THE LAMBS COME HOME
I
A month later Tom and Lennie went off with the greys, Bill and Lil, to
fetch the girls. It had been wet, so Jack had spent most of his day in
the sheds mending corn sacks. He was dressed now in thick cotton
trousers, coloured shirt, and grey woollen socks, and copper-toed boots.
When he went ploughing, by Tom's advice he wore "lasting" socks--none.
His tweed coat hung on a nail on the wall of the cubby, his good
trousers and vest were under the mattress of his bed. The only useful
garment he had brought had been the old riding breeches of the
Agricultural College days.
On the back of his Tom-clipped hair was an ant-heap of an old felt hat,
and so he sat, hour after hour, sewing the sacks with a big needle. He
was certainly not unhappy. He had a sort of passion for the family. The
family was almost his vice. He felt he must be there with the family,
and then nothing else mattered. Dad and Ma were the silent, unobtrusive
pillars of the house. Tom was the important young person. Lennie was the
soul of the place. Og and Magog were the mischievous life. Then there
was Harry, whom Jack didn't like, and the little girls, to be looked
after. Dr. Rackett hovered round like an uneasy ghost, and Gran was
there in her room. Now the girls were coming home.
Jack felt he had sunk into the family, merged his individuality, and he
would never get out. His own father and mother, England, or the future,
meant nothing to him. He loved this family. He loved Tom, and Lennie,
and he wanted always to be with all of them. This was how it had taken
him: as a real passion.
He loved, too, the ugly stone house, especially the south side, the
shady side, which was the back where the peppermint tree stood. If you
entered the front door--which nobody did--you were in a tiny passage
from which opened the parlour on one side, and the dying room on the
other. Tom called it the dying room because it had never been used for
any other purpose by the family. Old Mr. Ellis had been carried down
there to die. So had his brother Willie. As Tom explained: "The
staircase is too narrow to handle a coffin."
Through the passage you dropped a step into the living room. On the
right from this you stepped up a step into the kitchen, and on the left,
up a step into Gran's room. Gran's room had once been the whole house:
the rest had been added on. It is often so in Australia.
From the sitting room you went straight on to the back verandah, and
there were the four trees, and a fenced-in garden, and the yards. The
garden had gay flowers, because Mr. Ellis loved them, and a round,
stone-walled well. Alongside was the yard, marked off by the four trees
into a square: a mulberry one side the kitchen door, a pepper the other,
a photosphorum with a seat under it a little way off, and across, a
Norfolk pine and half a fir tree.
Tom would talk to Jack about the family: a terrible tangle, they both
thought. Why, there was Gran, endless years old! Dad was fifty, and he
and Uncle Easu (dead) were her twins and her only sons. However, she had
seven daughters and, it seemed to Jack, hundreds of grandchildren, most
of them grown up with more children of their own.
"I could never remember all their names," he declared.
"I don't try," said Tom. "Neither does Gran. And I don't believe she
cares a tuppenny for 'em--for any of 'em, except Dad and us."
Gran was a delicate old lady with a lace cap, and white curly hair, and
an ivory face. She made a great impression on Jack, as if she were the
presiding deity of the family. Over her head as she sat by the sitting
room fire an old clock tick-tocked. That impressed Jack, too. There was
something weird in her age, her pallor, her white hair and white cap,
her remoteness. She was very important in the house, but mostly
invisible.
Lennie, Katie, Og and Magog, Harry, Ellie with the floss-hair and the
baby: these counted as "the children." Tom, who had had another mother,
not Ma, was different. And now the other twins, Monica and Grace, were
coming. These were the lambs. Jack, as he sat mending the sacks,
passionately in love with the family and happy doing any sort of work
there, thought of himself as a wolf in sheep's clothing, and laughed.
He wondered why he didn't like Harry. Harry was six, rather fat and
handsome, and strong as a baby bull. But he was always tormenting Baby.
Or was it Baby tormenting Harry?
Harry had got a picture book, and was finding out letters. Baby crawled
over and fell on the book. Harry snatched it away. Baby began to scream.
Ma interfered.
"Let Baby have it, dear."
"She'll tear it, Ma."
"Let her, dear. I'll get you another."
"When?"
"Some day, Harry. When I go to Perth."
"Ya.--Some day! Will ye get it Monday?"
"Oh, Harry, do be quiet, do----"
Then Baby and Harry tore the book between them in their shrieking
struggles, while Harry battered the cover on the baby's head. And a hot,
dangerous, bullying look would come into his eyes, the look of a bully.
Jack knew that look already. He would know it better before he had done
with Australia.
And yet Baby adored Harry. He was her one god.
Jack always marvelled over that baby. To him it was a little monster. It
had not lived twelve months, yet God alone knew the things it knew. The
ecstacy with which it smacked its red lips and showed its toothless gums
over sweet, sloppy food. The diabolic screams if it was thwarted. The
way it spat out "lumps" from the porridge! How on earth, at that age,
had it come to have such a mortal hatred for lumps in porridge? The way
its nose had to be held when it was given castor oil! And again, though
it protested so violently against lumps in porridge, how it loved such
abominations as plaster, earth, or the scrapings of the pig's bucket.
When you found it cramming dirt into its mouth, and scolded it, it would
hold up its hands wistfully to have them cleaned. And it didn't mind a
bit, then, if you swabbed its mouth out with a lump of rag.
It was a girl. It loved having a new clean frock on. Would sit gurgling
and patting its stomach, in a new smart frock, so pleased with itself.
Astounding!
It loved bulls and stallions and great pigs, running between their legs.
And yet it yelled in unholy terror if fowls or dogs came near. Went into
convulsions over the friendly old dog, or a quiet hen pecking near its
feet.
It was always trying to scuttle into the stable, where the horses stood.
And it had an imbecile desire to put its hand in the fire. And it adored
that blue-eyed bully of a Harry, and didn't care a straw for the mother
that slaved for it. Harry, who treated it with scorn and hate, pinching
it, cuffing it, shoving it out of its favorite positions--off the grass
patch, off the hearth-rug, off the sofa-end. But it knew exactly the
moment to retaliate, to claw his cap from his head and clutch his fair
curls, or to sweep his bread and jam on to the floor, into the dust, if
possible ....
To Jack it was all just incredible.
II
But it was part of the family, and so he loved it.
He dearly loved the cheeky Len.
"What d'y' want ter say 'feece' for? Why can't yer say 'fyce' like any
other bloke?--and why d'y' wash y'fyce before y'wash y'hands?"
"I like the water clean for my face."
"What about your dirty hands, smarmin' them over it?"
"You use a flannel or a sponge."
"If y've got one! Y'don't find 'em growin' in th' bush. Why can't y'
learn offa me now, an' be proper. Ye'll be such an awful sukey when
y'goes out campin', y'll shame y'self. Y'should wash y'hands first. Frow
away th' water if y'not short, but y' will be. Then when y've got
y'hands all soapy, sop y' fyce up an' down, not round an' round like a
cat does. Then pop y' nut under th' pump an' wring it dry. Don't never
waste y' huckaback on it. Y'll want that f' somefin' else."
"What else shall I want my towel for?"
"Wroppin' up things in, meat an' damper, an't'lay down for y'meal,
against th' ants, or to put over it against th' insex."
Then from Tom.
"Hey, nipper knowall, dry up! I've taught you the way you should behave,
haven't I? Well, I can teach Jack Grant, without any help from you.
Skedaddle!"
"Hope y' can! Sorry for y', havin' to try," said Len as he skedaddled.
Tom was the head of the clan, and the others gave him leal obedience and
a genuine, if impudent homage.
"What a funny kid!" said Jack. "He's different from the rest of you, and
his lingo's rotten."
"He's not dif!" said Tom. "'Xactly same. Same's all of us--same's all
the nips round here. He went t' same school as Monica and Grace an' me,
to Aunt's school in th' settlement, till Dr. Rackett came. If he's any
different, he got it from _him_: he's English."
Jack noticed they always spoke of Dr. Rackett as if he were a species of
rattlesnake that they kept tame about the place.
"But Ma got Dad to get the Doc, 'cos she can't bear to part with Len
even for a day--to give'm lessons at home.--I suppose he's her eldest
son.--Doc needn't, he's well-to-do. But he likes it, when he's here.
When he's not, Lennie slopes off and reads what he pleases. But it makes
no difference to Len, he's real clever. And--" Tom added grinning--"he
wouldn't speak like you do neither, not for all the tin in a cow's
bucket."
To Jack, fresh from an English Public school, Len was amazing. If he
hurt himself sharply, he sat and cried for a minute or two. Tears came
straight out, as if smitten from a rock. If he read a piece of sorrowful
poetry, he just sat and cried, wiping his eyes on his arm without
heeding anybody. He was greedy, and when he wanted to, he ate
enormously, in front of grown-up people. And yet you never minded. He
talked poetry, or raggy bits of Latin, with great sententiousness and in
the most awful accent, and without a qualm. Everything he did was right
in his own eyes. Perfectly right in his own eyes.
His mother was fascinated by him.
Three things he did well: he rode, bare-back, standing up, lying down,
anyhow. He rode like a circus rider. Also he boasted--heavens high. And
thirdly, he could laugh. There was something so sudden, so blithe, so
impish, so daring, and so wistful in his lit-up face when he laughed,
that your heart melted in you like a drop of water.
Jack loved him passionately: as one of the family.
And yet even to Lennie, Tom was the hero. Tom, the slow Tom, the rather
stupid Tom. To Lennie Tom's very stupidity was manly. Tom was so
dependable, so manly, such a capable director. He never gave trouble to
anyone, he was so complacent and self-reliant. Lennie was the
love-child, the elf. But Tom was the good, ordinary Man, and therefore
the hero.
Jack also loved Tom. But he did not accept his manliness so absolutely.
And it hurt him a little, that the strange sensitive Len should put
himself so absolutely in obedience and second place to the good plain
fellow. But it was so. Tom was the chief. Even to Jack.
III
When Tom was away, Jack felt as if the pivot of all activity was
missing. Mr. Ellis was not the real pivot. It was the plain, red-faced
Tom.
Tom had talked a good deal, in snatches, to Jack. It was the family that
bothered him, as usual. He always talked the family.
"My grandfather came out here in the early days. He was a merchant and
lost all his money in some East India business. He married Gran in
Melbourne, then they came out here. They had a bit of a struggle, but
they made good. Then Grampa died without leaving a will: which
complicated things for Gran. Dad and Easu was twins, but Dad was the
oldest. But Dad had wandered: he was gone for years and no one knows
what he did all the time.
"But Gran liked him best, and he was the eldest son, so she had this
place all fixed up for him when he came back. She'd a deal of trouble
getting the Reds out. All the A'nts were on their side--on the Red's
side. We always call Uncle Easu's family the Reds. And Aunt Emmie says
she's sure Uncle Easu was born first, and not Dad. And that Gran took a
fancy to Dad from the first, so she said he was the eldest. Anyhow it's
neither here nor there.--I hope to goodness I never get twins.--It runs
in the family, and of all the awful things! Though the Easu's have got
no twins. Seven sons and no girls, and no twins. Uncle Easu's dead, so
young Red runs their place.
"Uncle Easu was a nasty scrub, anyway. He married the servant girl, and
a servant girl no better than she should be, they say.
"He didn't make no will, either. Making no wills runs in the family, as
well as twins. Dad won't. His Dad wouldn't, and he won't neither."
Which meant, Jack knew, that by the law of the colony the property would
come to Tom.
"Oh. Gran's crafty all right! She never got herself talked about,
turning the Reds out! She saved up a stocking--Gran always has a
stocking. And she saved up an' bought 'em out. She persuaded them that
the land beyond this was better'n this. She worked in with 'em while Dad
was away, like the fingers on your hand: and bought that old barn of a
place over yonder for 'em, and bounced 'em into it. Gran's crafty, when
it's anyone she cares about. Now it's Len.
"Anyhow there it was when Dad came back, Wandoo all ready for him. He
brought me wrapped in a blanket. Old Tim, our half-caste man, was his
servant and there was my old nurse. That's all there is we know about
me. I know no more, neither who I am nor where I sprung from. And Dad
never lets on.
"He came back with a bit of money, and Gran made him marry Ma to mind
me. She said I was such a squalling little grub, and she wanted me
brought up decent. So Ma did it. But Gran never quite fancied me.
"It's a funny thing, seeing how I come, that I should be so steady and
ordinary, and Len should be so clever and unsteady. You'd ha' thought I
should be Len and him me.
"Who was my mother? That's what I want to know. Who was she? And Dad
won't never say.
"Anyhow she wasn't black, so what does it matter, anyhow?
"But it _does_ matter!"--Tom brought his fist down with a smack in the
palm of his other hand. "Nobody is ordinary to their mother, and I'm
ordinary to everybody, and I wish I wasn't."
Funny of Tom. Everybody depended on him so, he was the hero of the
establishment, because he was so steady and ordinary and dependable. And
now even he was wishing himself different. You never knew how folks
would take themselves.
IV
As for the Reds, Jack had been over to their place once or twice. They
were a rough crowd of men and youths, father and mother both dead. A
bachelor establishment. When there was any extra work to be done, the
Wandoos went over there to help. And the Reds came over to Wandoo the
same. In fact they came more often to Wandoo than the Ellises went to
them.
Jack felt the Reds didn't like him. So he didn't care for them. Red
Ellis, the eldest son, was about thirty years old, a tall, sinewy,
red-faced man with reddish hair and reddish beard and staring blue eyes.
One morning when Tom and Mr. Ellis were out mustering and tallying, Jack
was sent over to the Red house. This was during Jack's first fortnight
at Wandoo.
Red the eldest met him in the yard.
"Where's y'oss?"
"I haven't one. Mr. Ellis said you'd lend me one."
"Can y' ride?"
"More or less."
"What d'ye want wearin' that Hyde Park costume out here for?"
"I've nothing else to ride in," said Jack, who was in his old riding
breeches.
"Can't y' ride in trousers?"
"Can't keep 'em over my knees, yet."
"Better learn then, smart 'n'lively. Keep them down, 'n' y'socks up.
Come on then, blast ye, an' I'll see about a horse."
They went to the stockyard, an immense place. But it was an empty desert
now, save for a couple of black-boys holding a wild-looking bay. Red
called out to them:
"Caught Stampede, have y'? Well, let 'im go again afore y' break y'
necks. Y'r not to ride him, d'y hear?--What's in the stables, Ned?"
"Your mare, master. Waiting for you."
"What y' got besides, ye grinning jackasses? Find something for Mr.
Grant here, an' look slippy."
"Oh, master, no horse in, no knowin' stranger come."
Red turned to Jack. Easu was a coarse, swivel-eyed, loose-jointed tall
fellow.
"Y' hear that. Th' only thing left in this yard is Stampede. Ye k'n take
him or leave him, if y'r frightened of him. I'm goin' tallyin' sheep,
an' goin' now. If ye stop around idlin' all day, y'needn't tell Uncle
'twas my fault."
Jack hesitated. From a colonial point of view, he couldn't ride well,
and he knew it. Yet he hated Easu's insulting way. Easu went grinning to
the stable to fetch his mare, pleased with himself. He didn't want the
young Jackeroo planted on _him_, to teach any blankey thing to.
Jack went slowly over to the quivering Stampede, and asked the blacks if
they had ever ridden him. One answered:
"Me only fella ride 'im some time master not tomorrow. Me an' Ned catch
him in mob longa time--Try break him--no good. He come back paddock one
day. Ned wantta break him. No good. Master tell 'im let 'im go now."
Red Easu came walking out of the stable, chewing a stalk.
"Put the saddle on him," said Jack to the blacks. "Ill try."
The boys grinned and scuffled round. They rather liked the job. By being
very quick and light, Jack got into the saddle, and gripped. The boys
stood back, the horse stood up, and then whirled around on his hind
legs, and round and down. Then up and away like a squib round the yard.
The boys scattered, so did Easu, but Jack, because it was natural for
his legs to grip and stick, stuck on. His bones rattled, his hat flew
off, his heart beat high. But unless the horse came down backwards on
top of him, he could stay on. And he was not really afraid. He thought:
"If he doesn't go down backwards on top of me, I shall be all right."
And to the boys he called: "Open the gate!" Meanwhile he tried to quiet
the horse. "Steady now, steady!" he said, in a low, intimate voice.
"Steady boy!" And all the time he held on with his thighs and knees,
like iron.
He did not believe in the innate viciousness of the horse. He never
believed in the innate viciousness of anything, except a man. And he did
not want to fight the horse for simple mastery. He wanted just to hold
it hard with his legs until it soothed down a little, and he and it
could come to an understanding. But he must never relax the hold of his
hard legs, or he was dead.
Stampede was not ready for the gate. He sprang fiercely at it as if it
had been guarded by fire. Once in the open, he ran, and bucked, and
bucked, and ran, and kicked, and bucked, and ran. Jack stuck on with the
lower half of his body like a vise, feeling as if his head would be
jerked off his shoulders. It was becoming hard work. But he knew, unless
he stuck on, he was a dead man.
Then he was aware that Stampede was bolting, and Easu was coming along
on a grey mare.
Now they reached the far gate, and a miracle happened. Stampede stood
still while Red came up and opened the gate. Jack was conscious of a
body of live muscle and palpitating fire between his legs, of a furious
head tossing hair like hot wire, and bits of white foam. Also he was
aware of the trembling in his own thighs, and the sensual exertion of
gripping that hot wild body in the power of his own legs. Gripping the
hot horse in a grip of sensual mastery that made him tremble strangely
with a curious quivering. Yet he dared not relax.
"Go!" said Red. And away they went. Stampede bolted like the wind, and
Jack held on with his knees and by balance. He was thrilled, really:
frightened externally, but internally keyed up. And never for a moment
did he relax his mind's attention, nor the attention of his own tossed
body. The worst was the corkscrew bucks, when he nearly went over the
brute's head. And the moments of vindictive hate, when he would kill the
beast and be killed a thousand times, rather than be beaten. Up he went,
off the saddle, and down he came again, with a shattering jerk, down on
the front of the saddle. The balance he kept was a mystery even to
himself, his body was so flung about, by the volcano of furious life
beneath him. He felt himself shaken to pieces, his bones rattled all out
of socket. But they got there, out to the sheep paddock where a group of
Reds and black-boys stood staring in silence.
Jack jumped off, though his knees were weak and his hands trembling. The
horse stood dark with sweat. Quickly he unbuckled the saddle and bridle
and pulled them off, and gave the horse a clap on its wet neck. Away it
went, wild again, and free.
Jack glanced at the Reds, and then at Easu. Red Easu met his eyes, and
the two stared at one another. It was the defiance of the hostile
colonial, brutal and retrogressive, against the old mastery of the old
country. Jack was barely conscious. Yet he was not afraid, inside
himself, of the swivel-eyed brute of a fellow. He knew that Easu was not
a better man than himself, though he was bigger, older, and on his own
ground. But Jack had the pride of his own, old, well-bred country behind
him, and he would never go back on his breeding. He was not going to
yield in manliness before the colonial way of life: the brutishness, the
commonness. Inwardly he would not give in to it. But the best of it, the
colonial honesty and simplicity, that he loved.
There are two sides to colonials, as to everything. One side he loved.
The other he refused and defied.
These decisions are not mental, but they are critical in the soul of a
boy of eighteen. And the destiny of nations hangs on such silent, almost
unconscious decisions.
Esau--they called him Easu, but the name was Esau--turned to a black,
and bellowed:
"Give master your horse, and carry that bally saddle home."
Then silently they all turned to the sheep-tallying.
V
Jack was still sewing sacks. It was afternoon. He listened for the sound
of the shay, though he did not expect it until nightfall at least.
His ear, training to the Australian alertness, began to detect unusual
sounds. Or perhaps it was not his ear. The old bushman seems to have
developed a further faculty, a psychic faculty of "sensing" some unusual
disturbance in the atmosphere, and reading it. Jack was a very new
Australian. Yet he had become aware of this faculty in Tom, and he
wanted it for himself. He wanted to be able to hear the inaudible, like
a sort of clair-audience.
All he could hear was the audible: and all he could see was the visible.
The children were playing in the yard: he could see them in the dust.
Mrs. Ellis was still at the wash-tub: he saw the steam. Katie was
upstairs: he had seen her catching a hornet in the window. The men were
out ploughing, the horses were away. The pigs were walking round
grunting, the cows and poultry were all in the paddock. Gran never made
a sound, unless she suddenly appeared on the scene like the Lord in
Judgment. And Dr. Rackett was always quiet: often uncannily so.
It was still rainy season, but a warm, mellow, sleepy afternoon, with no
real sound at all. He got up and stood on the threshold to stretch
himself. And there, coming by the grain-shed, he saw a little cortege in
which the first individual he distinguished was Red Easu.
"Go in," shouted Red, "and tell A'nt as Herberts had an accident, and
we're bringin' him in."
Sure enough, they were carrying a man on a gate.
Mrs. Ellis clicked:
"Tt-tt-tt-tt-tt! They run to us when they're in trouble." But she went
at once to the linen closet, and on into the living room.
Gran was sitting in a corner by a little fire.
"Who's hurt?" she inquired testily. "Not one of the family, I hope and
pray."
"Jack says it's Red Herbert," replied Mrs. Ellis.
"Put him in the cubby with the boys, then."
But Mrs. Ellis thought of her beloved boys, and hesitated.
"Do you think it's much, Jack?" she asked.
"They're carrying him on a gate," said Jack. "It looks bad."
"Dear o'me!" snapped Gran, in her brittle fashion. "Why couldn't you say
so?--Well then--if you don't want to put him in the cubby, there's a bed
in my room. Put him there. But I should have thought he could have had
Tom's bed, and Tom could have slept here on the sofa."
"Poor Tom," thought Jack.
"Don't"--Gran banged her stick on the floor--"stand there like a pair of
sawneys! Get to work! Get to work!"
Jack was staring at the ground and twirling his hat. Gran hobbled
forward. He noticed to his surprise that she had a wooden leg. And she
stamped it at him:
"Go and fetch that rascal of a doctor!" she cried, in a startling loud
voice.
Jack went. Dr. Rackett was not in his room, for Jack halloed and knocked
at every door. He peeped into the rooms, whose doors were slightly
opened. This must be the girls' room--two beds, neat white quilts, blue
bow at the window. When would they be home? Here was the family bed,
with two cots in the room as well. He came to a shut door. This must be
it. He knocked and halloed again. No sound. Jack felt as if he were
bound to come upon a Bluebeard's chamber. He hated looking in these
bedrooms.
He knocked again, and opened the door. A queer smell, like chemicals. A
dark room, with the blind down: a few books, a feeling of dark
dreariness. But no Doctor. "So that's that!" thought Jack.
In spite of himself his boots clattered going down, and made him
nervous. Why did the inside of the house, where he never went, seem so
secret, and rather horrible? He peeped into the dismal little drawing
room. Not there of course! Opposite was the dying room, the door wide
open. Nobody ever was there.
Rackett was not in the house, that was certain. Jack slunk out, went to
the paddock, caught Lucy the saddle-horse; saddled her and cantered
aimlessly round, within hearing of the homestead. The afternoon was
passing. Not a soul was in sight. The gum-trees hung their sharp leaves
like obvious ghosts, with the hateful motionlessness of gum-trees. And
though flowers were out, they were queer, scentless, unspeaking sort of
flowers, even the red ones that were ragged like fire. Nothing spoke.
The distances were clear and mellow and beautiful, but soulless, and
nobody alive in the world. The silent, lonely gruesomeness of Australia
gave Jack the blues.
It surely was milking time. Jack returned quietly to the yard. Still
nobody alive in the world. As if everyone had died. Yes, there was the
half-caste Tim in the distance, bringing up the slow, unwilling cows,
slowly, like slow dreams.
And there was Dad coming out of the back door, in his shirt sleeves:
bluer and puffier than ever, with his usual serene expression, and his
look of boss, which came from his waistcoat and watchchain. Dad always
wore his waistcoat and watchchain, and seemed almost over-dressed in it.
Came Og and Magog running with quick little steps, and Len slinking
round the doorpost, and Harry marching alone, and Katie dragging her
feet, and Baby crawling. Jack was glad to see them. They had all been
indoors to look at the accident. And it had been a dull, dead, empty
afternoon, with all the life emptied out of it. Even now the family, the
beloved family, seemed a trifle gruesome to Jack.
He helped to milk: a job he was not good at. Dad even took a stool and
milked also. As usual Dad did nothing but supervise. It was a good thing
to have a real large family that made supervising worth while. So Tom
said, "It's a good thing to have nine children, you can clear some work
with 'em, if you're their Dad." That's why Jack was by no means one too
many. Dad supervised him too.
They got the milking done somehow. Jack changed his boots, washed
himself, and put on his coat. He nearly trod on the baby as he walked
across to the kitchen in the dying light. He lifted her and carried her
in.
Usually "tea"--which meant mutton chops and eggs and steaks as well--was
ready when they came in from milking. Today Mr. Ellis was putting
eucalyptus sticks under the kettle, making the eternally familiar scent
of the kitchen, and Mrs. Ellis was setting the table there. Usually,
they lived in the living room from breakfast on. But today, tea was to
be in the kitchen, with a silence and a cloud in the air like a funeral.
But there was plenty of noise coming from Gran's room.
Jack had to have Baby beside him for the meal. And she put sticky hands
in his hair and leaned over and chewed and sputtered crumbs, wet crumbs
in his ear. Then she tried to wriggle down, but the evening was chill
and her hands and feet were cold and Mrs. Ellis said to keep her up.
Jack felt he couldn't stand it any longer, when suddenly she fell
asleep, the most unexpected thing in the world, and Mrs. Ellis carried
off her and Harry, to bed.
Ah, the family! The family! Jack still loved it. It seemed to fill the
whole of life for him. He did not want to be alone, save at moments. And
yet, on an afternoon like today, he somehow realised that even the
family wouldn't last forever. What then? What then?
He couldn't bear the thought of getting married to one woman and coming
home to a house with only himself and this one woman in it. Then the
slow and lonely process of babies coming. The thought of such a future
was dreadful to him. He didn't want it. He didn't want his own children.
He wanted this family: always this family. And yet there was something
gruesome to him about the empty bedrooms and the uncanny privacies even
of this family. He didn't want to think of their privacies.
VI
Three of the Reds trooped out through the sitting room, lean, red-faced,
hairy, heavy-footed, uncouth figures, for their tea. The Wandoo Ellises
were aristocratic in comparison. They asked Jack to go and help hold
Herbert down, because he was fractious. "He's that fractious!"
Jack didn't in the least want to have to handle any of the Reds, but he
had to go. He found himself taking the two steps down into the dark
living room, and the two steps up into Gran's room beyond.
Why need the family be so quiet in the kitchen, when there was such a
hubbub in here? Alan Ellis was holding one leg of the injured party, and
Ross Ellis the other, and they both addressed the recumbent figure as if
it were an injured horse with a _Whoa there! Steady on, now! Steady,
boy, steady!_ Whilst Easu, bending terribly over the prostrate figure,
clutched both its arms in a vice, and cursed Jack for not coming sooner
to take one arm.
Herbert had hurt his head, and turned fractious. Jack took the one arm.
Easu was on the other side of the bed, his reddish fair beard glowing.
There was a queer power in Easu, which fascinated Jack a little. Beyond,
Gran was sitting up in bed, among many white pillows, like Red Riding
Hood's grandmother. A bright fire of wood logs was burning in the open
hearth, and four or five tallow candles smoked duskily. But a screen was
put between Gran's four-poster and Herbert's bed, a screen made of a
wooden clothes-horse covered with sheets. Jack, however, from his
position by Herbert's pillow, could see beyond the screen to Gran's
section.
His attention was drawn by the patient. Herbert's movements were sudden
and convulsive, and always in a sudden jerking towards the right side of
the bed. Easu had given Jack the left arm to hold, and as soon as
Herbert became violent, Jack couldn't hold him. The left arm, lean and
hard as iron, broke free, and Easu jumped up and cursed Jack.
Here was a pretty scene! With Gran mumbling to herself on the other side
the hideous sheeted screen!
There was nothing for it but to use cool intelligence--a thing the Reds
did not possess. Jack had lost his hold again, and Easu like a reddish,
glistening demon was gripping the sick man's two arms and arching over
him. Jack called up his old veterinary experience and proceeded to
detach himself.
He noticed first: that Herbert was far less fierce when they didn't
resist him. Second, that he stopped groaning when his eyes fell away
from the men around him. Third, that all the convulsive jerky movements,
which had thrown him out of the bed several times, were towards the
right side of the bed.
Then why not bind him to the left?
The left arm had again escaped his grasp, and Easu's exasperated fury
was only held in check by Gran's presence. Jack went out of the room and
found Katie.
"Hunt me out an old sheet," he said.
"What for?" she asked, but went off to do his bidding.
When she came back she said:
"Mother says they don't want to bandage Herbert, do they?"
"I'm going to try and bind him. I shan't hurt him," he replied.
"Oh Jack, don't let them send for me to sit with him--I hate sickness."
"You give us a hand then with this sheet."
Between them they prepared strong bands. Jack noosed one with sailor's
knots round Katie's hands, and fastened it to the table leg.
"Pull!" he ordered. "Pull as hard as you can." And as she pulled, "Does
it hint, now?"
"Not a bit," she said.
Jack went back to the sick room. Herbert was quiet, the three brothers
were sulky and silent. They wanted above all things to get out, to get
away. You could see that. Easu glanced at Jack's hand. There was
something tense and alert about Easu, like a great, wiry bird with
enormous power in its lean, red neck and its lean limbs.
"I thought we'd best bind him so as not to hurt him," said Jack. "I know
how to do it, I think."
The brothers said not a word, but let him go ahead. And Jack bound the
left arm and the left leg, and put a band round the body of the patient.
They looked on, rather distantly interested. Easu released the
convulsive left arm of his brother. Jack took the sick man's hand
soothingly, held it soothingly, then slipped his hand up the hairy
fore-arm and got the band attached just above the elbow. Then he
fastened the ends to the bed-head. He felt quite certain he was doing
right. While he was busy Mrs. Ellis came in. She watched in silence,
too. When it was done, Jack looked at her.
"I believe it'll do," she said with a nod of approval. And then, to the
cowed, hulking brothers, "You might as well go and get your tea."
They bumped into one another trying to get through the door. Jack
noticed they were in their stocking feet. They stooped outside the door
to pick up their boots.
"Good idea!" he thought. And he took off his own boots. It made him feel
more on the job.
Mrs. Ellis went round the white bed-sheet screen to sit with Gran. Jack
went blowing out the reeking candles on the sick man's side of the same
screen. Then he sat on a hard chair facing the staring, grimacing
patient. He felt sorry for him, but repelled by him. Yet as Herbert
tossed his wiry, hairy free arm and jerked his hairy, sharp-featured
face, Jack wanted to help him.
He remembered the vet's advice: "Get the creatures' confidence, lad, and
you can do anything with 'em. Horse or man, cat or canary, get the
creature's confidence, and if anything can be done, you can do it."
Jack wanted now to proceed to get the creature's confidence. He knew it
was a matter of will: of holding the other creature's will with his own
will. But gently, and in a kindly spirit.
He held Herbert's hard fingers softly in his own hand, and said softly:
"Keep quiet, old man, keep quiet. I'm here. I'll take care of you. You
rest. You go to sleep. I won't leave you. I'll take care of you."
Herbert lay still as if listening. His muscles relaxed. He seemed
dreadfully tired--Jack could feel it. He was dreadfully, dreadfully
tired. Perhaps the womanless, brutal life of the Reds had made him so
tired. He seemed to go to sleep. Then he jerked awake, and the
convulsive struggling began again, with the frightful rolling of the
eyes.
But the steady bonds that held him seemed to comfort him, and Jack
quietly took the clutching fingers again. And the sick man's eyes, in
their rolling, rested on the quiet, abstract face of the youth, with
strange watching. Jack did not move. And again Herbert's tension seemed
to relax. He seemed in an agony of desire to sleep, but the agony of
desire was so great, that the very fear of it jerked the sick man into
horrible wakefulness.
Jack was saying silently, with his will: "Don't worry! Don't worry, old
man! Don't worry! You go to sleep. I'll look after you."
And as he sat in dead silence, saying these things, he felt as if the
fluid of his life ran out of his fingers into the fingers of the hurt
man. He was left weak and limp. And Herbert began to go to sleep, really
to sleep.
Jack sat in a daze, with the virtue gone out of him. And Herbert's
fingers were soft and childlike again in their relaxation.
The boy started a little, feeling someone pat him on the shoulder. It
was Mrs. Ellis, patting him in commendation, because the patient was
sunk deep in sleep. Then she went out.
Following her with his eyes, Jack saw another figure in the doorway. It
was Red Easu, like a wolf out of the shadow, looking in. And Jack
quietly let slip the heavy, sleeping fingers of the sick man. But he did
not move his posture. Then he was aware that Easu had gone again.
VII
It was late, and the noise of rain outside, and weird wind blowing. Mrs.
Ellis had been in and whispered that Dr. Rackett was not home yet--that
he had probably waited somewhere for the shay. And that she had told the
Reds to keep away.
There was dead silence save for the weather outside, and a noise of the
fire. The candles were all blown out.
He was startled by hearing Gran's voice:
"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings--"
"She's reading," thought Jack, though there was no light to read by. And
he wondered why the old lady wasn't asleep.
"I knew y'r mother's father, Jack Grant," came the thin, petulant voice.
"He cut off my leg. Devil of a fella wouldn't let me die when I wanted
to. Cut it off without a murmur, and no chloroform."
The thin voice was so devilishly awake, in the darkness of the night,
like a voice out of the past piercing the inert present.
"What did he care! What did he care! Not a bit," Gran went on. "And y're
another. You take after him. You're such another. You're a throw-back,
to your mother's father. I was wondering what I was going to do with
those great galoots in my room all night. I'm glad it's you."
Jack thought: "Lord, have I got to sit here all night!"
"You've got the night before you," said Gran's demonishly wakeful voice,
uncanny in its thin alertness, in the deep night. "So come round here to
the fireside an' make y'self comfortable."
Jack rose obediently and went round the screen. After all, an arm-chair
would be welcome.
"Well, say something," said Gran.
The boy peered at her in the dusk, in a kind of fear.
"Then light me a candle, for the land's sake," she said pettishly.
He took a tin candle-stick with a tallow candle, blew the fire and made
a yellow light. She looked like a carved ivory Chinese figure, almost
grotesque, among her pillows.
"Yes, y'r like y'r grandfather: a stocky, stubborn man as didn't say
much, but dare do anything. And never had a son.--Hard as nails the man
was."
"More family!" thought Jack wearily, disapproving of Gran's language
thoroughly.
"Had two daughters though, and disowned the eldest. Your mother was the
youngest. The eldest got herself into trouble and he turned her out.
Regular obstinate fool, and no bowels of compassion. That's how men are
when y' let 'em. You're the same."
Jack was so sleepy, so sleepy, and the words of the old woman seemed
like something pricking him.
"I'd have stood by her--but I was her age, and what could I do? I'd have
married her father if I could, for he was a widower. But he married
another woman for his second, and I went by ship to Melbourne, and then
I took poor old Ellis."
What on earth made her say these things, he didn't know, for he was dead
sleepy, and if he'd been wide awake he wouldn't have wanted her to
unload this sort of stuff on him. But she went on, like the old demon
she was:
"Men are fools, and women make 'em what they are. I followed your Aunt
Lizzie up, years after. She married a man in the mounted police, and he
sent the boy off. The boy was a bit weak-minded, and the man wouldn't
have him. So the lad disappeared into the bush. They say he was canny
enough about business and farming, but a bit off about people. Anyway he
was Mary's half-brother: you met Mary in Perth. Her scamp of a father
was father of that illegitimate boy. But she's an orphan now, poor
child: like that illegitimate half-brother of hers."
Jack looked up pathetically. He didn't want to hear. And Gran suddenly
laughed at him, with the sudden daring, winsome laugh, like Lennie.
"Y're a bundle of conventions, like y'r grandfather," she said tenderly.
"But y've got a kinder heart. I suppose that's from y'r English father.
Folks are tough in Australia: tough as whit-leather.--Y'll be tempted to
sin, but y'wont be tempted to condemn. And never you mind. Trust
yourself, Jack Grant. _Earn a good opinion of yourself_, and never mind
other folks. You've only got to live once. You know when you're spirit
glows--trust that. That's _you!_ That's the spirit of God in you. Trust
in that, and you'll never grow old. If you knuckle under, you'll grow
old."
She paused for a time.
"Though I don't know that I've much room to talk," she ruminated on.
"There was my son Esau, he never knuckled under, and though he's dead,
I've not much good to say of him. But then he never had a kind heart:
never. Never a woman loved Esau, though some feared him. I was not among
'em. Not I. I feared no man, not even your grand-father: except a
little. But look at Dad here now. He's got a kind heart: as kind a heart
as ever beat. And he's gone old. And he's got heart disease. And he
knuckled under. Ay, he knuckled under to me, he did, poor lad. And he'll
go off sudden, when his heart gives way. That's how it is with
kind-hearted men. They knuckle under, and they die young. Like Dad here.
He'll never make old bones. Poor lad!"
She mused again in silence.
"There's nothing to win in life, when all's said and done, but a good
opinion of yourself. I've watched and I know. God is y'rself. Or put it
the other way if you like: y'rself is God. So win a good opinion of
yourself, and watch the glow inside you."
Queer, thought Jack, that this should be an old woman's philosophy.
Yourself is God! Partly he believed it, partly he didn't. He didn't know
what he believed.--Watch the glow inside you. That he understood.
He liked Gran. She was so alone in life, amid all her children. He
himself was a lone wolf too: among the lambs of the family. And perhaps
Red Easu was a lone wolf.
"But what was I telling you?" Gran resumed. "About your illegitimate
cousin. I followed him up too. He went back beyond Atherton, and took up
land. He's got a tidy place now, and he's never married. He's wrong in
his head about people, but all right about the farm. I'm hoping that
place'll come to Mary one day, for the child's got nothing. She's a good
child--a good child. Her mother was a niece of mine."
She seemed to be going to sleep. But like Herbert, she roused again.
"Y'd better marry Mary. Make up your mind to it," she said.
And instantly he rebelled against the thought. Never.
"Perhaps I'd ought to have said: 'The best in yourself is God,'" she
mused. "Perhaps that's more it. The best in yourself is God. But then
who's going to say what is the best in yourself. A kind man knuckles
under, and thinks it's the best in himself. And a hard man holds out,
and thinks that's the best in himself. And its not good for a kind man
to knuckle under, and it's not good for a hard-hearted man to hold out.
What's to be done, deary-me, what's to be done. And no matter what we
say, people will be as they are.--You can but watch the glow."
She really did doze off. And Jack stole away to the other side of the
screen to escape her, leaving the candle burning.
VIII
He sat down thankfully on the hard chair by Herbert's side, glad to get
away from women. Glad to be with men, if it was only Herbert. Glad to
doze and feel alone: to feel alone.
He awoke with a jerk and a cramped neck, and there was Tom peeping in.
Tom? They must be back. Jack's chair creaked as he made a movement to
get up. But Tom only waved his hand and disappeared. Mean of Tom.
They must be back. The twins must be back. The family was replenished.
He stared with sleepy eyes, and a heavy, sleepy, sleepy head.
And the next thing he heard was a soft, alert voice saying: "Hello,
Bow!" Queer how it echoed in his dark consciousness as he slept, this
soft "Hello, Bow!"
There they were, both laughing, fresh with the wind and rain. Grace
standing just behind Monica, Monica's hair all tight crisp with rain,
blond at the temples, darker on the head, and her fresh face laughing,
and her yellow eyes looking with that long, meaningful look that had no
meaning, peering into his sleepy eyes. He felt something stir inside
him.
"Hello, Bow!" she said again, putting her fingers on his sleeve, "We've
got back." And still in his sleep-stupor he stared without answering a
word.
"You aren't awake!" she whispered, putting her cold hand suddenly on his
face, and laughing as he started back. A new look came into his eyes as
he stared startled at her, and she bent her head, turning aside.
"Poo! Smells of stinking candles in here!" whispered Grace.
Someone else was there. It was Red Easu in the doorway, saying in a
hoarse voice:
"Want me to take a spell with Herbert?"
Monica glanced back at him with a strange look. He loomed weird and
tall, with his rather long, red neck and glistening beard and quick blue
eyes. A certain sense of power came with him.
"Hello, girls, got back!" he added to the twins, who watched him without
speaking.
"Who's there?" said Gran's voice from the other side of the screen. "Is
it the girls back? Has Mary come with you?"
As if in answer to the summons, Mary appeared in the doorway, wearing a
white apron. She glanced first at Jack, with her black eyes, and then at
Gran. Monica was watching her with a sideways lynx look, and Grace was
looking at everybody with big blue eyes, while Easu looked down from his
uncouth, ostrich height.
"Hello, Gran!" said Mary, going to the other side of the screen to kiss
the old lady. The twins followed suit.
"Want me to take a spell in here?" said Easu, jerking his thumb at the
sleeping Herbert. Easu wore black trousers hitched up high with braces
over a dark-grey flannel shirt, and leather leggings, but no boots. His
shirt-sleeves were rolled up from his sinewy brown arms. His reddish
fair hair was thick and rather long. He spoke in a deep gruff voice,
that he made as quiet as possible, and he seemed to show a gruff sort of
submissiveness to Jack, at the moment.
"No, Easu," replied Gran, "I can't do with you, Jack Grant will manage."
The sick man was sleeping through it all like the dead.
"I can take a turn," said Mary's soft, low, insidious voice.
"No, not you either, Mary. You go to 'sleep after that drive. Go, all of
you, go to bed. I can't do with you all in here. Has Dr. Rackett come?"
"No," said Easu.
"Then go away, all of you. I can't do with you," said Gran.
Mary came round the screen and shook hands with Jack, looking him full
in the eyes with her black eyes, so that he was uncomfortable. She made
him more uncomfortable than Monica did. Monica had slunk also round the
screen, and was standing with one foot trailing, watching. She watched
just as closely when Mary shook hands with the embarrassed Easu.
They all retreated silently to the door. Grace went first. And with her
big, dark-blue eyes she glanced back inquisitively at Jack. Mary went
next--she too turning in the door to give him a look and an intimate,
furtive-seeming smile. Then came Monica, and like a wolf she lingered in
the door looking back with a long, meaningful, meaningless sidelong look
before she took her departure. Then on her heels went Easu, and he did
not look back. He seemed to loom over the girls.
"Blow the light out," said Gran.
He went round to blow out the candle. Gran lay there like an old angel.
Queer old soul--framed by pillow frills.
"Yourself is God!"
Jack thought of that with a certain exultance.
He went over and made up the fire. Then he sat in the arm-chair. Herbert
was moving. He went over to soothe him. The sick man moaned steadily for
some time, for a long time, then went still again. Jack slept in the
hard chair.
He woke up cramped and cold, and went round to the arm-chair by the
fire. Gran was sleeping like an inert bit of ivory. He softly attended
to the fire and sat down in the arm-chair.
He was riding a horse a long, long way, on a journey that would never
end. He couldn't stop the horse till it stopped of itself. And it would
never stop. A voice said: What has he done? And a voice answered:
Conquered the world.--But the horse did not stop. And he woke and saw
shadows on the wall, and slept again. Things had all turned to
dough--his hands were heavy with dough. He woke and looked at his hands
to see if it were so. How loudly and fiercely the clock ticked!
Not dough, but boxing gloves. He was fighting inside a ring, fighting
with somebody who was and who wasn't Easu. He could beat Easu--he
couldn't beat Easu. Easu had knocked him down; he was lying writhing
with pain and couldn't rise, while they were counting him out. In three
more seconds he would be counted out! Horror!
He woke, it was midnight and Herbert was writhing.
"Did I sleep a minute, Herbert?" he whispered.
"My head! My head! It jerks so!"
"Does it, old man? Never mind."
And the next thought was: "There must have been gun-powder in that piece
of wood, in the fire."
IX
It was half-past one, and Mary unexpectedly appeared with tray and
lighted candle, and cocoa-milk for Jack and arrowroot for Herbert. She
fed Herbert with a spoon, and he swallowed, but made no sign that he
understood.
"How did he get the accident?" Jack whispered.
"His horse threw him against a tree."
"Wish Rackett would come," whispered Jack.
Mary shook her head and they were silent.
"How old are you, Mary?" Jack asked.
"Nineteen."
"I'm eighteen at the end of this month."
"I know.--But I'm much older than you."
Jack looked at her queer dark muzzle. She seemed to have a queer, humble
complacency of her own.
"She"--Jack nodded his head towards Gran--"says that knuckling under
makes you old."
Mary laughed suddenly.
"Then I'm a thousand," she said.
"What do you knuckle under for?" he asked.
She looked up at him slowly, and again something quick and hot stirred
in him, from her dark, queer, humble, yet assured face.
"It's my way," she said, with an odd smile.
"Funny way to have," he replied, and suddenly he was embarrassed. And he
thought of Monica's dare-devil way.
He felt embarrassed.
"I must have my own way," said Mary, with another odd, beseeching, and
yet darkly confident smile.
"Yourself is God," thought Jack.--But he said nothing, because he felt
uncomfortable.
And Mary went away with the tray and the light, and he was glad when she
was gone.
X
The worst part of the night. Nothing happened--and that was perhaps the
worst part of it. Fortified by the powers of darkness, the slightest
sounds took on momentous importance, but nothing happened. He expected
something--but nothing came.
Gran asleep there, in all the fixed motionlessness of her years, a queer
white clot. And young Herbert asleep or unconscious, sending wild
vibrations from his brain.
The thought of Monica seemed to flutter subjectively in Jack's soul, the
thought of Mary objectively. That is, Monica was somehow inside him, in
his blood, like a sister. And Mary was outside him, like a black-boy.
Both of them engaging his soul. And yet he was alone, all alone in the
universe. These two only beset him. Or did he beset them?
The oppossums made a furious bombilation as they ran up and down, back
and forth between the roof and ceiling, like an army moving. And
suddenly, shatteringly a nut would come down on the old shingle roof
from the Moreton Bay fig outside, with a crash like a gun, while the
branches dangled and clanked against the timber walls. An immense,
uncanny strider! And him alone in the lonely, uncanny, timeless core of
the night.
Slowly the night went by. And weird things awoke in the boy's soul,
things he could never quite put to sleep again. He felt as if this night
he had entered into a dense, impenetrable thicket. As if he would never
get out. He knew he would never get out.
He awoke again with a start. Was it the first light? Herbert was
stirring. Jack went quickly to him.
Herbert opened dazed eyes, and mutely looked at Jack. A look of
intelligence came, and as quickly passed. He groaned, and the torment
came over him once more. Whatever was the matter with him? He writhed
and struggled, groaning--then relapsed into a cold, inert silence. It
was as if he were dying. As if he, or something in him, had decided to
die.
Jack was terribly startled. In terror, he mixed a little brandy and
milk, and tried to pour spoonfuls down the unresisting throat. He
quickly fetched a hot stone from the fire, wrapped it in a piece of
blanket, and put it in the bed.
Then he sat down and took the young man's hand softly in his own and
whispered intensely: "Come back, Herbert! Come back! Come back!"
With all his will he summoned the inert spirit. He was terribly afraid
the other would die. He sat and watched with a fixed, intent will. And
Herbert relaxed again, the life came round his eyes again.
"Oh, God!" thought Jack. "I shall die. I shall die myself. What sort of
a life have I got to live before I die? Oh, God, what sort of a life
have I got between me and when I die?"
And it all seemed a mystery to him. The God he called on was a dark,
almost fearful mystery. The life he had to live was a kind of doom. The
choice he had was no choice. "Yourself is God." It wasn't true. There
was a terrible God somewhere else. And nothing else than this.
Because, inside himself, he was alone, without father or mother or place
or people. Just a separate living thing. And he could not choose his
doom of living nor his dying. Somewhere outside himself was a terrible
God who decreed.
He was afraid of the thicket of life, in which he found himself like a
solitary, strange animal. He would have to find his way through: all the
way to death. But what sort of way? What sort of life? What sort of life
between him and death?
He didn't know. He only knew that something must be. That he was in a
strange bush, and by himself. And that he must find his way through.