BUSH STUDIES
~BARBARA BAYNTON~
BUSH STUDIES
BY
BARBARA BAYNTON
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.,
3, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
MDCCCCII.
PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD AND SON,
22, DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY,
LONDON, W.C.
TO
HELEN McMILLEN
OF SYDNEY
NEW SOUTH WALES
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A Dreamer 1
Squeaker’s Mate 15
Scrammy ’And 44
Billy Skywonkie 79
Bush Church 106
The Chosen Vessel 142
NOTE.
SCRAMMY ’AND.
“Scrammy” indicates malformation of either hand or foot.
BILLY SKYWONKIE.
“Skywonkie” signifies weather-prophet.
A DREAMER.
A swirl of wet leaves from the night-hidden trees decorating the
little station, beat against the closed doors of the carriages. The
porter hurried along holding his blear-eyed lantern to the different
windows, and calling the name of the township in language peculiar to
porters. There was only one ticket to collect.
Passengers from far up-country towns have importance from their
rarity. He turned his lantern full on this one, as he took her
ticket. She looked at him too, and listened to the sound of his
voice, as he spoke to the guard. Once she had known every hand at the
station. The porter knew everyone in the district. This traveller was
a stranger to him.
If her letter had been received, someone would have been waiting
with a buggy. She passed through the station. She saw nothing but an
ownerless dog, huddled, wet and shivering, in a corner. More for
sound she turned to look up the straggling street of the township.
Among the sheoaks, bordering the river she knew so well, the wind
made ghostly music, unheeded by the sleeping town. There was no other
sound, and she turned to the dog with a feeling of kinship. But
perhaps the porter had a message! She went back to the platform. He
was locking the office door, but paused as though expecting her to
speak.
“Wet night!” he said at length, breaking the silence.
Her question resolved itself into a request for the time, though this
she already knew. She hastily left him.
She drew her cloak tightly round her. The wind made her umbrella
useless for shelter. Wind and rain and darkness lay before her on the
walk of three bush miles to her mother’s home. Still it was the home
of her girlhood, and she knew every inch of the way.
As she passed along the sleeping street, she saw no sign of life
till near the end. A light burned in a small shop, and the sound of
swift tapping came to her. They work late to-night, she thought, and,
remembering their gruesome task, hesitated, half-minded to ask these
night workers, for whom they laboured. Was it someone she had known?
The long dark walk--she could not--and hastened to lose the sound.
The zigzag course of the railway brought the train again near to
her, and this wayfarer stood and watched it tunnelling in the teeth
of the wind. Whoof! whoof! its steaming breath hissed at her. She
saw the rain spitting viciously at its red mouth. Its speed, as it
passed, made her realise the tedious difficulties of her journey,
and she quickened her pace. There was the silent tenseness, that
precedes a storm. From the branch of a tree overhead she heard a
watchful mother-bird’s warning call, and the twitter of the disturbed
nestlings. The tender care of this bird-mother awoke memories of her
childhood. What mattered the lonely darkness, when it led to mother.
Her forebodings fled, and she faced the old track unheedingly, and
ever and ever she smiled, as she foretasted their meeting.
“Daughter!”
“Mother!”
She could feel loving arms around her, and a mother’s sacred kisses.
She thrilled, and in her impatience ran, but the wind was angry and
took her breath. Then the child near her heart stirred for the first
time. The instincts of motherhood awakened in her. Her elated body
quivered, she fell on her knees, lifted her hands, and turned her
face to God. A vivid flash of lightning flamed above her head. It
dulled her rapture. The lightning was very near.
She went on, then paused. Was she on the right track? Back, near
the bird’s nest, were two roads. One led to home, the other was the
old bullock-dray road, that the railway had almost usurped. When
she should have been careful in her choice, she had been absorbed.
It was a long way back to the cross roads, and she dug in her mind
for landmarks. Foremost she recalled the “Bendy Tree,” then the
“Sisters,” whose entwined arms talked, when the wind was from the
south. The apple trees on the creek--split flat, where the cows and
calves were always to be found. The wrong track, being nearer the
river, had clumps of she-oaks and groups of pines in places. An
angled line of lightning illumined everything, but the violence of
the thunder distracted her.
She stood in uncertainty, near-sighted, with all the horror of the
unknown, that this infirmity could bring. Irresolute, she waited for
another flash. It served to convince her, she was wrong. Through the
bush she turned.
The sky seemed to crack with the lightning; the thunder’s suddenness
shook her. Among some tall pines she stood awed, while the storm
raged.
Then again that indefinite fear struck at her. Restlessly she pushed
on till she stumbled, and, with hands out-stretched, met some object
that moved beneath them as she fell. The lightning showed a group of
terrified cattle. Tripping and falling, she ran, she knew not where,
but keeping her eyes turned towards the cattle. Aimlessly she pushed
on, and unconsciously retraced her steps.
She struck the track she was on when her first doubt came. If this
were the right way, the wheel ruts would show. She groped, but the
rain had levelled them. There was nothing to guide her. Suddenly she
remembered that the little clump of pines, where the cattle were, lay
between the two roads. She had gathered mistletoe berries there in
the old days.
She believed, she hoped, she prayed, that she was right. If so, a
little further on, she would come to the “Bendy Tree.” There long
ago a runaway horse had crushed its drunken rider against the bent,
distorted trunk. She could recall how in her young years that tree
had ever after had a weird fascination for her.
She saw its crooked body in the lightning’s glare. She was on the
right track, yet dreaded to go on. Her childhood’s fear came back. In
a transient flash she thought she saw a horseman galloping furiously
towards her. She placed both her hands protectingly over her heart,
and waited. In the dark interval, above the shriek of the wind, she
thought she heard a cry, then crash came the thunder, drowning her
call of warning. In the next flash she saw nothing but the tree. “Oh,
God, protect me!” she prayed, and diverging, with a shrinking heart
passed on.
The road dipped to the creek. Louder and louder came the roar of its
flooded waters. Even little Dog-trap Gully was proudly foaming itself
hoarse. It emptied below where she must cross. But there were others,
that swelled it above.
The noise of the rushing creek was borne to her by the wind, still
fierce, though the rain had lessened. Perhaps there would be someone
to meet her at the bank! Last time she had come, the night had been
fine, and though she had been met at the station by a neighbour’s
son, mother had come to the creek with a lantern and waited for her.
She looked eagerly, but there was no light.
The creek was a banker, but the track led to a plank, which, lashed
to the willows on either bank, was usually above flood-level. A
churning sound showed that the water was over the plank, and she must
wade along it. She turned to the sullen sky. There was no gleam of
light save in her resolute, white face.
Her mouth grew tender, as she thought of the husband she loved, and
of their child. Must she dare! She thought of the grey-haired mother,
who was waiting on the other side. This dwarfed every tie that had
parted them. There was atonement in these difficulties and dangers.
Again her face turned heavenward! “Bless, pardon, protect and guide,
strengthen and comfort!” Her mother’s prayer.
Steadying herself by the long willow branches, ankle deep she began.
With every step the water deepened.
Malignantly the wind fought her, driving her back, or snapping the
brittle stems from her skinned hands. The water was knee-deep now,
and every step more hazardous.
She held with her teeth to a thin limb, while she unfastened her hat
and gave it to the greedy wind. From the cloak, a greater danger,
she could not in her haste free herself; her numbed fingers had lost
their cunning.
Soon the water would be deeper, and the support from the branches
less secure. Even if they did reach across, she could not hope for
much support from their wind-driven, fragile ends.
Still she would not go back. Though the roar of that rushing water
was making her giddy, though the deafening wind fought her for every
inch, she would not turn back.
Long ago she should have come to her old mother, and her heart gave a
bound of savage rapture in thus giving the sweat of her body for the
sin of her soul.
Midway the current strengthened. Perhaps if she, deprived of the
willows, were swept down, her clothes would keep her afloat. She took
firm hold and drew a deep breath to call her child-cry, “Mother!”
The water was deeper and swifter, and from the sparsity of the
branches she knew she was nearing the middle. The wind unopposed by
the willows was more powerful. Strain as she would, she could reach
only the tips of the opposite trees, not hold them.
Despair shook her. With one hand she gripped those, that had served
her so far, and cautiously drew as many as she could grasp with
the other. The wind savagely snapped them, and they lashed her
unprotected face. Round and round her bare neck they coiled their
stripped fingers. Her mother had planted these willows, and she
herself had watched them grow. How could they be so hostile to her!
The creek deepened with every moment she waited. But more dreadful
than the giddying water was the distracting noise of the mighty wind,
nurtured by the hollows.
The frail twigs of the opposite tree snapped again and again in her
hands. She must release her hold of those behind her. If she could
make two steps independently, the thicker branches would then be her
stay.
“Will you?” yelled the wind. A sudden gust caught her, and, hurling
her backwards, swept her down the stream with her cloak for a sail.
She battled instinctively, and her first thought was of the
letter-kiss, she had left for the husband she loved. Was it to be his
last?
She clutched a floating branch, and was swept down with it. Vainly
she fought for either bank. She opened her lips to call. The wind
made a funnel of her mouth and throat, and a wave of muddy water
choked her cry. She struggled desperately, but after a few mouthfuls
she ceased. The weird cry from the “Bendy Tree” pierced and conquered
the deep throated wind. Then a sweet dream voice whispered “Little
Woman!”
Soft, strong arms carried her on. Weakness aroused the melting idea
that all had been a mistake, and she had been fighting with friends.
The wind even crooned a lullaby. Above the angry waters her face rose
untroubled.
A giant tree’s fallen body said, “Thus far!” and in vain the athletic
furious water rushed and strove to throw her over the barrier. Driven
back, it tried to take her with it. But a jagged arm of the tree
snagged her cloak and held her.
Bruised and half conscious she was left to her deliverer, and the
back-broken water crept tamed under its old foe. The hammer of hope
awoke her heart. Along the friendly back of the tree she crawled, and
among its bared roots rested. But it was only to get her breath, for
this was mother’s side.
She breasted the rise. Then every horror was of the past and
forgotten, for there in the hollow was home.
And there was the light shining its welcome to her.
She quickened her pace, but did not run--motherhood is instinct in
woman. The rain had come again, and the wind buffeted her. To breathe
was a battle, yet she went on swiftly, for at the sight of the light
her nameless fear had left her.
She would tell mother how she had heard her call in the night, and
mother would smile her grave smile and stroke her wet hair, call her
“Little woman! My little woman!” and tell her she had been dreaming,
just dreaming. Ah, but mother herself was a dreamer!
The gate was swollen with rain and difficult to open. It had been
opened by mother last time. But plainly her letter had not reached
home. Perhaps the bad weather had delayed the mail boy.
There was the light. She was not daunted when the bark of the old dog
brought no one to the door. It might not be heard inside, for there
was such a torrent of water falling somewhere close. Mechanically
her mind located it. The tank near the house, fed by the spouts was
running over, cutting channels through the flower beds, and flooding
the paths. Why had not mother diverted the spout to the other tank!
Something indefinite held her. Her mind went back to the many times
long ago when she had kept alive the light while mother fixed the
spout to save the water that the dry summer months made precious. It
was not like mother, for such carelessness meant carrying from the
creek.
Suddenly she grew cold and her heart trembled. After she had seen
mother, she would come out and fix it, but just now she could not
wait.
She tapped gently, and called “Mother!”
While she waited she tried to make friends with the dog. Her heart
smote her, in that there had been so long an interval since she saw
her old home, that the dog had forgotten her voice.
Her teeth chattered as she again tapped softly. The sudden light
dazzled her when a stranger opened the door for her. Steadying
herself by the wall, with wild eyes she looked around. Another
strange woman stood by the fire, and a child slept on the couch. The
child’s mother raised it, and the other led the now panting creature
to the child’s bed. Not a word was spoken, and the movements of these
women were like those who fear to awaken a sleeper.
Something warm was held to her lips, for through it all she was
conscious of everything, even that the numbing horror in her eyes met
answering awe in theirs.
In the light the dog knew her and gave her welcome. But she had none
for him now.
When she rose one of the women lighted a candle. She noticed how,
if the blazing wood cracked, the women started nervously, how the
disturbed child pointed to her bruised face, and whispered softly to
its mother, how she who lighted the candle did not strike the match
but held it to the fire, and how the light bearer led the way so
noiselessly.
She reached her mother’s room. Aloft the woman held the candle and
turned away her head.
The daughter parted the curtains, and the light fell on the face of
the sleeper who would dream no dreams that night.
SQUEAKER’S MATE.
The woman carried the bag with the axe and maul and wedges; the
man had the billy and clean tucker bags; the cross-cut saw linked
them. She was taller than the man, and the equability of her body
contrasting with his indolent slouch, accentuated the difference.
“Squeaker’s mate” the men called her, and these agreed that she
was the best long-haired mate that ever stepped in petticoats.
The Selectors’ wives pretended to challenge her right to womanly
garments, but if she knew what they said, it neither turned nor
troubled Squeaker’s mate.
Nine prospective posts and maybe sixteen rails--she calculated this
yellow gum would yield. “Come on,” she encouraged the man; “let’s
tackle it.”
From the bag she took the axe, and ring barked a preparatory circle,
while he looked for a shady spot for the billy and tucker bags.
“Come on.” She was waiting with the greased saw. He came. The saw
rasped through a few inches, then he stopped and looked at the sun.
“It’s nigh tucker time,” he said, and when she dissented, he
exclaimed, with sudden energy, “There’s another bee! Wait, you go on
with the axe, an’ I’ll track ’im.”
As they came, they had already followed one and located the nest. She
could not see the bee he spoke of, though her grey eyes were as keen
as a Black’s. However she knew the man, and her tolerance was of the
mysteries.
She drew out the saw, spat on her hands, and with the axe began
weakening the inclining side of the tree.
Long and steadily and in secret the worm had been busy in the heart.
Suddenly the axe blade sank softly, the tree’s wounded edges closed
on it like a vice. There was a “settling” quiver on its top branches,
which the woman heard and understood. The man, encouraged by the
sounds of the axe, had returned with an armful of sticks for the
billy. He shouted gleefully, “It’s fallin’, look out.”
But she waited to free the axe.
With a shivering groan the tree fell, and as she sprang aside, a
thick worm-eaten branch snapped at a joint and silently she went down
under it.
“I tole yer t’ look out,” he reminded her, as with a crow-bar, and
grunting earnestly, he forced it up. “Now get out quick.”
She tried moving her arms and the upper part of her body. Do this; do
that, he directed, but she made no movement after the first.
He was impatient, because for once he had actually to use his
strength. His share of a heavy lift usually consisted of a
make-believe grunt, delivered at a critical moment. Yet he hardly
cared to let it again fall on her, though he told her he would, if
she “didn’t shift.”
Near him lay a piece broken short; with his foot he drew it nearer,
then gradually worked it into a position, till it acted as a stay to
the lever.
He laid her on her back when he drew her out, and waited expecting
some acknowledgment of his exertions, but she was silent, and as
she did not notice that the axe, she had tried to save, lay with
the fallen trunk across it, he told her. She cared almost tenderly
for all their possessions and treated them as friends. But the
half-buried broken axe did not affect her. He wondered a little, for
only last week she had patiently chipped out the old broken head, and
put in a new handle.
“Feel bad?” he inquired at length.
“Pipe,” she replied with slack lips.
Both pipes lay in the fork of a near tree. He took his, shook out
the ashes, filled it, picked up a coal and puffed till it was
alight--then he filled hers. Taking a small firestick he handed her
the pipe. The hand she raised shook and closed in an uncertain hold,
but she managed by a great effort to get it to her mouth. He lost
patience with the swaying hand that tried to take the light.
“Quick,” he said “quick, that damn dog’s at the tucker.”
He thrust it into her hand that dropped helplessly across her chest.
The lighted stick falling between her bare arm and the dress, slowly
roasted the flesh and smouldered the clothes.
He rescued their dinner, pelted his dog out of sight--hers was lying
near her head, put on the billy, then came back to her.
The pipe had fallen from her lips; there was blood on the stem.
“Did yer jam yer tongue?” he asked.
She always ignored trifles he knew, therefore he passed her silence.
He told her that her dress was on fire. She took no heed. He put it
out, and looked at the burnt arm, then with intentness at her.
Her eyes were turned unblinkingly to the heavens, her lips were
grimly apart, and a strange greyness was upon her face, and the
sweat-beads were mixing.
“Like a drink er tea? Asleep?”
He broke a green branch from the fallen tree and swished from his
face the multitudes of flies that had descended with it.
In a heavy way he wondered why did she sweat, when she was not
working? Why did she not keep the flies out of her mouth and eyes?
She’d have bungy eyes, if she didn’t. If she was asleep, why did she
not close them?
But asleep or awake, as the billy began to boil, he left her, made
the tea, and ate his dinner. His dog had disappeared, and as it did
not come to his whistle, he threw the pieces to hers, that would not
leave her head to reach them.
He whistled tunelessly his one air, beating his own time with a
stick on the toe of his blucher, then looked overhead at the sun and
calculated that she must have been lying like that for “close up
an hour.” He noticed that the axe handle was broken in two places,
and speculated a little as to whether she would again pick out the
back-broken handle or burn it out in his method, which was less
trouble, if it did spoil the temper of the blade. He examined the
worm-dust in the stump and limbs of the newly-fallen tree; mounted
it and looked round the plain. The sheep were straggling in a manner
that meant walking work to round them, and he supposed he would have
to yard them to-night, if she didn’t liven up. He looked down at
unenlivened her. This changed his “chune” to a call for his hiding
dog.
“Come on, ole feller,” he commanded her dog. “Fetch ’em back.” He
whistled further instructions, slapping his thigh and pointing to the
sheep.
But a brace of wrinkles either side the brute’s closed mouth
demonstrated determined disobedience. The dog would go if she told
him, and by and bye she would.
He lighted his pipe and killed half an hour smoking. With the
frugality that hard graft begets, his mate limited both his and her
own tobacco, so he must not smoke all afternoon. There was no work
to shirk, so time began to drag. Then a goanner crawling up a tree
attracted him. He gathered various missiles and tried vainly to hit
the seemingly grinning reptile. He came back and sneaked a fill of
her tobacco, and while he was smoking, the white tilt of a cart
caught his eye. He jumped up. “There’s Red Bob goin’ t’ our place fur
th’ ’oney,” he said, “I’ll go an’ weigh it an’ get the gonz” (money).
He ran for the cart, and kept looking back as if fearing she would
follow and thwart him.
Red Bob the dealer was, in a business way, greatly concerned, when
he found that Squeaker’s mate was “avin’ a sleep out there ’cos a
tree fell on her.” She was the best honey strainer and boiler that he
dealt with. She was straight and square too. There was no water in
her honey whether boiled or merely strained, and in every kerosene
tin the weight of honey was to an ounce as she said. Besides he was
suspicious and diffident of paying the indecently eager Squeaker
before he saw the woman. So reluctantly Squeaker led to where she
lay. With many fierce oaths Red Bob sent her lawful protector for
help, and compassionately poured a little from his flask down her
throat, then swished away the flies from her till help came.
Together these men stripped a sheet of bark, and laying her with
pathetic tenderness upon it, carried her to her hut. Squeaker
followed in the rear with the billy and tucker.
Red Bob took his horse from the cart, and went to town for the
doctor. Late that night at the back of the old hut (there were
two) he and others who had heard that she was hurt, squatted with
unlighted pipes in their mouths, waiting to hear the doctor’s
verdict. After he had given it and gone, they discussed in whispers,
and with a look seen only on bush faces, the hard luck of that woman
who alone had hard-grafted with the best of them for every acre and
hoof on that selection. Squeaker would go through it in no time. Why
she had allowed it to be taken up in his name, when the money had
been her own, was also for them among the mysteries.
Him they called “a nole woman,” not because he was hanging round the
honey tins, but after man’s fashion to eliminate all virtue. They
beckoned him, and explaining his mate’s injury, cautioned him to keep
from her the knowledge that she would be for ever a cripple.
“Jus’ th’ same, now then fur ’im,” pointing to Red Bob, “t’ pay me,
I’ll ’ev t’ go t’ town.”
They told him in whispers what they thought of him, and with a
cowardly look towards where she lay, but without a word of parting,
like shadows these men made for their homes.
Next day the women came. Squeaker’s mate was not a favourite with
them--a woman with no leisure for yarning was not likely to be. After
the first day they left her severely alone, their plea to their
husbands, her uncompromising independence. It is in the ordering of
things that by degrees most husbands accept their wives’ views of
other women.
The flour bespattering Squeaker’s now neglected clothes spoke
eloquently of his clumsy efforts at damper making. The women gave him
many a feed, agreeing that it must be miserable for him.
If it were miserable and lonely for his mate, she did not complain;
for her the long, long days would give place to longer nights--those
nights with the pregnant bush silence suddenly cleft by a bush voice.
However, she was not fanciful, and being a bush scholar knew ’twas a
dingo, when a long whine came from the scrub on the skirts of which
lay the axe under the worm-eaten tree. That quivering wail from the
billabong lying murkily mystic towards the East was only the cry of
the fearing curlew.
Always her dog--wakeful and watchful as she--patiently waiting for
her to be up and about again. That would be soon, she told her
complaining mate.
“Yer won’t. Yer back’s broke,” said Squeaker laconically. “That’s
wot’s wrong er yer; injoory t’ th’ spine. Doctor says that means
back’s broke, and yer won’t never walk no more. No good not t’ tell
yer, cos I can’t be doin’ everythin’.”
A wild look grew on her face, and she tried to sit up.
“Erh,” said he, “see! yer carnt, yer jes’ ther same as a snake w’en
ees back’s broke, on’y yer don’t bite yerself like a snake does w’en
’e carnt crawl. Yer did bite yer tongue w’en yer fell.”
She gasped, and he could hear her heart beating when she let her
head fall back a few moments; though she wiped her wet forehead with
the back of her hand, and still said that was the doctor’s mistake.
But day after day she tested her strength, and whatever the result,
was silent, though white witnesses, halo-wise, gradually circled her
brow and temples.
“’Tisn’t as if yer was agoin’ t’ get better t’morrer, the doctor says
yer won’t never work no more, an’ I can’t be cookin’ an’ workin’ an’
doin’ everythin’!”
He muttered something about “sellin’ out,” but she firmly refused to
think of such a monstrous proposal.
He went into town one Saturday afternoon soon after, and did not
return till Monday.
Her supplies, a billy of tea and scraps of salt beef and damper (her
dog got the beef), gave out the first day, though that was as nothing
to her compared with the bleat of the penned sheep, for it was summer
and droughty, and her dog could not unpen them.
Of them and her dog only she spoke when he returned. He d----d him,
and d----d her, and told her to “double up yer ole broke back an’
bite yerself.” He threw things about, made a long-range feint of
kicking her threatening dog, then sat outside in the shade of the old
hut, nursing his head till he slept.
She, for many reasons, had when necessary made these trips into town,
walking both ways, leading a pack horse for supplies. She never
failed to indulge him in a half pint--a pipe was her luxury.
The sheep waited till next day, so did she.
For a few days he worked a little in her sight; not much--he never
did. It was she who always lifted the heavy end of the log, and
carried the tools; he--the billy and tucker.
She wearily watched him idling his time; reminded him that the wire
lying near the fence would rust, one could run the wire through
easily, and when she got up in a day or so, she would help strain and
fasten it. At first he pretended he had done it, later said he wasn’t
goin’ t’ go wirin’ or nothin’ else by ’imself if every other man on
the place did.
She spoke of many other things that could be done by one, reserving
the great till she was well. Sometimes he whistled while she spoke,
often swore, generally went out, and when this was inconvenient, dull
as he was, he found the “Go and bite yerself like a snake,” would
instantly silence her.
At last the work worry ceased to exercise her, and for night to bring
him home was a rare thing.
Her dog rounded and yarded the sheep when the sun went down and there
was no sign of him, and together they kept watch on their movements
till dawn. She was mindful not to speak of this care to him, knowing
he would have left it for them to do constantly, and she noticed that
what little interest he seemed to share went to the sheep. Why, was
soon demonstrated.
Through the cracks her ever watchful eyes one day saw the dust rise
out of the plain. Nearer it came till she saw him and a man on
horseback rounding and driving the sheep into the yard, and later
both left in charge of a little mob. Their “Baa-baas” to her were
cries for help; many had been pets. So he was selling her sheep to
the town butchers.
In the middle of the next week he came from town with a fresh horse,
new saddle and bridle. He wore a flash red shirt, and round his neck
a silk handkerchief. On the next occasion she smelt scent, and
though he did not try to display the dandy meerschaum, she saw it,
and heard the squeak of the new boots, not bluchers. However he was
kinder to her this time, offering a fill of his cut tobacco; he had
long ceased to keep her supplied. Several of the men who sometimes in
passing took a look in, would have made up her loss had they known,
but no word of complaint passed her lips.
She looked at Squeaker as he filled his pipe from his pouch, but he
would not meet her eyes, and, seemingly dreading something, slipped
out.
She heard him hammering in the old hut at the back, which served for
tools and other things which sunlight and rain did not hurt. Quite
briskly he went in and out. She could see him through the cracks
carrying a narrow strip of bark, and understood, he was making a
bunk. When it was finished he had a smoke, then came to her and
fidgetted about; he said this hut was too cold, and that she would
never get well in it. She did not feel cold, but, submitting to his
mood, allowed him to make a fire that would roast a sheep. He took
off his hat, and fanning himself, said he was roastin’, wasn’t she?
She was.
He offered to carry her into the other; he would put a new roof on it
in a day or two, and it would be better than this one, and she would
be up in no time. He stood to say this where she could not see him.
His eagerness had tripped him.
There were months to run before all the Government conditions
of residence, etc., in connection with the selection, would be
fulfilled, still she thought perhaps he was trying to sell out, and
she would not go.
He was away four days that time, and when he returned slept in the
new bunk.
She compromised. Would he put a bunk there for himself, keep out of
town, and not sell the place? He promised instantly with additions.
“Try could yer crawl yerself?” he coaxed, looking at her bulk.
Her nostrils quivered with her suppressed breathing, and her lips
tightened, but she did not attempt to move.
It was evident some great purpose actuated him. After attempts to
carry and drag her, he rolled her on the sheet of bark that had
brought her home, and laboriously drew her round.
She asked for a drink, he placed her billy and tin pint besides the
bunk, and left her gasping and dazed to her sympathetic dog.
She saw him run up and yard his horse, and though she called him, he
would not answer nor come.
When he rode swiftly towards the town, her dog leaped on the bunk,
and joined a refrain to her lamentation, but the cat took to the bush.
He came back at dusk next day in a spring cart--not alone--he had
another mate. She saw her though he came a roundabout way, trying to
keep in front of the new hut.
There were noises of moving many things from the cart to the hut.
Finally he came to a crack near where she lay, and whispered the
promise of many good things to her if she kept quiet, and that he
would set her hut afire if she didn’t. She was quiet, he need not
have feared, for that time she was past it, she was stunned.
The released horse came stumbling round to the old hut, and thrust
its head in the door in a domesticated fashion. Her dog promptly
resented this straggler mistaking their hut for a stable. And the
dog’s angry dissent, together with the shod clatter of the rapidly
disappearing intruder, seemed to have a disturbing effect on the
pair in the new hut. The settling sounds suddenly ceased, and the
cripple heard the stranger close the door, despite Squeaker’s
assurances that the woman in the old hut could not move from her bunk
to save her life, and that her dog would not leave her.
Food, more and better, was placed near her--but, dumb and motionless,
she lay with her face turned to the wall, and her dog growled
menacingly at the stranger. The new woman was uneasy, and told
Squeaker what people might say and do if she died.
He scared at the “do,” went into the bush and waited.
She went to the door, not the crack, the face was turned that way,
and said she had come to cook and take care of her.
The disabled woman, turning her head slowly, looked steadily at her.
She was not much to look at. Her red hair hung in an uncurled bang
over her forehead, the lower part of her face had robbed the upper,
and her figure evinced imminent motherhood, though it is doubtful if
the barren woman, noting this, knew by calculation the paternity was
not Squeaker’s. She was not learned in these matters, though she
understood all about an ewe and lamb.
One circumstance was apparent--ah! bitterest of all bitterness to
women--she was younger.
The thick hair that fell from the brow of the woman on the bunk was
white now.
Bread and butter the woman brought. The cripple looked at it, at her
dog, at the woman. Bread and butter for a dog! but the stranger did
not understand till she saw it offered to the dog. The bread and
butter was not for the dog. She brought meat.
All next day the man kept hidden. The cripple saw his dog, and knew
he was about.
But there was an end of this pretence when at dusk he came back
with a show of haste, and a finger of his right hand bound and
ostentatiously prominent. His entrance caused great excitement to
his new mate. The old mate, who knew this snake-bite trick from its
inception, maybe, realised how useless were the terrified stranger’s
efforts to rouse the snoring man after an empty pint bottle had been
flung on the outside heap.
However, what the sick woman thought was not definite, for she kept
silent always. Neither was it clear how much she ate, and how much
she gave to her dog, though the new mate said to Squeaker one day
that she believed that the dog would not take a bite more than its
share.
The cripple’s silence told on the stranger, especially when alone.
She would rather have abuse. Eagerly she counted the days past and
to pass. Then back to the town. She told no word of that hope to
Squeaker, he had no place in her plans for the future. So if he spoke
of what they would do by-and-bye when his time would be up, and he
able to sell out, she listened in uninterested silence.
She did tell him she was afraid of “her,” and after the first day
would not go within reach, but every morning made a billy of tea,
which with bread and beef Squeaker carried to her.
The rubbish heap was adorned, for the first time, with jam and fish
tins from the table in the new hut. It seemed to be understood that
neither woman nor dog in the old hut required them.
Squeaker’s dog sniffed and barked joyfully around them till his
licking efforts to bottom a salmon tin sent him careering in a
muzzled frenzy, that caused the younger woman’s thick lips to part
grinningly till he came too close.
The remaining sheep were regularly yarded. His old mate heard him
whistle as he did it. Squeaker began to work about a little burning
off. So that now, added to the other bush voices, was the call from
some untimely falling giant. There is no sound so human as that from
the riven souls of these tree people, or the trembling sighs of their
upright neighbours whose hands in time will meet over the victim’s
fallen body.
There was no bunk on the side of the hut to which her eyes turned,
but her dog filled that space, and the flash that passed between this
back-broken woman and her dog might have been the spirit of these
slain tree folk, it was so wondrous ghostly. Still, at times, the
practical in her would be dominant, for in a mind so free of fancies,
backed by bodily strength, hope died slowly, and forgetful of self
she would almost call to Squeaker her fears that certain bees’ nests
were in danger.
He went into town one day and returned, as he had promised, long
before sundown, and next day a clothes line bridged the space between
two trees near the back of the old hut; and--an equally rare
occurrence--Squeaker placed across his shoulders the yoke that his
old mate had fashioned for herself, with two kerosene tins attached,
and brought them filled with water from the distant creek; but both
only partly filled the tub, a new purchase. With utter disregard of
the heat and Squeaker’s sweating brow, his new mate said, even after
another trip, two more now for the blue water. Under her commands he
brought them, though sullenly, perhaps contrasting the old mate’s
methods with the new.
His old mate had periodically carried their washing to the creek, and
his mole skins had been as white as snow without aid of blue.
Towards noon, on the clothes line many strange garments fluttered,
suggestive of a taunt to the barren woman. When the sun went down she
could have seen the assiduous Squeaker lower the new prop-sticks and
considerately stoop to gather the pegs his inconsiderate new mate had
dropped. However, after one load of water next morning, on hearing
her estimate that three more would put her own things through,
Squeaker struck. Nothing he could urge would induce the stranger
to trudge to the creek, where thirst-slaked snakes lay waiting for
someone to bite. She sulked and pretended to pack up, till a bright
idea struck Squeaker. He fastened a cask on a sledge and harnessing
the new horse, hitched him to it, and, under the approving eyes of
his new mate, led off to the creek, though, when she went inside, he
bestrode the spiritless brute.
He had various mishaps, any one of which would have served as an
excuse to his old mate, but even babes soon know on whom to impose.
With an energy new to him he persevered and filled the cask, but the
old horse repudiated such a burden even under Squeaker’s unmerciful
welts. Almost half was sorrowfully baled out, and under a rain of
whacks the horse shifted it a few paces, but the cask tilted and the
thirsty earth got its contents. All Squeaker’s adjectives over his
wasted labour were as unavailing as the cure for spilt milk.
It took skill and patience to rig the cask again. He partly filled
it, and just as success seemed probable, the rusty wire fastening the
cask to the sledge snapped with the strain, and springing free coiled
affectionately round the terrified horse’s hocks. Despite the sledge
(the cask had been soon disposed of) that old town horse’s pace then
was his record. Hours after, on the plain that met the horizon,
loomed two specks: the distance between them might be gauged, for the
larger was Squeaker.
Anticipating a plentiful supply and lacking in bush caution, the new
mate used the half bucket of water to boil the salt mutton. Towards
noon she laid this joint and bread on the rough table, then watched
anxiously in the wrong direction for Squeaker.
She had drained the new tea-pot earlier, but she placed the spout to
her thirsty mouth again.
She continued looking for him for hours.
Had he sneaked off to town, thinking she had not used that water, or
not caring whether or no. She did not trust him; another had left
her. Besides she judged Squeaker by his treatment of the woman who
was lying in there with wide-open eyes. Anyhow no use to cry with
only that silent woman to hear her.
Had she drunk all hers?
She tried to see at long range through the cracks, but the hanging
bed clothes hid the billy. She went to the door, and avoiding the
bunk looked at the billy.
It was half full.
Instinctively she knew that the eyes of the woman were upon her. She
turned away, and hoped and waited for thirsty minutes that seemed
hours.
Desperation drove her back to the door, dared she? No, she couldn’t.
Getting a long forked propstick, she tried to reach it from the door,
but the dog sprang at the stick. She dropped it and ran.
A scraggy growth fringed the edge of the plain. There was the creek.
How far? she wondered. Oh, very far, she knew, and besides there
were only a few holes where water was, and the snakes; for Squeaker,
with a desire to shine in her eyes, was continually telling her of
snakes--vicious and many--that daily he did battle with.
She recalled the evening he came from hiding in the scrub with a
string round one finger, and said a snake had bitten him. He had
drunk the pint of brandy she had brought for her sickness, and then
slept till morning. True, although next day he had to dig for the
string round the blue swollen finger, he was not worse than the many
she had seen at the “Shearer’s Rest” suffering a recovery. There was
no brandy to cure her if she were bitten.
She cried a little in self pity, then withdrew her eyes, that were
getting red, from the outlying creek, and went again to the door. She
of the bunk lay with closed eyes.
Was she asleep? The stranger’s heart leapt, yet she was hardly in
earnest as she tip-toed billy-wards. The dog, crouching with head
between two paws, eyed her steadily, but showed no opposition. She
made dumb show. “I want to be friends with you, and won’t hurt her.”
Abruptly she looked at her, then at the dog. He was motionless and
emotionless. Beside if that dog--certainly watching her--wanted to
bite her (her dry mouth opened), it could get her any time.
She rated this dog’s intelligence almost human, from many of its
actions in omission and commission in connection with this woman.
She regretted the pole, no dog would stand that.
Two more steps.
Now just one more; then, by bending and stretching her arm, she
would reach it. Could she now? She tried to encourage herself by
remembering how close on the first day she had been to the woman, and
how delicious a few mouthfuls would be--swallowing dry mouthfuls.
She measured the space between where she had first stood and the
billy. Could she get anything to draw it to her. No, the dog would
not stand that, and besides the handle would rattle, and she might
hear and open her eyes.
The thought of those sunken eyes suddenly opening made her heart
bound. Oh! she must breathe--deep, loud breaths. Her throat clicked
noisily. Looking back fearfully, she went swiftly out.
She did not look for Squeaker this time, she had given him up.
While she waited for her breath to steady, to her relief and surprise
the dog came out. She made a rush to the new hut, but he passed
seemingly oblivious of her, and bounding across the plain began
rounding the sheep. Then he must know Squeaker had gone to town.
Stay! Her heart beat violently; was it because she on the bunk slept
and did not want him?
She waited till her heart quieted, and again crept to the door.
The head of the woman on the bunk had fallen towards the wall as in
deep sleep; it was turned from the billy, to which she must creep so
softly.
Slower, from caution and deadly earnestness, she entered.
She was not so advanced as before, and felt fairly secure, for the
woman’s eyes were still turned to the wall, and so tightly closed,
she could not possibly see where she was.
She would bend right down, and try and reach it from where she was.
She bent.
It was so swift and sudden, that she had not time to scream when
those bony fingers had gripped the hand that she prematurely reached
for the billy. She was frozen with horror for a moment, then her
screams were piercing. Panting with victory, the prostrate one held
her with a hold that the other did not attempt to free herself from.
Down, down she drew her.
Her lips had drawn back from her teeth, and her breath almost
scorched the face that she held so close for the starting eyes to
gloat over. Her exultation was so great, that she could only gloat
and gasp, and hold with a tension that had stopped the victim’s
circulation.
As a wounded, robbed tigress might hold and look, she held and looked.
Neither heard the swift steps of the man, and if the tigress saw
him enter, she was not daunted. “Take me from her,” shrieked the
terrified one. “Quick, take me from her,” she repeated it again,
nothing else. “Take me from her.”
He hastily fastened the door and said something that the shrieks
drowned, then picked up the pole. It fell with a thud across the
arms which the tightening sinews had turned into steel. Once, twice,
thrice. Then the one that got the fullest force bent; that side of
the victim was free.
The pole had snapped. Another blow with a broken end freed the other
side.
Still shrieking “Take me from her, take me from her,” she beat on the
closed door till Squeaker opened it.
Then he had to face and reckon with his old mate’s maddened dog, that
the closed door had baffled.
The dog suffered the shrieking woman to pass, but though Squeaker, in
bitten agony, broke the stick across the dog, he was forced to give
the savage brute best.
“Call ’im orf, Mary, ’e’s eatin’ me,” he implored. “Oh corl ’im orf.”
But with stony face the woman lay motionless.
“Sool ’im on t’ ’er.” He indicated his new mate who, as though all
the plain led to the desired town, still ran in unreasoning terror.
“It’s orl er doin’,” he pleaded, springing on the bunk beside his old
mate. But when, to rouse her sympathy, he would have laid his hand on
her, the dog’s teeth fastened in it and pulled him back.
SCRAMMY ’AND.
Along the selvage of the scrub-girt plain the old man looked long and
earnestly. His eyes followed an indistinct track that had been cut by
the cart, journeying at rare intervals to the distant township. At
dawn some weeks back it had creaked across the plain, and at a point
where the scrub curved, the husband had stopped the horse while the
woman parted the tilt and waved goodbye to the bent, irresponsive old
man and his dog. It was her impending motherhood that made them seek
the comparative civilisation of the township, and the tenderness of
her womanhood brought the old man closer to her as they drove away.
Every week since that morning had been carefully notched by man and
dog, and the last mark, cut three nights past, showed that time was
up. Twice this evening he thought he saw the dust rise as he looked,
but longer scrutiny showed only the misty evening light.
He turned to where a house stood out from a background of scrub.
Beside the calf-pen near it, a cow gave answer and greeting to the
penned calf. “No use pennin’ up ther calf,” he muttered, “when they
don’t come. Won’t do it ter-morrer night.” He watched anxiously
along the scrub. “Calf must ’ave got ’is ’ed through ther rails an’
sucked ’er. No one else can’t ’ave done it. Scrammy’s gorn; ’twarn’t
Scrammy.” But the gloom of fear settled on his wizened face as he
shuffled stiffly towards the sheep yard.
His body jerked; there was a suggestion of the dog in his movements;
and in the dog, as he rounded up the sheep, more than a suggestion of
his master. He querulously accused the dog of “rushin’ ’em, ’stead er
allowin’ Billy (the leader) to lead ’em.”
When they were yarded he found fault with the hurdles. “Some ’un ’ad
been meddlin’ with ’em.” For two pins he would “smash ’em up with
ther axe.”
The eyes of the sheep reflected the haze-opposed glory of the setting
sun. Loyally they stood till a grey quilt swathed them. In their eyes
glistened luminous tears materialised from an atmosphere of sighs.
The wide plain gauzed into a sea on which the hut floated lonely.
Through its open door a fire gleamed like the red, steaming mouth
of an engine. Beyond the hut a clump of myalls loomed spectral and
wraith-like, and round them a gang of crows cawed noisily, irreverent
of the great silence.
Inside the hut, the old man, still querulous, talked to the listening
dog. He uncovered a cabbage tree hat--his task of the past year--and
laid upside down, on the centre of the crown, a star-shaped button
that the woman had worked for him.
“It’s orl wrong, see!” The dog said he did. “’Twon’t do!” he shouted
with the emphasis of deafness. The dog admitted it would not. “An’
she done it like thet, ter spile it on me ’er purpus. She done it
outer jealersy, cos I was makin’ it for ’im. Could ’ave done it
better meself, though I’m no ’and at fancy stitchin’. But she can’t
make a ’at like thet. No woman could. The’re no good.” The dog did
not dispute this condemnation.