"You see, Ned," she went on. "Mary couldn't help it. It's easy enough to

talk when one has everything one wants or pretty well everything but when

one has nothing or pretty well nothing, it's different. I've been through

it and know. The insults, the temptations, the constant steady pressure

all the time. If you are poor you are thought by swagger people fair

game. And, even workingmen, the young ones, who don't think themselves

able to marry generally, help hunt down their working sisters. Women

can't always earn enough to live decently and men can't always earn

enough to marry on; and when well-to-do men get married they seem to get

worse instead of better, generally. So upon the hungry, the weary, the

hopeless, girls who have to patch their own boots and go threadbare and

shabby while others have pretty things, and who are despised for their

shabbiness by the very hypocrites who cant about love of dress, and who

have folks at home whom they love, and who are penniless as well and in

that abject misery which comes when there isn't any money to buy the

little things, upon these is forced the opportunity to change all this if

only for a little while. Besides, you know, women have the same instincts

as men--why do we disguise these things and pretend they haven't and

shouldn't when we know that it is right and healthy that they should?--

and though it is natural for a woman to hate what is called vice, because

she is better than man--she is the mother-sex, you know--yet the very

instincts which if things were right would be for good and happiness seem

to make things worse when everything is wrong. Women who work, growing

girls as many are, have little pleasure in their lives, less even than

men. And wiseacres say we are light and frivolous and chattering, because

most women can only find relief in that and know of nothing else, though

all the time in the bottom of their hearts there are deep wells of human

passion and human love. If you heard sewing-room talk you would call us

parrots or worse. If you knew the sewing-room lives you would feel as I

do."

He did not know what to say.

"For myself," straightening herself with unconscious pride, "it has not

been so much. I have been hungry and almost ragged, here in Sydney,

wearing another girls dress when I went to get slop-work, so as to look

decent, living on rye bread for days at a time, working for thirty-eight

hours at a stretch once so as to get the work done in time to get the

money. That's sweating, isn't it? Of course I'm all right now. I get

thirty shillings a week for draping and the wife of the boss wants to

keep on friendly terms with Mrs. Stratton and I'm a good hand, so I can

organise without being victimised for it. But even when I was hardest up

it wasn't the same to me as to most girls. As a last resort I used to

think always of killing myself. That would have been ever so much easier

to me than the other thing. But I am hard and strong. I've heard my

mother say that her father was the first of his people to wear boots.

They went barefooted before then and I'm barefooted in some things yet.

Mary wasn't like me, but better, not so hard or so selfish. And so, she

couldn't help it, any more than I can."

"Nellie," he said, speaking the thought he had been thinking for an hour.

"What difference does all this make between you and me?"

"Don't you understand?" she cried. "When people marry they have children.

And when my sister Mary ended so, who is safe? Nothing we can do, no care

we can take, can secure a child against misery while the world is what it

is. I try to alter things for that. I would do anything, everything, no

matter what, to make things so that little children would have a chance

to be good and happy. Because the unions go that way I am unionist and

because Socialism means that I am Socialist and I love whatever strikes

at things that are and I hate everything that helps maintain them. And

that is how we all really feel who feel at all, it is the mother in us,

the source of everything that is good, and mothers do not mind much how

their children are bettered so long as they are bettered. No matter what

the bushmen do up there in Queensland, my heart is with them, so long as

they shake this hateful state of things. I can't remember when everybody

round weren't slaving away and no good coming of it. My father has only a

mortgaged farm to show for a life of toil. My sister, my own sister, who

grew up like a flower in the Queensland bush and worked her fingers to

the bone and should have been to-day a happy woman with happy children on

her knee, they picked her up when she lay dying in the gutter like a dog

and in their charity gave her a bed to die on when they wouldn't give her

decent wages to live on. Everywhere I've been it's the same story, men

out of work, women out of work, children who should be at school the only

ones who can always get work. Everywhere men crawling for a job, sinking

their manhood for the chance of work, cringing and sneaking and

throat-cutting, even in their unionism. In every town an army of women

like my Mary, women like ourselves, going down, down, down. Honesty and

virtue and courage getting uncommon. We're all getting to steal and

plunder when we get a chance, the work people do it, the employers do it,

the politicians do it. I know. We all do it. Women actually don't

understand that they're selling themselves often even when a priest does

patter a few clap-trap phrases over them. Oppression on every hand and we

dare not destroy it. We haven't courage enough. And things will never be

any better while Society is as it is. So I hate what Society is. Oh! I

hate it so. If word or will of mind could sweep it away to leave us free

to do what our inner hearts, crushed by this industrialism that we have,

tell us to do it should go. For we've good in our hearts, most of us. We

like to do what's kind, when we've a chance. I've found it so, anyway.

Only we're caught in this whirl that crushes us all, the poor in body and

the rich in soul. But till it goes, if it ever goes, I'll not be guilty

of bringing a child into such a hell as this is now. That to me would be

a cruelty that no weakness of mine, no human longing, could excuse ever.

For no fault of her own Mary's life was a curse to her in the end. And so

it may be with any of us. I'll not have the sin of giving life on me."

They stood face to face looking into each other's eyes. Unflinchingly she

offered up her own heart and his on the altar of her ideal.

He read on her set lips the unalterability of her determination. It was

on his tongue to suggest that it was easy to compromise, but there was

that about her which checked him. Above all things there was a

naturalness about her, an absence of artificiality, the emanation of a

strong and vigorous womanliness. The very freedom of her speech was

purity itself. The dark places of life had been bared to her and she did

not conceal the fact or minimise it but she spoke of it as something

outside of herself, as not affecting her excepting that it roused in her

an intense sympathy. She was indeed the barefooted woman in her

conception of morality, in her frankness and in her strong emotions

untainted by the gangrene of a rotting civilisation. To suggest to her

that fruitless love, that barren marriage, which destroys the soul of

France and is spreading through Australia, would be to speak a strange

language to her. He could say nothing. He was seized with a desire to get

away from her.

"Good-bye!" he said, holding out his hand. She took it in both her own.

"Ned!" she cried. "We part friends, don't we? If there is a man in the

world who could make me change my mind, it's you. Wherever you go I shall

be thinking of you and all life through I shall be the same. You have

only to let me know and there's nothing possible I wouldn't do for you

gladly. We are friends, are we not? Mates? Brother and sister?"

Brother and sister! The spirit moved in Ned's hot heart at the words.

Geisner's words came to him, nerving him.

"No!" he answered. "Friends? Yes. Mates? Yes. Brother and sister? No,

never. I don't feel able to talk now. You're like a thorn bush in front

of me that it's no use rushing at. But I'm not satisfied. You're wrong

somewhere and I'm right and the right thing is to love when Love comes

even if we're to die next minute. I'm going away and I may come back and

I mayn't but if I do you'll see my way. I shall think it out and show

you. Why, Nellie, I'm a different man already since you kissed me. You

and I together, why, we'd straighten things out if they were a thousand

times as crooked. What couldn't we do, you and me? And we'll do it yet,

Nellie. When I come back you'll have me and we two will give things such

a shaking that they'll never be the same again after we've got through

with them. Now, goodbye! I'll come back if it's years and years, and

you'll wait for me, I know. Good-bye, till then."

She felt her feet leave the ground as he lifted her to him in a hug that

made her ribs ache for a week, felt his willing lips on her passive ones,

felt his long moustache, his warm breath, his reviving passion. Then she

found herself standing alone, quivering and pulsating, watching him as he

walked away with the waddling walk of the horseman.

In her heart, madly beating, two intense feelings fought and struggled.

The dominant thought of years, to end with herself the life that seems a

curse and not a blessing, to be always maid, to die in the forlorn hope

and to leave none to sorrow through having lived by her, was shaken to

its base by a new-born furious desire to yield herself utterly. It came

to her to run after Ned, to go with him, to Queensland, to the bush, to

prison, to the gallows if need be. An insane craving for him raged within

her as her memory renewed his kisses on her lips, his crushing arm-clasp,

the strength that wooed with delicious bruisings, the strong personality

that smote against her own until she longed to stay the smiting. It

flashed through her mind that crowning joy of all joys would be to have

his child in her arms, to rear a little agitator to carry on his father's

fight when Ned himself was gone for ever.

Then--she stamped her foot in self-contempt and walked resolutely to

her door. When she got up to her room she went to the open window and,

kneeling down there, watched with tearless eyes the full white moon that

began to descend towards the roofs amid the gleaming stars of the

cloudless sky.

The hours passed and she still knelt watching, tearless and sleepless,

mind and body numbed and enwrapped by dull gnawing pain.

* * * * *

Pain is to fight one's self and to subdue one's self. Nellie fought with

herself and conquered.

A paradox this seems but is not, for in truth each individual is more

than one, far more. Every living human is a bundle of faggot faculties,

in which bundle every faculty is not an inert faggot but a living,

breathing, conscious serpent. The weakling is he in whose forceless

nature one serpent after another writhes its head up, dominant for a

moment only, doomed to be thrust down by another fancy as fickle. The

strong man is he whose forceful nature casts itself to subdue its own

shifting desires by raising one supreme above the others and holding it

there by identifying the dearest aspirations with its supremacy. And we

call that man god-like whose heart yearns towards one little ideal,

struggling for existence amid the tumultuous passions that clash in him

around it, threatening to stifle it, and whose personality drives him to

pick this ideal out and to lift it up and to hold it supreme lifelong. He

himself is its bitterest enemy, its most hateful foe, its would-be

murderer. He himself shrinks from and cowers at and abhors the choking

for its sake of faculties that draw titanic strength from the innermost

fibres of his own being. Yet he himself shelters and defends and battles

for this intruder on his peace, this source of endless pain and

brain-rending sorrow. A strength arises within him that tramples the

other strength underfoot; he celebrates his victory with sighs and tears.

So the New rises and rules until the Old is shattered and broken and

fights the New no more; so Brutality goes and so Humanity comes.

Nellie fought with herself kneeling there at her window, watching the

declining moon, staring at it with set eyes, grimly willing herself not

to think because to think was to surrender. Into heart and ear and brain

the serpents hissed words of love and thoughts of unspeakable joy. Upon

her lips they pressed again Ned's hot kisses. Around her waist they threw

again the clasping of his straining arms. "Why not? Why not?" they asked

her. "Why not? Why not?" they cried and shouted. "Why not? Oh, why not?"

they moaned to her. And she stared at the radiant moon and clenched her

fingers on the window sill and would not answer. Only to her lips rose a

prayer for death that she disowned unuttered. Had she fallen so low as to

seek refuge in superstition, she thought, and from that moment she bore

her agony in her own way.

It did pass through her mind that the ideal she had installed in her

passionate heart did not aid her, that it had shrunk back out of sight

and left her alone to fight for it against herself, left her alone to

keep her life for it free from the dominance of these mad passions that

had lifted their heads within her and that every nerve in her fought and

bled for. She crushed this back also. She would not think. Only she would

be loyal to her conception of Right even though the agony of her loyalty

drove her mad.

She knew what Pain meant, now. She drank to the very dregs the cup of

human misery. To have one's desires within one's reach, to have one's

whole being driving one to stretch out one's hand and satisfy the eternal

instincts within, and to force one's self to an abnegation that one's

heart revolts from, that indeed was Pain to her. She learnt the weakness

of all the philosophies as in a flash of lightning one sees clearly. She

could have laughed at the sophism that one chooses always that which

pleases one most. She knew that there are unfathomed depths in being

which open beneath us in great crises and swallow up the foundations on

which we builded and thought sure. She paralysed her passion intuitively,

waiting, as one holds breath in the water when a broken wave surges over.

Gradually she forgot, an aching pain in her body lulling the aching pain

of her mind. Gradually the white disc of the moon expanded before her and

blotted out all active consciousness. Slowly the fierce serpents withdrew

their hissing heads again. Slowly the ideal she had fought for lifted

itself again within her. She began to feel more like her old self, only

strangely exhausted and sorrowful. She was old, so old; weary, so weary.

Hours went by. She passed into abstraction.

The falling of the moon behind the roofs roused her. She gazed at its

disappearing rim in bewilderment, for the moment not realising. Then the

sense of bodily pain dawned on her and assured her of the Reality.

She stood up, feeling stiff and bruised, her back aching, her head

swimming, all her desiring ebbing as the moon waned. Already the glimmer

of dawn paled the moonshine. She could hear the crowing of the cocks, the

occasional rumble of a cart, the indescribable murmur that betokens an

awakening city. The night had gone at last and the daylight had come and

she had worn herself out and conquered. She thought this without joy; it

was her fate not her heart. Nature itself had come to her rescue, the

very Nature she had resisted and denied.

She struck a light and looked into the glass, curious to know if she were

the same still. Dark circles surrounded her eyes, her nose was pinched,

her cheeks wan, on her forehead between the brows were distinct wrinkles,

from the corners of the mouth were chiselled deeply the lines of pain.

She was years older. Could it be possible that only five hours ago she

had flung herself into a lover's arm by the moonlit water, a passionate

girl, in womanhood's first bloom? She had cast those days behind her for

ever, she thought; she would serve the Cause alone, henceforth, while she

lived. Rest, eternal rest, must come at last; she could only hope that it

would come soon. At least, if she lived without joy, she would die

without self-reproach.

Exhausted, she sank to sleep almost as her head touched the pillow. And

in her sleep she lived again that night at the Strattons with Ned and

heard Geisner profess God and condemn her hatred of maternity. "You close

the gates of Life," he said. Taking her hand he led her to where a great

gate stood, of iron, brass bound, and there behind it a great flood of

little children pressed and struggled, dashing and crashing till the

great gates shook and tottered.

"They will break the gates open," she cried to him in anguish.

"Did you deem to alter the unalterable?" he asked. And his voice was

Ned's voice and turning round she saw it was Ned who held her hand. They

stood by the harbour side again and she loved him. Again her whole being

melted into his as he kissed her. Again they were alone in the Universe,

conscious only of an ineffable joy.

* * * * *

"Time to get up, Nellie!" called Mrs. Phillips, who was knocking at the

door. Nellie's working day began again.

CHAPTER VI.

UNEMPLOYED.

After ten minutes' walking Ned reached a broad thoroughfare. Hesitating

for a moment, to get his bearings, he saw across the way one of the cheap

restaurants of which "all meals sixpence" is the symbol and which one

sees open until all sorts of hours. The window was still lighted, so Ned,

parched with thirst, entered to get a cup of coffee. It was a

clean-looking place, enough. He saw on the wall the legend "Clean beds"

as he gulped down his coffee thirstily from the saucer.

"Can you put me up to-night?" he asked, overpowered with a drowsiness

that dulled even his thoughts about Nellie and unwilling to walk on to

his hotel.

"Yes, sir," answered the waiter, a young man who was making preparations

to close for the night. "In half a minute."

Soon a cabman had finished his late midnight meal and departed. But

another passer-by dropped in, who was left over a plate of stew while the

waiter led Ned to a narrow stair at the end of the room, passing round a

screen behind which a stout, gray-haired man slumbered in an arm chair

with all the appearance of being the proprietor. The waiter showed Ned

the way with a lighted match, renewed when burnt out. Ned noticed that

the papered walls and partitions of the stairway and upper floor were

dirty, torn and giving way in patches. From the first landing a dark

narrow passage led towards the front street while three or four ricketty,

cracked doors were crowded at the stairhead. Snoring sounds came from all

quarters. The waiter turned up a still narrower twisting stairway. As

they neared the top Ned could see a dim light coming through an open

doorway.

The room to which he was thus introduced was some fifteen feet long and

as many broad, on the floor. Two gabled windows, back and front, made

with the centre line of the low-sloping ceiling a Greek cross effect. A

single candle, burning on a backless chair by one of the windows, threw

its flickering light on the choked room-full of old-fashioned iron

bedsteads, bedded in make-shift manner, six in all, four packed against

the wall opposite the door at which the stairs ended and one on each side

of the window whereby was the light. On one of these latter beds a

bearded man lay stretched, only partly undressed; on its edge sat a youth

in his shirt. Although it was so late they were talking.

"Not gone to bed yet?" asked the waiter.

"Hullo, Jack!" replied the youth. "Aren't you coming to bed yet?"

"A gentleman of Jack's profession," said the bearded man, whose liquorous

voice proclaimed how he had put in his evening, "doesn't require to go to

bed at all. 'Gad, that's very good. You understand me?" He referred his

wit to the youth. He spoke with the drawling hesitation of the English

"swell."

"I understand you," replied the youth, in a respectful voice that had

acquired its tone in the English shires.

"I don't get much chance whether I require it or not," remarked Jack,

with an American accentuation, proceeding to make up the other bed by the

light. There was nothing on the grimy mattress but a grimy blanket, so he

brought a couple of fairly clean sheets from a bed in the opposite corner

and spread them dexterously.

"Have we the pleasure of more company, Jack?" enquired the broken-down

swell. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the English lad.

"This gentleman's going to stay," replied Jack, putting the sheet over

the caseless pillow.

"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," said the swell to Ned, upon this

introduction. "We can't offer you a chair but you're welcome to a seat on

the bed. If you can't offer a man wine give him whisky, and if you

haven't got whisky offer him the best you've got." This last to the

youth. "You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the youth. "I understand you perfectly."

"Thanks," replied Ned. "But it won't hurt to stand for a minute. There

ain't much room to stand though, is there?"

His head nearly touched the ceiling in the highest part; on either side

it sloped sharply, the slope only broken by the window gables, the stair

casement being carried into the very centre of the room to get height for

the door. The plaster on the ceiling had come off in patches, as if

cannon-balled by unwary heads, showing the lath, and was also splashed by

the smoke-wreaths of carelessly held candles; the papering was half torn

from the shaky plastering of the wall; the flooring was time-eaten. A

general impression of uncleanness was everywhere. On a ricketty little

table behind the candle was a tin basin and a cracked earthenware

pitcher. Excepting a limited supply of bedroom ware, which was very

strongly in evidence, there was no other furniture. Looking round, Ned

saw that on the bed opposite the door, hidden in the shadows, a man lay

groaning and moaning. Through the windows could be seen the glorious

moonlight.

"No. A man wants to be careful here," said the waiter, throwing the

blanket over the sheets and straightening it in a whisk. "There," he went

on, "will that suit you?"

"Anything'll suit me," said Ned, pulling off his coat and hanging it over

the head of the postless bed. "I'm much obliged."

"That's all right," replied Jack, cheerfully. "I'll be up to bed soon,"

he informed the others and ran down stairs again.

"Will you have a cigarette?" asked the English lad, holding out a box.

"Thanks, but I don't smoke," answered Ned, who had pulled off his boots

and was wrestling with his shirt. Finally it came over his head. He lay

down in his underclothing, having first gingerly turned back the blanket

to the foot.

"I don't desire to be personal," said the broken-down swell. "You'll

excuse me, but I must say you're a finely built man. You understand me?

No offence!"

"He is big," chipped in the youth.

"You don't offend a man much by telling him he's well built," retorted

Ned, with an attempt at mirth.

"Certainly. You understand me. It's not the size, my boy"--to the

youth. "Size is nothing. It's the proportion, the capacity for putting

out strength. I've been an athlete myself and I'm no chicken yet. But our

friend here ought to be a Hercules. Will you take a drink? You'll excuse

the glass." He offered Ned a flask half full of whisky.

"Thanks just the same but I never drink," answered Ned, stretching

himself carelessly. The lad refused also.

"You're wise, both of you," commented the other, swallowing down a couple

of mouthfuls of the undiluted liquor. "If I'd never touched it I should

have been a wealthy man to-day. But I shall be a wealthy man yet. You

understand me?"

"Yes," answered Ned, mechanically. He was looking at the frank, open,

intelligent face and well-made limbs of the half-naked lad opposite and

wondering what he was doing here with this grizzled drunkard. The said

grizzled drunkard being the broken-down swell, whose highly-coloured

face, swollen nose and slobbery eyes told a tale that his slop-made

clothes would have concealed. "How old are you?" he asked the lad, the

drunkard having fallen asleep in the middle of a discourse concerning a

great invention which would bring him millions.

"I'm nineteen."

"You look older," remarked Ned.

"Most people think I'm older," replied the lad proudly.

"You're not a native."

"No. I'm from the west of England."

"Which county?"

"Devon."

"My father's Devon," said Ned, at which the poor lad looked up eagerly,

as though in Ned he recognised an old friend.

"That's strange, isn't it? How you meet people!" he remarked.

"I've never been there, you know," explained Ned. "Fact is I don't think

it would be well for me to go. If all my old dad used to say is true I'd

soon get shipped out."

"How's that?"

"Why, they transport a man for shooting a rabbit or a hare, don't they?

My dad told me a friend of his was sent out for catching salmon and that

his mother was frightened nearly to death when she knew he'd been off

fishing one night. Of course, they don't transport to here any more. We

wouldn't have it. But they do it to somewhere still, I suppose."

"I don't know, I'm sure," answered the lad. "I never heard much about

that. I came out when I was fourteen."

"How was that?"

"Well, there was nothing to do in England that had anything in it and

everybody was saying what a grand country Australia was and how everybody

could get on and so I came out."

"Your folks come?"

"My father was dead. I only had a stepfather."

"And he wanted to get rid of you, eh?" enquired Ned, getting interested.

"I suppose he did, a little," said the lad, colouring.

"You came out to Sydney?"

"No. To Brisbane. That didn't cost anything."

"You hadn't any friends?"

"No. I got into a billet near Stanthorpe, but when I wanted a raise they

sacked me and got another boy. Then I came across to New South Wales. It

wasn't any use staying in Queensland. I wish I'd stayed in England," he

added.

"How's that?"

"I can't get work. I wouldn't mind if I could get a job but it's pretty

hard when you can't."

"Can't you get work?"

"I haven't done a stroke for ten weeks."

"Well, are you hard up?" enquired Ned, to whose bush experience ten weeks

out-of-work meant nothing.

"Look here," returned the lad, touching the front of his white shirt and

the cuffs. Ned saw that what he had taken for white flannel in the dim

candle-light was white linen, guileless of starch, evidently washed in a

hand-basin at night and left to dry over a chair till morning. "A man's

pretty hard up--ain't he?--when he can't get his shirt laundried."

"That's bad," said Ned, sympathetically, determining to sympathise a

pound-note. Starched shirts did not count to him personally but he

understood that the town and the bush were very different.

"I've offered three times to-day to work for my board," said the lad, not

tremulously but in the matter-of-fact voice of one who had looked after

himself for years.

"Where was that?" asked Ned, wide-awake at last, alarmed for the bushmen

rapidly turning over in his mind the effect of strong young men being

ready to work for their board.

"One place was down near the foot of Market Street, a produce merchant.

He told me he couldn't, that it was as much as he could do to provide for

his own family. Another place was at a wood and coal yard and the boss

said I'd leave in a week at that price so it wasn't any good talking. The

other was a drayman who has a couple of drays and he said he'd never pay

under the going wage to anybody and gave me sixpence. He said it was all

he could afford because times were so bad."

"Are you stumped then?" asked Ned.

"I haven't a copper."

Just then the broken-down swell woke up from his doze and demanded his

flask. After some search it was found underneath him. Then, heedless of

his interruptions, Ned continued the conversation.

"Do they take you here on tick?" he enquired.

"Tick! There's no tick here. That old man downstairs is as hard as nails.

Why, if it hadn't been for this gentleman I'd have had to walk about all

night or sleep in the Domain."

"Fair dues, my boy, fair dues?" put in the broken-down swell, "Never

refer to private matters like that. You make me feel ashamed, my boy. I

should never have mentioned that little accommodation. You understand

me?"

"I understand you," replied the lad. "I understand you perfectly."

"That's all right," said Ned, suddenly feeling a respect for this

grizzled drunkard. "We must all help one another. How was it?"

"Well," said the lad. "I met a friend of mine and he gave me sixpence and

this box of cigarettes. It was all he had. I've often slept here and so I

came and asked the old man to trust me the other half. He wouldn't listen

to it. I was going away when this gentleman came along. He only had

threepence more than his own bed-money but he persuaded the old man to

knock off threepence and he'd pay threepence. I thought I'd have had to

go to the Domain."

"But that's nothing," said Ned. "I'd just as soon sleep out as sleep in."

"I've never come down to sleeping out yet," returned the lad, simply.

"Perhaps your being a native makes a difference." Ned was confronted

again with the fact that the bushman and the townsman view the same thing

from opposite sides. To this lad, struggling to keep his head up, to lie

down nightly in the Domain meant the surrender of all self-respecting

decency.

"I shouldn't have brought up the subject. You understand me?" said the

drunkard. "But now it's mentioned I'll ask if you noticed how I talked

over that old scoundrel downstairs. You understand me? Where's that

flask? My God! I am feeling bad," he continued, sitting up on the bed.

"You're drinking too much," remarked Ned.

The man did not reply, but, with a groan, pushed the lad aside, sprang

from the bed, and began to retch prodigiously into the wash basin, after

which he announced himself better, lay down and took another drink.

Meanwhile the man in the far corner tossed and groaned as if he were

dying.

"You're friend's still worse," said the lad.

"He's just out of the hospital. I told him he shouldn't mix his drinks so

soon but he would have his own way. He'll be all right when he's slept it

off. A man's a fool who gets drunk. You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the lad. "I never want to get drunk. All I want

is work."

"Why don't you go up to Queensland?" asked the man, to Ned's hardly

suppressed indignation. "The pastoralists would be glad to get a

smart-looking lad like you. Good pay, all expenses paid, and a six

months' agreement! I believe that's the terms. You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the English lad. "I understand you perfectly.

But that's blacklegging and I'd sooner starve than blackleg. I ain't so

hard up yet that I'll do either."

"Put it there, mate," cried Ned, stretching his hand out. "You're a

square little chap." His heart rose again at this proof that the union

spirit was spreading.

"You're a good boy," said the drunkard, slapping his shoulder. "I'm not a

unionist and I'm against the unions. You understand me? I am a gentleman

--poor drunken broken-down swell-and a gentleman must stick to his own

Order just as you stick to your Order. I'd like to see the working

classes kept in their places, but I despise a traitor, my boy. You

understand me?"

"I understand you perfectly," said the lad.

"Yet you'd work for your board?" said Ned, enquiringly.

"I suppose I shouldn't," said the lad. "But one must live. I wouldn't cut

a man out of a job by going under him when he was sticking up for what's

right but where nobody's sticking up what's the use of one kicking.

That's how I look at it. Of course, a lot don't."

"They'll get a lot to go then?"

"I think they'll get a lot. Some fellows are so low down they'll do

anything and a lot more don't understand. I didn't use to understand."

"Would you go up with them for the union?" asked Ned, after a pause.

"You mean to come out again?"

"Yes, and to get as many to come out as you can by explaining things. It

may mean three months' gaol so you want to make up your mind well."

"I wouldn't mind going to gaol for a thing like that. It's not being in

gaol but what you're in for that counts, isn't it?"

So they talked while the two drunkards groaned and tossed, the stench of

this travellers' bedroom growing every moment more unbearable. Finally

the waiter returned.

"Not gone to bed yet," he exclaimed. "Phew! This is a beauty to-night, a

pair of beauties. Ain't it a wonder their insides don't poison 'em?"

"I thought I'd never get to bed," he went on, coming to light his pipe at

the candle and then returning to the bed he had taken Ned's sheets from.

"First one joker in, then another, and the old man 'ud stay open all

night for a tanner. Past two! Jolly nice hour for a chap that's to be up

at six, ain't it?"

He pulled off his boots and vest and threw himself down on the bare

mattress in his trousers. "Ain't you fellows going to bed to-night?" he

enquired.

"It's about a fair thing," said Ned, feeling nervous and exhausted with

lack of sleep. So the young fellow blew the candle out and went over to

the bed a adjoining Jack's. As he lay down Jack picked up a boot and

tapped the wall alongside him gently. "I think I hear her," he remarked.

In a few moments there was an answering tap.

"Who's that?" asked Ned.

"The slavey next door," answered Jack, upon which an interchange of

experience took place between Jack and the young fellow in which gable

windows and park seats and various other stage-settings had prominent

parts.

At last they all slept but Ned. Drowsy as he was he could not sleep. It

was not that he thought much of Nellie, at least he did not feel that he

was thinking of her. He only wanted to sleep and forget and he could not

sleep. The moonshine came through the curtainless window and lit up the

room with a strange mysterious light. The snoring breathing that filled

the room mingled with other snoring sounds that seemed to come up the

stairway and through the walls. The stench of the room stifled him. The

drunkards who tossed there, groaning; this unemployed lad who lay with

his white limbs kicked free and bathed in the moonlight; the tired waiter

who lay motionless, still dressed; were there with him. The clock-bells

struck the quarters, then the hour.

Three o'clock.

He had never felt so uncomfortable, he thought, so uneasy. He twisted and

squirmed and rubbed himself. Suddenly a thought struck him. He leaned up

on his elbow for a moment, peering with his eyes in the scanty light,

feeling about with his hand, then leaped clean out of the bed. It swarmed

with vermin.

Like most bushmen, Ned, who was sublimely tolerant of ants, lizards and

the pests of the wilds generally, shivered at the very thought of the

parasites of the towns. To strip himself was the work of an instant, to

carefully re-dress by the candle-end he lighted took longer; then he

stepped to the English lad's side and woke him.

"Hello?" said the lad, rubbing his eyes in sleepy astonishment.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't sleep with bugs crawling over me," said Ned. "I'm going to camp

out in the park. Here's a 'note' to help you along and here's the address

to go to if you conclude to go up to Queensland for the union. I'll see

about it first thing in the morning so he'll expect you. The 'note's'

yours whether you go or not."

"I'm ever so much obliged," said the lad, taking the money and the slip

of paper. "I'll go and I'll be square. You needn't be afraid of me and

I'll pay it back, too, some day. Do you know the way out?"

"I'll find it all right," replied Ned.

"Oh! I'll go down with you or you'd never find it. It's through the back

at night." So the good-hearted young fellow pulled on his trousers and

conducted Ned down the creaking, stairway, through the kitchen and the

narrow back yard to the bolted door that led to the alley behind.

"Shall I see you again?" asked the lad. Somehow everybody who met Ned

wanted to see more of him.

"My name's Hawkins," replied Ned. "Ned Hawkins. Ask anybody in the

Queensland bush about me, if you get there."

"I suppose you're one of the bushmen," remarked the lad, pausing. "If

they're all as big as you it ought to be bad for the blacklegs."

"Why, I'm a small man up on the Diamantina," said Ned laughing. "Which is

the way to the park?"

"Turn to your right at the end of the alley, then turn to the left. It's

only five minutes' walk."

"Thanks. Good-bye!" said Ned.

"It's thank you. Good-bye!" said the lad.

They shook hands and parted. In a few minutes Ned was in the park. He

stepped over a low railing, found a branching tree and decided to camp

under it. He pulled his boots off and his coat, loosened his belt, put

boots and coat under his head for a pillow, stretched out full length on

the earth and in ten seconds was in a deep slumber.

He was roused a moment after, it seemed to him; in reality it was nearly

six hours after--by kicks on the ribs. He turned over and opened his

eyes. As he did so another kick made him stagger to his feet gasping with

pain. A gorilla-faced constable greeted him with a savage grin.

"Phwat d'ye mane, ye blayguard, indaycently exposing yersilf in this

parrt av th' doomane? Oi've as good a moind as iver a man had in the

wurrld to run yez in. Can't ye find anither place to unthdress yersilf

in, ye low vaygrant?"

Ned did not answer. He buttoned up the neck of his shirt, which had

opened in the night, tightened his belt again, drew on his boots and

thrust his arms into his coat. While he did so the constable continued

his abuse, proud to show his authority in the presence of the crowd that

passed in a continuous stream along the pathway that cut through the

carefully tended flower-bedded lawn-like park. It was one of Ned's strong

points that he could control his passionate temper. Much as he longed to

thrash this insolent brute he restrained himself. He desired most of all

to get back to Queensland and knew that as no magistrate would take his

word against a "constable's" as to provocation received, to retaliate now

would keep him in Sydney for a month at least, perhaps six. But his

patience almost gave way when the constable followed as he walked away,

still abusing him.

"You'd better not go too far," warned Ned, turning round.

It suddenly dawned upon the constable that this was not the ordinary

"drunk" and that it was as well to be satisfied with the exhibition of

authority already made. Ned walked off unmolested, chewing the cud of his

thoughts.

This sentence of Geisner's rang in his ears:

"The slaves who 'move on' at the bidding of a policeman."

CHAPTER VII.

"THE WORLD WANTS MASTERS."

"It can't do any good. We have made up our minds that the matter might

just as well be fought out now, no matter what it costs. We've made all

our arrangements. There is nothing to discuss. We are simply going to do

business in our own way."

"It can't do any harm. There is always something to be said on the other

side and I always find workingmen fairly reasonable if they're met

fairly. At any rate, you might as well see how they look at it. The

labour agitation itself can't be stifled. The great point, as I regard

it, is to make the immediate relations of Capital and Labour as peaceable

as possible. The two parties don't see enough of each other."

"I think we see a great deal too much of them. It's a pretty condition of

things when we can't go on with our businesses without being interfered

with by mobs of ignorant fools incited by loud-tongued agitators. The

fools have got to be taught a lesson some day and we might as well teach

it to them now."

"You know I'm no advocate of Communism or Socialism or any such nonsense.

I look at the matter solely from a business standpoint. I am a loser by

disturbances in trade, so I try to prevent disturbances. I've always been

able to prevent them in my own business and I think they can always be

prevented."

"Well, Melsom, you may be right when it's a question of wages, but this

is a question of principle. We're willing to confer if they'll admit

'freedom of contract.' That's all there is to say about it."

"But what is 'freedom of contract?' Besides, if it is questioned, there

can't be much harm in understanding why. For my part, I find it an

interminable point of discussion when it is raised and one of the

questions that settles itself easily when it isn't."

"It is the key of the whole position. If we haven't a right to employ

whoever we like at any terms we may make with any individual we employ

what rights have we?" "Hear what they think of it, Strong! It can surely

do no harm to find out what makes them fight so."

And so on for half an hour.

"Well, I don't mind having a chat with one of them," conceded Strong at

last. "It's only because you persist so, Melsom. I suppose this man

you've been told is in town is an oily, ignorant fellow, who'll split

words and wrangle up a cloud of dust until nobody can tell what we're

talking about. I've heard these fellows."

Thus it was that Ned, calling at the Trades Hall, after having washed and

breakfasted at his hotel and seen to various items of union business

about town, was greeted with the information that Mr. Melsom was looking

for him.

"Who's Melsom?"

"Oh! A sort of four-leaved clover, a reasonable employer," answered his

genial informant. "He's in a large way of business, interested in a good

many concerns, and whenever he's got a finger in anything we can always

get on with it. He's a great man for arbitration and conciliation and has

managed to settle two or three disputes that I never thought would be

arranged peaceably. He's a thoroughly decent fellow, I can assure you."

"What does he want with me, I wonder?"

"He wants you to see Strong, just to talk matters over and let Strong

know how you Queenslanders look at things."

"Who's Strong?"

"Don't you know? He's managing director of the Great Southern Mortgage

Agency. He's the man who's running the whole show on the other side and a

clever man, too, don't you forget it."

Ned recollected the man he had seen at the restaurant and what Nellie had

said of him, two years ago.

"But I can't see him without instructions. I must wire up to know what

they say about it," said Ned.

"That's just what you mustn't do, old man. Strong won't consent to any

formal interview, but told Melsom, that he'd be glad to see anybody who

knew how the other side saw things, to chat the matter over as between

one man and another. I told Melsom yesterday that you were in town till

to-night and he came this morning to get you to see Strong at eleven.

He'll be back before then. I told him I thought it would be all right."

"I don't see how I can do that without instructions," repeated Ned.

"If it were formal there could be only one possible instruction, surely,"

urged the other. "As it is absolutely informal and as all that Melsom

hopes is that it may lead to a formal conference, I think you should go.

You'd talk to anybody, wouldn't you? Besides, Melsom has his heart set on

this. I don't believe it will lead to anything, mind you, but it will

oblige him and he often does a good turn for us."

"That settles it," said Ned. "Only I'll have to say I'm only giving my

own opinion and I'll have to talk straight whether he likes it or not."

"Of course. By the way, here are some wires that'll interest you, and I

want to arrange about sending money up in case they proclaim the unions

illegal. Heaven knows what they can't do now-a-days! Have you heard what

they did here during the maritime strike?"

* * * * *

Shortly before eleven, Strong was closeted in his private office with a

burly man of unmistakably bush appearance, modified both in voice and

dress by considerable contact with the towns. Of sandy complexion, broad

features and light-coloured eyes that did not look one full in the face,

the man was of the type that attracts upon casual acquaintance but about

which there is an indefinable something which, without actually

repelling, effectually prevents any implicit confidence.

"You have been an officer of the shearers' union, you say?" enquired

Strong, coldly.

"I've been an honorary officer, never a paid one," answered the man, who

held his hat on his knee.

"There's a man in Sydney now, named Hawkins. Do you know him?"

"Yes. I've shorn with him out at the--"

"What sort of a man is he?" interrupted Strong.

"He's a young fellow. There's not much in him. He talks wild."

"Has he got much influence?"

"Only with his own set. Most of the men only want a start to break away

from fellows like Hawkins. I'm confident the new anion I was talking of,

admitting 'freedom of contract,' would break the other up and that

Hawkins and the rest of them couldn't stop it."

"It seems feasible," said Strong, sharply. "At any rate, there's nothing

lost by trying it. This is what we will do. We will pay you all expenses

and six pounds a week from to-day to go up to Queensland, publicly

denounce the union, support 'freedom of contract' and try to start

another union against the present one; generally to act as an agent of

ours. Payment will be made after you come out. Until then you must pay

your own expenses."

"I think I should have expenses advanced," said the man.

"We know nothing of you. You represent yourself as so-and-so and if you

are genuine there is no injustice done by our offer. You must take or

leave it."

"I'll take it," said the man, after a slight hesitation.

"There's another matter. Do you know the union officials in Brisbane?"

"I know all of them, intimately."

"Then you may be able to do something with them. We are informed that

they are implicated in all that's going on, the instigators of it. Bring

us evidence criminally implicating them and we will pay well."

"This is business," said the man, a little shamefacedly. "What will you

pay?"

Strong jotted some figures on a slip of paper. "If you are a friend of

these men," he said, passing the slip over, "you will know their value

apiece to you." A sneer he could not quite conceal peeped from under his

business tone.

"That concludes our business, I think," he continued, tearing the slip

up, having received it back. "I will instruct our secretary and you can

call on him this afternoon."

He touched an electric bell-button on his desk. A clerk appeared at the

door instantly.

"Show this man out by the back way," ordered Strong, glancing at the

clock. "Good-day!"

The summarily dismissed visitor had hardly gone when another clerk

announced Mr. Melsom.

"Anybody with him?"

"Yes, sir. A tall, bush-looking man."

"Show them both in."

"What sneaking brutes these fellows are!" Strong thought, contemptuously,

jotting instructions on some letters he was glancing through, working

away as one accustomed to making the most of spare minutes.

* * * * *

Mr. Melsom had left Ned and Strong together, having to attend to his own

business which had already been sufficiently interfered with by his

exertions on behalf of his pet theory of "getting things talked over."

Ned had felt inwardly agitated as he walked under the great archway and

up the broad iron stairway that led to the inner offices of this great

fortress-like building, the centre of the southern money-power. He had

noted the massive walls of hewn stone, the massive gates and the enormous

bolts, chains and bars. In the outer office he had glanced a little

nervously around the lofty, stuccoed, hall-like room, of which the

wood-work was as massive in its way as were the stone walls without and

of which the very glass of the partitions looked put in to stay, while

the counters and desks, with their polished brass-work and great

leathern-bound ledgers, seemed as solid as the floor itself; he wondered

curiously what all these clerks did who leaned engrossed over their desks

or flitted noiselessly here and there on the matting-covered flagstones

of the flooring. Why he should be nervous he could not have explained.

But he was cool enough when, after a minute's delay, a clerk led Melsom

and himself through a smaller archway opening from this great office hall

and up a carpetted stone stairway loading between two great bare walls

and along a long lofty passage, wherein footfalls echoed softly on the

carpetted stone floor. Finally they reached a polished, pannelled door

which being opened showed Strong writing busily at a cabinet desk placed

in the centre of the handsomely furnished office-room. The great

financier greeted Melsom cordially, nodded civilly enough to Ned and

agreed with the latter's immediate statement that he came, as a private

individual solely, to see a private individual, at the request of Mr.

Melsom.

"Now, where do we differ?" Strong asked, when Melsom had gone.

"We are you and me, of course," said Ned, putting his hat on the floor.

Strong nodded.

"Well, you have sat down at your desk here and drawn up a statement as to

how I shall work without asking me. I object. I say that, as I'm

concerned, you and I together should sit down and arrange how I shall

work for you since I must work for you."

"In our agreement, that you refer to, we have tried to do what is fair,"

replied Strong, looking sharply at Ned.

"Do you want me to talk straight?" asked Ned. "Because, if you object to

that, it's better for me to go now than waste words talking round the

subject."

"Certainly," answered Strong. "Straight talk never offends me."

"Then how do I know you have tried to do fairly?" enquired Ned. "Our

experience with the pastoralists leads us to think the opposite."

"There have been rabid pastoralists," admitted Strong, after a moment's

thought, "just as there have been rabid men on the other side. I'll tell

you this, that we have had great difficulty in getting some of the

pastoralists to accept this agreement. We had to put considerable

pressure on them before they would moderate their position to what we

consider fair."

Ned did not reply. He stowed Strong's statement away for future use.

"Besides," remarked Strong, after a pause, during which he arranged the

letters before him. "There is no compulsion to accept the agreement. If

you don't like it don't work under it, but let those who want to accept

it."

"I fancy that's more how it stands than by being fair," commented Ned,

bitterly.

"Well! Isn't that fair?" asked Strong, leaning back in his office chair.

"Is it fair?" returned Ned.

"Well! Why not?"

"How can it be fair? We have nothing and you have everything. All the

leases and all the sheep and all the cattle and all the improvements

belong to you. We've got to work to live and we can't work except for

you. What's the sense of your saying that if we don't like the agreement

we needn't take it? We must either break the agreement or take it. That's

how we stand."

"Well, what do you object to in it?"

"I don't know what the others object to in it. I know what I object to."

"That's what I want to know."

"Well, for one thing, when I've earned money it's mine. The minute I've

shorn a sheep the price of shearing it belongs to me and not to the

squatter. It's convenient to agree only to draw pay at certain times, but

it's barefaced to deliberately withhold my money weeks after I've earned

it, and it's thieving to forfeit wages in case a squatter and I differ as

to whether the agreement's been broken or not."

"There ought to be some security that a pastoralist won't be put to loss

by his men leaving him at a moment's notice," asserted Strong.

"You've got the law on your side," answered Ned. "You can send a man to

prison, like a thief, if he has a row with a squatter after signing an

agreement, but we can't send the squatter to prison if he's in fault. The

Masters and Servants Act is all wrong and we'll alter it when we get a

chance, I can assure you, but you're not content with the Masters and

Servants Act. You want a private law all in your own hand."

"We've had a very serious difficulty to meet," said the other. "Men go on

strike on frivolous pretext and we must protect our interests. We've not

cut down wages and we don't intend to."

"You have cut down wages, labourers' wages," retorted Ned.

"That has been charged," replied Strong, lifting his eyebrows. "But I can

show you the list of wages paid on our stations during the last five

years and you will see that the wages we now offer are fully up to the

average."

"That may be," said Ned. "But they are less than they were last year. I'm

speaking now of what I know."

"Oh! There may be a few instances in which the unions forced up wages

unduly which have been rectified," said Mr. Strong. "But the general rate

has not been touched."

"The pastoralists wouldn't dare arbitrate on that," answered Ned. "In

January, 1890, they tried to force down wages and we levelled them up.

Now, they are forcing them down again. At least it seems that way to me."

"That matter might be settled, I think," said Strong, dismissing it.

"What other objections have you to the agreement?"

"As an agreement I object to the whole thing, the way it's being worked.

If it were a proposal I should want to know how about the Eight Hours and

the Chinese."

"We don't wish to alter existing hours," answered Strong.

"Then why not put it down?"

"And we don't wish to encourage aliens."

"A good many pastoralists do and we are determined to try to stop them.

It looks queer to us that nothing is said about it."

"Some certainly did urge that Chinese should be allowed in tropical

Queensland but our influence is against that and we hope to restrain the

more impetuous and thus prevent friction."

Ned shrugged his shoulders without answering.

"We hope--" began Strong. Then he broke off, saying instead: "I do not

see why the men should regard the pastoralists as necessarily inimical

and as not desirous of doing what is fair."

"Look here, Mr. Strong," said Ned leaning forward, as was his habit when

in earnest. "We are beginning to understand things. We know that you

people are after profits and nothing else, that to you we are like so

many horses or sheep, only not so valuable because we're harder to break

in and our carcasses aren't worth anything. We know that you don't care a

curse whether we live or die and that you'd fill the bush with Chinese

to-morrow if you could see your way to making an extra one per cent. by

it."

"You haven't much confidence in us, at any rate," returned Strong,

coolly. "But if we look carefully after profits you must recollect that a

great deal of capital is trust funds. The widow and the orphan invest

their little fortunes in our hands. Surely you wouldn't injure them?"

"I thought we were talking straight to one another," said Ned. "You will

excuse me, Mr. Strong, for thinking that to talk 'widow and orphan' isn't

worthy of a man like you unless you've got a very small opinion of me.

When you think about our widows and orphans we'll think about your widows

and orphans. That's only clap-trap. It doesn't alter the hard fact that

you're only after profit and don't care what happens to us so long as you

get it."

The financier bit his lips, flushing. He took up a letter and glanced

over it before replying.

"Do you care what happens to us?"

"As things are, no. How can we? The worst that could happen to one of

you would leave you as well off as the most fortunate of us. There is war

between us, only I think it possible to be a little civilised and not to

fight each other like savages as we are doing."

"I am glad you admit that some of your methods are savage."

"Of course I admit it," answered Ned. "That is my opinion of the way both

sides fight now. Instead of conferring and arbitrating on immediate

questions and leaving future questions to be talked over and understood

and thoroughly threshed out in free discussion, we strike, you lockout,

you victimise wholesale and, naturally, we retaliate in our own ways."

"You prefer to be left uninterrupted to preach this new socialistic

nonsense?"

"Why not, if it is sound? And if it isn't sound, why not? Surely your

side isn't afraid of discussion if it knows it's right."

"Do you really think that we should leave our individual rights to be

decided upon by an ignorant mob?"

"My individual rights are at the mercy of ignorant individuals at

present," said Ned. "I am not allowed to work if I happen to have given

offence to a handful of squatters."

"I think you exaggerate," answered Strong. "I know that some pastoralists

are very vindictive but I regard most of them as honorable men incapable

of a contemptible action."

"Of course they are," said Ned. "The only thing is what do they call

contemptible? You and I are very friendly, just now, Mr. Strong. You're

not small enough to feel any hatred just because I talk a bit straight

but you know very well that you'd regard it as quite square to freeze me

out because I do talk straight."

The two men looked into each other's eyes. Strong began to respect this

outspoken bushman.

"I think that one of the most fundamental of all rights in any civilised

society is the right of a man to employ whom he likes at any terms and

under any conditions that he can get men to enter his employment. It

seems to me that without this right the very right to private property

itself is disputed for in civilisation private property does not mean

only a hoard, stored up for future use, but savings accumulated to carry

on the industrial operations of civilisation. These savings have been

prompted by the assurance that society will protect the man who saves in

making, with the man who has not saved, the contracts necessary to carry

on industry, unhampered by the interference of outsiders. That seems to

me, I repeat, a fundamental right essential to the very existence of

society. The man who disputes it seems to me an enemy of society. Whether

he is right or wrong, or whether society itself is right or wrong, is

another question with which, as it is a mere theory, practical men have

nothing to do." Strong had only been fencing in his talk before. Now that

he was ready he stated his position, quite coolly, with a quiet emphasis

that made his line of argument clear as day.

"Then why confer at all, under any conditions, oven if unionists admitted

all this?" asked Ned.

"Simply for convenience. Some of our members object to any conference but

the general opinion is that it does not involve a sacrifice of principle

to discuss details provided principles are admitted. In the same way,

some favoured the employment of men at any wage arranged between the

individual man and hie employer, but the general opinion was that it is

advisable and convenient for pastoralists in the same district to pay the

same wages."

"Then the pastoralists may combine but the bushmen mayn't."

"We don't object to the bushmen forming unions. We claim the right to

employ men without asking whether they are unionist or non-unionist."

"Which means," said Ned, "the right to victimise unionists."

"How is that?" asked Strong.

"We know how. Do you suppose for a moment, Mr. Strong, that ideas spring

up with nothing behind them? All those who are acquainted with the

history of unionism know that 'close unionism,' the refusal to work with

non-unionists, arose from the persistent preference given by employers to

non-unionists, which was a victimising of unionists."

"That may have been once, but things are different now," answered Strong.

"They are not different now. Wherever employers have an opportunity they

have a tendency to weed out unionists. I could give you scores of

instances of it being done. The black list is bad enough now. It would be

a regular terrorism if there was nothing to restrain the employer. Then

down would come wages, up would go hours and in would come the Chinese.

If it is a principle with you, it is existence itself with us."

"I think the pastoralists would agree not to victimise, as you call it,"

said Strong, after thinking a minute.

"Who is to say? How are we to know?" answered Ned. "Supposing, Mr.

Strong, you and I had a dispute in which we both believed ourselves right

would you regard it as a fair settlement to submit the whole thing,

without any exception, to an arbiter whom we both chose and both believed

to be fair?"

"Certainly I should," said Strong.

"The whole dispute, no matter what it was? You'd think it fair to leave

it all to the arbiter?"

"Certainly."

"Then why not leave 'freedom of contract' to arbitration?" demanded Ned.

"You say you are right. We say we are right. We have offered to go to

arbitration on the whole dispute, keeping nothing back. We have pledged

ourselves to stand by the arbitration. Isn't that honest and fair? What

could be fairer? It may be that we have taken a wrong method against

victimising in close unionism. But it cannot be that we should not have

some defence against victimising, and close unionism is the only defence

we have as yet, that any union has had, anywhere, except in Sheffield and

I don't suppose you want rattening to start here. Why not arbitrate?"

"It is a question of principle," answered Strong, looking Ned in the

face.

"That means you'll fight it out," commented Ned, rising and picking up

his hat. Then he put his foot on his chair and, leaning on his knee, thus

expressed his inward thoughts: "You can fight if you like but when it's

all over you'll remember what I say and know it's the straight wire.

You've been swallowing the fairy tales about ours being a union of

pressed men but you will see your mistake, believe me. You may whip us;

you've got the Government and the police and the P.M.'s and the money and

the military but how much nearer the end will you be when you have

whipped us? You'll know by then that the chaps up North, like men

everywhere else, will go down fighting and will come up smiling to fight

again when you begin to take it out of them because they're down. And in

the end you'll arbitrate. You'll have no way out of it. Its fair and

because it's fair and because we all know it's fair we'll win that or--

" Ned paused.

"I'm sorry you look at the matter so," said Strong, arranging his papers.

"How else should we look at it? If we pretend to give in as you want us

to do, it'll only be as a trick to gain time, as a ruse to put you off

until we're readier. We won't do that. For my part, and for the part of

the men I know, the union is a thing which mustn't get a bad name. We may

lie individually but the union's word must be as good as gold no matter

what it says. If the union says the sheep are wet, they're wet, and if it

says they're dry, they are dry--if the water's dripping off 'em," added

Ned, with a twinkle in his eye. "I mean, Mr. Strong, that we're trying to

be better men in our rough way and the union is what's making us better

and some of us would die for it. But we'd sooner see it die than see it

do what's cowardly."

"I am sorry that men like you are so deceived as to what is right," said

Strong.

"Perhaps we're all deceived. Perhaps you're deceived. Perhaps the whole

of life is a humbug." So Ned said, with careless fatalism. "Only, if your

mates were in trouble you'd be a cur if you didn't stand by them,

wouldn't you? That's the difference between you and me, Mr. Strong. You

don't believe that we're all mates or that the crowd has any particular

troubles and I do. And as long as one believes it, well, it doesn't

matter to him whether he's deceived or not, I think. I won't detain you

any longer. Its no use our talking, I can see."

Strong got up and walked towards the door.

"I think not," he said. "But I am glad to have met you, Mr. Hawkins, and

I can't help feeling that you're throwing great abilities away. You'll

get no thanks and do no good and you'll live to regret it. It's all very

well to talk lightly of the outlook in Queensland but when you have

become implicated in lawlessness and are suffering for it the whole

affair will look different. Don't misunderstand me! You are a young man,

capable, earnest. There is no position you might not aspire to. Be warned

in time. Let me help you. I shall be only too glad. You will never repent

it for I ask nothing dishonourable."

"I don't quite understand," said Ned, sternly, his brow knitting.

"I'm not offering a bribe," continued Strong, meeting Ned's gaze

unflinchingly. "That's not necessary. You know very well that you will

hang yourself with very little more rope. I am talking as between one man

and another. I meet only too few manly men to let one go to destruction

without trying to save him. The world doesn't need saviours; it needs

masters. You can be one of them. Think well of it: Not one in a million

has the chance."

"You mean that you'll help me to get rich?"

"Rich!" sneered Strong. "What is rich? It is Power that is worth having

and to have power one must control capital. In your wildest ranting of

the power of the capitalist you have hardly touched the fringe of the

power he has. Only there are very few who are able to use it. I offer you

the opportunity to become one of the few. I never make a mistake in men.

If you try you can be. There is the offer, take it or leave it."

For an instant Ned dreamed of accepting it, of throwing over everything

to become a great capitalist, as Strong said so confidently he could be,

and then, after long years, to pour his wealth into the treasuries of the

movement, now often checked for lack of funds. Then he thought of Nellie

and of Geisner, what they would say, still hesitating. Then he thought of

his mates expecting him, waiting for him, and he decided.

"I was thinking," he said, straightforwardly, "whether I wouldn't like to

make a pile so as to give it to the movement. But, you see, Mr. Strong,

the chaps are expecting me and that settles it. I am much obliged but it

would be dishonourable in me."

"You know what is in front?" asked Strong, calmly, making a last effort.

"I think so. I'm told I'm one of those to be locked up. What does that

matter? That won't lose me any friends."

"A stubborn man will have his way," remarked Strong. Adding, at a

venture: "Particularly when there is a woman in it."

"There is a woman in it," answered Ned, flushing a little; "a woman who

won't have me."

Strong opened the door. "I've done my best for you," he said. "Don't

blame me whatever happens. You, at least, had your choice of peace or

war, of more than peace."

"I understand. Personally, I shan't blame you," said Ned. "I choose war,

more than war," and he set his mouth doggedly.

"War, at any rate," answered Strong, holding out his hand, his face as

grave as Ned's. The two men gripped hands tightly, like duellists

crossing swords. Without another word they shook hands heartily and

separated.

Strong closed the door and walked up and down his room, hurriedly, deep

in thought, pulling his lip. He sat down at his desk, took up his pen,

got up and paced the room again. He went to the window and looked out

into the well that admitted light to the centre of the great

fortress-building. Then walked back to his desk and wrote.

"He is a dangerous man," he murmured, as if excusing himself. "He is a

most dangerous man."

A youth answered a touch of the button. Strong sent for his confidential

clerk.

"Send this at once to Queensland in cipher," he instructed, in a business

tone, when the man appeared; "this" being:

Prominent bush unionist named Hawkins leaves Sydney to-night by train for

Central Queensland via Brisbane. Have him arrested immediately. Most

important.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REPUBLICAN KISS.

"I've never felt so before," said Ned. "For about ten minutes I wanted to

go back and kill him."

"Why?"

"Because he is like a wall of iron in front of one. If he were a fat

hulking brute, as some of them are, I wouldn't have minded. I could have

pitied him and felt that he wasn't a fair specimen of Humanity. But this

man is a fair specimen in a way. He looks like a man and he talks like a

man and you feel him a man, only he's absolutely unable to understand

that the crowd are the same flesh and blood as he is and you know that

he'd wipe us down like ninepins if he could see he'd gain by it. He's all

brains and any heart he's got is only for his own friends. He is

Capitalism personified. He made me feel sick at heart at the hopelessness

of fighting such men in the old ways. I felt for a little while that the

only thing to do was to clear them out of the way as they'd clear us if

they were in our shoes."

"You've got over it soon."

"Of course," admitted Ned, with a laugh. "He can live for ever, for me,

now. It was a fool's thought. It's the system we're fighting, not the

products of it, and he's only a product just like the fat beasts we abuse

and the ignorant drunken bushmen he despises. I was worrying, as you call

it, or I shouldn't have even thought of it."

Ned was talking to Connie. After having had dinner at a restaurant with

his Trades Hall friend, to whom he related part of his morning's

interview, he had found himself with two or three hours on his hands. So

he had turned his steps towards the Strattons, longing for sympathy and

comfort, being strangely depressed and miserable without being able to

think out just how he felt.

He found Mrs. Stratton writing in her snug parlour. The rooms had the

same general appearance that they had two years before. The house, seen

by daylight for the first time, was embowered in trees and fringed back

and front with pretty flower beds and miniature lawns. Connie herself was

fair and fresh as ever and wore a loose robe of daintily flowered stuff;

the years had passed lightly over her, adding to rather than detracting

from the charms of her presence. She welcomed him warmly and with her

inimitable tact, seeing his trouble, told him how they all were,

including that Josie had married and had a beautiful baby, adding with a

flush that she herself had set Josie a bad example and bringing in the

example for Ned to admire. The other children were boating with George

and Josie, she explained, George not having yet escaped from that

horrible night-work. Harry was well and would be home after a while. He

was painting a series of scenes from city life, the sketches of which she

showed him. Arty was married to a very nice girl, who knew all his

poetry, every line, by heart. Ford was well, only more bitter than ever.

When Ned asked after Geisner, she said he had not been back since and she

had only heard once, indirectly, that he was well. Thus she led him to

talk and he told her partly what took place between Strong and himself.

Strong's offer he could not tell to anyone.

"You didn't get on with Nellie last night?" she asked, alluding to his

"worrying." Having taken the baby out she had sat down on the stool by

the open piano.

Ned looked up. "How do you know? Has she been here?"

"No. She hasn't been here, but I can tell. You men always carry your

hearts on your sleeve, when you think you aren't. You asked her to marry

you, I suppose, and she said 'No.' Isn't that it?"

"I can't tell you all about it, Mrs. Stratton," answered Ned, frankly.

"That's about it. But she did quite right. She thought she shouldn't and

when Nellie thinks anything she tries to do it. That's what should be."

Mrs. Stratton strummed a few notes. "I'll show you something," she said,

finally, getting up. "It passes the time to show old curiosities."

She left the room, returning in a few minutes with a quaint box of dark

wood, bound with chased iron work and inlaid with some semi-transparent

substance in the pattern of a coat-of-arms. She opened it with a little

key that hung on her watch chain. Inside were a number of compartments,

covered with little lids. She lifted them all, together, exposing under

the tray a deeper recess. From this she took a miniature case.

"Look at it!" she said, smiling. "I ought to charge you sixpence but I

won't."

Ned pressed the spring, the lid of the case flew up, and there, in

water-colour, was the head and bust of a girl. The face was a delicate

oval, the mouth soft and sweet, the eyes bright with youth and health,

the whole appearance telling of winning grace and cultured beauty. The

fullness of the brows betrayed the artist instinct. The hair was drawn to

the top of the head in a strange foreign fashion. The softly curving

lines of face and figure showed womanhood begun.

"She is very beautiful," commented Ned. Then, looking at it more closely:

"Do you know that somehow, although it's not like her, this reminds me of

Nellie?"

"I knew you'd say that," remarked Connie, swinging round on the music

stool so as to reach the keys again and striking a note or two softly.

"It has got Nellie's presentment, whatever you call it. I noticed it the

first time I saw Nellie. That was how we happened to speak first. Harry

noticed it, too, without my having said a word to him. They might be

sisters, only Nellie's naturally more self-reliant and determined and has

had a hard life of it, while she"--nodding at the miniature--"had

been nursed in rose-leaves up to the time it was taken."

"I don't see just where the likeness comes in," said Ned, trying to

analyse the portrait.

"It's about the eyes and the mouth particularly, as well as a general

similitude," explained Connie.

"As I tell Nellie, she's got a vicious way of setting her lips, so," and

Mrs. Stratton, mimicking, drew the corners of her mouth down in Nellie's

style. "Then she draws her brows down till altogether she looks as though

the burden of the whole world was on her. But underneath she has the same

gentle mouth and open eyes and artist forehead as the picture and one

feels it. It's very strange, don't you know, that Geisner never seemed to

notice it and yet he generally notices everything. After all, I don't

know that it is so strange. It's human nature."

"Geisner?" said Ned, clumsily, having nothing particular to say. "Has he

seen it?"

"Once or twice," observed Connie. "It belongs to him. He leaves it with

me. That's how Harry's seen it and you. It's the only thing he values so

he takes care of it by never having it about him, you know," she added,

in the flippant way that hid her feelings.

"I suppose it is--that it's--it's the girl he--" stumbled Ned,

beginning to understand suddenly.

"That's her," said Connie, strumming some louder notes. "She died. They

had been married a few days. She was taken ill, very ill. He left her,

when her life was despaired of. She would have him go, too. She got

better a little but losing him killed her."

Ned gazed at the portrait, speechless. What were his troubles, his grief,

his sorrows, beside those of the man who had loved and lost so! Nellie at

least lived. At least he had still the hope that in the years to come he

and she might mate together. His thoughts flew back to Geisner's talk on

Love on the garden terrace, in the bright afternoon sunshine. Truly

Geisner's had been the Love that elevated not the Lust that pulled down.

The example nerved him like fresh air. The pain that had dumbed his

thoughts of Nellie passed from him.

"He is a man!" cried Ned.

"That wasn't all," went on Connie, taking the case from his hands and

officiously dusting it with her handkerchief. "When she was pining for

him, dying of grief, because she had lost her strength in her illness,

they offered him his liberty if he would deny the Cause, if he would

recant, if he would say he had been fooled and misled and desired to

redeem his position. They let him hear all about her and then they

tempted him. They wanted to disgust the people with their leaders. But it

wasn't right to do that. It was shameful. It makes me wild to think of it

yet. The way it was done! To torture a man so through his love! Oh, the

wretches! The miserable dogs! I'd----" Connie broke off suddenly to put

the handkerchief to her indignant eyes. The thunderstorm of her anger

burst in rain. She was a thorough woman. "I suppose they didn't know any

better, as he always says of everybody that's mean. It's some consolation

to think that they overshot the mark, though," she concluded, tearfully.

"How?"

"How! Why if they had let Geisner go and everybody else, there'd be no

martyrs to keep the Cause going. Even Geisner, if his wife had lived,

poor girl, and if children had grown up, could hardly be quite the same,

don't you know. As it is he only lives for the Cause. He has nothing else

to live for. They crushed his weakness out of him and fitted him to turn

round and crush them."

"It's time he began," remarked Ned, thoughtfully.

"He has begun."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. In you, in me, in Nellie, in men like Ford and George and

Harry, in places you never dream of, in ways nobody knows but himself. He

is moulding the world as a potter moulds clay. It frightens me,

sometimes. I open a new book and there are Geisner's very ideas. I see a

picture, an illustrated paper, and there is Geisner's hand passed to

another. I was at a new opera the other night and I could hardly believe

my ears; it seemed as though Geisner was playing. From some out of the

way corner of the earth comes news of a great strike; then, on top of it,

from another corner, the bubbling of a gathering rising; and I can feel

that Geisner is guiding countless millions to some unseen goal, safe in

his work because none know him. He is a man! He seeks no reward, despises

fame, instils no evil, claims no leadership. Only he burns his thoughts

into men's hearts, the god-like thoughts that in his misery have come to

him, and every true man who hears him from that moment has no way but

Geisner's way. A word from him and the whole world would rock with

Revolution. Only he does not say it. He thinks of the to-morrow. We all

suffer, and he has passed through such suffering that he is branded with

it, body and soul. But he has faced it and conquered it and he

understands that we all must face it and conquer it before those who

follow after us can be freed from it. 'We must first show that Socialism

is possible,' he said to me two years ago. And I think he hoped, Ned,

that some day you would show it."

"You talk like Geisner," said Ned, watching her animated face. He had

come to her for comfort and upon his sad heart her words were like balm.

Afterwards, they strengthened the life purpose that came to him.

"Of course. So do you when you think of him. So does everybody. His

wonderful power all lies in his impressing his ideas on everybody he

meets. Strong is a baby beside him when you consider the difference in

their means."

"I wish Strong was on our side, just the same."

"Why? The Strongs find the flint on which the Geisners strike the steel.

Do you think for a single moment that the average rich man has courage

enough or brains enough to drive the people to despair as this Strong

will do?"

"Yes, monopoly will either kill or cure."

"It will cure. This Strong is annihilating the squatters as fast as he's

trying to annihilate the unions. I hear them talking sometimes, or their

wives, which is the same thing. They fairly hate him. He's doing more

than any man to kill the old employer and to turn the owners of capital

into mere idle butterflies, or, if you like it better, into swine

wallowing in luxury, living on dividends. Not that they hate that," went

on Connie, contemptuously. "They're an idle, vicious set, taken all

round, at the best. But he's ruining a lot of the old landocrats and

naturally they don't like it. Of course, very few of them like his style

or his wife's."

"Too quiet? Nellie was telling me something of him once."

"Yes. He's very quiet at home. So is his wife. He reads considerably. She

is musical. They have their own set, quite a pleasant one. And

fashionable society can rave and splutter but is kept carefully outside

their door. They don't razzle-dazzle, at any rate."

"Don't what?" asked Ned, puzzled.

"Don't razzle-dazzle!" repeated Connie, laughing. "Don't dance on

champagne, like many of the society gems?"

"The men, you mean."

"The men! My dear Ned, you ought to know a little more about high life

and then you'd appreciate the Strongs. I've seen a dozen fashionable

women, young and old, perfectly intoxicated at a single fashionable ball.

As for the men, most of them haven't any higher idea of happiness than a

drunken debauch. While as for fashionable morality the less you say about

it the better. And the worst of the lot are among the canting ones. The

Strongs and their set at least are decent people. Wealth and poverty both

seem to degrade most of us."

"Ah, well, it can't last so very much longer," remarked Ned.

"It could if it weren't for the way both sides are being driven,"

answered Connie. "These fat wine-soaked capitalists would give in

whenever the workmen showed a bold front if cast-iron capitalists like

Strong didn't force them into the fight and keep them fighting. And you

know yourself that while workmen get a little what they want they never

dream of objecting to greater injustices. And if it weren't for the new

ideas workmen would go on soaking themselves with drink and vice and

become as unable to make a change as the depraved wealthy are to resist a

change. Everything helps to make up the movement."

"I know I'm inconsistent," she went on. "I talk angrily myself often but

it's not right to feel hard against anybody. These other people can't

help it, any more than a thief can help it or a poor girl on the streets.

They're not happy as they might be, either. And if they were, I think

it's better to suffer for the Cause than to have an easy time by opposing

it. I'd sooner be Geisner than Strong."

"What a comparison!" cried Ned.

"Of one thing I'm sure," continued Connie, "that it is noble to go to

prison in resisting injustice, that suffering itself becomes a glory if

one bears it bravely for others. For I have heard Geisner say, often,

that when penalties cease to intimidate and when men generally rise

superior to unjust laws those special injustices are as good as

overthrown. We must all do our best to prevent anything being done which

is unmanly in itself. If we try to do that prison is no disgrace and

death itself isn't very terrible."

"I know you mean this for me," said Ned, smiling. "I didn't mind much,

you know, before. I was ready for the medicine. But, somehow, since I've

been here, I've got to feel quite eager to be locked up. I shall be

disappointed if it doesn't come off." He laughed cheerfully.

"Well, you might as well take it that way," laughed Connie. "I can't bear

people who take everything seriously."

"There was one thing I wanted you to do," said Ned, after a while.

"Nellie promised me years ago to tell me if ever she was hard up. I've

got a few pounds ahead and what my horses are worth. If anything happens

can I have it sent down to you so that you can give it to her if she

needs it?"

Connie thought for a moment, "You'd better not," she answered. "We'll see

that Nellie's all right. I think she'd starve rather than touch what

you'll need afterwards."

"Perhaps so," said Ned. "You know best about that. I must go now,"

rising.

"Can't you wait for dinner?" asked Connie. "Harry will be here then and

you'd have time to catch the train."

"I've a little business to do before," said Ned. "I promised one of our

fellows to see his brother, who lives near the station."

"Oh! You must have something to eat first," insisted Connie. "You'll miss

your dinner probably. That won't do." So he waited.

They had finished the hurriedly prepared meal, which she ate with him so

that he might feel at home, when Stratton came in.

"He's always just in time," explained Connie, when the greetings were

over. "He gives me the cold shivers whenever we're going to catch a

train. Say 'good-bye' to Ned now, and don't delay him! I'll tell you all

he said, all but the secrets. He's going to Queensland to-night and

hasn't a minute to spare."

"I'm sorry you can't stay overnight," said Harry, heartily. "I'd like to

have a long talk but I suppose my fine society lady here hasn't wasted

time."

"I've talked enough for two, you may depend upon it," announced Connie,

as they went to the front door together, chatting.

"Well, good-bye, if you must go," said Harry, holding Ned by both hands.

"And remember, whatever happens, you've got good friends here, not

fair-weather friends either."

"He must go, Harry," cried Connie. "I've kept him just to see you. You'll

make him miss the next boat. Come, Ned! Good-bye!"

Ned turned to her, holding out his hand.

"Bend down!" she said, suddenly, her lips smiling, her eyes filling.

"You're so tall."

He bent to her mechanically, not understanding. She took his head between

her hands and kissed him on both cheeks.

"The republican kiss!" she cried, trying to laugh, offering her own cheek

to him as he stood flushed and confused. Something choked him as he

stooped to her again, touching the fair face with his lips,

reverentially.

"Good-bye!" she exclaimed, her mouth working, grasping his hands. "Our

hearts are with you all up there, but, oh, don't let your good heart

destroy you for no use!" Then she burst into tears and, turning to her

husband, flung herself into the loving arms that opened for her. "It's

beginning again, Harry. It's beginning again. Will it never end, I

wonder? And it's always the best it takes from us, Harry, the bravest and

the best." And she sobbed in his arms, quietly, resignedly, as she had

sobbed, Ned recollected, when Geisner thundered forth that triumphant

Marseillaise.

Her vivid imagination showed her friends and husband and sons going to

prison and to death as friends and father and brother had gone to prison

and to death in the days gone by. She knew the Cause so well--had it

not suckled her and reared her?--with all the depth of the nature that

her lightness of manner only veiled as the frothy spray of the flooded

Barron veils the swell of the cataract beneath, with all the capacity for

understanding that made her easily the equal of brilliant men. It was a

Moloch, a Juggernaut, a Kronos that devoured its own children, a madness

driving men to fill with their hopes and lives the chasm that lies

between what is and what should be. It had lulled a little around her of

late years, the fight that can only end one way because generation after

generation carries it on, civilisation after civilisation, age after age.

Now its bugle notes were swelling again and those she cared for would be

called, sooner or later, one by one. Husband and children and friends,

all must go as this bushman was going, going with his noble thoughts and

pure instincts and generous manhood and eager brain. At least, it seemed

to her that they must. And so she bewailed them, as women will even when

their hearts are brave and when their devotion is untarnished and

undimmed. She yearned for the dawning of the Day of Peace, of the Reign

of Love, but her courage did not falter. Still amid her tears she clung

to the idea that those whom the Cause calls must obey.

"Ned'll be late, Harry," she whispered. "He must go." So Ned went, having

grasped Harry's hand again, silently, a great lump in his throat and a

dimness in his eyes but, nevertheless, strangely comforted.

He was just stepping on board the ferry steamer when Harry raced down, a

little roll of paper in his hand. "Connie forgot to give you this," was

all he had time to say. "It's the only one she has."

Ned opened the little roll to find it a pot-shot photograph of Nellie,

taken in profile as she stood, with her hands clasped, gazing intently

before her, her face sad and stern and beautiful, her figure full of

womanly strength and grace. He lovered it, overjoyed, until the boat

reached the Circular Quay. He kept taking it out and stealing sly peeps

at it as the bus rolled up George-street, Redfern way.

CHAPTER IX.

NED GOES TO HIS FATE.

At the station some of the Sydney unionists wore waiting to see Ned off.

As they loaded him with friendly counsel and encouraged him with

fraternal promises of assistance and compared the threats made in Sydney

during the maritime strike with the expected action of the Government in

Queensland, a newspaper boy came up to them, crowded at the carriage

door.

"Hello, sonny! Whose rose is that?" asked one of the group, for the

little lad carried a rose, red and blowing.

"It's Mr. Hawkinses rose," answered the boy.

"For me!" exclaimed Ned, holding out his hand. "Who is it from?"

"I'm not to say," answered the urchin, slipping away.

The other men laughed. "There must be a young lady interested in you,

Hawkins," said one jocularly; "our Sydney girls always have good eyes for

the right sort of a man." "I wondered why you stayed over last night,

Hawkins," remarked another. "Trust a Queenslander to make himself at home

everywhere," contributed a third. Ned did not answer. He did not hear

them. He knew who sent it.

Then the guard's whistle blew; another moment and the train started,

slowly at first, gradually faster, amid a pattering of good-byes.

"Give him a cheer, lads!" cried one of his friends. "Hip-hip-hurrah!"

"And one for his red rose!" shouted another. "Hip-hip-hurrah!"

"And another for the Queensland bush men! Hip-hip-hurrah!"

Ned leaned over the door as the train drew away, laughing genially at the

cheering and waving his hand to his friends. His eyes, meanwhile, eagerly

searched the platform for a tall, black-clad figure.

He saw her as he was about to abandon hope; she was half concealed by a

pillar, watching him intently. As his eyes drank her in, with a last fond

look that absorbed every line of her face and figure, every shade of her,

even to the flush that told she had heard the cheer for "his red rose,"

she waved her handkerchief to him. With eager hands he tore the fastening

of a fantastically-shaped little nugget that hung on his watch-chain and

flung it towards her. He saw her stoop to pick it up. Then the train

swept on past a switch-house and he saw her no more, save in the picture

gallery of his memory stored with priceless paintings of the face he

loved; and in the little photo that he conned till his fellow-passengers

nudged each other.

* * * * *

At Newcastle he left the train to stretch himself and get a cup of tea.

As he stepped from the carriage a man came along who peered inquisitively

at the travellers. He was a medium-sized man, with a trimmed beard,

wearing a peaked cap pulled over his forehead. This inquisitive man

looked at Ned closely, then followed him past the throng to the end of

the platform. There, finding the bushman alone, he stepped up and,

clapping his hand on Ned's shoulder, said quietly in his ear:

"In the Queen's name!"

Ned swung round on his heel, his heart palpitating, his nerves shaken,

but his face as serene as ever. It had come, then. After all, what did it

matter? He would have preferred to have reached his comrades but at least

they would know he had tried. And no man should have reason to say that

he had not taken whatever happened like a man. At the time he did not

think it strange that he was not allowed to reach the border. The

squatters could do what they liked he thought. If they wanted to hang men

what was to stop them? So he swung round on his heel, convinced of the

worst, calm outwardly, feverish inwardly, to enquire in a voice that did

not shake:

"What little game are you up to, mister?"

The inquisitive man looked at him keenly.

"Is your name Hawkins?" he asked.

"Suppose it is! What does that matter to you?" demanded Ned, mechanically

guarding his speech for future contingencies.

"It's all right, my friend," replied the other, with a chuckle. "I'm no

policeman. If you're Hawkins, I've a message for you. Show me your

credentials and I'll give it."

"Who're you, anyway?" asked Ned. "How do I know who you are?"

The inquisitive man stopped a uniformed porter who was passing. "Here,

Tom," he said, "this gentleman wants to know if I'm a union man. Am I?"

"Go along with your larks!" retorted the man in uniform. "Why don't you

ask me if you're alive?" and he passed on with a laugh as though he had

heard an excellent joke.

"Hang it!" said the inquisitive man. "That's what it is to be too well

known. Let's see the engine-driver. He'll answer for me."

"The other's good enough," answered Ned, making up his mind, as was his

habit, from the little things. "Here's my credentials!" He pulled out his

pocket-book and taking out a paper unfolded it for the inquisitive man to

read.

"That's good enough, too," was the stranger's comment. "You answer the

description but it's best to be sure. Now"--lowering his voice and

moving still further from the peopled part of the platform--"here's the

message. 'Dangerous to try going through Brisbane. Police expecting him

that way. Must go overland from Downs.' Do you understand it?"

"I understand," said Ned, arranging his plans quickly. "It means they're

after me and I'm to dodge them. I suppose I can leave my portmanteau with

you?"

"I'm here to help you," answered the man.

"Well, I'll take my blankets and leave everything else. I'm a Darling

Downs boy and can easily get a horse there. And when I'm across a horse

in the bush they'll find it tough work to stop me going through."

"You'd better take some money," remarked the man, after Ned had handed

out his portmanteau. "You may have to buy horses."

"Not when I'm once among the camps," said Ned. "I can get relays there

every few miles. I've got plenty to do me till then. How do you fellows

here feel about things?"

"Our fellows are as sound as a bell. If everybody does as much as the

miners will you'll have plenty of help. We don't believe everything the

papers say. You seem a cool one and if the others will only keep cool

you'll give the squatters a big wrestle yet."

So they talked on till the train was about to start again.

"Take my advice," said the man, drawing back further out of hearing and

putting the portmanteau down between them, "and get a cipher for

messages. We had to arrange one with Sydney during the end of the

maritime strike and that's what they've used to-night to get the tip to

you. If it wasn't for that the other side would know what was said just

as well as we do. Now, good-bye! Take care of yourself! And good luck to

you!"

"Good-bye, and thanks!" said Ned, shaking hands as he jumped into his

carriage. "You've done us a good turn. We won't forget the South up in

Queensland. You didn't tell me your name," he added, as the train moved.

The man answered something that was lost in the jarring. Ned saw him wave

his hand and walk away with the portmanteau. The train sped on, past

sheds and side-tracked carriages, past steaming engines and switch-houses

and great banked stacks of coal, out over the bridge into the open

country beyond, speeding ever Queenslandwards.

Ned, leaning over the window, watched the sheen of the electric lights on

the wharves, watched the shimmering of the river, watched the glower that

hung over the city as if over a great bush fire, watched the glorious

cloudless star-strewn sky and the splendid moon that lit the opening

country as it had lit the water front of Sydney last night, as it would

light for him the backtracks of the mazy bush when he forced his horses

on, from camp to camp, six score miles and more a day. It was a

traveller's moon, he thought with joy; let him once get into the saddle

with relays ahead and let the rain hold off for four or five days more,

then they could arrest him if they liked; at least he would have got back

to his mates.

Newcastle faded away. He took his precious photo out again and held it in

his hand after studying its outlines for the hundredth time; unobserved

he pressed the red rose to his lips.

His heart filled with joy as he listened to the rumbling of the wheels,

to the puffing of the engine, to the rubble-double-double of the train.

Every mile it covered was a mile northward; every hour was a good day's

journeying; every post it flew by was a post the less to pass of the

hundred-thousand that lay between him and his goal. He would get back

somehow. Where "the chaps" were he would be, whatever happened. And when

he got back he could tell them, at least, that the South would pour its

willing levies to help them fight in Queensland the common enemy of all.

It never struck him that he was getting further and further from Nellie.

In his innermost soul he knew that he was travelling to her.

What good fellows they were down South here, he thought, with a gush of

feeling. Wherever he went there were friends, cheering him, watching over

him, caring for him, their purses open to him, because he was a

Queensland bushman and because his union was in sore trouble and because

they would not see brother unionists fall into a trap and perish there

unaided. From the Barrier to Newcastle the brave miners, veterans of the

Labour war, were standing by. In Adelaide and Sydney alike the town

unions were voting aid and sympathy. The southern bushmen, threatened

themselves, were sending to Queensland the hard cash that turns doubtful

battles. If Melbourne was cool yet, it was only because she did not

understand; she would swing in before it was over, he knew it. The

consciousness of a continent throbbing in sympathy, despite the frowns

and lies and evil speakings of governments and press and capitalistic

organisations and of those whom these influence, dawned upon him. All the

world over it was the same, two great ideas were crystallising, two great

parties were forming, the lists were being cleared by combats such as

this for the ultimate death-struggle between two great principles which

could not always exist side by side. The robbed were beginning to

understand the robbery; the workers were beginning to turn upon the

drones; the dominance of the squatter, the mine-owner, the ship-owner,

the land-owner, the shareholder, was being challenged; this was not the

end, but surely it was the beginning of the end.

"Curse them!" muttered Ned, grinding his teeth, as he gazed out upon the

moonlit country-side. "What's the good of that?" he thought. "As Geisner

says, they don't know any better. A man ought to pity them, for they're

no worse than the rest of us. They're no better and no worse than we'd be

in their places. They can't help it any more than we can."

A great love for all mankind stole over him, a yearning to be at

fellowship with all. What fools men are to waste Life in making each

other miserable, he thought! Why should not men like Strong and Geisner

join hands? Why should not the republican kiss pass from one to another

till loving kindness reigned all the world round? Men were rough and

hasty and rash of tongue and apt to think ill too readily. But they were

good at heart, the men he knew, and surely the men he did not know were

the same. Perhaps some day----He built divine castles in the air as he

twisted Nellie's rose between his fingers. Suddenly a great wonder seized

him--he realised that he felt happy.

Happy! When he should be most miserable. Nellie would not be his wife and

his union was in danger and prison gates yawned in front and already he

was being hunted like an outlaw. Yet he was happy. He had never been so

happy before. He was so happy that, he desired no change for himself. He

would not have changed of his free will one step of his allotted path. He

hated nobody. He loved everybody. He understood Life somewhat as he had

never understood before. A great calm was upon him, a lulling between the

tempest that had passed and the tempests that were coming, a forecast of

the serenity to which Humanity is reaching by Pain.

"What does it matter, after all?" he murmured to himself. "There is

nothing worth worrying over so long as one does one's best. Things are

coming along all right. We may be only stumbling towards the light but

we're getting there just the same. So long as we know that what does the

rest matter?"

"What am I?" he thought, looking up at the stars, which shone the

brighter because the moon was now hidden behind the train. "I am what I

am, as the, old Jew God was, as we all are. We think we can change

everything and we can change nothing. Our very thoughts and motives and

ideals are only bits of the Eternal Force that holds the stars balanced

in the skies and keeps the earth for a moment solid to our feet. I cannot

move it. I cannot affect it. I cannot shake it. It alone is."

"No more," he thought on, "can Eternal Force outside of me move me,

affect me, shake me. The force in me is as eternal, as indestructible, as

infinite, as the whole universal force. What it is I am too. The unknown

Law that gives trend to Force is manifest in me as much as it is in the

whole universe beside, yet no more than it is in the smallest atom that

floats in the air, in the smallest living thing that swims in a drop of

water. I am a part of that which is infinite and eternal and which

working through Man has made him conscious and given him a sense of

things and filled him with grand ideals sublime as the universe itself.

None of us can escape the Law even if we would because we are part of the

Law and because every act and every thought and every desire follows

along in us to that which has gone before and to the influences around,

just as the flight of a bullet is according to the weight of the bullet,

and its shape, and the pressure, and the direction it was fired, and the

wind."

"It is as easy," he dreamed on, "for the stars to rebel and start playing

nine-pins with one another, as it is for any man to swerve one hair's

breadth from that which is natural for him to do, he being what he is and

influences at any given time being what they are. None of us can help

anything. We are all poor devils, within whom the human desire to love

one another struggles with the brute desire to survive one another. And

the brute desire is being beaten down by the very Pain we cry out against

and the human desire is being fostered in us all by the very hatreds that

seem to oppose it. And some day we shall all love one another and till

then, I suppose, we must suffer for the Cause a little so that men may

see by our suffering that, however unworthy we are, the Cause can give us

courage to endure."

"I must think that out when I have time," he concluded, as the train

slowed down at a stopping-place where his last fellow-passenger got out.

"I'll probably have plenty of time soon," he added, mentally, chuckling

good-humouredly at his grim joke. "It's a pity, though, one doesn't feel

good always. When a fellow gets into the thick of it, he gets hot and

says things that he shouldn't and does things, too, I reckon."

He had not heeded the other passengers but now that he found himself

alone in the carriage he got down his blankets and made his bed. He took

off his boots and coat as he had done in the park, stretched himself out

on the seat, and slept at once the sleep of contentment. For the first

time in his life the jarring of the train did not make his head ache nor

its perpetual rubble-double irritate and unnerve him. He slept like a

child as the train bore him onward, passing into sleep like a child, full

of tenderness and love, slept dreamlessly and heavily, undisturbed, with

the photo against his heart and the rose in his fingers and about his

hands the hand-clasp of friends and on his cheeks the republican kiss as

though his long-dead mother had pressed her lips there.

* * * * *

In Queensland the chain was prepared already whereto he was to be

fastened like a dog, wherewith he was to be driven in gang like a bullock

because his comrades trusted him. Yet he smiled in his sleep as the train

sped on and as the moon stole round and shone in on him.

Over the wide continent the moon shone, the ever-renewing moon that had

seen Life dawn in the distant Past and had seen Humanity falter up and

had witnessed strange things and would witness stranger. It shone on

towns restless in their slumbering; and on the countryside that dreamed

of what was in the womb of Time; and on the gathering camps of the North;

and on the Old Order bracing itself to stamp out the new thoughts; and on

the New Order uplifting men and women to suffer and be strong. Did it

laugh to think that in Australia men had forgotten how social injustice

broods social wrongs and bow social wrongs breed social conflicts, here

as in all other lands? Did it weep to think that in Australia men are

being crushed and women made weary and little children born to sorrow and

shame because the lesson of the ages is not yet learned, because Humanity

has not yet suffered enough, because we dare not yet to trust each other

and be free? Or did it joy to know that there is no peace and no

contentment so long as the fetters of tyranny and injustice gall our

limbs, that whether we will or not the lash of ill-conditions drives us

ever to struggle up to better things? Or did it simply not know and not

care, but move ever to its unknown destiny as All does, shedding its

glorious light, attracting and repelling, ceaseless obeying the Law that

needs no policeman to maintain it?

The moon shone down, knowing nothing, and the moon sank down and the sun

rose and still Ned slept. But over him and over the world, in moonlight

and in darkness and in sunlight, sleeping or waking, in town and country,

by land and sea, wherever men suffer and hope, wherever women weep,

wherever little children wonder in dumb anguish, a great Thought

stretched its sheltering folds, brooding godlike, pregnant, inspiring, a

Thought mightier than the Universe, a Thought so sublime that we can

trust like children in the Purpose of the forces that give it birth.

To you and to me this Thought speaks and pleads, wherever we are, whoever

we are, weakening our will when we do wrong, strengthening our weakness

when we would do right. And while we hear it and listen to it we are

indeed as gods are, knowing good from evil.

It is ours, this Thought, because sinful men as we all are have shed

their blood for it in their sinfulness, have lived for it in their

earnest weakness, have felt their hearts grow tender despite themselves

and have done unwittingly deeds that have met them in the path, deeds

that shine as brightly to our mental eyes as do the seen and unseen stars

that strew the firmament of heaven.

The brute-mother who would not be comforted because her young was taken

gave birth in the end to the Christs who have surrendered all because the

world sorrows. And we, in our yearnings and our aspirations, in our

longings and our strugglings and our miseries, may engender even in these

later days a Christ whom the world will not crucify, a Hero Leader whose

genius will humanise the grown strength of this supreme and sublime

Thought.

Let us not be deceived! It is in ourselves that the weakness is. It is in

ourselves that the real fight must take place between the Old and the

New. It is because we ourselves value our miserable lives, because we

ourselves cling to the old fears and kneel still before the old idols,

that the Thought still remains a thought only, that it does not create

the New Order which will make of this weary world a Paradise indeed.

Neither ballots nor bullets will avail us unless we strive of ourselves

to be men, to be worthier to be the dwelling houses of this Thought of

which even the dream is filling the world with madness divine. To curb

our own tongues, to soften our own hearts, to be sober ourselves, to be

virtuous ourselves, to trust each other--at least to try--this we

must do before we can justly expect of others that they should do it.

Without hypocrisy, knowing how we all fall far short of the ideal, we

must ourselves first cease to be utterly slaves of our own weaknesses.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Workingman's Paradise, by John Miller