UNCLE JOHN GRANT
It was day. The lie was hard. He didn't want to wake. He turned over and
was sleep again, though the lie was very hard.
Someone pushing him. Tom, with a red, blank face was saying:
"Wake up! Let's go before Rackett starts."
And the rough hands pushing him crudely. He hated it.
He sat up. He had been lying on the bottom of the buggy, with a sack
over him. No idea how he got there. It was full day.
"Old woman's got some tea made. If y' want t' change y' bags, hop over
'n take a dip in the pool. Down th' paddock there. Here's th' bag. I've
left soap n' comb on th' splash board, an' I've seen to th' 'osses. I'm
goin' f'r a drink while you get ready."
Tom had got a false dawn on him. He had wakened with that false energy
which sometimes follows a "drunk," and which fades all too quickly. For
he had hardly slept at all.
So when Jack was ready, Tom was not. His stupor was overcoming him. He
was cross--and half way through his second pewter mug of beer.
"I'm not coming," said Tom.
"You _are_," said Jack. For the first time he felt that old call of the
blood which made him master of Tom. Somewhere, in the night, the old
spirit of a master had aroused in him.
Tom finished his mug of beer slowly, sullenly. He put down the empty
pot.
"Get up!" said Jack. And Tom got slowly to his feet.
They set off, Jack leading the pack-horse. But the beer and the "night
before" had got Tom down. He rode like a sack in the saddle, sometimes
semi-conscious, sometimes really asleep. Jack followed just behind, with
the beast of a pack-horse dragging his arm out. And Tom ahead, like a
sot, with no life in him.
Jack himself felt hot inside, and dreary, and riding was a cruel effort,
and the pack-horse, dragging his arm from its socket, was hell. He
wished he had enough saddle-tree to turn the rope round: but he was in
his English saddle.
Nevertheless, he had decided something, in that jamboree. He belonged to
the blood of masters, not servants. He belonged to the class of those
that are sought, not those that seek. He was no seeker. He was not
desirous. He would never be desirous. Desire should not lead him humbly
by the nose. Not desire for anything. He was of the few that are
masters. He was to be desired. He was master. He was a real Englishman.
So he jogged along, in the hot, muggy day of early winter. Heavy clouds
hung over the sky, lightning flashed beyond the purple hills. His body
was a burden and a weariness to him, riding was a burden and a
weariness, the pack-horse was hell. And Tom, asleep on his nag, like a
dead thing, was hateful to have ahead. The road seemed endless.
Yet he had in him his new, half savage pride to keep him up, and an
isolate sort of resoluteness.
At mid-day they got down, drank water, camped, and slept without eating.
Thank God the rain hadn't come. Jack slept like the dead till four
o'clock.
He woke sharp, wondering where he was. The clouds looked threatening. He
got up. Yes, the horses were there. He still felt bruised, and hot and
dry inside, from the jamboree. Why in heaven did men want jamborees?
He made a fire, boiled the billy, prepared tea, and set out some food,
though he didn't want any.
"Get up there!" he shouted to Tom, who lay like a beast.
"Get up!" he shouted. But the beast slept.
"Get up, you beast!" he said, viciously kicking him. And he was
horrified because Tom got up, without any show of retaliation at all,
and obediently drank his tea.
They ate a little food, in silence. Saddled in silence, each finding the
thought of speech repulsive. Watched one another to see if they were
ready. Mounted, and rode in repulsive silence away. But Jack had left
the pack-horse to Tom this time. And it began to rain, softly, sleepily.
And Tom was cheering up. The rain seemed to revive him wonderfully. He
was one who was soon bowled over by a drink. Consequently he didn't
absorb much, and he recovered sooner. Jack absorbed more, and it acted
more slowly, deeply, and lastingly on him. On they went, in the rain.
Tom began to show signs of new life. He swore at the pack-horse. He
kicked his nag to a little trot, and the packs flap-flapped like shut
wings, on the rear pony. Presently he reined up, and sat quite still for
a minute. Then he broke into a laugh, lifting his face to the rain.
"Seems to me we're off the road," he said. "We haven't passed a fence
all day, have we?"
"No," said Jack. "But you were asleep all morning."
"We're off the road. Listen!"
The rain was seeping down on the bush; in the grey evening, the warm
horses smelt of their own steam. Jack could hear nothing except the wind
and the increasing rain.
"This track must lead somewhere. Let's get to shelter for the night,"
said Jack.
"Agreed!" replied Tom magnanimously. "We'll follow on, and see what we
shall see."
They walked slowly, pulling at the pack-horse, which was dragging at the
rope, tired with the burden that grew every minute heavier with the
rain.
Tom reined in suddenly.
"There is somebody behind," he said. "It's _not_ the wind."
They sat there on their horses in the rain, and waited. Twilight was
falling. Then Jack could distinguish the sound of a cart behind. It was
Rackett in the old shay rolling along in the lonely dusk and rain,
through the trees, approaching. Black Sam grinned mightily as he pulled
up.
"Thought I'd follow, though you are on the wrong road," said Rackett
from beneath his black waterproof. "Sam showed me the turning two miles
back. You missed it. Anyhow we'd better camp in on these people ahead
here."
"Is there a place ahead?" asked Jack.
"Yes," replied Rackett. "Even a sort of relation of yours, that I
promised Gran I would come and see. Hence my following on your heels."
"Didn't know I'd any relation hereabouts," said Tom sulkily. He couldn't
bear Rackett's interfering in the family in any way.
"You haven't. I meant Jack. But we'll get along, shall we?"
"We're a big flood," remarked Tom. "But if they'll give us the barn,
well manage. It's getting wet to sleep out."
They pressed ahead, the pack-horse trotting, but lifting up his head
like a venomous snake, in unwillingness. They had come into the open
fields. At last in the falling dark they saw a house and buildings. A
man hove in sight, but lurked away from them. Rackett hailed him. The
man seemed to oppose their coming further. He was a hairy, queer figure,
with his untrimmed beard.
"Master never takes no strangers," he said.
Rackett slipped a shilling in his hand, and would he ask his master if
they might camp in the barn, out of the rain.
"Y' ain't the police, now, by any manner of means?" asked the man.
"God love you, no," said Rackett.
"We're no police," said Tom. "I'm Tom Ellis, from Wandoo, over York
way."
"Ellis! I heared th' name. Well, master's sick, an' skeered to death o'
th' police. They're ready to drop in on the place, that they are, rot
'em, the minute he breathes his last. And he's skeered he's dyin' this
time. Oh, he's skeered o' t. So I have me doubts of all strangers. I
have me doubts, no matter what they be. Master he've sent a letter to
his only relation upon earth, to his nephew, which thank the Lord he's
writ for to come an' lay hold on the place, against he dies. If there's
no one to lay hold, the police steps in, without a word. That's how they
do it. They lets the places in grants like--lets a man have a grant--and
when the poor man dies, his place is locked up by the Government. They
takes it all."
"Gawd's sake!" murmured Tom aside. "The man's potty!"
"Bush mad," supplemented Rackett, who was sitting in the buggy with his
chin in his hand, intently listening to the queer, furtive, garrulous
individual.
"Say, friend," he added aloud. "Go and ask your master if we harmless
strangers can camp in the barn out of the wet."
"What might your names be, Mister?" asked the man.
"Mine's Dr. Rackett. This is Tom Ellis. And this is Jack Grant. And no
harm in any of us."
"D'y' say Jack Grant? Would that be Mr. John Grant?" asked the man,
galvanised by sudden excitement.
"None other!" said Rackett.
"Then he's come!" cried the man.
"He certainly has," replied Rackett.
"Oh, Glory, Glory! Why didn't ye say so afore? Come in. Come in all of
ye, come in! Come in, Mr. Grant! Come in!"
They got down, gave the reins to Sam, and were ready to follow the
bearded man, looking one another in the face in amazement, and shaking
their heads.
"Gawd Almighty, I'd rather keep out o' this!" murmured Tom, standing by
his horse and keeping the rope of the pack-horse.
"Case of mistaken identity," said Rackett coolly. "Hang on, boys. We'll
get a night's shelter."
A woman came out of the dilapidated stone house, clutching her hands in
distress and agitation.
"Missus! Missus! Here he is at last. God be praised!" cried the bearded
man. She ran up in sudden effusion of welcome, but he ordered her into
the house to brighten up the fire, while he waved the way to the
stables, knowing that horse comes before man, in the bush.
When they had shaken down in the stable, they left Sam to sleep there,
while the three went across to the house. Tom was most unwilling.
The man was at the door, to usher them in.
"I've broke the news to him, sir!" he said in a mysterious voice to
Jack, as he showed them into the parlour.
"What's your Master's name?" asked Rackett.
"Don't y' know y're at your destination?" whispered the man. "This is
Mr. John Grant's. This is the place ye're looking for."
A melancholy room! The calico ceiling drooped, the window and front door
were hermetically sealed, an ornate glass lamp shone in murky, lonely
splendour upon a wool mat on a ricketty round table. Six chairs stood
against the papered walls. Nothing more.
Tom wanted to beat it back to the kitchen, through which they had passed
to get to this sarcophagus, and where a fire was burning and a woman was
busy. But the man was tapping at another door, and listening anxiously
before entering.
He went into the dark room beyond, where a candle shone feebly, and they
heard him say:
"Your nephew's come, Mr. Grant, and brought a doctor and another
gentleman, the Lord be praised."
"The Lord don't need to be praised on my behalf, Amos," came a querulous
voice. "And I ain't got no nephew, if I _did_ send him a letter. I've
got nobody. And I want no doctor, because I died when I left my mother's
husband's house."
"They're in the parlour."
"Tell 'em to walk up."
The man appeared in the doorway. Rackett walked up, Jack followed, and
Tom hung nervously and disgustedly in the rear.
"Here they are! Here's the gentry," said Amos.
In the candle-light they saw a thin man in red flannel night-cap with a
blanket round his shoulders, sitting up in bed under an old green
cart-umbrella. He was not old, but his face was thin and wasted, and his
long colourless beard seemed papery. He had cunning, shifty eyes with
red rims, and looked as mad as his setting.
Rackett had shoved Jack forward. The sick man stared at him and seemed
suddenly pleased. He held out a thin hand. Rackett nudged Jack, and Jack
had to shake. The hand seemed wet and icy, and Jack shuddered.
"How d'you do!" he mumbled. "I'm sorry, you know; I'm not your nephew."
"I know ye're not. But are y' Jack Grant?"
"Yes," said Jack.
The man under the umbrella seemed hideously pleased.
Jack heard Tom's ill-suppressed, awful chuckle from behind.
The sick man peered irritably at the other two. Then he nodded slowly,
under the green baldachino of the old cart-umbrella.
"Jack Grant! Jack Grant! Jack Grant!" he murmured, to himself. He was
surely mad, obviously mad.
"I'm right glad you've come, Cousin," he said suddenly, looking again
very pleased. "I'm surely glad you've come in time. I've a nice tidy
place put together for you, Jack, a small proposition of three thousand
acres, five hundred cleared and cropped, fifty fenced--dog-leg fences,
broke MacCullen's back putting 'em up. But I'll willingly put in five
hundred more, for a gentleman like young master. Meaning old master will
soon be underground. Well, who cares, now young master's come to light,
and the place doesn't go out of the family! I am determined the place
shall not go out of the family, Cousin Jack. Aren't you pleased?"
"Very," said Jack soothingly.
"Call me Cousin John. Or Uncle John if you like. I'm more like your
uncle, I should think. Shake hands, and say, _Right you are, Uncle
John._ Call me Uncle John."
Jack shook hands once more, and dutifully, as to a crazy person, he
said:
"Right you are, Uncle John."
Tom, in the background, was going into convulsions. But Rackett remained
quite serious.
Uncle John closed his eyes muttering, and fell back under the
cart-umbrella.
"Mr. Grant," said Dr. Rackett, "I think Jack would like to eat something
after his ride."
"All right, let him go to the kitchen with yon buck wallaby as can't
keep a straight face. Stop with me a minute yourself, Mister, if you
will."
The two boys bundled away into the kitchen. The woman had a meal ready,
and they sat down at the table.
"I thank my stars," said Tom impressively, "he's not my Uncle John."
"Shut up," said Jack, because the woman was there.
They ate heartily, the effects of the jamboree having passed. After the
meal they strolled to the door to look out, away from that lugubrious
parlour and bedroom. They found a stiff wind blowing, the sky clear with
running clouds and vivid stars in the spaces.
"Let's get!" said Tom. It was his constant craving.
"We can't leave Rackett."
"We can. He pushed us in. Let's get. Why can't we?"
"Oh well, we can't," said Jack.
Rackett had entered the kitchen, and was eating his meal. He asked the
woman for ink.
"There's no ink," she said.
"Must be somewhere," said Amos, her husband. "Jack Grant's letter was
written in ink."
"I never got a letter," said Jack, turning.
"Eh, hark ye! How like old master over again! Ye've come, haven't ye?"
"By accident," said Jack. "I'm not Mr. Grant's nephew."
"Hark ye! Hark ye! It runs in the family, father to son, uncle to
nephew. All right! All right! Have it your own way," cried Amos. He had
been struggling with crazy contradictions too long.
Tom was in convulsions. Rackett put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "It's
all right," he said. "Don't worry him. Leave it to me." And to the woman
he said, if there was no ink she was to kill a fowl and bring it to him,
and he'd make ink with lamp-black and gall.
"You two boys had better be off to bed," he said. "You have to be off in
good time in the morning."
"Oh, not going, not going so soon, surely! The young master's not going
so soon! Surely! Surely! Master's so weak in the head and stomach, we
can't cope with him all by ourselves," cried the old man and woman.
"Perhaps I'll stay," said Rackett. "And Jack will come back one day,
don't you worry. Now let me make that ink."
The boys were shown into a large, low room--the fourth room of the
house--that opened off the kitchen. It contained a big bed with clean
sheets and white crochet quilt. Jack surmised it was the old couple's
bed, and wanted to go to the barn. But Tom said, since they offered it,
there was nothing to do but to take it.
Tom was soon snoring. Jack lay in the great feather bed feeling that
life was all going crazy. Tom was already snoring. He cared about
nothing. Out of sight, out of mind. But Jack had a fit of remembering.
His head was hot, and he could not sleep. The wind was blowing, it was
raining again. He could not sleep, he had to remember.
It was always so with him. He could go on careless and unheeding, like
Tom, for a while. Then came these fits of reckoning and remembering.
Life seemed unhinged in Australia. In England there was a strong central
pivot to all the living. But here the centre pin was gone, and the lives
seemed to spin in a weird confusion.
He felt that for himself. His life was all unhinged. What was he driving
at? What was he making for? Where was he going? What was his life,
anyhow?
In England, you knew. You had your purpose. You had your profession and
your family and your country. But out here you had no profession. You
didn't do anything for your country except boast of it to strangers, and
leave it to get along as best it might. And as for your family, you
cared for that, but in a queer, centreless fashion.
You didn't really care for anything. The old impetus of civilisation
kept you still going, but you were just rolling to rest. As Mr. Ellis
had rolled to rest, leaving everything stranded. There was no grip, no
hold.
And yet, what Jack had rebelled against in England was the tight grip,
the fixed hold over everything. He liked this looseness and carelessness
of Australia. Till it seemed to him crazy. And then it scared him.
Tonight everything seemed to him crazy. He didn't pay any serious
attention to Uncle John Grant: he was obviously out of his mind. But
then everything seemed crazy. Mr. Ellis' death, and Gran's death, and
Monica and Easu Ellis--it all seemed crazy as crazy. And the jamboree,
and that girl who called him Dearie! And the journey, and this mad house
in the rain. What did it all mean? What did it all stand for?
Everything seemed to be spinning to a darkness of death. Everybody
seemed to be dancing a crazy dance of death. He could understand that
the blacks painted themselves like white bone skeletons, and danced in
the night, light skeletons dancing, in their corrobees. That was how it
was. The night, dark and fleshly, and skeletons dancing a clicketty dry
dance m it.
Tom, so awfully upset at his father's death! And now as careless as a
lark, just spinning his way along the road, in a sort of weird dance,
dancing humorously to the black verge of oblivion. That was how it was.
To dance humorously to the black verge of oblivion. The children of
death. With a sort of horror of death around them. Wandoo suddenly grim
and grisly with the horror of death.
Death, the great end and goal. Death, the black, void, pulsating reality
which would swallow them all up, like a black lover finally possessing
them. The great black fleshliness of the end, the huge body of death
reeling to swallow them all. And for this they danced, and for this they
loved and reared families and made farms: to provide good meat and
white, pure bones for the black, avid horror of death.
Something of the black, aboriginal horror came over him. He realised, to
his amazement, the actuality of the great, grinning black demon of
death. The vast, infinite demon that eats our flesh and cracks our bones
in the last black potency of the end. And for this, for this demon one
seeks for a woman, to lie with her and get children for the Moloch.
Children for the Moloch! Lennie, Monica, the twins, Og and Magog!
Children for the Moloch.
One God or the other must take them at the end. Either the dim white god
of the heavenly infinite. Or else the great black Moloch of the living
death. Devoured and digested in the living death.
Satan, Moloch, Death itself, all had been unreal to him before. But now,
suddenly, he seemed to see the black Moloch grinning huge in the sky,
while human beings danced towards his grip, and he gripped and swallowed
them into the black belly of death. That was their end.
Dance! Dance! Death has its deep delights! And ever-recurring. Be
careless, ironical, stoical and reckless. And go your way to death with
a will. With a dark handsomeness, and a dark lustre of fatality, and a
splendour of recklessness. Oh, God, the Lords of Death! The big,
darkly-smiling, heroic men who are Lords of Death! And they too go on
splendidly towards death, the great goal of unutterable satisfaction,
and consummated fear.
"I am going my way the same," Jack thought to himself. "I am travelling
in a reckless, slow dance, darker and darker, into the black, hot belly
of death, where is my end. Oh, let me go gallantly, let me have the
black joy of the road. Let me go with courage, and a bit of splendour
and dark lustre, down to the great depths of death, that I am so
frightened of, but which I long for in the last consummation. Let death
take me in a last black embrace. Let me go on as the niggers go, with
the last convulsion into the last black embrace. Since I am travelling
the dark road, let me go in pride. Let me be a Lord of Death, since the
reign of the white Lords of Life, like my father, has become sterile and
a futility. Let me be a Lord of Death. Let me go that other great road,
that the blacks go."
The bed was soft and hot, and he stretched his arms fiercely. If he had
Monica! Oh, if he had Monica! If that girl last night had been Monica!
That girl last night! He didn't even know her name. She had stroked his
head--like--like--Mary! The association flashed into his mind. Yes, like
Mary. And Mary would be humble and caressive and protective like that.
So she would. And dark! It would be dark like that if one loved Mary.
And brief! Brief! But sharp and good in the briefness. Mary! Mary!
He realised with amazement it was Mary he was now wanting. Not Monica.
Or was it Monica? Her slim keen hand. Her slim body like a slim cat, so
full of life. Oh, it was Monica! First and foremost, most intensely, it
was Monica, because she was really his, and she was his destiny. He
dared not think of her.
He rolled in the bed in misery. Tom slept unmoving. Oh, why couldn't he
be like Tom, slow and untormented. Why couldn't he? Why was his body
tortured? Why was he travelling this road? Why wasn't Monica there like
a gipsy with him. Why wasn't Monica there?
Or Mary! Why wasn't Mary in the house? She would be so soft and
understanding, so yielding. Like the girl of the long-armed man. The
long-armed man didn't mind that he had taken his girl, for once.
Why was he himself rolling there in torment? Pug had advised him to
"punch the ball," when he was taken with ideas he wanted to get rid of.
There was no ball to punch. "Train the body hard, but train the mind
hard too." Yes, all very well. He could think, now for example, of
fighting Easu, or of building up a place and raising fine horses. But
the moment his mind relaxed for sleep, back came the other black flame.
The women! The women! The women! Even the girl of last night.
What was a man born for? To find a mate, a woman, isn't it? Then why try
to think of something else? To have a woman--to make a home for her--to
have children.--And other women in the background, down the long, dusky,
strange years towards death. So it seemed to him. And to fight the men
that stand in one's way. To fight them. Always a new one cropping up,
along the strange dusky road of the years, where you go with your head
up, and your eyes open, and your spine sharp and electric, ready to
fight your man and take your woman, on and on down the years, into the
last black embrace of death. Death that stands grinning with arms open
and black breast ready. Death, like the last woman you embrace. Death,
like the last man you die fighting with. And he beats you. But somehow
you are not beaten, if you are a Lord of Death.
Jack hoped he would die a violent death. He hoped he would live a
defiant, unsubmissive life, and die a violent death. A bullet, or a
knife piercing home. And the women he left behind--his women, enveloped
in him as in a dark net. And the children he left, laughing already at
death.
And himself! He hoped never to be downcast, never to be melancholy,
never to yield. Never to yield. To be a Lord of Death, and go on to the
black arms of death, still laughing. To laugh, and bide one's time, and
leap at the right moment.