An Apostolical Sketch.
‘Bad work, this!’ exclaimed the Bishop of B—— to one of a recent
consignment of curates. ‘Bad work this, in the North! That part of the
diocese evidently wants looking to again. Nice trip for you,
Greenwell. Give you some idea of the country, too,’ continued the
Bishop. ‘Yes, decidedly; the very man! Let me see; steamer to R——,
then overland. Of course, you may have to rough it a little; but that
will only add a zest to the change.’
The ‘bad work’ that his lordship alluded to was the substance of some
reports that had just arrived from one of the new gold rushes,
situated in the extreme north of his immense diocese, reports of a
terrible state of immorality, drunkenness, and general godlessness
existing there amongst far-off members of his flock—to wit, rough
diggers and bushmen, together with a sprinkling of nondescripts,
characterless vagrants, defaulters, horse-thieves, and worse, who had
flocked there from the neighbouring colonies as to an Alsatia, where
they could remain, at least, for the time being, secure from even the
far-reaching arm of the law.
On such material as this had the good Bishop, shortly after his
arrival in his new see, from his snug English vicarage, essayed the
power of his eloquence on his only visit to that part of his charge: a
visit, be it whispered, he was not in the least anxious to repeat.
The Reverend Spicer Greenwell fairly shuddered at the thought of
trusting his precious person amongst such a set of savages as his
imagination at once conjured up. But all his excuses and demurrings
were without avail, his superior having, by some curious mischance,
got it into his head that his senior curate was the very man qualified
for such a mission to the heathen.
Though getting well on towards middle age, Mr Greenwell was a failure.
He had completely mistaken his vocation; but he did not think so, and
nobody had, as yet, been rude enough to tell him so.
Mrs Jellyby’s mission was, if we remember aright, to cultivate coffee
and the natives of Borioboola-Gha. Mr Greenwell’s was to cultivate
teas—afternoon ones—and at the same time to, if possible, capture a
fair ‘Native,’ rich in those goods of this world, in which he himself
was so unhappily deficient.
For the rest, he was a gaunt, waxen-visaged man, who always wore the
highest waistcoats, longest coats, and whitest neckties obtainable;
was never seen without a large diamond ring on his little finger; and
seldom deigned to consort or even converse with the other clergymen of
the district, unless brought into direct communication with them by
his position—into which he had partly thrust himself, partly had
conferred upon him through home influence—of the Bishop’s _chargé
d’affaires_. He had, he flattered himself, before this untoward affair
happened, been making rapid progress with the damsels of the Banana
city; and, indeed, amongst some of the more elderly spinsters of the
congregation of St Jude’s, he was voted as ‘quite too nice.’
Imagine then, if you can, the horror and disgust of such a man at
being chosen for such an errand. But the Bishop was adamant; and I
have many a time thought since that he purposely hardened his heart,
and that, whilst dilating on his curate’s especial fitness for the
work, his energy and push—as already illustrated in parish matters—his
suave and polished manners, alone a vast handicap in his favour
amongst the rude and illiterate people he was about to visit, the good
prelate privately hoped within himself that if the shepherd he was
sending forth did little benefit to the flock, yet, that the latter
might possibly succeed in some unforeseen way in toning down the
self-sufficiency, egoism and vanity of the pastor.
Seeing, at length, that there was no help for it, and that go he must,
the luckless curate, taking a mournful and solemn farewell of his lady
friends, went forth to preach the Gospel to the heathen of the Dingo
Creek diggings.
Things went well enough with our traveller till he reached R——, the
nearest township of any size to Dingo Creek, which last place lay
still further ahead nearly ninety miles through rough and lonely
country. At intervals on his route he had held services and preached
sermons—little marrowless exhortations that he had long known by
heart, and that, if they did no harm, assuredly did little good. From
R——, whence he set out on horseback, a road led sixty miles to a bush
public-house, where he was told he could be accommodated with a buggy,
and, perhaps, a guide to his destination.
Duly arriving, sore and jaded, at the sign of the ‘Jolly Bushman,’ he
found the host an obliging sort of a fellow enough, who said he would
himself have driven the gentleman to Dingo Creek, but that his wife
was ill. However, his buggy should be at his disposal the next
morning; and also the publican promised Cooronga Billy should go as
guide, and, if necessary, bring both buggy and parson back again.
Early on the following morning the buggy and a pair of good-looking
ponies put in an appearance at the door of the ‘Jolly Bushman’; so did
Cooronga Billy.
But now we must for a while drop the thread of the story, and go back
to the time when, as a baby, Billy lay sound asleep in his black
mother’s arms under the shadow of the far-away Cooronga ranges—back to
that fearful morning whose earliest dawn heralded the pitiless swoop
of the native troopers on to the quiet camp. His tribe ‘dispersed,’
baby Billy, the sole survivor, was brought to B——, sent, in due
course, to the best schools, and received a special education, with a
view to fitting him for the ministry, and a sphere of what, it was
fervently hoped by many good men, would prove congenial and
profitable labour amongst his own benighted countrymen.
As he grew towards man’s estate, Billy became quite one of the lions
of B——, and was proudly exhibited and put through his paces before
distinguished strangers, as a splendid specimen of ‘what can be done
with our aborigines.’
Suddenly, and just when all this gratulation was at its height,
William Cooronga Morris—he was indebted to the white officer who had
commanded the ‘dispersers’ of his tribe for the first and last of
these names, duly received at the font of St Jude’s—disappeared
totally, turning up months afterwards, clad in his native skins, armed
with his native weapons, at one of the far-out townships; and had ever
since loafed around the outskirts of Northern Settlement, a degrading
example of what over-civilisation can do for a black-fellow.
Periodical visits would Billy make far out in the Bush towards the
wild Coorongas—for some strange instinct had led him at his first
departure towards the land of his birth—and there, instead of, as had
been so fondly expected, bending his energies towards the cure of
souls amongst his dark brethren, it was freely reported that Mr W. C.
Morris constituted himself their leader in many a fat-cattle spearing
expedition, if nothing worse.
Billy, at the moment we have chosen to introduce him to the reader,
had just returned from one of those forays, and a terrible figure he
appeared to the Reverend Spicer.
Nearly naked, with the exception of a short ’possum cloak, his skin
plentifully covered with red and white ochre, and his hair decorated
with cockatoo feathers; whilst across one side of his face ran a long,
gaping scar, a relic of some recent corrobboree—what wonder that the
reverend gentleman gazed more than doubtfully at the person introduced
to him by the publican as his guide. The landlord observed his
hesitation and the cause of it.
‘Never mind, sir,’ said he, ‘he’s as quiet as a sheep. Dessay his
’ed’s sore, though. Have a nobbler, Cooronga? It’ll make him lively
like, you see,’ he concluded, addressing the curate, who evidently
thought that Billy looked quite lively enough.
At length they started, Billy driving, sulky and taciturn, answering
questions as shortly as possible, and in the vilest of pigeon English.
Nearly three parts of the journey was accomplished—for Billy drove
like a very Jehu—when the curate began to feel hungry. So, as they
came to a deep gully where the rain-water lay in pools amongst the
rocks, he made his guide pull up, and prepared to comfort the inner
man.
Taking no notice of his companion, he sat down by the edge of the
water, and began with immense gusto to demolish a roast fowl and other
materials for a very fair repast.
[Illustration: Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath
contentions? (Page 186.)]
At R—— the reverend gentleman had provided himself with two bottles of
port, a wine which he had been told was a first-class specific in
cases of bush-fever and dysentery. The bottles were by this gone;
but out of the last one he had filled a large travelling flask, which
now producing, along with a tumbler, he proceeded—first qualifying his
liquor with a modicum of water—to wash down his lunch.
Billy’s eyes sparkled. He at once recognised the smell and colour, but
would have preferred rum.
However, little of anything, solid or fluid, seemed likely to fall to
his share, for the weather was hot, and our curate thirsty.
Presently, addressing Cooronga, the Reverend Spicer, who had no idea
of entering the scene of his ministrations, with such a figure as
Billy for his charioteer, said,—
‘How many miles did you say it was from here to Dingo Creek?’
‘Lebn,’ grunted Billy.
‘Is the road as plain all the way as it is here?’
‘Ess,’ again grunted the tantalised Cooronga.
‘Very well, then,’ replied the curate, ‘you can walk on. I will follow
with the buggy when it gets a little cooler.’
But this was out of Billy’s programme altogether. Pointing to the
capacious flask, to which the thirsty divine was paying repeated
attention, he said abruptly,—
‘You gib it Cooronga. Him dry too!’
‘That is medicine, my friend,’ was the reply, ‘and it would do you no
good. If, as you seem to imply, you are thirsty, there lies water in
abundance.’
Billy’s first impulse was to drive his spear through the curate. But,
restraining himself with a sigh, another idea entered into his
mischievous head. A large stump stood close by, overlooking the
unsuspecting Spicer and the _débris_ of his meal. Upon this stump,
with a bound, Billy sprung, and, letting fall his cloak, disclosing to
view his whole body, hideously chalked, skeleton-wise, he began, in a
tone and with an enunciation far superior to that of the reverend
gentleman himself, to declaim, with pointed spear,—
‘_Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath
babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?_
‘_They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine._
‘_Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its
colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright._
‘_At the last_—’
But here, poor Spicer, who had risen to his feet, and stood
horror-stricken at hearing himself, as he imagined, reproved and
threatened for his bibbing propensities through the mouth of a fiend,
or even, as his staring eyes took in Billy’s _tout ensemble_, it might
be the Arch Enemy of mankind himself, uttered a shriek and fled,
terror lending unwonted speed to his legs, down the gully; whilst
Billy, with a wild whoop, descending from his perch, took the flask
and what remained of the provisions to the buggy, and drove off into
the Bush.
Late that night, a weary, footsore traveller entered the principal
public-house in Dingo Creek, and began to ask incoherent questions
about a buggy and a black-fellow, the latter, he averred, an emissary
of Satan, who had led him into the wilderness, and there deserted
him—a story that the rough host and his equally rough customers could
make neither head nor tail of.
‘It’s a rum go altogether,’ said the former to one of his digger
friends, after poor Spicer had retired, nearly dead beat, to his
rough-slabbed room, whence he could hear all that went on in the bar.
‘The rummest thing I’ve heard on for some time,’ assented the other.
‘He looks somethin’ like as a parson should look, right enough. But
either he’s just off of a rather heavy spree, or else he’s more’n a
shingle short. Sez he seen Ole Nick back there in the Bush, an’ the
old ’un shook his buggy.’
’Bin on the bust, down at the “Jolly Bushman’s,” I ’spects,’ put in
another. ‘You fellers knows as some _do_ see the old chap arter a ’ard
bust. As for me, I takes it out in snakes mostly. But there’s my mate,
Bill, he allus has cats. I seen him one time a-huntin’ ’em round the
tent all night long, arter bein’ on the spree for a week.’
Confidence in the Reverend Spicer was, however, a little restored,
when, next morning, the buggy was found intact in the public-house
yard; and his confused appearance and rambling statements of the
previous night were charitably ascribed by the majority to ‘a touch
of the sun.’
During the day it was announced throughout the place that the Reverend
gentleman would address the inhabitants in the ‘dance-room’ of the
public-house, as being the only one available for such a purpose.
Figure to yourself a long, low room, on the earthen floor of which
tree stumps still stood. At the far end, behind a sort of bar formed
by sheets of galvanised iron, supported on trestles, waits, manuscript
in hand, still in a rather unsettled state of mind, the Reverend
Spicer. The place is dimly lit by flaring candles and slush lamps, and
is crowded by an assembly of as mixed nationalities, customs and
creeds, as could be found out of, say, Alexandria or Singapore. A
strong smell of stale spirits and tobacco smoke pervades everything.
All the men, as our curate sees, are armed with a sheath-knife and
revolver; and, as he looks, he trembles and handles the address as
gingerly as if it were a parcel of dynamite, and liable to explode
at any moment, for it is not one of his own pithless compositions,
but the work of the Bishop himself, a powerful and emphatic
remonstrance—penned in his quiet study at Bishopstowe—against the
sinful and dissolute lives of the Dingo Creekers. But, had the
frightened curate only known it, the mob, mixed and uncontrolled as
it was, would have as soon thought of ill-treating a grasshopper as
himself. And, all roughened and uncivilised as were the best of them,
there were still men amongst them in whom the mere sight of a
clergyman awoke memories long forgotten and buried under the combats
and toils of life—men who had once ‘looked on better days,’ and whom
Sabbath-bells had once ‘knoll’d to church,’ and this portion it was
who, after awhile, obtained silence, and set the example of doffing
their hats and putting away their pipes.
Very picturesque was the scene, with the lights flickering—now on the
bronzed features of some stalwart European, now on the dark face of a
negro, or the yellow expressionless countenance of a Chinaman—as the
motley audience stood or squatted silent and attentive, whilst our
curate quavered and stammered through the opening sentences of the
address. And favourable, beyond all hope, would have seemed the
opportunity to a true soldier of the Cross for softening the hearts of
the poor heathen of Dingo Creek.
But never, perhaps, since the days when William C. Morris, arrayed in
black broadcloth, was qualifying as an evangelist, has anyone felt
himself more of a square peg in a round hole than did poor Spicer
Greenwell, as he droned away, presently, amidst exclamations of
disgust and disapproval from his curious congregation.
‘Give it lip, man!’ shouted a gigantic digger, whose beard reached
almost to his waist. ‘Give it lip, an’ let’s hear what it’s all
about.’ Then, turning to the publican: ‘Give him a nobbler, Jimmy;
it’ll keep his pecker up. He’s mighty scared o’ somethin’.’ Declining
the offered half-tumblerful of rum with a gesture of disgust, the
curate, intent only on getting to the end of his task, resumed his
reading.
At this moment Cooronga Billy, who had passed the day in the adjacent
black’s camp, entered, and was at once warmly greeted by the crowd, to
all of whom he was well known, and to whom he proceeded, amidst shouts
of laughter, to relate the story of his escapade at the gully.
The curate, disturbed by the noise, lifted up his head, and, seeing
Billy now standing just in front of him, he dropped his papers, and
pointing to the grinning black fellow, shouted,—
‘Men! men! Satan himself is amongst you!’
The truth of the affair, helped out by Billy’s story, now broke on all
hands, and roars of unrestrained laughter, accompanied by wild
impromptu dancing and cheers for ‘Cooronga,’ put an end, for the time
at least, to any hopes that the Reverend Spicer might have once
entertained as to his being instrumental to even a slight degree in
the regeneration of Dingo Creek, the dust of which, a sadder and a
wiser man, he shook without the least delay from off his feet.
Cooronga Billy has long since rejoined his tribe in the happy hunting
grounds; but stories, many and wonderful, of the effect produced by
the exercise of his perverted abilities are still told by the pioneers
of the region in which he flourished.
The Reverend Spicer Greenwell still exists; but, should the reader
feel inclined to seek him, his quest must lie well within the
precincts of the highest civilisation to be found in our colonies, and
he must be careful that no reference, be it ever so remote, to the
adventure herein described, pass his lips; for, though his life has
‘fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf,’ still is the reverend
gentleman strangely susceptible to any allusion to that episode of his
earlier Australian experience.