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diff --git a/old/7065.txt b/old/7065.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a8a414 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7065.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9681 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Children of the Bush, by Henry Lawson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Children of the Bush + +Author: Henry Lawson + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7065] +Posting Date: March 26, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH *** + + + + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling + + + + + + + +CHILDREN OF THE BUSH + + +By Henry Lawson + + +[Transcriber's notes: The year of first magazine publication is shown in +the table of contents below. Additional transcriber's notes, including a +glossary, are included at the end of the eBook.] + + + + +Contents + + + Send Round the Hat: 1901 + The Pretty Girl in the Army: 1901 + "Lord Douglas": 1901 + The Blindness of One-eyed Brogan: 1901 + The Sundowners: 1901 + A Sketch of Mateship: 1902 + On the Tucker Track: 1897 + A Bush Publican's Lament: 1901 + The Shearer's Dream: 1902 + The Lost Souls' Hotel: 1902 + The Boozers' Home: 1899 + The Sex Problem Again: 1898 + The Romance of the Swag: 1901 + "Buckholts' Gate": 1901 + The Bush-Fire: 1901 + The House that Was Never Built: 1901 + "Barney, Take me home Again": 1901 + A Droving Yarn: 1899 + Gettin' Back on Dave Regan: 1901 + "Shall We Gather at the River": 1901 + His Brother's Keeper: 1901 + The Ghosts of Many Christmases: 1901 + + + + + + +SEND ROUND THE HAT + + + Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush-- + Should be simple and plain to a dunce: + "If a man's in a hole you must pass round the hat + Were he jail-bird or gentleman once." + + + +"Is it any harm to wake yer?" + +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. + +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. + +"I hope I ain't disturbin' yer," he shouted, as he bent over my bunk, +"but there's a cove--" + +"You needn't shout!" I interrupted, "I'm not deaf." + +"Oh--I beg your pardon!" he shouted. "I didn't know I was yellin'. I +thought you was the deaf feller." + +"Oh, that's all right," I said. "What's the trouble?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Yer always goin' round with yer gory hat!" growled Bogan. "Yer'd blanky +well take it round in hell!" + +"That's what he's doing, Bogan," muttered Gentleman Once, on the +shake-down, with his face to the wall. + +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. + +"Thank yer!" he said. "Now then, you fellers!" + +"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!" + +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. + +"Here," he said to the Giraffe, "I might as well lay a quid. I'll chance +it anyhow. Chuck it in." + +"You've got rats this mornin', Gentleman Once," growled the Bogan. "It +ain't a blanky horse race." + +"P'r'aps I have," said Gentleman Once, and he turned to the wall again +with his head on his arm. + +"Now, Bogan, yer might as well chuck in somethin," said the Giraffe. + +"What's the matter with the ---- jackaroo?" asked the Bogan, tugging his +trousers from under the mattress. + +Moonlight said something in a low tone. + +"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. + +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. + +And Barcoo-Rot is probably unconscious to this day that he was ever +connected with an act of charity. The Giraffe struck the deaf jackaroo +in the neat 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +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 Began 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. + +Toward the end of his spree One-eyed Began 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. + +"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." + +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'." + +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. + +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?" + +"Why?" drawled the Giraffe, "he ain't hard up, is he?" + +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. + +"Blowed if I haven't bin an' gone an' took up a bloomin' collection for +meself!" he said. + + He was almost a teetotaller, but he stood his shout in reason. He +mostly drank ginger beer. + +"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." + +It was common for a man on the spree to say to him: + +"Here! here's five quid. Look after it for me, Giraffe, will yer, till I +git off the booze. + +"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.'" + +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. + +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. + +"I say, you fellers, there's a poor, sick Afghan in the camp down there +along the--" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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!"` + +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. + +The doctor, a good-hearted young Australian, was heard saying something. +Then German Charlie, in a voice that rung with pain: + +"Make that leg right, doctor--quick! Dis is der tird pluddy year--und I +must go home!" + +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." + +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. + +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. + +It was well known that I contributed to the Sydney _Bulletin_ 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. + +"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'----" + +"A bit of a what?" I asked. + +"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." + +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. + +The Salvation Army lassie, who went round with the _War Cry_, nearly +always sold the Giraffe three copies. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +The Giraffe helped fix some stalls for a Catholic Church bazaar, and +some of the chaps chaffed him about it in the union office. + +"You'll be taking up a collection for a joss-house down in the +Chinamen's camp next," said Tom Hall in conclusion. + +"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." + +Tom Hall and one or two others went out hurriedly to have a drink. But +we all loved the Giraffe. + +He was very innocent and very humorous, especially when he meant to be +most serious and philosophical. + +"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. + +"How did you do that, Bob?" I asked. + +"Why, I went to bed in me trowsis!" + + +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: + +"I'm very sorry to trouble yer; I always seem to be troublin' yer; but +there's that there woman and them girls----" + +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. + +"Oh, that's all right, Bob," I said, and I dropped in half a crown. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"How the ---- do you know?" + +"Why, one of 'em come to me an' told me all about it." + +There was an involuntary guffaw. + +"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. +_You_ don't know 'em; they can pump water at a moment's notice. You +haven't had any experience with women yet, Bob." + +"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." + +"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." + +"An' he pretends to be so gory soft an' innocent, too," growled the +Bogan. "We know all about you, Giraffe." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Better shout, Giraffe," said Box-o'-Tricks. + +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. + +"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'." + +I dropped softly from the plank and peeped out with the rest. + +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. + +The hat went round. Billy Woods was first, then Box-o'-Tricks, and then +Mitchell. + +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. + +"I don't mind helping the girls, but I'm damned if I'll give a penny to +help the old ----," said Tom Hall. + +"Well, she was a girl once herself," drawled the Giraffe. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Wait a minute, Bob," she said, and she went in to speak to the +landlord. + +"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." + +"Thank yer, Alice," said the Giraffe. + +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. + +"I heard you saw your lady friends off this morning, Bob," I said, and +was sorry I said it, even before he answered. + +"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." + +"Did they?" + +"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." + +"You don't say so." + +"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: + +"There's some terrible good-hearted fellers in the world," he reflected. + +I thought so too. "Bob," I said, "you're a single man. Why don't you get +married and settle down?" + +"Well," he said, "I ain't got no wife an' kids, that's a fact. But it +ain't my fault." + +He may have been right about the wife. But I thought of the look that +Alice had given him, and-- + +"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." + +"And wouldn't she have you?" + +"Well, it seems not." + +"Did you ask her?" + +"Oh, yes, I asked her right enough." + +"Well, and what did she say?" + +"She said it would be redicilus for her to be seen trottin' alongside of +a chimbley like me." + +"Perhaps she didn't mean that. There are any amount of little women who +like tall men." + +"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." + +He seemed a hopeless case. + +"Sometimes," he said, "sometimes I wish that I wasn't so blessed long." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"What did she say `don't' for?" I asked. + +"He didn't tell me that, but I s'pose he was kissin' her or huggin' her +or something." + +"Bob," I said presently, "didn't you try the little girl in Bendigo a +second time?" + +"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." + +"And you never wrote to her?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Would yer mind takin' a stroll as fur as the Billerbong?" he said. "I +got something I'd like to tell yer." + +His big, brown, sunburnt hands trembled and shook as he took a letter +from his pocket and opened it. + +"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." + +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. + +"And will you go back, Bob?" I asked. + +"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." + + +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. + +"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." + +When Big Billabong cut out, and we got back to Bourke with our dusty +swags and dirty cheques, I spoke to Tom Hall: + +"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." + +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'." + +Mitchell started the thing going with a quid. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He seemed overcome. + +"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!" + +I was glad he didn't. The Giraffe blubberin' would have been a +spectacle. I steered him back to his friends. + +"Ain't you going to kiss me, Bob?" said the Great Western's big, +handsome barmaid, as the bell rang. + +"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. + +"There's nothin' like gettin' into practice," he said, grinning round. + +We thought he was improving wonderfully; but at the last moment +something troubled him. + +"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----" + +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. + +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: + +"Excuse me for troublin' yer; I'm always troublin' yer; but there's that +there poor woman...." + +And I wish I could immortalize him! + + + + +THAT PRETTY GIRL IN THE ARMY + + + Now I often sit at Watty's, when the night is very near, + With a head that's full of jingles--and the fumes of bottled beer; + For I always have a fancy that, if I am over there + When the Army prays for Watty, I'm included in the prayer. + It would take a lot of praying, lots of thumping on the drum, + To prepare our sinful, straying, erring souls for Kingdom Come. + But I love my fellow-sinners! and I hope, upon the whole, + That the Army gets a hearing when it prays for Watty's soul. + -When the World was Wide. + + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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" + +"Oh, Lord!" said Mitchell, the shearer, and he threw a penny into the +ring. + +"Ye-es! I tell you that hell is a million times hotter than Bourke! I +tell you----" + +"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?" + +The saved brother glared round. + +"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." + +Watty hitched himself into a more comfortable position and clasped his +hands on his knee and closed his eyes again. + +"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----" + +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. + +"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?'" + +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. + +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. + +It struck me that Bogan's face was more the result of free speech than +anything else. + +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. + +The Pretty Girl stamped her pretty foot on the gravel, and her eyes +flashed in the torchlight. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +She sold _War Crys_, and the circulation doubled in a day. One-eyed +Bogan, being bailed up unexpectedly, gave her "half a caser" for a +_Cry_, and ran away without the paper or the change. Jack Mitchell +bought a _Cry_ 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 _Cry_ that he didn't know before. Tom Hall, taken unawares, bought +three _Crys_ from the Pretty Girl, and blushed to find it fame. + +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. + +Tom Hall was inclined to reckon so too--but that was after he'd been +chaffed for a month about the three _War Crys_. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Bulletin_ puts it, said +Mitchell. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Nevertheless, most of the chaps were in love with that Pretty Girl +in the Army--all those who didn't _worship_ 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. + +Handsome Jake Boreham (_alias_ 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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +The Pretty Girl still sold _War Crys_ 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. + +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. + +Besides, if we all reformed the Army would get deuced little from us for +its city mission. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _his mate's +mate_--"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. + +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. + +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. + +I had an idea that I, in a measure, took the place of Jack Moonlight's +mate about this time. + +"'Ullo, Jack!" I hailed as he reached the corner of the park. + +"Good morning, Harry!" said Jack, as if he'd seen me last yesterday +evening instead of three months ago. "How are you getting on?" + +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!" + +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. + +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.) + +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. + +I boiled the billy and fried a pound of steak. + +"Been travelling all night, Tack?" I asked. + +"Yes," said Jack. "I camped at Emus yesterday." + +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. + +"Look here, Jack!" I said at last. "What's up?" + +"Nothing's up, Harry," said Jack. "What made you think so?" + +"Have you got yourself into any fix?" I asked. "What's the Hungerford +track been doing to you?" + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Anything new in Bourke?" asked Jack as we drank the beer. + +"No," I said, "not a thing--except there's a pretty girl in the +Salvation Army." + +"And it's about time," growled Jack. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"Tell me, Jack," I said, "is it a woman?" + +"Yes," said Jack, "it's a woman. Now, are you satisfied?" + +"Is it a girl?" I asked. + +"Yes," he said. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +After tea most of us collected about Watty's veranda. Most things that +happened in Bourke happened at Watty's pub, or near it. + +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 _he_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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: + +"Thank the Lord she's got a crack in the right place!" + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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!" + +"But you told me to go, Hannah," said Jack. + +"That-that didn't make any difference. Why didn't you write?" she +sobbed. + +"Because you never wrote to me, Hannah," he said. + +"That--that was no excuse!" she said. "It was so k-k-k-cruel of you, +Jack." + +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. + +And then we adjourned to the Royal and took the Army with us. + +"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." + +"Or with a man," said Mitchell, presently, "it's love and the devil +both, sometimes, Donald." + +I looked at Mitchell hard, but for all his face expressed he might only +have said, "I think it's going to rain." + + + + +"LORD DOUGLAS" + + They hold him true, who's true to one, + However false he be. + -The Rouseabout of Rouseabouts. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Percy Douglas was a fine-looking man, "wid a chest on him an' well +hung--a fine fee-_gure_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Well," said Barcoo-Rot, "I beg yer pardon--ain't that enough?" + +"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." + + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +Retribution, if it was retribution, came suddenly and in a most +unexpected manner to Lord Douglas. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +She cried a little, thought of the children, and kept the groceries. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I vote we kick the cow out of the town!" snarled One-eyed Bogan, +viciously. + +"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." + +"He something well deserted his wife," snarled Began, "an' now he comes +crawlin' back to her to keep him." + +"Well," said Mitchell, mildly, "but we ain't all got as much against him +as you have, Began." + +"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." + +"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----." + +"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." + +"He deserted her," said One-eyed Bogan, in a climbing-down tone, "and +left her to starve." + +"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." + +"He seems to be a crimson pet of yours, Jack Mitchell," said Bogan, +firing up. + +"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." + +"Why, Mitchell, I'm beginning to think you are a gentleman yourself," +said Jake Boreham. + +"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." + +"You'll join the bloomin' Capitalists next," sneered One-eyed Bogan. + +"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?" + +"Kick the skunk out of town, or boycott him!" said one or two. "He ought +to be tarred and feathered and hanged." + +"Couldn't do worse than hang him," commented Jake Boreham, cheerfully. + +"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." + +The chaps, who had been sitting quietly listening to Mitchell, and +grinning, suddenly became serious and shifted their positions uneasily. + +"But I can tell you what would hurt his feelings more than anything else +we could do," said Mitchell. + +"Well, what is it, Jack?" said Tom Hall, rather impatiently. + +"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." + +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." + +"What!" cried Tom Hall, affecting to shrink from Mitchell in horror. + +"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." + +"And who were they, Jack?" asked Jake Boreham. + +"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." + +"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. + +"No, Jake," said Mitchell, growing serious suddenly. "There are ways of +doing things that another man understands." + +They all thought for a while. + +"Well," said Tom Hall, "supposing we do take up a collection for him, +he'd be too damned proud to take it." + +"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." + +"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. + +"Damned if I will either!" said Barcoo-Rot. + +"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." + +No one spoke. + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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 +_Worker_, _Truth_, and _Bulletin_, 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. + + + + +THE BLINDNESS OF ONE-EYED BOGAN + + They judge not and they are not judged--'tis their philosophy-- + (There's something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea). + -The Ballad of the Rouseabout. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Well, One-eyed Bogan was a hard case, Mitchell," I said. "Wasn't he?" + +"Yes," said Mitchell, putting down his "long-beer" glass, "he was." + +"Rather a bad egg?" + +"Yes, a regular bad egg," said Mitchell, decidedly. + +"I heard he got caught cheating at cards," I said. + +"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." + +"Why?" I said. "Is he dead then?" + +"No," said Mitchell, "he's blind." + +"Good God!" I said, "how did that happen?" + +"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." + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +"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." + +"Confidence trick," I said. "I'd never have thought that One-eyed Bogan +had the brains to go in for that sort of thing." + +"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." + +"Never mind that, Jack," said Tom Hall. "Harry wants to hear the yarn." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Never mind that, Mitchell, go on," I said. + +"Well, Campbell knew the river and saw that there was a stiff current +there, so he hailed Bogan. + +"'Good day, Campbell,' shouted Bogan. + +"`I want you, Bogan,' said Campbell. `Come across and bring your +horses.' + +"`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. + +"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.' + +"`Two can play at that game,' says Bogan. + +"`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.' + +"Perhaps Campbell knew Bogan better than any of us. + +"`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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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 _Jolly Coffin_. 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 +_Coffin_ 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.' + +"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 _he'd_ 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. + +"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.) + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + +"How did you scare that jackaroo, Tom?" I asked. + +"Tell you about it some other time," said Tom. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"And after the shearing-season Bogan's wife turned up in Bourke----" + +"Bogan's wife!" I exclaimed. "Why, I never knew Bogan was married." + +"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----" + +"Except that his wife made the mistake, Mitchell," said Tom Hall. + +"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." + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Because the youngster isn't his," said Mitchell. + +"How do you know that?" + +"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." + +"And whose was it?" I asked, without thinking. + +"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. + +"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----" + +"By the way," I asked, "how did Bogan lose the sight of his other eye?" + +"Sleeping out in the rain when he was drunk," said Mitchell. "He got a +cold in his eye." Then he asked, suddenly: + +"Did you ever see a blind man cry?" + +"No," I said. + +"Well, I have," said Mitchell. + +"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----" + +"Come on, Mitchell," said Tom Hall, "you've had enough beer." + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"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." + + + + +TWO SUNDOWNERS + + +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. + +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. + +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.e. 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. + +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--_because it spoils +the chances of the next hard-up swaggy who asks the victim for tobacco._ + +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. + +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: + +Swampy: "Good day, boss!" + +Boss (shortly): "'Day." + +Swampy: "Any chance of a job?" + +Boss: "Naw. Got all I want and we don't start for a fortnight." + +Swampy: "Can I git a bit o' meat?" + +Boss: "Naw! Don't kill till Saturday." + +Swampy: "Pint o' flour?" + +Boss: "Naw. Short ourselves." + +Swampy: "Bit o' tea or sugar, boss?" + +Boss: "Naw--what next?" + +Swampy: "Bit o' baccer, boss. Ain't had a smoke for a week." + +Boss: "Naw. Ain't got enough for meself till the wagon comes out." + +Swampy: "Ah, well! It's hot, ain't it, boss?" + +Boss: "Yes-it's hot." + +Swampy: "Country very dry?" + +Boss: "Yes. Looks like it." + +Swampy: "A fire 'ud be very bad just now?" + +Boss: "Eh?" + +Swampy: "Yes. Now I'm allers very careful with matches an' fire when I'm +on the track." + +Boss "Are yer?" + +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.) + +Boss: "Are they?" + +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." + +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." + + +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, _wiped_ 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. + +"Blanked if I didn't think I got that flour out!" he said. + +"What's that, mate?" asked Swampy. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Do you cook, then?" asked the surveyors' cook. + +"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.) + +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." + +"Sorry," said the cook, "but I can only let you have about a pint. We're +very short ourselves." + +"Oh, that's all right!" said Swampy, as he put the stuff into his spare +bags. "Thank you! Good day!" + +"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. + + +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. + +"Whatever are you a-doin' of, Brummy?" gasped Swampy in great +astonishment. + +"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: + +"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?" + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +"I can put _one_ of you on," he said. "Fix it up between yourselves and +go to work in the morning." + +Brummy and Swampy went apart to talk it over. + +"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_ don't want to stand in _your_ 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." + +"Yes," said Brummy, resentfully, "an' you'll always be thrown' it up to +me afterwards that I done you out of a job!" + +"I'll swear I won't," said Swampy, hurriedly. "But since you're so +blasted touchy and suspicious about it, _you_ take this job an' I'll +take the next that turns up. How'll that suit you?" + +Brummy thought resentfully. + +"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?" + +But Swampy didn't look grateful or happy. + +"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?" + +"Let's toss up for it," said Swampy, sulkily. + +"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?" + +"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. + +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. + +"Look here, Brummy," he said reproachfully, "we've shared and shared +alike, and----" + +"We never shared money," said Brummy, decidedly. + +"Do you think I want yer blasted money?" retorted Swampy, indignantly. +"When did I ever ask yer for a sprat? Tell me that!" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I know you have, Swampy," said Brummy, affectionately--as if he +considered that Swampy had done his best in the interests of mateship. + +"I _knowed_ yer knowed!" exclaimed Swampy, triumphantly. "But where the +blazes did yer put it?" + +"Under _your_ head, Swampy, old man," said Brummy, cheerfully. + +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. + +"Never mind, Swampy!" said Brummy, soothingly, as his mate paused and +tried to remember worse oaths. "It wasn't your fault." + +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. + + + + +A SKETCH OF MATESHIP + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"'Ullo, Jim." + +"'Ullo, Bill. I see you got him." + +"Yes, I got him." + +Pause. + +"Where'd yer find him?" + +"'Bout ten mile back. Near Ford's Bridge. He was just feedin' along." + +Pause. Jim shifted his feet and spat in the dust. + +"Well," said Bill at last. "How did you get on, Jim?" + +"Oh, all right," said Jim. "I sold the mare." + +"That's right," said Bill. "How much did she fetch?" + +"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." + +"Oh, that's good enough," said Bill. + +"I could 'a' got ten quid if I'd 'a' waited." + +"Well, it's no use cryin'. Eight quid is good enough. Did you get the +stuff?" + +"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." + +"Well, don't break yer back about it," said Bill. "Eight is good +enough." + +"Yes. But I could 'a' got ten," said Jim, languidly, putting his hand in +his pocket. + +Pause. Bill sat waiting for him to hand over the money; but Jim withdrew +his hand empty, stretched, and said: + +"Ah, well, Bill, I done it in. Lend us a couple o' notes." + +Jim had been drinking and gambling all night and he'd lost the eight +pounds as well as his own money. + +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. + +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? + + + + +ON THE TUCKER TRACK: A STEELMAN STORY + + +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. + +"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." + +"Why?" asked Smith. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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:" + +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. + +"Good day, boss!" + +"'Day." + +"It's hot." + +"It's hot." + +So far it was satisfactory. + +He was a little man, with a wiry, red beard. He might have been a +Scandinavian. + +"You seem to be a bit lame," said Steelman. "Hurt your foot?" + +"Naw," said the old man. "It's an old thing." + +"Ah!" said Steelman, "lumbago, I suppose? My father suffered cruel from +it for years." + +"Naw," said the old man, moving closer to the fence. "It ain't in me +back; the trouble's with me leg." + +"Oh!" said Steelman. "One a bit shorter than the other?" + +"Well, yes. It seems to be wearin' a bit shorter. I must see to it." + +"Hip disease, perhaps?" said Steelman. "A brother o' mine had----" + +"Naw, it's not in the hip," said the old man. "My leg's gone at the +knee." + +"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?" + +"Naw," said the old man, "not that I know of. I've used linseed oil +though." + +"Linseed oil!" said Steelman; "I've never heard of that for stiff knee. +How do you use it?" + +"Use it raw," said the old man. "Raw linseed oil; I've rubbed it in, and +I've soaked me leg in it." + +"Soaked your leg in it!" said Steelman. "And did it do it any good?" + +"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." + +Steelman nudged Smith under cover of the palings. The old man was +evidently a bit ratty. + +"Well, I hope your leg will soon be all right, boss," said Steelman. + +"Thank you," said the old man, "but I don't think there's much hope. I +suppose you want some tucker?" + +"Well, yes," said Steelman, rather taken aback by the old man's sudden +way of putting it. "We're hard up." + +"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. + +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. + +"Took you back a bit, Steely, didn't it?" suggested Smith. + +"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." + +Smith rubbed his head. + + + + +A BUSH PUBLICAN'S LAMENT + + ... For thirst is long and throats is short + Among the sons o' men. + M. J. C. + +I Wish I was spifflicated before I ever seen a pub! + +You see, it's this way. Suppose a cove comes along on a blazin' hot +day in the drought--an' _you_ 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'." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_was_ a recorin' angel. + +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. + + + + +THE SHEARER'S DREAM + + +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. + +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: + +"Ow-w! Two old swaggies. He! he! he!" + +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. + +About a hundred yards further on he gave me a side look and said: + +"Did that touch you, Harry" + +"No," I said, and I laughed. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +Mitchell sat on his swag, with his pint of tea on the ground by his +foot, and chewed his pipe. + +"What's up, Jack?" I asked. "Have you got the blues?" + +"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." + +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: + + Oh, I dreamt I shore in a shearer's shed, and it was a dream of joy, + For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy-- + Dressed up like a page in a pantomime, and the prettiest ever seen-- + They had flaxen hair, they had coal-black hair--and every shade between. + +"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. + + The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every "shoot"; + The pens was of polished ma-ho-gany, and ev'rything else to suit; + The huts was fixed with spring-mattresses, and the tucker was + simply grand, + And every night by the biller-bong we darnced to a German band. + + "_Chorus, boys!"_ + + There was short, plump girls, there was tall, slim girls, + and the handsomest ever seen + They was four-foot-five, they was six-foot high, and hevery size + between. + Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks' backs, so we shore till all + was blue + The sheep was washed afore they was shore (and the rams was scented + too); + And we all of us cried when the shed cut out, in spite of the + long, hot days, + For hevery hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on + tr-a-a-a-ys! + + "_Chorus_! _you_ ----!" + + They had kind grey eyes, they had coal-black eyes, and the + grandest ever seen + They had plump pink hands, they had slim white hands, and hevery + shape be-tw-e-e-n. + There was three of them girls to every chap, and as jealous as they + could be-- + +"Ow! you ----" + +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. + + + + +THE LOST SOULS' HOTEL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The Hungerford coach ploughs past in a dense cloud of dust. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"Nothing I suppose," I said, "except to get away to Sydney or some +cooler place than this." + +"I'll tell you what I'd do," said Mitchell, talking round his pipe. "I'd +build a Swagman's Rest right here." + +"A Swagman's Rest?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"But what about the old-fashioned windows and the vines?" I asked. + +"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." + +Puff, puff, puff, slowly and reflectively. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Who? The mothers?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And would you have fish in this lake of yours?" I asked. + +"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." + +"But you'd draw the line somewhere?" I asked. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Then you'd have to have a doctor," I said. + +"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." + +"Then you'd want a manager, or a clerk or secretary," I suggested. + +"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." + +"And what about woman's influence?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And what if the manageress fell in love with the doctor?" I asked. + +"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." + +"But supposing they all fell in love with each other and cleared out," I +said. + +"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." + +"I suppose you'd have music and books and pictures?" I said. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I'd have intellectual and elevating conversation for those that----" + +"Who'd take charge of that department?" I inquired hurriedly. + +"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. + +"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." + + +"And what about the farm?" I asked. "I suppose you'd get some expert +from the agricultural college to manage that?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"And would you have drink at Lost Souls'?" I asked. + +"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 _folly_ of a wasted life. I ought to be able to preach +that, God knows. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost Souls' +Hotel?" I asked. + +"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." + +"And you've forgot all about the Lost Souls' Hotel," I said. + +"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." + +"So you'd put all your money in the concern?" + +"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." + +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. + + + + +THE BOOZERS' HOME + + +"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 _feel_ weak and ashamed of +himself, and so moves him to stop whining--and wining--and buck up.) + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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." + +"I suppose your old boozing mate's wife was very happy when he +reformed," I said to Mitchell. + +"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." + + + + +THE SEX PROBLEM AGAIN + + +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. + +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. + +"I'll bet five pounds," said Mitchell, suddenly, "that you've been +trying your hand on a sex-problem story." + +I shifted uneasily and brought my hands from behind me into my pockets. +"Well, to tell you the truth," I admitted, "I have." + +"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?" + +"Well," I said, taking a hand out to scratch the back of my head, "the +plot looked all right--at first sight." + +"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." + +"Well," I said, "the yarn looked all right at first sight; that article +of `T's' in the _Bulletin_ turned me off it; listen and see what you +think of it: There was a young fellow, a bit of a genius----" + +"Just so, it's the geniuses that build the sex problems. It's an +autobiography. Go on." + +"Well, he married a girl." + +Mitchell (sotto voce): "God help her." + +"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." + +"Yes," commented Mitchell, "and if he hadn't caught the sex problem, nor +been reading about it, he would never have found that out." + +"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----" + +Mitchell: "Didn't strike him that her life would be a hell with him?" + +"They had no thought in common." + +Mitchell: "She was in her right mind then." + +"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." + +"Must have been a pretty cocksure sort of a fellow," remarked Mitchell, +"but all geniuses are." + +"When he was with her he saw all her obstinacy, unreason, and +selfishness; but when he was away he only saw her good points." + +Mitchell: "Pity such men don't stop away." + +"He thought and thought, and brooded over it till his life was a +hell----" + +Mitchell: "Jes-so: thanks to the problemaniacs." + +"He thought of killing her and himself, and so taking her with him" + +"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. + +"He lay awake by her side at nights thinking and fighting the thing +out." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +A breeze stirred the mulga and brought the sound of a good voice singing +in the surveyors' camp: + + Should old acquaintance be forgot + And never brought to min'? + Should old acquaintance be forgot + And the days of Auld Lang Syne? + +"That damned old tune will upset the Oracle for the rest of the night," +I said. + +"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." + +Came the refrain from the surveyors' camp: + + We twa hae run about the braes, + An' pu'd the gowans fine; + But we've wandered mony a weary foot + Sin' Auld Lang Syne. + +"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?" + + For Auld Lang Syne. + We twa ha' padl't i' the burn, + Fra mornin' sun till dine; + But seas between us braid ha' roar'd + Sin' Auld Lang Syne. + +"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." + + And here's a han' my trusty frien', + An' gie's a han' o' thine, + We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet + For Auld Lang Syne. + +"And that song's the answer of all problems," said Mitchell. But it was +I who lay awake and thought that night. + + [Children of the Bush by Henry Lawson II] + + + + +THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAG + +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 _men_ from all the world! + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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: + + +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. + +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. + +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: + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF BILL +WHO DIED. + + + + +"BUCKOLTS' GATE" + +PROLOGUE + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Uncle Abel was Mrs Carey's uncle. + +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 _was_ waiting +at Buckolts' Gate, they began to fear that he was becoming weak in his +mind. + +ACT I + +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. + + +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. + +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.) + + +And there were one or two old soldiers and their wives, whose eyes +glistened when Jim Bullock played "The Girl I Left Behind Me." + +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. + +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. + +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 _her_ +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Ah, well! Mary," said Harry, "I must make a start now." + +"You'll--you'll look after Jim, won't you, Harry?" said Mary. + +"I will, Mary, for your sake." + +Her mouth began to twitch, her chin to tremble, and her eyes brimmed +suddenly. + +"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." + +She smiled bravely. + +"Good-bye, Mary!" + +"Good-bye, Harry!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + + +ACT II + + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Who says I'm ashamed?" said Mary, straightening up indignantly. + +"Don't tease her, Emma," said Mrs Carey, mildly. + +"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." + +Mary's face flamed again and went down over her plate. + + +"Mary," said her mother, with sudden interest, "did Harry say anything +of Jim?" + +"No, mother," said Mary. "And that's why I didn't tell you about the +letter." + +There was a pause. Then Tommy said, with that delightful tact which +usually characterizes young Tommies: + +"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." + +"What did he mean by that, Tommy?" asked Mrs Porter, to break an awkward +pause. + +"How'm I ter know what he means?" said Tommy, politely. + +"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." + +"No, _he didn't_!" roared Uncle Abel. + +They were used to Uncle Abel's sudden bellowing, but it startled them +this time. + +"Why, Uncle Abel," cried both Aunt Emma and Mrs Carey, "whatever do you +mean?" + +"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--" + +"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?" + +"I speak loud because I want people to hear me!" roared Uncle Abel, +turning on him. + +"Go on, Uncle Abel," said Mary, "tell me what you mean." + +"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--" + +"At _Buckolts_' Gate!" cried Mary. + +"_Yes_! at Buckolts' Gate! Ain't I speakin' loud enough?" + +"And where were you?" + +"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--" + +"Uncle Abel!" exclaimed Aunt Emma. + +"It's no use Uncle Abelin' me. What I sez I sez. I ain't a-goin' to have +a niece of mine bungfoodled--" + +"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?" + +"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--" + +"Now wait a moment, Uncle Abel," interrupted Mary, with dangerous +calmness. "Listen to me. Harry Dale and I are engaged to be married, +and--" + +"Have you got the writings!" shouted Uncle Abel. + +"The what?" said Mary. + +"The writings." + +"No, of course not." + +"Then that's where you are," said Uncle Abel, triumphantly. "If you had +the writings you could sue him for breach of contract." + +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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +Mary turned quickly to her brother. + +"Well, all I can say," said Tommy, quietened now, "is that I seen _her_ +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'." + +But Mary got her bonnet and started out. + +"Where are you going to, Mary?" asked her mother, starting up nervously. + +"I'm going across to Buckolts' to find out the truth," said Mary, and +she went out. + +"Better let her go, Lizzie," said Aunt Emma, detaining her sister. + +"You've done it now, Uncle Abel." + +"Well, why didn't she get the writings?" retorted Uncle Abel. + +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. + +"Why! whatever is the matter, Mary?" exclaimed Bertha. + +"You know very well, Bertha." + +"Why! Whatever do you mean? What have I done?" + +"What haven't you done? You've--you've broken my heart." + +"Good gracious me! Whatever are you talking about? Tell me what it is, +Mary?" + +"You met him at your gate that night?" + +"I know I did." + +"Oh, Bertha! How could you be so mean and deceitful?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"That's enough, Bertha Buckolt!" cried Mary. "_You_--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. + +"Send back my cape," cried Bertha as she too turned away. + +Mary walked wildly home and fled to her room and locked the door. Bertha +did likewise. + +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 + +MISS BERTHA BUCKOLT, + +Eurunderee Creek, + +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. + +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. + +She never answered that letter. + + +ACT III + +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. + +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. + +It all came about in this way. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + + +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. + +"Look here, Mary!" said Jim. "What did you throw Harry Dale over for?" + +"Don't ask me, Jim." + +"Rot! What did he do to you? I'm your brother" (with a glance at Bob), +"and I ought to know." + +"Well, then, ask Bertha Buckolt. She saw him last." + +"What!" cried Jim. + +"Hold your tongue, Jim! You'll make her cry," said Aunt Emma. + +"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." + +"Tell Jim, Aunt Emma," said Mary. And Aunt Emma started to tell the +story as far as she knew. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"I know Harry Dale on horseback two miles off!" roared Uncle Abel. "And +I knowed her by her cape." + +It was Mary's turn to gasp and stare at Uncle Abel. + +"Uncle Abel," she managed to say, "Uncle Abel! Wasn't it at our Lower +Sliprails you saw them and not Buckolts' Gate?" + +"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." + +"Oh, uncle," cried Mary, trembling like a leaf, "why didn't you explain +this before? Why didn't you tell us?" + +"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'." + +Mary left the table. + +"What is it, Mary?" cried Aunt Emma. + +"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." + +"Oh, Uncle Abel," cried Aunt Emma, "whatever have you done?" + +"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." + + +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. + +"But-but-why didn't you _tell_ me it was Jim?" said Mary. + +"Why didn't you tell me it was Harry, Mary?" asked Bertha. "It would +have saved all this year of misery. + +"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." + +Bertha walked home with Mary, and during the afternoon she took Jim +aside and said: + +"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?" + +"He couldn't get here before New Year," said Jim. + +"That will do," said Bertha, and Jim went to catch his horse. Next day +Harry's reply came: "Coming" + + +ACT IV + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"Why, who's that?" exclaimed Uncle Abel, poking round early and catching +a glimpse of Harry through the open door. + + +"It's only Harry, Uncle Abel," said Mary. + +Uncle Abel peered in again to make sure. + +"Well, be sure you git the writin's this time," he said. + + + + +THE BUSH-FIRE + +I + +SQUATTER AND SELECTOR + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Are you going to do as I tell you, or are you not?" shouted Wall. + +"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." + +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. + +"Father!" said Billy, though rather sobered by the sight of his father's +trembling, choking passion, "do you call yourself an Englishman?" + +"Yes!" yelled Wall, furiously. "What the hell do you call yourself?" + +"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. + + +II + +ROMEO AND JULIET + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" she said; "and both married +men, too!" + +It evidently struck them that way, for after a bit they shook hands and +went home. + +"And I wouldn't have married that girl for a thousand pounds," said the +jackaroo, relating the incidents to some friends in Sydney. + +Mary said she wanted a man, if she could get one. + + +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. + +"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." + +"Yes," said Mary, looking at him (Bob looked very well on horseback), +"it is a pity." + +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: + +"Wait a while, Mary! I want to explain! I want to apologize! For God's +sake listen to me, Mary!" + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, Bob!" she said, "I'm knocked out;" and she slipped down into his +arms and stayed there a while. + +They sat on a log and rested, while their horses made inquiries of each +other's noses, and compared notes. + +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." + +"Why?" asked Bob. + + +"Come on, Bob, and don't be stupid." + +She met him often and "liked" him. + + +III + +A TRAMP'S MATCH AND WHAT IT DID + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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 _hear_ 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. + +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!" + +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. + +But, about dusk, Mary came galloping home in her usual breakneck +fashion. + +"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." + +"How do you know?" growled Wall. Then suddenly and suspiciously, "Have +you been there?" + +"I came home that way." + +"Well--let Ross look after his own," snarled the father. + +"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." + +"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.) + +"But, father--" + +"Get off that horse and go inside," roared Wall. + +"I--I won't." + +"What!" He darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle, but she +swung her horse away. + +"Stop! Where are you going?" + +"To help Ross," said Mary. "He had no one to send for help." + +"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!" + +"I'll go, father," said Mary, and she was away. + + +IV + +THE FIRE AT ROSS'S FARM + +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. + +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. + +"Why! who's that?" he gasped. + +"It's only me, Bob," said Mary, and she lifted her bough again. + +Bob stared. He was so astonished that he almost forgot the fire and the +wheat. Bob was not thin--but-- + +"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." + +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. + +"Come on!" she cried, "come on! The fire's the other side of the rocks!" + + +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. + +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. + +"Is that you, Peter?" + +"Yes, boss. The fences is all right." + +"Been near Ross's?" + +"No. He's burnt out by this time." + +Wall walked to and fro for a few minutes longer. Then he suddenly +stopped and called, "Peter!" + +"Ay, ay!" from the direction of the huts. + +"Turn out the men!" and Wall went into a shed and came out with his +saddle on his arm. + + +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. + + +"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. + +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. + +"Come on, Bob," she cried, "we might save it ye. 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. + +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. + +"Shake hands, Ross," he said. + +And it was Christmas Day. + + +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?" + +"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'." + +And old Peter was set down as being an innercent sort of ole cove. + + + + +THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER BUILT + + +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. + +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. + +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. + + When many a step was on the mountains, + Marching west to the land of gold. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Why!" I exclaimed, turning to the driver, "was that house burnt down?" + +"No," he said slowly. "That house was never built." + +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. + +"There's someone camping there," I said. + +"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.) + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I attended my relative's funeral, and next day started back for Sydney. + +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. + +"Good day, mate," I said, close beside him. + +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. + +"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. + +"I see you're doing a bit of building," I said. + +"Yes," he said, keeping his eyes on the fire; "I'm getting on with it +slowly." + +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: + +"That house must be finished by Christmas." + +"Why?" I asked, taken by surprise. "What's the hurry?" + +"Because," he said, "I'm going to be married in the New Year--to the +best and dearest girl in the bush." + +There was an awkward pause on my part, but presently I pulled myself +together. + +"You'll never finish it by yourself," I said. "Why don't you put on some +men?" + +"Because," he said, "I can't trust them. Besides, how am I to get +bricklayers and carpenters in a place like this?" + +I noticed all through that his madness or the past in his mind was mixed +up with the real and the present. + +"Couldn't you postpone the marriage?" I asked. + +"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. + +"Couldn't you run up a shanty then, to live in until the house is +ready?" I suggested, to soothe him. + +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!" + +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. + +"Oh, I almost forgot the billy!" he said. "I'll make some tea--you must +be hungry." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Presently he got up and stood looking upwards over the place where the +house should have been. + +"I think now," he said slowly, "I made a mistake in not having the +verandas carried all round the house." + +"I--I beg pardon!" + +"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." + +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. + +"You could easily get the balcony carried round," I said; "it wouldn't +cost much--you can get good carpenters at Solong." + +"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--" + +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. + +"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--" + +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. + +"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. + +"Yes," he said, "I have." + +"Been in Queensland and the Gulf country, I suppose?" + +"I have." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +I had to hurry off and leave him. "We all," I suppose, meant himself and +his ghosts. + +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. + +"I see you've been yarning with him yonder," said the publican, who +seemed to have relaxed wonderfully. + +"Yes." + +"You know these parts, don't you?" + +"Yes. I was about here as a boy." + +He asked me what my name might be. I told him it was Smith. He blinked a +while. + +"I never heard of anyone by the name of Smith in the district," he said. + +Neither had I. I told him that we lived at Solong, and didn't stay long. +It saved time. + +"Ever heard of the Big Brassingtons?" + +"Yes." + +"Ever heard the yarn of the house that wasn't built?" + +I told him how much I had heard of it. + +"And that's about all any on 'em knows. Have you any idea who that man +back yonder is?" + +"Yes, I have." + +"Well, who do you think it is?" + +"He is, or rather he was, young Brassington." + +"You've hit it!" said the publican. "I know--and a few others." + +"And do you know what became of his wife?" I asked. + +"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. + +He said no more for a while, and when I had remained silent long enough, +he went on, very deliberately and impressively: + +"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." + +"Was it?" I said. + +"Yes," said the publican. "That yarn was a lie." He opened a flask of +whisky and passed it round. + +"There was madness in the family," he said, after a nip. + +"Whose?" I asked. "Brassington's?" + +"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--" + +"But about young Mrs Brassington," I interrupted. + +"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. + + +"And what happened?" I asked. + +"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." + +"How do you know that?" + +"How do I know that?" he repeated in a tone of contempt. "How do I +know that? Well, I'll tell you how. _My old wife_ 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." + +"And about young Brassington?" + +"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." + +"It doesn't matter much," I said. + +"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--" + +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. + + + + +"BARNEY, TAKE ME HOME AGAIN" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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, _en route_ for smoky London. + +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. + +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. + +That must have been nearly twenty years ago. + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Mrs Johnson was old and thin-looking, but seemed cheerful and energetic. +Some chest trouble kept her within doors most of the winter. + +"I don't mind so long as I can manage," she said, "but Johnson gets so +depressed." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Would Mrs Johnson go out?" I asked. + +"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. + +"It takes me that way sometimes," he said. "I catch my breath just as if +I was going to lose it." + + + + +A DROVING YARN + + +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. + +"Bill Barker," said Dave, talking round his pipe stem, "was the +_quintessence_ of a drover--" + +"The whatter, Dave?" came the voice of Jim Bentley, in startled tones, +from the gloom on the far end of the veranda. + +"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. + +"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'!' + +"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? + +"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.' + +"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. + +"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! + +"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. + +"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: + +"`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.' + +"But he's dead now, so it doesn't matter." + + +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. + +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. + +"What's old Peter growlin' about?" someone asked. + +"He wants to know where Dave got that word," someone else replied. + +"What word?" + +"_Quint-essents_." + +There was a chuckle. + +"He got it out back, Peter," said Mitchell, the shearer. "He got it from +a new chum." + +"How much did yer give for it, Dave?" growled Peter. + +"Five shillings, Peter," said Dave, round his pipe stem. "And stick of +tobacco thrown in." + +Peter seemed satisfied, for he was heard no more that evening. + + + + +GETTIN' BACK ON DAVE REGAN + +A RATHER FISHY YARN FROM THE BUSH + +(AS TOLD BY JAMES NOWLETT, BULLOCK-DRIVER) + + +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. + +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. + +There was a woman livin' on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick--an' she +_was_ 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. + +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 _she'd_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +So we made up our minds to git back on Dave some way or other, an' it +come about this way. + +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. + +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'. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"But you _must_ have been doin' somethin' to the woman," we says, "or +else she wouldn't have gone on at yer like that." + +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. + + +"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." + +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. + +"Her chimbly might have been smokin', Dave," we shouted arter him, but +he was too dazed like to ketch on. + +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. + +Billy took off his hat very respectful an' sings out, "Mrs Hardwick." +(It was Billy's bullicks she'd "pounded," by the way.) + +"What is it?" she says. + +"I want to speak to you, Mrs Hardwick," says Billy. + +"Well, speak," she says. "I've got no time to waste talkin' to +bullick-drivers." + +"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." + +"Did Tommy know the fish was bad?" she says. + +"It doesn't matter a rap," says Billy; "he had no right to go takin' +messages from nobody to nobody." + + +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." + +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: + +"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'll_ give him a beltin' +for it if no one else is man enough to stand up for a woman!" says +Billy. + +"How d'yer know Dave knew?" says Mrs Hardwick. + +"Know!" says Billy. "Why, he talked about it all over the district." + +"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. + +"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. + +"What did he say?" she shouted. + +"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." + +"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. + + +"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." + +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: + +"Hullo, Dave! I want to speak to yer," shouts Billy. An' Dave yanks his +horse round. + +"What is it, Billy?" he says. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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. + +So he told her the whole truth, swelp him, an' got away; an' he +respected Mrs Hardwick arter that. + +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. + + + + +"SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER?" + + God's preacher, of churches unheeded, + God's vineyard, though barren the sod, + Plain spokesman where spokesman is needed, + Rough link 'twixt the Bushman and God. + The Christ of the Never. + + TOLD BY JOE WILSON + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Towards the end of his life if he went into a "rough" shed or shanty +west of the Darling River--and some of them _were_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Brother," he said, "do you not think we should offer up a prayer?" + +"What for?" asked Peter, standing in his shirt sleeves, a rope in his +hands and mud from head to foot. + +"For? Why, for rain, brother," replied the parson, a bit surprised. + +Peter held up his finger and said "Listen!" + +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. + +"Do you hear that?" he asked the other preacher. + +The little parson said he did. Perhaps _he_ only heard the weak lowing +of cattle. + +"Do you think that God will hear us when He does not hear _that_?" asked +Peter. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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----" + +I noticed something like a hint of a hard smile on Ross's face; he moved +the hand on the desk and tightened it. + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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." + +"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----" + +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. + +He was steered out gently with his wife on one side of him and his +eldest son on the other. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + + Shall we gather at the River, + Where bright angels' feet have trod-- + +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. + + Gather with the saints at the River, + That flows by the throne of God. + +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. + + The beautiful, the beautiful River, + That flows by the throne of God. + +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. + + + + +HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER + + By his paths through the parched desolation, + Hot rides and the terrible tramps; + By the hunger, the thirst, the privation + Of his work in the furthermost camps; + + By his worth in the light that shall search men + And prove--ay! and justify each-- + I place him in front of all Churchmen + Who feel not, who _know_ not--but preach! + --The Christ of the Never. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was at their wedding that I first got the worse for drink. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I never will," I said, and I meant it. + +"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." + +"I promise," I said. + +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 _that_. + +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." + +"Good-bye, Jack!"--she was breaking down. + +"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. + +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. + + +"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. + +And as we lay rolled in our blankets under the stars I swore a big oath +to myself. + +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." + + +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. + +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. + +He seemed much greyer now, but still stood square and straight. And his +eyes still looked one through. + +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. + +"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* 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." + + [* There is a postal district in new South Wales called + "Come-by-Chance"] + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Then it happened, in the simplest way, as most things of this sort +happen if you don't watch close. + +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. + +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." + +"Do you think I'm a blanky fool?" said Jack, and I shut up. + +The shanty was kept by a man who went by the name of Thomas, a notorious +lamber-down,* 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. + + [ * "Lamber-down," a shanty keeper who entices cheque-men + to drink. ] + +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!" + +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. + +Jack had a fit of coughing when we came in. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Jack isn't drinking, Thomas," I said rather shortly, "and neither am +I." + +"I'll have a cup of coffee at breakfast," said Jack; "thank you all the +same, Thomas." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"There's a good ginger-ale, it will warm you up." + +I tasted it; it was rum, hot. I said nothing. What could I say? + +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. + +Jack started coughing again, like an old cow with the pleuro. + +"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. + +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." + +"Here's luck, Joe!" said Jack, laughing, and lifting up his cup of +coffee with the brandy in it. "Here's luck, Joe." + +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. + +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. + +"Come on, Joe, you old bounder," said Jack, "come and have a +whisky-and-soda; it will straighten you up." + +"What's that you're drinking, Jack?" I asked. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +I got a whisky-and-soda from the girl and took it to him. + +I talked to him for a while, and at last he said, "Well, go and get the +horses and we'll start." + +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: + +"Look here, Jack, I'm going for Peter M'Laughlan----" + +"Go to hell!" said Jack. + +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. + +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. + +As it happened, Peter had started early from his last camp and I caught +him just as he was turning off into Comesomehow track. + +"What's up, Joe?" he asked as I rode up to him--but he could see. + +"Jack Barnes is on the booze at Thomas's," I said. + +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: + +"Poor Clara! Poor little lassie!" + +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. + +"Where is Jack Barnes, Thomas?" asked Peter, quietly. + +"He's in there if you want to see him," said Thomas, jerking his head +towards the parlour. + +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. + +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. + +"Yes," said Peter, "bring me a flask of your best whisky--your own, +mind--and a glass. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"All right, Jack, you shall have a drink," said Peter; and he gave him a +stiff nobblerq. It steadied Jack a bit. + +"Now listen to me, Jack," said Peter. "How much money have you got +left?" + +"I--I can't think," said Jack. "I've got a cheque for twenty pounds +here, sewn inside my shirt." + +"Yes; but you drew thirty-six in three cheques. Where's the rest?" + +"Thomas has ten," said Jack, "and the six--well, the six is gone. I was +playing cards last night." + +Peter stepped out into the bar. + +"Look here, Thomas," he said quietly, "you've got a ten-pound cheque +from Barnes." + +"I know I have." + +"Well, how much of it does he owe you?" + +"The whole, and more." + +"Do you mean to tell me that? He has only been here since yesterday +morning." + +"Yes; but he's been shoutin' all round. Look at all these chaps here." + +"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. + +"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. + +Peter stepped back a pace and buttoned his coat and threw back his head. + +"No need to take off my coat, Thomas," he said, "I am ready." + +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. + +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. + + +"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!" + +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. + +"You go and get the horses ready, Joe," said Peter to me; "and you sit +down, Jack, and keep quiet." + +"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." + +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. + +"What's all this, Thomas?" he asked. + +"What's that got to do with you, Gentleman Once?" shouted Thomas. + +"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." + +"What the ---- are you talking about?" snorted Thomas. "You're drunk or +ratty!" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"But I owed Thomas something," said Jack, staring. "However did you +manage to get the cheque out of him?" + +"Never mind, Jack, I managed," said Peter. + +Jack sat silent for a while, then he began to breathe hard. + +"I don't know what to say, Peter." + +"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." + +"I will," said Jack. + +Jack looked down at the ground for a while, then he lifted his head and +looked Peter in the eyes. + +"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." + +"I ask for no promises," said Peter, and he held out his hand. Jack +gripped it. + +"Aren't you coming home with me, Joe?" he asked. + +"No," I said; "I'll go into town. See you in the morning." + +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. + +He shook hands with me. "Good-bye, Joe." + +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. + + + + +THE STORY OF "GENTLEMAN ONCE" + + They learn the world from black-sheep, + Who know it all too well. + -Out Back. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +Peter was about fifty and the other three were young men. + +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. + +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. + +From the surveyors' camp: + + I remember, I remember, + The house where I was born, + The little window where the sun + Came peeping in at morn-- + +The breeze from the west strengthened and the voice was blown away. + +"That chap seems a bit sentimental but he's got a good voice," said +Mitchell. Then presently he remarked, round his pipe: + +"I wonder if old Danny remembers?" And presently Peter said quietly, as +if the thought had just occurred to him: + +"By the way, Mitchell, I forgot to ask after your old folk. I knew your +father, you know." + +"Oh, they're all right, Peter, thank you." + +"Heard from them lately?" asked Peter, presently, in a lazy tone. + +Mitchell straightened himself up. "N--no. To tell the truth, Peter, I +haven't written for--I don't know how long." + +Peter smoked reflectively. + +"I remember your father well, Jack," he said. "He was a big-hearted +man." + +Old Danny was heard remonstrating loudly with spirits from a warmer +clime than Australia, and Peter stepped over to soothe him. + +"I thought I'd get it, directly after I opened my mouth," said Mitchell. +"I suppose it will be your turn next, Joe." + +"I suppose so," said Joe, resignedly. + +The wind fell. + + I remember, I remember, + And it gives me little joy, + To think I'm further off from heaven, + Than when I was a boy! + +When Peter came back another thought seemed to have occurred to him. + +"How's your mother getting on, Joe?" he asked. "She shifted to Sydney +after your father died, didn't she?" + +"Oh, she's getting on all right!" said Joe, without elaboration. + +"Keeping a boarding-house, isn't she?" + +"Yes," said Joe. + +"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." + +"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. + +Peter sat corrected for a few moments. Then he seemed to change the +subject. + +"It's some time since you were in Sydney last, isn't it, Joe?' + +"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." + +There was a pause. + +"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." + +Peter blinked, relit his pipe with a stick from the fire and reflected. + +The surveyor's song had been encored: + + I remember, I remember-- + +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. + +"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." + +Old Danny called for Peter. + +Mitchell jerked his head approvingly and gave a sound like a sigh and +chuckle conjoined, the one qualifying the other. + +"I told you you'd get it, Joe," he said. + +"I don't see how it hits me," said Joe. + +"But it hit all the same, Joe." + +"Well, I suppose it did," said Joe, after a short pause. + +"He wouldn't have hit you so hard if you hadn't tried to parry," +reflected Mitchell. "It's your turn now, Jack." + +Jack Barnes said nothing. + +"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." + +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. + +Peter came back and they sat and smoked, and maybe they reflected along +four very different back-tracks for a while. + +The surveyor started to sing again: + + I have heard the mavis singing + Her love-song to the morn. + I have seen the dew-drop clinging + To the rose just newly born. + +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. + + That has made me thine for ever! + Bonny Mary of Argyle. + +"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. + +The breeze had changed and strengthened. They heard the violin playing +"Annie Laurie." + +"They must be having a Scotch night in that camp tonight," said +Mitchell. The voice came again: + + Maxwelton Braes are bonny-- + Where early fa's the dew, + For 'twas there that Annie Laurie + Gie me her promise true-- + +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." + +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. + +"Take no thought of the morrow, Mitchell," said Peter, abstractedly. "I +beg your pardon, Mitchell. I mean----" + +"That's all right, Peter," said Mitchell. "You're right; to-morrow is +the past, as far as I'm concerned." + + Peter blinked down at him as if he were a new species. + +"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." + +"Or else I'll be a great man," said Mitchell. "But--ah, well!" + +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. + +"But we get there just the same," said Mitchell, "destined or not." + + But to live, that each to-morrow, + Finds us further than to-day! + +"Why, that just fits my life, Peter," said Mitchell. "I might have to +tramp two or three hundred miles before I get a cut* 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." + + [ * Cut--a pen or "stand" in a shearing shed ] + +"Why don't you get married and settle down, Mitchell?" asked Peter, a +little tired. "You're a teetotaller." + +"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!" + +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. + +The cornet had started in the surveyors' camp. + +"Their blooming tunes seem to fit in just as if they knew what we were +talking about," remarked Mitchell. + +The cornet: + + You'll break my heart, you little bird, + That sings upon the flowering thorn + Thou mind'st me of departed joys, + Departed never to return. + +"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?" + +"Some say so," said Peter. + +"Some say so, and they write it, too," said Mitchell. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I remember," Peter began, when he came back to the fire, "I remember a +young man who got married----" + +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. + +"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.'" + +"Do you mean Gentleman Once that we saw drinking back at Thomas's +shanty?" asked Joe. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I know he was," said Peter. + +"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! +_Get out_, I say! It's all lies, and you're the devil. There's four +devils sitting by the fire. I see them." + +Two of the four devils by the fire looked round, rather startled. + +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. + +"I've heard Danny on the Gentleman Once racket before," remarked +Mitchell. + +"Seems funny, doesn't it, for a man to be proud of the fact that he was +called `Gentleman Once' about twenty years ago?" + +"Seems more awful than funny to me," said Joe. + +"You're right, Joe," said Mitchell. "But the saddest things are often +funny." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +Jack Barnes drew up his leg and rubbed it surreptitiously. He had "pins +and needles." Mitchell noticed and turned a chuckle into a grunt. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +Peter jerked his head again as if impatient with a thought, and reached +for a fire-stick. + +"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. + +"He drank alone. + +"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." + +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!" + +Peter shuddered, head and shoulders, like a man who had accidentally +smashed his finger. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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?' + +"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!' + +"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!' + +"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." + +The four sat silently smoking until Jack Barnes asked: + +"And what did he do then, Peter?" + +"Who?" said Peter, abstractedly. + +"Why, Gentleman Once." + +Peter roused himself. + +"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. + +"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." + +The cornet up the creek was playing a march. + +Peter walked across and looked at Danny, who seemed to be sleeping as +peacefully as could be expected of him. + +Jack Barnes got up and walked slowly down the creek in the moonlight. He +wanted to think. + +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." + +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. + +"I wonder who Gentleman Once was?" said Joe to Mitchell. "Could he have +been Danny, or old Awful Example back there at the shanty?" + +"Dunno," said Mitchell. He puffed three long puffs at his pipe, and then +said, reflectively: + +"I've heard men tell their own stories before to-night Joe." + +It was Joe who wanted to think now. + + +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. + + + + +THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMASES + + +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. + +Let me think! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Christmas going to New Zealand, with experience, by the s.s. _Tasmania_. +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. + +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. + +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!-- + +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. + + +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. + +Christmas dinner under a brush shearing-shed. Mutton and plum +pudding--and fifty miles from beer! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Here, Jack!" he said, tossing out a can, "here's your plum pudding." + +He held the next can in his hand a moment longer and read the label +twice. + +"Why! he's sent two," he said, "and I'm sure I only ordered one. Never +mind--Jack'll have a tuck-out." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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! + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +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!" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +They thought it was going to last for ever. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.) + +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. + +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.") + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Sensible cold dinners are the fashion in Bourke, I think, with the hose +going, and free-and-easy costumes. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + Henry Lawson 17th June 1867 - 2nd September 1922. + + These stories were first published as a collection in 1902. + Republished as "Send Round the Hat" and "The Romance of + the Swag" in 1907. + + + + 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. + + + 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. + 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. + 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. + blackfellow: condescending for Australian Aboriginal + 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. + blanky or ----: Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used + for "bloody"--see crimson/gory. + blooming: actually used in speech instead of "bloody" (see crimson). + bluey: swag. Explanation in Lawson's "The romance of the Swag" here. + bob: one shilling + 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. + bummer: A cadger or bludger. Someone who begs for food. Interesting + Americanism already. Also, tramp. (Different meaning today) + 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. + bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires. + bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from + cities, "in the bush". (today: a "bushy") + 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. + bunyip: Aboriginal monster, inhabiting waterholes, billabongs + particularly. Adopted into European legends. + caser: Five shillings (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the + pound ("quid")). As a coin, a crown piece. + chaffing: teasing, mocking good-humouredly + churchyarder: Sounding as if dying--ready for the churchyard = cemetery + 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". + dood: Dude. A classy/cool dresser. + 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. + fiver: a five pound note + gory, see crimson + Homebush: Saleyard, market area in Sydney + humpy: rough shack + half-caser: Two shillings and sixpence. As a coin, a half-crown. + 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".) + jim-jams: the horrors, d.t.'s + jumbuck: a sheep (best known from Waltzing Matilda: "where's that + jolly jumbuck, you've got in your tucker bag".) + 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 _Bulletin_, 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. + lucerne: Alfalfa in US + 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. + 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. + metalled: of a road, covered in crushed rock (e.g. "blue metal") + mulga: Acacia sp. ("wattle" in Australian) especially Acacia aneura; + growing in semi-desert conditions. Used as a description of such + a harsh region. + mullock: the tailings left after gold has been removed. In Lawson + generally mud (alluvial) rather than rock + myall: aboriginal living in a traditional--pre-conquest--manner + nobbler: a drink + nuggety: compact but strong physique; small but well-muscled + 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. + pluddy: see crimson + quid: monetary unit; one pound + ratty: insane--or, very eccentric, "cranky". + ringer: the champion sheep shearer in a shed that season + rouseabout: Labourer in a (sheep) shearing shed. Considered to be, + as far as any work is, unskilled labour. + sawney: silly, gormless + scab: see blackleg + 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. + skillion(-room): A "lean-to", a room built up against the back of + some other building, with separate roof. + spifflicated: punished, thrashed without mercy. + spree: prolonged drinking bout--days, weeks. + 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. + 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). + 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 _was_ there. + See `travellers'. + Tattersalls: The earliest public lottery in Australia. (1881) + tenner: a ten pound note. + 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. + travellers: "shearers and rouseabouts travelling for work" (Lawson). + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Children of the Bush, by Henry Lawson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH *** + +***** This file should be named 7065.txt or 7065.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/0/6/7065/ + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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