The next letter I received from Gertie contained:
I suppose you were glad to see Harry. He did not tell me he was going,
or I would have sent some things by him. I thought he would be able to
tell me lots about you that I was dying to hear, but he never said a
word, only that you were all well. He went travelling some weeks ago. I
missed him at first because he used to be so kind to me; but now I
don’t, because Mr Creyton, whom Harry left to manage Five-Bob, comes
just as often as Harry used to, and is lots funnier. He brings me
something nice every time. Uncle Jay-Jay teases me about him.
Happy butterfly-natured Gertie! I envied her. With Gertie’s letter came
also one from grannie, with further mention of Harold Beecham.
We don’t know what to make of Harold Beecham. He was always such a
steady fellow, and hated to go away from home even for a short time,
but now he has taken an idea to rush away to America, and is not coming
home till he has gone over the world. He is not going to see anything,
because by cablegrams his aunts got he is one place today and hundreds
of miles away tomorrow. It is some craze he has suddenly taken. I was
asking Augusta if there was ever any lunacy in the family, and she says
not that she knows of. It was a very unwise act to leave full
management to Creyton and Benson in the face of such a drought. One
warning and marvellous escape such as he has had ought to be enough for
a man with any sense. I told him he’d be poor again if he didn’t take
care, but he said he didn’t mind if all his property was blown into
atoms, as it had done him more harm than good, whatever he means by
talking that way. Insanity is the only reason I can see for his
conduct. I thought he had his eye on Gertie, but I questioned her, and
it appears he has never said anything to her. I wonder what was his
motive for going to Possum Gully that time?
Travel was indeed an unexpected development on the part of Harold
Beecham. He had such a marked aversion to anything of that sort, and
never went even to Sydney or Melbourne for more than a few days at a
stretch, and that on business or at a time of stock shows.
There were many conjectures re the motive of his visit to Possum Gully,
but I held my peace.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A Tale that is told and a Day that is done
“There are others toiling and straining
’Neath burdens graver than mine;
They are weary, yet uncomplaining,—
I know it, yet I repine:
I know it, how time will ravage,
How time will level, and yet
I long with a longing savage,
I regret with a fierce regret.”
A. L. GORDON.
’Possum Gully, 25th March, 1899
Christmas, only distinguished from the fifty-two slow Sundays of the
year by plum-pudding, roast turkey, and a few bottles of home-made
beer, has been once more; New Year, ushered in with sweet-scented
midsummer wattle and bloom of gum- and box-tree has gone; February has
followed, March is doing likewise, and my life is still the same.
What the future holds I know not, and am tonight so Weary that I do not
care.
“Time rules us all. And life, indeed, is not
The thing we planned it out, ere hope was dead;
And then, we women cannot choose our lot.”
Time is thorough in his work, and as that arch-cheat, Hope, gradually
becomes a phantom of the past, the neck will grow inured to its yoke.
Tonight is one of the times when the littleness—the abject
littleness—of all things in life comes home to me.
After all, what is there in vain ambition? King or slave, we all must
die, and when death knocks at our door, will it matter whether our life
has been great or small, fast or slow, so long as it has been true—true
with the truth that will bring rest to the soul?
“But the toughest lives are brittle,
And the bravest and the best
Lightly fall—it matters little;
Now I only long for rest.”
To weary hearts throbbing slowly in hopeless breasts the sweetest thing
is rest.
And my heart is weary. Oh, how it aches tonight—not with the ache of a
young heart passionately crying out for battle, but with the slow dead
ache of an old heart returning vanquished and defeated!
Enough of pessimistic snarling and grumbling! Enough! Enough! Now for a
lilt of another theme:
I am proud that I am an Australian, a daughter of the Southern Cross, a
child of the mighty bush. I am thankful I am a peasant, a part of the
bone and muscle of my nation, and earn my bread by the sweat of my
brow, as man was meant to do. I rejoice I was not born a parasite, one
of the blood-suckers who loll on velvet and satin, crushed from the
proceeds of human sweat and blood and souls.
Ah, my sunburnt brothers!—sons of toil and of Australia! I love and
respect you well, for you are brave and good and true. I have seen not
only those of you with youth and hope strong in your veins, but those
with pathetic streaks of grey in your hair, large families to support,
and with half a century sitting upon your work-laden shoulders. I have
seen you struggle uncomplainingly against flood, fire, disease in
stock, pests, drought, trade depression, and sickness, and yet have
time to extend your hands and hearts in true sympathy to a brother in
misfortune, and spirits to laugh and joke and be cheerful.
And for my sisters a great love and pity fills my heart. Daughters of
toil, who scrub and wash and mend and cook, who are dressmakers,
paperhangers, milkmaids, gardeners, and candle-makers all in one, and
yet have time to be cheerful and tasty in your homes, and make the best
of the few oases to be found along the narrow dusty track of your
existence. Would that I were more worthy to be one of you—more a
typical Australian peasant—cheerful, honest, brave!
I love you, I love you. Bravely you jog along with the rope of class
distinction drawing closer, closer, tighter, tighter around you: a few
more generations and you will be as enslaved as were ever the moujiks
of Russia. I see it and know it, but I cannot help you. My ineffective
life will be trod out in the same round of toil—I am only one of
yourselves, I am only an unnecessary, little, bush commoner, I am only
a—woman!
The great sun is sinking in the west, grinning and winking knowingly as
he goes, upon the starving stock and drought-smitten wastes of land.
Nearer he draws to the gum-tree scrubby horizon, turns the clouds to
orange, scarlet, silver flame, gold! Down, down he goes. The gorgeous,
garish splendour of sunset pageantry flames out; the long shadows
eagerly cover all; the kookaburras laugh their merry mocking
good-night; the clouds fade to turquoise, green, and grey; the stars
peep shyly out; the soft call of the mopoke arises in the gullies! With
much love and good wishes to all—Good night! Good-bye!