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diff --git a/old/chbsh10.txt b/old/chbsh10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0062b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/chbsh10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9918 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Children of the Bush, by Henry Lawson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!**** + + +Title: Children of the Bush + +Author: Henry Lawson + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7065] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH *** + + + + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling; gcowling@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au +[ 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. ] + + + + +Children of the Bush by Henry Lawson + + + +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 THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE BUSH *** + +This file should be named chbsh10.txt or chbsh10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, chbsh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, chbsh10a.txt + +Produced by Geoffrey Cowling; gcowling@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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