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diff --git a/7065-h/7065-h.htm b/7065-h/7065-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bef1dfc --- /dev/null +++ b/7065-h/7065-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13250 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Children of the Bush, by Henry Lawson</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Children of the Bush, by Henry Lawson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Children of the Bush</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry Lawson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 5, 2003 [eBook #7065]<br /> +[Most recently updated: May 27, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Geoffrey Cowling</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH ***</div> + +<h1>Children of the Bush</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Henry Lawson</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001">SEND ROUND THE HAT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002">THAT PRETTY GIRL IN THE ARMY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003">“LORD DOUGLAS”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0004">THE BLINDNESS OF ONE-EYED BOGAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0005">TWO SUNDOWNERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0006">A SKETCH OF MATESHIP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0007">ON THE TUCKER TRACK: A STEELMAN STORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0008">A BUSH PUBLICAN’S LAMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0009">THE SHEARER’S DREAM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0010">THE LOST SOULS’ HOTEL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0011">THE BOOZERS’ HOME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0012">THE SEX PROBLEM AGAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0013">THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0014">“BUCKOLTS’ GATE”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0016">THE BUSH-FIRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0017">THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0018">“BARNEY, TAKE ME HOME AGAIN”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0019">A DROVING YARN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0020">GETTIN’ BACK ON DAVE REGAN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0021">“SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER?”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0022">HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0023">THE STORY OF “GENTLEMAN ONCE”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0024">THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMASES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></a> +SEND ROUND THE HAT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush—<br/> +Should be simple and plain to a dunce:<br/> +“If a man’s in a hole you must pass round the hat<br/> +Were he jail-bird or gentleman once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it any harm to wake yer?” +</p> + +<p> +It was about nine o’clock in the morning, and, though it was Sunday +morning, it was no harm to wake me; but the shearer had mistaken me for a deaf +jackaroo, who was staying at the shanty and was something like me, and had +good-naturedly shouted almost at the top of his voice, and he woke the whole +shanty. Anyway he woke three or four others who were sleeping on beds and +stretchers, and one on a shake-down on the floor, in the same room. It had been +a wet night, and the shanty was full of shearers from Big Billabong Shed which +had cut out the day before. My room mates had been drinking and gambling +overnight, and they swore luridly at the intruder for disturbing them. +</p> + +<p> +He was six-foot-three or thereabout. He was loosely built, bony, +sandy-complexioned and grey eyed. He wore a good-humoured grin at most times, +as I noticed later on; he was of a type of bushman that I always +liked—the sort that seem to get more good-natured the longer they grow, +yet are hard-knuckled and would accommodate a man who wanted to fight, or +thrash a bully in a good-natured way. The sort that like to carry +somebody’s baby round, and cut wood, carry water and do little things for +overworked married bushwomen. He wore a saddle-tweed sac suit two sizes too +small for him, and his face, neck, great hands and bony wrists were covered +with sun-blotches and freckles. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I ain’t disturbin’ yer,” he shouted, as he bent +over my bunk, “but there’s a cove—” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t shout!” I interrupted, “I’m not +deaf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—I beg your pardon!” he shouted. “I didn’t +know I was yellin’. I thought you was the deaf feller.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “What’s the +trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till them other chaps is done swearin’ and I’ll tell +yer,” he said. He spoke with a quiet, good-natured drawl, with something +of the nasal twang, but tone and drawl distinctly Australian—altogether +apart from that of the Americans. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, spit it out for Christ’s sake, Long’un!” yelled +One-eyed Bogan, who had been the worst swearer in a rough shed, and he fell +back on his bunk as if his previous remarks had exhausted him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s that there sick jackaroo that was pickin’-up at Big +Billabong,” said the Giraffe. “He had to knock off the first week, +an’ he’s been here ever since. They’re sendin’ him away +to the hospital in Sydney by the speeshall train. They’re just +goin’ to take him up in the wagonette to the railway station, an’ I +thought I might as well go round with the hat an’ get him a few bob. +He’s got a missus and kids in Sydney.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yer always goin’ round with yer gory hat!” growled Bogan. +“Yer’d blanky well take it round in hell!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what he’s doing, Bogan,” muttered Gentleman +Once, on the shake-down, with his face to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +The hat was a genuine “cabbage-tree,” one of the sort that +“last a lifetime.” It was well coloured, almost black in fact with +weather and age, and it had a new strap round the base of the crown. I looked +into it and saw a dirty pound note and some silver. I dropped in half a crown, +which was more than I could spare, for I had only been a green-hand at Big +Billabong. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank yer!” he said. “Now then, you fellers!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d keep your hat on your head, and your money in your +pockets and your sympathy somewhere else,” growled Jack Moonlight as he +raised himself painfully on his elbow, and felt under his pillow for two +half-crowns. “Here,” he said, “here’s two half-casers. +Chuck ’em in and let me sleep for God’s sake!” +</p> + +<p> +Gentleman Once, the gambler, rolled round on his shake-down, bringing his +good-looking, dissipated face from the wall. He had turned in in his clothes +and, with considerable exertion he shoved his hand down into the pocket of his +trousers, which were a tight fit. He brought up a roll of pound notes and could +find no silver. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” he said to the Giraffe, “I might as well lay a quid. +I’ll chance it anyhow. Chuck it in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got rats this mornin’, Gentleman Once,” growled +the Bogan. “It ain’t a blanky horse race.” +</p> + +<p> +“P’r’aps I have,” said Gentleman Once, and he turned to +the wall again with his head on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Bogan, yer might as well chuck in somethin,” said the +Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with the —— jackaroo?” asked +the Bogan, tugging his trousers from under the mattress. +</p> + +<p> +Moonlight said something in a low tone. +</p> + +<p> +“The —— he has!” said Bogan. “Well, I pity the +——! Here, I’ll chuck in half a —— quid!” +and he dropped half a sovereign into the hat. +</p> + +<p> +The fourth man, who was known to his face as “Barcoo-Rot,” and +behind his back as “The Mean Man,” had been drinking all night, and +not even Bogan’s stump-splitting adjectives could rouse him. So Bogan got +out of bed, and calling on us (as blanky female cattle) to witness what he was +about to do, he rolled the drunkard over, prospected his pockets till he made +up five shillings (or a “caser” in bush language), and +“chucked” them into the hat. +</p> + +<p> +And Barcoo-Rot is probably unconscious to this day that he was ever connected +with an act of charity. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe struck the deaf jackaroo in the next room. I heard the chaps +cursing “Long-’un” for waking them, and +“Deaf-’un” for being, as they thought at first, the indirect +cause of the disturbance. I heard the Giraffe and his hat being condemned in +other rooms and cursed along the veranda where more shearers were sleeping; and +after a while I turned out. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe was carefully fixing a mattress and pillows on the floor of a +wagonette, and presently a man, who looked like a corpse, was carried out and +lifted into the trap. +</p> + +<p> +As the wagonette started, the shanty-keeper—a fat, soulless-looking +man—put his hand in his pocket and dropped a quid into the hat which was +still going round, in the hands of the Giraffe’s mate, little Teddy +Thompson, who was as far below medium height as the Giraffe was above it. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe took the horse’s head and led him along on the most level +parts of the road towards the railway station, and two or three chaps went +along to help get the sick man into the train. +</p> + +<p> +The shearing-season was over in that district, but I got a job of +house-painting, which was my trade, at the Great Western Hotel (a two-story +brick place), and I stayed in Bourke for a couple of months. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe was a Victorian native from Bendigo. He was well known in Bourke +and to many shearers who came through the great dry scrubs from hundreds of +miles round. He was stakeholder, drunkard’s banker, peacemaker where +possible, referee or second to oblige the chaps when a fight was on, big +brother or uncle to most of the children in town, final court of appeal when +the youngsters had a dispute over a foot-race at the school picnic, referee at +their fights, and he was the stranger’s friend. +</p> + +<p> +“The feller as knows can battle around for himself,” he’d +say. “But I always like to do what I can for a hard-up stranger cove. I +was a green-hand jackaroo once meself, and I know what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re always bothering about other people, Giraffe,” said +Tom Hall, the shearers’ union secretary, who was only a couple of inches +shorter than the Giraffe. “There’s nothing in it, you can take it +from me—I ought to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what’s a feller to do?” said the Giraffe. +“I’m only hangin’ round here till shearin’ starts agen, +an’ a cove might as well be doin’ something. Besides, it +ain’t as if I was like a cove that had old people or a wife an’ +kids to look after. I ain’t got no responsibilities. A feller can’t +be doin’ nothin’. Besides, I like to lend a helpin’ hand when +I can.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all I’ve got to say,” said Tom, most of whose screw +went in borrowed quids, etc. “All I’ve got to say is that +you’ll get no thanks, and you might blanky well starve in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +“There ain’t no fear of me starvin’ so long as I’ve got +me hands about me; an’ I ain’t a cove as wants thanks,” said +the Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +He was always helping someone or something. Now it was a bit of a +“darnce” that we was gettin’ up for the girls; again it was +Mrs Smith, the woman whose husban’ was drowned in the flood in the Bogan +River lars’ Crismas, or that there poor woman down by the +Billabong—her husband cleared out and left her with a lot o’ kids. +Or Bill Something, the bullocky, who was run over by his own wagon, while he +was drunk, and got his leg broke. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the end of his spree One-eyed Bogan broke loose and smashed nearly all +the windows of the Carriers’ Arms, and next morning he was fined heavily +at the police court. About dinner-time I encountered the Giraffe and his hat, +with two half-crowns in it for a start. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to trouble yer,” he said, “but One-eyed +Bogan carn’t pay his fine, an’ I thought we might fix it up for +him. He ain’t half a bad sort of feller when he ain’t +drinkin’. It’s only when he gets too much booze in him.” +</p> + +<p> +After shearing, the hat usually started round with the Giraffe’s own +dirty crumpled pound note in the bottom of it as a send-off, later on it was +half a sovereign, and so on down to half a crown and a shilling, as he got +short of stuff; till in the end he would borrow a “few +bob”—which he always repaid after next shearing-“just to +start the thing goin’.” +</p> + +<p> +There were several yarns about him and his hat. ’Twas said that the hat +had belonged to his father, whom he resembled in every respect, and it had been +going round for so many years that the crown was worn as thin as paper by the +quids, half-quids, casers, half-casers, bobs and tanners or sprats—to say +nothing of the scrums—that had been chucked into it in its time and +shaken up. +</p> + +<p> +They say that when a new governor visited Bourke the Giraffe happened to be +standing on the platform close to the exit, grinning good-humouredly, and the +local toady nudged him urgently and said in an awful whisper, “Take off +your hat! Why don’t you take off your hat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” drawled the Giraffe, “he ain’t hard up, is +he?” +</p> + +<p> +And they fondly cherish an anecdote to the effect that, when the +One-Man-One-Vote Bill was passed (or Payment of Members, or when the first +Labour Party went in—I forget on which occasion they said it was) the +Giraffe was carried away by the general enthusiasm, got a few beers in him, +“chucked” a quid into his hat, and sent it round. The boys +contributed by force of habit, and contributed largely, because of the victory +and the beer. And when the hat came back to the Giraffe, he stood holding it in +front of him with both hands and stared blankly into it for a while. Then it +dawned on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Blowed if I haven’t bin an’ gone an’ took up a +bloomin’ collection for meself!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +He was almost a teetotaller, but he stood his shout in reason. He mostly drank +ginger beer. +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t a feller that boozes, but I ain’t got nothin’ +agen chaps enjoyin’ themselves, so long as they don’t go too +far.” +</p> + +<p> +It was common for a man on the spree to say to him: +</p> + +<p> +“Here! here’s five quid. Look after it for me, Giraffe, will yer, +till I git off the booze.” +</p> + +<p> +His real name was Bob Brothers, and his bush names, +“Long-’un,” “The Giraffe,” +“Send-round-the-hat,” “Chuck-in-a-bob,” and +“Ginger-ale.” +</p> + +<p> +Some years before, camels and Afghan drivers had been imported to the Bourke +district; the camels did very well in the dry country, they went right across +country and carried everything from sardines to flooring-boards. And the +teamsters loved the Afghans nearly as much as Sydney furniture makers love the +cheap Chinese in the same line. They love ’em even as union shearers on +strike love blacklegs brought up-country to take their places. +</p> + +<p> +Now the Giraffe was a good, straight unionist, but in cases of sickness or +trouble he was as apt to forget his unionism, as all bushmen are, at all times +(and for all time), to forget their creed. So, one evening, the Giraffe +blundered into the Carriers’ Arms—of all places in the +world—when it was full of teamsters; he had his hat in his hand and some +small silver and coppers in it. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, you fellers, there’s a poor, sick Afghan in the camp down +there along the—” +</p> + +<p> +A big, brawny bullock-driver took him firmly by the shoulders, or, rather by +the elbows, and ran him out before any damage was done. The Giraffe took it as +he took most things, good-humouredly; but, about dusk, he was seen slipping +down towards the Afghan camp with a billy of soup. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” remarked Tom Hall, “that when the Giraffe goes +to heaven—and he’s the only one of us, as far as I can see, that +has a ghost of a show—I believe that when he goes to heaven, the first +thing he’ll do will be to take his infernal hat round amongst the +angels—getting up a collection for this damned world that he left +behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t think there’s so much to his credit, after +all,” said Jack Mitchell, shearer. “You see, the Giraffe is +ambitious; he likes public life, and that accounts for him shoving himself +forward with his collections. As for bothering about people in trouble, +that’s only common curiosity; he’s one of those chaps that are +always shoving their noses into other people’s troubles. And, as for +looking after sick men—why! there’s nothing the Giraffe likes +better than pottering round a sick man, and watching him and studying him. +He’s awfully interested in sick men, and they’re pretty scarce out +here. I tell you there’s nothing he likes better—except, maybe, +it’s pottering round a corpse. I believe he’d ride forty miles to +help and sympathize and potter round a funeral. The fact of the matter is that +the Giraffe is only enjoying himself with other people’s +troubles—that’s all it is. It’s only vulgar curiosity and +selfishness. I set it down to his ignorance; the way he was brought up.” +</p> + +<p> +A few days after the Afghan incident the Giraffe and his hat had a run of luck. +A German, one of a party who were building a new wooden bridge over the Big +Billabong, was helping unload some girders from a truck at the railway station, +when a big log slipped on the skids and his leg was smashed badly. They carried +him to the Carriers’ Arms, which was the nearest hotel, and into a +bedroom behind the bar, and sent for the doctor. The Giraffe was in evidence as +usual. +</p> + +<p> +“It vas not that at all,” said German Charlie, when they asked him +if he was in much pain. “It vas not that at all. I don’t cares a +damn for der bain; but dis is der tird year—und I vas going home dis +year—after der gontract—und der gontract yoost commence!” +</p> + +<p> +That was the burden of his song all through, between his groans. There were a +good few chaps sitting quietly about the bar and veranda when the doctor +arrived. The Giraffe was sitting at the end of the counter, on which he had +laid his hat while he wiped his face, neck, and forehead with a big speckled +“sweatrag.” It was a very hot day. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor, a good-hearted young Australian, was heard saying something. Then +German Charlie, in a voice that rung with pain: +</p> + +<p> +“Make that leg right, doctor—quick! Dis is der tird pluddy +year—und I must go home!” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor asked him if he was in great pain. “Neffer mind der pluddy +bain, doctor! Neffer mind der pluddy bain! Dot vas nossing. Make dat leg well +quick, doctor. Dis vas der last gontract, and I vas going home dis year.” +Then the words jerked out of him by physical agony: “Der girl vas vaiting +dree year, und—by Got! I must go home.” +</p> + +<p> +The publican—Watty Braithwaite, known as “Watty Broadweight,” +or, more familiarly, “Watty Bothways”—turned over the +Giraffe’s hat in a tired, bored sort of way, dropped a quid into it, and +nodded resignedly at the Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe caught up the hint and the hat with alacrity. The hat went all +round town, so to speak; and, as soon as his leg was firm enough not to come +loose on the road German Charlie went home. +</p> + +<p> +It was well known that I contributed to the Sydney <i>Bulletin</i> and several +other papers. The Giraffe’s bump of reverence was very large, and swelled +especially for sick men and poets. He treated me with much more respect than is +due from a bushman to a man, and with an odd sort of extra gentleness I +sometimes fancied. But one day he rather surprised me. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to trouble yer,” he said in a shamefaced way. +“I don’t know as you go in for sportin’, but One-eyed Bogan +an’ Barcoo-Rot is goin’ to have a bit of a scrap down the Billybong +this evenin’, an’——” +</p> + +<p> +“A bit of a what?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit of fight to a finish,” he said apologetically. +“An’ the chaps is tryin’ to fix up a fiver to put some life +into the thing. There’s bad blood between One-eyed Bogan and Barcoo-Rot, +an’ it won’t do them any harm to have it out.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a great fight, I remember. There must have been a couple of score +blood-soaked handkerchiefs (or “sweat-rags”) buried in a hole on +the field of battle, and the Giraffe was busy the rest of the evening helping +to patch up the principals. Later on he took up a small collection for the +loser, who happened to be Barcoo-Rot in spite of the advantage of an eye. +</p> + +<p> +The Salvation Army lassie, who went round with the <i>War Cry</i>, nearly +always sold the Giraffe three copies. +</p> + +<p> +A new-chum parson, who wanted a subscription to build or enlarge a chapel, or +something, sought the assistance of the Giraffe’s influence with his +mates. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the Giraffe, “I ain’t a churchgoer meself. +I ain’t what you might call a religious cove, but I’ll be glad to +do what I can to help yer. I don’t suppose I can do much. I ain’t +been to church since I was a kiddy.” +</p> + +<p> +The parson was shocked, but later on he learned to appreciate the Giraffe and +his mates, and to love Australia for the bushman’s sake, and it was he +who told me the above anecdote. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe helped fix some stalls for a Catholic Church bazaar, and some of +the chaps chaffed him about it in the union office. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be taking up a collection for a joss-house down in the +Chinamen’s camp next,” said Tom Hall in conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I ain’t got nothin’ agen the Roming Carflics,” +said the Giraffe. “An’ Father O’Donovan’s a very decent +sort of cove. He stuck up for the unions all right in the strike anyway.” +(“He wouldn’t be Irish if he wasn’t,” someone +commented.) “I carried swags once for six months with a feller that was a +Carflick, an’ he was a very straight feller. And a girl I knowed turned +Carflick to marry a chap that had got her into trouble, an’ she was +always jes’ the same to me after as she was before. Besides, I like to +help everything that’s goin’ on.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hall and one or two others went out hurriedly to have a drink. But we all +loved the Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +He was very innocent and very humorous, especially when he meant to be most +serious and philosophical. +</p> + +<p> +“Some of them bush girls is regular tomboys,” he said to me +solemnly one day. “Some of them is too cheeky altogether. I remember once +I was stoppin’ at a place—they was sort of relations o’ +mine—an’ they put me to sleep in a room off the verander, where +there was a glass door an’ no blinds. An’ the first mornin’ +the girls—they was sort o’ cousins o’ mine—they come +gigglin’ and foolin’ round outside the door on the verander, +an’ kep’ me in bed till nearly ten o’clock. I had to put me +trowsis on under the bed-clothes in the end. But I got back on ’em the +next night,” he reflected. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you do that, Bob?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I went to bed in me trowsis!” +</p> + +<p> +One day I was on a plank, painting the ceiling of the bar of the Great Western +Hotel. I was anxious to get the job finished. The work had been kept back most +of the day by chaps handing up long beers to me, and drawing my attention to +the alleged fact that I was putting on the paint wrong side out. I was slapping +it on over the last few boards when: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry to trouble yer; I always seem to be troublin’ +yer; but there’s that there woman and them girls——” +</p> + +<p> +I looked down—about the first time I had looked down on him—and +there was the Giraffe, with his hat brim up on the plank and two half-crowns in +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right, Bob,” I said, and I dropped in half a +crown. +</p> + +<p> +There were shearers in the bar, and presently there was some barracking. It +appeared that that there woman and them girls were strange women, in the local +as well as the Biblical sense of the word, who had come from Sydney at the end +of the shearing-season, and had taken a cottage on the edge of the scrub on the +outskirts of the town. There had been trouble this week in connection with a +row at their establishment, and they had been fined, warned off by the police, +and turned out by their landlord. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a bit too red-hot, Giraffe,” said one of the shearers. +“Them ——s has made enough out of us coves. They’ve got +plenty of stuff, don’t you fret. Let ’em go to ——! +I’m blanked if I give a sprat.” +</p> + +<p> +“They ain’t got their fares to Sydney,” said the Giraffe. +“An’, what’s more, the little ’un is sick, an’ +two of them has kids in Sydney.” +</p> + +<p> +“How the —— do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, one of ’em come to me an’ told me all about it.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an involuntary guffaw. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Bob,” said Billy Woods, the rouseabouts’ +secretary, kindly. “Don’t you make a fool of yourself. You’ll +have all the chaps laughing at you. Those girls are only working you for all +you’re worth. I suppose one of ’em came crying and whining to you. +Don’t you bother about ’em. <i>You</i> don’t know ’em; +they can pump water at a moment’s notice. You haven’t had any +experience with women yet, Bob.” +</p> + +<p> +“She didn’t come whinin’ and cryin’ to me,” said +the Giraffe, dropping his twanging drawl a little. “She looked me +straight in the face an’ told me all about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Giraffe,” said Box-o’-Tricks, “what have you +been doin’? You’ve bin down there on the nod. I’m surprised +at yer, Giraffe.” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ he pretends to be so gory soft an’ innocent, too,” +growled the Bogan. “We know all about you, Giraffe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Giraffe,” said Mitchell the shearer. “I’d +never have thought it of you. We all thought you were the only virgin youth +west the river; I always thought you were a moral young man. You mustn’t +think that because your conscience is pricking you everyone else’s +is.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t had anythin’ to do with them,” said the +Giraffe, drawling again. “I ain’t a cove that goes in for that sort +of thing. But other chaps has, and I think they might as well help ’em +out of their fix.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re a rotten crowd,” said Billy Woods. “You +don’t know them, Bob. Don’t bother about them-they’re not +worth it. Put your money in your pocket. You’ll find a better use for it +before next shearing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better shout, Giraffe,” said Box-o’-Tricks. +</p> + +<p> +Now in spite of the Giraffe’s softness he was the hardest man in Bourke +to move when he’d decided on what he thought was “the fair thing to +do.” Another peculiarity of his was that on occasion, such for instance +as “sayin’ a few words” at a strike meeting, he would +straighten himself, drop the twang, and rope in his drawl, so to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look here, you chaps,” he said now. “I don’t +know anything about them women. I s’pose they’re bad, but I +don’t suppose they’re worse than men has made them. All I know is +that there’s four women turned out, without any stuff, and every woman in +Bourke, an’ the police, an’ the law agen ’em. An’ the +fact that they is women is agenst ’em most of all. You don’t expect +’em to hump their swags to Sydney! Why, only I ain’t got the stuff +I wouldn’t trouble yer. I’d pay their fares meself. Look,” he +said, lowering his voice, “there they are now, an’ one of the girls +is cryin’. Don’t let ’em see yer lookin’.” +</p> + +<p> +I dropped softly from the plank and peeped out with the rest. +</p> + +<p> +They stood by the fence on the opposite side of the street, a bit up towards +the railway station, with their portmanteaux and bundles at their feet. One +girl leant with her arms on the fence rail and her face buried in them, another +was trying to comfort her. The third girl and the woman stood facing our way. +The woman was good-looking; she had a hard face, but it might have been made +hard. The third girl seemed half defiant, half inclined to cry. Presently she +went to the other side of the girl who was crying on the fence and put her arm +round her shoulder. The woman suddenly turned her back on us and stood looking +away over the paddocks. +</p> + +<p> +The hat went round. Billy Woods was first, then Box-o’-Tricks, and then +Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +Billy contributed with eloquent silence. “I was only jokin’, +Giraffe,” said Box-o’-Tricks, dredging his pockets for a couple of +shillings. It was some time after the shearing, and most of the chaps were hard +up. “Ah, well,” sighed Mitchell. “There’s no help for +it. If the Giraffe would take up a collection to import some decent girls to +this God-forgotten hole there might be some sense in it.... It’s bad +enough for the Giraffe to undermine our religious prejudices, and tempt us to +take a morbid interest in sick Chows and Afghans, and blacklegs and widows; but +when he starts mixing us up with strange women it’s time to buck.” +And he prospected his pockets and contributed two shillings, some odd pennies, +and a pinch of tobacco dust. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind helping the girls, but I’m damned if I’ll +give a penny to help the old ——,” said Tom Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she was a girl once herself,” drawled the Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe went round to the other pubs and to the union offices, and when he +returned he seemed satisfied with the plate, but troubled about something else. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what to do for them for to-night,” he said. +“None of the pubs or boardin’-houses will hear of them, an’ +there ain’t no empty houses, an’ the women is all agen +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not all,” said Alice, the big, handsome barmaid from Sydney. +“Come here, Bob.” She gave the Giraffe half a sovereign and a look +for which some of us would have paid him ten pounds—had we had the money, +and had the look been transferable. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a minute, Bob,” she said, and she went in to speak to the +landlord. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s an empty bedroom at the end of the store in the +yard,” she said when she came back. “They can camp there for +to-night if they behave themselves. You’d better tell ’em, +Bob.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank yer, Alice,” said the Giraffe. +</p> + +<p> +Next day, after work, the Giraffe and I drifted together and down by the river +in the cool of the evening, and sat on the edge of the steep, drought-parched +bank. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard you saw your lady friends off this morning, Bob,” I said, +and was sorry I said it, even before he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they ain’t no friends of mine,” he said. “Only +four’ poor devils of women. I thought they mightn’t like to stand +waitin’ with the crowd on the platform, so I jest offered to get their +tickets an’ told ’em to wait round at the back of the station till +the bell rung.... An’ what do yer think they did, Harry?” he went +on, with an exasperatingly unintelligent grin. “Why, they wanted to kiss +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. An’ they would have done it, too, if I hadn’t been so +long.... Why, I’m blessed if they didn’t kiss me hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“God’s truth. Somehow I didn’t like to go on the platform +with them after that; besides, they was cryin’, and I can’t stand +women cryin’. But some of the chaps put them into an empty +carriage.” He thought a moment. Then: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s some terrible good-hearted fellers in the world,” he +reflected. +</p> + +<p> +I thought so too. “Bob,” I said, “you’re a single man. +Why don’t you get married and settle down?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said, “I ain’t got no wife an’ kids, +that’s a fact. But it ain’t my fault.” +</p> + +<p> +He may have been right about the wife. But I thought of the look that Alice had +given him, and— +</p> + +<p> +“Girls seem to like me right enough,” he said, “but it +don’t go no further than that. The trouble is that I’m so long, and +I always seem to get shook after little girls. At least there was one little +girl in Bendigo that I was properly gone on.” +</p> + +<p> +“And wouldn’t she have you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it seems not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ask her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I asked her right enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and what did she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“She said it would be redicilus for her to be seen trottin’ +alongside of a chimbley like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps she didn’t mean that. There are any amount of little women +who like tall men.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of that too—afterwards. P’r’aps she +didn’t mean it that way. I s’pose the fact of the matter was that +she didn’t cotton on to me, and wanted to let me down easy. She +didn’t want to hurt me feelin’s, if yer understand—she was a +very good-hearted little girl. There’s some terrible tall fellers where I +come from, and I know two as married little girls.” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed a hopeless case. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes,” he said, “sometimes I wish that I wasn’t +so blessed long.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s that there deaf jackaroo,” he reflected presently. +“He’s something in the same fig about girls as I am. He’s too +deaf and I’m too long.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you make that out?” I asked. “He’s got three +girls, to my knowledge, and, as for being deaf, why, he gasses more than any +man in the town, and knows more of what’s going on than old Mother +Brindle the washerwoman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look at that now!” said the Giraffe, slowly. +“Who’d have thought it? He never told me he had three girls, +an’ as for hearin’ news, I always tell him anything that’s +goin’ on that I think he doesn’t catch. He told me his trouble was +that whenever he went out with a girl people could hear what they was +sayin’—at least they could hear what she was sayin’ to him, +an’ draw their own conclusions, he said. He said he went out one night +with a girl, and some of the chaps foxed ’em an’ heard her +sayin’ ‘don’t’ to him, an’ put it all round +town.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say ‘don’t’ for?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t tell me that, but I s’pose he was kissin’ +her or huggin’ her or something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bob,” I said presently, “didn’t you try the little +girl in Bendigo a second time?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said. “What was the use. She was a good little girl, +and I wasn’t goin’ to go botherin’ her. I ain’t the +sort of cove that goes hangin’ round where he isn’t wanted. But +somehow I couldn’t stay about Bendigo after she gave me the hint, so I +thought I’d come over an’ have a knock round on this side for a +year or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you never wrote to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. What was the use of goin’ pesterin’ her with letters? I +know what trouble letters give me when I have to answer one. She’d have +only had to tell me the straight truth in a letter an’ it wouldn’t +have done me any good. But I’ve pretty well got over it by this +time.” +</p> + +<p> +A few days later I went to Sydney. The Giraffe was the last I shook hands with +from the carriage window, and he slipped something in a piece of newspaper into +my hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope yer won’t be offended,” he drawled, “but some +of the chaps thought you mightn’t be too flush of +stuff—you’ve been shoutin’ a good deal; so they put a quid or +two together. They thought it might help yer to have a bit of a fly round in +Sydney.” +</p> + +<p> +I was back in Bourke before next shearing. On the evening of my arrival I ran +against the Giraffe; he seemed strangely shaken over something, but he kept his +hat on his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Would yer mind takin’ a stroll as fur as the Billerbong?” he +said. “I got something I’d like to tell yer.” +</p> + +<p> +His big, brown, sunburnt hands trembled and shook as he took a letter from his +pocket and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just got a letter,” he said. “A letter from that +little girl at Bendigo. It seems it was all a mistake. I’d like you to +read it. Somehow I feel as if I want to talk to a feller, and I’d rather +talk to you than any of them other chaps.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a good letter, from a big-hearted little girl. She had been breaking her +heart for the great ass all these months. It seemed that he had left Bendigo +without saying good-bye to her. “Somehow I couldn’t bring meself to +it,” he said, when I taxed him with it. She had never been able to get +his address until last week; then she got it from a Bourke man who had gone +south. She called him “an awful long fool,” which he was, without +the slightest doubt, and she implored him to write, and come back to her. +</p> + +<p> +“And will you go back, Bob?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“My oath! I’d take the train to-morrer only I ain’t got the +stuff. But I’ve got a stand in Big Billerbong Shed an’ I’ll +soon knock a few quid together. I’ll go back as soon as ever +shearin’s over. I’m goin’ to write away to her +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe was the “ringer” of Big Billabong Shed that season. His +tallies averaged a hundred and twenty a day. He only sent his hat round once +during shearing, and it was noticed that he hesitated at first and only +contributed half a crown. But then it was a case of a man being taken from the +shed by the police for wife desertion. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s always that way,” commented Mitchell. “Those +soft, good-hearted fellows always end by getting hard and selfish. The world +makes ’em so. It’s the thought of the soft fools they’ve been +that finds out sooner or later and makes ’em repent. Like as not the +Giraffe will be the meanest man out back before he’s done.” +</p> + +<p> +When Big Billabong cut out, and we got back to Bourke with our dusty swags and +dirty cheques, I spoke to Tom Hall: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Tom,” I said. “That long fool, the Giraffe, has +been breaking his heart for a little girl in Bendigo ever since he’s been +out back, and she’s been breaking her heart for him, and the ass +didn’t know it till he got a letter from her just before Big Billabong +started. He’s going to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +That evening Tom stole the Giraffe’s hat. “I s’pose +it’ll turn up in the mornin’,” said the Giraffe. “I +don’t mind a lark,” he added, “but it does seem a bit red hot +for the chaps to collar a cove’s hat and a feller goin’ away for +good, p’r’aps, in the mornin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell started the thing going with a quid. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s worth it,” he said, “to get rid of him. +We’ll have some peace now. There won’t be so many accidents or +women in trouble when the Giraffe and his blessed hat are gone. Any way, +he’s an eyesore in the town, and he’s getting on my nerves for +one.... Come on, you sinners! Chuck ’em in; we’re only taking quids +and half-quids.” +</p> + +<p> +About daylight next morning Tom Hall slipped into the Giraffe’s room at +the Carriers’ Arms. The Giraffe was sleeping peacefully. Tom put the hat +on a chair by his side. The collection had been a record one, and, besides the +packet of money in the crown of the hat, there was a silver-mounted pipe with +case—the best that could be bought in Bourke, a gold brooch, and several +trifles—besides an ugly valentine of a long man in his shirt walking the +room with a twin on each arm. +</p> + +<p> +Tom was about to shake the Giraffe by the shoulder, when he noticed a great +foot, with about half a yard of big-boned ankle and shank, sticking out at the +bottom of the bed. The temptation was too great. Tom took up the hair-brush, +and, with the back of it, he gave a smart rap on the point of an in-growing +toe-nail, and slithered. +</p> + +<p> +We heard the Giraffe swearing good-naturedly for a while, and then there was a +pregnant silence. He was staring at the hat we supposed. +</p> + +<p> +We were all up at the station to see him off. It was rather a long wait. The +Giraffe edged me up to the other end of the platform. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed overcome. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s—there’s some terrible good-hearted fellers in +this world,” he said. “You mustn’t forgit ’em, Harry, +when you make a big name writin’. I’m—well, I’m blessed +if I don’t feel as if I was jist goin’ to blubber!” +</p> + +<p> +I was glad he didn’t. The Giraffe blubberin’ would have been a +spectacle. I steered him back to his friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you going to kiss me, Bob?” said the Great +Western’s big, handsome barmaid, as the bell rang. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t mind kissin’ you, Alice,” he said, +wiping his mouth. “But I’m goin’ to be married, yer +know.” And he kissed her fair on the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothin’ like gettin’ into practice,” he +said, grinning round. +</p> + +<p> +We thought he was improving wonderfully; but at the last moment something +troubled him. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, you chaps,” he said, hesitatingly, with his hand in his +pocket, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with all this +stuff. There’s that there poor washerwoman that scalded her legs +liftin’ the boiler of clothes off the fire——” +</p> + +<p> +We shoved him into the carriage. He hung—about half of him—out the +window, wildly waving his hat, till the train disappeared in the scrub. +</p> + +<p> +And, as I sit here writing by lamplight at midday, in the midst of a great city +of shallow social sham, of hopeless, squalid poverty, of ignorant selfishness, +cultured or brutish, and of noble and heroic endeavour frowned down or +callously neglected, I am almost aware of a burst of sunshine in the room, and +a long form leaning over my chair, and: +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me for troublin’ yer; I’m always troublin’ yer; +but there’s that there poor woman....” +</p> + +<p> +And I wish I could immortalize him! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a> +THAT PRETTY GIRL IN THE ARMY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Now I often sit at Watty’s, when the night is very near,<br/> +With a head that’s full of jingles—and the fumes of bottled beer;<br/> +For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there<br/> +When the Army prays for Watty, I’m included in the prayer.<br/> +<br/> +It would take a lot of praying, lots of thumping on the drum,<br/> +To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come.<br/> +But I love my fellow-sinners! and I hope, upon the whole,<br/> +That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty’s soul.<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â From <i>When the World was Wide</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The Salvation Army does good business in some of the outback towns of the great +pastoral wastes of Australia. There’s the thoughtless, careless +generosity of the bushman, whose pockets don’t go far enough down his +trousers (that’s what’s the matter with him), and who contributes +to anything that comes along, without troubling to ask questions, like long Bob +Brothers of Bourke, who, chancing to be “a Protestant by rights,” +unwittingly subscribed towards the erection of a new Catholic church, and, +being chaffed for his mistake, said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, I don’t suppose it’ll matter a hang in the end, +anyway it goes. I ain’t got nothink agenst the Roming Carflicks.” +</p> + +<p> +There’s the shearer, fresh with his cheque from a cut-out shed, +gloriously drunk and happy, in love with all the world, and ready to subscribe +towards any creed and shout for all hands—including Old Nick if he +happened to come along. There’s the shearer, half-drunk and inclined to +be nasty, who has got the wrong end of all things with a tight grip, and who +flings a shilling in the face of out-back conventionality (as he thinks) by +chucking a bob into the Salvation Army ring. Then he glares round to see if he +can catch anybody winking behind his back. There’s the cynical joker, a +queer mixture, who contributes generously and tempts the reformed boozer +afterwards. There’s the severe-faced old station-hand—in clean +shirt and neckerchief and white moleskins—in for his annual or +semi-annual spree, who contributes on principle, and then drinks religiously +until his cheque is gone and the horrors are come. There’s the shearer, +feeling mighty bad after a spree, and in danger of seeing things when he tries +to go to sleep. He has dropped ten or twenty pounds over bar counters and at +cards, and he now “chucks” a repentant shilling into the ring, with +a very private and rather vague sort of feeling that something might come of +it. There’s the stout, contented, good-natured publican, who tips the +Army as if it were a barrel-organ. And there are others and other +reasons—black sheep and ne’er-do-wells—and faint echoes of +other times in Salvation Army tunes. +</p> + +<p> +Bourke, the metropolis of the Great Scrubs, on the banks of the Darling River, +about five hundred miles from Sydney, was suffering from a long drought when I +was there in ninety-two; and the heat may or may not have been another cause +contributing to the success, from a business point of view, of the Bourke +garrison. There was much beer boozing—and, besides, it was vaguely +understood (as most things are vaguely understood out there in the +drought-haze) that the place the Army came to save us from was hotter than +Bourke. We didn’t hanker to go to a hotter place than Bourke. But that +year there was an extraordinary reason for the Army’s great financial +success there. +</p> + +<p> +She was a little girl, nineteen or twenty, I should judge, the prettiest girl I +ever saw in the Army, and one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen out of it. +She had the features of an angel, but her expression was wonderfully human, +sweet and sympathetic. Her big grey eyes were sad with sympathy for sufferers +and sinners, and her poke bonnet was full of bunchy, red-gold hair. Her first +appearance was somewhat dramatic—perhaps the Army arranged it so. +</p> + +<p> +The Army used to pray, and thump the drum, and sing, and take up collections +every evening outside Watty Bothways’ Hotel, the Carriers’ Arms. +They performed longer and more often outside Watty’s than any other pub +in town—perhaps because Watty was considered the most hopeless publican +and his customers the hardest crowd of boozers in Bourke. The band generally +began to play about dusk. Watty would lean back comfortably in a basket +easy-chair on his wide veranda, and clasp his hands, in a calm, contented way, +while the Army banged the drum and got steam up, and whilst, perhaps, there was +a barney going on in the bar, or a bloodthirsty fight in the backyard. On such +occasions there was something like an indulgent or fatherly expression on his +fat and usually emotionless face. And by and by he’d move his head gently +and doze. The banging and the singing seemed to soothe him, and the praying, +which was often very personal, never seemed to disturb him in the least. +</p> + +<p> +Well, it was about dusk one day; it had been a terrible day, a hundred and +something startling in the shade, but there came a breeze after sunset. There +had been several dozen of buckets of water thrown on the veranda floor and the +ground outside. Watty was seated in his accustomed place when the Army arrived. +There was no barney in the bar because there was a fight in the backyard, and +that claimed the attention of all the customers. +</p> + +<p> +The Army prayed for Watty and his clients; then a reformed drunkard started to +testify against publicans and all their works. Watty settled himself +comfortably, folded his hands, and leaned back and dozed. +</p> + +<p> +The fight was over, and the chaps began to drop round to the bar. The man who +was saved waved his arms, and danced round and howled. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es!” he shouted hoarsely. “The publicans, and boozers, +and gamblers, and sinners may think that Bourke is hot, but hell is a thousand +times hotter! I tell you” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lord!” said Mitchell, the shearer, and he threw a penny into +the ring. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es! I tell you that hell is a million times hotter than Bourke! I +tell you——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, look here,” said a voice from the background, “that +won’t wash. Why, don’t you know that when the Bourke people die +they send back for their blankets?” +</p> + +<p> +The saved brother glared round. +</p> + +<p> +“I hear a freethinker speaking, my friends,” he said. Then, with +sudden inspiration and renewed energy, “I hear the voice of a +freethinker. Show me the face of a freethinker,” he yelled, glaring round +like a hunted, hungry man. “Show me the face of a freethinker, and +I’ll tell you what he is.” +</p> + +<p> +Watty hitched himself into a more comfortable position and clasped his hands on +his knee and closed his eyes again. +</p> + +<p> +“Ya-a-a-s!” shrieked the brand. “I tell you, my friends, I +can tell a freethinker by his face. Show me the face of a——” +</p> + +<p> +At this point there was an interruption. One-eyed, or Wall-eyed, Bogan, who had +a broken nose, and the best side of whose face was reckoned the ugliest and +most sinister—One-eyed Bogan thrust his face forward from the ring of +darkness into the torchlight of salvation. He had got the worst of a drawn +battle; his nose and mouth were bleeding, and his good eye was damaged. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at my face!” he snarled, with dangerous earnestness. +“Look at my face! That’s the face of a freethinker, and I +don’t care who knows it. Now! what have you got to say against my face, +‘Man-without-a-Shirt?’” +</p> + +<p> +The brother drew back. He had been known in the northwest in his sinful days as +“Man-without-a-Shirt,” alias “Shirty,” or “The +Dirty Man,” and was flabbergasted at being recognized in speech. Also, he +had been in a shearing-shed and in a shanty orgy with One-eyed Bogan, and knew +the man. +</p> + +<p> +Now most of the chaps respected the Army, and, indeed, anything that looked +like religion, but the Bogan’s face, as representing free-thought, was a +bit too sudden for them. There were sounds on the opposite side of the ring as +from men being smitten repeatedly and rapidly below the belt, and long Tom Hall +and one or two others got away into the darkness in the background, where Tom +rolled helplessly on the grass and sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +It struck me that Bogan’s face was more the result of free speech than +anything else. +</p> + +<p> +The Army was about to pray when the Pretty Girl stepped forward, her eyes +shining with indignation and enthusiasm. She had arrived by the evening train, +and had been standing shrinkingly behind an Army lass of fifty Australian +summers, who was about six feet high, flat and broad, and had a square face, +and a mouth like a joint in boiler plates. +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl stamped her pretty foot on the gravel, and her eyes flashed in +the torchlight. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” she said. “Great big +men like you to be going on the way you are. If you were ignorant or poor, as +I’ve seen people, there might be some excuse for you. Haven’t you +got any mothers, or sisters, or wives to think of? What sort of a life is this +you lead? Drinking, and gambling, and fighting, and swearing your lives away! +Do you ever think of God and the time when you were children? Why don’t +you make homes? Look at that man’s face!” (she pointed suddenly at +Bogan, who collapsed and sidled behind his mates out of the light). “Look +at that man’s face! Is it a face for a Christian? And you help and +encourage him to fight. You’re worse than he is. Oh, it’s brutal. +It’s—it’s wicked. Great big men like you, you ought to be +ashamed of yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +Long Bob Brothers—about six-foot-four—the longest and most innocent +there, shrunk down by the wall and got his inquiring face out of the light. The +Pretty Girl fluttered on for a few moments longer, greatly excited, and then +stepped back, seemingly much upset, and was taken under the wing of the woman +with the boiler-plate mouth. +</p> + +<p> +It was a surprise, and very sudden. Bogan slipped round to the backyard, and +was seen bathing his battered features at the pump. The rest wore the +expression of men who knew that something unusual has happened, but don’t +know what, and are waiting vacantly for developments.—Except Tom Hall, +who had recovered and returned. He stood looking over the head of the ring of +bushmen, and apparently taking the same critical interest in the girl as he +would in a fight—his expression was such as a journalist might wear who +is getting exciting copy. +</p> + +<p> +The Army had it all their own way for the rest of the evening, and made a good +collection. The Pretty Girl stood smiling round with shining eyes as the bobs +and tanners dropped in, and then, being shoved forward by the flat woman, she +thanked us sweetly, and said we were good fellows, and that she was sorry for +some things she’d said to us. Then she retired, fluttering and very much +flushed, and hid herself behind the hard woman—who, by the way, had an +excrescence on her upper lip which might have stood for a rivet. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the Pretty Girl came from behind the big woman and stood watching +things with glistening eyes. Some of the chaps on the opposite side of the ring +moved a little to one side and all were careful not to meet her eye—not +to be caught looking at her—lest she should be embarrassed. Watty had +roused himself a little at the sound of a strange voice in the Army (and such a +clear, sweet voice too!) and had a look; then he settled back peacefully again, +but it was noticed that he didn’t snore that evening. +</p> + +<p> +And when the Army prayed, the Pretty Girl knelt down with the rest on the +gravel. One or two tall bushmen bowed their heads as if they had to, and +One-eyed Bogan, with the blood washed from his face, stood with his hat off, +glaring round to see if he could catch anyone sniggering. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell, the shearer, said afterwards that the whole business made him feel +for the moment like he felt sometimes in the days when he used to feel things. +</p> + +<p> +The town discussed the Pretty Girl in the Army that night and for many days +thereafter, but no one could find out who she was or where she belonged +to—except that she came from Sydney last. She kept her secret, if she had +one, very close—or else the other S.-A. women were not to be pumped. She +lived in skillion-rooms at the back of the big weather-board Salvation Army +barracks with two other “lassies,” who did washing and sewing and +nursing, and went shabby, and half starved themselves, and were baked in the +heat, like scores of women in the bush, and even as hundreds of women, +suffering from religious mania, slave and stint in city slums, and neglect +their homes, husbands and children—for the glory of Booth. +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl was referred to as Sister Hannah by the Army people, and came +somehow to be known by sinners as “Miss Captain.” I don’t +know whether that was her real name or what rank she held in the Army, if +indeed she held any. +</p> + +<p> +She sold <i>War Crys</i>, and the circulation doubled in a day. One-eyed Bogan, +being bailed up unexpectedly, gave her “half a caser” for a +<i>Cry</i>, and ran away without the paper or the change. Jack Mitchell bought +a <i>Cry</i> for the first time in his life, and read it. He said he found some +of the articles intensely realistic, and many of the statements were very +interesting. He said he read one or two things in the <i>Cry</i> that he +didn’t know before. Tom Hall, taken unawares, bought three <i>Crys</i> +from the Pretty Girl, and blushed to find it fame. +</p> + +<p> +Little Billy Woods, the Labourers’ Union secretary—who had a poetic +temperament and more than the average bushman’s reverence for higher +things—Little Billy Woods told me in a burst of confidence that he +generally had two feelings, one after the other, after encountering that girl. +One was that unfathomable far-away feeling of loneliness and longing, that +comes at odd times to the best of married men, with the best of wives and +children—as Billy had. The other feeling, which came later on, and was a +reaction in fact, was the feeling of a man who thinks he’s been twisted +round a woman’s little finger for the benefit of somebody else. Billy +said that he couldn’t help being reminded by the shy, sweet smile and the +shy, sweet “thank you” of the Pretty Girl in the Army, of the shy, +sweet smile and the shy, sweet gratitude of a Sydney private barmaid, who had +once roped him in, in the days before he was married. Then he’d reckon +that the Army lassie had been sent out back to Bourke as a business +speculation. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hall was inclined to reckon so too—but that was after he’d been +chaffed for a month about the three <i>War Crys</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl was discussed from psychological points of view; not forgetting +the sex problem. Donald Macdonald—shearer, union leader and labour +delegate to other colonies on occasion—Donald Macdonald said that +whenever he saw a circle of plain or ugly, dried-up women or girls round a +shepherd, evangelist or a Salvation Army drum, he’d say “sexually +starved!” They were hungry for love. Religious mania was sexual passion +dammed out of its course. Therefore he held that morbidly religious girls were +the most easily seduced. +</p> + +<p> +But this couldn’t apply to Pretty Girl in the Army. Mitchell reckoned +that she’d either had a great sorrow—a lot of trouble, or a +disappointment in love (the “or” is Mitchell’s); but they +couldn’t see how a girl like her could possibly be disappointed in +love—unless the chap died or got into jail for life. Donald decided that +her soul had been starved somehow. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell suggested that it might be only a craving for notoriety, the same +thing that makes women and girls go amongst lepers, and out to the battlefield, +and nurse ugly pieces of men back to life again; the same thing that makes some +women and girls swear ropes round men’s necks. The Pretty Girl might be +the daughter of well-to-do people—even aristocrats, said +Mitchell—she was pretty enough and spoke well enough. “Every +woman’s a barmaid at heart,” as the <i>Bulletin</i> puts it, said +Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +But not even one of the haggard women of Bourke ever breathed a suspicion of +scandal against her. They said she was too good and too pretty to be where she +was. You see it was not as in an old settled town where hags blacken +God’s world with their tongues. Bourke was just a little camping town in +a big land, where free, good-hearted democratic Australians, and the best of +black sheep from the old world were constantly passing through; where +husband’s were often obliged to be away from home for twelve months, and +the storekeepers had to trust the people, and mates trusted each other, and the +folks were broad-minded. The mind’s eye had a wide range. +</p> + +<p> +After her maiden speech the Pretty Girl seldom spoke, except to return thanks +for collections—and she never testified. She had a sweet voice and used +to sing. +</p> + +<p> +Now, if I were writing pure fiction, and were not cursed with an obstinate +inclination to write the truth, I might say that, after the advent of the +Pretty Girl, the morals of Bourke improved suddenly and wonderfully. That +One-eyed Bogan left off gambling and drinking and fighting and swearing, and +put on a red coat and testified and fought the devil only; that Mitchell +dropped his mask of cynicism; that Donald Macdonald ate no longer of the tree +of knowledge and ceased to worry himself with psychological problems, and was +happy; and that Tom Hall was no longer a scoffer. That no one sneaked round +through the scrub after dusk to certain necessary establishments in +weather-board cottages on the outskirts of the town; and that the broad-minded +and obliging ladies thereof became Salvation Army lassies. +</p> + +<p> +But none of these things happened. Drunks quieted down or got out of the way if +they could when the Pretty Girl appeared on the scene, fights and games of +“headin’ ’em” were adjourned, and weak, ordinary +language was used for the time being, and that was about all. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, most of the chaps were in love with that Pretty Girl in the +Army—all those who didn’t <i>worship</i> her privately. Long Bob +Brothers hovered round in hopes, they said, that she’d meet with an +accident—get run over by a horse or something—and he’d have +to carry her in; he scared the women at the barracks by dropping firewood over +the fence after dark. Barcoo-Rot, the meanest man in the back country, was seen +to drop a threepenny bit into the ring, and a rumour was industriously +circulated (by Tom Hall) to the effect that One-eyed Bogan intended to shave +and join the Army disguised as a lassie. +</p> + +<p> +Handsome Jake Boreham (<i>alias</i> Bore-’em), a sentimental shearer from +New Zealand, who had read Bret Harte, made an elaborate attempt for the Pretty +Girl, by pretending to be going to the dogs headlong, with an idea of first +winning her sorrowful interest and sympathy, and then making an apparently hard +struggle to straighten up for her sake. He related his experience with the +cheerful and refreshing absence of reserve which was characteristic of him, and +is of most bushmen. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d had a few drinks,” he said, “and was having a +spell under a gum by the river, when I saw the Pretty Girl and another Army +woman coming down along the bank. It was a blazing hot day. I thought of Sandy +and the Schoolmistress in Bret Harte, and I thought it would be a good idea to +stretch out in the sun and pretend to be helpless; so I threw my hat on the +ground and lay down, with my head in the blazing heat, in the most graceful +position I could get at, and I tried to put a look of pained regret on my face, +as if I was dreaming of my lost boyhood and me mother. I thought, perhaps, the +Girl would pity me, and I felt sure she’d stoop and pick up my hat and +put it gently over my poor troubled head. Then I was going to become conscious +for a moment, and look hopelessly round, and into her eyes, and then start and +look sorrowful and ashamed, and stagger to my feet, taking off my hat like the +Silver King does to the audience when he makes his first appearance drunk on +the stage; and then I was going to reel off, trying to walk as straight as I +could. And next day I was going to clean up my teeth and nails and put on a +white shirt, and start to be a new man henceforth. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as I lay there with my eyes shut, I heard the footsteps come up +and stop, and heard ’em whisper, and I thought I heard the Pretty Girl +say ‘Poor fellow!’ or something that sounded like that; and just +then I got a God-almighty poke in the ribs with an umbrella—at least I +suppose it was aimed for my ribs; but women are bad shots, and the point of the +umbrella caught me in the side, just between the bottom rib and the hip-bone, +and I sat up with a click, like the blade of a pocketknife. +</p> + +<p> +“The other lassie was the big square-faced woman. The Pretty Girl looked +rather more frightened and disgusted than sentimental, but she had plenty of +pluck, and soon pulled herself together. She said I ought to be ashamed of +myself, a great big man like me, lying there in the dust like a drunken +tramp—an eyesore and a disgrace to all the world. She told me to go to my +camp, wherever that was, and sleep myself sober. The square-jawed woman said I +looked like a fool sitting there. I did feel ashamed, and I reckon I did look +like a fool—a man generally does in a fix like that. I felt like one, +anyway. I got up and walked away, and it hurt me so much that I went over to +West Bourke and went to the dogs properly for a fortnight, and lost twenty quid +on a game of draughts against a blindfold player. Now both those women had +umbrellas, but I’m not sure to this day which of ’em it was that +gave me the poke. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. I haven’t +borrowed one of Bret Harte’s books since.” +</p> + +<p> +Jake reflected a while. “The worst of it was,” he said ruefully, +“that I wasn’t sure that the girl or the woman didn’t see +through me, and that worried me a bit. You never can tell how much a woman +suspects, and that’s the worst of ’em. I found that out after I got +married.” +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl in the Army grew pale and thin and bigger-eyed. The women said +it was a shame, and that she ought to be sent home to her friends, wherever +they were. She was laid up for two or three days, and some of the women cooked +delicacies and handed ’em over the barracks fence, and offered to come in +and nurse her; but the square woman took washing home and nursed the girl +herself. +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl still sold <i>War Crys</i> and took up collections, but in a +tired, listless, half shamed-faced way. It was plain that she was tired of the +Army, and growing ashamed of the Salvationists. Perhaps she had come to see +things too plainly. +</p> + +<p> +You see, the Army does no good out back in Australia—except from a +business point of view. It is simply there to collect funds for hungry +headquarters. The bushmen are much too intelligent for the Army. There was no +poverty in Bourke—as it is understood in the city; there was plenty of +food; and camping out and roughing it come natural to the bushmen. In cases of +sickness, accident, widows or orphans, the chaps sent round the hat, without +banging a drum or testifying, and that was all right. If a chap was hard up he +borrowed a couple of quid from his mate. If a strange family arrived without a +penny, someone had to fix ’em up, and the storekeepers helped them till +the man got work. For the rest, we work out our own salvation, or +damnation—as the case is—in the bush, with no one to help us, +except a mate, perhaps. The Army can’t help us, but a fellow-sinner can, +sometimes, who has been through it all himself. The Army is only a drag on the +progress of Democracy, because it attracts many who would otherwise be +aggressive Democrats—and for other reasons. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, if we all reformed the Army would get deuced little from us for its +city mission. +</p> + +<p> +The Pretty Girl went to service for a while with the stock inspector’s +wife, who could get nothing out of her concerning herself or her friends. She +still slept at the barracks, stuck to the Army, and attended its meetings. +</p> + +<p> +It was Christmas morning, and there was peace in Bourke and goodwill towards +all men. There hadn’t been a fight since yesterday evening, and that had +only been a friendly one, to settle an argument concerning the past ownership, +and, at the same time, to decide as to the future possession of a dog. +</p> + +<p> +It had been a hot, close night, and it ended in a suffocating sunrise. The free +portion of the male population were in the habit of taking their blankets and +sleeping out in “the Park,” or town square, in hot weather; the +wives and daughters of the town slept, or tried to sleep, with bedroom windows +and doors open, while husbands lay outside on the verandas. I camped in a +corner of the park that night, and the sun woke me. +</p> + +<p> +As I sat up I caught sight of a swagman coming along the white, dusty road from +the direction of the bridge, where the cleared road ran across west and on, a +hundred and thirty miles, through the barren, broiling mulga scrubs, to +Hungerford, on the border of Sheol. I knew that swagman’s walk. It was +John Merrick (Jack Moonlight), one-time Shearers’ Union secretary at +Coonamble, and generally “Rep” (shearers’ representative) in +any shed where he sheared. He was a “better-class shearer,” one of +those quiet, thoughtful men of whom there are generally two or three in the +roughest of rough sheds, who have great influence, and give the shed a good +name from a Union point of view. Not quiet with the resentful or snobbish +reserve of the educated Englishman, but with a sad or subdued sort of quietness +that has force in it—as if they fully realized that their intelligence is +much higher than the average, that they have suffered more real trouble and +heartbreak than the majority of their mates, and that their mates +couldn’t possibly understand them if they spoke as they felt and +couldn’t see things as they do—yet men who understand and are +intensely sympathetic in their loneliness and sensitive reserve. +</p> + +<p> +I had worked in a shed with Jack Moonlight, and had met him in Sydney, and to +be mates with a bushman for a few weeks is to know him well—anyway, I +found it so. He had taken a trip to Sydney the Christmas before last, and when +he came back there was something wanting. He became more silent, he drank more, +and sometimes alone, and took to smoking heavily. He dropped his mates, took +little or no interest in Union matters, and travelled alone, and at night. +</p> + +<p> +The Australian bushman is born with a mate who sticks to him through +life—like a mole. They may be hundreds of miles apart sometimes, and +separated for years, yet they are mates for life. A bushman may have many mates +in his roving, but there is always one his mate, “my mate;” and it +is common to hear a bushman, who is, in every way, a true mate to the man he +happens to be travelling with, speak of <i>his mate’s +mate</i>—“Jack’s mate”—who might be in Klondyke +or South Africa. A bushman has always a mate to comfort him and argue with him, +and work and tramp and drink with him, and lend him quids when he’s hard +up, and call him a b—— fool, and fight him sometimes; to abuse him +to his face and defend his name behind his back; to bear false witness and +perjure his soul for his sake; to lie to the girl for him if he’s single, +and to his wife if he’s married; to secure a “pen” for him at +a shed where he isn’t on the spot, or, if the mate is away in New Zealand +or South Africa, to write and tell him if it’s any good coming over this +way. And each would take the word of the other against all the world, and each +believes that the other is the straightest chap that ever lived-“a white +man!” And next best to your old mate is the man you’re tramping, +riding, working, or drinking with. +</p> + +<p> +About the first thing the cook asks you when you come along to a +shearers’ hut is, “Where’s your mate?” I travelled +alone for a while one time, and it seemed to me sometimes, by the tone of the +inquiry concerning the whereabouts of my mate, that the bush had an idea that I +might have done away with him and that the thing ought to be looked into. +</p> + +<p> +When a man drops mateship altogether and takes to “hatting” in the +bush, it’s a step towards a convenient tree and a couple of saddle-straps +buckled together. +</p> + +<p> +I had an idea that I, in a measure, took the place of Jack Moonlight’s +mate about this time. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ullo, Jack!” I hailed as he reached the corner of the park. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Harry!” said Jack, as if he’d seen me last +yesterday evening instead of three months ago. “How are you getting +on?” +</p> + +<p> +We walked together towards the Union Office, where I had a camp in the +skillion-room at the back. Jack was silent. But there’s no place in the +world where a man’s silence is respected so much (within reasonable +bounds) as in the Australian bush, where every man has a past more or less sad, +and every man a ghost—perhaps from other lands that we know nothing of, +and speaking in a foreign tongue. They say in the bush, “Oh, Jack’s +only thinking!” And they let him think. Generally you want to think as +much as your mate; and when you’ve been together some time it’s +quite natural to travel all day without exchanging a word. In the morning Jim +says, “Well, I think I made a bargain with that horse, Bill,” and +some time late in the afternoon, say twenty miles farther on, it occurs to Bill +to “rejoin,” “Well, I reckon the blank as sold it to you had +yer proper!” +</p> + +<p> +I like a good thinking mate, and I believe that thinking in company is a lot +more healthy and more comfortable, as well as less risky, than thinking alone. +</p> + +<p> +On the way to the Union Office Jack and I passed the Royal Hotel, and caught a +glimpse, through the open door, of a bedroom off the veranda, of the +landlord’s fresh, fair, young Sydney girl-wife, sleeping prettily behind +the mosquito-net, like a sleeping beauty, while the boss lay on a mattress +outside on the veranda, across the open door. (He wasn’t necessary for +publication, but an evidence of good faith.) +</p> + +<p> +I glanced at Jack for a grin, but didn’t get one. He wore the pained +expression of a man who is suddenly hit hard with the thought of something that +might have been. +</p> + +<p> +I boiled the billy and fried a pound of steak. +</p> + +<p> +“Been travelling all night, Tack?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Jack. “I camped at Emus yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t eat. I began to reckon that he was brooding too much for his +health. He was much thinner than when I saw him last, and pretty haggard, and +he had something of the hopeless, haggard look that I’d seen in Tom +Hall’s eyes after the last big shearing strike, when Tom had worked day +and night to hold his mates up all through the hard, bitter struggle, and the +battle was lost. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Jack!” I said at last. “What’s up?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing’s up, Harry,” said Jack. “What made you think +so?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got yourself into any fix?” I asked. “What’s +the Hungerford track been doing to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Harry,” he said, “I’m all right. How are +you?” And he pulled some string and papers and a roll of dusty pound +notes from his pocket and threw them on the bunk. +</p> + +<p> +I was hard up just then, so I took a note and the billy to go to the Royal and +get some beer. I thought the beer might loosen his mind a bit. +</p> + +<p> +“Better take a couple of quid,” said Jack. “You look as if +you want some new shirts and things.” But a pound was enough for me, and +I think he had reason to be glad of that later on, as it turned out. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything new in Bourke?” asked Jack as we drank the beer. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, “not a thing—except there’s a +pretty girl in the Salvation Army.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it’s about time,” growled Jack. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Jack,” I said presently, “what’s come +over you lately at all? I might be able to help you. It’s not a bit of +use telling me that there’s nothing the matter. When a man takes to +brooding and travelling alone it’s a bad sign, and it will end in a +leaning tree and a bit of clothes-line as likely as not. Tell me what the +trouble is. Tell us all about it. There’s a ghost, isn’t +there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose so,” said Jack. “We’ve all got our +ghosts for that matter. But never you mind, Harry; I’m all right. I +don’t go interfering with your ghosts, and I don’t see what call +you’ve got to come haunting mine. Why, it’s as bad as kicking a +man’s dog.” And he gave the ghost of a grin. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, Jack,” I said, “is it a woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Jack, “it’s a woman. Now, are you +satisfied?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a girl?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +So there was no more to be said. I’d thought it might have been a lot +worse than a girl. I’d thought he might have got married somewhere, +sometime, and made a mess of it. +</p> + +<p> +We had dinner at Billy Woods’s place, and a sensible Christmas dinner it +was—everything cold, except the vegetables, with the hose going on the +veranda in spite of the by-laws, and Billy’s wife and her sister, fresh +and cool-looking and jolly, instead of being hot and brown and cross like most +Australian women who roast themselves over a blazing fire in a hot kitchen on a +broiling day, all the morning, to cook scalding plum pudding and redhot roasts, +for no other reason than that their grandmothers used to cook hot Christmas +dinners in England. +</p> + +<p> +And in the afternoon we went for a row on the river, pulling easily up the +anabranch and floating down with the stream under the shade of the river +timber—instead of going to sleep and waking up helpless and soaked in +perspiration, to find the women with headaches, as many do on Christmas Day in +Australia. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Woods tried to draw Jack out, but it was no use, and in the evening he +commenced drinking, and that made Billy uneasy. “I’m afraid +Jack’s on the wrong track,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +After tea most of us collected about Watty’s veranda. Most things that +happened in Bourke happened at Watty’s pub, or near it. +</p> + +<p> +If a horse bolted with a buggy or cart, he was generally stopped outside +Watty’s, which seemed to suggest, as Mitchell said, that most of the +heroes drank at Watty’s—also that the pluckiest men were found +amongst the hardest drinkers. (But sometimes the horse fetched up against +Watty’s sign and lamppost—which was a stout one of +“iron-bark”—and smashed the trap.) Then Watty’s was the +Carriers’ Arms, a union pub; and Australian teamsters are mostly hard +cases: while there was something in Watty’s beer which made men argue +fluently, and the best fights came off in his backyard. Watty’s dogs were +the most quarrelsome in town, and there was a dog-fight there every other +evening, followed as often as not by a man-fight. If a bushman’s horse +ran away with him the chances were that he’d be thrown on to +Watty’s veranda, if he wasn’t pitched into the bar; and victims of +accidents, and sick, hard-up shearers, were generally carried to Watty’s +pub, as being the most convenient and comfortable for them. Mitchell denied +that it was generosity or good nature on Watty’s part, he said it was all +business—advertisement. Watty knew what he was doing. He was very deep, +was Watty. Mitchell further hinted that if he was sick <i>he</i> wouldn’t +be carried to Watty’s, for Watty knew what a thirsty business a funeral +was. Tom Hall reckoned that Watty bribed the Army on the quiet. +</p> + +<p> +I was sitting on a stool along the veranda wall with Donald Macdonald, Bob +Brothers (the Giraffe) and Mitchell, and one or two others, and Jack Moonlight +sat on the floor with his back to the wall and his hat well down over his eyes. +The Army came along at the usual time, but we didn’t see the Pretty Girl +at first—she was a bit late. Mitchell said he liked to be at +Watty’s when the Army prayed and the Pretty Girl was there; he had no +objection to being prayed for by a girl like that, though he reckoned that +nothing short of a real angel could save him now. He said his old grandmother +used to pray for him every night of her life and three times on Sunday, with +Christmas Day extra when Christmas Day didn’t fall on a Sunday; but +Mitchell reckoned that the old lady couldn’t have had much influence +because he became more sinful every year, and went deeper in ways of darkness, +until finally he embarked on a career of crime. +</p> + +<p> +The Army prayed, and then a thin “ratty” little woman bobbed up in +the ring; she’d gone mad on religion as women do on woman’s rights +and hundreds of other things. She was so skinny in the face, her jaws so +prominent, and her mouth so wide, that when she opened it to speak it was like +a ventriloquist’s dummy and you could almost see the cracks open down +under her ears. +</p> + +<p> +“They say I’m cracked!” she screamed in a shrill, cracked +voice. “But I’m not cracked—I’m only cracked on the +Lord Jesus Christ! That’s all I’m cracked on——.” +And just then the Amen man of the Army—the Army groaner we called him, +who was always putting both feet in it—just then he blundered forward, +rolled up his eyes, threw his hands up and down as if he were bouncing two +balls, and said, with deep feeling: +</p> + +<p> +“Thank the Lord she’s got a crack in the right place!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hall doubled up, and most of the other sinners seemed to think there was +something very funny about it. And the Army, too, seemed struck with an idea +that there was something wrong somewhere, for they started a hymn. +</p> + +<p> +A big American negro, who’d been a night watchman in Sydney, stepped into +the ring and waved his arms and kept time, and as he got excited he moved his +hands up and down rapidly, as if he was hauling down a rope in a great hurry +through a pulley block above, and he kept saying, “Come down, +Lord!” all through the hymn, like a bass accompaniment, “Come down, +Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord; come down, Lord!” and the quicker +be said it the faster he hauled. He was as good as a drum. And, when the hymn +was over, he started to testify. +</p> + +<p> +“My frens!” he said, “I was once black as der coals in der +mined! I was once black as der ink in der ocean of sin! But now—thank +an’ bless the Lord!—I am whiter dan der dribben snow!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hall sat down on the edge of the veranda and leaned his head against a post +and cried. He had contributed a bob this evening, and he was getting his +money’s worth. +</p> + +<p> +Then the Pretty Girl arrived and was pushed forward into the ring. She looked +thinner and whiter than I’d ever seen her, and there was a feverish +brightness in her eyes that I didn’t like. +</p> + +<p> +“Men!” she said, “this is Christmas Day-.” I +didn’t hear any more for, at the sound of her voice, Jack Moonlight +jumped up as if he’d sat on a baby. He started forward, stared at her for +a moment as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and then said, +“Hannah!” short and sharp. She started as if she was shot, gave him +a wild look, and stumbled forward; the next moment he had her in his arms and +was steering for the private parlour. +</p> + +<p> +I heard Mrs Bothways calling for water and smelling-salts; she was as fat as +Watty, and very much like him in the face, but she was emotional and +sympathetic. Then presently I heard, through the open window, the Pretty Girl +say to Jack, “Oh, Jack, Jack! Why did you go away and leave me like that? +It was cruel!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you told me to go, Hannah,” said Jack. +</p> + +<p> +“That-that didn’t make any difference. Why didn’t you +write?” she sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Because you never wrote to me, Hannah,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“That—that was no excuse!” she said. “It was so +k-k-k-cruel of you, Jack.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Bothways pulled down the window. A new-comer asked Watty what the trouble +was, and he said that the Army girl had only found her chap, or husband, or +long-lost brother or something, but the missus was looking after the business; +then he dozed again. +</p> + +<p> +And then we adjourned to the Royal and took the Army with us. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way of it,” said Donald Macdonald. “With a +woman it’s love or religion; with a man it’s love or the +devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or with a man,” said Mitchell, presently, “it’s love +and the devil both, sometimes, Donald.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at Mitchell hard, but for all his face expressed he might only have +said, “I think it’s going to rain.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></a> +“LORD DOUGLAS”</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“They hold him true, who’s true to one,<br/> +However false he be—”<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â <i>The Rouseabout of Rouseabouts</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The Imperial Hotel was rather an unfortunate name for an out-back town pub, for +out back is the stronghold of Australian democracy; it was the out-back vote +and influence that brought about “One Man One Vote,” “Payment +of Members,” and most of the democratic legislation of late years, and +from out back came the overwhelming vote in favour of Australian as Imperial +Federation. +</p> + +<p> +The name Royal Hotel is as familiar as that of the Railway Hotel, and passes +unnoticed and ungrowled at, even by bush republicans. The Royal Hotel at Bourke +was kept by an Irishman, one O’Donohoo, who was Union to the backbone, +loudly in favour of “Australia for the Australians,” and, of +course, against even the democratic New South Wales Government of the time. He +went round town all one St Patrick’s morning with a bunch of green ribbon +fastened to his coat-tail with a large fish-hook, and wasn’t aware of the +fact till he sat down on the point of it. But that’s got nothing to do +with it. +</p> + +<p> +The Imperial Hotel at Bourke was unpopular from the first. It was said that the +very existence of the house was the result of a swindle. It had been built with +money borrowed on certain allotments in the centre of the town and on the +understanding that it should be built on the mortgaged land, whereas it was +erected on a free allotment. Which fact was discovered, greatly to its +surprise, by the building society when it came to foreclose on the allotments +some years later. While the building was being erected the Bourke people +understood, in a vague way, that it was to be a convent (perhaps the building +society thought so, too), and when certain ornaments in brick and cement in the +shape of a bishop’s mitre were placed over the corners of the walls the +question seemed decided. But when the place was finished a bar was fitted up, +and up went the sign, to the disgust of the other publicans, who didn’t +know a licence had been taken out—for licensing didn’t go by local +option in those days. It was rumoured that the place belonged to, and the whole +business was engineered by, a priest. And priests are men of the world. +</p> + +<p> +The Imperial Hotel was patronized by the pastoralists, the civil servants, the +bank manager and clerks—all the scrub aristocracy; it was the +headquarters of the Pastoralists’ Union in Bourke; a barracks for +blacklegs brought up from Sydney to take the place of Union shearers on strike; +and the new Governor, on his inevitable visit to Bourke, was banqueted at the +Imperial Hotel. The editor of the local “capitalistic rag” stayed +there; the pastoralists’ member was elected mostly by dark ways and means +devised at the Imperial Hotel, and one of its managers had stood as a dummy +candidate to split the Labour vote; the management of the hotel was his reward. +In short, it was there that most of the plots were hatched to circumvent +Freedom, and put away or deliver into the clutches of law and order certain +sons of Light and Liberty who believed in converting blacklegs into jellies by +force of fists when bribes, gentle persuasion and pure Australian language +failed to convert them to clean Unionism. The Imperial Hotel was called the +“Squatters’ Pub,” the “Scabbery,” and other and +more expressive names. +</p> + +<p> +The hotel became still more unpopular after Percy Douglas had managed it for a +while. He was an avowed enemy of Labour Unionists. He employed Chinese cooks, +and that in the height of the anti-Chinese agitation in Australia, and he was +known to have kindly feelings towards the Afghans who, with their camels, were +running white carriers off the roads. If an excited Unionist called a man a +“blackleg” or “scab” in the Imperial bar he was run +out—sometimes with great difficulty, and occasionally as far as the +lock-up. +</p> + +<p> +Percy Douglas was a fine-looking man, “wid a chest on him an’ well +hung—a fine fee-<i>gure</i> of a man,” as O’Donohoo +pronounced it. He was tall and erect, he dressed well, wore small +side-whiskers, had an eagle nose, and looked like an aristocrat. Like many of +his type, who start sometimes as billiard-markers and suddenly become hotel +managers in Australia, nothing was known of his past. Jack Mitchell reckoned, +by the way he treated his employees and spoke to workmen, that he was the +educated son of an English farmer—gone wrong and sent out to Australia. +Someone called him “Lord Douglas,” and the nickname caught on. +</p> + +<p> +He made himself well hated. He got One-eyed Bogan “three months’ +hard” for taking a bottle of whisky off the Imperial bar counter because +he (Bogan) was drunk and thirsty and had knocked down his cheque, and because +there was no one minding the bar at the moment. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Douglas dismissed the barmaid, and, as she was leaving, he had her boxes +searched and gave her in charge for stealing certain articles belonging to the +hotel. The chaps subscribed to defend the case, and subsequently put a few +pounds together for the girl. She proved her gratitude by bringing a charge of +a baby against one of the chaps—but that was only one of the little ways +of the world, as Mitchell said. She joined a Chinese camp later on. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Douglas employed a carpenter to do some work about the hotel, and because +the carpenter left before the job was finished, Lord Douglas locked his tools +in an outhouse and refused to give them up; and when the carpenter, with the +spirit of an Australian workman, broke the padlock and removed his tool-chest, +the landlord gave him in charge for breaking and entering. The chaps defended +the case and won it, and hated Lord Douglas as much as if he were their elder +brother. Mitchell was the only one to put in a word for him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been puzzling it out,” said Mitchell, as he sat nursing +his best leg in the Union Office, “and, as far as I can see, it all +amounts to this—we’re all mistaken in Lord Douglas. We don’t +know the man. He’s all right. We don’t understand him. He’s +really a sensitive, good-hearted man who’s been shoved a bit off the +track by the world. It’s the world’s fault—he’s not to +blame. You see, when he was a youngster he was the most good-natured kid in the +school; he was always soft, and, consequently, he was always being imposed +upon, and bullied, and knocked about. Whenever he got a penny to buy lollies +he’d count ’em out carefully and divide ’em round amongst his +schoolmates and brothers and sisters. He was the only one that worked at home, +and consequently they all hated him. His father respected him, but didn’t +love him, because he wasn’t a younger son, and wasn’t bringing his +father’s grey hairs down in sorrow to the grave. If it was in Australia, +probably Lord Douglas was an elder son and had to do all the hard graft, and +teach himself at night, and sleep in a bark skillion while his younger brothers +benefited—they were born in the new brick house and went to +boarding-schools. His mother had a contempt for him because he wasn’t a +black sheep and a prodigal, and, when the old man died, the rest of the family +got all the stuff and Lord Douglas was kicked out because they could do without +him now. And the family hated him like poison ever afterwards (especially his +mother), and spread lies about him—because they had treated him +shamefully and because his mouth was shut—they knew he wouldn’t +speak. Then probably he went in for Democracy and worked for Freedom, till +Freedom trod on him once too often with her hob-nailed boots. Then the chances +are, in the end, he was ruined by a girl or woman, and driven, against his +will, to take refuge in pure individualism. He’s all right, only we +don’t appreciate him. He’s only fighting against his old +ideals—his old self that comes up sometimes—and that’s what +makes him sweat his barmaids and servants, and hate us, and run us in; and +perhaps when he cuts up extra rough it’s because his conscience kicks him +when he thinks of the damned soft fool he used to be. He’s all +right—take my word for it. It’s all a mask. Why, he might be one of +the kindest-hearted men in Bourke underneath.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Hall rubbed his head and blinked, as if he was worried by an idea that +there might be some facts in Mitchell’s theories. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re allers findin’ excuses for blacklegs an’ scabs, +Mitchell,” said Barcoo-Rot, who took Mitchell seriously (and who would +have taken a laughing jackass seriously). “Why, you’d find a white +spot on a squatter. I wouldn’t be surprised if you blacklegged yourself +in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +This was an unpardonable insult, from a Union point of view, and the chaps +half-unconsciously made room on the floor for Barcoo-Rot to fall after Jack +Mitchell hit him. But Mitchell took the insult philosophically. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Barcoo-Rot,” he said, nursing the other leg, “for the +matter of that, I did find a white spot on a squatter once. He lent me a quid +when I was hard up. There’s white spots on the blackest characters if you +only drop prejudice and look close enough. I suppose even +Jack-the-Ripper’s character was speckled. Why, I can even see spots on +your character, sometimes, Barcoo-Rot. I’ve known white spots to spread +on chaps’ characters until they were little short of saints. Sometimes I +even fancy I can feel my own wings sprouting. And as for turning +blackleg—well, I suppose I’ve got a bit of the crawler in my +composition (most of us have), and a man never knows what might happen to his +principles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Barcoo-Rot, “I beg yer pardon—ain’t +that enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mitchell, “you ought to wear a three-bushel bag +and ashes for three months, and drink water; but since the police would send +you to an asylum if you did that, I think the best thing we can do is to go out +and have a drink.” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Douglas married an Australian girl somewhere, somehow, and brought her to +Bourke, and there were two little girls—regular little fairies. She was a +gentle, kind-hearted little woman, but she didn’t seem to improve him +much, save that he was very good to her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s mostly that way,” commented Mitchell. “When a +boss gets married and has children he thinks he’s got a greater right to +grind his fellowmen and rob their wives and children. I’d never work for +a boss with a big family—it’s hard enough to keep a single boss +nowadays in this country.” +</p> + +<p> +After one stormy election, at the end of a long and bitter shearing strike, +One-eyed Bogan, his trusty enemy, Barcoo-Rot, and one or two other enthusiastic +reformers were charged with rioting, and got from one to three months’ +hard. And they had only smashed three windows of the Imperial Hotel and chased +the Chinese cook into the river. +</p> + +<p> +“I used to have some hopes for Democracy,” commented Mitchell, +“but I’ve got none now. How can you expect Liberty, Equality or +Fraternity—how can you expect Freedom and Universal Brotherhood and Equal +Rights in a country where Sons of Light get three months’ hard for +breaking windows and bashing a Chinaman? It almost makes me long to sail away +in a gallant barque.” +</p> + +<p> +There were other cases in connection with the rotten-egging of Capitalistic +candidates on the Imperial Hotel balcony, and it was partly on the evidence of +Douglas and his friends that certain respectable Labour leaders got heavy terms +of imprisonment for rioting and “sedition” and +“inciting,” in connection with organized attacks on blacklegs and +their escorts. +</p> + +<p> +Retribution, if it was retribution, came suddenly and in a most unexpected +manner to Lord Douglas. +</p> + +<p> +It seems he employed a second carpenter for six months to repair and make +certain additions to the hotel, and put him off under various pretences until +he owed him a hundred pounds or thereabout. At last, immediately after an +exciting interview with Lord Douglas, the carpenter died suddenly of heart +disease. The widow, a strong-minded bushwoman, put a bailiff in the hotel on a +very short notice—and against the advice of her lawyer, who thought the +case hopeless—and the Lord Douglas bubble promptly burst. He had somehow +come to be regarded as the proprietor of the hotel, but now the real +proprietors or proprietor—he was still said to be a priest—turned +Douglas out and put in a new manager. The old servants were paid after some +trouble. The local storekeepers and one or two firms in Sydney, who had large +accounts against the Imperial Hotel (and had trusted it, mainly because it was +patronized by Capitalism and Fat), were never paid. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Douglas cleared out to Sydney, leaving his wife and children, for the +present, with her brother, a hay-and-corn storekeeper, who also had a large and +hopeless account against the hotel; and when the brother went broke and left +the district she rented a two-roomed cottage and took in dressmaking. +</p> + +<p> +Dressmaking didn’t pay so well in the bush then as it did in the old +diggings days when sewing-machines were scarce and the possession of one meant +an independent living to any girl—when diggers paid ten shillings for a +strip of “flannen” doubled over and sewn together, with holes for +arms and head, and called a shirt. Mrs Douglas had a hard time, with her two +little girls, who were still better and more prettily dressed than any other +children in Bourke. One grocer still called on her for orders and pretended to +be satisfied to wait “till Mr Douglas came back,” and when she +would no longer order what he considered sufficient provisions for her and the +children, and commenced buying sugar, etc., by the pound, for cash, he one day +sent a box of groceries round to her. He pretended it was a mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“However,” he said, “I’d be very much obliged if you +could use ’em, Mrs Douglas. I’m overstocked now; haven’t got +room for another tin of sardines in the shop. Don’t you worry about +bills, Mrs Douglas; I can wait till Douglas comes home. I did well enough out +of the Imperial Hotel when your husband had it, and a pound’s worth of +groceries won’t hurt me now. I’m only too glad to get rid of some +of the stock.” +</p> + +<p> +She cried a little, thought of the children, and kept the groceries. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I’ll be sold up soon meself if things don’t git +brighter,” said that grocer to a friend, “so it doesn’t +matter much.” +</p> + +<p> +The same with Foley the butcher, who had a brogue with a sort of drawling groan +in it, and was a cynic of the Mitchell school. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” he said, “she’s as proud as the devil, but +when I send round a bit o’ rawst, or porrk, or the undercut o’ the +blade-bawn, she thinks o’ the little gur-r-rls before she thinks o’ +sendin’ it back to me. That’s where I’ve got the pull on +her.” +</p> + +<p> +The Giraffe borrowed a horse and tip-dray one day at the beginning of winter +and cut a load of firewood in the bush, and next morning, at daylight, Mrs +Douglas was nearly startled out of her life by a crash at the end of the +cottage, which made her think that the chimney had fallen in, or a tree fallen +on the house; and when she slipped on a wrapper and looked out, she saw a load +of short-cut wood by the chimney, and caught a glimpse of the back view of the +Giraffe, who stood in the dray with his legs wide apart and was disappearing +into the edge of the scrub; and soon the rapid clock-clock-clock of the wheels +died away in the west, as if he were making for West Australia. +</p> + +<p> +The next we heard of Lord Douglas he had got two years’ hard for +embezzlement in connection with some canvassing he had taken up. Mrs Douglas +fell ill—a touch of brain-fever—and one of the labourers’ +wives took care of the children while two others took turns in nursing. While +she was recovering, Bob Brothers sent round the hat, and, after a conclave in +the Union Office—as mysterious as any meeting ever called with the object +of downing bloated Capitalism—it was discovered that one of the +chaps—who didn’t wish his name to be mentioned—had borrowed +just twenty-five pounds from Lord Douglas in the old days and now wished to +return it to Mrs Douglas. So the thing was managed, and if she had any +suspicions she kept them to herself. She started a little fancy goods shop and +got along fairly comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +Douglas, by the way, was, publicly, supposed, for her sake and because of the +little girls, to be away in West Australia on the goldfields. +</p> + +<p> +Time passes without much notice out back, and one hot day, when the sun hung +behind the fierce sandstorms from the northwest as dully lurid as he ever +showed in a London fog, Lord Douglas got out of the train that had just +finished its five-hundred-miles’ run, and not seeing a new-chum porter, +who started forward by force of habit to take his bag, he walked stiffly off +the platform and down the main street towards his wife’s cottage. +</p> + +<p> +He was very gaunt, and his eyes, to those who passed him closely, seemed to +have a furtive, hunted expression. He had let his beard grow, and it had grown +grey. +</p> + +<p> +It was within a few days of Christmas—the same Christmas that we lost the +Pretty Girl in the Salvation Army. As a rule the big shearing-sheds within a +fortnight of Bourke cut out in time for the shearers to reach the town and have +their Christmas dinners and sprees—and for some of them to be locked up +over Christmas Day—within sound of a church-going bell. Most of the chaps +gathered in the Shearers’ Union Office on New Year’s Eve and +discussed Douglas amongst other things. +</p> + +<p> +“I vote we kick the cow out of the town!” snarled One-eyed Bogan, +viciously. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t do that,” said Bob Brothers (the Giraffe), speaking +more promptly than usual. “There’s his wife and youngsters to +consider, yer know.” +</p> + +<p> +“He something well deserted his wife,” snarled Bogan, +“an’ now he comes crawlin’ back to her to keep him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mitchell, mildly, “but we ain’t all got as +much against him as you have, Bogan.” +</p> + +<p> +“He made a crimson jail-bird of me!” snapped Bogan. +“Well,” said Mitchell, “that didn’t hurt you much, +anyway; it rather improved your character if anything. Besides, he made a +jail-bird of himself afterwards, so you ought to have a fellow-feeling—a +feathered feeling, so to speak. Now you needn’t be offended, Bogan, +we’re all jail-birds at heart, only we haven’t all got the +pluck.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m in favour of blanky well tarrin’ an’ +featherin’ him an’ kickin’ him out of the town!” +shouted Bogan. “It would be a good turn to his wife, too; she’d be +well rid of the——.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps she’s fond of him,” suggested Mitchell; +“I’ve known such cases before. I saw them sitting together on the +veranda last night when they thought no one was looking.” +</p> + +<p> +“He deserted her,” said One-eyed Bogan, in a climbing-down tone, +“and left her to starve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps the police were to blame for that,” said Mitchell. +“You know you deserted all your old mates once for three months, Bogan, +and it wasn’t your fault.” +</p> + +<p> +“He seems to be a crimson pet of yours, Jack Mitchell,” said Bogan, +firing up. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, all I know,” said Mitchell, standing up and stretching +himself wearily, “all I know is that he looked like a gentleman once, and +treated us like a gentleman, and cheated us like a gentleman, and ran some of +us in like a gentleman, and, as far as I can see, he’s served his time +like a gentleman and come back to face us and live himself down like a man. I +always had a sneaking regard for a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Mitchell, I’m beginning to think you are a gentleman +yourself,” said Jake Boreham. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mitchell, “I used to have a suspicion once that +I had a drop of blue blood in me somewhere, and it worried me a lot; but I +asked my old mother about it one day, and she scalded me—God bless +her!—and father chased me with a stockwhip, so I gave up making +inquiries.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll join the bloomin’ Capitalists next,” sneered +One-eyed Bogan. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could, Bogan,” said Mitchell. “I’d take a +trip to Paris and see for myself whether the Frenchwomen are as bad as +they’re made out to be, or go to Japan. But what are we going to do about +Douglas?” +</p> + +<p> +“Kick the skunk out of town, or boycott him!” said one or two. +“He ought to be tarred and feathered and hanged.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t do worse than hang him,” commented Jake Boreham, +cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, we could,” said Mitchell, sitting down, resting his +elbows on his knees, and marking his points with one forefinger on the other. +“For instance, we might boil him slow in tar. We might skin him alive. We +might put him in a cage and poke him with sticks, with his wife and children in +another cage to look on and enjoy the fun.” +</p> + +<p> +The chaps, who had been sitting quietly listening to Mitchell, and grinning, +suddenly became serious and shifted their positions uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can tell you what would hurt his feelings more than anything else +we could do,” said Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it, Jack?” said Tom Hall, rather impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Send round the hat and take up a collection for him,” said +Mitchell, “enough to let him get away with his wife and children and +start life again in some less respectable town than Bourke. You needn’t +grin, I’m serious about it.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a thoughtful pause, and one or two scratched their heads. “His +wife seems pretty sick,” Mitchell went on in a reflective tone. “I +passed the place this morning and saw him scrubbing out the floor. He’s +been doing a bit of house-painting for old Heegard to-day. I suppose he learnt +it in jail. I saw him at work and touched my hat to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Tom Hall, affecting to shrink from Mitchell in +horror. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mitchell, “I’m not sure that I didn’t +take my hat off. Now I know it’s not bush religion for a man to touch his +hat, except to a funeral, or a strange roof or woman sometimes; but when I meet +a braver man than myself I salute him. I’ve only met two in my +life.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who were they, Jack?” asked Jake Boreham. +</p> + +<p> +“One,” said Mitchell—“one is Douglas, and the +other—well, the other was the man I used to be. But that’s got +nothing to do with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But perhaps Douglas thought you were crowing over him when you took off +your hat to him—sneerin’ at him, like, Mitchell,” reflected +Jake Boreham. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Jake,” said Mitchell, growing serious suddenly. “There +are ways of doing things that another man understands.” +</p> + +<p> +They all thought for a while. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Tom Hall, “supposing we do take up a collection +for him, he’d be too damned proud to take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s where we’ve got the pull on him,” said +Mitchell, brightening up. “I heard Dr Morgan say that Mrs Douglas +wouldn’t live if she wasn’t sent away to a cooler place, and +Douglas knows it; and, besides, one of the little girls is sick. We’ve +got him in a corner and he’ll have to take the stuff. Besides, two years +in jail takes a lot of the pride out of a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m damned if I’ll give a sprat to help the man who +tried his best to crush the Unions!” said One-eyed Bogan. +</p> + +<p> +“Damned if I will either!” said Barcoo-Rot. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, One-eyed Bogan,” said Mitchell, “I +don’t like to harp on old things, for I know they bore you, but when you +returned to public life that time no one talked of kicking you out of the town. +In fact, I heard that the chaps put a few pounds together to help you get away +for a while till you got over your modesty.” +</p> + +<p> +No one spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“I passed Douglas’s place on my way here from my camp +to-night,” Mitchell went on musingly, “and I saw him walking up and +down in the yard with his sick child in his arms. You remember that little +girl, Bogan? I saw her run and pick up your hat and give it to you one day when +you were trying to put it on with your feet. You remember, Bogan? The shock +nearly sobered you.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a very awkward pause. The position had become too psychological +altogether and had to be ended somehow. The awkward silence had to be broken, +and Bogan broke it. He turned up Bob Brothers’s hat, which was lying on +the table, and “chucked” in a “quid,” qualifying the +hat and the quid, and disguising his feelings with the national oath of the +land. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve had enough of this gory, maudlin, sentimental +tommy-rot,” he said. “Here, Barcoo, stump up or I’ll belt it +out of your hide! I’ll—I’ll take yer to pieces!” +</p> + +<p> +But Douglas didn’t leave the town. He sent his wife and children to +Sydney until the heat wave was past, built a new room on to the cottage, and +started a book and newspaper shop, and a poultry farm in the back paddock, and +flourished. +</p> + +<p> +They called him Mr Douglas for a while, then Douglas, then Percy Douglas, and +now he is well-known as Old Daddy Douglas, and the Sydney <i>Worker</i>, +<i>Truth</i>, and <i>Bulletin</i>, and other democratic rags are on sale at his +shop. He is big with schemes for locking the Darling River, and he gets his +drink at O’Donohoo’s. He is scarcely yet regarded as a straight-out +democrat. He was a gentleman once, Mitchell said, and the old blood was not to +be trusted. But, last elections, Douglas worked quietly for Unionism, and gave +the leaders certain hints, and put them up to various electioneering dodges +which enabled them to return, in the face of Monopoly, a Labour member who is +as likely to go straight as long as any other Labour member. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></a> +THE BLINDNESS OF ONE-EYED BOGAN</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +They judge not and they are not judged—’tis their philosophy—<br/> +(There’s something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea).<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â <i>The Ballad of the Rouseabout</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“And what became of One-eyed Bogan?” I asked Tom Hall when I met +him and Jack Mitchell down in Sydney with their shearing cheques the Christmas +before last. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better ask Mitchell, Harry,” said Tom. “He can +tell you about Bogan better than I can. But first, what about the drink +we’re going to have?” +</p> + +<p> +We turned out of Pitt Street into Hunter Street, and across George Street, +where a double line of fast electric tramway was running, into Margaret Street +and had a drink at Pfahlert’s Hotel, where a counter lunch—as good +as many dinners you get for a shilling—was included with a sixpenny +drink. “Get a quiet corner,” said Mitchell, “I like to bear +myself cackle.” So we took our beer out in the fernery and got a cool +place at a little table in a quiet corner amongst the fern boxes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, One-eyed Bogan was a hard case, Mitchell,” I said. +“Wasn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mitchell, putting down his “long-beer” +glass, “he was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather a bad egg?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, a regular bad egg,” said Mitchell, decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard he got caught cheating at cards,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you?” said Mitchell. “Well, I believe he did. Ah, +well,” he added reflectively, after another long pull, “One-eyed +Bogan won’t cheat at cards any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I said. “Is he dead then?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mitchell, “he’s blind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good God!” I said, “how did that happen?” +</p> + +<p> +“He lost the other eye,” said Mitchell, and he took another drink. +“Ah, well, he won’t cheat at cards any more—unless +there’s cards invented for the blind.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did it happen?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mitchell, “you see, Harry, it was this way. +Bogan went pretty free in Bourke after the shearing before last, and in the end +he got mixed up in a very ugly-looking business: he was accused of doing two +new-chum jackaroos out of their stuff by some sort of confidence trick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Confidence trick,” I said. “I’d never have thought +that One-eyed Bogan had the brains to go in for that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it seems he had, or else he used somebody else’s brains; +there’s plenty of broken-down English gentlemen sharpers knocking about +out back, you know, and Bogan might have been taking lessons from one. I +don’t know the rights of the case, it was hushed up, as you’ll see +presently; but, anyway, the jackaroos swore that Bogan had done ’em out +of ten quid. They were both Cockneys and I suppose they reckoned themselves +smart, but bushmen have more time to think. Besides, Bogan’s one eye was +in his favour. You see he always kept his one eye fixed strictly on whatever +business he had in hand; if he’d had another eye to rove round and +distract his attention and look at things on the outside, the chances are he +would never have got into trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that, Jack,” said Tom Hall. “Harry wants to hear +the yarn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to make it short, one of the jackaroos went to the police and +Bogan cleared out. His character was pretty bad just then, so there was a piece +of blue paper out for him. Bogan didn’t seem to think the thing was so +serious as it was, for he only went a few miles down the river and camped with +his horses on a sort of island inside an anabranch, till the thing should blow +over or the new chums leave Bourke. +</p> + +<p> +“Bogan’s old enemy, Constable Campbell, got wind of Bogan’s +camp, and started out after him. He rode round the outside track and came in on +to the river just below where the anabranch joins it, at the lower end of the +island and right opposite Bogan’s camp. You know what those billabongs +are: dry gullies till the river rises from the Queensland rains and backs them +up till the water runs round into the river again and makes anabranches of +’em—places that you thought were hollows you’ll find above +water, and you can row over places you thought were hills. There’s no +water so treacherous and deceitful as you’ll find in some of those +billabongs. A man starts to ride across a place where he thinks the water is +just over the grass, and blunders into a deep channel—that wasn’t +there before—with a steady undercurrent with the whole weight of the +Darling River funnelled into it; and if he can’t swim and his horse +isn’t used to it—or sometimes if he can swim—it’s a +case with him, and the Darling River cod hold an inquest on him, if they have +time, before he’s buried deep in Darling River mud for ever. And somebody +advertises in the missing column for Jack Somebody who was last heard of in +Australia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind that, Mitchell, go on,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Campbell knew the river and saw that there was a stiff current +there, so he hailed Bogan. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Good day, Campbell,’ shouted Bogan. +</p> + +<p> +“‘I want you, Bogan,’ said Campbell. ‘Come across and +bring your horses.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘I’m damned if I will,’ says Bogan. ‘I’m +not going to catch me death o’ cold to save your skin. If you want me +you’ll have to bloody well come and git me.’ Bogan was a good +strong swimmer, and he had good horses, but he didn’t try to get +away—I suppose he reckoned he’d have to face the music one time or +another—and one time is as good as another out back. +</p> + +<p> +“Campbell was no swimmer; he had no temptation to risk his life—you +see it wasn’t as in war with a lot of comrades watching ready to +advertise a man as a coward for staying alive—so he argued with Bogan and +tried to get him to listen to reason, and swore at him. ‘I’ll make +it damned hot for you, Bogan,’ he said, ‘if I have to come over for +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“‘Two can play at that game,’ says Bogan. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Look here, Bogan,” said Campbell, ‘I’ll tell +you what I’ll do. If you give me your word that you’ll come up to +the police station to-morrow I’ll go back and say nothing about it. You +can say you didn’t know a warrant was out after you. It will be all the +better for you in the end. Better give me your word, man.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps Campbell knew Bogan better than any of us. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Now then, Bogan,’ he said, ‘don’t be a fool. +Give your word like a sensible man, and I’ll go back. I’ll give you +five minutes to make up your mind.’ And he took out his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“But Bogan was nasty and wouldn’t give his word, so there was +nothing for it but for Campbell to make a try for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Campbell had plenty of pluck, or obstinacy, which amounts to the same +thing. He put his carbine and revolver under a log, out of the rain that was +coming on, saw to his handcuffs, and then spurred his horse into the water. +Bogan lit his pipe with a stick from his camp-fire—so Campbell said +afterwards—and sat down on his heels and puffed away, and waited for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Just as Campbell’s horse floundered into the current Bogan shouted +to go back, but Campbell thought it was a threat and kept on. But Bogan had +caught sight of a log coming down the stream, end on, with a sharp, splintered +end, and before Campbell knew where he was, the sharp end of the log caught the +horse in the flank. The horse started to plunge and struggle sideways, with all +his legs, and Campbell got free of him as quick as he could. Now, you know, in +some of those Darling River reaches the current will seem to run steadily far a +while, and then come with a rush. (I was caught in one of those rushes once, +when I was in swimming, and would have been drowned if I hadn’t been born +to be hanged.) Well, a rush came along just as Campbell got free from his +horse, and he went down-stream one side of a snag and his horse the other. +Campbell’s pretty stout, you know, and his uniform was tight, and it +handicapped him. +</p> + +<p> +“Just as he was being washed past the lower end of the snag he caught +hold of a branch that stuck out of the water and held on. He swung round and +saw Bogan running down to the point opposite him. Now, you know there was +always a lot of low cunning about Bogan, and I suppose he reckoned that if he +pulled Campbell out he’d stand a good show of getting clear of his +trouble; anyway, if he didn’t save Campbell it might be said that he +killed him—besides, Bogan was a good swimmer, so there wasn’t any +heroism about it anyhow. Campbell was only a few feet from the bank, but Bogan +started to strip—to make the job look as big as possible, I suppose. He +shouted to Campbell to say he was coming, and to hold on. Campbell said +afterwards that Bogan seemed an hour undressing. The weight of the current was +forcing down the bough that Campbell was hanging on to, and suddenly, he said, +he felt a great feeling of helplessness take him by the shoulders. He yelled to +Bogan and let go. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, it happened that Jake Boreham and I were passing away the time +between shearings, and we were having a sort of fishing and shooting loaf down +the river in a boat arrangement that Jake had made out of boards and tarred +canvas. We called her the <i>Jolly Coffin</i>. We were just poking up the bank +in the slack water, a few hundred yards below the billabong, when Jake said, +‘Why, there’s a horse or something in the river.’ Then he +shouted, ‘No, by God, it’s a man,’ and we poked the +<i>Coffin</i> out into the stream for all she was worth. ‘Looks like two +men fighting in the water,’ Jake shouts presently. ‘Hurry up, or +they’ll drown each other.’ +</p> + +<p> +“We hailed ’em, and Bogan shouted for help. He was treading water +and holding Campbell up in front of him now in real professional style. As soon +as he heard us he threw up his arms and splashed a bit—I reckoned he was +trying to put as much style as he could into that rescue. But I caught a crab, +and, before we could get to them, they were washed past into the top of a tree +that stood well below flood-mark. I pulled the boat’s head round and let +her stern down between the branches. Bogan had one arm over a limb and was +holding Campbell with the other, and trying to lift him higher out of the +water. I noticed Bogan’s face was bleeding—there was a dead limb +stuck in the tree with nasty sharp points on it, and I reckoned he’d run +his face against one of them. Campbell was gasping like a codfish out of water, +and he was the whitest man I ever saw (except one, and <i>he’d</i> been +drowned for a week). Campbell had the sense to keep still. We asked Bogan if he +could hold on, and he said he could, but he couldn’t hold Campbell any +longer. So Jake took the oars and I leaned over the stern and caught hold of +Campbell, and Jake ran the boat into the bank, and we got him ashore; then we +went back for Bogan and landed him. +</p> + +<p> +“We had some whisky and soon brought Campbell round; but Bogan was +bleeding like a pig from a nasty cut over his good eye, so we bound wet +handkerchiefs round his eyes and led him to a log and he sat down for a while, +holding his hand to his eye and groaning. He kept saying, ‘I’m +blind, mates, I’m blind! I’ve lost me other eye!’ but we +didn’t dream it was so bad as that: we kept giving him whisky. We got +some dry boughs and made a big fire. Then Bogan stood up and held his arms +stiff down to his sides, opening and shutting his hands as if he was in great +pain. And I’ve often thought since what a different man Bogan seemed +without his clothes and with the broken bridge of his nose and his eyes covered +by the handkerchiefs. He was clean shaven, and his mouth and chin are his best +features, and he’s clean limbed and well hung. I often thought afterwards +that there was something of a blind god about him as he stood there naked by +the fire on the day he saved Campbell’s life—something that +reminded me of a statue I saw once in the Art Gallery. (Pity the world +isn’t blinder to a man’s worst points.) +</p> + +<p> +“Presently Jake listened and said, ‘By God, that’s +lucky!’ and we heard a steamer coming up-river and presently we saw her +coming round the point with a couple of wool-barges in tow. We got Bogan aboard +and got some clothes on him, and took him ashore at Bourke to the new hospital. +The doctors did all they knew, but Bogan was blind for life. He never saw +anything again—except ‘a sort of dull white blur,’ as he +called it—or his past life sometimes, I suppose. Perhaps he saw that for +the first time. Ah, well! +</p> + +<p> +“Bogan’s old enemy, Barcoo-Rot, went to see him in the hospital, +and Bogan said, ‘Well, Barcoo, I reckon we’ve had our last fight. I +owe you a hiding, but I don’t see how I’m going to pay you.’ +‘Never mind that, Bogan, old man,’ says Barcoo. ‘I’ll +take it from anyone yer likes to appoint, if that worries yer; and, look here, +Bogan, if I can’t fight you I can fight for you—and don’t you +forget it!’ And Barcoo used to lead Bogan round about town in his spare +time and tell him all that was going on; and I believe he always had an ear +cocked in case someone said a word against Bogan—as if any of the chaps +would say a word against a blind man. +</p> + +<p> +“Bogan’s case was hushed up. The police told us to fix it up the +best way we could. One of the jackaroos, who reckoned that Bogan had swindled +him, was a gentleman, and he was the first to throw a quid in the +Giraffe’s hat when it went round for Bogan, but the other jackaroo was a +cur: he said he wanted the money that Bogan had robbed him of. There were two +witnesses, but we sent ’em away, and Tom Hall, there, scared the +jackaroo. You know Tom was always the best hand we had at persuading witnesses +in Union cases to go home to see their mothers.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you scare that jackaroo, Tom?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell you about it some other time,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mitchell, “Bogan was always a good woolsorter, +so, next shearing, old Baldy Thompson—(you know Baldy Thompson, Harry, of +West-o’-Sunday Station)—Baldy had a talk with some of the chaps, +and took Bogan out in his buggy with him to West-o’-Sunday. Bogan would +sit at the end of the rolling tables, in the shearing-shed, with a boy to hand +him the fleeces, and he’d feel a fleece and tell the boy what bin to +throw it into; and by and by he began to learn to throw the fleeces into the +bins himself. And sometimes Baldy would have a sheep brought to him and get him +to feel the fleece and tell him the quality of it. And then again Baldy would +talk, just loud enough for Bogan to overhear, and swear that he’d sooner +have Bogan, blind as he was, than half a dozen scientific jackaroo experts with +all their eyes about them. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course Bogan wasn’t worth anything much to Baldy, but Baldy +gave him two pounds a week out of his own pocket, and another quid that we made +up between us; so he made enough to pull him through the rest of the year. +</p> + +<p> +“It was curious to see how soon he learned to find his way about the hut +and manage his tea and tucker. It was a rough shed, but everybody was eager to +steer Bogan about—and, in fact, two of them had a fight about it one day. +Baldy and all of us——and especially visitors when they +came—were mighty interested in Bogan; and I reckon we were rather proud +of having a blind wool-sorter. I reckon Bogan had thirty or forty pairs of eyes +watching out for him in case he’d run against something or fall. It +irritated him to be messed round too much—he said a baby would never +learn to walk if it was held all the time. He reckoned he’d learn more in +a year than a man who’d served a lifetime to blindness; but we +didn’t let him wander much—for fear he’d fall into the big +rocky waterhole there, by accident. +</p> + +<p> +“And after the shearing-season Bogan’s wife turned up in +Bourke——” +</p> + +<p> +“Bogan’s wife!” I exclaimed. “Why, I never knew Bogan +was married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither did anyone else,” said Mitchell. “But he was. +Perhaps that was what accounted for Bogan. Sometimes, in his sober moods, I +used to have an idea that there must have been something behind the Bogan to +account for him. Perhaps he got trapped—or got married and found out that +he’d made a mistake—which is about the worst thing a man can find +out——” +</p> + +<p> +“Except that his wife made the mistake, Mitchell,” said Tom Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“Or that both did,” reflected Mitchell. “Ah, +well!—never mind—Bogan had been married two or three years. Maybe +he got married when he was on the spree—I knew that he used to send money +to someone in Sydney and I suppose it was her. Anyway, she turned up after he +was blind. She was a hard-looking woman—just the sort that might have +kept a third-rate pub or a sly-grog shop. But you can’t judge between +husband and wife, unless you’ve lived in the same house with +them—and under the same roofs with their parents right back to Adam for +that matter. Anyway, she stuck to Bogan all right; she took a little two-roomed +cottage and made him comfortable—she’s got a sewing-machine and a +mangle and takes in washing and sewing. She brought a carrotty-headed youngster +with her, and the first time I saw Bogan sitting on the veranda with that +youngster on his knee I thought it was a good thing that he was blind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Because the youngster isn’t his,” said Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that?” +</p> + +<p> +“By the look of it—and by the look on her face, once, when she +caught me squinting from the kid’s face to Bogan’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“And whose was it?” I asked, without thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“How am I to know?” said Mitchell. “It might be yours for all +I know—it’s ugly enough, and you never had any taste in women. But +you mustn’t speak of that in Bourke. But there’s another youngster +coming, and I’ll swear that’ll be Bogan’s all right. +</p> + +<p> +“A curious thing about Bogan is that he’s begun to be fidgety about +his personal appearance—and you know he wasn’t a dood. He wears a +collar now, and polishes his boots; he wears elastic-sides, and polishes +’em himself—the only thing is that he blackens over the elastic. He +can do many things for himself, and he’s proud of it. He says he can see +many things that he couldn’t see when he had his eyes. You seldom hear +him swear, save in a friendly way; he seems much gentler, but he reckons he +would stand a show with Barcoo-Rot even now, if Barcoo would stand up in front +of him and keep yelling——” +</p> + +<p> +“By the way,” I asked, “how did Bogan lose the sight of his +other eye?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sleeping out in the rain when he was drunk,” said Mitchell. +“He got a cold in his eye.” Then he asked, suddenly: +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever see a blind man cry?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I have,” said Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“You know Bogan wears goggles to hide his eyes—his wife made him do +that. The chaps often used to drop round and have a yarn with Bogan and cheer +him up, and one evening I was sitting smoking with him, and yarning about old +times, when he got very quiet all of a sudden, and I saw a tear drop from under +one of his shutters and roll down his cheek. It wasn’t the eye he lost +saving Campbell—it was the old wall-eye he used to use in the days before +he was called ‘One-eyed Bogan.’ I suppose he thought it was dark +and that I couldn’t see his face. (There’s a good many people in +this world who think you can’t see because they can’t.) It made me +feel like I used to feel sometimes in the days when I felt +things——” +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Mitchell,” said Tom Hall, “you’ve had enough +beer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I have,” said Mitchell. “Besides, I promised to send +a wire to Jake Boreham to tell him that his mother’s dead. Jake’s +shearing at West-o’-Sunday; shearing won’t be over for three or +four weeks, and Jake wants an excuse to get away without offending old Baldy +and come down and have a fly round with us before the holidays are over.” +</p> + +<p> +Down at the telegraph-office Mitchell took a form and filled it in very +carefully: “Jacob Boreham. West-o’-Sunday Station. Bourke. Come +home at once. Mother is dead. In terrible trouble. Father dying.—MARY +BOREHAM.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think that will do,” said Mitchell. “It ought to satisfy +Baldy, and it won’t give Jake too much of a shock, because he +hasn’t got a sister or sister-in-law, and his father and mother’s +been dead over ten years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, if I was running a theatre,” said Mitchell, as we left the +office, “I’d give five pounds a night for the face Jake’ll +have on him when he takes that telegram to Baldy Thompson.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"></a> +TWO SUNDOWNERS</h2> + +<p> +Sheep stations in Australia are any distance from twenty to a hundred miles +apart, to keep well within the boundaries of truth and the great pastoral +country. Shearing at any one shed only lasts a few weeks in the year; the +number of men employed is according to the size of the shed—from three to +five men in the little bough-covered shed of the small “cockatoo,” +up to a hundred and fifty or two hundred hands all told in the big corrugated +iron machine shed of a pastoral company. +</p> + +<p> +Shearing starts early up in northern Queensland, where you can get a +“January shed;” and further south, in February, March or April +sheds, and so on down into New South Wales, where shearing often lasts over +Christmas. Shearers travel from shed to shed; some go a travel season without +getting a pen, and an unlucky shearer might ride or tramp for several seasons +and never get hands in wool; and all this explains the existence of the +“footman” with his swag and the horse man with his packhorse. They +have a rough life, and the Australian shearers are certainly the most +democratic and perhaps the most independent, intelligent and generous body of +workmen in the world. +</p> + +<p> +Shearers at a shed elect their own cook, pay him so much a head, and they buy +their rations in the lump from the station store; and “travellers,” +<i>i.e.</i> shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work, are invited, as a +matter of course, to sit down to the shearers’ table. Also a certain +allowance of tea, sugar, flour or meat is still made to travellers at most +Western station stores; so it would be rather surprising if there weren’t +some who travelled on the game. The swagman loafer, or “bummer,” +times himself, especially in bad weather, to arrive at the shed just about +sundown; he is then sure of “tea,” shelter for the night, +breakfast, and some tucker from the cook to take him on along the track. Brummy +and Swampy were sundowners. +</p> + +<p> +Swampy was a bummer born—and proud of it. Brummy had drifted down to +loaferdom, and his nature was soured and his spirit revengeful against the +world because of the memory of early years wasted at hard work and in being +honest. Both were short and stout, and both had scrubby beards, but +Brummy’s beard was a dusty black and Swampy’s fiery red—he +indulged in a monkey-shave sometimes, but his lower face was mostly like a +patch of coarse stubble with a dying hedge round it. They had travelled +together for a long time. They seemed at times to hate each other with a +murderous hatred, but they were too lazy to fight. Sometimes they’d tramp +side by side and growl at each other by the hour, other times they’d sulk +for days; one would push on ahead and the other drop behind until there was a +mile or two between them; but one always carried the billy, or the sugar, or +something that was necessary to the comfort of the other, so they’d come +together at sundown. They had travelled together a long time, and perhaps that +was why they hated each other. They often agreed to part and take different +tracks, and sometimes they parted—for a while. They agreed in cadging, +and cadged in turn. They carried a spare set of tucker-bags, and if, for +instance, they were out of sugar and had plenty flour and tea, Brummy or Swampy +would go to the store, boundary-rider’s hut, or selector’s, with +the sugar-bag in his hand and the other bags in his shirt front on spec. +He’d get the sugar first, and then, if it looked good enough, the +flour-bag would come out, then the tea-bag. And before he left he’d +remark casually that he and his mate hadn’t had a smoke for two days. +They never missed a chance. And when they’d cadged more tucker than they +could comfortably carry, they’d camp for a day or two and eat it down. +Sometimes they’d have as much as a pound of tobacco, all in little +“borrowed” bits, cut from the sticks or cakes of honest travellers. +They never missed a chance. If a stranger gave Swampy his cake of tobacco with +instructions to “cut off a pipeful,” Swampy would cut off as much +as he thought judicious, talking to the stranger and watching his eye all the +time, and hiding his palm as much as possible—and sometimes, when he knew +he’d cut off more than he could cram into his pipe, he’d put his +hand in his pocket for the pipe and drop some of the tobacco there. Then +he’d hand the plug to his mate, engage the stranger in conversation and +try to hold his eye or detract his attention from Brummy so as to give Brummy a +chance of cutting off a couple of pipefuls, and, maybe, nicking off a corner of +the cake and slipping it into his pocket. I once heard a bushman say that no +one but a skunk would be guilty of this tobacco trick—that it is about +the meanest trick a man could be capable of—<i>because it spoils the +chances of the next hard-up swaggy who asks the victim for tobacco.</i> +</p> + +<p> +When Brummy and Swampy came to a shed where shearing was in full swing, +they’d inquire, first thing, and with some show of anxiety, if there was +any chance of gettin’ on; if the shed was full-handed they’d growl +about hard times, wonder what the country was coming to; talk of their missuses +and kids that they’d left in Sydney, curse the squatters and the +Government, and, next morning, get a supply of rations from the cook and depart +with looks of gloom. If, on the other hand, there was room in the shed for one +or both of them, and the boss told them to go to work in the morning, +they’d keep it quiet from the cook if possible, and depart, after +breakfast, unostentatiously. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, at the beginning of a drought, when the tall dead grass was like +tinder for hundreds of miles and a carelessly-dropped match would set the whole +country on fire, Swampy would strike a hard-faced squatter, manager or overseer +with a cold eye, and the conversation would be somewhat as follows: +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Good day, boss!” +</p> + +<p> +Boss (shortly): “’Day.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Any chance of a job?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Naw. Got all I want and we don’t start for a +fortnight.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Can I git a bit o’ meat?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Naw! Don’t kill till Saturday.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Pint o’ flour?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Naw. Short ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Bit o’ tea or sugar, boss?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Naw—what next?” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Bit o’ baccer, boss. Ain’t had a smoke for a +week.” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Naw. Ain’t got enough for meself till the wagon comes +out.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Ah, well! It’s hot, ain’t it, boss?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Yes-it’s hot.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Country very dry?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Yes. Looks like it.” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “A fire ’ud be very bad just now?” +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Yes. Now I’m allers very careful with matches an’ +fire when I’m on the track.” +</p> + +<p> +Boss “Are yer?” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Yes. I never lights a fire near the grass—allers in the +middle of the track—it’s the safest place yer can get. An’ I +allers puts the fire out afore I leaves the camp. If there ain’t no water +ter spare I covers the ashes with dirt. An’ some fellers are so careless +with matches lightin’ their pipes.” (Reflective pause.) +</p> + +<p> +Boss: “Are they?” +</p> + +<p> +Swampy: “Yes. Now, when I lights me pipe on the track in dry weather I +allers rubs the match head up an’ drops it in the dust. I never drops a +burnin’ match. But some travellers is so careless. A chap might light his +pipe an’ fling the match away without thinkin’ an’ the match +might fall in a dry tuft, an’-there yer are!” (with a wave of his +arms). “Hundreds of miles o’ grass gone an’ thousands +o’ sheep starvin’. Some fellers is so careless—they never +thinks.... An’ what’s more, they don’t care if they burn the +whole country.” +</p> + +<p> +Boss (scratching his head reflectively): “Ah-umph! You can go up to the +store and get a bit of tucker. The storekeeper might let yer have a bit +o’ tobacco.” +</p> + +<p> +On one occasion, when they were out of flour and meat; Brummy and Swampy came +across two other pilgrims camped on a creek, who were also out of flour and +meat. One of them had tried a surveyors’ camp a little further down, but +without success. The surveyors’ cook had said that he was short of flour +and meat himself. Brummy tried him—no luck. Then Swampy said he’d +go and have a try. As luck would have it, the surveyors’ cook was just +going to bake; he had got the flour out in the dish, put in the salt and baking +powder, mixed it up, and had gone to the creek for a billy of water when Swampy +arrived. While the cook was gone Swampy slipped the flour out of the dish into +his bag, <i>wiped</i> the dish, set it down again, and planted the bag behind a +tree at a little distance. Then he stood waiting, holding a spare empty bag in +his hand. When the cook came back he glanced at the dish, lowered the billy of +water slowly to the ground, scratched his head, and looked at the dish again in +a puzzled way. +</p> + +<p> +“Blanked if I didn’t think I got that flour out!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that, mate?” asked Swampy. +</p> + +<p> +“Why! I could have sworn I got the flour out in the dish and mixed it +before I went for the water,” said the cook, staring at the dish again. +“It’s rum what tricks your memory plays on you sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Swampy, showing interest, while the cook got some more +flour out into the dish from a bag in the back of the tent. “It is +strange. I’ve done the same, thing meself. I suppose it’s the heat +that makes us all a bit off at times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you cook, then?” asked the surveyors’ cook. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes. I’ve done a good bit of it in me time; but it’s +about played out. I’m after stragglers now.” (Stragglers are stray +sheep missed in the general muster and found about the out paddocks and shorn +after the general shearing.) +</p> + +<p> +They had a yarn and Swampy “bit the cook’s ear” for a +“bit o’ meat an’ tea an’ sugar,” not forgetting +“a handful of flour if yer can spare it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” said the cook, “but I can only let you have about a +pint. We’re very short ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s all right!” said Swampy, as he put the stuff into +his spare bags. “Thank you! Good day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good day,” said the cook. The cook went on with his work and +Swampy departed, catching up the bag of flour from behind the tree as he passed +it, and keeping the clump of timber well between him and the surveyors’ +camp, lest the cook should glance round, and, noticing the increased bulk of +his load, get some new ideas concerning mental aberration. +</p> + +<p> +Nearly every bushman has at least one superstition, or notion, that lasts his +time—as nearly every bushman has at least one dictionary word which lasts +him all his life. Brummy had a gloomy notion—Lord knows how he got +it!—that he should ’a’ gone on the boards if his people +hadn’t been so ignorant. He reckoned that he had the face and cut of an +actor, could mimic any man’s voice, and had wonderful control over his +features. They came to a notoriously “hungry” station, where there +was a Scottish manager and storekeeper. Brummy went up to “government +house” in his own proper person, had a talk with the storekeeper, spoke +of a sick mate, and got some flour and meat. They camped down the creek, and +next morning Brummy started to shave himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever are you a-doin’ of, Brummy?” gasped Swampy in great +astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait and see,” growled Brummy, with awful impressiveness, as if he +were going to cut Swampy’s throat after he’d finished shaving. He +shaved off his beard and whiskers, put on a hat and coat belonging to Swampy, +changed his voice, dropped his shoulders, and went limping up to the station on +a game leg. He saw the cook and got some “brownie,” a bit of cooked +meat and a packet of baking powder. Then he saw the storekeeper and approached +the tobacco question. Sandy looked at him and listened with some slight show of +interest, then he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh that’s all right now! But ye needn’t ha’ troublt +shavin’ yer beard—the cold weather’s comin’ on! +An’ yer mate’s duds don’t suit ye—they’re too +sma’; an’ yer game leg doesn’t fit ye either—it takes a +lot o’ practice. Ha’ ye got ony tea an’ sugar?” +</p> + +<p> +Brummy must have touched something responsive in that old Scot somewhere, but +his lack of emotion upset Brummy somewhat, or else an old deep-rooted +superstition had been severely shaken. Anyway he let Swampy do the cadging for +several days thereafter. +</p> + +<p> +But one bad season they were very hard up indeed—even for Brummy and +Swampy. They’d tramped a long hungry track and had only met a few +wretched jackaroos, driven out of the cities by hard times, and tramping +hopelessly west. They were out of tobacco, and their trousers were so +hopelessly “gone” behind that when they went to cadge at a place +where there was a woman they were moved to back and sidle and edge away +again—and neither Brummy nor Swampy was over fastidious in matters of +dress or personal appearance. It was absolutely necessary to earn a pound or +two, so they decided to go to work for a couple of weeks. It wouldn’t +hurt them, and then there was the novelty of it. +</p> + +<p> +They struck West-o’-Sunday Station, and the boss happened to want a +rouseabout to pick up wool and sweep the floor for the shearers. +</p> + +<p> +“I can put <i>one</i> of you on,” he said. “Fix it up between +yourselves and go to work in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Brummy and Swampy went apart to talk it over. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here! Brum, old man,” said Swampy, with great heartiness, +“we’ve been mates for a long while now, an’ shared an’ +shared alike. You’ve allers acted straight to me an’ I want to do +the fair thing by you. <i>I</i> don’t want to stand in <i>your</i> light. +You take the job an’ I’ll be satisfied with a pair of pants out of +it and a bit o’ tobacco now an’ agen. There yer are! I can’t +say no fairer than that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Brummy, resentfully, “an’ you’ll +always be thrown’ it up to me afterwards that I done you out of a +job!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll swear I won’t,” said Swampy, hurriedly. +“But since you’re so blasted touchy and suspicious about it, +<i>you</i> take this job an’ I’ll take the next that turns up. +How’ll that suit you?” +</p> + +<p> +Brummy thought resentfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” he said presently, “let’s settle it and +have done with this damned sentimental tommy-rot. I’ll tell you what +I’ll do—I’ll give you the job and take my chance. The boss +might want another man to-morrow. Now, are you satisfied?” +</p> + +<p> +But Swampy didn’t look grateful or happy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” growled Brummy, “of all the —— I ever +travelled with you’re the ——. What do you want anyway? +What’ll satisfy you? That’s all I want to know. +Hey?—can’t yer speak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s toss up for it,” said Swampy, sulkily. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” said Brummy, with a big oath, and he felt in his +pocket for two old pennies he had. But Swampy had got a suspicion somehow that +one of those pennies had two heads on it, and he wasn’t sure that the +other hadn’t two tails—also, he suspected Brummy of some skill in +“palming,” so he picked up a chip from the wood-heap, spat on it, +and spun it into the air. “Sing out!” he cried, “wet or +dry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dry,” said Brummy, promptly. He had a theory that the wet side of +the chip, being presumably heaviest, was more likely to fall downwards; but +this time it was “wet” up three times in succession. Brummy ignored +Swampy’s hand thrown out in hearty congratulation; and next morning he +went to work in the shed. Swampy camped down the river, and Brummy supplied him +with a cheap pair of moleskin trousers, tucker and tobacco. The shed cut out +within three weeks and the two sundowners took the track again, Brummy with two +pounds odd in his pocket—he having negotiated his cheque at the shed. +</p> + +<p> +But now there was suspicion, envy, and distrust in the hearts of those two +wayfarers. Brummy was now a bloated capitalist, and proud, and anxious to get +rid of Swampy—at least Swampy thought so. He thought that the least that +Brummy might have done was to have shared the “stuff” with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Brummy,” he said reproachfully, “we’ve +shared and shared alike, and——” +</p> + +<p> +“We never shared money,” said Brummy, decidedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I want yer blasted money?” retorted Swampy, +indignantly. “When did I ever ask yer for a sprat? Tell me that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t have got it if you had asked,” said Brummy, +uncompromisingly. “Look here!” with vehemence. “Didn’t +I keep yer in tobacco and buy yer gory pants? What are you naggin’ about +anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Swampy, “all I was goin’ to say was that +yer might let me carry one of them quids in case you lost one—yer know +you’re careless and lose things; or in case anything happened to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t going to lose it—if that’s all that’s +fretting you,” said Brummy, “and there ain’t nothing going to +happen to me—and don’t you forget it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all the thanks I get for givin’ yer my gory +job,” said Swampy, savagely. “I won’t be sick a soft fool +agen, I can tell yer.” +</p> + +<p> +Brummy was silent, and Swampy dropped behind. He brooded darkly, and it’s +a bad thing for a man to brood in the bush. He was reg’lar disgusted with +Brummy. He’d allers acted straight to him, and Brummy had acted like a +“cow.” He’d stand it no longer; but he’d have some +satisfaction. He wouldn’t be a fool. If Brummy was mean skunk enough to +act to a mate like that, Swampy would be even with him; he would wait till +Brummy was asleep, collar the stuff, and clear. It was his job, anyway, and the +money was his by rights. He’d have his rights. +</p> + +<p> +Brummy, who carried the billy, gave Swampy a long tramp before he camped and +made a fire. They had tea in silence, and smoked moodily apart until Brummy +turned in. They usually slept on the ground, with a few leaves under them, or +on the sand where there was any, each wrapped in his own blankets, and with +their spare clothes, or rags rather, for pillows. Presently Swampy turned in +and pretended to sleep, but he lay awake watching, and listening to +Brummy’s breathing. When he thought it was safe he moved cautiously and +slipped his hand under Brummy’s head, but Brummy’s old +pocket-book—in which he carried some dirty old letters in a woman’s +handwriting—was not there. All next day Swampy watched Brummy sharply +every time he put his hands into his pockets, to try and find out in which +pocket he kept his money. Brummy seemed very cheerful and sociable, even +considerate, to his mate all day, and Swampy pretended to be happy. They yarned +more than they had done for many a day. Brummy was a heavy sleeper, and that +night Swampy went over him carefully and felt all his pockets, but without +success. Next day Brummy seemed in high spirits—they were nearing Bourke, +where they intended to loaf round the pubs for a week or two. On the third +night Swampy waited till about midnight, and then searched Brummy, every inch +of him he could get at, and tickled him, with a straw of grass till he turned +over, and ran his hands over the other side of him, and over his feet (Brummy +slept with his socks on), and looked in his boots, and in the billy and in the +tucker-bags, and felt in every tuft of grass round the camp, and under every +bush, and down a hollow stump, and up a hollow log: but there was no +pocket-book. Brummy couldn’t have lost the money and kept it +dark—he’d have gone back to look for it at once. Perhaps he’d +thrown away the book and sewn the money in his clothes somewhere. Swampy crept +back to him and felt the lining of his hat, and was running his hand over +Brummy’s chest when Brummy suddenly started to snore, and Swampy desisted +without loss of time. He crept back to bed, breathing short, and thought hard. +It struck him that there was something aggressive about that snore. He began to +suspect that Brummy was up to his little game, and it pained him. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Brummy was decidedly frivolous. At any other time Swampy would +have put it down to a “touch o’ the sun,” but now he felt a +growing conviction that Brummy knew what he’d been up to the last three +nights, and the more he thought of it the more it pained him—till at last +he could stand it no longer. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Brummy,” he said frankly, “where the hell do you +keep that flamin’ stuff o’ yourn? I been tryin’ to git at it +ever since we left West-o’-Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you have, Swampy,” said Brummy, affectionately—as if +he considered that Swampy had done his best in the interests of mateship. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>knowed</i> yer knowed!” exclaimed Swampy, triumphantly. +“But where the blazes did yer put it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under <i>your</i> head, Swampy, old man,” said Brummy, cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +Swampy was hurt now. He commented in the language that used to be used by the +bullock-punchers of the good days as they pranced up and down by their teams +and lammed into the bullocks with saplings and crow-bars, and called on them to +lift a heavy load out of a bog in the bed of a muddy creek. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Swampy!” said Brummy, soothingly, as his mate paused +and tried to remember worse oaths. “It wasn’t your fault.” +</p> + +<p> +But they parted at Bourke. Swampy had allers acted straight ter +Brummy—share ’n’ share alike. He’d do as much for a +mate as any other man, an’ put up with as much from a mate. He had put up +with a lot from Brummy: he’d picked him up on the track and learned him +all he knowed; Brummy would have starved many a time if it hadn’t been +for Swampy; Swampy had learned him how to “battle.” He’d +stick to Brummy yet, but he couldn’t stand ingratitude. He hated low +cunnin’ an’ suspicion, and when a gory mate got suspicious of his +own old mate and wouldn’t trust him, an’ took to plantin’ his +crimson money—it was time to leave him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></a> +A SKETCH OF MATESHIP</h2> + +<p> +Bill and Jim, professional shearers, were coming into Bourke from the +Queensland side. They were horsemen and had two packhorses. At the last camp +before Bourke Jim’s packhorse got disgusted and home-sick during the +night and started back for the place where he was foaled. Jim was little more +than a new-chum jackaroo; he was no bushman and generally got lost when he went +down the next gully. Bill was a bushman, so it was decided that he should go +back to look for the horse. +</p> + +<p> +Now Bill was going to sell his packhorse, a well-bred mare, in Bourke, and he +was anxious to get her into the yards before the horse sales were over; this +was to be the last day of the sales. Jim was the best “barracker” +of the two; he had great imagination; he was a very entertaining story-teller +and conversationalist in social life, and a glib and a most impressive liar in +business, so it was decided that he should hurry on into Bourke with the mare +and sell her for Bill. Seven pounds, reserve. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Bill turned up with the missing horse and saw Jim standing against a +veranda-post of the Carriers’ Arms, with his hat down over his eyes, and +thoughtfully spitting in the dust. Bill rode over to him. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ullo, Jim.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ullo, Bill. I see you got him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I got him.” +</p> + +<p> +Pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’d yer find him?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Bout ten mile back. Near Ford’s Bridge. He was just +feedin’ along.” +</p> + +<p> +Pause. Jim shifted his feet and spat in the dust. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Bill at last. “How did you get on, Jim?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right,” said Jim. “I sold the mare.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right,” said Bill. “How much did she +fetch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Eight quid;” then, rousing himself a little and showing some +emotion, “An’ I could ’a’ got ten quid for her if I +hadn’t been a dam’ fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s good enough,” said Bill. +</p> + +<p> +“I could ’a’ got ten quid if I’d ’a’ +waited.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s no use cryin’. Eight quid is good enough. Did you +get the stuff?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. They parted all right. If I hadn’t been such a dam’ +fool an’ rushed it, there was a feller that would ’a’ given +ten quid for that mare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t break yer back about it,” said Bill. +“Eight is good enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But I could ’a’ got ten,” said Jim, languidly, +putting his hand in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +Pause. Bill sat waiting for him to hand over the money; but Jim withdrew his +hand empty, stretched, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, Bill, I done it in. Lend us a couple o’ notes.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim had been drinking and gambling all night and he’d lost the eight +pounds as well as his own money. +</p> + +<p> +Bill didn’t explode. What was the use? He should have known that Jim +wasn’t to be trusted with money in town. It was he who had been the fool. +He sighed and lent Jim a pound, and they went in to have a drink. +</p> + +<p> +Now it strikes me that if this had happened in a civilized country (like +England) Bill would have had Jim arrested and jailed for larceny as a bailee, +or embezzlement, or whatever it was. And would Bill or Jim or the world have +been any better for it? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"></a> +ON THE TUCKER TRACK: A STEELMAN STORY</h2> + +<p> +Steelman and Smith, professional wanderers from New Zealand, took a run over to +Australia one year to have a look at the country, and drifted out back, and +played cards and “headin’ ’em” at the shearing-sheds +(while pretending to be strangers to each other), and sold eye-water and +unpatented medicine, and worked the tucker tracks. They struck a streak of bad +luck at West-o’-Sunday Station, where they were advised (by the boss and +about fifty excited shearers) to go east, and not to stop till they reached the +coast. They were tramping along the track towards Bourke; they were very hard +up and had to “battle” for tucker and tobacco along the track. They +came to a lonely shanty, about two camps west of Bourke. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll turn off into the scrub and strike the track the other side +of the shanty and come back to it,” said Steelman. “You see, if +they see us coming into Bourke they’ll say to themselves, ‘Oh, +we’re never likely to see these chaps again,’ and they won’t +give us anything, or, perhaps, only a pinch of tea or sugar in a big lump of +paper. There’s some women that can never see a tucker-bag, even if you +hold it right under their noses. But if they see us going out back +they’ll reckon that we’ll get a shed likely as not, and we’ll +be sure to call there with our cheques coming back. I hope the old man’s +got the lumbago, or sciatica, or something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Smith. +</p> + +<p> +“Because whenever I see an old man poking round the place on a stick I +always make for him straight and inquire about his trouble; and no matter what +complaint he’s got, my old man suffered from it for years. It’s +pretty hard graft listening to an old man with a pet leg, but I find it pays; +and I always finish up by advising him to try St Jacob’s oil. Perhaps +he’s been trying it for years, but that doesn’t matter; the +consultation works out all right all the same, and there’s never been a +remedy tried yet but I’ve got another. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a lot of Maori and blackfellow remedies in my mind, and +when they fail I can fall back on the Chinese; and if that isn’t enough +I’ve got a list of my grandmother’s remedies that she wrote down +for me when I was leaving home, and I kept it for a curiosity. It took her +three days to write them, and I reckon they’ll fill the bill. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want a shave. You look better with that stubble on. You +needn’t say anything; just stand by and wear your usual expression, and +if they ask me what’s the matter with my mate I’ll fix up a disease +for you to have, and get something extra on your account, poor beggar! +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we had a chap with us that could sing a bit and run the gamut on +a fiddle or something. With a sickly-looking fish like you to stand by and look +interesting and die slowly of consumption all the time, and me to do the +talking, we’d be able to travel from one end of the bush to the other and +live on the fat of the land. I wouldn’t cure you for a hundred +pounds:” +</p> + +<p> +They reached the shanty, and there, sure enough, was an old man pottering round +with a list to starboard. He was working with a hoe inside a low paling fence +round a sort of garden. Steelman and Smith stopped outside the fence. +</p> + +<p> +“Good day, boss!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hot.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hot.” +</p> + +<p> +So far it was satisfactory. +</p> + +<p> +He was a little man, with a wiry, red beard. He might have been a Scandinavian. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to be a bit lame,” said Steelman. “Hurt your +foot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Naw,” said the old man. “It’s an old thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Steelman, “lumbago, I suppose? My father suffered +cruel from it for years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Naw,” said the old man, moving closer to the fence. “It +ain’t in me back; the trouble’s with me leg.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Steelman. “One a bit shorter than the +other?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes. It seems to be wearin’ a bit shorter. I must see to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hip disease, perhaps?” said Steelman. “A brother o’ +mine had——” +</p> + +<p> +“Naw, it’s not in the hip,” said the old man. “My +leg’s gone at the knee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! stiff joint; I know what that is. Had a touch of it once myself. An +uncle of mine was nearly crippled with it. He used to use St Jacob’s oil. +Ever try St Jacob’s oil?” +</p> + +<p> +“Naw,” said the old man, “not that I know of. I’ve used +linseed oil though.” +</p> + +<p> +“Linseed oil!” said Steelman; “I’ve never heard of that +for stiff knee. How do you use it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Use it raw,” said the old man. “Raw linseed oil; I’ve +rubbed it in, and I’ve soaked me leg in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Soaked your leg in it!” said Steelman. “And did it do it any +good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it seems to preserve it—keeps it from warping, and it wears +better—and it makes it heavier. It seemed a bit too light before.” +</p> + +<p> +Steelman nudged Smith under cover of the palings. The old man was evidently a +bit ratty. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope your leg will soon be all right, boss,” said +Steelman. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said the old man, “but I don’t think +there’s much hope. I suppose you want some tucker?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes,” said Steelman, rather taken aback by the old +man’s sudden way of putting it. “We’re hard up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, come along to the house and I’ll see if I can get yer +something,” said the old man; and they walked along outside the fence, +and he hobbled along inside, till he came to a little gate at the corner. He +opened the gate and stumped out. He had a wooden leg. He wore his trouser-leg +down over it, and the palings had hidden the bottom from Steelman and Smith. +</p> + +<p> +He wanted them to stay to dinner, but Steelman didn’t feel comfortable, +and thanked him, and said they’d rather be getting on (Steelman always +spoke for Smith); so the old man gave them some cooked meat, bread, and a +supply of tea and sugar. Steelman watched his face very close, but he never +moved a muscle. But when they looked back he was leaning on his hoe, and seemed +to be shaking. +</p> + +<p> +“Took you back a bit, Steely, didn’t it?” suggested Smith. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you make that out?” snorted Steelman, turning on him +suddenly. “I knew a carpenter who used to soak his planes in raw linseed +oil to preserve them and give them weight. There’s nothing funny about +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Smith rubbed his head. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"></a> +A BUSH PUBLICAN’S LAMENT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“... For thirst is long and throats is short<br/> +Among the sons o’ men.”<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â M. J. C. +</p> + +<p> +I wish I was spifflicated before I ever seen a pub! +</p> + +<p> +You see, it’s this way. Suppose a cove comes along on a blazin’ hot +day in the drought—an’ <i>you</i> ought to know how hell-hot it can +be out here—an’ he dumps his swag in the corner of the bar; +an’ he turns round an’ he ses ter me, “Look here boss, I +ain’t got a lonely steever on me, an’ God knows when I’ll git +one. I’ve tramped ten mile this mornin’, an’ I’ll have +ter tramp another ten afore to-night. I’m expectin’ ter git on +shearin’ with of Baldy Thompson at West-o’-Sunday nex’ week. +I got a thirst on me like a sun-struck bone, an’, for God sake, put up a +couple o’ beers for me an’ my mate, an’ I’ll fix it up +with yer when I come back after shearin’.” +</p> + +<p> +An’ what’s a feller ter do? I bin there meself, an—I put it +to you! I’ve known what it is to have a thirst on me. +</p> + +<p> +An’ suppose a poor devil comes along in the jim-jams, with every inch on +him jumpin’ an’ a look in his eyes like a man bein’ murdered +an’ sent ter hell, an’ a whine in his voice like a whipped cur, +an’ the snakes a-chasing of him; an’ he hooks me with his finger +ter the far end o’ the bar—as if he was goin’ ter tell me +that the world was ended—an’ he hangs over the bar an’ chews +me lug, an’ tries to speak, an’ breaks off inter a sort o’ +low shriek, like a terrified woman, an’ he says, “For Mother +o’ Christ’s sake, giv’ me a drink!” An’ what am I +to do? I bin there meself. I knows what the horrors is. He mighter blued his +cheque at the last shanty. But what am I ter do? I put it ter you. If I let him +go he might hang hisself ter the nex’ leanin’ tree. +</p> + +<p> +What’s a drink? yer might arst—I don’t mind a drink or two; +but when it comes to half a dozen in a day it mounts up, I can tell yer. Drinks +is sixpence here—I have to pay for it, an’ pay carriage on it. +It’s all up ter me in the end. I used sometimes ter think it was lucky I +wasn’t west o’ the sixpenny line, where I’d lose a +shillin’ on every drink I give away. +</p> + +<p> +An’ supposen a sundowner comes along smokin’ tea-leaves, an’ +ses ter me, “Look her, boss! me an’ my mate ain’t had a smoke +for three days!” What’s a man ter do? I put it ter you! I’m a +heavy smoker meself, an’ I’ve known what it is to be without a +smoke on the track. But “nail-rod” is ninepence a stick out here, +an’ I have ter pay carriage. It all mounts up, I can tell yer. +</p> + +<p> +An’ supposen Ole King Billy an’ his ole black gin comes round at +holiday time and squats on the verander, an’ blarneys an’ wheedles +and whines and argues like a hundred Jews an’ ole Irishwomen put +tergether, an’ accuses me o’ takin’ his blarsted country from +him, an’ makes me an’ the missus laugh; an’ we gives him a +bottl’er rum an’ a bag of grub ter get rid of him an’ his +rotten ole scarecrow tribe—It all tells up. I was allers soft on the +blacks, an’, beside, a ole gin nursed me an’ me mother when I was +born, an’ saved me blessed life—not that that mounts to much. But +it all tells up, an’ I got me licence ter pay. An’ some bloody +skunk goes an’ informs on me for supplyin’ the haboriginalls with +intossicatin’ liquor, an’ I have ter pay a fine an’ risk me +licence. But what’s a man ter do? +</p> + +<p> +An’ three or four herrin’-gutted jackaroos comes along about +dinner-time, when the table’s set and the cookin’ smellin’ +from the kichen, with their belts done up three holes, an’ not the price +of a feed on ’em. What’s a man ter do? I’ve known what it is +ter do a perish on the track meself. It’s not the tucker I think on. I +don’t care a damn for that. When the shearers come every one is free to +go inter the kitchin an’ forage for hisself when he feels hungry—so +long as he pays for his drink. But the jackaroos can’t pay for drinks, +an’ I have ter pay carriage on the flour an’ tea an’ sugar +an’ groceries—an’ it all tells up by the end o’ the +year. +</p> + +<p> +An’ a straight chap that knows me gets a job to take a flock o’ +sheep or a mob o’ cattle ter the bloomin’ Gulf, or South Australia, +or somewheers—an’ loses one of his horses goin’ out ter take +charge, an’ borrers eight quid from me ter buy another. He’ll turn +up agen in a year or two an’ most likely want ter make me take twenty +quid for that eight—an’ make everybody about the place blind +drunk—but I’ve got ter wait, an’ the wine an’ sperit +merchants an’ the brewery won’t. They know I can’t do without +liquor in the place. +</p> + +<p> +An’ lars’ rains Jimmy Nowlett, the bullick-driver, gets bogged over +his axle-trees back there on the Blacksoil Plains between two flooded +billerbongs, an’ prays till the country steams an’ his soul’s +busted, an’ his throat like a lime-kiln. He taps a keg o’ rum or +beer ter keep his throat in workin’ order. I don’t mind that at +all, but him an’ his mates git flood-bound for near a week, an’ +broach more kegs, an’ go on a howlin’ spree in ther mud, an’ +spill mor’n they swipe, an’ leave a tarpaulin off a load, an’ +the flour gets wet, an’ the sugar runs out of the bags like syrup, +an’— What’s a feller ter do? Do yer expect me to set the law +onter Jimmy? I’ve knowed him all my life, an’ he knowed my father +afore I was born. He’s been on the roads this forty year, till he’s +as thin as a rat, and as poor as a myall black; an’ he’s got a +family ter keep back there in Bourke. No, I have ter pay for it in the end, +an’ it all mounts up, I can tell yer. +</p> + +<p> +An’ suppose some poor devil of a new-chum black sheep comes along, +staggerin’ from one side of the track to the other, and spoutin’ +poetry; dyin’ o’ heat or fever, or heartbreak an’ +home-sickness, or a life o’ disserpation he’d led in England, +an’ without a sprat on him, an’ no claim on the bush; an’ I +ketches him in me arms as he stumbles inter the bar, an’ he wants me ter +hold him up while he turns English inter Greek for me. An’ I put him ter +bed, an’ he gits worse, an’ I have ter send the buggy twenty mile +for a doctor—an’ pay him. An’ the jackaroo gits worse, +an’ has ter be watched an’ nursed an’ held down sometimes; +an’ he raves about his home an’ mother in England, an’ the +blarsted University that he was eddicated at—an’ a +woman—an’ somethin’ that sounds like poetry in French; +an’ he upsets my missus a lot, an’ makes her blubber. An’ he +dies, an’ I have ter pay a man ter bury him (an’ knock up a sort +o’ fence round the grave arterwards ter keep the stock out), an’ +send the buggy agen for a parson, an’—Well, what’s a man ter +do? I couldn’t let him wander away an’ die like a dog in the scrub, +an’ be shoved underground like a dog, too, if his body was ever found. +The Government might pay ter bury him, but there ain’t never been a +pauper funeral from my house yet, an’ there won’t be one if I can +help it—except it be meself. +</p> + +<p> +An’ then there’s the bother goin’ through his papers to try +an’ find out who he was an’ where his friends is. An’ I have +ter get the missus to write a letter to his people, an’ we have ter make +up lies about how he died ter make it easier for ’em. An’ +goin’ through his letters, the missus comes across a portrait an’ a +locket of hair, an’ letters from his mother an’ sisters an’ +girl; an’ they upset her, an’ she blubbers agin, an’ gits +sentimental—like she useter long ago when we was first married. +</p> + +<p> +There was one bit of poetry—I forgit it now—that that there +jackaroo kep’ sayin’ over an’ over agen till it buzzed in me +head; an’, weeks after, I’d ketch the missus mutterin’ it to +herself in the kitchen till I thought she was goin’ ratty. +</p> + +<p> +An’ we gets a letter from the jackaroo’s friends that puts us to a +lot more bother. I hate havin’ anythin’ to do with letters. +An’ someone’s sure to say he was lambed down an’ cleaned out +an’ poisoned with bad bush liquor at my place. It’s almost enough +ter make a man wish there <i>was</i> a recorin’ angel. +</p> + +<p> +An’ what’s the end of it? I got the blazin’ bailiff in the +place now! I can’t shot him out because he’s a decent, hard-up, +poor devil from Bourke, with consumption or somethin’, an’ +he’s been talkin’ to the missus about his missus an’ kids; +an’ I see no chance of gittin’ rid of him, unless the shearers come +along with their cheques from West-o’-Sunday nex’ week and act +straight by me. Like as not I’ll have ter roll up me swag an’ take +the track meself in the end. They say publicans are damned, an’ I think +so, too; an’ I wish I’d bin operated on before ever I seen a pub. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"></a> +THE SHEARER’S DREAM</h2> + +<p> +Mitchell and I rolled up our swags after New Year and started to tramp west. It +had been a very bad season after a long drought. Old Baldy Thompson had only +shorn a few bales of grass-seed and burrs, so he said, and thought of taking +the track himself; but we hoped to get on shearing stragglers at +West-o’-Sunday or one of the stations of the Hungerford track. +</p> + +<p> +It was very hot weather, so we started after sunset, intending to travel all +night. We crossed the big billabong, and were ploughing through the dust and +sand towards West Bourke, when a buggy full of city girls and swells passed by. +They were part of a theatrical company on tour in the Back-Blocks, and some +local Johnnies. They’d been driven out to see an artesian bore, or +wool-shed, or something. The horses swerved, and jerked a little squawk out of +one of the girls. Then another said: +</p> + +<p> +“Ow-w! Two old swaggies. He! he! he!” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced at Mitchell to see if he was hit, and caught his head down; but he +pulled himself up and pretended to hitch his swag into an easier position. +</p> + +<p> +About a hundred yards further on he gave me a side look and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Did that touch you, Harry” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, and I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” reflected Mitchell, “they’re more to be +pitied than blamed. It’s their ignorance. In the first place, we’re +not two old tramps, as they think. We are professional shearers; and the +Australian shearers are about the most independent and intelligent class of men +in the world. We’ve got more genius in one of our little fingers than +there is in the whole of that wagonette-load of diddle-daddle and fiddle-faddle +and giggles. Their intellects are on a level with the rotten dramas they travel +with, and their lives about as false. They are slaves to the public, and their +home is the pub-parlour, with sickly, senseless Johnnies to shout suppers and +drink for them and lend their men money. If one of those girls is above the +average, how she must despise those Johnnies—and the life! She must feel +a greater contempt for them than the private-barmaid does for the boozer she +cleans out. He gets his drink and some enjoyment, anyhow. And how she must +loathe the life she leads! And what’s the end of it as often as not? I +remember once, when I was a boy, I was walking out with two aunts of +mine—they’re both dead now. God rest their fussy, innocent old +souls!—and one of ’em said suddenly, ‘Look! Quick, Jack! +There’s Maggie So-and-So, the great actress.’ And I looked and saw +a woman training vines in a porch. It seemed like seeing an angel to me, and I +never forgot her as she was then. The diggers used to go miles out of town to +meet the coach that brought her, and take the horses out and drag it in, and +throw gold in her lap, and worship her. +</p> + +<p> +“The last time I was in Sydney I saw her sitting in the back parlour of a +third-rate pub. She was dying of dropsy and couldn’t move from her chair. +She showed me a portrait of herself as I remembered her, and talked quite +seriously about going on the stage again. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, our home is about two thousand miles wide, and the world’s +our stage. If the worst comes to the worst we can always get tucker and wood +and water for nothing. If we’re camping at a job in a tent there’s +no house-cleaning to bother us. All we’ve got to do when the camp gets +too dirty is to shift the tent to a fresh place. We’ve got time to think +and—we’re free. +</p> + +<p> +“But then, agen,” he reflected, “there’s the +world’s point of view to be considered. Some day I might be flashing past +in a buggy or saloon-carriage—or, the chances are it will be +you—and you might look out the window and see an old swaggy tramping +along in the dust, or camped under a strip of calico in the rain in the scrub. +(And it might be me—old Mitchell—that really wrote your books, only +the world won’t know it.) And then you’ll realize what a wretched, +miserable life it was. We never realize the miseries of life till we look +back—the mistakes and miseries that had to be and couldn’t be +helped. It’s all luck—luck and chance.” +</p> + +<p> +But those girls seemed to have gravelled Mitchell, and he didn’t seem +able to talk himself round. He tramped on, brooding for a while, and then +suddenly he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Harry! Those girls are giving a dance to-night, and if I +liked to go back to Bourke and tog up and go to the dance I could pick out the +prettiest, dance with her all the evening, and take her for a stroll +afterwards, old tramp as they thought me. I’ve lived—but it +wouldn’t be worth my while now.” +</p> + +<p> +I’d seen Jack in a mood like this before, and thought it best to say +nothing. Perhaps the terrible heat had affected him a little. We walked on in +silence until we came to the next billabong. “Best boil the billy here, +Harry,” said Mitchell, “and have some tea before we go any +further.” +</p> + +<p> +I got some sticks together and made a fire and put the billy on. The country +looked wretched—like the ghost of a burnt-out land—in the +moonlight. The banks of the creek were like ashes, the thin, gnarled gum-bush +seemed dry-rotting fast, and in many places the surface of the ground was +cracked in squares where it had shrunk in the drought. In the bed of the creek +was a narrow gutter of water that looked like bad milk. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell sat on his swag, with his pint of tea on the ground by his foot, and +chewed his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up, Jack?” I asked. “Have you got the +blues?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, Harry,” he said. “I’m generally dull the +first day on the track. The first day is generally the worst, anywhere or +anytime—except, perhaps, when you’re married.... I got—well, +I got thinking of the time when a woman’s word could have hurt me.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then one of the “travellers” who were camped a bit up the +creek suddenly commenced to sing. It was a song called “The +Shearer’s Dream,” and I suppose the buggy of girls, or the +conversation they started, reminded him of it. He started his verses and most +of his lines with a howl; and there were unexpected howls all through the song, +and it wailed off, just as unexpectedly, in places where there was no pathos +that I could see: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Oh, I dreamt I shore in a shearer’s shed, and it was a dream of joy,<br/> +For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy—<br/> +Dressed up like a page in a pantomime, and the prettiest ever seen—<br/> +They had flaxen hair, they had coal-black hair—and every shade between. +</p> + +<p> +“Every” with sudden and great energy, a long drop on to +“shade,” and a wail of intense sadness and regret running on into +“between,” the dirge reaching its wailsomest in the +“tween” in every case. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every “shoot”;<br/> +The pens was of polished ma-ho-gany, and ev’rything else to suit;<br/> +The huts was fixed with spring-mattresses, and the tucker was simply grand,<br/> +And every night by the biller-bong we darnced to a German band.<br/> +<br/> +“<i>Chorus, boys!”</i><br/> +<br/> +There was short, plump girls, there was tall, slim girls, and the handsomest +ever seen<br/> +They was four-foot-five, they was six-foot high, and hevery size between.<br/> +<br/> +Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks’ backs, so we shore till all was +blue<br/> +The sheep was washed afore they was shore (and the rams was scented too);<br/> +And we all of us cried when the shed cut out, in spite of the long, hot +days,<br/> +For hevery hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on tr-a-a-a-ys!<br/> +<br/> +“<i>Chorus</i>! <i>you</i> ——!”<br/> +<br/> +They had kind grey eyes, they had coal-black eyes, and the grandest ever +seen<br/> +They had plump pink hands, they had slim white hands, and hevery shape +be-tw-e-e-n.<br/> +<br/> +There was three of them girls to every chap, and as jealous as they could +be— +</p> + +<p> +“Ow! you ——” +</p> + +<p> +The singer’s voice or memory seemed suddenly to have failed him at this +point, but whether his mates hit him on the back of the head with a tomahawk, +or only choked him, I do not know. Mitchell was inclined to think, from the +sound of it, that they choked him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"></a> +THE LOST SOULS’ HOTEL</h2> + +<p> +Hunqerford Road, February. One hundred and thirty miles of heavy reddish sand, +bordered by dry, hot scrubs. Dense cloud of hot dust. Four wool-teams passing +through a gate in a “rabbit proof” fence which crosses the road. +Clock, clock, clock of wheels and rattle and clink of chains, crack of whips +and explosions of Australian language. Bales and everything else coated with +dust. Stink of old axle-grease and tarpaulins. Tyres hot enough to fry chops +on: bows and chains so hot that it’s a wonder they do not burn through +the bullock’s hides. Water lukewarm in blistered kegs slung behind the +wagons. Bullocks dragging along as only bullocks do. Wheels ploughing through +the deep sand, and the load lurching from side to side. Half-way on a +“dry-stretch” of seventeen miles. Big “tank” full of +good water through the scrub to the right, but it is a private tank and a +boundary-rider is shepherding it. Mulga scrub and sparse, spiky undergrowth. +</p> + +<p> +The carriers camp for dinner and boil their billies while the bullocks droop +under their yokes in the blazing heat; one or two lie down and the leaders drag +and twist themselves round under a dead tree, under the impression that there +is shade there. The carriers look like Red Indians, with the masks of red dust +“bound” with sweat on their faces, but there is an +unhealthy-looking, whitish space round their eyes, caused by wiping away the +blinding dust, sweat, and flies. The dry sticks burn with a pale flame and an +almost invisible thin pale blue smoke. The sun’s heat dancing and +dazzling across every white fence-post, sandhill, or light-coloured object in +the distance. +</p> + +<p> +One man takes off his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, +and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and +sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself +by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely +curious to see if he is still a white man. +</p> + +<p> +The Hungerford coach ploughs past in a dense cloud of dust. +</p> + +<p> +The teams drag on again like a “wounded snake that dies at +sundown,” if a wounded snake that dies at sundown could revive +sufficiently next morning to drag on again until another sun goes down. +</p> + +<p> +Hopeless-looking swagmen are met with during the afternoon, and one +carrier—he of the sanded leg—lends them tobacco; his mates +contribute “bits o’” tea, flour, and sugar. +</p> + +<p> +Sundown and the bullocks done up. The teamsters unyoke them and drive them on +to the next water—five miles—having previously sent a mate to +reconnoitre and see that boundary-rider is not round, otherwise, to make terms +with him, for it is a squatter’s bore. They hurry the bullocks down to +the water and back in the twilight, and then, under cover of darkness, turn +them into a clearing in the scrub off the road, where a sign in the grass might +be seen—if you look close. But the “bullockies” are better +off than the horse-teamsters, for bad chaff is sold by the pound and corn is +worth its weight in gold. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell and I turned off the track at the rabbit-proof fence and made for the +tank in the mulga. We boiled the billy and had some salt mutton and damper. We +were making back for Bourke, having failed to get a cut in any of the sheds on +the Hungerford track. We sat under a clump of mulga saplings, with our backs to +the trunks, and got out our pipes. Usually, when the flies were very bad on the +track, we had to keep twigs or wild-turkey=tail feathers going in front of our +faces the whole time to keep the mad flies out of our eyes; and, when we +camped, one would keep the feather going while the other lit his +pipe—then the smoke would keep them away. But the flies weren’t so +bad in a good shade or in a darkened hut. Mitchell’s pipe would have +smoked out Old Nick; it was an ancient string-bound meerschaum, and strong +enough to kill a blackfellow. I had one smoke out of it, once when I felt bad +in my inside and wanted to be sick, and the result was very satisfactory. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell looked through his old pocket-book—more by force of habit than +anything else—and turned up a circular from Tattersall’s. And that +reminded him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what I’d do, Harry,” he said, “if I won +Tattersall’s big sweep, or was to come into fifty or a hundred thousand +pounds, or, better still, a million?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing I suppose,” I said, “except to get away to Sydney or +some cooler place than this.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I’d do,” said Mitchell, talking +round his pipe. “I’d build a Swagman’s Rest right +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Swagman’s Rest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Right here on this very God-forsaken spot. I’d build a +Swagman’s Rest and call it the Lost Souls’ Hotel, or the +Sundowners’ Arms, or the Half-way House to ——, or some such +name that would take the bushmen’s fancy. I’d have it built on the +best plans for coolness in a hot country; bricks, and plenty of wide verandas +with brick floors, and balconies, and shingles, in the old Australian style. I +wouldn’t have a sheet of corrugated iron about the place. And I’d +have old-fashioned hinged sashes with small panes and vines round ’em; +they look cooler and more homely and romantic than the glaring sort that shove +up. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’d dig a tank or reservoir for surface water as big as a +lake, and bore for artesian water—and get it, too, if I had to bore right +through to England; and I’d irrigate the ground and make it grow +horse-feed and fruit, and vegetables too, if I had to cart manure from Bourke. +And every teamster’s bullock or horse, and every shearer’s hack, +could burst itself free, but I’d make travelling stock pay—for it +belongs to the squatters and capitalists. All carriers could camp for one night +only. And I’d—no, I wouldn’t have any flowers; they might +remind some heart-broken, new-chum black sheep of the house where he was born, +and the mother whose heart he broke—and the father whose grey hairs he +brought down in sorrow to the grave—and break him up altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what about the old-fashioned windows and the vines?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Mitchell, “I forgot them. On second thought, I +think I would have some flowers; and maybe a bit of ivy-green. The new chum +might be trying to work out his own salvation, and the sight of the roses and +ivy would show him that he hadn’t struck such a God-forgotten country +after all, and help strengthen the hope for something better that’s in +the heart of every vagabond till he dies.” +</p> + +<p> +Puff, puff, puff, slowly and reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +“Until he dies,” repeated Mitchell. “And, maybe,” he +said, rousing himself, “I’d have a little room fixed up like a +corner of a swell restaurant, with silver and napkins on the table, and +I’d fix up a waiter, so that when a broken-down University wreck came +along he might feel, for an hour or so, something like the man he used to be. +But I suppose,” Mitchell reflected, “he wouldn’t feel +completely his old self without a lady friend sitting opposite to him. I might +fix up a black gin for him, but I suppose he’d draw the colour line. But +that’s nonsense. +</p> + +<p> +“All teamsters and travellers could camp there for one night only. +I’d have shower-baths; but I wouldn’t force any man to have a bath +against his will. They could sit down to a table and have a feed off a +table-cloth, and sleep in sheets, and feel like they did before their old +mothers died, or before they ran away from home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who? The mothers?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, in some cases,” said Mitchell. “And I’d have a +nice, cool little summer-house down near the artificial lake, out of earshot of +the house, where the bullock-drivers could sit with their pipes after tea, and +tell yarns, and talk in their own language. And I’d have boats on the +lake, too, in case an old Oxford or Cambridge man, or an old sailor came +along—it might put years on to his life to have a pull at the oars. You +remember that old sailor we saw in charge of the engine back there at the +government tank? You saw how he had the engine?—clean and bright as a new +pin—everything spick-and-span and shipshape, and his hut fixed up like a +ship’s cabin. I believe he thinks he’s at sea half his time, and +shoving her through it, instead of pumping muddy water out of a hole in the +baking scrubs for starving stock. Or maybe he reckons he’s keeping her +afloat.” +</p> + +<p> +“And would you have fish in this lake of yours?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Mitchell, “and any ratty old shepherd or +sundowner, that’s gone mad of heat and loneliness—like the old +codger we met back yonder—he could sit by the lagoon in the cool of the +evening and fish to his heart’s content with a string and a bent pin, and +dream he’s playing truant from school and fishing in the brook near his +native village in England about fifty years ago. It would seem more real than +fishing in the dust as some mad old bushmen do.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’d draw the line somewhere?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mitchell, “not even at poets. I’d try to +cure them, too, with good wholesome food and plenty of physical exercise. The +Lost Souls’ Hotel would be a refuge for men who’d been jail-birds +once as well as men who were gentlemen once, and for physical wrecks and ruined +drunkards as well as healthy honest shearers. I’d sit down and talk to +the boozer or felon just as if I thought he was as good a man as me—and +he might be, for that matter—God knows. +</p> + +<p> +“The sick man would be kept till he recovered, or died; and the boozer, +suffering from a recovery, I’d keep him till he was on his legs +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’d have to have a doctor,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mitchell, “I’d fix that up all right. I +wouldn’t bother much about a respectable medical practitioner from the +city. I’d get a medical wreck who had a brilliant career before him once +in England and got into disgrace, and cleared out to the colonies—a man +who knows what the d.t.’s is—a man who’s been through it all +and knows it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’d want a manager, or a clerk or secretary,” I +suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I would,” said Mitchell. “I’ve got no head +for figures. I suppose I’d have to advertise for him. If an applicant +came with the highest testimonials of character, and especially if one was +signed by a parson, I’d tell him to call again next week; and if a young +man could prove that he came of a good Christian family, and went to church +regularly, and sang in the choir, and taught Sunday-school, I’d tell him +that he needn’t come again, that the vacancy was filled, for I +couldn’t trust, him. The man who’s been extra religious and honest +and hard-working in his young days is most likely to go wrong afterwards. +I’d sooner trust some poor old devil of a clerk who’d got into the +hands of a woman or racing men when he was young, and went wrong, and served +his time for embezzlement; anyway, I’d take him out and give him another +chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about woman’s influence?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose there’d have to be a woman, if only to keep the +doctor on the line. I’d get a woman with a past, one that hadn’t +been any better than she should have been, they’re generally the most +kind-hearted in the end. Say an actress who’d come down in the world, or +an old opera-singer who’d lost her voice but could still sing a little. A +woman who knows what trouble is. And I’d get a girl to keep her company, +a sort of housemaid, with a couple of black gins or half-castes to help her. +I’d get hold of some poor girl who’d been deceived and deserted: +and a baby or two wouldn’t be an objection—the kids would amuse the +chaps and help humanize the place.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what if the manageress fell in love with the doctor?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I couldn’t provide against love,” said Mitchell. +“I fell in love myself more than once—and I don’t suppose +I’d have been any worse off if I’d have stayed in love. Ah, well! +But suppose she did fall in love with the doctor and marry him, or suppose she +fell in love with him and didn’t marry him, for that matter—and +suppose the girl fell in love with the secretary? There wouldn’t be any +harm done; it would only make them more contented with the home and bind them +to it. They’d be a happy family, and the Lost Souls’ Hotel would be +more cheerful and homelike than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“But supposing they all fell in love with each other and cleared +out,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what they’d have to clear out for,” said +Mitchell. “But suppose they did. There’s more than one medical +wreck in Australia, and more than one woman with a past, and more than one +broken old clerk who went wrong and was found out, and who steadied down in +jail, and there’s more than one poor girl that’s been deceived. I +could easily replace ’em. And the Lost Souls’ Hotel might be the +means of patching up many wrecked lives in that way—giving people with +pasts the chance of another future, so to speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’d have music and books and pictures?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” said Mitchell. “But I wouldn’t have any +bitter or sex-problem books. They do no good. Problems have been the curse of +the world ever since it started. I think one noble, kindly, cheerful character +in a book does more good than all the clever villains or romantic adventurers +ever invented. And I think a man ought to get rid of his maudlin sentiment in +private, or when he’s drunk. It’s a pity that every writer +couldn’t put all his bitterness into one book and then burn it. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I’d have good cheerful books of the best and brightest sides +of human nature—Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain, and Bret Harte, and +those men. And I’d have all Australian pictures—showing the +brightest and best side of Australian life. And I’d have all Australian +songs. I wouldn’t have ‘Swannie Ribber,’ or ‘Home, +Sweet Home,’ or ‘Annie Laurie,’ or any of those old songs +sung at the Lost Souls’ Hotel—they’re the cause of more +heartbreaks and drink and suicide in the bush than anything else. And if a +jackaroo got up to sing, ‘Just before the battle, mother,’ or, +‘Mother bit me in me sleep,’ he’d find it was just before the +battle all right. He’d have to go out and sleep in the scrub, where the +mosquitoes and bulldog ants would bite him out of his sleep. I hate the man +who’s always whining about his mother through his nose, because, as a +rule, he never cared a rap for his old mother, nor for anyone else, except his +own paltry, selfish little self. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d have intellectual and elevating conversation for those +that——” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’d take charge of that department?” I inquired hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” reflected Mitchell, “I did have an idea of taking it +on myself for a while anyway; but, come to think of it, the doctor or the woman +with the past would have more experience; and I could look after that part of +the business at a pinch. Of course you’re not in a position to judge as +to my ability in the intellectual line; you see, I’ve had no one to +practise on since I’ve been with you. But no matter—— +There’d be intellectual conversation for the benefit of black-sheep new +chums. And any broken-down actors that came along could get up a play if they +liked—it would brighten up things and help elevate the bullock-drivers +and sundowners. I’d have a stage fixed up and a bit of scenery. I’d +do all I could to attract shearers to the place after shearing, and keep them +from rushing to the next shanty with their cheques, or down to Sydney, to be +cleaned out by barmaids. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’d have the hero squashed in the last act for a selfish +sneak, and marry the girl to the villain—he’d be more likely to +make her happy in the end.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about the farm?” I asked. “I suppose you’d +get some expert from the agricultural college to manage that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mitchell. “I’d get some poor drought-ruined +selector and put him in charge of the vegetation. Only, the worst of it +is,” he reflected, “if you take a selector who has bullocked all +his life to raise crops on dusty, stony patches in the scrubs, and put him on +land where there’s plenty of water and manure, and where he’s only +got to throw the seed on the ground and then light his pipe and watch it grow, +he’s apt to get disheartened. But that’s human nature. +</p> + +<p> +“And, of course, I’d have to have a ‘character’ about +the place—a sort of identity and joker to brighten up things. I +wouldn’t get a man who’d been happy and comfortable all his life; +I’d get hold of some old codger whose wife had nagged him till she died, +and who’d been sold off many times, and run in for drowning his sorrows, +and who started as an undertaker and failed at that, and finally got a job +pottering round—gardener, or gatekeeper, or something—in a lunatic +asylum. I’d get him. He’d most likely be a humorist and a +philosopher, and he’d help cheer up the Lost Souls’ Hotel. I reckon +the lost souls would get very fond of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“And would you have drink at Lost Souls’?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mitchell. “I’d have the best beer and +spirits and wine to be had. After tea I’d let every man have just enough +to make him feel comfortable and happy, and as good and clever, and innocent +and honest as any other man, but no more. But if a poor devil came along in the +horrors, with every inch of him jumping, and snakes, and green-eyed yahoos, and +flaming-nosed bunyips chasing him, we’d take him in and give him soothing +draughts, and nurse him, and watch him, and clear him out with purgatives, and +keep giving him nips of good whisky, and, above all, we’d sympathize with +him, and tell him that we were worse than he was many a time. We wouldn’t +tell him what a weak, selfish man he was, or harp on his ruined life. +We’d try to make him out a good deal better morally than he really was. +It’s remorse that hurries most men to hell—especially in the Bush. +When a man firmly believes he is a hopeless case, then there’s no hope +for him: but let him have doubts and there’s a chance. Make him believe +that there are far worse cases than his. We wouldn’t preach the sin of +dissipation to him, no—but we’d try to show him the <i>folly</i> of +a wasted life. I ought to be able to preach that, God knows. +</p> + +<p> +“And, above all, we’d try to drive out of his head the cursed old +popular idea that it’s hard to reform—that a man’s got to +fight a hard battle with himself to get away from drink—pity drunkards +can’t believe how easy it is. And we’d put it to him straight +whether his few hours’ enjoyment were worth the days he had to suffer +hell for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, likely as not,” I said, “when you’d put him on +his feet he’d take the nearest track to the next shanty, and go on a +howling spree, and come back to Lost Souls’ in a week, raving aid worse +than ever. What would you do then?” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d take him in again, and build him up some more; and a third or +fourth time if necessary. I believe in going right on with a thing once I take +it in hand. And if he didn’t turn up after the last spree we’d look +for him up the scrub and bring him in and let him die on a bed, and make his +death as comfortable as possible. I’ve seen one man die on the ground, +and found one dead in the bush. We’d bury him under a gum and put +‘Sacred to the Memory of a Man who Died. (Let him R.I.P.)’ over +him. I’d have a nice little graveyard, with gums for tombstones—and +I’d have some original epitaphs—I promise you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost +Souls’ Hotel?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“None,” said Mitchell, promptly. “It wouldn’t be a +Gratitude Discovery Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls’ +Hotel was a den for kidnapping women and girls to be used as decoys for the +purpose of hocussing and robbing bushmen, and the law and retribution might +come after me—but I’d fight the thing out. Or they might want to +make a K.C.M.G., or a god of me, and worship me before they hung me. I reckon a +philanthropist or reformer is lucky if he escapes with a whole skin in the end, +let alone his character— But there!— Talking of gratitude: +it’s the fear of ingratitude that keeps thousands from doing good. +It’s just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that +curses the world—it’s rather more selfish than most fears, in +fact—take the fear of being thought a coward, or being considered +eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance. +The man that’s always canting about the world’s ingratitude has no +gratitude owing to him as a rule—generally the reverse—he ought to +be grateful to the world for being let live. He broods over the world’s +ingratitude until he gets to be a cynic. He sees the world like the outside of +a window, as it were, with the blind drawn and the dead, cold moonlight shining +on it, and he passes on with a sour face; whereas, if he took the trouble to +step inside he’d most likely find a room full of ruddy firelight, and +sympathy and cheerfulness, and kindness, and love, and gratitude. Sometimes, +when he’s right down on his uppers, and forced to go amongst people and +hustle for bread, he gets a lot of surprises at the amount of kindness he keeps +running against in the world—and in places where he’d never have +expected to find it. But—ah, well! I’m getting maudlin.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve forgot all about the Lost Souls’ Hotel,” I +said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t,” said Mitchell; “I’d fix that up +all right. As soon as I’d got things going smoothly under a man I could +trust, I’d tie up every penny I had for the benefit of the concern; get +some ‘white men’ for trustees, and take the track again. I’m +getting too old to stay long in one place—(I’m a lost soul that +always got along better in another place). I’m so used to the track that +if I was shut up in a house I’d get walking up and down in my room of +nights and disturb the folk; and, besides, I’d feel lost and +light-shouldered without the swag.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you’d put all your money in the concern?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—except a pound or two to go on the track with—for, who +knows, I might come along there, dusty and tired, and ragged and hard up and +old, some day, and be very glad of a night’s rest at the Lost +Souls’ Hotel. But I wouldn’t let on that I was old Mitchell, the +millionaire, who founded Lost Souls’. They might be too officious, and I +hate fuss.... But it’s time to take the track, Harry.” +</p> + +<p> +There came a cool breeze with sunset; we stood up stiffly, shouldered our swags +and tucker-bags, and pushed on, for we had to make the next water before we +camped. We were out of tobacco, so we borrowed some from one of the +bullock-drivers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"></a> +THE BOOZERS’ HOME</h2> + +<p> +“A dipsomaniac,” said Mitchell, “needs sympathy and +commonsense treatment. (Sympathy’s a grand and glorious thing, taking it +all round and looking at it any way you will: a little of it makes a man think +that the world’s a good world after all, and there’s room and hope +for sinners, and that life’s worth living; enough of it makes him sure of +it: and an overdose of sympathy makes a man <i>feel</i> weak and ashamed of +himself, and so moves him to stop whining—and wining—and buck up.) +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’m not taking the case of a workman who goes on the spree on +pay night and sweats the drink out of himself at work next day, nor a slum-bred +brute who guzzles for the love of it; but a man with brains, who drinks to +drown his intellect or his memory. He’s generally a man under it all, and +a sensitive, generous, gentle man with finer feelings as often as not. The best +and cleverest and whitest men in the world seem to take to drink mostly. +It’s an awful pity. Perhaps it’s because they’re straight and +the world’s crooked and they can see things too plain. And I suppose in +the bush the loneliness and the thoughts of the girl-world they left behind +help to sink ’em. +</p> + +<p> +“Now a drunkard seldom reforms at home, because he’s always +surrounded by the signs of the ruin and misery he has brought on the home; and +the sight and thought of it sets him off again before he’s had time to +recover from the last spree. Then, again, the noblest wife in the world mostly +goes the wrong way to work with a drunken husband—nearly everything she +does is calculated to irritate him. If, for instance, he brings a bottle home +from the pub, it shows that he wants to stay at home and not go back to the pub +any more; but the first thing the wife does is to get hold of the bottle and +plant it, or smash it before his eyes, and that maddens him in the state he is +in then. +</p> + +<p> +“No. A dipsomaniac needs to be taken away from home for a while. I knew a +man that got so bad that the way he acted at home one night frightened him, and +next morning he went into an inebriate home of his own accord—to a place +where his friends had been trying to get him for a year past. For the first day +or two he was nearly dead with remorse and shame—mostly shame; and he +didn’t know what they were going to do to him next—and he only +wanted them to kill him quick and be done with it. He reckons he felt as bad as +if he was in jail. But there were ten other patients there, and one or two were +worse than he was, and that comforted him a lot. They compared notes and +sympathized and helped each other. They discovered that all their wives were +noble women. He struck one or two surprises too—one of the patients was a +doctor who’d attended him one time, and another was an old boss of his, +and they got very chummy. And there was a man there who was standing for +Parliament—he was supposed to be having a rest down the coast.... Yes, my +old mate felt very bad for the first day or two; it was all Yes, Nurse, and +Thank you, Nurse, and Yes, Doctor, and No, Doctor, and Thank you, Doctor. But, +inside a week, he was calling the doctor ‘Ol’ Pill-Box’ +behind his back, and making love to one of the nurses. +</p> + +<p> +“But he said it was pitiful when women relatives came to visit patients +the first morning. It shook the patients up a lot, but I reckon it did +’em good. There were well-bred old lady mothers in black, and +hard-working, haggard wives and loving daughters—and the expressions of +sympathy and faith and hope in those women’s faces! My old mate said it +was enough in itself to make a man swear off drink for ever.... Ah, +God—what a world it is! +</p> + +<p> +“Reminds me how I once went with the wife of another old mate of mine to +see him. He was in a lunatic asylum. It was about the worst hour I ever had in +my life, and I’ve had some bad ones. The way she tried to coax him back +to his old self. She thought she could do it when all the doctors had failed. +But I’ll tell you about him some other time. +</p> + +<p> +“The old mate said that the principal part of the treatment was supposed +to be injection of bi-chloride of gold or something, and it was supposed to be +a secret. It might have been water and sugar for all he knew, and he thought it +was. You see, when patients got better they were allowed out, two by two, on +their honour—one to watch the other—and it worked. But it was +necessary to have an extra hold on them; so they were told that if they were a +minute late for ‘treatment,’ or missed one injection, all the good +would be undone. This was dinged into their ears all the time. Same as many +things are done in the Catholic religion—to hold the people. My old mate +said that, as far as the medical treatment was concerned, he could do all that +was necessary himself. But it was the sympathy that counted, especially the +sympathy between the patients themselves. They always got hold of a new patient +and talked to him and cheered him up; he nearly always came in thinking he was +the most miserable wretch in this world. And it comforts a man and strengthens +him and makes him happier to meet another man who’s worse off or sicker, +or has been worse swindled than he has been. That’s human nature.... And +a man will take draughts from a nurse and eat for her when he wouldn’t do +it for his own wife—not even though she had been a trained nurse herself. +And if a patient took a bad turn in the night at the Boozers’ Home and +got up to hunt the snakes out of his room, he wouldn’t be sworn at, or +laughed at, or held down; no, they’d help him shoo the snakes out and +comfort him. My old mate said that, when he got better, one of the new patients +reckoned that he licked St Pathrick at managing snakes. And when he came out he +didn’t feel a bit ashamed of his experience. The institution didn’t +profess to cure anyone of drink, only to mend up shattered nerves and build up +wrecked constitutions; give them back some will-power if they weren’t too +far gone. And they set my old mate on his feet all right. When he went in his +life seemed lost, he had the horror of being sober, he couldn’t start the +day without a drink or do any business without it. He couldn’t live for +more than two hours without a drink; but when he came out he didn’t feel +as if he wanted it. He reckoned that those six weeks in the institution were +the happiest he’d ever spent in his life, and he wished the time had been +longer; he says he’d never met with so much sympathy and genius, and +humour and human nature under one roof before. And he said it was nice and +novel to be looked after and watched and physicked and bossed by a pretty nurse +in uniform—but I don’t suppose he told his wife that. And when he +came out he never took the trouble to hide the fact that he’d been in. If +any of his friends had a drunkard in the family, he’d recommend the +institution and do his best to get him into it. But when he came out he firmly +believed that if he took one drink he’d be a lost man. He made a mania of +that. One curious effect was that, for some time after he left the institution, +he’d sometimes feel suddenly in high spirits—with nothing to +account for it—something like he used to feel when he had half a dozen +whiskies in him; then suddenly he’d feel depressed and sort of +hopeless—with nothing to account for that either—just as if he was +suffering a recovery. But those moods never lasted long and he soon grew out of +them altogether. He didn’t flee temptation. He’d knock round the +pubs on Saturday nights with his old mates, but never drank anything but soft +stuff—he was always careful to smell his glass for fear of an accident or +trick. He drank gallons of ginger beer, milk-and-soda, and lemonade; and he got +very fond of sweets, too—he’d never liked them before. He said he +enjoyed the novelty of the whole thing and his mates amused him at first; but +he found he had to leave them early in the evening, and, after a while, he +dropped them altogether. They seemed such fools when they were drunk +(they’d never seemed fools to him before). And, besides, as they got +full, they’d get suspicious of him, and then mad at him, because he +couldn’t see things as they could. That reminds me that it nearly breaks +a man’s heart when his old drinking chum turns +teetotaller—it’s worse than if he got married or died. When two +mates meet and one is drunk and the other sober there is only one of two things +for them to do if they want to hit it together—either the drunken mate +must get sober or the sober mate drunk. And that reminds me: Take the case of +two old mates who’ve been together all their lives, say they always had +their regular sprees together and went through the same stages of drunkenness +together, and suffered their recoveries and sobered up together, and each could +stand about the same quantity of drink and one never got drunker than the +other. Each, when he’s boozing, reckons his mate the cleverest man and +the hardest case in the world—second to himself. But one day it happens, +by a most extraordinary combination of circumstances, that Bill, being sober, +meets Jim very drunk, and pretty soon Bill is the most disgusted man in this +world. He never would have dreamed that his old mate could make such a fool and +such a public spectacle of himself. And Bill’s disgust intensifies all +the time he is helping Jim home, and Jim arguing with him and wanting to fight +him, and slobbering over him and wanting to love him by turns, until Bill +swears he’ll give Jim a hammering as soon as ever he’s able to +stand steady on his feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose your old boozing mate’s wife was very happy when he +reformed,” I said to Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no,” said Mitchell, rubbing his head rather ruefully. +“I suppose it was an exceptional case. But I knew her well, and the fact +is that she got more discontented and thinner, and complained and nagged him +worse than she’d ever done in his drinking days. And she’d never +been afraid of him. Perhaps it was this way: She loved and married a careless, +good-natured, drinking scamp, and when he reformed and became a careful, +hard-working man, and an honest and respected fellow-townsman, she was +disappointed in him. He wasn’t the man that won her heart when she was a +girl. Or maybe he was only company for her when he was half drunk. Or maybe +lots of things. Perhaps he’d killed the love in her before he +reformed—and reformed too late. I wonder how a man feels when he finds +out for the first time that his wife doesn’t love him any longer? But my +old mate wasn’t the nature to find out that sort of thing. Ah, well! If a +woman caused all our trouble, my God! women have suffered for it +since—and they suffer like martyrs mostly and with the patience of +working bullocks. Anyway it goes, if I’m the last man in the world, and +the last woman is the worst, and there’s only room for one more in +Heaven, I’ll step down at once and take my chances in Blazes.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"></a> +THE SEX PROBLEM AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +It was Mitchell’s habit to take an evening off now and then from yarning +or reflecting, and proceed, in a most methodical manner, to wash his spare +shirts and patch his pants. I was in the habit of contributing to some Sydney +papers, and every man is an editor at heart, so, at other times, Mitchell would +take another evening off, and root out my swag, and go through my papers in the +same methodical manner, and make alterations and additions without comment or +reference to me; and sometimes he’d read a little thing of my own which +didn’t meet his views, and accidentally drop it into the fire; and at +other times he’d get hold of some rhyme or sketch that was troubling me, +and wrap it up and give it to a passing mailman unbeknown to me. The unexpected +appearance of such articles in the paper, as well as the effects of the +involuntary collaboration in other pieces, gave me several big surprises. +</p> + +<p> +It was in camp on a fencing contract west of Bourke. We had a book which +we’d borrowed from a library at Bourke for a year or two—never mind +the name of it—it was in ninety-one or ninety-two, and the sex problem +was booming then. I had been surreptitiously tearing some carefully-written +slips of manuscript—leaves taken from an old pocket-book—into small +pieces; I dropped them, with apparent carelessness, into the fire and stood +with my back to it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bet five pounds,” said Mitchell, suddenly, “that +you’ve been trying your hand on a sex-problem story.” +</p> + +<p> +I shifted uneasily and brought my hands from behind me into my pockets. +“Well, to tell you the truth,” I admitted, “I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so,” exclaimed Mitchell. “We’ll be put to +the expense of sending you to Sydney for medical treatment yet. You’ve +been having too easy times lately, plenty of hard graft and no anxiety about +tucker or the future. What are the symptoms?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, taking a hand out to scratch the back of my head, +“the plot looked all right—at first sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“So there’s a plot, is there? Well, in the first place, a plot is a +problem. Well, what’s the plot?... Come on, you needn’t be +frightened to tell an old mate like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said, “the yarn looked all right at first sight; +that article of ‘T’s’ in the <i>Bulletin</i> turned me off +it; listen and see what you think of it: There was a young fellow, a bit of a +genius——” +</p> + +<p> +“Just so, it’s the geniuses that build the sex problems. It’s +an autobiography. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he married a girl.” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell (sotto voce): “God help her.” +</p> + +<p> +“He loved her, and she loved him: but after they’d been married a +while he found out that, although he understood her, she didn’t and +couldn’t possibly ever understand him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” commented Mitchell, “and if he hadn’t caught the +sex problem, nor been reading about it, he would never have found that +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a terrible disappointment,” I continued—I had got +into the habit of taking Mitchell’s interruptions and comments as matters +of course—“He saw that his life would be a hell with +her——” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell: “Didn’t strike him that her life would be a hell with +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“They had no thought in common.” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell: “She was in her right mind then.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he couldn’t leave her because he loved her, and because he +knew that she loved him and would break her heart if he left her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must have been a pretty cocksure sort of a fellow,” remarked +Mitchell, “but all geniuses are.” +</p> + +<p> +“When he was with her he saw all her obstinacy, unreason, and +selfishness; but when he was away he only saw her good points.” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell: “Pity such men don’t stop away.” +</p> + +<p> +“He thought and thought, and brooded over it till his life was a +hell——” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell: “Jes-so: thanks to the problemaniacs.” +</p> + +<p> +“He thought of killing her and himself, and so taking her with him” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” asked Mitchell. “He must have loved her a lot.... +Good Lord! That shows the awful effects of the sex problem on the mind of a +healthy young man like you;” and Mitchell stood up. +</p> + +<p> +“He lay awake by her side at nights thinking and fighting the thing +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve been lying awake, thinking, with me and ‘the +Oracle’ by your side. We’ll have to plant the tommy-hawk, and watch +you by turns at night till you get over this.” +</p> + +<p> +“One night he rested on his elbow, and watched her sleeping, and tried to +reconstruct his ideal out of her, and, just when he was getting into a happier +frame of mind, her mouth fell open, and she snored.... I didn’t get any +further than the snore,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course you didn’t,” said Mitchell, “and none of +the sex problemers ever will—unless they get as far as +‘blanky.’ You might have made the snore cure him; did it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it was making things worse in my idea of the yarn. He fell back and +lay staring at the ceiling in a hopeless kind of a way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then he was a fit case for the lunatic asylum.... Now, look here, Harry, +you’re a good-natured, soft old fool when you’re in your right +mind; just you go on being a good-natured, soft old fool, and don’t try +to make a problem out of yourself or anybody else, or you’ll come to a +bad end. A pocket-book’s to keep your accounts in, not to take notes in +(you take them in your head and use ’em in your arms), not to write +sex-problem rot in—that’s spoilt many a good pocket-book, and many +a good man. You’ve got a girl you’re talking about going back to as +soon as we’ve finished this contract. Don’t you make a problem of +her; make a happy wife and mother of her.... I was very clever when I was +young”—and here Mitchell’s voice took a tinge of bitterness, +or sadness. “I used to make problems out of things.... I ain’t much +to boast of now.... Seems to me that a good many men want to make angels of +their wives without first taking trouble of making saints of themselves. We +want to make women’s ways our ways—it would be just as fair to make +our ways theirs. Some men want to be considered gods in their own homes; +you’ll generally find that sort of men very small potatoes outside; if +they weren’t they wouldn’t bother so much about being cocks on +their own little dunghills.... And again, old mates seldom quarrel, because +they understand each other’s moods. Now, if you went brooding round for +any length of time I’d say to you. ‘Now then, Harry, what have I +been doing to you? Spit it out, old man.’ And you’d do the same by +me; but how many men would take even that much trouble with their wives?” +</p> + +<p> +A breeze stirred the mulga and brought the sound of a good voice singing in the +surveyors’ camp: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Should old acquaintance be forgot<br/> +Â Â Â Â And never brought to min’?<br/> +Should old acquaintance be forgot<br/> +Â Â Â Â And the days of Auld Lang Syne? +</p> + +<p> +“That damned old tune will upset the Oracle for the rest of the +night,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, there’s the Oracle,” said Mitchell. “He was +wronged by a woman as few men are wronged; his life was ruined—but he +isn’t the man to take any stock in sex problems on account of her. He +thinks he’s great on problems, but he isn’t. It all amounts to +this—that he’s sorry for most men and all women and tries to act up +to it to the best of his ability; and if he ain’t a Christian, God knows +what is—I don’t. No matter what a woman does to you, or what you +think she does to you, there come times, sooner or later, when you feel sorry +for her—deep down in your heart—that is if you’re a man. And, +no matter what action or course you might take against her, and no matter how +right or justified you might seem in doing it, there comes a time when, deep +down in your heart, you feel mean and doubtful about your own part. You can +take that as a general thing as regards men against women, and man against man, +I think. And I believe that deep-down feeling of being doubtful, or mean, or +sorry, that comes afterwards, when you are cooler and know more about the +world, is a right and natural thing, and we ought to act more in accordance +with it.” +</p> + +<p> +Came the refrain from the surveyors’ camp: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We twa hae run about the braes,<br/> +Â Â Â Â An’ pu’d the gowans fine;<br/> +But we’ve wandered mony a weary foot<br/> +Â Â Â Â Sin’ Auld Lang Syne. +</p> + +<p> +“We feel sorry for our quarrels with our worst enemy when we see him +lying still and quiet—dead. Why can’t we try and feel a bit sorry +beforehand?” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Â Â Â Â For Auld Lang Syne.<br/> +We twa ha’ padl’t i’ the burn,<br/> +Â Â Â Â Fra mornin’ sun till dine;<br/> +But seas between us braid ha’ roar’d<br/> +Â Â Â Â Sin’ Auld Lang Syne. +</p> + +<p> +“I used to feel blazing bitter against things one time but it never hurt +anybody but myself in the end. I argued and quarrelled with a girl +once—and made a problem of the thing and went away. She’s married +to a brute now, and I’m what I am. I made a problem of a good home or the +world once, and went against the last man in God’s world that I should +have gone against, and turned my back on his hand, and left him. His hand was +very cold the next time I took it in mine. We don’t want problems to make +us more bitter against the world than we get sometimes.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And here’s a han’ my trusty frien’,<br/> +Â Â Â Â An’ gie’s a han’ o’ thine,<br/> +We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet<br/> +Â Â Â Â For Auld Lang Syne. +</p> + +<p> +“And that song’s the answer of all problems,” said Mitchell. +But it was I who lay awake and thought that night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"></a> +THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAG</h2> + +<p> +The Australian swag fashion is the easiest way in the world of carrying a load. +I ought to know something about carrying loads: I’ve carried babies, +which are the heaviest and most awkward and heartbreaking loads in this world +for a boy or man to carry, I fancy. God remember mothers who slave about the +housework (and do sometimes a man’s work in addition in the bush) with a +heavy, squalling kid on one arm! I’ve humped logs on the selection, +“burning-off,” with loads of fencing-posts and rails and palings +out of steep, rugged gullies (and was happier then, perhaps); I’ve +carried a shovel, crowbar, heavy “rammer,” a dozen insulators on an +average (strung round my shoulders with raw flax)-to say nothing of soldiering +kit, tucker-bag, billy and climbing spurs—all day on a telegraph line in +rough country in New Zealand, and in places where a man had to manage his load +with one hand and help himself climb with the other; and I’ve helped hump +and drag telegraph-poles up cliffs and sidings where the horses couldn’t +go. I’ve carried a portmanteau on the hot dusty roads in green old +jackaroo days. Ask any actor who’s been stranded and had to count railway +sleepers from one town to another! he’ll tell you what sort of an awkward +load a portmanteau is, especially if there’s a broken-hearted man +underneath it. I’ve tried knapsack fashion—one of the least healthy +and most likely to give a man sores; I’ve carried my belongings in a +three-bushel sack slung over my shoulder—blankets, tucker, spare boots +and poetry all lumped together. I tried carrying a load on my head, and got a +crick in my neck and spine for days. I’ve carried a load on my mind that +should have been shared by editors and publishers. I’ve helped hump +luggage and furniture up to, and down from, a top flat in London. And +I’ve carried swag for months out back in Australia—and it was life, +in spite of its “squalidness” and meanness and wretchedness and +hardship, and in spite of the fact that the world would have regarded us as +“tramps”—and a free life amongst <i>men</i> from all the +world! +</p> + +<p> +The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land—of the Great +Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat; the land of self-reliance, +and never-give-in, and help-your-mate. The grave of many of the world’s +tragedies and comedies—royal and otherwise. The land where a man out of +employment might shoulder his swag in Adelaide and take the track, and years +later walk into a hut on the Gulf, or never be heard of any more, or a body be +found in the bush and buried by the mounted police, or never found and never +buried—what does it matter? +</p> + +<p> +The land I love above all others—not because it was kind to me, but +because I was born on Australian soil, and because of the foreign father who +died at his work in the ranks of Australian pioneers, and because of many +things. Australia! My country! Her very name is music to me. God bless +Australia! for the sake of the great hearts of the heart of her! God keep her +clear of the old-world shams and social lies and mockery, and callous +commercialism, and sordid shame! And heaven send that, if ever in my time her +sons are called upon to fight for her young life and honour, I die with the +first rank of them and be buried in Australian ground. +</p> + +<p> +But this will probably be called false, forced or “maudlin +sentiment” here in England, where the mawkish sentiment of the +music-halls, and the popular applause it receives, is enough to make a healthy +man sick, and is only equalled by music-hall vulgarity. So I’ll get on. +</p> + +<p> +In the old digging days the knapsack, or straps-across-the chest fashion, was +tried, but the load pressed on a man’s chest and impeded his breathing, +and a man needs to have his bellows free on long tracks in hot, stirless +weather. Then the “horse-collar,” or rolled military overcoat +style—swag over one shoulder and under the other arm—was tried, but +it was found to be too hot for the Australian climate, and was discarded along +with Wellington boots and leggings. Until recently, Australian city artists and +editors—who knew as much about the bush as Downing Street knows about the +British colonies in general—seemed to think the horse-collar swag was +still in existence; and some artists gave the swagman a stick, as if he were a +tramp of civilization with an eye on the backyard and a fear of the dog. +English artists, by the way, seem firmly convinced that the Australian bushman +is born in Wellington boots with a polish on ’em you could shave yourself +by. +</p> + +<p> +The swag is usually composed of a tent “fly” or strip of calico (a +cover for the swag and a shelter in bad weather—in New Zealand it is +oilcloth or waterproof twill), a couple of blankets, blue by custom and +preference, as that colour shows the dirt less than any other (hence the name +“bluey” for swag), and the core is composed of spare clothing and +small personal effects. To make or “roll up” your swag: lay the fly +or strip of calico on the ground, blueys on top of it; across one end, with +eighteen inches or so to spare, lay your spare trousers and shirt, folded, +light boots tied together by the laces toe to heel, books, bundle of old +letters, portraits, or whatever little knick-knacks you have or care to carry, +bag of needles, thread, pen and ink, spare patches for your pants, and +bootlaces. Lay or arrange the pile so that it will roll evenly with the swag +(some pack the lot in an old pillowslip or canvas bag), take a fold over of +blanket and calico the whole length on each side, so as to reduce the width of +the swag to, say, three feet, throw the spare end, with an inward fold, over +the little pile of belongings, and then roll the whole to the other end, using +your knees and judgment to make the swag tight, compact and artistic; when +within eighteen inches of the loose end take an inward fold in that, and bring +it up against the body of the swag. There is a strong suggestion of a +roley-poley in a rag about the business, only the ends of the swag are folded +in, in rings, and not tied. Fasten the swag with three or four straps, +according to judgment and the supply of straps. To the top strap, for the swag +is carried (and eased down in shanty bars and against walls or veranda-posts +when not on the track) in a more or less vertical position—to the top +strap, and lowest, or lowest but one, fasten the ends of the shoulder strap +(usually a towel is preferred as being softer to the shoulder), your coat being +carried outside the swag at the back, under the straps. To the top strap fasten +the string of the nose-bag, a calico bag about the size of a pillowslip, +containing the tea, sugar and flour bags, bread, meat, baking-powder and salt, +and brought, when the swag is carried from the left shoulder, over the right on +to the chest, and so balancing the swag behind. But a swagman can throw a heavy +swag in a nearly vertical position against his spine, slung from one shoulder +only and without any balance, and carry it as easily as you might wear your +overcoat. Some bushmen arrange their belongings so neatly and conveniently, +with swag straps in a sort of harness, that they can roll up the swag in about +a minute, and unbuckle it and throw it out as easily as a roll of wall-paper, +and there’s the bed ready on the ground with the wardrobe for a pillow. +The swag is always used for a seat on the track; it is a soft seat, so trousers +last a long time. And, the dust being mostly soft and silky on the long tracks +out back, boots last marvellously. Fifteen miles a day is the average with the +swag, but you must travel according to the water: if the next bore or tank is +five miles on, and the next twenty beyond, you camp at the five-mile water +to-night and do the twenty next day. But if it’s thirty miles you have to +do it. Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely +described as “humping bluey,” “walking Matilda,” +“humping Matilda,” “humping your drum,” “being on +the wallaby,” “jabbing trotters,” and “tea and sugar +burglaring,” but most travelling shearers now call themselves +trav’lers, and say simply “on the track,” or “carrying +swag.” +</p> + +<p> +And there you have the Australian swag. Men from all the world have carried +it—lords and low-class Chinamen, saints and world martyrs, and felons, +thieves, and murderers, educated gentlemen and boors who couldn’t sign +their mark, gentlemen who fought for Poland and convicts who fought the world, +women, and more than one woman disguised as a man. The Australian swag has held +in its core letters and papers in all languages, the honour of great houses, +and more than one national secret, papers that would send well-known and +highly-respected men to jail, and proofs of the innocence of men going mad in +prisons, life tragedies and comedies, fortunes and papers that secured titles +and fortunes, and the last pence of lost fortunes, life secrets, portraits of +mothers and dead loves, pictures of fair women, heart-breaking old letters +written long ago by vanished hands, and the pencilled manuscript of more than +one book which will be famous yet. +</p> + +<p> +The weight of the swag varies from the light rouseabout’s swag, +containing one blanket and a clean shirt, to the “royal Alfred,” +with tent and all complete, and weighing part of a ton. Some old sundowners +have a mania for gathering, from selectors’ and shearers’ huts, and +dust-heaps, heart-breaking loads of rubbish which can never be of any possible +use to them or anyone else. Here is an inventory of the contents of the swag of +an old tramp who was found dead on the track, lying on his face on the sand, +with his swag on top of him, and his arms stretched straight out as if he were +embracing the mother earth, or had made, with his last movement, the sign of +the cross to the blazing heavens: +</p> + +<p> +Rotten old tent in rags. Filthy blue blanket, patched with squares of red and +calico. Half of “white blanket” nearly black now, patched with +pieces of various material and sewn to half of red blanket. Three-bushel sack +slit open. Pieces of sacking. Part of a woman’s skirt. Two rotten old +pairs of moleskin trousers. One leg of a pair of trousers. Back of a shirt. +Half a waistcoat. Two tweed coats, green, old and rotting, and patched with +calico. Blanket, etc. Large bundle of assorted rags for patches, all rotten. +Leaky billy-can, containing fishing-line, papers, suet, needles and cotton, +etc. Jam-tin, medicine bottles, corks on strings, to hang to his hat to keep +the flies off (a sign of madness in the bush, for the corks would madden a sane +man sooner than the flies could). Three boots of different sizes, all belonging +to the right foot, and a left slipper. Coffee-pot, without handle or spout, and +quart-pot full of rubbish—broken knives and forks, with the handles burnt +off, spoons, etc., picked up on rubbish-heaps; and many rusty nails, to be used +as buttons, I suppose. +</p> + +<p> +Broken saw blade, hammer, broken crockery, old pannikins, small rusty +frying-pan without a handle, children’s old shoes, many bits of old +bootleather and greenhide, part of yellowback novel, mutilated English +dictionary, grammar and arithmetic book, a ready reckoner, a cookery book, a +bulgy anglo-foreign dictionary, part of a Shakespeare, book in French and book +in German, and a book on etiquette and courtship. A heavy pair of blucher +boots, with uppers parched and cracked, and soles so patched (patch over patch) +with leather, boot protectors, hoop iron and hobnails that they were about two +inches thick, and the boots weighed over five pounds. (If you don’t +believe me go into the Melbourne Museum, where, in a glass case in a place of +honour, you will see a similar, perhaps the same, pair of bluchers labelled +“An example of colonial industry.”) And in the core of the swag was +a sugar-bag tied tightly with a whip-lash, and containing another old skirt, +rolled very tight and fastened with many turns of a length of clothes-line, +which last, I suppose, he carried to hang himself with if he felt that way. The +skirt was rolled round a small packet of old portraits and almost +indecipherable letters—one from a woman who had evidently been a sensible +woman and a widow, and who stated in the letter that she did not intend to get +married again as she had enough to do already, slavin’ her finger-nails +off to keep a family, without having a second husband to keep. And her answer +was “final for good and all,” and it wasn’t no use +comin’ “bungfoodlin’” round her again. If he did +she’d set Satan on to him. “Satan” was a dog, I suppose. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was addressed to “Dear Bill,” as were others. There were +no envelopes. The letters were addressed from no place in particular, so there +weren’t any means of identifying the dead man. The police buried him +under a gum, and a young trooper cut on the tree the words: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +S<small>ACRED TO THE</small> M<small>EMORY OF</small><br/> +<big>BILL</big>,<br/> +W<small>HO DIED</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"></a> +“BUCKOLTS’ GATE”<br/> +AN AUSTRALIAN STORY</h2> + +<h3>PROLOGUE</h3> + +<p> +Old Abel Albury had a genius for getting the bull by the tail with a tight +grip, and holding on with both hands and an obstinacy born of +ignorance—and not necessarily for the sake of self-preservation or +selfishness—while all the time the bull might be, so to speak, rooting up +life-long friendships and neighbourly relations, and upsetting domestic customs +and traditions with his horns. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, Uncle Abel was always grasping the wrong end of things, and sticking to it +with that human mulishness which is often stronger, and more often wearies and +breaks down the opposition than an intelligent man’s arguments. He +was——or professed to be, the family said—unable for a long +time to distinguish between his two grand-nephews, one of whom was short and +fat, while the other was tall and thin, the only points of resemblance between +them being that each possessed the old family nose and eyes. When they were +boys he used to lay the strap about one in mistake for the other. They had a +saying that Uncle Abel saw with ten squinting eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Also, he could never—or would not, as the family said—remember +names. He referred to Mrs Porter, a thin, haggard selector’s wife, as +“Mrs Stout” and he balanced matters by calling Mrs Southwick +“Mrs Porterwicket”—when he didn’t address her as +“Mrs What’s-the-woman’s-name”—and he succeeded in +deeply offending both ladies. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Abel was Mrs Carey’s uncle. +</p> + +<p> +Down at the lower end of Carey’s selection at Rocky Rises, in the extreme +corner of the lower or outer paddock, were sliprails opening into the main +road, which ran down along the siding, round the foot of a spur from ridge, and +out west. These sliprails were called “The Lower Sliprails” by the +family, and it occurred to Uncle Abel to refer to them as +“Buckolts’ Gate,” for no other reason apparently than that +Buckolts’ farm lay in that direction. The farm was about a mile further +on, on the other side of the creek, and the gate leading to it from the main +road was round the spur, out of sight of Carey’s selection. It is quite +possible that Uncle Abel reasoned the thing out for days, for of such material +are some human brains. Sliprails, or a slip-panel, is a panel of fencing of +which the rails are made to be slipped out of the mortise holes in the posts so +as to give passage to horses, vehicles and cattle. I suppose Abel called it a +gate, because he was always going to hang a proper gate there some day. The +family were unaware of his new name for the Lower Sliprails, and after he had, +on one or two occasions, informed the boys that they would find a missing cow +or horse at the Buckolts’ Gate, and they had found it calmly camped at +the Lower Sliprails, and after he had made several appointments to meet parties +at Buckolts’ Gate, and had been found leaning obstinately on the fence by +the Lower Sliprails with no explanation to offer other than that he <i>was</i> +waiting at Buckolts’ Gate, they began to fear that he was becoming weak +in his mind. +</p> + +<h3>ACT I</h3> + +<p> +It was New Year’s Eve at Rocky Rises. There was no need for fireworks nor +bonfires, for the bush-fires were out all along the ranges to the east, and, as +night came on, lines and curves of lights—clear lights, white lights, +and, in the nearer distance, red lights and smoky lights—marked the +sidings and ridges of a western spur of the Blue Mountain Range, and seemed +suspended against a dark sky, for the stars and the loom of the hills were +hidden by smoke and drought haze. +</p> + +<p> +There was a dance at Careys’. Old Carey was a cheerful, broad-minded +bushman, haunted at times by the memories of old days, when he was the beau of +the bush balls, and so when he built his new slab-and-bark barn he had it +properly floored with hard-wood, and the floor well-faced “to give the +young people a show when they wanted a dance,” he said. The floor had a +spring in it, and bush boys and girls often rode twenty miles and more to dance +on that floor. The girls said it was a lovely floor. +</p> + +<p> +On this occasion Carey had stacked his wheat outside until after the New Year. +Spring-carts, and men and girls on horseback came in from miles round. +“Sperm” candles had been cut up and thrown on the floor during the +afternoon, and rubbed over by feet cased tightly in ’lastic-sides; and +hoops were hung horizontally from the tie-beams, with candles stuck round them. +There were fresh-faced girls, and sweet, freckled-faced girls, and jolly girls, +and shy girls—all sorts of girls except sulky, “toney” +girls—and lanky chaps, most of them sawney, and weird, whiskered +agriculturists, who watched the dancers with old, old time-worn smiles, or +stood, or sat on their heels yarning, with their pipes, outside, where two +boilers were slung over a log-fire to boil water for tea; and there were +leathery women, with complexions like dried apples, who gossiped—for the +first time in months perhaps—and watched the young people, and thought at +times, no doubt, of other days—of other days when they were girls. (And +not so far distant either, in some cases, for women dry quickly in the bush.) +</p> + +<p> +And there were one or two old soldiers and their wives, whose eyes glistened +when Jim Bullock played “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim Bullock was there with his concertina. He sat on a stool in front of a +bench, on which was a beer-keg, piles of teacups and saucers, several big tin +teapots, and plates of sandwiches, sponge-cakes, and tarts. Jim sat in his +shirt-sleeves, with his flat-brimmed, wire-bound, “hard-hitter” hat +on, slanting over his weaker eye. He held one leg loosely and the other rigid, +with the concertina on his knee, and swanked away at the instrument by the +hour, staring straight in front of him with the expression of a cod-fish, and +never moving a muscle except the muscles of his great hairy arms and big +chapped and sun-blotched hands; while chaps in tight “larstins” +(elastic-side boots), slop suits of black, bound with braid, and with coats too +short in the neck and arms, and trousers bell-mouthed at the bottoms, and some +with paper collars, narrow red ribbon ties, or scarfs through walnut shells, +held their partners rigidly, and went round the room with their eyes—most +of them—cocked at the rafters in semi-idiotic ecstasy. +</p> + +<p> +But there was tall, graceful, pink-and-white Bertha Buckolt, blue-eyed and +blue-black-haired, and little Mary Carey with the kind, grey eyes and red-gold +hair; there was Mary’s wild brother Jim, with curly black hair and blue +eyes and dimples of innocence; and there was Harry Dale, the drover, +Jim’s shearing and droving mate, a tall, good-looking, brown-eyed and +brown-haired young fellow, a “better-class” bushman and the best +dancer in the district. Uncle Abel usurped the position of M.C., and roared +“Now then! take yer partners!” and bawled instructions and +interrupted and tangled up the dancers, until they got used to taking no notice +of his bull voice. Mary Carey was too shy—because she loved him, and +secretly and fondly hoped and doubted that he cared for her—to be seen +dancing more than once with Harry Dale, so he shared Bertha Buckolt, the best +girl dancer there, with Jim Carey, who danced with his sister when Harry was +dancing with Bertha Buckolt, and who seemed, for some reason best known to +himself, to be perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. Poor little Mary began +to fret presently, and feel a little jealous of Bertha, her old schoolmate. She +was little and couldn’t dance like Bertha, and she couldn’t help +noticing how well Bertha looked to-night, and what a well-matched pair she and +Harry made; and so, when twelve o’clock came and they all went outside to +watch the Old Year out and the New Year in—with a big bonfire on the +distant ridge where the grass fires had reached a stretch of dry +scrub—and to join hands all round and sing “Auld Lang Syne,” +little Mary was not to be found, for she was sitting on a log round behind the +cow-yard, crying softly to herself. +</p> + +<p> +And when about three o’clock they all started home, Mary gave Bertha her +cheek to kiss instead of her mouth, and that hurt Bertha, who had <i>her</i> +cry riding home, to the astonishment and irritation of her brother Jack, who +rode home with her. But when they were all gone Mary was missing again and when +her mother called her, and, after a pause, the voice of Harry Dale said, +respectfully, in the darkness, “She’s here, Mrs Carey, she’s +all right,” the two were discovered sitting on a convenient log of the +wood-heap, with an awkward and overacted interval of log between them. +</p> + +<p> +Old Carey liked Harry Dale, and seemed very well satisfied with the way things +appeared to be going. He pressed Harry to stay at the selection overnight. +“The missus will make you a shake-down on the floor,” he said. +Harry had no appointments, and stayed cheerfully, and old Carey, having had a +whisky or two, insisted on Mary making the shake-down, and the old folks winked +at each other behind the young folks’ backs to see how poor little Mary +spread a spare mattress, with redhot, averted face, and found an extra pillow +and a spare pair of ironed sheets for the shake-down. +</p> + +<p> +At sunrise she stole out to milk the cows, which was her regular duty; there +was no other way out from her room than through the dining-room, where Harry +lay on his back, with his arms folded, resting peacefully. He seemed sound +asleep and safe for a good two hours, so she ventured. As she passed out she +paused a moment looking down on him with all the lovelight in her eyes, and, +obeying a sudden impulse, she stooped softly and touched his forehead with her +lips, then she slipped out. Harry stretched, opened his eyes, winked solemnly +at the ceiling, and then, after a decent interval, he got up, dressed, and went +out to help her to milk. +</p> + +<p> +Harry Dale and Jim Carey were going out to take charge of a mob of bullocks +going north-west, away up in Queensland. And as they had lost a day and night +to be at the dance, they decided to start in the cool of the evening and travel +all night. Mary walked from the homestead to the Lower Sliprails between her +brother, who rode—because he was her brother—and led a packhorse on +the other side, and Harry, who walked and led his horse—because he was +her sweetheart, avowed only since last night. +</p> + +<p> +There were thunderstorms about, and Mary had repented sufficiently with regard +to Bertha Buckolt to wear on her shoulders a cape which Bertha had left behind +her last night. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the Lower Sliprails Jim said he’d go on and that Harry +needn’t hurry: he stooped over his horse’s neck, kissed his sister, +promised to keep away from the drink, not to touch a card, and to leave off +fighting, and rode on. And when he rounded the Spur he saw a tall, graceful +figure slipping through the trees from the creek towards Buckolts’ Gate. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the critical time at the Lower Sliprails. The shadows from the +setting sun lengthened quickly on the siding, and then the sun slipped out of +sight over a “saddle” in the ridges, and all was soon dusk save the +sunlit peaks of the Blue Mountains away to the east over the sweeps of +blue-grey bush. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well! Mary,” said Harry, “I must make a start +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll—you’ll look after Jim, won’t you, +Harry?” said Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“I will, Mary, for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +Her mouth began to twitch, her chin to tremble, and her eyes brimmed suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“You must cheer up, Mary,” he said with her in his arms. +“I’ll be back before you know where you are, and then we’ll +be married right off at once and settle down for life.” +</p> + +<p> +She smiled bravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Mary!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Harry!” +</p> + +<p> +He led his horse through the rails and lifted them, with trembling hands, and +shot them home. Another kiss across the top rail and he got on his horse. She +mounted the lower rail, and he brought his horse close alongside the fence and +stooped to kiss her again. +</p> + +<p> +“Cheer up, Mary!” he said. “I’ll tell you what +I’ll do—when I come back I’ll whistle when I reach the Spur +and you be here to let the sliprails down for me. I’ll time myself to get +here about sundown. I’ll whistle ‘Willie Riley,’ so +you’ll know it’s me. Good-bye, little girl! I must go now. +Don’t fret—the time will soon go by.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned, swung his horse, and rode slowly down the track, turning now and +again to wave his hand to her, with a farewell flourish of his hat as he +rounded the Spur. His track, five hundred miles, or perhaps a thousand, into +the great north-west; his time, six months, or perhaps a year. Hers a hundred +yards or so back to the dusty, dreary drudgery of selection life. The daylight +faded into starlight, the sidings grew very dim, and a faint white figure +blurred against the bars of the slip-panel. +</p> + +<h3>ACT II</h3> + +<p> +It was the last day of the threshing—shortly after New Year—at +Rocky Rises. The green boughs, which had been lashed to the veranda-posts on +Christmas Eve, had withered and been used for firewood. The travelling steamer +had gone with its gang of men, and the family sat down to tea, the men tired +with hard work and heat, and with prickly heat and irritating wheaten chaff and +dust under their clothes—and with smut (for the crop had been a smutty +one) “up their brains” as Uncle Abel said—the women worn out +with cooking for a big gang of shearers. +</p> + +<p> +Good-humoured Aunt Emma—who was Uncle Abel’s niece—recovered +first, and started the conversation. There were one or two neighbours’ +wives who bad lent crockery and had come over to help with the cooking in their +turns. Jim Carey’s name came up incidentally, but was quickly dropped, +for ill reports of Jim had come home. Then Aunt Emma mentioned Harry Dale, and +glanced meaningly at Mary, whose face flamed as she bent over her plate. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Mary,” said Aunt Emma, “it’s nothing to be +ashamed of. We were all girls once. There’s many a girl would jump at +Harry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who says I’m ashamed?” said Mary, straightening up +indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tease her, Emma,” said Mrs Carey, mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell yer what,” said young Tom Carey, frankly, +“Mary got a letter from him to-day. I seen her reading it behind the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary’s face flamed again and went down over her plate. +</p> + +<p> +“Mary,” said her mother, with sudden interest, “did Harry say +anything of Jim?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, mother,” said Mary. “And that’s why I didn’t +tell you about the letter.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Then Tommy said, with that delightful tact which usually +characterizes young Tommies: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Mary needn’t be so cocky about Harry Dale, anyhow. I seen +him New Year’s Eve when we had the dance. I seen him after the dance +liftin’ Bertha Buckolt onter her horse in the dark—as if she +couldn’t get on herself—she’s big enough. I seen him lift her +on, an’ he took her right up an’ lifted her right inter the saddle, +’stead of holdin’ his hand for her to tread on like that new-chum +jackaroo we had. An’, what’s more, I seen him hug her an’ +give her a kiss before he lifted her on. He told her he was as good as her +brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he mean by that, Tommy?” asked Mrs Porter, to break an +awkward pause. +</p> + +<p> +“How’m I ter know what he means?” said Tommy, politely. +</p> + +<p> +“And, Tommy, I seen Harry Dale give young Tommy Carey a lick with a strap +the day before New Year’s Eve for throwing his sister’s cat into +the dam,” said Aunt Emma, coming to poor Mary’s rescue. +“Never mind, Mary, my dear, he said goodbye to you last.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, <i>he didn’t</i>!” roared Uncle Abel. +</p> + +<p> +They were used to Uncle Abel’s sudden bellowing, but it startled them +this time. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Uncle Abel,” cried both Aunt Emma and Mrs Carey, +“whatever do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“What I means is that I ain’t a-goin’ to have the +feelin’s of a niece of mine trifled with. What I means is that I seen +Harry Dale with Bertha Buckolt on New Year’s night after he left here. +That’s what I means—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t speak so loud, Abel, we’re not deaf,” +interrupted Carey, as Mary started up white-faced. “What do you want to +always shout for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I speak loud because I want people to hear me!” roared Uncle Abel, +turning on him. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, Uncle Abel,” said Mary, “tell me what you +mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean,” said Uncle Abel, lowering his voice a little, “that +I seen Harry Dale and Bertha Buckolt at Buckolts’ Gate that night—I +seen it all—” +</p> + +<p> +“At <i>Buckolts</i>’ Gate!” cried Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Yes</i>! at Buckolts’ Gate! Ain’t I speakin’ loud +enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“And where were you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind wheers I was. I was comin’ home along the ridges, and I +seen them. I seen them say good-bye; I seen them hug an’ +kiss—” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Abel!” exclaimed Aunt Emma. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use Uncle Abelin’ me. What I sez I sez. I +ain’t a-goin’ to have a niece of mine bungfoodled—” +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Abel,” cried Mary, staring at him wild-eyed, “do be +careful what you say. You must have made a mistake. Are you sure it was Bertha +and Harry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I sure my head’s on me neck?” roared Uncle Abel. +“Would I see ’em if I didn’t see ’em? I tell +you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Now wait a moment, Uncle Abel,” interrupted Mary, with dangerous +calmness. “Listen to me. Harry Dale and I are engaged to be married, +and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got the writings!” shouted Uncle Abel. +</p> + +<p> +“The what?” said Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“The writings.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that’s where you are,” said Uncle Abel, triumphantly. +“If you had the writings you could sue him for breach of contract.” +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Abel, who couldn’t read, had no faith whatever in verbal agreements +(he wouldn’t sign one, he said), all others he referred to as +“writings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, listen to me, Uncle Abel,” said Mary, trembling now. +“Are you sure you saw Harry Dale and Bertha Buckolt at Buckolts’ +Gate after he left here that night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. An’ what’s more, I seen young Tommy there ridin’ +on his pony along by the Spur a little while after, an’ he muster seen +them too, if he’s got a tongue.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary turned quickly to her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all I can say,” said Tommy, quietened now, “is that I +seen <i>her</i> at Buckolts’ Gate that night. I was comin’ home +from Two-Mile Flat, and I met Jim with his packhorse about a mile the other +side of Buckolts’, and while we was talkin’ Harry Dale caught up, +so I jist said ‘So-long’ an’ left ’em. And when I got +to Buckolt’s Gate I seen Bertha Buckolt. She was standin’ under a +tree, and she looked as if she was cryin’.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mary got her bonnet and started out. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going to, Mary?” asked her mother, starting up +nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going across to Buckolts’ to find out the truth,” +said Mary, and she went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Better let her go, Lizzie,” said Aunt Emma, detaining her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve done it now, Uncle Abel.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, why didn’t she get the writings?” retorted Uncle Abel. +</p> + +<p> +Half-way to Buckolts’ Mary met Bertha Buckolt herself, coming over to the +selection for the first time since the night of the party. Bertha started +forward to kiss Mary, but stopped short as Mary stood stock-still and faced +her, with her hands behind her back. +</p> + +<p> +“Why! whatever is the matter, Mary?” exclaimed Bertha. +</p> + +<p> +“You know very well, Bertha.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why! Whatever do you mean? What have I done?” +</p> + +<p> +“What haven’t you done? You’ve—you’ve broken my +heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious me! Whatever are you talking about? Tell me what it is, +Mary?” +</p> + +<p> +“You met him at your gate that night?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bertha! How could you be so mean and deceitful?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mean and deceitful! What do you mean by that? Whatever are you talking +about? I suppose I’ve got as good a right to meet him as anyone +else.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you haven’t,” retorted Mary, “you’re only +stringing him on. You only did it to spite me. You helped him to deceive me. +You ought to be ashamed to look me in the face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good gracious! Whatever are you talking about? Ain’t I good enough +for him! I ought to be, God knows! I suppose he can marry who he likes, and if +I’m poor fool enough to love him and marry him, what then? Mary, you +ought to be the last to speak—speak to—to me like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He can marry all, the girls in the country for all I care. I never +want to see either him or you any more. You’re a cruel, deceitful, +brazen-faced hussy, and he’s a heartless, deceiving blackguard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mary! I believe you’re mad,” said Bertha, firmly. “How +dare you speak to me like that! And as for him being a blackguard. Why, you +ought to be the last in the world to say such a thing; you ought to be the last +to say a word against him. Why, I don’t believe you ever cared a rap for +him in spite of all your pretence. He could go to the devil for all you +cared.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s enough, Bertha Buckolt!” cried Mary. +“<i>You</i>—you! Why, you’re a barefaced girl, that’s +what you are! I don’t want to see your brazen face again.” With +that she turned and stumbled blindly in the direction of home. +</p> + +<p> +“Send back my cape,” cried Bertha as she too turned away. +</p> + +<p> +Mary walked wildly home and fled to her room and locked the door. Bertha did +likewise. +</p> + +<p> +Mary let Aunt Emma in after a while, ceased sobbing and allowed herself to be +comforted a little. Next morning she was out milking at the usual time, but +there were dark hollows under her eyes, and her little face was white and set. +After breakfast she rolled the cape up very tight in a brown-paper parcel, +addressed it severely to +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MISS BERTHA BUCKOLT,<br/> +Eurunderee Creek, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and sent it home by one of the school-children. She wrote to Harry Dale and +told him that she knew all about it (not stating what), but she forgave him and +hoped he’d be happy. She never wanted to see his face again, and enclosed +his portrait. +</p> + +<p> +Harry, who was as true and straight as a bushman could be, puzzled it out and +decided that some one of his old love affairs must have come to Mary’s +ears, and wrote demanding an explanation. +</p> + +<p> +She never answered that letter. +</p> + +<h3>ACT III</h3> + +<p> +It was Christmas Day at Rocky Rises. The plum puddings had been made, as usual, +weeks beforehand, and hung in rags to the tie-beams and taken down and boiled +again. Poultry had been killed and plucked and cooked, and all the toil had +been gone through, and every preparation made for a red-hot dinner on a blazing +hot day—and for no other reason than that our great-grandmothers used to +do it in a cold climate at Christmas-times that came in mid-winter. Merry men +hadn’t gone forth to the wood to gather in the mistletoe (if they ever +did in England, in the olden days, instead of sending shivering, wretched +vassals in rags to do it); but Uncle Abel had gone gloomily up the ridge on +Christmas Eve, with an axe on his shoulder (and Tommy unwillingly in tow, +scowling and making faces behind his back), and had cut young pines and dragged +them home and lashed them firmly to the veranda-posts, which was the custom out +there. +</p> + +<p> +There was little goodwill or peace between the three or four farms round Rocky +Rises that Christmas Day, and Uncle Abel had been the cause of most of the +ill-feeling, though they didn’t know, and he was least aware of it of +any. +</p> + +<p> +It all came about in this way. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after last New Year Ryan’s bull had broken loose and gone astray +for two days and nights, breaking into neighbours’ paddocks and filling +himself with hay and damaging other bulls, and making love by night and hiding +in the scrub all day. On the second night he broke through and jumped over +Reid’s fences, and destroyed about an acre of grape-vines and adulterated +Reid’s stock, besides interfering with certain heifers which were not of +a marriageable age. There was a L5 penalty on a stray bull. Reid impounded the +bull and claimed heavy damages. Ryan, a small selector of little account, was +always pulling some neighbour to court when he wasn’t being +“pulled” himself, so he went to court over this case. +</p> + +<p> +Now, it appears that the bull, on his holiday, had spent a part of the first +night in Carey’s lower paddock, and Uncle Abel (who was out mooching +about the bush at all hours, “havin’ a look at some timber” +or some “indercations” [of gold], or on some mysterious business or +fad, the mystery of which was of his own making)—Uncle Abel saw the bull +in the paddock at daylight and turned it out the sliprails, and talked about it +afterwards, referring to the sliprails as “Buckolts’ Gate,” +of course, and spoke mysteriously of the case, and put on an appearance of +great importance, and allowed people to get an idea that he knew a lot if he +only liked to speak; and finally he got himself “brought up” as a +witness for Ryan. +</p> + +<p> +He had a lot of beer in town before he went to the courthouse. All he knew +would have been of no use to either party, but he swore that he had seen +Ryan’s bull inside Buckolts’ Gate at daylight (on the day which +wasn’t in question) and had turned him out. Uncle Abel mixed up the court +a good deal, and roared like the bull, and became more obstinate the more he +was cross-examined, and narrowly escaped being committed for contempt of court. +</p> + +<p> +Ryan, who had a high opinion of the breed of his bull, got an idea that the +Buckolts had enticed or driven the bull into their paddock for stock-raising +purposes, instead of borrowing it honestly or offering to pay for the use of +it. Then Ryan wanted to know why Abel had driven his bull out of +Buckolts’ Gate, and the Buckolts wanted to know what business Abel Albury +had to drive Ryan’s bull out of their paddock, if the bull had really +ever been there. And so it went on till Rocky Rises was ripe for a tragedy. +</p> + +<p> +The breach between the Careys and the Buckolts was widened, the quarrel between +Ryan and Reid intensified. Ryan got a down on the Careys because he reckoned +that Uncle Abel had deliberately spoilt his case with his evidence; and the +Reids and Careys were no longer on speaking terms, because nothing would +convince old Reid that Abel hadn’t tried to prove that Ryan’s bull +had never been in Reid’s paddock at all. +</p> + +<p> +Well, it was Christmas Day, and the Carey family and Aunt Emma sat down to +dinner. Jim was present, having arrived overnight, with no money, as usual, and +suffering a recovery. The elder brother, Bob (who had a selection up-country), +and his wife were there. Mrs Carey moved round with watchful eyes and jealous +ears, lest there should be a word or a look which might hurt the feelings of +her wild son—for of such are mothers. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner went on very moodily, in spite of Aunt Emma, until at last Jim +spoke—almost for the first time, save for a long-whispered and, on his +part, repentant conversation with his mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Mary!” said Jim. “What did you throw Harry Dale +over for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ask me, Jim.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rot! What did he do to you? I’m your brother” (with a glance +at Bob), “and I ought to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, ask Bertha Buckolt. She saw him last.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold your tongue, Jim! You’ll make her cry,” said Aunt Emma. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what’s it all about, anyway?” demanded Jim. “All +I know is that Mary wrote to Harry and threw him over, and he ain’t been +the same man since. He swears he’ll never come near the district +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell Jim, Aunt Emma,” said Mary. And Aunt Emma started to tell the +story as far as she knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Saw her at Buckolt’s sliprails!” cried Jim, starting up. +“Well, he couldn’t have had time to more than say good-bye to her, +for I was with her there myself, and Harry caught up to me within a mile of the +gate—and I rode pretty fast.” +</p> + +<p> +“He had a jolly long good-bye with her,” shouted Uncle Abel. +“Look here, Jim! I ain’t goin’ to stand by and see a nephew +of mine bungfoodled by no girl; an’, I tell you I seen ’em +huggin’ and kissin’ and canoodlin’ for half an hour at +Buckolts’ Gate!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a—a— Look here, Uncle Abel, be careful what you +say. You’ve got the bull by the tail again, that’s what it +is!” Jim’s face grew whiter—and it had been white enough on +account of the drink. “How did you know it was them? You’re always +mistaking people. It might have been someone else.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know Harry Dale on horseback two miles off!” roared Uncle Abel. +“And I knowed her by her cape.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Mary’s turn to gasp and stare at Uncle Abel. +</p> + +<p> +“Uncle Abel,” she managed to say, “Uncle Abel! Wasn’t +it at our Lower Sliprails you saw them and not Buckolts’ Gate?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” bellowed Uncle Abel. “You might call ’em the +‘Lower Sliprails,’ but I calls ’em Buckolts’ Gate! They +lead to’r’ds Buckolts’, don’t they? Hey? Them other +sliprails”—jerking his arms in the direction of the upper paddock +“them theer other sliprails that leads outer Reid’s lane I calls +Reid’s Sliprails. I don’t know nothing about no upper or lower, or +easter or wester, or any other la-di-dah names you like to call +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, uncle,” cried Mary, trembling like a leaf, “why +didn’t you explain this before? Why didn’t you tell us?” +</p> + +<p> +“What cause have I got to tell any of you everything I sez or does or +thinks? It ’ud take me all me time. Ain’t you got any more brains +than Ryan’s bull, any of you? Hey!—You’ve got heads, but so +has cabbages. Explain! Why, if the world wasn’t stuffed so full of +jumped-up fools there’d be never no need for explainin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary left the table. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Mary?” cried Aunt Emma. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m going across to Bertha,” said Mary, putting on her hat +with trembling hands. “It was me Uncle Abel saw. I had Bertha’s +cape on that night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Uncle Abel,” cried Aunt Emma, “whatever have you +done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Uncle Abel, “why didn’t she get the +writin’s as I told her? It’s to be hoped she won’t make such +a fool of herself next time.” +</p> + +<p> +Half an hour later, or thereabouts, Mary sat on Bertha Buckolt’s bed, +with Bertha beside her and Bertha’s arm round her, and they were crying +and laughing by turns. +</p> + +<p> +“But-but-why didn’t you <i>tell</i> me it was Jim?” said +Mary. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you tell me it was Harry, Mary?” asked Bertha. +“It would have saved all this year of misery. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t see Harry Dale at all that night,” said Bertha. +“I was—I was crying when Jim left me, and when Harry came along I +slipped behind a tree until he was past. And now, look here, Mary, I +can’t marry Jim until he steadies down, but I’ll give him another +chance. But, Mary, I’d sooner lose him than you.” +</p> + +<p> +Bertha walked home with Mary, and during the afternoon she took Jim aside and +said: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Jim, I’ll give you another chance—for a year. Now +I want you to ride into town and send a telegram to Harry Dale. How long would +it take him to get here?” +</p> + +<p> +“He couldn’t get here before New Year,” said Jim. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do,” said Bertha, and Jim went to catch his horse. Next +day Harry’s reply came: “Coming” +</p> + +<h3>ACT IV</h3> + +<p> +New Year’s Eve. The dance was at Buckolts’ this year, but Bertha +didn’t dance much; she was down by the gate most of the time with little +Mary Carey, waiting, and watching the long, white road, and listening for +horses’ feet, and disappointed often as other horsemen rode by or turned +up to the farm. +</p> + +<p> +And in the hot sunrise that morning, within a hundred miles of Rocky Rises, a +tired, dusty drover camped in the edge of a scrub, boiled his quart-pot, +broiled a piece of mutton on the coals, and lay down on the sand to rest an +hour or so before pushing on to a cattle station he knew to try and borrow +fresh horses. He had ridden all night. +</p> + +<p> +Old Buckolt and Carey and Reid smoked socially under the grape-vines, with +bottles of whisky and glasses, and nudged each other and coughed when they +wanted to laugh at Old Abel Albury, who was, for about the first time in his +life, condescending to explain. He was explaining to them what +thund’rin’ fools they had been. +</p> + +<p> +Later on they sent a boy on horseback with a bottle of whisky and a message to +Ryan, who turned up in time to see the New Year in with them and contradict +certain slanders concerning the breed of his bull. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Bertha comforted Mary, and at last persuaded her to go home. +“He’s sure to be here to-morrow, Mary,” she said, “and +you need to look fresh and happy.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mary didn’t sleep that night; she was up before daylight, had the +kettle on and some chops ready to fry, and at daybreak she was down by the +sliprails again. She was turning away for the second time when she heard a +clear whistle round the Spur—then the tune of “Willie Riley,” +and the hobble-chains and camp-ware on the packhorse jingling to the tune. +</p> + +<p> +She pulled out the rails with eager, trembling hands and leaned against the +tree. An hour later a tired drover lay on his back, in his ragged, track-worn +clothes and dusty leggings, on Mary’s own little bed in the skillion off +the living-room, and rested. Mary bustled round getting breakfast ready, and +singing softly to herself; once she slipped in, bent over Harry and kissed him +gently on the lips, and ran out as he stirred. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, who’s that?” exclaimed Uncle Abel, poking round early +and catching a glimpse of Harry through the open door. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only Harry, Uncle Abel,” said Mary. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Abel peered in again to make sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, be sure you git the writin’s this time,” he said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"></a> +THE BUSH-FIRE</h2> + +<h3>I.—SQUATTER AND SELECTOR</h3> + +<p> +Wall was a squatter and a hard man. There had been long years of drought and +loss, and then came the rabbit pest—the rabbits swarmed like flies over +his run, and cropped the ground bare where even the poor grass might have saved +thousands of sheep—and the rabbits cost the squatter hundreds of pounds +in “rabbit-proof” fences, trappers’ wages, etc., just to keep +them down. Then came arrangements with the bank. And then Wall’s wife +died. Wall started to brood over other days, and the days that had gone +between, and developed a temper which drove his children from home one by one, +till only Mary was left. She managed the lonely home with the help of a +half-caste. Then in good seasons came the selectors. +</p> + +<p> +Men remembered Wall as a grand boss and a good fellow, but that was in the days +before rabbits and banks, and syndicates and “pastoralists” or +pastoral companies instead of good squatters. Runs were mostly pastoral leases +for which the squatter paid the Government so much per square mile (almost a +nominal rent). Selections were small holdings taken up by farmers under +residential and other conditions and paid for by instalments. If you were not +ruined by the drought, and paid up long enough, the land became freehold. The +writer is heir to a dusty patch of three hundred acres or so in the scrub which +was taken up thirty years ago and isn’t freehold yet. +</p> + +<p> +Selectors were allowed to take up land on runs or pastoral leases as well as on +unoccupied Crown lands, and as they secured the best bits of land, and on water +frontages if they could, and as, of course, selections reduced the area of the +run, the squatters loved selectors like elder brothers. One man is allowed to +select only a certain amount of land, and required by law to live on it, so the +squatters bought as much freehold about the homestead as they could afford, +selected as much as they are allowed to by law, and sometimes employed +“dummy” selectors to take up choice bits about the runs and hold +them for them. They fought selectors in many various ways, and, in some cases, +annoyed and persecuted them with devilish ingenuity. +</p> + +<p> +Ross was a selector, and a very hard man physically. He was a short, nuggety +man with black hair and frill beard (a little dusty), bushy black eyebrows, +piercing black eyes, horny knotted hands, and the obstinacy or pluck of a dozen +men to fight drought and the squatter. Ross selected on Wall’s run, in a +bend of Sandy Creek, a nice bit of land with a black soil, flat and red soil +sidings from the ridges, which no one had noticed before, and with the help of +his boys he got the land cleared and fenced in a year or two—taking bush +contracts about the district between whiles to make “tucker” for +the family until he got his first crop off. +</p> + +<p> +Wall was never accused of employing dummies, or underhanded methods in dealings +with selectors, but he had been through so much and had brooded so long that he +had grown very hard and bitter and suspicious, and the reverse of +generous—as many men do who start out in life too soft and goodhearted +and with too much faith in human nature. He was a tall, dark man. He ordered +Ross’s boys off the run, impounded Ross’s stock—before Ross +had got his fencing finished, summoned Ross for trespass, and Ross retaliated +as well as he could, until at last it mightn’t have been safe for one of +those men to have met the other with a gun. The impounding of the +selector’s cattle led to the last bad quarrel between Wall and his son +Billy, who was a tall, good-natured Cornstalk, and who reckoned that Australia +was big enough for all of us. One day in the drought, and in an extra bitter +mood, Wall heard that some of his sheep had been dogged in the vicinity of +Ross’s selection, and he ordered Billy to take a station-hand and watch +Ross’s place all night, and, if Ross’s cattle put their noses over +the boundary, to drive them to the pound, fifteen miles away; also to lay +poisoned baits for the dogs all round the selection. And Billy flatly refused. +</p> + +<p> +“I know Ross and the boys,” he said, “and I don’t +believe they dogged the sheep. Why, they’ve only got a Newfoundland pup, +and an old lame, one-eyed sheep-dog that couldn’t hurt a flea. Now, +father, this sort of thing has been going on long enough. What difference does +a few paltry acres make to us? The country is big enough, God knows! Ross is a +straight man and—for God’s sake, give the man a chance to get his +ground fenced in; he’s doing it as fast as he can, and he can’t +watch his cattle day and night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going to do as I tell you, or are you not?” shouted Wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if it comes to that, I’m not,” said Billy. +“I’m not going to sneak round a place all night and watch for a +chance to pound a poor man’s cows.” +</p> + +<p> +It was an awful row, down behind the wool-shed, and things looked so bad that +old Peter, the station-hand, who was a witness, took off his coat and rolled up +his sleeves, ready, as he said afterwards, “to roll into” either +the father or the son if one raised a hand against the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” said Billy, though rather sobered by the sight of his +father’s trembling, choking passion, “do you call yourself an +Englishman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” yelled Wall, furiously. “What the hell do you call +yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it comes to that I’m an Australian,” said Billy, and he +turned away and went to catch his horse. He went up-country and knocked about +in the north-west for a year or two. +</p> + +<h3>II.—ROMEO AND JULIET</h3> + +<p> +Mary Wall was twenty-five. She was an Australian bush girl, every inch of her +five-foot-nine; she had a pink-and-white complexion, dark blue eyes, blue-black +hair, and “the finest figure in the district,” on horseback or +afoot. She was the best girlrider too (saddle or bare-back), and they say that +when she was a tomboy she used to tuck her petticoats under her and gallop +man-fashion through the scrub after horses or cattle. She said she was going to +be an old maid. +</p> + +<p> +There came a jackaroo on a visit to the station. He was related to the bank +with which Wall had relations. He was a dude, with an expensive education and +no brains. He was very vain of his education and prospects. He regarded Mary +with undisguised admiration, and her father had secret hopes. One evening the +jackaroo was down by the homestead-gate when Mary came cantering home on her +tall chestnut. The gate was six feet or more, and the jackaroo raised his hat +and hastened to open it, but Mary reined her horse back a few yards and the +“dood” had barely time to jump aside when there was a scuffle of +hoofs on the road, a “Ha-ha-ha!” in mid-air, a landing thud, and +the girl was away up the home-track in a cloud of dust. +</p> + +<p> +A few days later the jackaroo happened to be at Kelly’s, a wayside +shanty, watching a fight between two bushmen, when Mary rode up. She knew the +men. She whipped her horse in between them and struck at first one and then the +other with her riding-whip. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” she said; “and both +married men, too!” +</p> + +<p> +It evidently struck them that way, for after a bit they shook hands and went +home. +</p> + +<p> +“And I wouldn’t have married that girl for a thousand +pounds,” said the jackaroo, relating the incidents to some friends in +Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +Mary said she wanted a man, if she could get one. +</p> + +<p> +There was no life at home nowadays, so Mary went to all the bush dances in the +district. She thought nothing of riding twenty or thirty miles to a dance, +dancing all night, and riding home again next morning. At one of these dances +she met young Robert Ross, a clean-limbed, good-looking young fellow about her +own age. She danced with him and liked him, and danced with him again, and he +rode part of the way home with her. The subject of the quarrel between the two +homes came up gradually. +</p> + +<p> +“The boss,” said Robert, meaning his father, “the boss is +always ready to let bygones be bygones. It’s a pity it couldn’t be +fixed up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mary, looking at him (Bob looked very well on +horseback), “it is a pity.” +</p> + +<p> +They met several times, and next Prince of Wales’s birthday they rode +home from the races together. Both had good horses, and they happened to be far +ahead of the others on the wide, straight clear road that ran between the walls +of the scrub. Along, about dusk, they became very confidential +indeed—Mary had remarked what a sad and beautiful sunset it was. The +horses got confidential, too, and shouldered together, and touched noses, and, +after a long interval in the conversation, during which Robert, for one, began +to breathe quickly, he suddenly leaned over, put his arm round her waist and +made to kiss her. She jerked her body away, threw up her whiphand, and Robert +ducked instinctively; but she brought her whip down on her horse’s flank +instead, and raced ahead. Robert followed—or, rather, his horse did: he +thought it was a race, and took the bit in his teeth. Robert kept calling, +appealing: +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a while, Mary! I want to explain! I want to apologize! For +God’s sake listen to me, Mary!” +</p> + +<p> +But Mary didn’t hear him. Perhaps she misunderstood the reason of the +chase and gave him credit for a spice of the devil in his nature. But Robert +grew really desperate; he felt that the thing must be fixed up now or never, +and gave his horse a free rein. Her horse was the fastest, and Robert galloped +in the dust from his heels for about a mile and a half; then at the foot of a +rise Mary’s horse stumbled and nearly threw her over his head, and then +he stopped like the good horse he was. +</p> + +<p> +Robert got down feeling instinctively that he might best make his peace on +foot, and approached Mary with a face of misery—she had dropped her whip. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bob!” she said, “I’m knocked out;” and she +slipped down into his arms and stayed there a while. +</p> + +<p> +They sat on a log and rested, while their horses made inquiries of each +other’s noses, and compared notes. +</p> + +<p> +And after a good while Mary said “No, Bob, it’s no use talking of +marrying just yet. I like you, Bob, but I could never marry you while things +are as they are between your father and mine. Now, that’ll do. Let me get +on my horse, Bob. I’ll be safer there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” asked Bob. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Bob, and don’t be stupid.” +</p> + +<p> +She met him often and “liked” him. +</p> + +<h3>III.—A TRAMP’S MATCH AND WHAT IT DID</h3> + +<p> +It was Christmas Eve at Wall’s, but there was no score or so of buggies +and horses and dozens of strange dogs round the place as of old. The glasses +and decanters were dusty on the heavy old-fashioned sideboard in the +dining-room; and there was only a sullen, brooding man leaning over the hurdles +and looking at his rams in the yard, and a sullen, brooding half-caste at work +in the kitchen. Mary had ridden away that morning to visit a girl chum. +</p> + +<p> +It was towards the end of a long drought, and the country was like tinder for +hundreds of miles round—the ground for miles and miles in the broiling +scrubs “as bare as your hand,” or covered with coarse, dry tufts. +There was feed grass in places, but you had to look close to see it. +</p> + +<p> +Shearing had finished the day before, but there was a black boy and a +station-hand or two about the yards and six or eight shearers and rouseabouts, +and a teamster camped in the men’s huts—they were staying over the +holidays to shear stragglers and clean up generally. Old Peter and a jackaroo +were out on the run watching a bush-fire across Sandy Creek. +</p> + +<p> +A swagman had happened to call at the station that morning; he asked for work +and then for tucker. He irritated Wall, who told him to clear out. It was the +first time that a swagman had been turned away from the station without tucker. +</p> + +<p> +Swaggy went along the track some miles, brooding over his wrongs, and crossed +Sandy Creek. He struck a match and dropped it into a convenient tuft of grass +in a likely patch of tufts, with dead grass running from it up into the scrubby +ridges—then he hurried on. +</p> + +<p> +Did you ever see a bush-fire? Not sheets of flame sweeping and roaring from +tree-top to tree-top, but the snaky, hissing grass-fire of hardwood country. +</p> + +<p> +The whole country covered with thin blue smoke so that you never know in what +direction the fire is travelling. At night you see it like the lighted streets +of cities, in the distant ranges. It roars up the hollows of dead trees and +gives them the appearance of factory chimneys in the dusk. It climbs, by shreds +of bark, the trunks of old dead white-box and blue-gums—solid and hard as +cast-iron—and cuts off the limbs. And where there’s a piece of +recently ringbarked country, with the dead leaves still on the trees, the fire +will roar from bough to bough—a fair imitation of a softwood forest fire. +The bush-fire travels through the scrubs for hundreds of miles, taking the +grass to the roots, scorching the living bush but leaving it alive—for +gumbush is hardest of any to kill. Where there is no undergrowth, and the +country seems bare as a road for miles, the fire will cross, licking up +invisible straws of grass, dusty leaves, twigs and shreds of bark on the hard +ground already baking in the drought. You hear of a fire miles away, and next +day, riding across the head of a gully, you hear a hissing and crackling and +there is the fire running over the ground in lines and curves of thin blue +smoke, snakelike, with old logs blazing on the blackened ground behind. Did you +ever <i>hear</i> a fire where a fire should not be? There is something hellish +in the sound of it. When the breeze is, say, from the east the fire runs round +western spurs, up sheltered gullies—helped by an “eddy” in +the wind perhaps—and appears along the top of the ridge, ready, with a +change in the wind, to come down on farms and fields of ripe wheat, with a +“front” miles long. +</p> + +<p> +A selector might be protected by a wide sandy creek in front and wide cleared +roads behind, and, any hour in the day or night, a shout from the farther end +of the wheat paddock, and—“Oh, my God! the wheat!” +</p> + +<p> +Wall didn’t mind this fire much; most of his sheep were on their way out +back, to a back run where there was young grass; and the dry ridges along the +creek would be better for a burning-off—only he had to watch his fences. +</p> + +<p> +But, about dusk, Mary came galloping home in her usual breakneck fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” she cried, “turn out the men and send them at once. +The fire is all down by Ross’s farm, and he has ten acres of wheat +standing, and no one at home but him and Bob.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” growled Wall. Then suddenly and suspiciously, +“Have you been there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I came home that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—let Ross look after his own,” snarled the father. +</p> + +<p> +“But he can’t, father. They’re fighting the fire now, and +they’ll be burnt out before the morning if they don’t get +help—for God’s sake, father, act like a Christian and send the men. +Remember it is Christmas-time, father. You’re surely not going to see a +neighbour burnt out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am,” shouted Wall. “I’d like to see every +selector in the country burnt out, hut and all! Get off that horse and go +inside. If a man leaves the station to-night he needn’t come back.” +(This last for the benefit of the men’s hut.) +</p> + +<p> +“But, father—” +</p> + +<p> +“Get off that horse and go inside,” roared Wall. +</p> + +<p> +“I—I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” He darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle, +but she swung her horse away. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop! Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To help Ross,” said Mary. “He had no one to send for +help.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then go the same way as your brother!” roared her father; +“and if you show your nose back again I’ll horse-whip you off the +run!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go, father,” said Mary, and she was away. +</p> + +<h3>IV.—THE FIRE AT ROSS’S FARM</h3> + +<p> +Ross’s farm was in a corner between the ridges and the creek. The fire +had come down from the creek, but the siding on that side was fairly clear, and +they had stopped the fire there. It went behind the ridge and ran up and over. +The ridge was covered thickly with scrub and dead grass; the wheat-field went +well up the siding, and along the top was a bush face with only a narrow +bridle-track between it and the long dead grass. Everything depended on the +wind. Mary saw Ross and Mrs Ross and the daughter Jenny, well up the siding +above the fence, working desperately, running to and fro, and beating out the +fire with green boughs. Mary left her horse, ran into the hut, and looked +hurriedly round for something to wear in place of her riding-skirt. She only +saw a couple of light print dresses. She stepped into a skillion room, which +happened to be Bob’s room, and there caught sight of a pair of trousers +and a coat hanging on the wall. +</p> + +<p> +Bob Ross, beating desperately along a line of fire that curved down-hill to his +right, and half-choked and blinded with the smoke, almost stumbled against a +figure which was too tall to be his father. +</p> + +<p> +“Why! who’s that?” he gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s only me, Bob,” said Mary, and she lifted her bough +again. +</p> + +<p> +Bob stared. He was so astonished that he almost forgot the fire and the wheat. +Bob was not thin—but— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look at me, Bob!” said Mary, hurriedly. +“We’re going to be married, so it doesn’t matter. Let us save +the wheat.” +</p> + +<p> +There was no time to waste; there was a breeze now from over the ridges, light, +but enough to bear the fire down on them. Once, when they had breathing space, +Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water. They beat out the fire all along +the siding to where a rib of granite came down over the ridge to the fence, and +then they thought the wheat was safe. They came together here, and Ross had +time to look and see who the strange man was; then he stared at Mary from under +his black, bushy eyebrows. Mary, choking and getting her breath after her +exertions, suddenly became aware, said “Oh!” and fled round the +track beyond the point of granite. She felt a gust of wind and looked up the +ridge. The bush fence ended here in a corner, where it was met by a new wire +fence running up from the creek. It was a blind gully full of tall dead grass, +and, glancing up, Mary saw the flames coming down fast. She ran back. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on!” she cried, “come on! The fire’s the other +side of the rocks!” +</p> + +<p> +Back at the station, Wall walked up and down till he cooled. He went inside and +sat down, but it was no use. He lifted his head and saw his dead wife’s +portrait on the wall. Perhaps his whole life ran before him in detail—but +this is not a psychological study. +</p> + +<p> +There were only two tracks open to him now: either to give in, or go on as he +was going—to shut himself out from human nature and become known as +“Mean Wall,” “Hungry Wall,” or “Mad Wall, the +Squatter.” He was a tall, dark man of strong imagination and more than +ordinary intelligence. And it was the great crisis of his ruined life. He +walked to the top of a knoll near the homestead and saw the fire on the ridges +above Ross’s farm. As he turned back he saw a horseman ride up and +dismount by the yard. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Peter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, boss. The fences is all right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Been near Ross’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. He’s burnt out by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +Wall walked to and fro for a few minutes longer. Then he suddenly stopped and +called, “Peter!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay!” from the direction of the huts. +</p> + +<p> +“Turn out the men!” and Wall went into a shed and came out with his +saddle on his arm. +</p> + +<p> +The fire rushed down the blind gully. Showers of sparks fell on the bush fence, +it caught twice, and they put it out, but the third time it blazed and roared +and a fire-engine could not have stopped it. +</p> + +<p> +“The wheat must go,” said Ross. “We’ve done our +best,” and he threw down the blackened bough and leaned against a tree, +and covered his eyes with a grimy hand. +</p> + +<p> +The wheat was patchy in that corner—there were many old stumps of trees, +and there were bare strips where the plough had gone on each side of them. Mary +saw a chance, and climbed the fence. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Bob,” she cried, “we might save it yet. Mr Ross, +pull out the fence along there,” and she indicated a point beyond the +fire. They tramped down and tore up the wheat where it ran between the +stumps—the fire was hissing and crackling round and through it, and just +as it ran past them in one place there was a shout, a clatter of horses’ +hoofs on the stones, and Mary saw her father riding up the track with a dozen +men behind him. She gave a shriek and ran straight down, through the middle of +the wheat, towards the hut. +</p> + +<p> +Wall and his men jumped to the ground, wrenched green boughs from the saplings, +and, after twenty minutes’ hard fighting, the crop was saved—save +for a patchy acre or so. When it was all over Ross sat down on a log and rested +his head on his hands, and his shoulders shook. Presently he felt a hand on his +shoulder, looked up, and saw Wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Shake hands, Ross,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +And it was Christmas Day. +</p> + +<p> +But in after years they used to nearly chaff the life out of Mary. “You +were in a great hurry to put on the breeches, weren’t you, Mary?” +“Bob’s best Sunday-go-meetin’s, too, wasn’t they, +Mary?” “Rather tight fit, wasn’t they, Mary?” +“Couldn’t get ’em on now, could you, Mary?” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” reflected old Peter apart to some cronies, “it +ain’t every young chap as gits an idea of the shape of his wife afore he +marries her—is it? An’ that’s sayin’ +somethin’.” +</p> + +<p> +And old Peter was set down as being an innercent sort of ole cove. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"></a> +THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT</h2> + +<p> +There had been heavy rain and landslips all along the branch railway which left +the Great Western Line from Sydney just beyond the Blue Mountains, and ran +through thick bush and scrubby ridgy country and along great alluvial +sidings—were the hills on the opposite side of the wide valleys (misty in +depths) faded from deep blue into the pale azure of the sky—and over the +ends of western spurs to the little farming, mining and pastoral town of +Solong, situated in a circle of blue hills on the banks of the willow-fringed +Cudgegong River. +</p> + +<p> +The line was hopelessly blocked, and some publicans at Solong had put on the +old coach-road a couple of buggies, a wagonette, and an old mail +coach—relic of the days of Cobb & Co., which had been resurrected +from some backyard and tinkered up—to bring the train passengers on from +the first break in the line over the remaining distance of forty miles or so. +Capertee Station (old time, “Capertee Camp”—a +teamster’s camp) was the last station before the first washout, and there +the railway line and the old road parted company for the last time before +reaching Solong—the one to run round by the ends of the western spurs +that spread fanlike, and the other to go through and over, the rough country. +</p> + +<p> +The train reached Capertee about midnight in broad moonlight that was misty in +the valleys and round the blue of Crown Ridge. I got a “box-seat” +beside the driver on the old coach. It was a grand old road—one of the +old main coach-roads of New South Wales—broad and white, metalled nearly +all the way, and in nearly as good condition as on the day when the first +passenger train ran into Solong and the last-used section of the old road was +abandoned. It dated back to the bushranging days—right back to convict +times: it ran through tall dark bush, up over gaps or “saddles” in +high ridges, down across deep dark gullies, and here and there across grey, +marshy, curlew-haunted flats. Cobb & Co’s coach-and-six, with +“Royal Mail” gilded on the panels, had dashed over it in ten and +twelve-mile stages in the old days, the three head-lamps flashing on the wild +dark bush at night, and maybe twenty-four passengers on board. The biggest +rushes to richest goldfields in the west had gone over this old road on +coaches, on carts, on drays, on horse and bullock wagons, on horseback, and on +foot; new chums from all the world and from all stations in life. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +When many a step was on the mountains,<br/> +Marching west to the land of gold. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And a few came back rich—red, round-faced and jolly—on the box-seat +of Cobb & Co’s, treating the driver and all hands, “going +home” to sweethearts or families. (Home people will never feel the +meaning of those two words, “going home,” as it is felt in a new +land.) And many came back broken men, tramping in rags, and carrying their +swags through the dusty heat of the drought in December or the bitter, pelting +rain in the mountains in June. Some came back grey who went as boys; and there +were many who never came back. +</p> + +<p> +I remembered the old mile-trees, with a section of bark cut away and the +distances cut in Roman letters in the hardened sap—the distance from +Bowenfels, the railway terminus then. It was a ghostly old road, and if it +wasn’t haunted it should have been. There was an old decaying and nearly +deserted coaching town or two; there were abandoned farms and halfway inns, +built of stone, with the roofs gone and nettles growing high between the walls; +the remains of an orchard here and there—a few gnarled +quince-trees—and the bush reclaiming its own again. It was a haunted ride +for me, because I had last ridden over this old road long ago when I was +young—going to see the city for the first time—and because I was +now on my way to attend the funeral of one of my father’s blood from whom +t had parted in anger. +</p> + +<p> +We slowly climbed, and almost as slowly descended, the steep siding of a great +hill called Aaron’s Pass, and about a mile beyond the foot of the hill I +saw a spot I remembered passing on the last journey down, long ago. Rising back +from the road, and walled by heavy bush, was a square clearing, and in the +background I saw plainly, by the broad moonlight, the stone foundations for a +large house; from the front an avenue of grown pines came down to the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Why!” I exclaimed, turning to the driver, “was that house +burnt down?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said slowly. “That house was never built.” +</p> + +<p> +I stared at the place again and caught sight of a ghostly-looking light between +the lines of the foundations, which I presently made out to be a light in a +tent. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s someone camping there,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the driver, “some old swaggy or +‘hatter.’ I seen him comin’ down. I don’t know nothing +about that there place.” (I hadn’t “shouted” for him +yet.) +</p> + +<p> +I thought and remembered. I remembered myself, as a boy, being sent a coach +journey along this road to visit some relatives in Sydney. We passed this +place, and the women in the coach began to talk of the fine house that was +going to be built there. The ground was being levelled for the foundations, and +young pines had been planted, with stakes round them to protect them from the +cattle. I remembered being mightily interested in the place, for the women said +that the house was to be a two-storied one. I thought it would be a wonderful +thing to see a two-storied house there in the bush. The height of my ambition +was to live in a house with stairs in it. The women said that this house was +being built for young Brassington, the son of the biggest squatter then in the +district, who was going to marry the daughter of the next biggest squatter. +That was all I remember hearing the women say. +</p> + +<p> +Three or four miles along the road was a public-house, with a post office, +general store, and blacksmith shop attached, as is usual in such +places—all that was left of the old pastoral and coaching town of Ilford. +I “shouted” for the driver at the shanty, but got nothing further +out of him concerning the fate of the house that was never built. I wanted that +house for a story. +</p> + +<p> +However, while yarning with some old residents at Solong, I mentioned the +Brassingtons, and picked up a few first links in the story. The young couple +were married and went to Sydney for their honeymoon. The story went that they +intended to take a trip to the old country and Paris, to be away a +twelve-month, and the house was to be finished and ready for them on their +return. Young Brassington himself had a big sheep-run round there. The railway +wasn’t thought of in those days, or if it was, no Brassington could have +dreamed that the line could have been brought to Solong in any other direction +than through the property of the “Big Brassingtons,” as they were +called. Well, the young couple went to Sydney, but whether they went farther +the old residents did not know. All they knew was that within a few weeks, and +before the stone foundations for the brick walls of the house were completed, +the building contract was cancelled, the workmen were dismissed, and the place +was left as I last saw it; only the ornamental pines had now grown to trees. +The Brassingtons and the bride’s people were English families and +reserved. They kept the story, if there was a story, to themselves. The +girl’s people left the district and squatted on new stations up-country. +The Big Brassingtons came down in the world and drifted to the city, as many +smaller people do, more and more every year. Neither young Brassington nor his +wife was ever again seen or heard of in the district. +</p> + +<p> +I attended my relative’s funeral, and next day started back for Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +Just as we reached Ilford, as it happened, the pin of the fore under-carriage +of the coach broke, and it took the blacksmith several hours to set it right. +The place was dull, the publican was not communicative—or else he harped +on the old local grievance of the railway not having come that way—so +about half an hour before I thought the coach would be ready, I walked on along +the road to stretch by legs. I walked on and on until I came, almost unaware, +to the site of the house that was never built. The tent was still there, in +fact, it was a permanent camp, and I was rather surprised to see the man +working with a trowel on a corner of the unfinished foundations of the house. +At first I thought he was going to build a stone hut in the corner, but when I +got close to him I saw that he was working carefully on the original plan of +the building: he was building the unfinished parts of the foundation walls up +to the required height. He had bricklayer’s tools, a bag of lime, and a +heap of sand, and had worked up a considerable quantity of mortar. It was a +rubble foundation: he was knocking off the thin end of a piece of stone to make +it fit, and the clanging of the trowel prevented his hearing my footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +“Good day, mate,” I said, close beside him. +</p> + +<p> +I half expected he’d start when I spoke, but he didn’t: he looked +round slowly, but with a haunted look in his eyes as if I might have been one +of his ghosts. He was a tall man, gaunt and haggard-eyed, as many men are in +the bush; he may have been but little past middle age, and grey before his +time. +</p> + +<p> +“Good day,” he said, and he set the stone in its place, carefully +flush with the outer edge of the wall, before he spoke again. Then he looked at +the sun, which was low, laid down his trowel, and asked me to come to the +tent-fire. “It’s turning chilly,” he said. It was a model +camp, everything clean and neat both inside the tent and out; he had made a +stone fireplace with a bark shelter over it, and a table and bench under +another little shed, with shelves for his tin cups and plates and cooking +utensils. He put a box in front of the fire and folded a flour-bag on top of it +for a seat for me, and hung the billy over the fire. He sat on his heels and +poked the burning sticks, abstractedly I thought, or to keep his hands and +thoughts steady. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you’re doing a bit of building,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, keeping his eyes on the fire; “I’m +getting on with it slowly.” +</p> + +<p> +I don’t suppose he looked at me half a dozen times the whole while I was +in his camp. When he spoke he talked just as if he were sitting yarning in a +row of half a dozen of us. Presently he said suddenly, and giving the fire a +vicious dig with his poker: +</p> + +<p> +“That house must be finished by Christmas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” I asked, taken by surprise. “What’s the +hurry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” he said, “I’m going to be married in the New +Year—to the best and dearest girl in the bush.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an awkward pause on my part, but presently I pulled myself together. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never finish it by yourself,” I said. “Why +don’t you put on some men?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” he said, “I can’t trust them. Besides, how +am I to get bricklayers and carpenters in a place like this?” +</p> + +<p> +I noticed all through that his madness or the past in his mind was mixed up +with the real and the present. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you postpone the marriage?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” he exclaimed, starting to his feet. “No!” and he +looked round wildly on the darkening bush. There was madness in his tone that +time, the last “No!” sounding as if from a man who was begging for +his life. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you run up a shanty then, to live in until the house is +ready?” I suggested, to soothe him. +</p> + +<p> +He gave his arm an impatient swing. “Do you think I’d ask that girl +to live in a hut?” he said. “She ought to live in a palace!” +</p> + +<p> +There seemed no way out of it, so I said nothing: he turned his back and stood +looking away over the dark, low-lying sweep of bush towards sunset. He folded +his arms tight, and seemed to me to be holding himself. After a while he let +fall his arms and turned and blinked at me and the fire like a man just woke +from a doze or rousing himself out of a deep reverie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I almost forgot the billy!” he said. “I’ll make +some tea—you must be hungry.” +</p> + +<p> +He made the tea and fried a couple of slices of ham; he laid the biggest slice +on a thick slice of white baker’s bread on a tin plate, and put it and a +pint-pot full of tea on a box by my side. “Have it here, by the +fire,” he said; “it’s warmer and more comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +I took the plate on my knee, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed that meal. The +bracing mountain air and the walk had made me hungry. The hatter had his meal +standing up, cutting his ham on a slice of bread with a clasp-knife. It was +bush fashion, and set me thinking of some old times. He ate very little, and, +as far as I saw, he didn’t smoke. Non-smokers are very scarce in the +bush. +</p> + +<p> +I saw by the way his tent was pitched and his camp arranged generally, and by +the way he managed the cooking, that he must have knocked about the bush for +some years. +</p> + +<p> +He put the plates and things away and came and sat down on the other empty +gin-case by my side, and fell to poking the fire again. He never showed the +least curiosity as to who I was, or where I came from, or what I was doing on +this deserted track: he seemed to take me as a matter of course—but all +this was in keeping with bush life in general. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he got up and stood looking upwards over the place where the house +should have been. +</p> + +<p> +“I think now,” he said slowly, “I made a mistake in not +having the verandas carried all round the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I beg pardon!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have had the balcony all round instead of on two sides only, as +the man who made the plan suggested; it would have looked better and made the +house cooler in summer.” +</p> + +<p> +I thought as I listened, and presently I saw that it was a case of madness +within madness, so to speak: he was mad on the idea that he could build the +house himself, and then he had moods when he imagined that the house had been +built and he had been married and had reared a family. +</p> + +<p> +“You could easily get the balcony carried round,” I said; “it +wouldn’t cost much—you can get good carpenters at Solong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said. “I’ll have it done after +Christmas.” Then he turned from the house and blinked down at me. +“I am sorry,” he said, “that there’s no one at home. I +sent the wife and family to Sydney for a change. I’ve got the two boys at +the Sydney Grammar School. I think I’ll send the eldest to King’s +School at Parramatta. The girls will have to get along with a governess at home +and learn to help their mother—” +</p> + +<p> +And so he went on talking away just as a man who has made money in the bush, +and is married and settled down, might yarn to an old bachelor bush mate. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I’ll have to get a good piano,” he went on. +“The girls must have some amusement: there’ll be no end of balls +and parties. I suppose the boys will soon be talking of getting +‘fivers’ and ‘tenners’ out of the ‘guvner’ +or ‘old man.’ It’s the way of the world. And they’ll +marry and leave us. It’s the way of the world—” +</p> + +<p> +It was awful to hear him go on like this, the more so because he never +smiled—just talked on as if he had said the same thing over and over +again. Presently he stopped, and his eyes and hands began to wander: he sat +down on his heel to the fire again and started poking it. I began to feel +uneasy; I didn’t know what other sides there might be to his madness, and +wished the coach would come along. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve knocked about the bush a good deal?” I asked. I +couldn’t think of anything else to say, and I thought he might break +loose if I let him brood too long. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Been in Queensland and the Gulf country, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have.” +</p> + +<p> +His tone and manner seemed a bit more natural. He had knocked about pretty well +all over Australia, and had been in many places where I had been. I had got him +on the right track, and after a bit he started telling bush yarns and +experiences, some of them awful, some of them very funny, and all of them short +and good; and now and then, looking at the side of his face, which was all he +turned to me, I thought I detected the ghost of a smile. +</p> + +<p> +One thing I noticed about him; when he spoke as a madman, he talked like a man +who had been fairly well educated (or sometimes, I fancied, like a young fellow +who was studying to be a school-teacher); his speech was deliberate and his +grammar painfully correct—far more so than I have made it; but when he +spoke as an old bushman, he dropped his g’s and often turned his grammar +back to front. But that reminds me that I have met English college men who did +the same thing after being a few years in the bush; either they dropped their +particular way of speaking because it was mimicked, because they were laughed +and chaffed out of it, or they fell gradually into the habit of talking as +rough bushmen do (they learnt Australian), as clean-mouthed men fall, in spite +of themselves, into the habit of swearing in the heat and hurry and rough life +of a shearing-shed. And, coming back into civilized life, these men, who had +been well brought up, drop into their old manner and style of speaking as +readily as the foulest-mouthed man in a shed or camp—who, amongst his +fellows, cannot say three words without an oath—can, when he finds +himself in a decent home in the woman-and-girl world, yarn by the hour without +letting slip a solitary little damn. +</p> + +<p> +The hatter warmed up the tea-billy again, got out some currant buns, which he +had baked himself in the camp-oven, and we were yarning comfortably like two +old bushmen, and I had almost forgotten that he was “ratty,” when +we heard the coach coming. I jumped up to hurry down to the road. This seemed +to shake him up. He gripped my hand hard and glanced round in his frightened, +haunted way. I never saw the eyes of a man look so hopeless and helpless as his +did just then. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry you’re going,” he said, in a hurried way. +“I’m sorry you’re going. But—but they all go. Come +again, come again—we’ll all be glad to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +I had to hurry off and leave him. “We all,” I suppose, meant +himself and his ghosts. +</p> + +<p> +I ran down between the two rows of pines and reached the road just as the coach +came up. I found the publican from Ilford aboard—he was taking a trip to +Sydney. As the coach went on I looked up the clearing and saw the hatter +standing straight behind the fire, with his arms folded and his face turned in +our direction. He looked ghastly in the firelight, and at that distance his +face seemed to have an expression of listening blindness. I looked round on the +dark bush, with, away to the left, the last glow of sunset fading from the bed +of it, like a bed of reddening coals, and I looked up at the black loom of +Aaron’s Pass, and thought that never a man, sane or mad, was left in such +a depth of gloomy loneliness. +</p> + +<p> +“I see you’ve been yarning with him yonder,” said the +publican, who seemed to have relaxed wonderfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know these parts, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I was about here as a boy.” +</p> + +<p> +He asked me what my name might be. I told him it was Smith. He blinked a while. +</p> + +<p> +“I never heard of anyone by the name of Smith in the district,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +Neither had I. I told him that we lived at Solong, and didn’t stay long. +It saved time. +</p> + +<p> +“Ever heard of the Big Brassingtons?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ever heard the yarn of the house that wasn’t built?” +</p> + +<p> +I told him how much I had heard of it. +</p> + +<p> +“And that’s about all any on ’em knows. Have you any idea who +that man back yonder is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, who do you think it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is, or rather he was, young Brassington.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve hit it!” said the publican. “I know—and a +few others.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you know what became of his wife?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said the shanty-keeper, who had a generous supply of whisky +with him, and seemed to have begun to fill himself up for the trip. +</p> + +<p> +He said no more for a while, and when I had remained silent long enough, he +went on, very deliberately and impressively: +</p> + +<p> +“One yarn is that the girl wasn’t any good; that when she was +married to Brassington, and as soon as they got to Sydney, she met a chap +she’d been carrying on with before she married Brassington (or that +she’d been married to in secret), an’ she cleared off with him, +leaving her fortnight-old husband. That was one yarn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the publican. “That yarn was a lie.” He +opened a flask of whisky and passed it round. +</p> + +<p> +“There was madness in the family,” he said, after a nip. +</p> + +<p> +“Whose?” I asked. “Brassington’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the publican, in a tone that implied contempt at my +ignorance, in spite of its innocence, “the girl’s. Her mother had +been in a ’sylum, and so had her grandmother. It was—it was +heridited. Some madnesses is heridited, an’ some comes through worry and +hard graft (that’s mine), an’ some comes through drink, and some +through worse, and, but as far as I’ve heard, all madnesses is pretty +much the same. My old man was a warder in a ’sylum. They have their +madnesses a bit different, the same as boozers has their d.t.’s +different; but, takin’ it by the lump, it’s pretty much all the +same. The difference is accordin’ to their natures when they’re +sane. All men are—” +</p> + +<p> +“But about young Mrs Brassington,” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Young Mrs Brassington? Rosy Webb she was, daughter of Webb the squatter. +Rosy was the brightest, best, good-heartedest, an’ most ladylike little +girl in the district, an’ the heriditry business come on her in Sydney, +about a week after she was married to young Brassington. She was only twenty. +Here—” He passed the flask round. +</p> + +<p> +“And what happened?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What happened?” he repeated. Then he pulled himself together, as +if conscious that he had shown signs of whisky. “Everything was done, but +it was no use. She died in a year in a ’sylum.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know that?” he repeated in a tone of contempt. “How +do I know that? Well, I’ll tell you how. <i>My old wife</i> was in +service at Brassington’s station at the time—the oldest +servant—an’ young Brassington wired to her from Sydney to come and +help him in his trouble. Old Mrs Brassington was bedridden, an’ they +kep’ it from her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And about young Brassington?” +</p> + +<p> +“About young Brassington? He took a swag an’ wandered through the +bush. We’ve had him at our place several times all these years, but he +always wandered off again. My old woman tried everything with him, but it was +all no use. Years ago she used to get him to talk of things as they was, in +hopes of bringin’ his mind back, but he was always worse after. She does +all she can for him even now, but he’s mighty independent. The last five +or six years he’s been taken with the idea of buildin’ that cursed +house. He’ll stay there till he gets short of money, an’ then +he’ll go out back, shearin’, stock-ridin’, drovin’, +cookin’, fencin’—anything till he gets a few pounds. Then +he’ll settle down and build away at that bloody house. He’s knocked +about so much that he’s a regular old bushman. While he’s an old +bushman he’s all right an’ amusin’ an’ good +company;—but when he’s Brassington he’s mad—Don’t +you ever let on to my old woman that I told you. I allers let my tongue run a +bit when I get out of that hole we’re living in. We’ve kept the +secret all these years, but what does it matter now?—I ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter much,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing matters much, it seems to me, nothing matters a damn. The Big +Brassingtons come down years ago; the old people’s gone, and the young +scattered God knows where or how. The Webbs (the girl’s people) are away +up in new country, an’ the girls (they was mostly all girls) are married +an’ settled down by this time. We kept the secret, an’ the Webbs +kept the secret—even when the dirty yarns was goin’ +round—so’s not to spoil the chances of the other girls. What about +the chances of their husbands? Some on ’em might be in the same hell as +Brassington for all I know. The Brassingtons kept the secret because I suppose +they reckoned it didn’t matter much. Nothing matters much in this +world—” +</p> + +<p> +But I was thinking of another young couple who had married long ago, whose +married life was twenty long years of shameful quarrels, of useless brutal +recrimination—not because either was bad, but because their natures were +too much alike; of the house that was built, of the family that was reared, of +the sons and daughters who “went wrong,” of the father and mother +separated after twenty years, of the mother dead of a broken heart, of the +father (in a lunatic asylum), whose mania was not to build houses, but to +obtain and secrete matches for the purpose of burning houses down. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"></a> +“BARNEY, TAKE ME HOME AGAIN”</h2> + +<p> +This is a sketch of one of the many ways in which a young married woman, who is +naturally thick-skinned and selfish—as most women are—and who +thinks she loves her husband, can spoil his life because he happens to be +good-natured, generous, sensitive, weak or soft, whichever you like to call it. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson went out to Australia a good many years ago with his young wife and two +children, as assisted emigrants. He should have left his wife and children with +her mother, in a street off City Road, N., and gone out by himself and got +settled down comfortably and strengthened in the glorious climate and +democratic atmosphere of Australia, and in the knowledge that he could worry +along a while without his wife, before sending for her. That bit of knowledge +would have done her good also, and it would have been better for both of them. +But no man knows the future, and few can prescribe for their own wives. If we +saw our married lives as others see them, half of us would get divorced. But +Johnson was sentimental, he could not bear to part from his wife for a little +while. Moreover, man is instinctively against leaving his wife behind; it may +be either a natural or a cowardly instinct-but we won’t argue that. I +don’t believe that Johnson was a coward in that direction; I believe that +he trusted his wife implicitly, or rather that he never dreamed of such a +thing—as is the way with most married men. Sentiment is selfishness, +perhaps, but we won’t argue that, such arguments come to nothing. +</p> + +<p> +I heard from a fellow-passenger of Johnson’s that he had “a hell of +a voyage” because of his young wife’s ignorant selfishness and his +own sensitiveness; he bribed stewards for better food and accommodation for his +wife and children, paid the stewardess to help with the children, got neither +rest, nor peace, nor thanks for himself, and landed in Sydney a nervous wreck, +with five pounds out of the ten he started with. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson was a carpenter. He got work from a firm of contractors in Sydney, who, +after giving him a fortnight’s trial, sent him up-country to work on the +railway station buildings, at the little pastoral mining and farming town of +Solong. The railway having come to Solong, things were busy in the building +line, and Johnson settled there. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson was thin when he came to Solong; he had landed a living skeleton, he +said, but he filled out later on. The democratic atmosphere soothed his mind +and he soon loved the place for its unconventional hospitality. He worked hard +and seemed to have plenty of energy—he said he got it in Australia. He +said that another year of the struggle in London would have driven him mad. He +fished in the river on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and, perhaps for the +first month or so, he thought that he had found peace. Johnson’s wife was +a rather stout, unsympathetic-looking young woman, with the knit of obstinacy +in her forehead; she had that stamp of “hardness” on her face which +is the rule amongst English and the exception amongst Australian women. We of +Solong thought her hard, selfish and narrow-minded, and paltry; later on we +thought she was a “bit touched;” but local people often think that +of strangers. +</p> + +<p> +By her voice and her habit of whining she should have been a thin, sharp-faced, +untidy, draggled-tailed woman in a back street in London, or a worn-out +selector’s wife in the bush. She whined about the climate. “It will +kill the children! It will kill the children! We’ll never rear them +here!” She whined about the “wretched hole in the bush” that +her husband had brought her to; and to the women whom she condescended to +visit—because a woman must have a woman to talk to—she exaggerated +the miseries of the voyage until the thing became a sing-song from repetition. +Later on she settled down to endless accounts of her home in London, of her +mother and sisters, of the way they lived. “And I’ll never see it +any more. I’ll never see them any more.” +</p> + +<p> +The Solong climate was reckoned the best in Australia; the “wretched +hole” was a pretty little town on the banks of a clear, willow-bordered +river, with vineyards on the slopes, and surrounded by a circle of blue hills +and peaks. We knew nothing of London, so she had her own way there. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll feel a bit lonely at first, but she’ll soon get used +to Australia,” said Johnson. He seemed to me to go out of his way to +excuse his wife. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson had had a few contracts in England at one time; they had been in +“better circumstances”—that was the time she looked back to +in England; the last two years of bitter, black struggle at “home” +seemed a blank in her mind—but that’s how women jump over facts +when they have a selfish fad. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson rented a cottage and garden on the bank of the sunny river. He said he +took the place because there was ivy growing on the cottage, and it might cheer +his wife; but he had lost sight of the fact that, while he had been born in an +English village, his wife had been born and bred in London, and had probably +never noticed ivy. She said it was worse than living in a slum. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson was clever at his trade, and at many other things, but his wife +didn’t seem aware of it. He was well liked, he grew to be popular, but +she didn’t seem proud of the fact; she never seemed interested in him or +his prospects. She only wanted him to take her home again. We mustn’t +forget that while he had a rush of work to occupy his mind she had not. +</p> + +<p> +But Johnson grew stouter and prospered in spite of his wife—for a year or +so. New schools were being built in the district and the town was practically +re-built. Johnson took contracts for brickwork, plumbing and house-painting, as +well as carpentering, and had at one time as many as ten men in his employ. He +was making money. +</p> + +<p> +I was working at my trade then, house-painting, and worked for Johnson. I +lodged at his cottage for a while, but soon got tired of hearing about London, +and Mrs Johnson’s mother and sisters, and the house they lived in, and +the street it was in, and the parks where they used to take their babies, and +the shopping on Saturday afternoon. That woman was terrible. She was at Johnson +all the time about taking her home. “We’ll surely be able to go +home this year, Will.” “You promised to take me home by the end of +the year.” “Mother says in her last letter, that Jack says +there’s more building going on about London than ever.” +“You’ll do just as well in London as you’ll do here.” +“What chance have the children got in a hole like this?” And the +rest of it—every night. When he took a new contract, it would be, +“What did you want to take that new contract for, Will, when we’re +going home? You know you promised me you wouldn’t take any more +contracts.” First he’d try to cheer her, then he’d argue; but +she’d only sit with the knit in her forehead deep, looking as obstinate +as a mule. Then she’d sit down to a little harmonium he’d bought +her and play and sing “Barney, take me Home again,” and “The +Old Folks at Home,” and “Swannie Ribber,” till I felt like +hanging myself—and I wasn’t an exile. Sometimes Johnson would flare +up and there’d be a row and he’d go to the pub. Gentle persuasion, +argument, or swearing, it was all the same with her. +</p> + +<p> +Bosses and men were different towards each other in Solong to what they are in +London; besides, when I wasn’t Johnson’s sub-contractor I was his +foreman—so we often had a few drinks together; and one night over a beer +(and after a breeze at home, I think) he said to me: +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t make it out, Harry; there was nothing but struggle and +worry and misery for us in England, and London was smothering me, my chest was +bad and the wife was always in ill-health; but I suppose I’ll have to +take her home in the end or else she’ll go melancholy mad!” And he +drew a breath that was more like a gasp than a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not send her home for a trip, or a year or so, boss?” I asked. +“As likely as not she’ll be just as eager to get back; and that +will be the end of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t do that, Harry,” said Johnson. “I +couldn’t stay here and work alone. It would be like beginning life again; +I’ve started twice and couldn’t start the third time. You’ll +understand when you’re married, Harry.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, in the end, she wore Johnson out—or wore into him rather. He drank +more, and once or twice I saw him drinking alone. Sometimes he’d +“round on us” at work for nothing at all, and at other times +he’d take no interest in the jobs—he’d let the work go on +anyhow. Some thought that Johnson was getting too big for his boots, +that’s how men are misjudged. He grew moody and melancholy and thin +again. Johnson was homesick himself. No doubt it was the misery of his domestic +life in Australia that made him so. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of the third or fourth year Johnson threw up a couple of +contracts he had on hand, sacrificed a piece of land which he had bought and on +which he had built a cottage in the short time he had been in Solong, and, one +lovely day in June, when the skies were their fairest, the hills their bluest, +the river its widest and clearest, and the grass was waving waist high after +rain—one blue and green and golden day the Johnsons left Solong, with the +trunks they had brought out with them, for Sydney, <i>en route</i> for smoky +London. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Johnson was a woman transformed—she was happy and looked it. The last +few weeks she had seemed in every way the opposite of the woman we had known: +cheerful, kind to neighbours in sickness and trouble, even generous; she made +many small presents in the way of mantelshelf ornaments, pictures, and +house-linen. But then it was Johnson who had to pay for that in the end. +</p> + +<p> +He looked worn and worried at the railway station—more like himself as he +was when he first came to Solong—and as the train moved off I thought he +looked—well, frightened. +</p> + +<p> +That must have been nearly twenty years ago. +</p> + +<p> +London last winter. It was one of those days when London’s lurid sun +shows up for a little while like a smoky danger signal. The snow had melted +from the house-tops and the streets were as London streets are after the first +fall of snow of the season. But I could stand the flat no longer, I had to go +out and walk. I was sun-sick—I was heart-sick for the sun, for the sunny +South—for grassy plains, blue mountains, sweeps of mountain bush and +sunny ocean beaches. I walked hard; I walked till I was mud-splashed to the +shoulders; I walked through the squalid, maddening sameness of miles of dingy, +grimy-walled blocks and rows of four-storied houses till I felt +smothered—jailed, hopelessly. “Best get home and in, and draw the +blinds on it,” I said, “or my brain will turn.” +</p> + +<p> +I was about to ask a policeman where I was when I saw, by the name on a corner +of the buildings, that I was in City Road, North. All the willow-fringed rivers +and the sunny hills of Solong flashed before me at the sight of the name of +that street. I had not been able to recall the name of the street off City Road +in which the Johnsons lived, though I had heard it often enough in the old days +from the tongue of Mrs Johnson. +</p> + +<p> +I felt it would be a relief to see anyone who had been in Australia. +“Now,” I thought, “if I walk along City Road and see the name +of that street I’ll remember it”—and I did. It was a blind +street, like the long, narrow yard of a jail, walled by dark houses, all alike. +The next door but one to that at which I knocked to inquire was where the +Johnsons lived; they lived in a four-storied house, or rather a narrow section +of a four-storied terrace. I found later on that they paid the land-lord, or +nearly paid him, by letting lodgings. They lived in one room with the use of +the parlour and the kitchen when the lodgers weren’t using them, and the +son shared a room with a lodger. The back windows looked out on the dead wall +of a poorhouse of some kind, the front on rows of similar windows +opposite—rows of the same sort of windows that run for miles and miles in +London. In one a man sat smoking in his shirtsleeves, from another a slavey +leaned out watching a fourwheeler that had stopped next door, in a third a +woman sat sewing, and in a fourth a woman was ironing, with a glimpse of a +bedstead behind her. And all outside was gloom and soot and slush. +</p> + +<p> +I would never have recognized the Johnsons. I have visited them several times +since and their faces are familiar to me now, but I don’t know whether +any traces of the old likenesses worked up in my memory. I found Johnson an old +man—old and grey before his time. He had a grizzly stubble round his chin +and cheeks towards the end of the week, because he could only afford a shave on +Saturday afternoon. He was working at some branch of his trade “in the +shop” I understood, but he said he felt the work come heavier on him +every winter. “I’ve felt very poorly this last winter or +two,” he said, “very poorly indeed.” He was very sad and +gentle. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Johnson was old and thin-looking, but seemed cheerful and energetic. Some +chest trouble kept her within doors most of the winter. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind so long as I can manage,” she said, “but +Johnson gets so depressed.” +</p> + +<p> +They seemed very kind towards each other; they spoke little of Australia, and +then only as an incident in their lives which was not of any +importance—had long been past and done with. It was all “before we +went to Australia” or “after we came back from Australia,” +with Mrs Johnson. +</p> + +<p> +The son, whom I remembered as a bright, robust little fellow, was now a tall, +white-faced, clean-shaven young man, a clerk on thirty shillings a week. He +wore, on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, a tall hat and a frock coat and +overcoat made cheaply in the latest fashion, so he couldn’t afford to +help the old folk much. +</p> + +<p> +“David is very extravagant,” said the old man, gently. “He +won’t wear anything when once the gloss is off it. But,” with a sad +smile, “I get the left-off overcoats.” +</p> + +<p> +He took me across to see his daughter. She had married a tradesman and they +were having a hard struggle in three rooms in a workman’s dwelling. She +was twenty-five, thin, yellow, and looking ten years older. +</p> + +<p> +There were other children who had died. “I think we might have done +better for the children in Australia,” said the old man to me, sadly, +when we got outside, “but we did our best.” +</p> + +<p> +We went into a hotel and had a drink. Johnson had treated last +time—twenty years before. We call treating “shouting” in +Australia. Presently Johnson let fall a word or two of Australian slang, and +brightened up wonderfully; we got back out into Australia at once and stayed +there an hour or so. Being an old man, Johnson’s memory for the long ago +was better than mine, and I picked up links; and, in return, I told him what +Solong was like now, and how some men he knew, who were going up, had gone +down, and others, who were going to the dogs in his time, had gone up—and +we philosophized. About one he’d say, “Ah, well! who’d have +thought it! I never thought that boy would come to any good;” about +another, “Ah, well! and he might have been an independent man.” How +familiar that expression sounded!—I think it is used more often in +Australia than in any other country: “He might have been an independent +man.” +</p> + +<p> +When I left Johnson I felt less lonely in London, and rather humbled in spirit. +He seemed so resigned—I had never seen such gentle sadness in a +man’s eyes, nor heard it in a man’s voice. I could get back to +Australia somehow and start life again, but Johnson’s day had been dead +for many years. “Besides, assisted emigration’s done away with +now,” he said, with his sad, sad smile. +</p> + +<p> +I saw the Johnsons again later on. “Things have been going very sadly +with us, very sadly indeed,” said the old man, when we’d settled +down. He had broken down at the beginning of the winter, he had dragged himself +out of bed and to work and back again until he could do so no longer; he had +been laid up most of the winter. Mrs Johnson had not been outside the door for +months. +</p> + +<p> +“It comes very hard on us,” she said, “and I’m so +poorly, and David out of work, too. I wouldn’t mind if I could get about. +But,” she went on in her energetic manner, “we’ve had the +house full all the winter; we’ve had very good luck with the lodgers, all +respectable people, and one of them answers the door and that keeps me away +from the draught—so it might be worse, mightn’t it? But Johnson +doesn’t seem to mend at all, and he gets so terribly depressed. But the +warm weather coming on, etc.” +</p> + +<p> +They and the Lord only knew how they managed to live, for they are honest +people and the lodgers scarcely pay the rent of the house. There was only David +between them and the poorhouse, as far as I could see. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson came out with me a piece and we had a drink or two together—his +was gin hot. He talked a good deal about Australia, but sadly and regretfully +on this occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“We could have done well in Australia,” he said, “very well +indeed. I might have been independent and the children well started in life. +But we did things for the best. Mrs Johnson didn’t like Australia, you +know. It was a pity we didn’t stay there, a great pity. We would have +done far better than in England. I’d go out again now if I had the money, +but I’m getting too old.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would Mrs Johnson go out?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes. But I’m afraid she wouldn’t stand the voyage.... +Things have been very sad with us ever since we came back to England, very sad +indeed.” And after a while he suddenly caught his breath. +</p> + +<p> +“It takes me that way sometimes,” he said. “I catch my breath +just as if I was going to lose it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"></a> +A DROVING YARN</h2> + +<p> +Andy Maculloch had heard that old Bill Barker, the well-known overland drover, +had died over on the Westralian side, and Dave Regan told a yarn about Bill. +</p> + +<p> +“Bill Barker,” said Dave, talking round his pipe stem, “was +the <i>quintessence</i> of a drover—” +</p> + +<p> +“The whatter, Dave?” came the voice of Jim Bentley, in startled +tones, from the gloom on the far end of the veranda. +</p> + +<p> +“The quintessence,” said Dave, taking his pipe out of his mouth. +“You shut up, Jim. As I said, Bill Barker was the quintessence of a +drover. He’d been at the game ever since he was a nipper. He run away +from home when he was fourteen and went up into Queensland. He’s been all +over Queensland and New South Wales and most of South Australia, and a good +deal of the Western, too: over the great stock routes from one end to the +other, Lord knows how many times. No man could keep up with him riding out, and +no one could bring a mob of cattle or a flock of sheep through like him. He +knew every trick of the game; if there was grass to be had Bill’d get it, +no matter whose run it was on. One of his games in a dry season was to let his +mob get boxed with the station stock on a run where there was grass, and before +Bill’s men and the station-hands could cut ’em out, the travelling +stock would have a good bellyful to carry them on the track. Billy was the +daddy of the drovers. Some said that he could ride in his sleep, and that he +had one old horse that could jog along in his sleep too, and +that—travelling out from home to take charge of a mob of bullocks or a +flock of sheep—Bill and his horse would often wake up at daylight and +blink round to see where they were and how far they’d got. Then Bill +would make a fire and boil his quart-pot, and roast a bit of mutton, while his +horse had a mouthful of grass and a spell. +</p> + +<p> +“You remember Bill, Andy? Big dark man, and a joker of the loud sort. +Never slept with a blanket over him—always folded under him on the sand +or grass. Seldom wore a coat on the route—though he always carried one +with him, in case he came across a bush ball or a funeral. Moleskins, flannel +waistcoat, cabbage-tree hat and ’lastic-side boots. When it was roasting +hot on the plains and the men swore at the heat, Jim would yell, ‘Call +this hot? Why, you blanks, I’m freezin’! Where’s me +overcoat?’ When it was raining and hailing and freezing on Bell’s +Line in the Blue Mountains in winter, and someone shivered and asked, ‘Is +it cold enough for yer now, Bill?’ ‘Cold!’ Bill would bellow, +‘I’m sweatin’!’ +</p> + +<p> +“I remember it well. I was little more than a youngster then—Bill +Barker came past our place with about a thousand fat sheep for the Homebush +sale-yards at Sydney, and he gave me a job to help him down with them on +Bell’s Line over the mountains, and mighty proud I was to go with him, I +can tell you. One night we camped on the Cudgegong River. The country was dry +and pretty close cropped and we’d been “sweating” the +paddocks all along there for our horses. You see, where there weren’t +sliprails handy we’d just take the tomahawk and nick the top of a +straight-grained fence-post, just above the mortise, knock out the wood there, +lift the top rail out and down, and jump the horses in over the lower +one—it was all two-rail fences around there with sheep wires under the +lower rail. And about daylight we’d have the horses out, lift back the +rail, and fit in the chock that we’d knocked out. Simple as striking +matches, wasn’t it? +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the horses were getting a good bellyful in the police horse +paddock at night, and Bill took the first watch with the sheep. It was very +cold and frosty on the flat and he thought the sheep might make back for the +ridges, it’s always warmer up in the ridges in winter out of the frost. +Bill roused me out about midnight. ‘There’s the sheep,’ he +says, pointing to a white blur. ‘They’ve settled down. I think +they’ll be quiet till daylight. Don’t go round them; there’s +no occasion to go near ’em. You can stop by the fire and keep an eye on +’em.’ +</p> + +<p> +“The night seemed very long. I watched and smoked and toasted my shins, +and warmed the billy now and then, and thought up pretty much the same sort of +old things that fellers on night watch think over all over the world. Bill lay +on his blanket, with his back to the fire and his arm under his +head—freezing on one side and roasting on the other. He never moved. I +itched once or twice to turn him over and bake the front of him—I +reckoned he was about done behind. +</p> + +<p> +“At last daylight showed. I took the billy and started down to the river +to get some water to make coffee; but half-way down, near the sheep camp, I +stopped and stared, I was never so surprised in my life. The white blur of +sheep had developed into a couple of acres of long dead silver grass! +</p> + +<p> +“I woke Bill, and he swore as I never heard a man swear before—nor +since. He swore at the sheep, and the grass, and at me; but it would have +wasted time, and besides I was too sleepy and tired to fight. But we found +those sheep scattered over a scrubby ridge about seven miles back, so they must +have slipped away back of the grass and started early in Bill’s watch, +and Bill must have watched that blessed grass for the first half of the night +and then set me to watch it. He couldn’t get away from that. +</p> + +<p> +“I wondered what the chaps would say if it got round that Bill Barker, +the boss overland drover, had lost a thousand sheep in clear country with +fences all round; and I suppose he thought that way too, for he kept me with +him right down to Homebush, and when he paid me off he threw in an extra quid, +and he said: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Now, listen here, Dave! If I ever hear a word from anyone about +watching that gory grass, I’ll find you, Dave, and murder you, if +you’re in wide Australia. I’ll screw your neck, so look out.’ +</p> + +<p> +“But he’s dead now, so it doesn’t matter.” +</p> + +<p> +There was silence for some time after Dave had finished. The chaps made no +comment on the yarn, either one way or the other, but sat smoking thoughtfully, +and in a vague atmosphere as of sadness—as if they’d just heard of +their mother’s death and had not been listening to an allegedly humorous +yarn. +</p> + +<p> +Then the voice of old Peter, the station-hand, was heard to growl from the +darkness at the end of the hut, where he sat on a three-bushel bag on the +ground with his back to the slabs. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s old Peter growlin’ about?” someone asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He wants to know where Dave got that word,” someone else replied. +</p> + +<p> +“What word?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Quint-essents</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +“He got it out back, Peter,” said Mitchell, the shearer. “He +got it from a new chum.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much did yer give for it, Dave?” growled Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Five shillings, Peter,” said Dave, round his pipe stem. “And +stick of tobacco thrown in.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter seemed satisfied, for he was heard no more that evening. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"></a> +GETTIN’ BACK ON DAVE REGAN</h2> + +<h3>A RATHER FISHY YARN FROM THE BUSH</h3> + +<p> +(AS TOLD BY JAMES NOWLETT, BULLOCK-DRIVER) +</p> + +<p> +You might work this yarn up. I’ve often thought of doin’ it meself, +but I ain’t got the words. I knowed a lot of funny an’ rum yarns +about the bush, an’ I often wished I had the gift o’ writin’. +I could tell a lot better yarns than the rot they put in books sometimes, but I +never had no eddication. But you might be able to work this yarn up—as +yer call it. +</p> + +<p> +There useter be a teamster’s camp six or seven miles out of Mudgee, at a +place called th’ Old Pipeclay, in the days before the railroad went round +to Dubbo, an’ most of us bullickies useter camp there for the night. +There was always good water in the crick, an’ sometimes we’d turn +the bullicks up in the ridge, an’ gullies behind for grass, an’ +camp there for a few days, and do our washin’ an’ mendin’, +and make new yokes perhaps, an tinker up the wagons. +</p> + +<p> +There was a woman livin’ on a farm there named Mrs +Hardwick—an’ she <i>was</i> a hard wick. Her husban’, Jimmy +Hardwick was throwed from his horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, +an’ he was killed—an’ she was a widder. She had a tidy bit +o’ land, an’ a nice bit of a orchard an’ vineyard, an some +cattle, an’ they say she had a tidy bit o’ money in the bank. She +had the worst tongue in the district, no one’s character was safe with +her; but she wasn’t old, an’ she wasn’t +bad-lookin’—only hard—so there was some fellers hangin’ +round arter her. An’ Dave Regan’s horse was hangin’ up +outside her place as often as anybody else’s. Dave was a native an’ +a bushy, an’ drover an’ a digger, an’ he was a bit soft in +them days—he got hard enough arterwards. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Hardwick hated bullick-drivers—she had a awful down on +bullickies—I dunno why. We never interfered with her fowls, an’ as +for swearin’! why, she could swear herself. Jimmy Hardwick was a +bullick-driver when she married him, an’ p’r’aps that helped +to account for it. She wouldn’t let us boil our billies at her kitchen +fire, same as any other bushwoman, an’ if one of our bullicks put his +nose under her fence for a mouthful of grass, she’d set her dogs onter +him. An’ one of her dogs got something what disagreed with him one day, +an’ she accused us of layin’ poisoned baits. An’, arter that, +she ’pounded some of our bullicks that got into her lucerne paddick one +night when we was on the spree in Mudgee, an’ put heavy damages on +’em. She’d left the sliprails down on purpose, I believe. She +talked of puttin’ the police onter us, jest as if we was a sly-grog shop. +(If <i>she’d</i> kept a sly-grog shop she’d have had a different +opinion about bullick-drivers.) An’ all the bullick-drivers hated her +because she hated bullickies. +</p> + +<p> +Well, one wet season half a dozen of us chaps was camped there for a fortnight, +because the roads was too boggy to travel, an’ one night they got up a +darnce at Peter Anderson’s shanty acrost the ridges, an’ a lot of +gals an’ fellers turned up from all round about in spite of the +pourin’ rain. Someone had kidded Dave Regan that Mother Hardwick was +comin’, an’ he turned up, of course, in spite of a ragin’ +toothache he had. He was always ridin’ the high horse over us bullickies. +It was a very cold night, enough to cut the face an’ hands off yer, so we +had a roarin’ fire in the big bark-an’-slab kitchen where the +darncin’ was. It was one of them big, old-fashioned, clay-lined +fire-places that goes right acrost the end of the room, with a twenty-five foot +slab-an’-tin chimbly outside. +</p> + +<p> +Dave Regan was pretty wild about being had, an’ we copped all the gals +for darncin’; he couldn’t get one that night, an’ when he +wasn’t proddin’ out his tooth with a red-hot wire some one was +chaffin’ him about Mrs Hardwick. So at last he got disgusted an’ +left; but before he went he got a wet three-bushel flour-bag an’ climbed +up very quietly onter the roof by the battens an’ log weights an’ +riders, an’ laid the wet bag very carefully acrost the top of the chimbly +flue. +</p> + +<p> +An’ we was a mortal hour tryin’ to find out what was the matter +with that infernal chimbly, and tackin’ bits o’ tin an’ +baggin’ acrost the top of the fire-place under the mantelshelf to try +an’ stop it from smokin’, an’ all the while the gals set +there with the water runnin’ out of their eyes. We took the green back +log out an’ fetched in a dry one, but that chimbly smoked worse than +ever, an’ we had to put the fire out altogether, an’ the gals set +there shiverin’ till the rain held up a bit an’ the sky cleared, +an’ then someone goes out an’ looks up an’ sings out, +“Why, there’s somethin’ acrost the top of the blazin’ +chimbly!” an’ someone else climbs up an’ fetches down the +bag. But the darnce was spoilt, an’ the gals was so disgusted that they +went off with their fellers while the weather held up. They reckoned some of us +bullickies did it for a lark. +</p> + +<p> +An’ arter that Dave’d come ridin’ past, an’ sing out to +know if we knew of a good cure for a smokin’ chimbly, an’ them +sorter things. But he always got away before we could pull him off of his +horse. Three of us chased him on horseback one day, but we didn’t ketch +him. +</p> + +<p> +So we made up our minds to git back on Dave some way or other, an’ it +come about this way. +</p> + +<p> +About six months arter the smoked-out darnce, four or five of us same fellers +was campin’ on th’ Pipeclay agen, an’ it was a dry season. It +was dryer an’ hotter than it was cold ’n’ wet the larst time. +Dave was still hangin’ round Mrs Hardwick’s an’ doin’ +odd jobs for her. Well, one very hot day we seen Dave ridin’ past into +Mudgee, an’ we knowed he’d have a spree in town that night, +an’ call at Mrs Hardwick’s for sympathy comin’ out next day; +an’ arter he’d been gone an hour or two, Tom Tarrant comes +drivin’ past on his mail-coach, an’ drops some letters an’ +papers an’ a bag o’ groceries at our camp. +</p> + +<p> +Tom was a hard case. I remember wonst I was drivin’ along a lonely bit +o’ track, an’ it was a grand mornin’, an’ I felt great, +an’ I got singin’ an’ practisin’ a recitation that I +allers meant to give at a bush darnce some night. (I never sung or spouted +poetry unless I was sure I was miles away from anyone.) An’ I got worked +up, an’ was wavin’ me arms about an’ throwin’ it off of +me chest, when Tom’s coach comes up behind, round a bend in the road, +an’ took me by surprise. An’ Tom looked at me very hard an’ +he says, “What are yer shoutin’ an’ swearin’ an’ +darncin’ an’ goin’ on at the bullicks like that for, Jimmy? +They seem to be workin’ all right.” It took me back, I can tell +yer. The coach was full of grinnin’ passengers, an’ the worst of it +was that I didn’t know how long Tom had been drivin’ slow behind me +an’ takin’ me out of windin’. There’s nothin’ +upsets a cove as can’t sing so much as to be caught singin’ or +spoutin’ poetry when he thinks he’s privit’. +</p> + +<p> +An’ another time I remember Tom’s coach broke down on the track, +an’ he had to ride inter town with the mails on horseback; an’ he +left a couple of greenhides, for Skinner the tanner at Mudgee, for me to take +on in the wagon, an’ a bag of potatoes for Murphy the storekeeper at Home +Rule, an’ a note that said: “Render unto Murphy the things which is +murphies, and unto Skinner them things which is skins.” Tom was a hard +case. +</p> + +<p> +Well, this day, when Tom handed down the tucker an’ letters, he got down +to stretch his legs and give the horses a breathe. The coach was full of +passengers, an’ I noticed they all looked extra glum and sulky, but I +reckoned it was the heat an’ dust. Tom looked extra solemn, too, +an’ no one was talkin’. Then I suddenly began to notice something +in the atmosphere, as if there was a dead beast not far away, an’ my +mates started sniffin’ too. An’ that reminds me, it’s funny +why some people allers sniff hard instead of keepin’ their noses shut +when there’s a stink; the more it stinks the more they sniff. Tom spit in +the dust an’ thought a while; then he took a parcel out of the boot +an’ put it on the corner post of the fence. “There,” he said, +“There’s some fresh fish that come up from Sydney by train +an’ Cobb & Co’s coach larst night. They’re meant for +White the publican at Gulgong, but they won’t keep this weather till I +git out there. Pity to waste them! you chaps might as well have a feed of +’em. I’ll tell White they went bad an’ I had to throw them +out,” says Tom. Then he got on to the coach agen an’ drove off in a +cloud of dust. We undone the brown paper, an’ the fish was in a small +deal box, with a lid fastened by a catch. We nicked back the catch an’ +the lid flew open, an’ then we knowed where the smell comed from all +right. There wasn’t any doubt about that! We didn’t have to put our +noses in the box to see if the fish was bad. They was packed in salt, but that +made no difference. +</p> + +<p> +You know how a smell will start sudden in the bush on a hot, still day, +an’ then seem to take a spell, an’ then get to work agen stronger +than ever. You might be clost alongside of a horse that has been dead a +fortnight an’ smell nothin’ particular till you start to walk away, +an’ the further you go the worse it stinks. It seems to smell most round +in a circle of a hundred yards or so. But these fish smelt from the centre +right out. Tom Tarrant told us arterwards that them fish started to smell as +soon as he left Mudgee. At first they reckoned it was a dead horse by the road; +but arter a while the passengers commenced squintin’ at each other +suspicious like, an’ the conversation petered out, an’ Tom thought +he felt all their eyes on his back, an’ it was very uncomfortable; +an’ he sat tight an’ tried to make out where the smell come from; +an’ it got worse every hundred yards—like as if the track was lined +with dead horses, an’ every one dead longer than the last—till it +was like drivin’ a funeral. An’ Tom never thought of the fish till +he got down to stretch his legs and fetched his nose on a level with the boot. +</p> + +<p> +Well, we shut down the lid of that box quick an’ took it an’ +throwed it in the bushes a good way away from the camp, but next mornin’, +while we was havin’ breakfast, Billy Grimshaw got an idea, an’ +arter breakfast he wetted a canvas bag he had an’ lit up his pipe, +an’ went an’ got that there box o’ fish, an’ put it in +the wet bag, an’ wrapped it tight round it an’ tied it up tight +with string. Billy had a nipper of a nephew with him, about fourteen, named +Tommy, an’ he was a sharp kid if ever there was one. So Billy says, +“Look here, Tommy, you take this fish up to Mrs Hardwick’s +an’ tell her that Dave Regan sent ’em with his compliments, +an’ he hopes she’ll enjoy ’em. Tell her that Dave fetched +’em from Mudgee, but he’s gone back to look for a pound note that +he dropped out of a hole in his pocket somewheers along the road, an’ he +asked you to take the fish up.” So Tommy takes the fish an’ goes up +to the house with ’em. When he come back he says that Mrs Hardwick smiled +like a parson an’ give him a shillin’—an’ he +didn’t wait. We watched the house, an’ about half an hour +arterwards we seen her run out of the kitchen with the open box in her hand, +an’ run a good way away from the house an’ throw the fish inter the +bushes, an’ then go back quick, holdin’ her nose. +</p> + +<p> +An’ jest then, as luck would have it, we seen Dave Regan ridin’ up +from the creek towards the house. He got down an’ went into the kitchen, +an’ then come backin’ out agen in a hurry with her in front of him. +We could hear her voice from where we was, but we couldn’t hear what she +said. But we could see her arms wavin’ as if she was drivin’ fowls, +an’ Dave backed all the way to his horse and gets on an’ comes +ridin’ away quick, she screamin’ arter him all the time. When he +got down opposite the camp we sung out to know what was the matter. “What +have you been doin’ to Mrs Hardwick, Dave?” we says. “We +heerd her goin’ for yer proper jest now.” “Damned if I +know,” says Dave. “I ain’t done nothin’ to her that I +knows of. She’s called me everything she can lay her tongue to, an’ +she’s ravin’ about my stinkin’ fish, or somethin’. I +can’t make it out at all. I believe she’s gone ratty.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you <i>must</i> have been doin’ somethin’ to the +woman,” we says, “or else she wouldn’t have gone on at yer +like that.” +</p> + +<p> +But Dave swore he hadn’t, an’ we talked it over for a while +an’ couldn’t make head nor tail of it, an’ we come to the +conclusion that it was only a touch o’ the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Dave,” we says. “Go up agen in a day or two, +when she’s cooled down, an’ find out what the matter is. Or write +to her. It might only have been someone makin’ mischief. That’s +what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +But Dave only sat an’ rubbed his head, an’ presently he started +home to wherever he was hangin’ out. He wanted a quiet week to think. +</p> + +<p> +“Her chimbly might have been smokin’, Dave,” we shouted arter +him, but he was too dazed like to ketch on. +</p> + +<p> +Well, in a month or two we was campin’ there agen, an’ we found +she’d fenced in a lane to the crick she had no right to, an’ we had +to take the bullicks a couple o’ miles round to grass an’ water. +Well, the first mornin’ we seen her down in the corner of her paddick +near the camp drivin’ some heifers, an’ Billy Grimshaw went up to +the fence an’ spoke to her. Billy was the only one of us that dared face +her and he was the only one she was ever civil to—p’r’aps +because Billy had a squint an’ a wall eye and that put her out of +countenance. +</p> + +<p> +Billy took off his hat very respectful an’ sings out, “Mrs +Hardwick.” (It was Billy’s bullicks she’d +“pounded,” by the way.) +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” she says. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to you, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, speak,” she says. “I’ve got no time to waste +talkin’ to bullick-drivers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the fact is, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy, “that I want +to explain somethin’, an’ apologize for that young scamp of a +nephew o’ mine, young Tommy. He ain’t here or I’d make him +beg your pardon hisself, or I’d cut him to pieces with the bullick-whip. +I heard all about Dave Regan sendin’ you that stinkin’ fish, +an’ I think it was a damned mean, dirty thing to do—to send +stinkin’ fish to a woman, an’ especially to a widder an’ an +unprotected woman like you, Mrs Hardwick. I’ve had mothers an’ +sisters of me own. An’ I want to tell you that I’m sorry a relation +o’ mine ever had anythin’ to do with it. As soon as I heerd of it I +give young Tommy a lambastin’ he won’t forgot in a hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did Tommy know the fish was bad?” she says. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter a rap,” says Billy; “he had no right +to go takin’ messages from nobody to nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Hardwick thought a while. Then she says: “P’r’aps arter +all Dave Regan didn’t know the fish was bad. I’ve often thought I +might have been in too much of a hurry. Things goes bad so quick out here in +this weather. An’ Dave was always very friendly. I can’t understand +why he’d do a dirty thing on me like that. I never done anything to +Dave.” +</p> + +<p> +Now I forgot to tell you that Billy had a notion that Dave helped drive his +bullicks to pound that time, though I didn’t believe it. So Billy says: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you believe that for a minute, Mrs Hardwick. Dave knew what +he was a-doin’ of all right; an’ if I ketch him <i>I’ll</i> +give him a beltin’ for it if no one else is man enough to stand up for a +woman!” says Billy. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’yer know Dave knew?” says Mrs Hardwick. +</p> + +<p> +“Know!” says Billy. “Why, he talked about it all over the +district.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” she screamed out, an’ I moved away from that there +fence, for she had a stick to drive them heifers with. But Billy stood his +ground. “Is that the truth, Billy Grimshaw?” she screams. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes;” he says. “I’ll-take me oath on it. He blowed +about it all over the district, as if it was very funny, an’ he +says—” An’ Billy stopped. +</p> + +<p> +“What did he say?” she shouted. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, the fact is,” says Billy, “that I hardly like to tell +it to a lady. I wouldn’t like to tell yer, Mrs Hardwick.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll have to tell me, Billy Grimshaw,” she screams. +“I have a right to know. If you don’t tell me I’ll pull him +next week an’ have it dragged out of you in the witness-box!” she +says. “An’ I’ll have satisfaction out of him in the +felon’s dock of a court of law!” she says. “What did the +villain say?” she screams. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” says Billy, “if yer must have it—an’, +anyway, I’m hanged if I’m goin’ to stand by an’ see a +woman scandalized behind her back—if yer must have it I’ll tell +yer. Dave said that the fish didn’t smell no worse than your place +anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +We got away from there then. She cut up too rough altogether. I can’t +tell you what she said—I ain’t got the words. She went up to the +house, an’ we seen the farm-hand harnessin’ up the horse, an’ +we reckoned she was goin’ to drive into town straight away an’ take +out a summons agenst Dave Regan. An’ jest then Dave hisself comes +ridin’ past—jest when he was most wanted, as usual. He always rode +fast past Mrs Hardwick’s nowadays, an’ never stopped there, but +Billy shouted after him: +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Dave! I want to speak to yer,” shouts Billy. An’ Dave +yanks his horse round. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Billy?” he says. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Dave,” says Billy. “You had your little joke +about the chimbly, an’ we had our little joke about the fish an’ +Mrs Hardwick, so now we’ll call it quits. A joke’s a joke, but it +can go too far, an’ this one’s gettin’ too red-hot +altogether. So we’ve fixed it up with Mrs Hardwick.” +</p> + +<p> +“What fish an’ what joke?” says Dave, rubbin’ his head. +“An’ what have yer fixed up with Mrs Hardwick? Whatever are yer +talkin’ about, Billy?” +</p> + +<p> +So Billy told him all about us sendin’ the stinkin’ fish to Mrs +Hardwick by Tommy, an’ sayin’ Dave sent ’em—Dave +rubbin’ the back of his neck an’ starin’ at Billy all the +time. “An’ now,” says Billy, “I won’t say +anything about them bullicks; but I went up and seen Mrs Hardwick this +mornin’, an’ told her the whole truth about them fish, an’ +how you knowed nothin’ about it, an’ I apologized an’ told +her we was very sorry; an’ she says she was very sorry too on your +account, an’ wanted to see yer. I promised to tell yer as soon as I seen +yer. It ought to be fixed up. You ought to go right up to the house an’ +see her now. She’s awfully cut up about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” says Dave, brightenin’ up. “It was a +dirty, mean trick anyway to play on a cove; but I’ll go up an’ see +her.” An’ he went there ’n’ then. +</p> + +<p> +An’ about fifteen minutes arterwards he comes boltin’ back from the +house one way an’ his horse the other. The horse acted as if it had a big +scare, an’ so did Dave. Billy went an’ ketched Dave’s horse +for him, an’ I got Dave a towel to wipe the dirty dish-water off of his +face an’ out of his hair an’ collar, an’ I give him a piece +of soap to rub on the places where he’d been scalded. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the woman must be ravin’ mad,” I says. “Whatever +did yer say to her this time, Dave? Yer allers gettin’ inter hot water +with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say nothin’,” says Dave. “I jest went +up laughin’ like, an’ says, ‘How are yer, Mrs +Hardwick?’ an’ she ups an’ lets me have a dish of dirty +wash-up water, an’ then on top of that she let fly with a dipper of +scaldin’-hot, greasy water outer the boiler. She’s gone clean +ravin’ mad, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s as mad as a hatter, right enough, Dave,” says Billy +Grimshaw. “Don’t you go there no more, Dave, it ain’t +safe.” An’ we lent Dave a hat an’ a clean shirt, an’ he +went on inter town. “You ought to have humoured her,” says Billy, +as Dave rode away. “You ought to have told her to put a wet bag over her +chimbly an’ hang the fish inside to smoke.” But Dave was too +stunned to ketch on. He went on inter the town an’ got on a howlin’ +spree. An’ while he was soberin’ up the thing began to dawn on him. +An’ the nex’ time he met Billy they had a fight. An’ Dave got +another woman to speak to Mrs Hardwick, an’ Mrs Hardwick ketched young +Tommy goin’ past her place one day an’ bailed him up an’ +scared the truth out of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here!” she says to him, “I want the truth, the whole +truth, an’ nothin’ but the truth about them fish, an’ if I +don’t get it outer you I’ll wring yer young neck for tryin’ +to poison me, an’ save yer from the gallust!” she says to Tommy. +</p> + +<p> +So he told her the whole truth, swelp him, an’ got away; an’ he +respected Mrs Hardwick arter that. +</p> + +<p> +An’ next time we come past with the teams we seen Dave’s horse +hangin’ up outside Mrs Hardwick’s, an’ we went some miles +further along the road an’ camped in a new place where we’d be more +comfortable. An’ ever arter that we used to always whip up an’ +drive past her place as if we didn’t know her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"></a> +“SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER?”</h2> + +<p class="center"> +T<small>OLD BY</small> J<small>OE</small> W<small>ILSON</small> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +God’s preacher, of churches unheeded,<br/> +God’s vineyard, though barren the sod,<br/> +Plain spokesman where spokesman is needed,<br/> +Rough link ’twixt the Bushman and God.<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â <i>The Christ of the Never</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I never told you about Peter M’Laughlan. He was a sort of bush missionary +up-country and out back in Australia, and before he died he was known from +Riverina down south in New South Wales to away up through the Never-Never +country in western Queensland. +</p> + +<p> +His past was a mystery, so, of course, there were all sorts of yarns about him. +He was supposed to be a Scotchman from London, and some said that he had got +into trouble in his young days and had had to clear out of the old country; or, +at least, that he had been a ne’e-er-do-well and had been sent out to +Australia on the remittance system. Some said he’d studied for the law, +some said he’d studied for a doctor, while others believed that he was, +or had been, an ordained minister. I remember one man who swore (when he was +drinking) that he had known Peter M’Laughlan as a medical student in a +big London hospital, and that he had started in practice for himself somewhere +near Gray’s Inn Road in London. Anyway, as I got to know him he struck me +as being a man who had looked into the eyes of so much misery in his life that +some of it had got into his own. +</p> + +<p> +He was a tall man, straight and well built, and about forty or forty-five, when +I first saw him. He had wavy dark hair, and a close, curly beard. I once heard +a woman say that he had a beard like you see in some Bible pictures of Christ. +Peter M’Laughlan seldom smiled; there was something in his big dark brown +eyes that was scarcely misery, nor yet sadness—a sort of haunted +sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +He must have had money, or else he got remittances from home, for he paid his +way and helped many a poor devil. They said that he gave away most of his +money. Sometimes he worked for a while himself as bookkeeper at a +shearing-shed, wool-sorter, shearer, even rouseabout; he’d work at +anything a bushman could get to do. Then he’d go out back to +God-forgotten districts and preach to bushmen in one place, and get a few +children together in another and teach them to read. He could take his drink, +and swear a little when he thought it necessary. On one occasion, at a rough +shearing-shed, he called his beloved brethren “damned fools” for +drinking their cheques. +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of his life if he went into a “rough” shed or +shanty west of the Darling River—and some of them <i>were</i> +rough—there would be a rest in the language and drinking, even a fight +would be interrupted, and there would be more than one who would lift their +hats to Peter M’Laughlan. A bushman very rarely lifts his hat to a man, +yet the worst characters of the West have listened bareheaded to Peter when he +preached. +</p> + +<p> +It was said in our district that Peter only needed to hint to the squatter that +he wanted fifty or a hundred pounds to help someone or something, and the +squatter would give it to him without question or hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +He’d nurse sick boundary-riders, shearers, and station-hands, often +sitting in the desolate hut by the bedside of a sick man night after night. +And, if he had time, he’d look up the local blacks and see how they were +getting on. Once, on a far outback sheep station, he sat for three nights +running, by the bedside of a young Englishman, a B.A. they said he was, +who’d been employed as tutor at the homestead and who died a wreck, the +result of five years of life in London and Paris. The poor fellow was only +thirty. And the last few hours of his life he talked to Peter in French, +nothing but French. Peter understood French and one or two other languages, +besides English and Australian; but whether the young wreck was raving or +telling the story of a love, or his life, none of us ever knew, for Peter never +spoke of it. But they said that at the funeral Peter’s eyes seemed +haunted more than usual. +</p> + +<p> +There’s the yarn about Peter and the dying cattle at Piora Station one +terrible drought, when the surface was as bare as your hand for hundreds of +miles, and the heat like the breath of a furnace, and the sheep and cattle were +perishing by thousands. Peter M’Laughlan was out on the run helping the +station-hands to pull out cattle that had got bogged in the muddy waterholes +and were too weak to drag themselves out, when, about dusk, a gentlemanly +“piano-fingered” parson, who had come to the station from the next +town, drove out in his buggy to see the men. He spoke to Peter +M’Laughlan. +</p> + +<p> +“Brother,” he said, “do you not think we should offer up a +prayer?” +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” asked Peter, standing in his shirt sleeves, a rope in +his hands and mud from head to foot. +</p> + +<p> +“For? Why, for rain, brother,” replied the parson, a bit surprised. +</p> + +<p> +Peter held up his finger and said “Listen!” +</p> + +<p> +Now, with a big mob of travelling stock camped on the plain at night, there is +always a lowing, soughing or moaning sound, a sound like that of the sea on the +shore at a little distance; and, altogether, it might be called the sigh or +yawn of a big mob in camp. But the long, low moaning of cattle dying of hunger +and thirst on the hot barren plain in a drought is altogether different, and, +at night there is something awful about it—you couldn’t describe +it. This is what Peter M’Laughlan heard. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear that?” he asked the other preacher. +</p> + +<p> +The little parson said he did. Perhaps <i>he</i> only heard the weak lowing of +cattle. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think that God will hear us when He does not hear +<i>that</i>?” asked Peter. +</p> + +<p> +The parson stared at him for a moment and then got into his buggy and drove +away, greatly shocked and deeply offended. But, later on, over tea at the +homestead, he said that he felt sure that that “unfortunate man,” +Peter M’Laughlan, was not in his right mind; that his wandering, +irregular life, or the heat, must have affected him. +</p> + +<p> +I well remember the day when I first heard Peter M’Laughlan preach. I was +about seventeen then. We used sometimes to attend service held on Sunday +afternoon, about once a month, in a little slab-and-bark school-house in the +scrub off the main road, three miles or so from our selection, in a barren hole +amongst the western ridges of the Great Dividing Range. School was held in this +hut for a few weeks or a few months now and again, when a teacher could be got +to stay there and teach, and cook for himself, for a pound a week, more or less +contributed by the parents. A parson from the farming town to the east, or the +pastoral town over the ridges to the west, used to come in his buggy when it +didn’t rain and wasn’t too hot to hold the service. +</p> + +<p> +I remember this Sunday. It was a blazing hot day towards the end of a long and +fearful drought which ruined many round there. The parson was expected, and a +good few had come to “chapel” in spring-carts, on horseback, and on +foot; farmers and their wives and sons and daughters. The children had been +brought here to Sunday-school, taught by some of the girls, in the morning. I +can see it all now quite plain: The one-roomed hut, for it was no more, with +the stunted blue-grey gum, scrub all round. The white, dusty road, so hot that +you could cook eggs in the dust. The horses tied up, across the road, in the +supposed shade under clumps of scraggy saplings along by the fence of a +cattle-run. The little crowd outside the hut: selectors in washed and mended +tweeds, some with paper collars, some wearing starched and ironed white coats, +and in blucher boots, greased or blackened, or the young men wearing +“larstins” (elastic-side boots). The women and girls in prints and +cottons (or cheap “alpaca,” etc.), and a bright bit of ribbon here +and there amongst the girls. The white heat blazed everywhere, and +“dazzled” across light-coloured surfaces—dead white trees, +fence-posts, and sand-heaps, like an endless swarm of bees passing in the +sun’s glare. And over above the dry boxscrub-covered ridges, the great +Granite Peak, glaring like a molten mass. +</p> + +<p> +The people didn’t like to go inside out of the heat and sit down before +the minister came. The wretched hut was a rough school, sometimes with a clay +fire-place where the teacher cooked, and a corner screened off with sacking +where he had his bunk; it was a camp for tramps at other times, or lizards and +possums, but to-day it was a house of God, and as such the people respected it. +</p> + +<p> +The town parson didn’t turn up. Perhaps he was unwell, or maybe the hot, +dusty ten-mile drive was too much for him to face. One of the farmers, who had +tried to conduct service on a previous occasion on which the ordained minister +had failed us, had broken down in the middle of it, so he was out of the +question. We waited for about an hour, and then who should happen to ride along +but Peter M’Laughlan, and one or two of the elder men asked him to hold +service. He was on his way to see a sick friend at a sheep station over the +ridges, but he said that he could spare an hour or two. (Nearly every man who +was sick, either in stomach or pocket, was a friend of Peter M’Laughlan.) +Peter tied up his horse under a bush shed at the back of the hut, and we +followed him in. +</p> + +<p> +The “school” had been furnished with a rough deal table and a +wooden chair for “the teacher,” and with a few rickety desks and +stools cadged from an old “provisional” school in town when the new +public school was built; and the desks and stools had been fastened to the +floor to strengthen them; they had been made for “infant” classes, +and youth out our way ran to length. But when grown men over six feet high +squeezed in behind the desks and sat down on the stools the effect struck me as +being ridiculous. In fact, I am afraid that on the first occasion it rather +took my attention from the sermon, and I remember being made very uncomfortable +by a school chum, Jack Barnes, who took a delight in catching my eye and +winking or grinning. He could wink without changing a solemn line in his face +and grin without exploding, and I couldn’t. The boys usually sat on +seats, slabs on blocks of wood, along the wall at the far end of the room, +which was comfortable, for they had a rest for their backs. One or two of the +boys were nearing six feet high, so they could almost rest their chins on their +knees as they sat. But I squatted with some of my tribe on a stool along the +wall by the teacher’s table, and so could see most of the congregation. +</p> + +<p> +Above us bare tie-beams and the round sapling rafters (with the bark still on), +and the inner sides of the sheets of stringybark that formed the roof. The +slabs had been lined with sacking at one time, but most of it had fallen or +dry-rotted away; there were wide cracks between the slabs and we could see the +white glare of sunlight outside, with a strip of dark shade, like a deep trench +in the white ground, by the back wall. Someone had brought a canvas water-bag +and hung it to the beam on the other side of the minister’s table, with a +pint-pot over the tap, and the drip, drip from the bag made the whole place +seem cooler. +</p> + +<p> +I studied Peter M’Laughlan first. He was dressed in washed and mended +tweed vest and trousers, and had on a long, lightcoloured coat of a material +which we called “Chinese silk.” He wore a “soft” cotton +shirt with collar attached, and blucher boots. He gave out a hymn in his quiet, +natural way, said a prayer, gave out another hymn, read a chapter from the +Bible, and then gave out another hymn. They liked to sing, out in those places. +The Southwicks used to bring a cranky little harmonium in the back of their old +dog-cart, and Clara Southwick used to accompany the hymns. She was a very +pretty girl, fair, and could play and sing well. I used to think she had the +sweetest voice I ever heard. But—ah, well— +</p> + +<p> +Peter didn’t sing himself, at first. I got an idea that he +couldn’t. While they were singing he stood loosely, with one hand in his +trouser-pocket, scratching his beard with his hymn-book, and looking as if he +were thinking things over, and only rousing himself to give another verse. He +forgot to give it once or twice, but we got through all right. I noticed the +wife of one of the men who had asked Peter to preach looking rather black at +her husband, and I reckoned that he’d get it hotter than the weather on +the way home. +</p> + +<p> +Then Peter stood up and commenced to preach. He stood with both hands in his +pockets, at first, his coat ruffled back, and there was the stem of a clay pipe +sticking out of his waistcoat pocket. The pipe fascinated me for a while, but +after that I forgot the pipe and was fascinated by the man. Peter’s face +was one that didn’t strike you at first with its full strength, it grew +on you; it grew on me, and before he had done preaching I thought it was the +noblest face I had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t preach much of hope in this world. How could he? The drought +had been blazing over these districts for nearly a year, with only a shower now +and again, which was a mockery—scarcely darkening the baked ground. Wheat +crops came up a few inches and were parched by the sun or mown for hay, or the +cattle turned on them; and last year there had been rust and smut in the wheat. +And, on top of it all, the dreadful cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia, had +somehow been introduced into the district. One big farmer had lost fifty +milkers in a week. +</p> + +<p> +Peter M’Laughlan didn’t preach much of hope in this world; how +could he? There were men there who had slaved for twenty, thirty, forty years; +worked as farmers have to work in few other lands—first to clear the +stubborn bush from the barren soil, then to fence the ground, and manure it, +and force crops from it—and for what? There was Cox, the farmer, starved +off his selection after thirty years and going out back with his drays to work +at tank-sinking for a squatter. There was his eldest son going shearing or +droving—anything he could get to do—a stoop-shouldered, young-old +man of thirty. And behind them, in the end, would be a dusty patch in the +scrub, a fencepost here and there, and a pile of chimney-stones and a hardwood +slab or two where the but was—for thirty hard years of the father’s +life and twenty of the son’s. +</p> + +<p> +I forget Peter’s text, if he had a text; but the gist of his sermon was +that there was a God—there was a heaven! And there were men there +listening who needed to believe these things. There was old Ross from across +the creek, old, but not sixty, a hard man. Only last week he had broken down +and fallen on his knees on the baked sods in the middle of his ploughed ground +and prayed for rain. His frightened boys had taken him home, and later on, the +same afternoon, when they brought news of four more cows down with “the +pleuro” in an outer paddock, he had stood up outside his own door and +shaken his fist at the brassy sky and cursed high heaven to the terror of his +family, till his brave, sun-browned wife dragged him inside and soothed him. +And Peter M’Laughlan knew all about this. +</p> + +<p> +Ross’s family had the doctor out to him, and persuaded him to come to +church this Sunday. The old man sat on the front seat, stooping forward, with +his elbow resting on the desk and his chin on his hand, bunching up his beard +over his mouth with his fingers and staring gloomily at Peter with dark, +piercing eyes from under bushy eyebrows, just as I’ve since seen a +Scotchman stare at Max O’Rell all through a humorous lecture called +“A nicht wi’ Sandy.” +</p> + +<p> +Ross’s right hand resting on the desk was very eloquent: horny, scarred +and knotted at every joint, with broken, twisted nails, and nearly closed, as +though fitted to the handle of an axe or a spade. Ross was an educated man (he +had a regular library of books at home), and perhaps that’s why he +suffered so much. +</p> + +<p> +Peter preached as if he were speaking quietly to one person only, but every +word was plain and every sentence went straight to someone. I believe he looked +every soul in the eyes before he had done. Once he said something and caught my +eye, and I felt a sudden lump in my throat. There was a boy there, a pale, +thin, sensitive boy who was eating his heart out because of things he +didn’t understand. He was ambitious and longed for something different +from this life; he’d written a story or two and some rhymes for the local +paper; his companions considered him a “bit ratty” and the grown-up +people thought him a “bit wrong in his head,” idiotic, or at least +“queer.” And during his sermon Peter spoke of “unsatisfied +longings,” of the hope of something better, and said that one had to +suffer much and for long years before he could preach or write; and then he +looked at that boy. I knew the boy very well; he has risen in the world since +then. +</p> + +<p> +Peter spoke of the life we lived, of the things we knew, and used names and +terms that we used. “I don’t know whether it was a blanky sermon or +a blanky lecture,” said long swanky Jim Bullock afterwards, “but it +was straight and hit some of us hard. It hit me once or twice, I can tell +yer.” Peter spoke of our lives: “And there is beauty—even in +this life and in this place,” he said. “Nothing is +wasted—nothing is without reason. There is beauty even in this +place——” +</p> + +<p> +I noticed something like a hint of a hard smile on Ross’s face; he moved +the hand on the desk and tightened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Peter, as if in answer to Ross’s expression and +the movement of his hand, “there is beauty in this life here. After a +good season, and when the bush is tall and dry, when the bush-fires threaten a +man’s crop of ripened wheat, there are tired men who run and ride from +miles round to help that man, and who fight the fire all night to save his +wheat—and some of them may have been wrangling with him for years. And in +the morning, when the wheat is saved and the danger is past, when the fire is +beaten out or turned, there are blackened, grimy hands that come together and +grip-hands that have not joined for many a long day.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Palmer, Ross’s neighbour, moved uneasily. He had once helped Ross to +put a fire out, but they had quarrelled again since. Ross still sat in the same +position, looking the hard man he was. Peter glanced at Ross, looked down and +thought a while, and then went on again: +</p> + +<p> +“There is beauty even in this life and in this place. When a man loses +his farm, or his stock, or his crop, through no fault of his own, there are +poor men who put their hands into their pockets to help him.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Kurtz, over the ridge, had had his stacked crop of wheat in sheaf +burned—some scoundrel had put a match to it at night—and the +farmers round had collected nearly fifty pounds for him. +</p> + +<p> +“There is beauty even in this life and in this place. In the blazing +drought, when the cattle lie down and cannot rise from weakness, neighbours +help neighbours to lift them. When one man has hay or chaff and no stock, he +gives it or sells it cheaply to the poor man who has starving cattle and no +fodder.” +</p> + +<p> +I only knew one or two instances of this kind; but Peter was preaching of what +man should do as well as what they did. +</p> + +<p> +“When a man meets with an accident, or dies, there are young men who go +with their ploughs and horses and plough the ground for him or his widow and +put in the crop.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim Bullock and one or two other young men squirmed. They had ploughed old +Leonard’s land for him when he met with an accident in the shape of a +broken leg got by a kick from a horse. They had also ploughed the ground for +Mrs Phipps when her husband died, working, by the way, all Saturday afternoon +and Sunday, for they were very busy at home at that time. +</p> + +<p> +“There is beauty even in this life and in this place. There are women who +were friends in girlhood and who quarrelled bitterly over a careless word, an +idle tale, or some paltry thing, who live within a mile of each other and have +not spoken for years; yet let one fall ill, or lose husband or child, and the +other will hurry across to her place and take off her bonnet and tuck up her +sleeves, and set to work to help straighten things, and they will kiss, and cry +in each other’s arms, and be sisters again.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw tears in the eyes of two hard and hard-faced women I knew; but they were +smiling to each other through their tears. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said Peter, “I want to talk to you about some +other things. I am not preaching as a man who has been taught to preach +comfortably, but as a man who has learned in the world’s school. I know +what trouble is. Men,” he said, still speaking quietly, “and women +too! I have been through trouble as deep as any of yours—perhaps deeper. +I know how you toil and suffer, I know what battles you fight, I know. I too +fought a battle, perhaps as hard as any you fight. I carry a load and am +fighting a battle still.” His eyes were very haggard just them. +“But this is not what I wanted to talk to you about. I have nothing to +say against a young man going away from this place to better himself, but there +are young men who go out back shearing or droving, young men who are +goodhearted but careless, who make cheques, and spend their money gambling or +drinking and never think of the old folk at home until it is too late. They +never think of the old people, alone, perhaps, in a desolate but on a +worked-out farm in the scrub.” +</p> + +<p> +Jim Bullock squirmed again. He had gone out back last season and made a cheque, +and lost most of it on horse-racing and cards. +</p> + +<p> +“They never think—they cannot think how, perhaps, long years agone +in the old days, the old father, as a young man, and his brave young wife, came +out here and buried themselves in the lonely bush and toiled for many years, +trying—it does not matter whether they failed or not—trying to make +homes for their children; toiled till the young man was bowed and grey, and the +young wife brown and wrinkled and worn out. Exiles they were in the early +days—boy-husbands and girl-wives some of them, who left their native +lands, who left all that was dear, that seemed beautiful, that seemed to make +life worth living, and sacrificed their young lives in drought and utter +loneliness to make homes for their children. I want you young men to think of +this. Some of them came from England, Ireland, Bonnie Scotland.” Ross +straightened up and let his hands fall loosely on his knees. “Some from +Europe—your foreign fathers—some from across the Rhine in +Germany.” We looked at old Kurtz. He seemed affected. +</p> + +<p> +Then Peter paused for a moment and blinked thoughtfully at Ross, then he took a +drink of water. I can see now that the whole thing was a battle between Peter +M’Laughlan and Robert Ross—Scot met Scot. “It seemed to +me,” Jim Bullock said afterwards, “that Peter was only tryin’ +to make some of us blanky well blubber.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there are men,” Peter went on, “who have struggled and +suffered and failed, and who have fought and failed again till their tempers +are spoiled, until they grow bitter. They go in for self-pity, and self-pity +leads to moping and brooding and madness; self-pity is the most selfish and +useless thing on the face of God’s earth. It is cruel, it is deadly, both +to the man and to those who love him, and whom he ought to love. His load grows +heavier daily in his imagination, and he sinks down until it is in him to curse +God and die. He ceases to care for or to think of his children who are working +to help him.” (Ross’s sons were good, steady, hard-working boys.) +“Or the brave wife who has been so true to him for many hard years, who +left home and friends and country for his sake. Who bears up in the blackest of +times, and persists in looking at the bright side of things for his sake; who +has suffered more than he if he only knew it, and suffers now, through him and +because of him, but who is patient and bright and cheerful while her heart is +breaking. He thinks she does not suffer, that she cannot suffer as a man does. +My God! he doesn’t know. He has forgotten in her the bright, fresh-faced, +loving lassie he loved and won long years agone—long years +agone——” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sob, like the sob of an over-ridden horse as it sinks down +broken-hearted, and Ross’s arms went out on the desk in front of him, and +his head went down on them. He was beaten. +</p> + +<p> +He was steered out gently with his wife on one side of him and his eldest son +on the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be alarmed, my friends,” said Peter, standing by the +water-bag with one hand on the tap and the pannikin in the other. “Mr +Ross has not been well lately, and the heat has been too much for him.” +And he went out after Ross. They took him round under the bush shed behind the +hut, where it was cooler. +</p> + +<p> +When Peter came back to his place he seemed to have changed his whole manner +and tone. “Our friend, Mr Ross, is much better,” he said. “We +will now sing”—he glanced at Clara Southwick at the +harmonium—“we will now sing ‘Shall We Gather at the +River?’” We all knew that hymn; it was an old favourite round +there, and Clara Southwick played it well in spite of the harmonium. +</p> + +<p> +And Peter sang—the first and last time I ever heard him sing. I never had +an ear for music; but I never before nor since heard a man’s voice that +stirred me as Peter M’Laughlan’s. We stood like emus, listening to +him all through one verse, then we pulled ourselves together. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Shall we gather at the River,<br/> +Where bright angels’ feet have trod— +</p> + +<p> +The only rivers round there were barren creeks, the best of them only strings +of muddy waterholes, and across the ridge, on the sheep-runs, the creeks were +dry gutters, with baked banks and beds, and perhaps a mudhole every mile or so, +and dead beasts rotting and stinking every few yards. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Gather with the saints at the River,<br/> +That flows by the throne of God. +</p> + +<p> +Peter’s voice trembled and broke. He caught his breath, and his eyes +filled. But he smiled then—he stood smiling at us through his tears. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The beautiful, the beautiful River,<br/> +That flows by the throne of God. +</p> + +<p> +Outside I saw women kiss each other who had been at daggers drawn ever since I +could remember, and men shake hands silently who had hated each other for +years. Every family wanted Peter to come home to tea, but he went across to +Ross’s, and afterwards down to Kurtz’s place, and bled and +inoculated six cows or so in a new way, and after tea he rode off over the gap +to see his friend. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"></a> +HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +By his paths through the parched desolation,<br/> +Â Â Â Â Hot rides and the terrible tramps;<br/> +By the hunger, the thirst, the privation<br/> +Â Â Â Â Of his work in the furthermost camps;<br/> +<br/> +By his worth in the light that shall search men<br/> +Â Â Â Â And prove—ay! and justify each—<br/> +I place him in front of all Churchmen<br/> +Â Â Â Â Who feel not, who <i>know</i> not—but preach!<br/> +Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â <i>The Christ of the Never</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I told you about Peter M’Laughlan, the bush missionary, and how he +preached in the little slab-and-bark school-house in the scrub on Ross’s +Creek that blazing hot Sunday afternoon long ago, when the drought was ruining +the brave farmers all round there and breaking their hearts. And how hard old +Ross, the selector, broke down at the end of the sermon, and blubbered, and had +to be taken out of church. +</p> + +<p> +I left home and drifted to Sydney, and “back into the Great North-West +where all the rovers go,” and knocked about the country for six or seven +years before I met Peter M’Laughlan again. I was young yet, but felt old +at times, and there were times, in the hot, rough, greasy shearing-shed on +blazing days, or in the bare “men’s hut” by the flicker of +the stinking slush-lamp at night, or the wretched wayside shanty with its +drink-madness and blasphemy, or tramping along the dusty, endless +track—there were times when I wished I could fall back with all the +experience I’d got, and sit once more in the little slab-and-bark +“chapel” on Ross’s Creek and hear Peter M’Laughlan and +the poor, struggling selectors sing “Shall We Gather at the River?” +and then go out and start life afresh. +</p> + +<p> +My old school chum and bush mate, Jack Barnes, had married pretty little Clara +Southwick, who used to play the portable harmonium in chapel. I nearly broke my +heart when they were married, but then I was a young fool. Clara was a year or +so older than I, and I could never get away from a boyish feeling of reverence +for her, as if she were something above and out of my world. And so, while I +was worshipping her in chapel once a month, and at picnics and parties in +between, and always at a distance, Jack used to ride up to Southwick’s +place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and on other days, and hang his horse +up outside, or turn it in the paddock, and argue with old Southwick, and agree +with the old woman, and court Clara on the sly. And he got her. +</p> + +<p> +It was at their wedding that I first got the worse for drink. +</p> + +<p> +Jack was a blue-eyed, curly black-haired, careless, popular young scamp; as +good-hearted as he was careless. He could ride like a circus monkey, do all +kinds of bush work, add two columns of figures at once, and write like +copper-plate. +</p> + +<p> +Jack was given to drinking, gambling and roving. He steadied up when he got +married and started on a small selection of his own; but within the year Clara +was living in a back skillion of her father’s house and Jack was +up-country shearing. He was “ringer” of the shed at Piora Station +one season and made a decent cheque; and within a fortnight after the shed +“cut out” he turned up at home in a very bad state from drink and +with about thirty shillings in his pockets. He had fallen from his horse in the +creek near Southwick’s, and altogether he was a nice sort of young +husband to go home to poor, heart-broken Clara. +</p> + +<p> +I remember that time well. She stopped me one day as I was riding past to ask +me if I’d seen Jack, and I got off my horse. Her chin and mouth began to +twitch and tremble and I saw her eyes filling with tears. She laid her hand on +my arm and asked me to promise not to drink with Jack if I met him, but to try +and persuade him to come home. And—well, have you, as a man, ever, with +the one woman that you can’t have, and no matter at what time or place, +felt a sudden mad longing to take her in your arms and kiss her—and damn +the world? I got on my horse again. She must have thought me an ignorant brute, +but I felt safer there. And when I thought how I had nearly made a fool of +myself, and been a cowardly brute, and a rotten mate to my mate, I rode ten +miles to find Jack and get him home. +</p> + +<p> +He straightened up again after a bit and went out and got another shed, and +they say that Peter M’Laughlan got hold of him there. I don’t know +what Peter did to him then—Jack never spoke of it, even to me, his old +mate; but, anyway, at the end of the shearing season Jack’s cheque came +home to Clara in a registered envelope, addressed in Peter’s +hand-writing, and about a week later Jack turned up a changed man. +</p> + +<p> +He got work as a temporary clerk in the branch government land office at +Solong, a pretty little farming town in a circle of blue hills on the banks of +a clear, willow-fringed river, where there were rich, black-soil, river-flat +farms, and vineyards on the red soil slopes, and blue peaks in the distance. It +was a great contrast to Ross’s Creek. Jack paid a deposit on an allotment +of land, a bit out of town, on the river bank, and built a little weather-board +box of a cottage in spare times, and planted roses and grape-vines to hide its +ugliness by and by. It wasn’t much of a place, but Clara was mighty proud +of it because it was “our house.” They were very happy, and she was +beginning to feel sure of Jack. She seemed to believe that the miserable old +time was all past and gone. +</p> + +<p> +When the work at the land’s office gave out, Jack did all sorts of jobs +about town, and at last, one shearing season, when there was a heavy clip of +wool, and shearers were getting L1 a hundred, he decided to go out back. I know +that Clara was against it, but he argued that it was the only chance for him, +and she persuaded herself that she could trust him. I was knocking about Solong +at the time, and Jack and I decided to go out together and share his packhorse +between us. He wrote to Beenaway Shed, about three hundred: miles north-west in +the Great Scrubs, and got pens for both of us. +</p> + +<p> +It was a fine fresh morning when we started; it was in a good season and the +country looked grand. When I rode up to Jack’s place I saw his horse and +packhorse tied up outside the gate. He had wanted me to come up the evening +before and have tea with them and camp at his place for the night. “Come +up! man alive!” he said. “We’ll make you a shake-down!” +But I wouldn’t; I said I had to meet a chap. Jack wouldn’t have +understood. I had been up before, but when I saw him and Clara so happy and +comfortable, and thought of the past and my secret, and thought of myself, a +useless, purposeless, restless, homeless sort of fellow, hanging out at a +boarding-house, it nearly broke me up, and I had to have a drink or two +afterwards. I often wonder if Clara guessed and understood. You never know how +much a woman knows; but—ah, well! +</p> + +<p> +Jack had taken my things home with him and he and Clara had packed them. I +found afterwards that she had washed, dried and ironed some collars and +handkerchiefs of mine during the night. Clara and Jack came out to the gate, +and as I wouldn’t go in to have a cup of tea there was nothing for it but +to say good-bye. She was dressed in a fresh-looking print blouse and dark +skirt, and wore a white hood that fell back from her head; she was a little +girl, with sweet, small, freckled features, and red-gold hair, and kind, +sympathetic grey eyes. I thought her the freshest, and fairest, and daintiest +little woman in the district. +</p> + +<p> +I was Jack’s mate, so she always treated me as a sort of brother-in-law, +and called me by my Christian name. Mates are closer than brothers in the bush. +</p> + +<p> +I turned my back and pretended to tighten the straps and girths on the +packhorse while she said good-bye to Jack. I heard her speaking earnestly to +him, and once I heard her mention Peter M’Laughlan’s name. I +thought Jack answered rather impatiently. “Oh, that’s all right, +Clara,” he said, “that’s all over—past and gone. I wish +you would believe it. You promised never to speak of that any more.” +</p> + +<p> +I know how it was. Jack never cared to hear about Peter; he was too ashamed of +the past, perhaps; besides, deep down, we feel a sort of resentment towards any +reference to a man who has helped or saved us in the past. It’s human +nature. +</p> + +<p> +Then they spoke in low tones for a while, and then Jack laughed, and kissed +her, and said, “Oh, I’ll be back before the time’s up.” +Then he ran into the house to say good-bye to Mary’s sister, who was +staying with her, and who was laid up with a sprained ankle. +</p> + +<p> +Then Clara stepped up to me and laid her fingers on my shoulder. I trembled +from head to foot and hoped she didn’t notice it. +</p> + +<p> +“Joe,” she said, looking at me with her big, searching grey eyes, +“I believe I can trust you. I want you to look after Jack. You know why. +Never let him have one drink if you can help it. One drink—the first +drink will do it. I want you to promise me that you will never have a drink +with Jack, no matter what happens or what he says.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never will,” I said, and I meant it. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the first time he’s been away from me since he gave up +drinking, and if he comes back all right this time I will be sure of him and +contented. But, Joe, if he comes back wrong it will kill me; it will break my +heart. I want you to promise that if anything happens you will ride or wire for +Peter M’Laughlan. I hear he’s wool-sorting this year at Beenaway +Station. Promise me that if anything happens you will ride for Peter +M’Laughlan and tell him, no matter what Jack says.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +She half-held out her hand to me, but I kept both mine behind my back. I +suppose she thought I didn’t notice that she wanted to shake hands on the +bargain; but the truth was that my hands shook so, and I didn’t want her +to notice <i>that</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I got on my horse and felt steadier. Then, “Good-bye, +Clara”—“Good-bye, Jack.” She bore up bravely, but I saw +her eyes brimming. Jack got on his horse, and I bent over and shook hands with +her. Jack bent down and kissed her while she stood on tiptoe. “Good-bye, +little woman,” he said. “Cheer up, and I’ll be back before +you know where you are! You mustn’t fret—you know why.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Jack!”—she was breaking down. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Jack!” I said, and we rode off, turning and waving our +hats to her as she stood by the gate, looking a desolate little thing, I +thought, till we turned down a bend of the road into the river. +</p> + +<p> +As we jogged along with the packhorse trotting behind us, and the quart-pots +and hobble-chains jingling on the packsaddle, I pictured Clara running inside, +to cry a while in her sister’s arms, and then to bustle round and cheer +up, for Jack’s sake—and for the sake of something else. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll christen him after you, Joe,” said Jack, later on, when +we’d got confidential over our pipes after tea in our first camp. It +never seemed to enter his head that there was the ghost of a chance that it +might be a girl. “I’m glad he didn’t come along when I was +drinking,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +And as we lay rolled in our blankets under the stars I swore a big oath to +myself. +</p> + +<p> +We got along comfortably and reached Beenaway Station in about a week, the day +before the shearers’ roll-call. Jack never showed the slightest +inclination to go into a shanty; and several times we talked about old times +and what damned fools we’d been throwing away our money over shanty bars +shouting for loafers and cadgers. “Isn’t this ever so-much better, +Joe!” said Jack, as we lay on our blankets smoking one moonlight night. +“There’s nothing in boozing, Joe, you can take it from me. Just you +sling it for a year and then look back; you won’t want to touch it again. +You’ve been straight for a couple of months. Sling it for good, Joe, +before it gets a hold on you, like it did on me.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the morning after cut-out at Beenaway Shed, and we were glad. We were +tired of the rush and roar and rattle and heat and grease and blasphemy of the +big, hot, iron machine shed in that dusty patch in the barren scrubs. Swags +were rolled up, saddle-bags packed, horses had been rounded up and driven in, +the shearers’ cook and his mate had had their fight, and about a hundred +men—shearers, rouseabouts, and wool-washers—were waiting round the +little iron office to get their cheques. +</p> + +<p> +We were about half through when one bushman said to another: “Stop your +damned swearin’, Jim. Here’s Peter M’Laughlan!” Peter +walked up and the men made way for him and he went into the office. There was +always considerably less swearing for a few feet round about where Peter +M’Laughlan happened to be working in a shearing-shed. It seemed to be an +understood thing with the men. He took no advantages, never volunteered to +preach at a shed where he was working, and only spoke on union subjects when +the men asked him to. He was “rep.” (Shearers’ Union +representative) at this shed, but squatters and station managers respected him +as much as the men did. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed much greyer now, but still stood square and straight. And his eyes +still looked one through. +</p> + +<p> +When Peter came out and the crowd had cleared away he took Jack aside and spoke +to him in a low voice for a few minutes. I heard Jack say, “Oh, +that’s all right, Peter! You have my word for it,” and he got on +his horse. I heard Peter say the one word, “Remember!” “Oh, +that’s all right,” said Jack, and he shook hands with Peter, +shouted, “Come on, Joe!” and started off with the packhorse after +him. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I were going down with you, Joe,” said Peter to me, +“but I can’t get away till to-morrow. I’ve got that sick +rouseabout on my hands, and I’ll have to see him fixed up somehow and +started off to the hospital” (the nearest was a hundred miles away). +“And, by the way, I’ve taken up a collection for him; I want a few +shillings from you, Joe. I nearly forgot you. The poor fellow only got in about +a fortnight’s work, and there’s a wife and youngsters in Sydney. +I’ll be down after you to-morrow. I promised to go to Comesomehow<a +href="#fn1" name="fnref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> and get the people together and +start an agitation for a half-time school there. Anyway, I’ll be there by +the end of the week. Good-bye, Joe. I must get some more money for the rouser +from some of those chaps before they start.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn1"></a><a href="#fnref1">[1]</a> +There is a postal district in new South Wales called “Come-by-Chance.” +</p> + +<p> +Comesomehow was a wretched cockatoo settlement, a bit off the track, about one +hundred and fifty miles on our road home, where the settlers lived like savages +and the children ran wild. I reckoned that Peter would have his work cut out to +start a craving for education in that place. +</p> + +<p> +By saying he’d be there I think he intended to give me a hint, in case +anything happened. I believe now that Jack’s wife had got anxious and had +written to him. +</p> + +<p> +We jogged along comfortably and happily for three or four days, and as we +passed shanty after shanty, and town after town, without Jack showing the +slightest inclination to pull up at any of them, I began to feel safe about +him. +</p> + +<p> +Then it happened, in the simplest way, as most things of this sort happen if +you don’t watch close. +</p> + +<p> +The third night it rained, rained heavens-hard, and rainy nights can be mighty +cold out on those plains, even in midsummer. Jack and I rigged up a strip of +waterproof stuff we had to cover the swags on the packhorse, but the rain drove +in, almost horizontally, and we got wet through, blankets, clothes and all. +Jack got a bad cold and coughed fit to break himself; so about daylight, when +the rain held up a bit, we packed up and rode on to the next pub, a wretched +little weather-board place in the scrub. +</p> + +<p> +Jack reckoned he’d get some stuff for his cold there. I didn’t like +to speak, but before we reached the place I said, “You won’t touch +a drink, Jack.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I’m a blanky fool?” said Jack, and I shut up. +</p> + +<p> +The shanty was kept by a man who went by the name of Thomas, a notorious +lamber-down,<a href="#fn2" name="fnref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> as I found out +afterwards. He was a big, awkward bullock of a man, a selfish, ignorant brute, +as anyone might have seen by his face; but he had a loud voice, and adopted a +careless, rollicking, hail-fellow-well-met! come-in-and-sit-down-man-alive! +clap-you-on-the-back style, which deceived a good many, or which a good many +pretended to believe in. His “missus” was an animal of his own +species, but she was duller and didn’t bellow. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn2"></a><a href="#fnref2">[2]</a> +“Lamber-down,” a shanty keeper who entices cheque-men to drink. +</p> + +<p> +He had a rather good-looking girl there—I don’t know whether she +was his daughter or not. They said that when he saw the shearers coming +he’d say, “Run and titivate yourself, Mary; here comes the +shearers!” +</p> + +<p> +But what surprised me was that Jack Barnes didn’t seem able to see +through Thomas; he thought that he was all right, “a bit of a rough +diamond.” There are any amount of scoundrels and swindlers knocking about +the world disguised as rough diamonds. +</p> + +<p> +Jack had a fit of coughing when we came in. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Jack!” bellowed Thomas, “that’s a regular +churchyarder you’ve got. Go in to the kitchen fire and I’ll mix you +a stiff toddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you, Thomas,” said Jack, glancing at me rather +sheepishly, I thought. “I’ll have a hot cup of coffee presently, +that’ll do me more good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, man alive, one drink won’t hurt you!” said Thomas. +“I know you’re on the straight, and you know I’m the last man +that ’ud try to get you off it. But you want something for that cold. You +don’t want to die on the track, do you? What would your missus say? That +cough of yours is enough to bust a bullock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jack isn’t drinking, Thomas,” I said rather shortly, +“and neither am I.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have a cup of coffee at breakfast,” said Jack; +“thank you all the same, Thomas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right you are, Jack!” said Thomas. “Mary!” he roared +at the girl, “chuck yerself about and get breakfast, and make a strong +cup of coffee; and I say, missus” (to his wife), “git some honey +and vinegar in a cup, will yer? or see if there’s any of that cough stuff +left in the bottle. Go into the kitchen, you chaps, and dry yourselves at the +fire, you’re wringing wet.” +</p> + +<p> +Jack went through into the kitchen. I stepped out to see if the horses were all +right, and as I came in again through the bar, Thomas, who had slipped behind +the counter, crooked his finger at me and poured out a stiff whisky. “I +thought you might like to have it on the quiet,” he whispered, with a +wink. +</p> + +<p> +Now, there was this difference between Jack and me. When I was on the track, +and healthy and contented, I could take a drink, or two drinks, and then leave +it; or at other times I could drink all day, or all night, and be as happy as a +lord, and be mighty sick and repentant all next day, and then not touch drink +for a week; but if Jack once started, he was a lost man for days, for weeks, +for, months—as long as his cash or credit lasted. I felt a cold coming on +me this morning, and wanted a whisky, so I had a drink with Thomas. Then, of +course, I shouted in my turn, keeping an eye out in case Jack should come in. I +went into the kitchen and steamed with Jack for a while in front of a big log +fire, taking care to keep my breath away from him. Then we went in to +breakfast. Those two drinks were all I meant to have, and we were going right +on after breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +It was a good breakfast, ham and eggs, and we enjoyed it. The two whiskies had +got to work. I hadn’t touched drink for a long time. I shouldn’t +like to say that Thomas put anything in the drink he gave me. Before we started +breakfast he put a glass down in front of me and said: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a good ginger-ale, it will warm you up.” +</p> + +<p> +I tasted it; it was rum, hot. I said nothing. What could I say? +</p> + +<p> +There was some joke about Jack being married and settled and steadied down, and +me, his old mate, still on the wallaby; and Mrs Thomas said that I ought to +follow Jack’s example. And just then I felt a touch of that loneliness +that some men feel when an old drinking mate turns teetotaller. +</p> + +<p> +Jack started coughing again, like an old cow with the pleuro. +</p> + +<p> +“That cough will kill you, Jack,” said Thomas. “Let’s +put a drop of brandy in your coffee, that won’t start you, anyhow; +it’s real ‘Three Star.’” And he reached a bottle from +the side-table. +</p> + +<p> +I should have stood up then, for my manhood, for my mate, and for little Clara, +but I half rose from my chair, and Jack laughed and said, “Sit down, Joe, +you old fool, you’re tanked. I know all about your seeing about the +horses and your ginger-ales. It’s all right, old man. Do you think +I’m going on the booze? Why, I’ll have to hold you on the horse all +day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s luck, Joe!” said Jack, laughing, and lifting up his +cup of coffee with the brandy in it. “Here’s luck, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly, and as clearly as I ever heard it, came Clara’s voice to +my ear: “Promise me, whatever you do, that you will never have a drink +with Jack.” And I felt cold and sick to the stomach. +</p> + +<p> +I got up and went out. They thought that the drink had made me sick, but if +I’d stayed there another minute I would have tackled Thomas; and I knew +that I needed a clear head to tackle a bullock like him. I walked about a bit, +and when I came in again Jack and Thomas were in the bar, and Jack had a glass +before him. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, Joe, you old bounder,” said Jack, “come and have a +whisky-and-soda; it will straighten you up.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that you’re drinking, Jack?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t be a fool!” said Jack. “One drink +won’t hurt me. Do you think I’m going on the booze? Have a soda and +straighten up; we must make a start directly.” +</p> + +<p> +I remember we had two or three whiskies, and then suddenly I tackled Thomas, +and Jack was holding me back, and laughing and swearing at me at the same time, +and I had a tussle with him; and then I was suddenly calmer and sensible, and +we were shaking hands all round, and Jack was talking about just one more spree +for the sake of old times. +</p> + +<p> +“A bit of a booze won’t hurt me, Joe, you old fool,” he said. +“We’ll have one more night of it, for the sake of Auld Lang Syne, +and start at daylight in the morning. You go and see to the horses, it will +straighten you up. Take the saddle off and hobble ’em out.” +</p> + +<p> +But I insisted on starting at once, and Jack promised he would. We were +gloriously happy for an hour or so, and then I went to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +When I woke it was late in the afternoon. I was very giddy and shaky; the girl +brought me a whisky-and-soda, and that steadied me. Some more shearers had +arrived, and Jack was playing cards with two of them on top of a cask in the +bar. Thomas was dead drunk on the floor, or pretending to be so, and his wife +was behind the bar. I went out to see to the horses; I found them in a bush +yard at the back. The packhorse was rolling in the mud with the pack-saddle and +saddlebags on. One of the chaps helped me take off the saddles and put them in +the harness-room behind the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +I’ll pass over that night. It wouldn’t be very edifying to the +great, steady-living, sober majority, and the others, the never-do-wells, the +rovers, wrecks and failures, will understand only too well without being +told—only too well, God help them! +</p> + +<p> +When I woke in the morning I couldn’t have touched a drink to save my +life. I was fearfully shaky, and swimming about the head, but I put my head +over a tub under the pump and got the girl to pump for a while, and then I +drank a pint of tea and managed to keep it down, and felt better. +</p> + +<p> +All through the last half of the night I’d kept saying, in a sort of +drink nightmare, “I’ll go for Peter M’Laughlan in the +morning. I’ll go for Peter as soon as I can stand!” and repeating +Clara Barnes’s words, “Ride for Peter if anything happens. Ride for +Peter M’Laughlan.” +</p> + +<p> +There were drunken shearers, horsemen and swagmen sleeping all over the place, +and in all sorts of odd positions; some on the veranda with their heads on +their swags, one sitting back against the wall, and one on the broad of his +back with his head on the bare boards and his mouth open. There was another +horse rolling in its saddle, and I took the saddle off. The horse belonged to +an English University man. +</p> + +<p> +I went in to see how Jack was. He was lying in the parlour on a little, +worn-out, horse-hair sofa, that might have seen better days in some clean home +in the woman-and-girl world. He had been drinking and playing cards till early +that morning, and he looked awful—he looked as if he’d been boozing +for a month. +</p> + +<p> +“See what you’ve done!” he said, sitting up and glaring at +me; then he said, “Bring me a whisky-and-soda, Joe, for God’s +sake!” +</p> + +<p> +I got a whisky-and-soda from the girl and took it to him. +</p> + +<p> +I talked to him for a while, and at last he said, “Well, go and get the +horses and we’ll start.” +</p> + +<p> +I got the horses ready and brought them round to the front, but by that time +he’d had more drink, and he said he wanted to sleep before he started. +Next he was playing cards with one of the chaps, and asked me to wait till +he’d finished that game. I knew he’d keep promising and humbugging +me till there was a row, so at last I got him aside and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Jack, I’m going for Peter +M’Laughlan——” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to hell!” said Jack. +</p> + +<p> +I put the other horses back in the yard, the saddles in the skillion, got on my +horse and rode off. Thomas and the others asked me no questions, they took no +notice. In a place like that a man could almost do anything, short of hanging +himself, without anyone interfering or being surprised. And probably, if he did +hang himself, they’d let him swing for a while to get a taste of it. +</p> + +<p> +Comesomehow was about fifteen miles back on a track off the main road. I +reckoned that I could find Peter and bring him on by the afternoon, and I rode +hard, sick as I was. I was too sick to smoke. +</p> + +<p> +As it happened, Peter had started early from his last camp and I caught him +just as he was turning off into Comesomehow track. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up, Joe?” he asked as I rode up to him—but he +could see. +</p> + +<p> +“Jack Barnes is on the booze at Thomas’s,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +Peter just looked right through me. Then he turned his horse’s head +without a word, and rode back with me. And, after a while, he said, as if to +himself: +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Clara! Poor little lassie!” +</p> + +<p> +By the time we reached the shanty it was well on in the afternoon. A fight was +stopped in the first round and voices lowered when the chaps caught sight of +us. As Peter walked into the bar one or two drunks straightened themselves and +took off their hats with drunken sentiment. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Jack Barnes, Thomas?” asked Peter, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in there if you want to see him,” said Thomas, jerking +his head towards the parlour. +</p> + +<p> +We went in, and when Peter saw Jack lying there I noticed that swift, haunted +look came into his eyes, as if he’d seen a ghost of the past. He sat down +by the sofa to wait until Jack woke. I thought as he sat there that his eyes +were like a woman’s for sympathy and like a dog’s for faithfulness. +I was very shaky. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Thomas looked in. “Is there anything I can do for you, +M’Laughlan?” he asked in as civil a tone as he could get to. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Peter, “bring me a flask of your best +whisky—your own, mind—and a glass. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall need the whisky for him on the track, Joe,” said Peter, +when the flask came. “Get another glass and a bottle of soda; you want a +nip.” He poured out a drink for himself. +</p> + +<p> +“The first thing we’ve got to do is to get him away; then +I’ll soon put him on his feet. But we’ll let him sleep a while +longer. I find I’ve got business near Solong, and I’m going down +with you.” +</p> + +<p> +By and by Jack woke up and glared round, and when he caught sight of Peter he +just reached for his hands and said, “Peter! Thank God you’ve +come!” Then he said, “But I must have a drink first, Peter.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Jack, you shall have a drink,” said Peter; and he gave +him a stiff nobblerq. It steadied Jack a bit. +</p> + +<p> +“Now listen to me, Jack,” said Peter. “How much money have +you got left?” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I can’t think,” said Jack. “I’ve got a +cheque for twenty pounds here, sewn inside my shirt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but you drew thirty-six in three cheques. Where’s the +rest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thomas has ten,” said Jack, “and the six—well, the six +is gone. I was playing cards last night.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter stepped out into the bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, Thomas,” he said quietly, “you’ve got a +ten-pound cheque from Barnes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how much of it does he owe you?” +</p> + +<p> +“The whole, and more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to tell me that? He has only been here since yesterday +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but he’s been shoutin’ all round. Look at all these +chaps here.” +</p> + +<p> +“They only came yesterday afternoon,” said Peter. “Here, you +had best take this and give me the cheque;” and Peter laid a five-pound +note on the bar. Thomas bucked at first, but in the end he handed over the +cheque—he had had several warnings from the police. Then he suddenly lost +all control over himself; he came round from behind the bar and faced Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, you mongrel parson!” he said. “What the +—— do you mean by coming into my bar and, interfering with me. Who +the —— are you anyway? A ——!” He used the worst +oaths that were used in the bush. “Take off your —— +coat!” he roared at last, shaping up to Peter. +</p> + +<p> +Peter stepped back a pace and buttoned his coat and threw back his head. +</p> + +<p> +“No need to take off my coat, Thomas,” he said, “I am +ready.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it very quietly, but there was a danger-signal—a red light in his +eyes. He was quiet-voiced but hard-knuckled, as some had reason to know. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas balked like a bull at a spread umbrella. Jack lurched past me as I stood +in the parlour door, but I caught him and held him back; and almost at the same +moment a wretched old boozer that we called “Awful Example,” who +had been sitting huddled, a dirty bundle of rags and beard and hair, in the +corner of the bar, struggled to his feet, staggered forward and faced Thomas, +looking once again like something that might have been a man. He snatched a +thick glass bottle from the counter and held it by the neck in his right hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand back, Thomas!” he shouted. “Lay a hand—lay a +finger on Peter M’Laughlan, and I’ll smash your head, as sure as +there’s a God above us and I’m a ruined man!” +</p> + +<p> +Peter took “Awful” gently by the shoulders and sat him down. +“You keep quiet, old man,” he said; “nothing is going to +happen.” Thomas went round behind the bar muttering something about it +not being worth his while to, etc. +</p> + +<p> +“You go and get the horses ready, Joe,” said Peter to me; +“and you sit down, Jack, and keep quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +“He can get the horses,” growled Thomas, from behind the bar, +“but I’m damned if he gets the saddles. I’ve got them locked +up, and I’ll something well keep them till Barnes is sober enough to pay +me what he owes me.” +</p> + +<p> +Just then a tall, good-looking chap, with dark-blue eyes and a long, +light-coloured moustache, stepped into the bar from the crowd on the veranda. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s all this, Thomas?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that got to do with you, Gentleman Once?” shouted +Thomas. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s got something to do with me,” said Gentleman +Once. “Now, look here, Thomas; you can do pretty well what you like with +us poor devils, and you know it, but we draw the line at Peter +M’Laughlan. If you really itch for the thrashing, you deserve you must +tempt someone else to give it to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What the —— are you talking about?” snorted Thomas. +“You’re drunk or ratty!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the trouble, M’Laughlan?” asked Gentleman Once, +turning to Peter. “No trouble at all, Gentleman Once,” said Peter; +“thank you all the same. I’ve managed worse men than our friend +Thomas. Now, Thomas, don’t you think it would pay you best to hand over +the key of the harness-room and have done with this nonsense? I’m a +patient man—a very patient man—but I’ve not always been so, +and the old blood comes up sometimes, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas couldn’t stand this sort of language, because he couldn’t +understand it. He threw the key on the bar and told us to clear out. +</p> + +<p> +We were all three very quiet riding along the track that evening. Peter gave +Jack a nip now and again from the flask, and before we turned in in camp he +gave him what he called a soothing draught from a little medicine chest that he +carried in his saddle-bag. Jack seemed to have got rid of his cough; he slept +all night, and in the morning, after he’d drunk a pint of mutton-broth +that Peter had made in one of the billies, he was all right—except that +he was quiet and ashamed. I had never known him to be so quiet, and for such a +length of time, since we were boys together. He had learned his own weakness; +he’d lost all his cocksureness. I know now just exactly how he felt. He +felt as if his sober year had been lost and he would have to live it all over +again. +</p> + +<p> +Peter didn’t preach. He just jogged along and camped with us as if he +were an ordinary, every-day mate. He yarned about all sorts of things. He could +tell good yarns, and when he was fairly on you could listen to him all night. +He seemed to have been nearly all over the world. Peter never preached except +when he was asked to hold service in some bush pub, station-homestead or bush +church. But in a case like ours he had a way of telling a little life story, +with something in it that hit the young man he wanted to reform, and hit him +hard. He’d generally begin quietly, when we were comfortable with our +pipes in camp after tea, with “I once knew a young man—” or +“That reminds me of a young fellow I knew—” and so on. You +never knew when he was going to begin; or when he was going to hit you. In our +last camp, before we reached Solong, he told two of his time-fuse yarns. I +haven’t time to tell them now, but one stuffed up my pipe for a while, +and made Jack’s hand tremble when he tried to light his. I’m glad +it was too dark to see our faces. We lay a good while afterwards, rolled in our +blankets, and couldn’t get to sleep for thinking; but Peter seemed to +fall asleep as soon as he turned in. +</p> + +<p> +Next day he told Jack not to tell Clara that he’d come down with us. He +said he wouldn’t go right into Solong with us; he was going back along +another road to stay a day or two with an old friend of his. +</p> + +<p> +When we reached Solong we stopped on the river-bank just out of sight of +Jack’s house. Peter took the ten-pound cheque from his pocket and gave it +to Jack. Jack hadn’t seen Peter give the shanty-keeper the five-pound +note. +</p> + +<p> +“But I owed Thomas something,” said Jack, staring. “However +did you manage to get the cheque out of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Jack, I managed,” said Peter. +</p> + +<p> +Jack sat silent for a while, then he began to breathe hard. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what to say, Peter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say nothing, Jack. Only promise me that you will give Clara the cheques +as soon as you go home, and let her take care of the cash for a while.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said Jack. +</p> + +<p> +Jack looked down at the ground for a while, then he lifted his head and looked +Peter in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Peter,” he said, “I can’t speak. I’m ashamed to +make a promise; I’ve broken so many. I’ll try to thank you in a +year’s time from now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ask for no promises,” said Peter, and he held out his hand. Jack +gripped it. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you coming home with me, Joe?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said; “I’ll go into town. See you in the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Jack rode on. When he got along a piece Peter left his horse and moved up to +the head of the lane to watch Jack, and I followed. As Jack neared the cottage +we saw a little figure in a cloak run out to the front gate. She had heard the +horses and the jingle of the camp-ware on the pack-saddle. We saw Jack jump +down and take her in his arms. I looked at Peter, and as he watched them, +something, that might have been a strange look of the old days, came into his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He shook hands with me. “Good-bye, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +He rode across the river again. He took the track that ran along the foot of +the spurs by the river, and up over a gap in the curve of blue hills, and down +and out west towards the Big Scrubs. And as he rounded the last spur, with his +packhorse trotting after him, I thought he must have felt very lonely. And I +felt lonely too. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"></a> +THE STORY OF “GENTLEMAN ONCE”</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +They learn the world from black-sheep,<br/> +Who know it all too well.—<i>Out Back</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Peter M’Laughlan, bush missionary, Joe Wilson and his mate, Jack Barnes, +shearers for the present, and a casual swagman named Jack Mitchell, were camped +at Cox’s Crossing in a bend of Eurunderee Creek. +</p> + +<p> +It was a grassy little flat with gum-trees standing clear and clean like a +park. At the back was the steep grassy siding of a ridge, and far away across +the creek to the south a spur from the Blue Mountain range ran west, with a +tall, blue granite peak showing clear in the broad moonlight, yet dream-like +and distant over the sweeps of dark green bush. +</p> + +<p> +There was the jingle of hobble-chains and a crunching at the grass where the +horses moved in the soft shadows amongst the trees. Up the creek on the other +side was a surveyors’ camp, and from there now and again came the sound +of a good voice singing verses of old songs; and later on the sound of a violin +and a cornet being played, sometimes together and sometimes each on its own. +</p> + +<p> +Wilson and Barnes were on their way home from shearing out back in the great +scrubs at Beenaway Shed. They had been rescued by Peter M’Laughlan from a +wayside shanty where they had fallen, in spite of mutual oaths and past +promises, sacred and profane, because they had got wringing wet in a storm on +the track and caught colds, and had been tempted to take just one drink. +</p> + +<p> +They were in a bad way, and were knocking down their cheques beautifully when +Peter M’Laughlan came along. He rescued them and some of their cash from +the soulless shanty keeper, and was riding home with them, on some pretence, +because he had known them as boys, because Joe Wilson had a vein of poetry in +him—a something in sympathy with something in Peter; because Jack Barnes +had a dear little girl-wife who was much too good for him, and who was now +anxiously waiting for him in the pretty little farming town of Solong amongst +the western spurs. Because, perhaps, of something in Peter’s early past +which was a mystery. Simply and plainly because Peter M’Laughlan was the +kindest, straightest and truest man in the West—a “white +man.” +</p> + +<p> +They all knew Mitchell and welcomed him heartily when he turned up in their +camp, because he was a pathetic humorist and a kindly cynic—a +“joker” or “hard case” as the bushmen say. +</p> + +<p> +Peter was about fifty and the other three were young men. +</p> + +<p> +There was another man in camp who didn’t count and was supposed to be +dead. Old Danny Quinn, champion “beer-chewer” of the district, was +on his way out, after a spree, to one of Rouse’s stations, where, for the +sake of past services—long past—and because of old times, he was +supposed to be working. He had spent his last penny a week before and had clung +to his last-hope hotel until the landlord had taken him in one hand and his +swag in the other and lifted them clear of the veranda. Danny had blundered on, +this far, somehow; he was the last in the world who could have told how, and +had managed to light a fire; then he lay with his head on his swag and enjoyed +nips of whisky in judicious doses and at reasonable intervals, and later on a +tot of mutton-broth, which he made in one of the billies. +</p> + +<p> +It was after tea. Peter sat on a log by the fire with Joe and Jack Mitchell on +one side and Jack Barnes on the other. Jack Mitchell sat on the grass with his +back to the log, his knees drawn up, and his arms abroad on them: his most +comfortable position and one which seemed to favour the flow of his philosophy. +They talked of bush things or reflected, sometimes all three together, +sometimes by turns. +</p> + +<p> +From the surveyors’ camp: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I remember, I remember,<br/> +Â Â Â Â The house where I was born,<br/> +The little window where the sun<br/> +Â Â Â Â Came peeping in at morn— +</p> + +<p> +The breeze from the west strengthened and the voice was blown away. +</p> + +<p> +“That chap seems a bit sentimental but he’s got a good +voice,” said Mitchell. Then presently he remarked, round his pipe: +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if old Danny remembers?” And presently Peter said +quietly, as if the thought had just occurred to him: +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Mitchell, I forgot to ask after your old folk. I knew your +father, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’re all right, Peter, thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heard from them lately?” asked Peter, presently, in a lazy tone. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell straightened himself up. “N—no. To tell the truth, Peter, +I haven’t written for—I don’t know how long.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter smoked reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember your father well, Jack,” he said. “He was a +big-hearted man.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Danny was heard remonstrating loudly with spirits from a warmer clime than +Australia, and Peter stepped over to soothe him. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I’d get it, directly after I opened my mouth,” +said Mitchell. “I suppose it will be your turn next, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” said Joe, resignedly. +</p> + +<p> +The wind fell. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I remember, I remember,<br/> +Â Â Â Â And it gives me little joy,<br/> +To think I’m further off from heaven,<br/> +Â Â Â Â Than when I was a boy! +</p> + +<p> +When Peter came back another thought seemed to have occurred to him. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s your mother getting on, Joe?” he asked. “She +shifted to Sydney after your father died, didn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’s getting on all right!” said Joe, without +elaboration. +</p> + +<p> +“Keeping a boarding-house, isn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“Hard to make ends meet, I suppose?” said Peter. “It’s +almost a harder life than it could have been on the old selection, and +there’s none of the old independence about it. A woman like your mother +must feel it, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she’s all right,” said Joe. “She’s used to +it by this time. I manage to send her a few pounds now and again. I send her +all I can,” he added resentfully. +</p> + +<p> +Peter sat corrected for a few moments. Then he seemed to change the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s some time since you were in Sydney last, isn’t it, +Joe?’ +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Peter,” said Joe. “I haven’t been there for two +years. I never did any good there. I’m far better knocking about out +back.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Some men seem to get on better in one place, some in another,” +reflected Mitchell, lazily. “For my part, I seem to get on better in +another.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter blinked, relit his pipe with a stick from the fire and reflected. +</p> + +<p> +The surveyor’s song had been encored: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I remember, I remember— +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps Peter remembered. Joe did, but there were no vines round the house +where he was born, only drought and dust, and raspy voices raised in +recrimination, and hardship most times. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember,” said Peter, quietly, “I remember a young fellow +at home in the old country. He had every advantage. He had a first-class +education, a great deal more money than he needed—almost as much as he +asked for, and nearly as much freedom as he wanted. His father was an English +gentleman and his mother an English lady. They were titled people, if I +remember rightly. The old man was proud, but fond of his son; he only asked him +to pay a little duty or respect now and again. We don’t understand these +things in Australia—they seem formal and cold to us. The son paid his +respects to his father occasionally—a week or so before he’d be +wanting money, as a rule. The mother was a dear lady. She idolized her son. She +only asked for a little show of affection from him, a few days or a week of his +society at home now and then—say once in three months. But he +couldn’t spare her even that—his time was taken up so much in +fashionable London and Paris and other places. He would give the world to be +able to take his proud, soft old father’s hand now and look into his eyes +as one man who understands another. He would be glad and eager to give his +mother twelve months out of the year if he thought it would make her happier. +It has been too late for more than twenty years.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Danny called for Peter. +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell jerked his head approvingly and gave a sound like a sigh and chuckle +conjoined, the one qualifying the other. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you you’d get it, Joe,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see how it hits me,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“But it hit all the same, Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose it did,” said Joe, after a short pause. +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t have hit you so hard if you hadn’t tried to +parry,” reflected Mitchell. “It’s your turn now, Jack.” +</p> + +<p> +Jack Barnes said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I know that Peter would do anything for a woman or child, or an +honest, straight, hard-up chap,” said Mitchell, straightening out his +legs and folding his arms, “but I can’t quite understand his being +so partial to drunken scamps and vagabonds, black sheep and never-do-wells. +He’s got a tremendous sympathy for drunks. He’d do anything to help +a drunken man. Ain’t it marvellous? It’s my private opinion that +Peter must have been an awful boozer and scamp in his time.” +</p> + +<p> +The other two only thought. Mitchell was privileged. He was a young man of +freckled, sandy complexion, and quizzical grey eyes. “Sly Joker” +“could take a rise out of anyone on the quiet;” “You could +never tell when he was getting at you;” “Face of a born +comedian,” as bushmen said of Mitchell. But he would probably have been a +dead and dismal failure on any other stage than that of wide Australia. +</p> + +<p> +Peter came back and they sat and smoked, and maybe they reflected along four +very different back-tracks for a while. +</p> + +<p> +The surveyor started to sing again: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I have heard the mavis singing<br/> +Â Â Â Â Her love-song to the morn.<br/> +I have seen the dew-drop clinging<br/> +Â Â Â Â To the rose just newly born. +</p> + +<p> +They smoked and listened in silence all through to the end. It was very still. +The full moon was high. The long white slender branches of a box-tree stirred +gently overhead; the she-oaks in the creek sighed as they are always sighing, +and the southern peak seemed ever so far away. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +That has made me thine for ever!<br/> +Bonny Mary of Argyle. +</p> + +<p> +“Blarst my pipe!” exclaimed Mitchell, suddenly. “I beg your +pardon, Peter. My pipe’s always getting stuffed up,” and he +proceeded to shell out and clear his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +The breeze had changed and strengthened. They heard the violin playing +“Annie Laurie.” +</p> + +<p> +“They must be having a Scotch night in that camp tonight,” said +Mitchell. The voice came again: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Maxwelton Braes are bonny—<br/> +Â Â Â Â Where early fa’s the dew,<br/> +For ’twas there that Annie Laurie<br/> +Â Â Â Â Gie me her promise true— +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell threw out his arm impatiently. “I wish they wouldn’t play +and sing those old songs,” he said. “They make you think of damned +old things. I beg your pardon, Peter.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter sat leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands +fingering his cold pipe nervously. His sad eyes had grown haggard and haunted. +It is in the hearts of exiles in new lands that the old songs are felt. +</p> + +<p> +“Take no thought of the morrow, Mitchell,” said Peter, +abstractedly. “I beg your pardon, Mitchell. I mean——” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, Peter,” said Mitchell. “You’re +right; to-morrow is the past, as far as I’m concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter blinked down at him as if he were a new species. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re an odd young man, Mitchell,” he said. +“You’ll have to take care of that head of yours or you’ll be +found hanging by a saddle-strap to a leaning tree on a lonely track, or find +yourself in a lunatic asylum before you’re forty-five.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or else I’ll be a great man,” said Mitchell. +“But—ah, well!” +</p> + +<p> +Peter turned his eyes to the fire and smiled sadly. “Not enjoyment and +not sorrow, is our destined end or way,” he repeated to the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“But we get there just the same,” said Mitchell, “destined or +not.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +But to live, that each to-morrow,<br/> +Finds us further than to-day! +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that just fits my life, Peter,” said Mitchell. “I might +have to tramp two or three hundred miles before I get a cut<a href="#fn3" +name="fnref3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> or a job, and if to-morrow didn’t find +me nearer than to-day I’d starve or die of thirst on a dry +stretch.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn3"></a><a href="#fnref3">[3]</a> +Cut—a pen or “stand” in a shearing shed. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you get married and settle down, Mitchell?” asked +Peter, a little tired. “You’re a teetotaller.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I got married I couldn’t settle down,” said Mitchell. +“I reckon I’d be the loneliest man in Australia.” Peter gave +him a swift glance. “I reckon I’d be single no matter how much +married I might be. I couldn’t get the girl I wanted, and—ah, +well!” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell’s expression was still quaintly humorous round the lower part of +his face, but there was a sad light in his eyes. The strange light as of the +old dead days, and he was still young. +</p> + +<p> +The cornet had started in the surveyors’ camp. +</p> + +<p> +“Their blooming tunes seem to fit in just as if they knew what we were +talking about,” remarked Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +The cornet: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +You’ll break my heart, you little bird,<br/> +That sings upon the flowering thorn<br/> +Thou mind’st me of departed joys,<br/> +Departed never to return. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn it all,” said Mitchell, sitting up, “I’m getting +sentimental.” Then, as if voicing something that was troubling him, +“Don’t you think a woman pulls a man down as often as she lifts him +up, Peter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some say so,” said Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Some say so, and they write it, too,” said Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“Sometimes it seems to me as if women were fated to drag a man down ever +since Adam’s time. If Adam hadn’t taken his wife’s +advice—but there, perhaps he took her advice a good many times and found +it good, and, just because she happened to be wrong this time, and to get him +into a hole, the sons of Adam have never let the daughters of Eve hear the last +of it. That’s human nature.” +</p> + +<p> +Jack Barnes, the young husband, who was suffering a recovery, had been very +silent all the evening. “I think a man’s a fool to always listen to +his wife’s advice,” he said, with the unreasonable impatience of a +man who wants to think while others are talking. “She only messes him up, +and drives him to the devil as likely as not, and gets a contempt for him in +the end.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter gave him a surprised, reproachful look, and stood up. He paced backwards +and forwards on the other side of the fire, with his hands behind his back for +a while; then he came and settled himself on the log again and filled his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, “a man can always find excuses for himself +when his conscience stings him. He puts mud on the sting. Man at large is +beginning all over the world to rake up excuses for himself; he disguises them +as ‘Psychological studies,’ and thinks he is clean and clever and +cultured, or he calls ’em problems—the sex problem, for instance, +and thinks he is brave and fearless.” +</p> + +<p> +Danny was in trouble again, and Peter went to him. He complained that when he +lay down he saw the faces worse, and he wanted to be propped up somehow, so +Peter got a pack-saddle and propped the old man’s shoulders up with that. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember,” Peter began, when he came back to the fire, “I +remember a young man who got married——” +</p> + +<p> +Mitchell hugged himself. He knew Jack Barnes. He knew that Jack had a girl-wife +who was many times too good for him; that Jack had been wild, and had nearly +broken her heart, and he had guessed at once that Jack had broken out again, +and that Peter M’Laughlan was shepherding him home. Mitchell had worked +as mates with Jack, and liked him because of the good heart that was in him in +spite of all; and, because he liked him, he was glad that Jack was going to get +a kicking, so to speak, which might do him good. Mitchell saw it coming, as he +said afterwards, and filled his pipe, and settled himself comfortably to +listen. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember the case of a naturally selfish young man who got +married” said Peter. “He didn’t know he was selfish; in fact, +he thought he was too much the other way—but that doesn’t matter +now. His name was—well, we’ll call him—we’ll call him, +‘Gentleman Once.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean Gentleman Once that we saw drinking back at Thomas’s +shanty?” asked Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Peter, “not him. There have been more than one in +the bush who went by the nickname of ‘Gentleman Once.’ I knew one +or two. It’s a big clan, the clan of Gentleman Once, and scattered all +over the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the way,” said Mitchell—“excuse me for +interrupting, Peter—but wasn’t old Danny, there, a gentleman once? +I’ve heard chaps say he was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know he was,” said Peter. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman Once! Who’s talking about Gentleman Once?” said an +awful voice, suddenly and quickly. “About twenty or thirty years ago I +was called Gentleman Once or Gentleman Jack, I don’t know which—Get +out! <i>Get out</i>, I say! It’s all lies, and you’re the devil. +There’s four devils sitting by the fire. I see them.” +</p> + +<p> +Two of the four devils by the fire looked round, rather startled. +</p> + +<p> +Danny was sitting up, his awful bloodshot eyes glaring in the firelight, and +his ruined head looking like the bloated head of a hairy poodle that had been +drowned and dried. Peter went to the old man and soothed him by waving off the +snakes and devils with his hands, and telling them to go. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard Danny on the Gentleman Once racket before,” +remarked Mitchell. +</p> + +<p> +“Seems funny, doesn’t it, for a man to be proud of the fact that he +was called ‘Gentleman Once’ about twenty years ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seems more awful than funny to me,” said Joe. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right, Joe,” said Mitchell. “But the saddest +things are often funny.” +</p> + +<p> +When Peter came back he went on with his story, and was only interrupted once +or twice by Danny waking up and calling him to drive off the snakes, and green +and crimson dogs with crocodile heads, and devils with flaming tails, and those +unpleasant sorts of things that force their company on boozers and madmen. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman Once,” said Peter, “he came from the old country +with a good education and no character. He disgraced himself and family once +too often and came, or was sent, out to Australia to reform. It’s a great +mistake. If a man is too far gone, or hasn’t the strength to live the +past down and reform at home, he won’t do it in a new country, unless a +combination of circumstances compels him to it. A man rises by chance; just as +often he falls by chance. Some men fall into the habit of keeping steady and +stick to it, for the novelty of it, until they are on their feet and in their +sane minds and can look at the past, present and future sensibly. I knew one +case—But that’s got nothing to do with the story. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman Once came out on the remittance system. That system is fatal +in nine cases out of ten. The remittance system is an insult to any manhood +that may be left in the black sheep, and an insult to the land he is sent to. +The cursed quarterly allowance is a stone round his neck which will drag him +down deeper in a new land than he would have fallen at home. You know that +remittance men are regarded with such contempt in the bush that a man seldom +admits he is one, save when he’s drunk and reckless and wants money or +credit. When a ne’er-do-well lands in Melbourne or Sydney without a penny +he will probably buck-up and do something for himself. When he lands with money +he will probably spend it all in the first few months and then straighten up, +because he has to. But when he lands on the remittance system he drinks, first +to drown homesickness. He decides that he’ll wait till he gets his next +quarter’s allowance and then look round. He persuades himself that +it’s no use trying to do anything: that, in fact, he can’t do +anything until he gets his money. When he gets it he drifts into one +‘last’ night with chums he has picked up in second and third-rate +hotels. He drinks from pure selfishness. No matter what precautions his friends +at home take, he finds means of getting credit or drawing on his allowance +before it is due—until he is two or three quarters behind. He drinks +because he feels happy and jolly and clever and good-natured and brave and +honest while he is drinking. Later on he drinks because he feels the reverse of +all these things when he is sober. He drinks to drown the past and repentance. +He doesn’t know that a healthy-minded man doesn’t waste time in +repenting. He doesn’t know how easy it is to reform, and is too +weak-willed to try. He gets a muddled idea that the past can’t be mended. +He finds it easy to get drink and borrow money on the strength of his next +quarter’s allowance, so he soon gets a quarter or two behind, and +sometimes gets into trouble connected with borrowed money. He drifts to the +bush and drinks, to drown the past only. The past grows blacker and blacker +until it is a hell without repentance; and often the black sheep gets to that +state when a man dreads his sober hours. And the end? Well, you see old Danny +there, and you saw old Awful Example back at Thomas’s +shanty—he’s worse than Danny, if anything. Sometimes the end comes +sooner. I saw a young new-land-new-leaf man dying in a cheap lodging-house in +Sydney. He was a schoolmate of mine, by the way. For six weeks he lay on his +back and suffered as I never saw a man suffer in this world; and I’ve +seen some bad cases. They had to chloroform him every time they wanted to move +him. He had affected to be hard and cynical, and I must say that he played it +out to the end. It was a strong character, a strong mind sodden and diseased +with drink. He never spoke of home and his people except when he was delirious. +He never spoke, even to me, of his mental agony. That was English home +training. You young Australians wouldn’t understand it; most bushmen are +poets and emotional. +</p> + +<p> +“My old schoolmate was shifted to the Sydney Hospital at last, and +consented to the amputation of one leg. But it was too late. He was gone from +the hips down. Drink—third-rate hotel and bush shanty drink—and low +debauchery.” +</p> + +<p> +Jack Barnes drew up his leg and rubbed it surreptitiously. He had “pins +and needles.” Mitchell noticed and turned a chuckle into a grunt. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman Once was a remittance man,” continued Peter. “But +before he got very far he met an Australian girl in a boarding-house. Her +mother was the landlady. They were bush people who had drifted to the city. The +girl was pretty, intelligent and impulsive. She pitied him and nursed him. He +wasn’t known as Gentleman Once then, he hadn’t got far enough to +merit the nickname.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter paused. Presently he jerked his head, as if he felt a spasm of pain, and +leaned forward to get a stick from the fire to light his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, there’s the girl who marries a man to reform him, and when +she has reformed him never lets him hear the last of it. Sometimes, as a woman, +she drives him back again. But this was not one of that sort of girls. I once +held a theory that sometimes a girl who has married a man and reformed him +misses in the reformed man the something which attracted her in the careless +scamp, the something which made her love him—and so she ceases to love +him, and their married life is a far more miserable one than it would have been +had he continued drinking. I hold no theory of that kind now. Such theories +ruin many married lives.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter jerked his head again as if impatient with a thought, and reached for a +fire-stick. +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s got nothing to do with the story. When Gentleman Once +reformed his natural selfishness came back. He saw that he had made a mistake. +It’s a terrible thing for a young man, a few months, perhaps a few weeks +after his marriage, to ask himself the question, ‘Have I made a +mistake?’ But Gentleman Once wasn’t to be pitied. He discovered +that he had married beneath him in intellect and education. Home training +again. He couldn’t have discovered that he had married beneath him as far +as birth was concerned, for his wife’s father had been a younger son of +an older and greater family than his own—But Gentleman Once +wouldn’t have been cad enough to bother about birth. I’ll do him +that much justice. He discovered, or thought he did, that he and his wife could +never have one thought in common; that she couldn’t possibly understand +him. I’ll tell you later on whether he was mistaken or not. He was gloomy +most times, and she was a bright, sociable, busy little body. When she tried to +draw him out of himself he grew irritable. Besides, having found that they +couldn’t have a thought in common he ceased to bother to talk to her. +There are many men who don’t bother talking to their wives; they +don’t think their wives feel it—because the wives cease to complain +after a while; they grow tired of trying to make the man realize how they +suffer. Gentleman Once tried his best—according to his lights—and +weakness. Then he went in for self-pity and all the problems. He liked to +brood, and his poor little wife’s energy and cheerfulness were wearying +to him. He wanted to be left alone. They were both high-spirited, in different +ways; she was highly strung and so was he—because of his past life +mostly. They quarrelled badly sometimes. Then he drank again and she stuck to +him. Perhaps the only time he seemed cheerful and affectionate was when he had +a few drinks in him. It was a miserable existence—a furnished room in a +cheap lodging-house, and the use of the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“He drank alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Now a dipsomaniac mostly thinks he is in the right—except, +perhaps, after he has been forced to be sober for a week. The noblest woman in +the world couldn’t save him—everything she does to reform him +irritates him; but a strong friend can save him sometimes—a man who has +been through it himself. The poor little wife of Gentleman Once went through it +all. And she stuck to him. She went into low pubs after him.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter shuddered again. “She went through it all. He swore promises. +He’d come home sober and fill her with hope of future happiness, and +swear that he’d never take another glass. ‘And we’ll be happy +yet, my poor boy,’ she’d say, ‘we’ll be happy yet. I +believe you, I trust you’ (she used to call him her ‘bonny +boy’ when they were first married). And next night he’d come home +worse than ever. And one day he—he struck her!” +</p> + +<p> +Peter shuddered, head and shoulders, like a man who had accidentally smashed +his finger. +</p> + +<p> +“And one day he struck her. He was sober when he did it—anyhow he +had not taken drink for a week. A man is never sober who gets drunk more than +once a week, though he might think he is. I don’t know how it happened, +but anyway he struck her, and that frightened him. He got a billet in the Civil +Service up-country. No matter in what town it was. The little wife hoped for +six months. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it’s a cruel thing that a carelessly selfish young man +cannot realize how a sensitive young wife suffers for months after he has +reformed. How she hopes and fears, how she dreads the moment he has to leave +her, and frets every hour he is away from home—and suffers mental agony +when he is late. How the horror of the wretched old past time grows upon her +until she dares not think of it. How she listens to his step and voice and +watches his face, when he comes home, for a sign of drink. A young man, a mate +of mine, who drank hard and reformed, used to take a delight in pretending for +a few minutes to be drunk when he came home. He was good-hearted, but dense. He +said he only did it to give his wife a pleasant surprise afterwards. I thought +it one of the most cruel things I had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentleman Once found that he could not stand the routine of office work +and the dull life in that place. He commenced to drink again, and went on till +he lost his billet. They had a little boy, a bright little boy, yet the father +drank. +</p> + +<p> +“The last spree was a terrible one. He was away from home a fortnight, +and in that fortnight he got down as deep as a man could get. Then another man +got hold of him and set him on his feet, and straightened him up. The other man +was a ruined doctor, a wreck whose devil was morphia. I don’t hold that a +man’s salvation is always in his own hands; I’ve seen mates pull +mates out of hell too often to think that. +</p> + +<p> +“Then Gentleman Once saw the past as he had never seen it before—he +saw hope for the future with it. And he swore an oath that he felt he would +keep. +</p> + +<p> +“He suffered from reaction on his way home, and, as he neared the town, a +sudden fear, born of his nervous state, no doubt, sent a cold, sick emptiness +through him: ‘Was it too late?’ +</p> + +<p> +“As he turned into the street where he lived, he noticed a little group +of bush larrikins standing at the corner. And they moved uneasily when they +caught sight of him, and, as he passed, they touched and lifted their hats to +him. Now he knew that he had lost the respect even of bush larrikins; and he +knew enough of the bush to know that a bushman never lifts his hat to a +man—only to death, and a woman sometimes. He hurried home and read the +truth in his wife’s eyes. His little boy was dead. He went down under the +blow, and she held his head to her breast and kept saying. ‘My poor boy, +my poor boy!’ +</p> + +<p> +“It was he that she meant, not the boy she had lost. She knew him, she +understood him better than he did himself, and, heart-broken as she was, she +knew how he was going to suffer, and comforted him. ‘My poor boy, my +poor, foolish boy!’ +</p> + +<p> +“He mended the past, as far as he could, during the next two years, and +she seemed happy. He was very gentle, he was very kind to her. He was happy, +too, in a new, strange way. But he had learned what it was to suffer through +his own fault, and now he was to learn what it was to suffer through no fault +of his own, and without the consolation of saying ‘I was wrong! I was to +blame!’ At the end of the two years there was another child, and his wife +died.” +</p> + +<p> +The four sat silently smoking until Jack Barnes asked: +</p> + +<p> +“And what did he do then, Peter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” said Peter, abstractedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Gentleman Once.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter roused himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve told the story, and it is about time to turn in,” +he said. “I can’t say exactly what Gentleman Once did when his wife +died. He might have gone down to a deeper depth than Danny’s. He might +have risen higher than he had ever been before. From what I knew of his +character he would never have gone down an easy slope as Danny has done. He +might have dropped plump at first and then climbed up. Anyway, he had the +memory of the last two years to help him. +</p> + +<p> +“Then there’s the reformed drunkard who has trained himself to take +a drink when he needs it, to drink in moderation—he’s the strongest +character of all, I think—but it’s time to turn in.” +</p> + +<p> +The cornet up the creek was playing a march. +</p> + +<p> +Peter walked across and looked at Danny, who seemed to be sleeping as +peacefully as could be expected of him. +</p> + +<p> +Jack Barnes got up and walked slowly down the creek in the moonlight. He wanted +to think. +</p> + +<p> +Peter rolled out his blankets on the grass and arranged his saddle-bags for a +pillow. Before he turned in Mitchell shook hands with him, a most unusual and +unnecessary proceeding in camp. But there’s something in the bush grip +which means “I know,” or “I understand.” +</p> + +<p> +Joe Wilson rolled out his blankets close to Mitchell’s camp; he wanted to +enjoy some of Mitchell’s quiet humour before he went to sleep, but +Mitchell wasn’t in a philosophical mood. He wanted to reflect. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder who Gentleman Once was?” said Joe to Mitchell. +“Could he have been Danny, or old Awful Example back there at the +shanty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dunno,” said Mitchell. He puffed three long puffs at his pipe, and +then said, reflectively: +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard men tell their own stories before to-night Joe.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Joe who wanted to think now. +</p> + +<p> +About four o’clock Mitchell woke and stood up. Peter was lying rolled in +his blanket with his face turned to the west. The moon was low, the shadows had +shifted back, and the light was on Peter’s face. Mitchell stood looking +at him reverently, as a grown son might who sees his father asleep for the +first time. Then Mitchell quietly got some boughs and stuck them in the ground +at a little distance from Peter’s head, to shade his face from the bright +moonlight; and then he turned in again to sleep till the sun woke him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"></a> +THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMASES</h2> + +<p> +Did you ever trace back your Christmas days?—right back to the days when +you were innocent and Santa Claus was real. At times you thought you were very +wicked, but you never realize how innocent you were until you’ve grown up +and knocked about the world. +</p> + +<p> +Let me think! +</p> + +<p> +Christmas in an English village, with bare hedges and trees, and leaden skies +that lie heavy on our souls as we walk, with overcoat and umbrella, sons of +English exiles and exiles in England, and think of bright skies and suns +overhead, and sweeps of country disappearing into the haze, and blue mountain +ranges melting into the azure of distant lower skies, and curves of white and +yellow sand beaches, and runs of shelving yellow sandstone sea-walls—and +the glorious Pacific! Sydney Harbour at sunrise, and the girls we took to Manly +Beach. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas in a London flat. Gloom and slush and soot. It is not the cold that +affects us Australians so much, but the horrible gloom. We get heart-sick for +the sun. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas at sea—three Christmases, in fact—one going saloon from +Sydney to Westralia early in the Golden Nineties with funds; and one, the +Christmas after next, coming back steerage with nothing but the clothes +we’d slept in. All of which was bad judgment on our part—the order +and manner of our going and coming should have been reversed. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas in a hessian tent in “th’ Westren,” with so many +old mates from the East that it was just old times over again. We had five +pounds of corned beef and a kerosene-tin to boil it in; and while we were +talking of old things the skeleton of a kangaroo-dog grabbed the beef out of +the boiling water and disappeared into the scrub—which made it seem more +like old times than ever. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas going to New Zealand, with experience, by the s.s. <i>Tasmania</i>. +We had plum duff, but it was too “soggy” for us to eat. We dropped +it overboard, lest it should swamp the boat—and it sank to the ooze. The +Tasmania was saved on that occasion, but she foundered next year outside +Gisborne. Perhaps the cook had made more duff. There was a letter from a +sweetheart of mine amongst her mails when she went down; but that’s got +nothing to do with it, though it made some difference in my life. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas on a new telegraph line with a party of lining gangmen in New +Zealand. There was no duff nor roast because there was no firewood within +twenty miles. The cook used to pile armfuls of flax-sticks under the billies, +and set light to them when the last man arrived in camp. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas in Sydney, with a dozen invitations out to dinner. The one we +accepted was to a sensible Australian Christmas dinner; a typical one, as it +should be, and will be before the Commonwealth is many years old. Everything +cold except the vegetables, the hose playing on the veranda and vines outside, +the men dressed in sensible pyjama-like suits, and the women and girls fresh +and cool and jolly, instead of being hot and cross and looking like boiled +carrots, and feeling like boiled rags, and having headaches after dinner, as +would have been the case had they broiled over the fire in a hot kitchen all +the blazing forenoon to cook a scalding, indigestible dinner, as many +Australian women do, and for no other reason than that it was the fashion in +England. One of those girls was very pretty and—ah, well!— +</p> + +<p> +Christmas dinner in a greasy Sydney sixpenny restaurant, that opened a few days +before with brass band going at full blast at the door by way of advertisement. +“Roast-beef, one! Cabbage and potatoes, one! Plum pudding, two!” +(That was the first time I dined to music.) The Christmas dinner was a good +one, but my appetite was spoilt by the expression of the restaurant keeper, a +big man with a heavy jowl, who sat by the door with a cold eye on the +sixpences, and didn’t seem to have much confidence in human nature. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas—no, that was New Year—on the Warrego River, out back (an +alleged river with a sickly stream that looked like bad milk). We spent most of +that night hunting round in the dark and feeling on the ground for camel and +horse droppings with which to build fires and make smoke round our camp to keep +off the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes started at sunset and left off at daybreak, +when the flies got to work again. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas dinner under a brush shearing-shed. Mutton and plum pudding—and +fifty miles from beer! +</p> + +<p> +An old bush friend of mine, one Jimmy Nowlett, who ranked as a bullock-driver, +told me of a Christmas time he had. He was cut off by the floods with his team, +and had nothing to eat for four days but potatoes and honey. He said potatoes +dipped in honey weren’t so bad; but he had to sleep on bullock yokes laid +on the ground to keep him out of the water, and he got a toothache that +paralysed him all down one side. +</p> + +<p> +And speaking of plum pudding, I consider it one of the most barbarous +institutions of the British. It is a childish, silly, savage superstition; it +must have been a savage inspiration, looking at it all round—but then it +isn’t so long since the British were savages. +</p> + +<p> +I got a letter last year from a mate of mine in Western +Australia—prospecting the awful desert out beyond White +Feather—telling me all about a “perish” he did on plum +pudding. He and his mates were camped at the Boulder Soak with some three or +four hundred miles—mostly sand and dust—between them and the +nearest grocer’s shop. They ordered a case of mixed canned provisions +from Perth to reach them about Christmas. They didn’t believe in plum +pudding—there are a good many British institutions that bushmen +don’t believe in but the cook was a new chum, and he said he’d go +home to his mother if he didn’t have plum pudding for Christmas, so they +ordered a can for him. Meanwhile, they hung out on kangaroo and damper and the +knowledge that it couldn’t last for ever. It was in a terrible drought, +and the kangaroos used to come into the “Soak” for water, and they +were too weak to run. Later on, when wells were dug, the kangaroos used to +commit suicide in them—there was generally a kangaroo in the well in the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +The storekeeper packed the case of tinned dog, etc., but by some blunder he or +his man put the label on the wrong box, and it went per rail, per coach, per +camel, and the last stage per boot, and reached my friends’ camp on +Christmas Eve, to their great joy. My friend broke the case open by the light +of the camp-fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Jack!” he said, tossing out a can, “here’s your +plum pudding.” +</p> + +<p> +He held the next can in his hand a moment longer and read the label twice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why! he’s sent two,” he said, “and I’m sure I +only ordered one. Never mind—Jack’ll have a tuck-out.” +</p> + +<p> +He held the next can close to the fire and blinked at it hard. “I’m +damned if he hasn’t sent three tins of plum pudding. Never mind, +we’ll manage to scoff some of it between us. You’re in luck’s +way this trip, Jack, and no mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked harder still at the fourth can; then he read the labels on the other +tins again to see if he’d made a mistake. +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t tell me what he said then, but a milder mate suggested that the +storekeeper had sent half a dozen tins by mistake. But when they reached the +seventh can the language was not even fit to be written down on a piece of +paper and handed up to the magistrate. The storekeeper had sent them an +unbroken case of canned plum pudding, and probably by this time he was +wondering what had become of that blanky case of duff. +</p> + +<p> +The kangaroos disappeared about this time and my friend tells me that he and +his mates had to live for a mortal fortnight on canned plum pudding. They tried +it cold and they tried it boiled, they tried it baked, they had it fried, and +they had it toasted, they had it for breakfast, dinner and tea. They had +nothing else to think, or talk, or argue and quarrel about; and they dreamed +about it every night, my friend says. It wasn’t a joke—it gave them +the nightmare and day-horrors. +</p> + +<p> +They tried it with salt. They picked as many of the raisins out as they could +and boiled it with salt kangaroo. They tried to make Yorkshire pudding out of +it; but it was too rich. +</p> + +<p> +My friend was experimenting and trying to discover a simple process for +separating the ingredients of plum pudding when a fresh supply of provisions +came along. He says he was never so sick of anything in his life, and he has +had occasion to be sick of a good many things. +</p> + +<p> +The new-chum jackaroo is still alive, but he won’t ever eat plum pudding +any more, he says. It cured him of homesickness. He wouldn’t eat it even +if his bride made it. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas on the goldfields in the last of the roaring days, in the palmy days +of Gulgong and those fields. Let’s see! it must be nearly thirty years +ago! Oh, how the time goes by! +</p> + +<p> +Santa Claus, young, fresh-faced and eager; Santa Claus, blonde and flaxen; +Santa Claus, dark; Santa Claus with a brogue and Santa Claus speaking broken +English; Santa Claus as a Chinaman (Sun Tong Lee & Co. storekeepers), with +strange, delicious sweets that melted in our mouths, and rum toys and Chinese +dolls for the children. +</p> + +<p> +Lucky diggers who were with difficulty restrained from putting pound notes and +nuggets and expensive lockets and things into the little ones’ stockings. +Santa Claus in flannel shirt and clay-covered moleskins. Diggers who bought +lollies by the pound and sent the little ones home with as much as they could +carry. +</p> + +<p> +Diggers who gave a guinea or more for a toy for a child that reminded them of +some other child at home. Diggers who took as many children as they could +gather on short notice into a store, slapped a five-pound note down on the +counter and told the little ones to call for whatever they wanted. Who set a +family of poor children side by side on the counter and called for a box of +mixed children’s boots—the best—and fitted them on with great +care and anxiety and frequent inquiries as to whether they pinched. Who stood +little girls and boys on the counter and called for the most expensive frocks, +the latest and best in sailor suits, and the brightest ribbons; and things came +long distances by bullock dray and were expensive in those days. Impressionable +diggers—and most of them were—who threw nuggets to singers, and +who, sometimes, slipped a parcel into the hands of a little boy or girl, with +instructions to give it to an elder sister (or young mother, perhaps) whom the +digger had never spoken to, only worshipped from afar off. And the elder sister +or young mother, opening the parcel, would find a piece of jewellery or a +costly article of dress, and wonder who sent it. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, the wild generosity of luck-intoxicated diggers of those days! and the +reckless generosity of the drinkers. “We thought it was going to last for +ever!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I don’t spend it on the bairns I’ll spend it on the +drink,” Sandy Burns used to say. “I ha’ nane o’ me own, +an’ the lass who was to gi’ me bairns, she couldn’t +wait.” +</p> + +<p> +Sandy had kept steady and travelled from one end of the world to the other, and +roughed it and toiled for five years, and the very day he bottomed his golden +hole on the Brown Snake Lead at Happy Valley he got a letter from his girl in +Scotland to say she had grown tired of waiting and was married. Then he drank, +and drink and luck went together. +</p> + +<p> +Gulgong on New Year’s Eve! Rows and rows of lighted tents and camp-fires, +with a clear glow over it all. Bonfires on the hills and diggers romping round +them like big boys. Tin kettling—gold dishes and spoons, and fiddles, and +hammers on pointing anvils, and sticks and empty kerosene-tins (they made a +row); concertinas and cornets, shot-guns, pistols and crackers, all sorts of +instruments, and “Auld Lang Syne” in one mighty chorus. And +now—a wretched little pastoral town; a collection of glaring +corrugated-iron hip-roofs, and maybe a rotting propped-up bark or weather-board +humpy or two—relics of the roaring days; a dried-up storekeeper and some +withered hags; a waste of caved-in holes with rain-washed mullock heaps and +quartz and gravel glaring in the sun; thistles and burrs where old bars were; +drought, dryness, desolation and goats. +</p> + +<p> +Lonely graves in the bush and grey old diggers here and there, anywhere in the +world, doing anything for a living, lonely yet because of the girls who +couldn’t wait, but prospecting and fossicking here and there, and +dreaming still. +</p> + +<p> +They thought it was going to last for ever. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas at Eurunderee Creek, amongst the old selection farms in the western +spurs of the Blue Mountains. They used to call it “Th’ +Pipeclay” thirty years ago, but the old black names have been restored. +They make plum puddings yet, weeks beforehand, and boil them for hours and hang +them in cloths to the rafters to petrify; then they take them down and boil +them again. On Christmas Eve the boys cut boughs or young pines on the hills, +and drag them home and lash them to the veranda-posts. +</p> + +<p> +Ted has turned up with his wife and children from his selection out back. The +wheat is in and shearing is over on the big stations. Tom—steady-going +old Tom—clearing or fencing or dam-sinking up-country, hides his tools in +the scrub and gets his horse and rides home. Aunt Emma (to everyone’s +joy) has arrived from Sydney with presents (astonishing bargains in frocks, +etc.) and marvellous descriptions of town life. +</p> + +<p> +Joe, “poor” Mary’s husband, who has been droving in +Queensland since the Christmas before last—while poor Mary, who is afraid +to live alone, shared a skillion and the family quarrels at home—Joe +rides day and night and reaches home at sunrise on Christmas morning, tired and +dusty, gaunt and haggard, but with his last cheque intact. He kisses his wife +and child and throws himself on the bed to sleep till dinner-time, while Mary +moves round softly, hushes the baby, dresses it and herself, lays out +Joe’s clean things, and bends over him now and then, and kisses him, +perhaps, as he sleeps. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning the boys and some of the men go down to the creek for a swim in +the big shady pool, under the she-oaks and take their Sunday clothes with them +and dress there. +</p> + +<p> +Some of them ride into town to church, and some of the women and children drive +in in spring-carts—the children to go to Sunday school, leaving mother +and the eldest daughter—usually a hard-worked, disappointed, +short-tempered girl—at home to look after the cooking. +</p> + +<p> +There is some anxiety (mostly on mother’s part) about Jim, who is +“wild,” and is supposed to be somewhere out back. There was +“a piece of blue paper” out for Jim on account of sweating +(illegally using) a horse, but his mother or father has got a hint—given +in a kindly way by the police-sergeant—that Jim is free to come home and +stay at home if he behaves himself. (There is usually a horse missing when Jim +goes out back.) +</p> + +<p> +Jim turns up all right—save that he has no money—and is welcomed +with tearful affection by his favourite sister Mary, shakes hands silently with +his father, and has a long whispered conversation with his mother, which leaves +him very subdued. His brothers forbear to sneer at him, partly because it is +Christmas, partly on mother’s account, and thirdly, because Jim can use +his hands. Aunt Emma, who is fond of him, cheers him up wonderfully. +</p> + +<p> +The family sit down to dinner. “An old mate of your +father’s”—a bearded old digger—has arrived and takes +the place of honour. (“I knowed yer father, sonny, on the diggings long +afore any of you was ever thought on.”) +</p> + +<p> +The family have only been a few hours together, yet there is an undercurrent of +growling, that, to the stranger, mysterious yet evident undercurrent of +nastiness and resentment which goes on in all families and drags many a +promising young life down. But Aunt Emma and the old mate make things brighter, +and so the dinner—of hot roast and red-hot plum pudding—passes off +fairly well. +</p> + +<p> +The men sleep the afternoon away and wake up bathed in perspiration and +helpless; some of the women have headaches. After tea they gather on the +veranda in the cool of the evening, and that’s the time when the best +sides of their natures and the best parts of the past have a chance of coming +uppermost, and perhaps they begin to feel a bit sorry that they are going to +part again. +</p> + +<p> +The local races or “sports” on Boxing Day. There is nothing to keep +the boys home over New Year. Ted and his wife go back to their lonely life on +their selection; Tom returns to his fencing or tank-sinking contract; Jim, who +has borrowed “a couple of quid” from Tom, goes out back with strong +resolutions for the New Year, and shears “stragglers,” breaks in +horses, cooks and clerks for survey parties, and gambles and drinks, and gets +into trouble again. Maybe Joe “knocks about” the farm a bit before +going into the Great North-West with another mob of cattle. +</p> + +<p> +The last time I saw the Old Year out at Eurunderee the bushfires were burning +all over the ranges, and looked like great cities lighted up. No need for +bonfires then. Christmas in Bourke, the metropolis of the great pastoral scrubs +and plains, five hundred miles west, with the thermometer +one-hundred-and-something-scarey in the shade. The rough, careless shearers +come in from stations many dusty miles out in the scrubs to have their +Christmas sprees, to drink and “shout” and fight—and have the +horrors some of them—and be run in and locked up with difficulty, within +sound of a church-going bell. +</p> + +<p> +The Bourke Christmas is a very beery and exciting one. The hotels shut up in +front on Christmas Day to satisfy the law (or out of consideration for the +feelings of the sergeant in charge of the police station), and open behind to +satisfy the public, who are supposed to have made the law. +</p> + +<p> +Sensible cold dinners are the fashion in Bourke, I think, with the hose going, +and free-and-easy costumes. +</p> + +<p> +The free males take their blankets and sleep in the “park;” the +women sleep with doors and windows open, and the married men on mattresses on +the verandas across the open doors—in case of accidents. +</p> + +<p> +Christmas in Sydney, though Christmas holidays are not so popular as Easter, or +even Anniversary Day, in the Queen city of the South. Buses, electric, cable +and the old steam trams crowded with holiday-makers with baskets. Harbour boats +loaded down to the water’s edge with harbour picnic-parties. “A +trip round the harbour and to the head of Middle Harbour one shilling +return!” Strings of tourist trains running over the Blue Mountains and +the Great Zigzag, and up the coast to Gosford and Brisbane Water, and down the +south coast to beautiful Illawarra, until after New Year. Hundreds of young +fellows going out with tents to fish in lonely bays or shoot in the mountains, +and rough it properly like bushmen—not with deck chairs, crockery, a +piano and servants. For you can camp in the grand and rugged solitude of the +bush within a stone’s throw of the city, so to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Jolly camps and holiday parties all round the beautiful bays of the harbour, +and up and down the coast, and all close to home. Camps in the moonlight on +sandy beaches under great dark bluffs and headlands, where yellow, shelving, +sandstone cliffs run, broken only by sandy-beached bays, and where the +silver-white breakers leap and roar. +</p> + +<p> +And Manly Beach on a holiday! Thousands of people in fresh summer dress, +hundreds of bare-legged, happy children running where the “blue sea over +the white sand rolls,” racing in and out with the rollers, playing with +the glorious Pacific. Manly—“Our Village”—Manly Beach, +where we used to take our girls, with the most beautiful harbour in the world +on one side, and the width of the grandest ocean on the other. Ferny gullies +and “fairy dells” to north and south, and every shady nook its +merry party or happy couple. +</p> + +<p> +Manly Beach—I remember five years ago (oh, how the time goes +by!)—and two names that were written together in the sand when the tide +was coming in. And the boat home in the moonlight, past the Heads, where we +felt the roll of the ocean, and the moonlit harbour—and the harbour +lights of Sydney—the grandest of them all. +</p> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Transcriber’s Notes:</h2> + +<p> +Henry Lawson 17th June 1867 — 2nd September 1922. +</p> + +<p> +These stories were first published as a collection in 1902. Republished as +“Send Round the Hat” and “The Romance of the Swag” in +1907. +</p> + +<p> +Notes on Australianisms. Based on my own speech over the years, with some +checking in the dictionaries, e.g. “Macquarie Book of Slang” +(2000), Oxford English Dictionary. Not all of these are peculiar to Australian +slang, but are important in Lawson’s stories, and carry overtones. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +anabranch: A bend in a river that has been cut through by the stream. The main +current now runs straight, the anabranch diverges and then rejoins. See +billabong. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Barcoo-rot. “Persistent ulceration of the skin, chiefly on the hands, and +often originating in abrasions”. (Morris, Australian English). Barcoo is +a river in Queensland. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +billabong. Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch, but +more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off +at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and +may indeed dry up completely. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +blackfellow: condescending for Australian Aboriginal +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +blackleg: someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a +workers’ strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three +great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. Also +scab. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +blanky or ——: Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used +for “bloody”—see crimson/gory. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +blooming: actually used in speech instead of “bloody” (see +crimson). +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bluey: swag. Explanation in Lawson’s “The romance of the +Swag” here. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bob: one shilling +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bullocky: Bullock driver. A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to wagons +carrying e.g. wool bales or provisions. Proverbially rough and foul mouthed. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bummer: A cadger or bludger. Someone who begs for food. Interesting Americanism +already. Also, tramp. (Different meaning today) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bush: originally referred to the low tangled scrubs of the semi-desert regions +(cf. ‘mulga’ and ‘mallee’), and hence equivalent to +“outback”. Now used generally for remote rural areas (“the +bush”) and scrubby forest. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from cities, +“in the bush”. (today: a “bushy”) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bushranger: an Australian “highwayman”, who lived in the +‘bush’— scrub—and attacked especially gold carrying +coaches and banks. Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood +figures—cf. Ned Kelly—but usually very violent. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +bunyip: Aboriginal monster, inhabiting waterholes, billabongs particularly. +Adopted into European legends. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +caser: Five shillings (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound +(“quid”)). As a coin, a crown piece. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +chaffing: teasing, mocking good-humouredly +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +churchyarder: Sounding as if dying—ready for the churchyard = cemetery +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +crimson = gory: literary substitutes for “bloody”—the +“colonial oath”, unacceptable in polite company. Why, is a complete +mystery. Popularly explained as contraction of “by Our Lady”. +Unproved. In reproducing (badly) a German’s pronunciation of Australian, +Lawson retains the word, but spells it “pluddy”. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +dood: Dude. A classy/cool dresser. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +drover: one who “droves” droving: driving on horseback cattle or +sheep from where they were fattened to a a city, or later, a rail-head. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +fiver: a five pound note +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +gory, see crimson +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +humpy: rough shack +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence. As a coin, a half-crown. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +jackaroo: (Jack + kangaroo; sometimes jackeroo)—someone, in early days a +new immigrant from England, learning to work on a sheep/cattle station (U.S. +“ranch”.) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +jim-jams: the horrors, d.t.’s +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +jumbuck: a sheep (best known from Waltzing Matilda: “where’s that +jolly jumbuck, you’ve got in your tucker bag”.) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +larrikin: anything from a disrespectful young man to a violent member of a gang +(“push”). Was considered a major social problem in Sydney of the +1880’s to 1900. The <i>Bulletin</i>, a magazine in which much of Lawson +was published, spoke of the “aggressive, soft-hatted stoush +brigade”. Anyone today who is disrespectful of authority or convention is +said to show the larrikin element in the Australian character. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +lucerne: Alfalfa in US +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +mallee: dwarfed eucalyptus trees growing in very poor soil and under harsh +rainfall conditions. Usually many stems emerging from the ground, creating a +low thicket. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +mateship: See Lawson story, “Mateship”. A heavily romanticised, but +nevertheless very practical form of (male) loyalty to a (male) companion who +travels with/works with him. A “mate” provides not only +companionship, but help in emergencies. Typical of an Australian in the +“outback”—or “Never-Never”, or under war +conditions. A man without a mate was a “hatter”—“his +hat covers his family”. Such a person might go “ratty” (see +further in The romance of the Swag). Equivalent to the “buddy +system” in SCUBA diving. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +metalled: of a road, covered in crushed rock (e.g. “blue metal”) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +mulga: Acacia sp. (“wattle” in Australian) especially Acacia +aneura; growing in semi-desert conditions. Used as a description of such a +harsh region. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed. In Lawson generally mud +(alluvial) rather than rock +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +myall: aboriginal living in a traditional—pre-conquest—manner +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +nobbler: a drink +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +pastoralist: OED sees it a equivalent to “squatter”, but in Lawson +someone often someone managing a large cattle/sheep “station” for a +“pastoral company” rather than an individual. Seen as ultimate +capitalist oppression. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +pluddy: see crimson +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +quid: monetary unit; one pound +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +ratty: insane—or, very eccentric, “cranky”. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +ringer: the champion sheep shearer in a shed that season +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +rouseabout: Labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed. Considered to be, as far as +any work is, unskilled labour. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +sawney: silly, gormless +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +scab: see blackleg +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +shout: In a group; to stand (pay for) a round of drinks. Bad form to leave +before your turn comes around. Much peer pressure to drink more than one +wished. One can also “shout” for everyone in the pub. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +skillion(-room): A “lean-to”, a room built up against the back of +some other building, with separate roof. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +spifflicated: punished, thrashed without mercy. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +spree: prolonged drinking bout—days, weeks. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +squatter: Someone who took up large areas of land, originally without official +permission (“squatted”), for sheep especially. Became the +“landed aristocracy” of Australia. (“Up rode the squatter, +mounted on his thoroughbred”) steever: Originally a Dutch coin. Used here +like “penny”—or brass razoo. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +sundowner: a swagman (see) who is NOT looking for work, but a +“handout”. Lawson explains the term as referring to someone who +turns up at a station at sundown, just in time for “tea” i.e. the +evening meal. Line (2494) of actual text (not counting P.G. matter). +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +swagman (swaggy): Generally, anyone who is walking in the “outback” +with a swag. (See “The Romance of the Swag”.) Lawson also restricts +it at times to those whom he considers to be tramps, not looking for work but +for “handouts”. In view of the Great Depression (1890—. In +1892 it was reckoned 1/3 men were out of work) perhaps unfairly. Perhaps +because he <i>was</i> there. See ‘travellers’. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Tattersalls: The earliest public lottery in Australia. (1881) +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +tenner: a ten pound note. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +tin-kettling: making noise by striking metal pots/pans. May be celebratory +(weddings—in this collection, New Year’s Eve), or may indicate +extreme social disapproval of someone. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +travellers: “shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work” +(Lawson). +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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