SUNDAY.
“TOM, I invite you to a walk.”
“Ay! ay! I'd give twenty pounds for one; but the swag?”
“Leave it this one day with Mr. Levi; he has got two young men always
armed in his tent, and a little peevish dog, and gutta-percha pipes
running into all the Jews' tents that are at his back like chicks after
the old hen.”
“Oh, he is a deep one.”
“And he has got mouth-pieces to them, and so he could bring thirty men
upon a thief in less than half a minute.”
“Well, then, George! a walk is a great temptation, this beautiful day.”
In short, by eight o'clock the gold was deposited, and the three
friends, for Policeman C must count for one, stepped lustily out in the
morning air.
It was the month of January; a blazing hot day was beginning to glow
through the freshness of morning; the sky was one cope of pure blue, and
the southern air crept slowly up, its wings clogged with fragrance, and
just tuned the trembling leaves--no more.
“Is not this pleasant, Tom--isn't it sweet?”
“I believe you, George! and what a shame to run down such a country as
this. There they come home, and tell you the flowers have no smell, but
they keep dark about the trees and bushes being haystacks of flowers.
Snuff the air as we go, it is a thousand English gardens in one. Look
at all those tea-scrubs each with a thousand blossoms on it as sweet as
honey, and the golden wattles on the other side, and all smelling like
seven o'clock; after which flowers be hanged!”
“Ay, lad! it is very refreshing; and it is Sunday, and we have got away
from the wicked for an hour or two; but in England there would be a
little white church out yonder, and a spire like an angel's forefinger
pointing from the grass to heaven, and the lads in their clean
smock-frocks like snow, and the wenches in their white stockings and new
shawls, and the old women in their scarlet cloaks and black bonnets, all
going one road, and a tinkle-tinkle from the belfry, that would turn all
these other sounds and colors and sweet smells holy, as well as fair, on
the Sabbath morn. Ah! England. Ah!”
“You will see her again--no need to sigh.”
“Oh, I was not thinking of her in particular just then.”
“Of who?”
“Of Susan!”
“Prejudice be hanged, this is a lovely land.”
“So 'tis, Tom, so 'tis. But I'll tell you what puts me out a little bit;
nothing is what it sets up for here. If you see a ripe pear and go to
eat it,--it is a lump of hard wood. Next comes a thing the very sight of
which turns your stomach--and that is delicious, a loquot, for instance.
There now, look at that magpie! well, it is Australia--so that magpie
is a crow and not a magpie at all. Everything pretends to be some old
friend or other of mine, and turns out a stranger. Here is nothing but
surprises and deceptions. The flowers make a point of not smelling, and
the bushes that nobody expects to smell, or wants to smell, they smell
lovely.
“What does it matter where the smell comes from, so that you get it?”
“Why, Tom,” replied George, opening his eyes, “it makes all the
difference. I like to smell a flower--flower is not complete without
smell--but I don't care if I never smell a bush till I die. Then the
birds they laugh and talk like Christians; they make me split my sides,
God bless their little hearts; but they won't chirrup. Oh, dear, no,
bless you, they leave the Christians to chirrup--they hold conversations
and giggle and laugh and play a thing like a fiddle--it is Australia!
where everything is inside-out and topsy-turvy. The animals have four
legs, so they jump on two. Ten-foot square of rock lets for a pound a
month; ten acres of grass for a shilling a year. Roasted at Christmas,
shiver o' cold on midsummer-day. The lakes are grass, and the rivers
turn their backs on the sea and run into the heart of the land; and the
men would stand on their heads, but I have taken a thought, and I've
found out why they don't.”
“Why?”
“Because if they did their heads would point the same way a man's head
points in England.”
Robinson laughed, and told George he admired the country for these very
traits. “Novelty for me against the world. Who'd come twelve thousand
miles to see nothing we couldn't see at home? Hang the same old story
always; where are we going, George?”
“Oh, not much farther, only about twelve miles from the camp?”
“Where to?”
“To a farmer I know. I am going to show you a lark, Tom,” said George.
His eyes beamed benevolence on his comrade.
Robinson stopped dead short. “George,” said he, “no! don't let us. I
would rather stay at home and read my book. You can go into temptation
and come out pure; I can't. I am one of those that, if I go into a
puddle up to my shoe, I must splash up to my middle.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Your proposing to me to go in for a lark on the Sabbath day.
“Why, Tom, am I the man to tempt you to do evil?” asked George, hurt.
“Why, no! but, for all that, you proposed a lark.”
“Ay, but an innocent one, one more likely to lift your heart on high
than to give you ill thoughts.”
“Well, this is a riddle;” and Robinson was intensely puzzled.
“Carlo,” cried George, suddenly, “come here. I will not have you hunting
and tormenting those kangaroo rats to-day. Let us all be at peace, if
you please. Come to heel.”
The friends strode briskly on, and a little after eleven o'clock they
came upon a small squatter's house and premises. “Here we are,” cried
George, and his eyes glittered with innocent delight.
The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it
and on every foot of ground round it. A furzebush had been planted by
the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate
in the middle of them. From the little plantation all the magnificent
trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded with amazing resolution
and consistency, and oak and ash reigned safe from overtowering rivals.
They passed to the back of the house, and there George's countenance
fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel walk he found from
thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them diggers.
“Ah, well,” said he, on reflection, “we could not expect to have it all
to ourselves, and indeed it would be a sin to wish it, you know. Now,
Tom, come this way; here it is, here it is--there.” Tom looked up, and
in a gigantic cage was a light brown bird.
He was utterly confounded. “What, is it this we came twelve miles to
see?”
“Ay! and twice twelve wouldn't have been much to me.”
“Well, but what is the lark you talked of?”
“This is it.”
“This? This is a bird.”
“Well, and isn't a lark a bird?”
“Oh, ay! I see! ha! ha! ha! ha!”
Robinson's merriment was interrupted by a harsh remonstrance from
several of the diggers, who were all from the other end of the camp.
“Hold your ---- cackle,” cried one, “he is going to sing;” and the whole
party had their eyes turned with expectation toward the bird.
Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But at last, just at
noon, when the mistress of the house had warranted him to sing, the
little feathered exile began as it were to tune his pipes. The savage
men gathered round the cage that moment, and amid a dead stillness the
bird uttered some very uncertain chirps, but after a while he seemed to
revive his memories, and call his ancient cadences back him to one by
one, and string them sotto voce.
And then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at home came
glowing down on him here, and he gave music back for it more and more,
till at last--amid breathless silence and glistening eyes of the rough
diggers hanging on his voice--out burst in that distant land his English
song.
It swelled his little throat and gushed from him with thrilling force
and plenty, and every time he checked his song to think of its theme,
the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he first
soared from, and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh from many a
rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how tight the listeners
had held their breath to hear him; and when he swelled with song again,
and poured with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet brooks, the
honey clover and the English spring, the rugged mouths opened and so
stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one drop trickled
from fierce unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged cheeks.
_Dulce dornurn!_
And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had once
been white-headed boys, and had strolled about the English fields with
little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard
him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard, and
they were full of oaths and drink and lusts and remorses--but no note
was changed in this immortal song. And so for a moment or two years of
vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone
out in the song-shine. They came back, bright as the immortal notes that
lighted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the cottage,
the old mother's tears when he left her without one grain of sorrow; the
village-church and its simple chimes; the clover-field hard by in which
he lay and gamboled, while the lark praised God overhead; the chubby
playmates that never grew to be wicked, the sweet hours of youth--and
innocence--and home.