have to excuse them, dearie.”
“The only thing I wouldn’t excuse would be not getting them,”
Norah answered. “I’ve had them whenever I was away at school,
and you know I can’t do without them, Brownie. Why, you tell me
things no one else even thinks of. And I’ll want home letters more
than ever when I’m really away from Australia. It was bad enough
when I was at school; but to be as far away from Billabong as
England——” Norah stopped expressively.
“You’ll have all I can send you, my precious,” said Brownie
tearfully. “I s’pose it’s no good for me to make up a hamper now and
then? Me plum-cakes’ll keep a year!”
“I only wish it were,” said Jim. “Your hampers have brightened
my life from my youth up, Brownie—not that I ever gave one of your
cakes a chance to keep three days! But I expect we’ll have to wait
until we come home again. One thing’s quite certain, we’ll all be
ready for your cooking when we come back.”
“Bless his heart!” said Brownie. It was plain that comforting
visions of a culinary orgie of welcome were already materialising in
her mind. “It’ll be a great day for the station when we get you all
again—and be sure you bring Mr. Wally too. I’ll have pikelets ready
for you, Mr. Wally!”
“I’ll think of them, Brownie,” said Wally, his voice very kindly.
“And anyhow, one of the best things about getting back will be to
see your old face again. There now, I’ve made a sentimental speech.
Take me away Jim, and give me some work.”
“Haven’t any,” Jim answered, lazily. “You forget I’ve been out
since daylight, old man—at an hour when I believe you were snoring
musically, I was giving the chestnut an early morning lesson. He
went jolly well too; easy as a rocking-chair. Now it’s three o’clock
and I’m thinking of claiming the eight-hours-day of the honest
Australian working-man.”
“Well, it’s not often you limit yourself to it,” his father said.
“Don’t encourage him, sir,” Wally remarked. “Family affection
doubtless blinds you to the idleness which has so long grieved me in
your son’s character——”
“Losh!” said Jim, in astonishment. He rose, and fell upon the
hapless Mr. Meadows, conveying him to the lawn, where they rolled
over together like a pair of St. Bernard puppies. Finally Jim,
somewhat dishevelled, sat up on the prostrate form of his friend.
“I don’t mind your maligning me at all,” he said. “But when you
take to talking like a copy-book, it’s time someone dealt with you,
young Wally.” He shifted his position, thereby eliciting a smothered
howl from the victim. “You needn’t think that because you’re going
to the war you can make orations. Not here, anyhow.”
“Take him off, somebody—Norah!” came from the earth, in a
voice much impeded by grass.
“Indeed, I won’t—you have me pained, as Murty says,” replied
Norah callously. “He never did anything to you that you should talk
in that awful way. You might be your own grandmother!”
“You’re not a nice family!” said Wally, gaspingly. He achieved a
violent convulsion, and Jim, taken off his guard, lost his balance and
fell over—of which his adversary was not slow to take advantage.
The battle that followed was interrupted by the hasty arrival of Billy,
his ebony countenance showing unusual signs of excitement. The
tangled mass of arms and legs on the lawn resolved itself into its
original parts, and Jim endeavoured to appear the manager of
Billabong, even with much grass in his hair.
“What is it, Billy?”
 “Murty him send me,” Billy explained. “Big pfeller shorthorn
bullock him bogged in swamp—baal us get him out. Want rope an’
horses.”
“Where?”
“Far Plain. That pfeller silly-fool bullock—him just walk in boggy
place. Big one—nearly fat.”
Jim whistled.
“Nice game getting him out will be. Well, you’ve got your job,
Wally, old man, and if you take my advice, you’ll borrow some of my
dungarees to tackle it. There’ll be much mud. Billy, you run up old
Nugget and put a collar and trace chains on him, and lead him out.
Take some bags—we’ll bring ropes. Tell one of the boys to saddle
our horses—they’re in the stable.”
“Can I come, Jim?” Norah asked.
“Yes, of course; but you can’t very well help, so your habit will be
all right; good thing you hadn’t got out of it,” said Jim casting a
glance at his sister’s neat divided skirt and blue serge coat. “You
might cut along, if you’re ready, and hurry up the horses; Wally and
I must go and change.” The boys clattered into the hall and up the
stairs.
Mr. Linton, who had retreated to his office, came out at the
noise.
“Anything the matter, Norah?”
Norah explained briefly, securing her felt hat the while.
“H’m,” said her father. “No, I won’t come out, I think Jim and
Murty can manage without me; and Green and I are up to our eyes
in the books. Take care of yourself, my daughter.” He returned to the
society of the warlike Green, while Norah raced across to the
stables.
A rather small lad of sixteen, a newcomer whom Murty was
endeavouring to train in the place of one of the enlisted stockmen,
was trying to saddle Jim’s big bay, Garryowen—an attempt easily
defeated by Garryowen by the simple process of walking round and
round him. Norah came to his assistance, and the horses were ready
by the time Jim and Wally, clad in suits of blue dungaree, ran over
from the house.
 “Good girl,” said Jim, well understanding that the new boy would
not have finished the task unaided. He dashed into the harness-
room, returning with two coils of strong rope, which he tied firmly to
his saddle. Norah and Wally were already mounted and out of the
stable-yard.
There was a keen westerly wind in their faces as they cantered
steadily across the paddocks. Billabong was looking its worst; the
drought had laid heavy hands upon it, and its beauty had vanished.
On every side the plains stretched away, broken here and there by
belts of timber or by the long, grey, snake-like lines of fencing. The
trees were the only green thing visible, since Australian forest trees
do not shed their leaves; but they looked old and faded, and here
and there a dead one stood grey and lonely, like a gaunt sentinel.
Grey too were the plains; their withered grass merged into the one
dull colour. It was sparse and dry; even though the season was
winter, a little cloud of dust followed the riders’ track.
They crossed the river by a rough log bridge, built by Mr. Linton
and his men from trees felled by the stream. The dry logs clattered
under the horses’ feet. Looking up and down stream the water
showed only a shrunken remnant of its usual width, with boggy
patches of half-dried mud between the thin trickle and the dusty
banks, where withered docks reared gaunt brown stems. Even the
riverside was dull and lifeless. But the wattle-trees, bravely defying
the drought, already showed among their dark-green masses of
foliage the buds that hinted at the spring-time shower of gold.
“This time last year,” said Jim, “the river came down in flood, and
all but washed this bridge away.”
“It doesn’t look much like a flood now,” Wally remarked,
surveying the apology for a river with disfavour.
“No—it’s hard to imagine that it was over the banks and half
across these paddocks. By Jove, we had a busy time!” Jim said,
reminiscently. “It came down quite suddenly; it was pretty high to
begin with, and then a big storm brought a lot of snow off the
mountains, and whish! down came the old river. We had sheep in
these paddocks, and saving them wasn’t an easy job. Sheep are
such fools.”
 “Sheep and turkey-hens,” said Norah, “have between them an
extraordinary amount of idiocy.”
“They have,” agreed her brother. “Our blessed old Shrops.
decided that they would like to die—so, instead of clearing out on
the rises at the far side of the paddocks, they camped on little hills
near the river; and, of course, the water came all round them, and
there they were, stranded on chilly little islands, surrounded by a
healthy brown flood. Some slipped in and were drowned; the rest
huddled together, and bleated in an injured way, as if they hadn’t
had a thing to do with getting themselves into the fix.”
“Could you get them off?” Wally asked.
“Oh, most of them. Where the flood wasn’t very deep we just
drove the big cart in and loaded them into it. It was too deep in a lot
of places, and we had to get the old flat-bottomed boat from the
lagoon near the house and go paddling over the paddocks. That was
all right, but the stupid brutes wouldn’t let themselves be saved, if
they could help it; whether it was cart or boat they disliked it
equally, and we had to swim after half of them—they simply hurled
themselves into the water rather than be rescued. And when it
comes to life-saving in pretty turbulent flood-water, you can’t find
anything much more unpleasantly awkward than a big woolly
Shropshire, very indignant at not being allowed to drown.”
“Jolly sort of job,” commented Wally. “Water cold?”
Jim gave a shiver of remembrance.
“Well, it was chiefly snow-water,” he answered “I don’t want to
strike anything much colder. We were in and out of it all day for
three days and the wonder was that some of us didn’t die—poor old
Murty finished up with a shocking bad cold. My share was earache,
and that was bad enough. But we had a job the week after that was
nearly as exciting.”
“What was that?”
“Well, the flood-water went back, leaving a line of débris right
across the paddock—a solid belt of rubbish about six feet wide,
made of reeds, and sticks and leaves, and all the small stuff the
water could gather up as it came over the grass. Dry reeds were the
basis of it—there must have been tons of them. Then we had a few
days of early spring weather—you know those queer little bursts of
almost hot days we get sometimes. I was standing still on this layer
of rubbish one morning, looking at a bullock across the paddock
when I felt something on my leg—looked down, and it was a tiger-
snake!”
“Whew-w!” whistled Wally.
“Only a little chap—but any tiger-snake is big enough to be
nasty,” Jim said. “It seemed puzzled by my leather gaiter; I kicked it
off and picked up a stick to kill it. And I nearly picked up another
snake!”
“Some people are never satisfied,” Wally said, severely. “Were
you trying to qualify for a snake-charmer?”
“Not much—I can’t stand the brutes,” Jim answered. “I killed
those two and then went hunting among the rubbish—and do you
know, it was simply alive with snakes! The flood had brought them, I
suppose, and the warm sun had encouraged them to come out;
anyhow, there they were, and a nice job we had getting rid of them.
I killed eight or ten more, and then it struck me that the occupation
was likely to last some time, so I went home to lunch, and brought
the men out afterwards. We had to turn over every bit of that
rubbish with forks—it was too damp to burn—and I forget how many
snakes we got altogether, but it was enough to stock a menagerie a
good many times over. Beastly game—we all saw snakes for a week
after it was finished, and I dreamed of them every night.”
“I should think you did,” Wally said, with sympathy. “Did any one
get bitten?”
“No—they were all pretty small and very sleepy. I daresay they
thought it was a little rough on them; after all, they hadn’t asked to
be brought from their happy homes and dumped out on the plain.
But a snake’s a snake,” finished Jim, emphatically. “It doesn’t pay
you to show mercy to one because he’s small.”
“It does not; he grows up, and bites you,” said Wally, grimly,
referring to a painful episode in his own career.
“Indeed, he doesn’t always wait until he grows up,” Norah put in.
“Even a baby tiger-snake can be venomous enough to be
unpleasant. I don’t know why snakes exist at all; they say everything
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