Part I.

Joe Wilson’s Courtship.

There are many times in this world when a healthy boy is happy. When he

is put into knickerbockers, for instance, and ‘comes a man to-day,’ as

my little Jim used to say. When they’re cooking something at home that

he likes. When the ‘sandy-blight’ or measles breaks out amongst the

children, or the teacher or his wife falls dangerously ill--or dies, it

doesn’t matter which--‘and there ain’t no school.’ When a boy is naked

and in his natural state for a warm climate like Australia, with three

or four of his schoolmates, under the shade of the creek-oaks in the

bend where there’s a good clear pool with a sandy bottom. When his

father buys him a gun, and he starts out after kangaroos or ‘possums.

When he gets a horse, saddle, and bridle, of his own. When he has his

arm in splints or a stitch in his head--he’s proud then, the proudest

boy in the district.

I wasn’t a healthy-minded, average boy: I reckon I was born for a poet

by mistake, and grew up to be a Bushman, and didn’t know what was the

matter with me--or the world--but that’s got nothing to do with it.

There are times when a man is happy. When he finds out that the girl

loves him. When he’s just married. When he’s a lawful father for the

first time, and everything is going on all right: some men make fools

of themselves then--I know I did. I’m happy to-night because I’m out of

debt and can see clear ahead, and because I haven’t been easy for a long

time.

But I think that the happiest time in a man’s life is when he’s courting

a girl and finds out for sure that she loves him and hasn’t a thought

for any one else. Make the most of your courting days, you young chaps,

and keep them clean, for they’re about the only days when there’s a

chance of poetry and beauty coming into this life. Make the best of them

and you’ll never regret it the longest day you live. They’re the days

that the wife will look back to, anyway, in the brightest of times as

well as in the blackest, and there shouldn’t be anything in those days

that might hurt her when she looks back. Make the most of your courting

days, you young chaps, for they will never come again.

A married man knows all about it--after a while: he sees the woman world

through the eyes of his wife; he knows what an extra moment’s pressure

of the hand means, and, if he has had a hard life, and is inclined to be

cynical, the knowledge does him no good. It leads him into awful messes

sometimes, for a married man, if he’s inclined that way, has three times

the chance with a woman that a single man has--because the married man

knows. He is privileged; he can guess pretty closely what a woman means

when she says something else; he knows just how far he can go; he can go

farther in five minutes towards coming to the point with a woman than an

innocent young man dares go in three weeks. Above all, the married man

is more decided with women; he takes them and things for granted. In

short he is--well, he is a married man. And, when he knows all this, how

much better or happier is he for it? Mark Twain says that he lost all

the beauty of the river when he saw it with a pilot’s eye,--and there

you have it.

But it’s all new to a young chap, provided he hasn’t been a young

blackguard. It’s all wonderful, new, and strange to him. He’s a

different man. He finds that he never knew anything about women. He sees

none of woman’s little ways and tricks in his girl. He is in heaven one

day and down near the other place the next; and that’s the sort of thing

that makes life interesting. He takes his new world for granted. And,

when she says she’ll be his wife----!

Make the most of your courting days, you young chaps, for they’ve got a

lot of influence on your married life afterwards--a lot more than you’d

think. Make the best of them, for they’ll never come any more, unless

we do our courting over again in another world. If we do, I’ll make the

most of mine.

But, looking back, I didn’t do so badly after all. I never told you

about the days I courted Mary. The more I look back the more I come to

think that I made the most of them, and if I had no more to regret in

married life than I have in my courting days, I wouldn’t walk to and fro

in the room, or up and down the yard in the dark sometimes, or lie awake

some nights thinking.... Ah well!

I was between twenty-one and thirty then: birthdays had never been any

use to me, and I’d left off counting them. You don’t take much stock in

birthdays in the Bush. I’d knocked about the country for a few years,

shearing and fencing and droving a little, and wasting my life without

getting anything for it. I drank now and then, and made a fool of

myself. I was reckoned ‘wild’; but I only drank because I felt less

sensitive, and the world seemed a lot saner and better and kinder when

I had a few drinks: I loved my fellow-man then and felt nearer to him.

It’s better to be thought ‘wild’ than to be considered eccentric

or ratty. Now, my old mate, Jack Barnes, drank--as far as I could

see--first because he’d inherited the gambling habit from his father

along with his father’s luck: he’d the habit of being cheated and losing

very bad, and when he lost he drank. Till drink got a hold on him. Jack

was sentimental too, but in a different way. I was sentimental about

other people--more fool I!--whereas Jack was sentimental about himself.

Before he was married, and when he was recovering from a spree, he’d

write rhymes about ‘Only a boy, drunk by the roadside’, and that sort of

thing; and he’d call ‘em poetry, and talk about signing them and sending

them to the ‘Town and Country Journal’. But he generally tore them up

when he got better. The Bush is breeding a race of poets, and I don’t

know what the country will come to in the end.

Well. It was after Jack and I had been out shearing at Beenaway shed in

the Big Scrubs. Jack was living in the little farming town of Solong,

and I was hanging round. Black, the squatter, wanted some fencing done

and a new stable built, or buggy and harness-house, at his place

at Haviland, a few miles out of Solong. Jack and I were good Bush

carpenters, so we took the job to keep us going till something else

turned up. ‘Better than doing nothing,’ said Jack.

‘There’s a nice little girl in service at Black’s,’ he said. ‘She’s more

like an adopted daughter, in fact, than a servant. She’s a real good

little girl, and good-looking into the bargain. I hear that young Black

is sweet on her, but they say she won’t have anything to do with him. I

know a lot of chaps that have tried for her, but they’ve never had any

luck. She’s a regular little dumpling, and I like dumplings. They call

her ‘Possum. You ought to try a bear up in that direction, Joe.’

I was always shy with women--except perhaps some that I should have

fought shy of; but Jack wasn’t--he was afraid of no woman, good, bad, or

indifferent. I haven’t time to explain why, but somehow, whenever a girl

took any notice of me I took it for granted that she was only playing

with me, and felt nasty about it. I made one or two mistakes, but--ah

well!

‘My wife knows little ‘Possum,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll get her to ask her out

to our place and let you know.’

I reckoned that he wouldn’t get me there then, and made a note to be on

the watch for tricks. I had a hopeless little love-story behind me, of

course. I suppose most married men can look back to their lost love; few

marry the first flame. Many a married man looks back and thinks it was

damned lucky that he didn’t get the girl he couldn’t have. Jack had been

my successful rival, only he didn’t know it--I don’t think his wife knew

it either. I used to think her the prettiest and sweetest little girl in

the district.

But Jack was mighty keen on fixing me up with the little girl at

Haviland. He seemed to take it for granted that I was going to fall in

love with her at first sight. He took too many things for granted as far

as I was concerned, and got me into awful tangles sometimes.

‘You let me alone, and I’ll fix you up, Joe,’ he said, as we rode up

to the station. ‘I’ll make it all right with the girl. You’re rather

a good-looking chap. You’ve got the sort of eyes that take with girls,

only you don’t know it; you haven’t got the go. If I had your eyes along

with my other attractions, I’d be in trouble on account of a woman about

once a-week.’

‘For God’s sake shut up, Jack,’ I said.

Do you remember the first glimpse you got of your wife? Perhaps not in

England, where so many couples grow up together from childhood; but it’s

different in Australia, where you may hail from two thousand miles away

from where your wife was born, and yet she may be a countrywoman of

yours, and a countrywoman in ideas and politics too. I remember the

first glimpse I got of Mary.

It was a two-storey brick house with wide balconies and verandahs all

round, and a double row of pines down to the front gate. Parallel at the

back was an old slab-and-shingle place, one room deep and about eight

rooms long, with a row of skillions at the back: the place was used for

kitchen, laundry, servants’ rooms, &c. This was the old homestead before

the new house was built. There was a wide, old-fashioned, brick-floored

verandah in front, with an open end; there was ivy climbing up the

verandah post on one side and a baby-rose on the other, and a grape-vine

near the chimney. We rode up to the end of the verandah, and Jack called

to see if there was any one at home, and Mary came trotting out; so it

was in the frame of vines that I first saw her.

More than once since then I’ve had a fancy to wonder whether the

rose-bush killed the grape-vine or the ivy smothered ‘em both in the

end. I used to have a vague idea of riding that way some day to see. You

do get strange fancies at odd times.

Jack asked her if the boss was in. He did all the talking. I saw a

little girl, rather plump, with a complexion like a New England or Blue

Mountain girl, or a girl from Tasmania or from Gippsland in Victoria.

Red and white girls were very scarce in the Solong district. She had the

biggest and brightest eyes I’d seen round there, dark hazel eyes, as I

found out afterwards, and bright as a ‘possum’s. No wonder they called

her ‘’Possum’. I forgot at once that Mrs Jack Barnes was the prettiest

girl in the district. I felt a sort of comfortable satisfaction in the

fact that I was on horseback: most Bushmen look better on horseback. It

was a black filly, a fresh young thing, and she seemed as shy of girls

as I was myself. I noticed Mary glanced in my direction once or twice

to see if she knew me; but, when she looked, the filly took all my

attention. Mary trotted in to tell old Black he was wanted, and after

Jack had seen him, and arranged to start work next day, we started back

to Solong.

I expected Jack to ask me what I thought of Mary--but he didn’t. He

squinted at me sideways once or twice and didn’t say anything for a long

time, and then he started talking of other things. I began to feel wild

at him. He seemed so damnably satisfied with the way things were going.

He seemed to reckon that I was a gone case now; but, as he didn’t say

so, I had no way of getting at him. I felt sure he’d go home and

tell his wife that Joe Wilson was properly gone on little ‘Possum at

Haviland. That was all Jack’s way.

Next morning we started to work. We were to build the buggy-house at

the back near the end of the old house, but first we had to take down

a rotten old place that might have been the original hut in the Bush

before the old house was built. There was a window in it, opposite the

laundry window in the old place, and the first thing I did was to take

out the sash. I’d noticed Jack yarning with ‘Possum before he started

work. While I was at work at the window he called me round to the other

end of the hut to help him lift a grindstone out of the way; and when

we’d done it, he took the tips of my ear between his fingers and thumb

and stretched it and whispered into it--

‘Don’t hurry with that window, Joe; the strips are hardwood and hard to

get off--you’ll have to take the sash out very carefully so as not to

break the glass.’ Then he stretched my ear a little more and put his

mouth closer--

‘Make a looking-glass of that window, Joe,’ he said.

I was used to Jack, and when I went back to the window I started to

puzzle out what he meant, and presently I saw it by chance.

That window reflected the laundry window: the room was dark inside and

there was a good clear reflection; and presently I saw Mary come to the

laundry window and stand with her hands behind her back, thoughtfully

watching me. The laundry window had an old-fashioned hinged sash, and I

like that sort of window--there’s more romance about it, I think. There

was thick dark-green ivy all round the window, and Mary looked prettier

than a picture. I squared up my shoulders and put my heels together and

put as much style as I could into the work. I couldn’t have turned round

to save my life.

Presently Jack came round, and Mary disappeared.

‘Well?’ he whispered.

‘You’re a fool, Jack,’ I said. ‘She’s only interested in the old house

being pulled down.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the business

round the corner, and she ain’t interested when I’M round this end.’

‘You seem mighty interested in the business,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘This sort of thing just suits a man of my rank in

times of peace.’

‘What made you think of the window?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that’s as simple as striking matches. I’m up to all those dodges.

Why, where there wasn’t a window, I’ve fixed up a piece of looking-glass

to see if a girl was taking any notice of me when she thought I wasn’t

looking.’

He went away, and presently Mary was at the window again, and this

time she had a tray with cups of tea and a plate of cake and

bread-and-butter. I was prizing off the strips that held the sash,

very carefully, and my heart suddenly commenced to gallop, without any

reference to me. I’d never felt like that before, except once or

twice. It was just as if I’d swallowed some clockwork arrangement,

unconsciously, and it had started to go, without warning. I reckon it

was all on account of that blarsted Jack working me up. He had a

quiet way of working you up to a thing, that made you want to hit him

sometimes--after you’d made an ass of yourself.

I didn’t hear Mary at first. I hoped Jack would come round and help me

out of the fix, but he didn’t.

‘Mr--Mr Wilson!’ said Mary. She had a sweet voice.

I turned round.

‘I thought you and Mr Barnes might like a cup of tea.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ I said, and I made a dive for the window, as if hurry

would help it. I trod on an old cask-hoop; it sprang up and dinted my

shin and I stumbled--and that didn’t help matters much.

‘Oh! did you hurt yourself, Mr Wilson?’ cried Mary.

‘Hurt myself! Oh no, not at all, thank you,’ I blurted out. ‘It takes

more than that to hurt me.’

I was about the reddest shy lanky fool of a Bushman that was ever taken

at a disadvantage on foot, and when I took the tray my hands shook so

that a lot of the tea was spilt into the saucers. I embarrassed her too,

like the damned fool I was, till she must have been as red as I was, and

it’s a wonder we didn’t spill the whole lot between us. I got away

from the window in as much of a hurry as if Jack had cut his leg with a

chisel and fainted, and I was running with whisky for him. I blundered

round to where he was, feeling like a man feels when he’s just made an

ass of himself in public. The memory of that sort of thing hurts you

worse and makes you jerk your head more impatiently than the thought of

a past crime would, I think.

I pulled myself together when I got to where Jack was.

‘Here, Jack!’ I said. ‘I’ve struck something all right; here’s some tea

and brownie--we’ll hang out here all right.’

Jack took a cup of tea and a piece of cake and sat down to enjoy it,

just as if he’d paid for it and ordered it to be sent out about that

time.

He was silent for a while, with the sort of silence that always made me

wild at him. Presently he said, as if he’d just thought of it--

‘That’s a very pretty little girl, ‘Possum, isn’t she, Joe? Do you

notice how she dresses?--always fresh and trim. But she’s got on her

best bib-and-tucker to-day, and a pinafore with frills to it. And it’s

ironing-day, too. It can’t be on your account. If it was Saturday or

Sunday afternoon, or some holiday, I could understand it. But perhaps

one of her admirers is going to take her to the church bazaar in Solong

to-night. That’s what it is.’

He gave me time to think over that.

‘But yet she seems interested in you, Joe,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you

offer to take her to the bazaar instead of letting another chap get in

ahead of you? You miss all your chances, Joe.’

Then a thought struck me. I ought to have known Jack well enough to have

thought of it before.

‘Look here, Jack,’ I said. ‘What have you been saying to that girl about

me?’

‘Oh, not much,’ said Jack. ‘There isn’t much to say about you.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Oh, nothing in particular. She’d heard all about you before.’

‘She hadn’t heard much good, I suppose,’ I said.

‘Well, that’s true, as far as I could make out. But you’ve only got

yourself to blame. I didn’t have the breeding and rearing of you. I

smoothed over matters with her as much as I could.’

‘What did you tell her?’ I said. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

‘Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t tell her anything much. I only

answered questions.’

‘And what questions did she ask?’

‘Well, in the first place, she asked if your name wasn’t Joe Wilson; and

I said it was, as far as I knew. Then she said she heard that you wrote

poetry, and I had to admit that that was true.’

‘Look here, Jack,’ I said, ‘I’ve two minds to punch your head.’

‘And she asked me if it was true that you were wild,’ said Jack, ‘and I

said you was, a bit. She said it seemed a pity. She asked me if it was

true that you drank, and I drew a long face and said that I was sorry

to say it was true. She asked me if you had any friends, and I said none

that I knew of, except me. I said that you’d lost all your friends; they

stuck to you as long as they could, but they had to give you best, one

after the other.’

‘What next?’

‘She asked me if you were delicate, and I said no, you were as tough as

fencing-wire. She said you looked rather pale and thin, and asked me if

you’d had an illness lately. And I said no--it was all on account of

the wild, dissipated life you’d led. She said it was a pity you hadn’t

a mother or a sister to look after you--it was a pity that something

couldn’t be done for you, and I said it was, but I was afraid that

nothing could be done. I told her that I was doing all I could to keep

you straight.’

I knew enough of Jack to know that most of this was true. And so she

only pitied me after all. I felt as if I’d been courting her for six

months and she’d thrown me over--but I didn’t know anything about women

yet.

‘Did you tell her I was in jail?’ I growled.

‘No, by Gum! I forgot that. But never mind I’ll fix that up all right.

I’ll tell her that you got two years’ hard for horse-stealing. That

ought to make her interested in you, if she isn’t already.’

We smoked a while.

‘And was that all she said?’ I asked.

‘Who?--Oh! ‘Possum,’ said Jack rousing himself. ‘Well--no; let me

think---- We got chatting of other things--you know a married man’s

privileged, and can say a lot more to a girl than a single man can. I

got talking nonsense about sweethearts, and one thing led to another

till at last she said, “I suppose Mr Wilson’s got a sweetheart, Mr

Barnes?”’

‘And what did you say?’ I growled.

‘Oh, I told her that you were a holy terror amongst the girls,’ said

Jack. ‘You’d better take back that tray, Joe, and let us get to work.’

I wouldn’t take back the tray--but that didn’t mend matters, for Jack

took it back himself.

I didn’t see Mary’s reflection in the window again, so I took the window

out. I reckoned that she was just a big-hearted, impulsive little thing,

as many Australian girls are, and I reckoned that I was a fool for

thinking for a moment that she might give me a second thought, except

by way of kindness. Why! young Black and half a dozen better men than me

were sweet on her, and young Black was to get his father’s station and

the money--or rather his mother’s money, for she held the stuff (she

kept it close too, by all accounts). Young Black was away at the time,

and his mother was dead against him about Mary, but that didn’t make

any difference, as far as I could see. I reckoned that it was only

just going to be a hopeless, heart-breaking, stand-far-off-and-worship

affair, as far as I was concerned--like my first love affair, that I

haven’t told you about yet. I was tired of being pitied by good girls.

You see, I didn’t know women then. If I had known, I think I might have

made more than one mess of my life.

Jack rode home to Solong every night. I was staying at a pub some

distance out of town, between Solong and Haviland. There were three or

four wet days, and we didn’t get on with the work. I fought shy of Mary

till one day she was hanging out clothes and the line broke. It was the

old-style sixpenny clothes-line. The clothes were all down, but it was

clean grass, so it didn’t matter much. I looked at Jack.

‘Go and help her, you capital Idiot!’ he said, and I made the plunge.

‘Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson!’ said Mary, when I came to help. She had the

broken end of the line and was trying to hold some of the clothes off

the ground, as if she could pull it an inch with the heavy wet sheets

and table-cloths and things on it, or as if it would do any good if she

did. But that’s the way with women--especially little women--some of ‘em

would try to pull a store bullock if they got the end of the rope on

the right side of the fence. I took the line from Mary, and accidentally

touched her soft, plump little hand as I did so: it sent a thrill right

through me. She seemed a lot cooler than I was.

Now, in cases like this, especially if you lose your head a bit, you get

hold of the loose end of the rope that’s hanging from the post with one

hand, and the end of the line with the clothes on with the other, and

try to pull ‘em far enough together to make a knot. And that’s about

all you do for the present, except look like a fool. Then I took off

the post end, spliced the line, took it over the fork, and pulled, while

Mary helped me with the prop. I thought Jack might have come and taken

the prop from her, but he didn’t; he just went on with his work as if

nothing was happening inside the horizon.

She’d got the line about two-thirds full of clothes, it was a bit short

now, so she had to jump and catch it with one hand and hold it down

while she pegged a sheet she’d thrown over. I’d made the plunge now,

so I volunteered to help her. I held down the line while she threw

the things over and pegged out. As we got near the post and higher I

straightened out some ends and pegged myself. Bushmen are handy at most

things. We laughed, and now and again Mary would say, ‘No, that’s not

the way, Mr Wilson; that’s not right; the sheet isn’t far enough over;

wait till I fix it,’ &c. I’d a reckless idea once of holding her up

while she pegged, and I was glad afterwards that I hadn’t made such a

fool of myself.

‘There’s only a few more things in the basket, Miss Brand,’ I said. ‘You

can’t reach--I’ll fix ‘em up.’

She seemed to give a little gasp.

‘Oh, those things are not ready yet,’ she said, ‘they’re not rinsed,’

and she grabbed the basket and held it away from me. The things looked

the same to me as the rest on the line; they looked rinsed enough and

blued too. I reckoned that she didn’t want me to take the trouble, or

thought that I mightn’t like to be seen hanging out clothes, and was

only doing it out of kindness.

‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ I said, ‘let me hang ‘em out. I like it. I’ve

hung out clothes at home on a windy day,’ and I made a reach into the

basket. But she flushed red, with temper I thought, and snatched the

basket away.

‘Excuse me, Mr Wilson,’ she said, ‘but those things are not ready yet!’

and she marched into the wash-house.

‘Ah well! you’ve got a little temper of your own,’ I thought to myself.

When I told Jack, he said that I’d made another fool of myself. He said

I’d both disappointed and offended her. He said that my line was to

stand off a bit and be serious and melancholy in the background.

That evening when we’d started home, we stopped some time yarning with

a chap we met at the gate; and I happened to look back, and saw Mary

hanging out the rest of the things--she thought that we were out of

sight. Then I understood why those things weren’t ready while we were

round.

For the next day or two Mary didn’t take the slightest notice of me,

and I kept out of her way. Jack said I’d disillusioned her--and hurt her

dignity--which was a thousand times worse. He said I’d spoilt the thing

altogether. He said that she’d got an idea that I was shy and poetic,

and I’d only shown myself the usual sort of Bush-whacker.

I noticed her talking and chatting with other fellows once or twice, and

it made me miserable. I got drunk two evenings running, and then, as it

appeared afterwards, Mary consulted Jack, and at last she said to him,

when we were together--

‘Do you play draughts, Mr Barnes?’

‘No,’ said Jack.

‘Do you, Mr Wilson?’ she asked, suddenly turning her big, bright eyes on

me, and speaking to me for the first time since last washing-day.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do a little.’ Then there was a silence, and I had to

say something else.

‘Do you play draughts, Miss Brand?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but I can’t get any one to play with me here of an

evening, the men are generally playing cards or reading.’ Then she said,

‘It’s very dull these long winter evenings when you’ve got nothing to

do. Young Mr Black used to play draughts, but he’s away.’

I saw Jack winking at me urgently.

‘I’ll play a game with you, if you like,’ I said, ‘but I ain’t much of a

player.’

‘Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson! When shall you have an evening to spare?’

We fixed it for that same evening. We got chummy over the draughts. I

had a suspicion even then that it was a put-up job to keep me away from

the pub.

Perhaps she found a way of giving a hint to old Black without committing

herself. Women have ways--or perhaps Jack did it. Anyway, next day the

Boss came round and said to me--

‘Look here, Joe, you’ve got no occasion to stay at the pub. Bring along

your blankets and camp in one of the spare rooms of the old house. You

can have your tucker here.’

He was a good sort, was Black the squatter: a squatter of the old

school, who’d shared the early hardships with his men, and couldn’t see

why he should not shake hands and have a smoke and a yarn over old times

with any of his old station hands that happened to come along. But he’d

married an Englishwoman after the hardships were over, and she’d never

got any Australian notions.

Next day I found one of the skillion rooms scrubbed out and a bed fixed

up for me. I’m not sure to this day who did it, but I supposed that

good-natured old Black had given one of the women a hint. After tea

I had a yarn with Mary, sitting on a log of the wood-heap. I don’t

remember exactly how we both came to be there, or who sat down

first. There was about two feet between us. We got very chummy and

confidential. She told me about her childhood and her father.

He’d been an old mate of Black’s, a younger son of a well-to-do English

family (with blue blood in it, I believe), and sent out to Australia

with a thousand pounds to make his way, as many younger sons are, with

more or less. They think they’re hard done by; they blue their thousand

pounds in Melbourne or Sydney, and they don’t make any more nowadays,

for the Roarin’ Days have been dead these thirty years. I wish I’d had a

thousand pounds to start on!

Mary’s mother was the daughter of a German immigrant, who selected

up there in the old days. She had a will of her own as far as I could

understand, and bossed the home till the day of her death. Mary’s

father made money, and lost it, and drank--and died. Mary remembered

him sitting on the verandah one evening with his hand on her head, and

singing a German song (the ‘Lorelei’, I think it was) softly, as if to

himself. Next day he stayed in bed, and the children were kept out of

the room; and, when he died, the children were adopted round (there was

a little money coming from England).

Mary told me all about her girlhood. She went first to live with a sort

of cousin in town, in a house where they took in cards on a tray, and

then she came to live with Mrs Black, who took a fancy to her at first.

I’d had no boyhood to speak of, so I gave her some of my ideas of what

the world ought to be, and she seemed interested.

Next day there were sheets on my bed, and I felt pretty cocky until

I remembered that I’d told her I had no one to care for me; then I

suspected pity again.

But next evening we remembered that both our fathers and mothers were

dead, and discovered that we had no friends except Jack and old Black,

and things went on very satisfactorily.

And next day there was a little table in my room with a crocheted cover

and a looking-glass.

I noticed the other girls began to act mysterious and giggle when I was

round, but Mary didn’t seem aware of it.

We got very chummy. Mary wasn’t comfortable at Haviland. Old Black

was very fond of her and always took her part, but she wanted to be

independent. She had a great idea of going to Sydney and getting into

the hospital as a nurse. She had friends in Sydney, but she had no

money. There was a little money coming to her when she was twenty-one--a

few pounds--and she was going to try and get it before that time.

‘Look here, Miss Brand,’ I said, after we’d watched the moon rise. ‘I’ll

lend you the money. I’ve got plenty--more than I know what to do with.’

But I saw I’d hurt her. She sat up very straight for a while, looking

before her; then she said it was time to go in, and said ‘Good-night, Mr

Wilson.’

I reckoned I’d done it that time; but Mary told me afterwards that she

was only hurt because it struck her that what she said about money might

have been taken for a hint. She didn’t understand me yet, and I didn’t

know human nature. I didn’t say anything to Jack--in fact about this

time I left off telling him about things. He didn’t seem hurt; he worked

hard and seemed happy.

I really meant what I said to Mary about the money. It was pure good

nature. I’d be a happier man now, I think, and richer man perhaps, if

I’d never grown any more selfish than I was that night on the wood-heap

with Mary. I felt a great sympathy for her--but I got to love her. I

went through all the ups and downs of it. One day I was having tea in

the kitchen, and Mary and another girl, named Sarah, reached me a clean

plate at the same time: I took Sarah’s plate because she was first, and

Mary seemed very nasty about it, and that gave me great hopes. But all

next evening she played draughts with a drover that she’d chummed up

with. I pretended to be interested in Sarah’s talk, but it didn’t seem

to work.

A few days later a Sydney Jackaroo visited the station. He had a good

pea-rifle, and one afternoon he started to teach Mary to shoot at a

target. They seemed to get very chummy. I had a nice time for three or

four days, I can tell you. I was worse than a wall-eyed bullock with

the pleuro. The other chaps had a shot out of the rifle. Mary called ‘Mr

Wilson’ to have a shot, and I made a worse fool of myself by sulking. If

it hadn’t been a blooming Jackaroo I wouldn’t have minded so much.

Next evening the Jackaroo and one or two other chaps and the girls went

out ‘possum-shooting. Mary went. I could have gone, but I didn’t. I

mooched round all the evening like an orphan bandicoot on a burnt ridge,

and then I went up to the pub and filled myself with beer, and damned

the world, and came home and went to bed. I think that evening was

the only time I ever wrote poetry down on a piece of paper. I got so

miserable that I enjoyed it.

I felt better next morning, and reckoned I was cured. I ran against Mary

accidentally and had to say something.

‘How did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, Miss Brand?’ I asked.

‘Oh, very well, thank you, Mr Wilson,’ she said. Then she asked, ‘How

did you enjoy yourself, Mr Wilson?’

I puzzled over that afterwards, but couldn’t make anything out of it.

Perhaps she only said it for the sake of saying something. But about

this time my handkerchiefs and collars disappeared from the room and

turned up washed and ironed and laid tidily on my table. I used to keep

an eye out, but could never catch anybody near my room. I straightened

up, and kept my room a bit tidy, and when my handkerchief got too dirty,

and I was ashamed of letting it go to the wash, I’d slip down to the

river after dark and wash it out, and dry it next day, and rub it up to

look as if it hadn’t been washed, and leave it on my table. I felt

so full of hope and joy that I worked twice as hard as Jack, till one

morning he remarked casually--

‘I see you’ve made a new mash, Joe. I saw the half-caste cook tidying

up your room this morning and taking your collars and things to the

wash-house.’

I felt very much off colour all the rest of the day, and I had such

a bad night of it that I made up my mind next morning to look the

hopelessness square in the face and live the thing down.

It was the evening before Anniversary Day. Jack and I had put in a good

day’s work to get the job finished, and Jack was having a smoke and a

yarn with the chaps before he started home. We sat on an old log along

by the fence at the back of the house. There was Jimmy Nowlett the

bullock-driver, and long Dave Regan the drover, and big Jim Bullock the

fencer, and one or two others. Mary and the station girls and one or

two visitors were sitting under the old verandah. The Jackaroo was

there too, so I felt happy. It was the girls who used to bring the chaps

hanging round. They were getting up a dance party for Anniversary night.

Along in the evening another chap came riding up to the station: he was

a big shearer, a dark, handsome fellow, who looked like a gipsy: it was

reckoned that there was foreign blood in him. He went by the name of

Romany. He was supposed to be shook after Mary too. He had the nastiest

temper and the best violin in the district, and the chaps put up with

him a lot because they wanted him to play at Bush dances. The moon had

risen over Pine Ridge, but it was dusky where we were. We saw Romany

loom up, riding in from the gate; he rode round the end of the

coach-house and across towards where we were--I suppose he was going to

tie up his horse at the fence; but about half-way across the grass he

disappeared. It struck me that there was something peculiar about the

way he got down, and I heard a sound like a horse stumbling.

‘What the hell’s Romany trying to do?’ said Jimmy Nowlett. ‘He couldn’t

have fell off his horse--or else he’s drunk.’

A couple of chaps got up and went to see. Then there was that waiting,

mysterious silence that comes when something happens in the dark and

nobody knows what it is. I went over, and the thing dawned on me. I’d

stretched a wire clothes-line across there during the day, and had

forgotten all about it for the moment. Romany had no idea of the line,

and, as he rode up, it caught him on a level with his elbows and scraped

him off his horse. He was sitting on the grass, swearing in a surprised

voice, and the horse looked surprised too. Romany wasn’t hurt, but the

sudden shock had spoilt his temper. He wanted to know who’d put up that

bloody line. He came over and sat on the log. The chaps smoked a while.

‘What did you git down so sudden for, Romany?’ asked Jim Bullock

presently. ‘Did you hurt yerself on the pommel?’

‘Why didn’t you ask the horse to go round?’ asked Dave Regan.

‘I’d only like to know who put up that bleeding wire!’ growled Romany.

‘Well,’ said Jimmy Nowlett, ‘if we’d put up a sign to beware of the line

you couldn’t have seen it in the dark.’

‘Unless it was a transparency with a candle behind it,’ said Dave Regan.

‘But why didn’t you get down on one end, Romany, instead of all along?

It wouldn’t have jolted yer so much.’

All this with the Bush drawl, and between the puffs of their pipes.

But I didn’t take any interest in it. I was brooding over Mary and the

Jackaroo.

‘I’ve heard of men getting down over their horse’s head,’ said

Dave presently, in a reflective sort of way--‘in fact I’ve done it

myself--but I never saw a man get off backwards over his horse’s rump.’

But they saw that Romany was getting nasty, and they wanted him to play

the fiddle next night, so they dropped it.

Mary was singing an old song. I always thought she had a sweet voice,

and I’d have enjoyed it if that damned Jackaroo hadn’t been listening

too. We listened in silence until she’d finished.

‘That gal’s got a nice voice,’ said Jimmy Nowlett.

‘Nice voice!’ snarled Romany, who’d been waiting for a chance to be

nasty. ‘Why, I’ve heard a tom-cat sing better.’

I moved, and Jack, he was sitting next me, nudged me to keep quiet. The

chaps didn’t like Romany’s talk about ‘Possum at all. They were all fond

of her: she wasn’t a pet or a tomboy, for she wasn’t built that way,

but they were fond of her in such a way that they didn’t like to hear

anything said about her. They said nothing for a while, but it meant a

lot. Perhaps the single men didn’t care to speak for fear that it would

be said that they were gone on Mary. But presently Jimmy Nowlett gave a

big puff at his pipe and spoke--

‘I suppose you got bit too in that quarter, Romany?’

‘Oh, she tried it on, but it didn’t go,’ said Romany. ‘I’ve met her sort

before. She’s setting her cap at that Jackaroo now. Some girls will run

after anything with trousers on,’ and he stood up.

Jack Barnes must have felt what was coming, for he grabbed my arm, and

whispered, ‘Sit still, Joe, damn you! He’s too good for you!’ but I was

on my feet and facing Romany as if a giant hand had reached down and

wrenched me off the log and set me there.

‘You’re a damned crawler, Romany!’ I said.

Little Jimmy Nowlett was between us and the other fellows round us

before a blow got home. ‘Hold on, you damned fools!’ they said. ‘Keep

quiet till we get away from the house!’ There was a little clear flat

down by the river and plenty of light there, so we decided to go down

there and have it out.

Now I never was a fighting man; I’d never learnt to use my hands. I

scarcely knew how to put them up. Jack often wanted to teach me, but I

wouldn’t bother about it. He’d say, ‘You’ll get into a fight some day,

Joe, or out of one, and shame me;’ but I hadn’t the patience to learn.

He’d wanted me to take lessons at the station after work, but he used to

get excited, and I didn’t want Mary to see him knocking me about. Before

he was married Jack was always getting into fights--he generally tackled

a better man and got a hiding; but he didn’t seem to care so long as

he made a good show--though he used to explain the thing away from a

scientific point of view for weeks after. To tell the truth, I had a

horror of fighting; I had a horror of being marked about the face; I

think I’d sooner stand off and fight a man with revolvers than fight him

with fists; and then I think I would say, last thing, ‘Don’t shoot me

in the face!’ Then again I hated the idea of hitting a man. It seemed

brutal to me. I was too sensitive and sentimental, and that was what

the matter was. Jack seemed very serious on it as we walked down to the

river, and he couldn’t help hanging out blue lights.

‘Why didn’t you let me teach you to use your hands?’ he said. ‘The

only chance now is that Romany can’t fight after all. If you’d waited

a minute I’d have been at him.’ We were a bit behind the rest, and Jack

started giving me points about lefts and rights, and ‘half-arms’, and

that sort of thing. ‘He’s left-handed, and that’s the worst of it,’ said

Jack. ‘You must only make as good a show as you can, and one of us will

take him on afterwards.’

But I just heard him and that was all. It was to be my first fight since

I was a boy, but, somehow, I felt cool about it--sort of dulled. If the

chaps had known all they would have set me down as a cur. I thought of

that, but it didn’t make any difference with me then; I knew it was a

thing they couldn’t understand. I knew I was reckoned pretty soft. But

I knew one thing that they didn’t know. I knew that it was going to be

a fight to a finish, one way or the other. I had more brains and

imagination than the rest put together, and I suppose that that was the

real cause of most of my trouble. I kept saying to myself, ‘You’ll have

to go through with it now, Joe, old man! It’s the turning-point of your

life.’ If I won the fight, I’d set to work and win Mary; if I lost, I’d

leave the district for ever. A man thinks a lot in a flash sometimes; I

used to get excited over little things, because of the very paltriness

of them, but I was mostly cool in a crisis--Jack was the reverse. I

looked ahead: I wouldn’t be able to marry a girl who could look back and

remember when her husband was beaten by another man--no matter what sort

of brute the other man was.

I never in my life felt so cool about a thing. Jack kept whispering

instructions, and showing with his hands, up to the last moment, but it

was all lost on me.

Looking back, I think there was a bit of romance about it: Mary singing

under the vines to amuse a Jackaroo dude, and a coward going down to the

river in the moonlight to fight for her.

It was very quiet in the little moonlit flat by the river. We took off

our coats and were ready. There was no swearing or barracking. It seemed

an understood thing with the men that if I went out first round Jack

would fight Romany; and if Jack knocked him out somebody else would

fight Jack to square matters. Jim Bullock wouldn’t mind obliging for

one; he was a mate of Jack’s, but he didn’t mind who he fought so long

as it was for the sake of fair play--or ‘peace and quietness’, as he

said. Jim was very good-natured. He backed Romany, and of course Jack

backed me.

As far as I could see, all Romany knew about fighting was to jerk one

arm up in front of his face and duck his head by way of a feint, and

then rush and lunge out. But he had the weight and strength and length

of reach, and my first lesson was a very short one. I went down early

in the round. But it did me good; the blow and the look I’d seen

in Romany’s eyes knocked all the sentiment out of me. Jack said

nothing,--he seemed to regard it as a hopeless job from the first.

Next round I tried to remember some things Jack had told me, and made a

better show, but I went down in the end.

I felt Jack breathing quick and trembling as he lifted me up.

‘How are you, Joe?’ he whispered.

‘I’m all right,’ I said.

‘It’s all right,’ whispered Jack in a voice as if I was going to be

hanged, but it would soon be all over. ‘He can’t use his hands much more

than you can--take your time, Joe--try to remember something I told you,

for God’s sake!’

When two men fight who don’t know how to use their hands, they stand a

show of knocking each other about a lot. I got some awful thumps,

but mostly on the body. Jimmy Nowlett began to get excited and jump

round--he was an excitable little fellow.

‘Fight! you----!’ he yelled. ‘Why don’t you fight? That ain’t fightin’.

Fight, and don’t try to murder each other. Use your crimson hands or, by

God, I’ll chip you! Fight, or I’ll blanky well bullock-whip the pair of

you;’ then his language got awful. They said we went like windmills, and

that nearly every one of the blows we made was enough to kill a bullock

if it had got home. Jimmy stopped us once, but they held him back.

Presently I went down pretty flat, but the blow was well up on the head

and didn’t matter much--I had a good thick skull. And I had one good eye

yet.

‘For God’s sake, hit him!’ whispered Jack--he was trembling like a leaf.

‘Don’t mind what I told you. I wish I was fighting him myself! Get a

blow home, for God’s sake! Make a good show this round and I’ll stop the

fight.’

That showed how little even Jack, my old mate, understood me.

I had the Bushman up in me now, and wasn’t going to be beaten while

I could think. I was wonderfully cool, and learning to fight. There’s

nothing like a fight to teach a man. I was thinking fast, and learning

more in three seconds than Jack’s sparring could have taught me in three

weeks. People think that blows hurt in a fight, but they don’t--not

till afterwards. I fancy that a fighting man, if he isn’t altogether an

animal, suffers more mentally than he does physically.

While I was getting my wind I could hear through the moonlight and still

air the sound of Mary’s voice singing up at the house. I thought hard

into the future, even as I fought. The fight only seemed something that

was passing.

I was on my feet again and at it, and presently I lunged out and felt

such a jar in my arm that I thought it was telescoped. I thought I’d put

out my wrist and elbow. And Romany was lying on the broad of his back.

I heard Jack draw three breaths of relief in one. He said nothing as

he straightened me up, but I could feel his heart beating. He said

afterwards that he didn’t speak because he thought a word might spoil

it.

I went down again, but Jack told me afterwards that he FELT I was all

right when he lifted me.

Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated

us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the

novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped.

‘I’ve done,’ he said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ He’d caught his heel

against a tuft of grass.

‘Shake hands,’ yelled Jimmy Nowlett.

I stepped forward, but Romany took his coat and limped to his horse.

‘If yer don’t shake hands with Wilson, I’ll lamb yer!’ howled Jimmy; but

Jack told him to let the man alone, and Romany got on his horse somehow

and rode off.

I saw Jim Bullock stoop and pick up something from the grass, and heard

him swear in surprise. There was some whispering, and presently Jim

said--

‘If I thought that, I’d kill him.’

‘What is it?’ asked Jack.

Jim held up a butcher’s knife. It was common for a man to carry a

butcher’s knife in a sheath fastened to his belt.

‘Why did you let your man fight with a butcher’s knife in his belt?’

asked Jimmy Nowlett.

But the knife could easily have fallen out when Romany fell, and we

decided it that way.

‘Any way,’ said Jimmy Nowlett, ‘if he’d stuck Joe in hot blood before us

all it wouldn’t be so bad as if he sneaked up and stuck him in the back

in the dark. But you’d best keep an eye over yer shoulder for a year or

two, Joe. That chap’s got Eye-talian blood in him somewhere. And now the

best thing you chaps can do is to keep your mouth shut and keep all this

dark from the gals.’

Jack hurried me on ahead. He seemed to act queer, and when I glanced

at him I could have sworn that there was water in his eyes. I said that

Jack had no sentiment except for himself, but I forgot, and I’m sorry I

said it.

‘What’s up, Jack?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Jack.

‘What’s up, you old fool?’ I said.

‘Nothing,’ said Jack, ‘except that I’m damned proud of you, Joe, you

old ass!’ and he put his arm round my shoulders and gave me a shake.

‘I didn’t know it was in you, Joe--I wouldn’t have said it before,

or listened to any other man say it, but I didn’t think you had the

pluck--God’s truth, I didn’t. Come along and get your face fixed up.’

We got into my room quietly, and Jack got a dish of water, and told one

of the chaps to sneak a piece of fresh beef from somewhere.

Jack was as proud as a dog with a tin tail as he fussed round me.

He fixed up my face in the best style he knew, and he knew a good

many--he’d been mended himself so often.

While he was at work we heard a sudden hush and a scraping of feet

amongst the chaps that Jack had kicked out of the room, and a girl’s

voice whispered, ‘Is he hurt? Tell me. I want to know,--I might be able

to help.’

It made my heart jump, I can tell you. Jack went out at once, and there

was some whispering. When he came back he seemed wild.

‘What is it, Jack?’ I asked.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he said, ‘only that damned slut of a half-caste cook

overheard some of those blanky fools arguing as to how Romany’s knife

got out of the sheath, and she’s put a nice yarn round amongst the

girls. There’s a regular bobbery, but it’s all right now. Jimmy

Nowlett’s telling ‘em lies at a great rate.’

Presently there was another hush outside, and a saucer with vinegar and

brown paper was handed in.

One of the chaps brought some beer and whisky from the pub, and we had

a quiet little time in my room. Jack wanted to stay all night, but I

reminded him that his little wife was waiting for him in Solong, so he

said he’d be round early in the morning, and went home.

I felt the reaction pretty bad. I didn’t feel proud of the affair at

all. I thought it was a low, brutal business all round. Romany was a

quiet chap after all, and the chaps had no right to chyack him. Perhaps

he’d had a hard life, and carried a big swag of trouble that we didn’t

know anything about. He seemed a lonely man. I’d gone through enough

myself to teach me not to judge men. I made up my mind to tell him how I

felt about the matter next time we met. Perhaps I made my usual mistake

of bothering about ‘feelings’ in another party that hadn’t any feelings

at all--perhaps I didn’t; but it’s generally best to chance it on the

kind side in a case like this. Altogether I felt as if I’d made another

fool of myself and been a weak coward. I drank the rest of the beer and

went to sleep.

About daylight I woke and heard Jack’s horse on the gravel. He came

round the back of the buggy-shed and up to my door, and then, suddenly,

a girl screamed out. I pulled on my trousers and ‘lastic-side boots and

hurried out. It was Mary herself, dressed, and sitting on an old stone

step at the back of the kitchen with her face in her hands, and Jack was

off his horse and stooping by her side with his hand on her shoulder.

She kept saying, ‘I thought you were----! I thought you were----!’ I

didn’t catch the name. An old single-barrel, muzzle-loader shot-gun was

lying in the grass at her feet. It was the gun they used to keep loaded

and hanging in straps in a room of the kitchen ready for a shot at a

cunning old hawk that they called ‘’Tarnal Death’, and that used to be

always after the chickens.

When Mary lifted her face it was as white as note-paper, and her eyes

seemed to grow wilder when she caught sight of me.

‘Oh, you did frighten me, Mr Barnes,’ she gasped. Then she gave a little

ghost of a laugh and stood up, and some colour came back.

‘Oh, I’m a little fool!’ she said quickly. ‘I thought I heard old

‘Tarnal Death at the chickens, and I thought it would be a great thing

if I got the gun and brought him down; so I got up and dressed quietly

so as not to wake Sarah. And then you came round the corner and

frightened me. I don’t know what you must think of me, Mr Barnes.’

‘Never mind,’ said Jack. ‘You go and have a sleep, or you won’t be

able to dance to-night. Never mind the gun--I’ll put that away.’ And he

steered her round to the door of her room off the brick verandah where

she slept with one of the other girls.

‘Well, that’s a rum start!’ I said.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Jack; ‘it’s very funny. Well, how’s your face this

morning, Joe?’

He seemed a lot more serious than usual.

We were hard at work all the morning cleaning out the big wool-shed and

getting it ready for the dance, hanging hoops for the candles, making

seats, &c. I kept out of sight of the girls as much as I could. One side

of my face was a sight and the other wasn’t too classical. I felt as if

I had been stung by a swarm of bees.

‘You’re a fresh, sweet-scented beauty now, and no mistake, Joe,’ said

Jimmy Nowlett--he was going to play the accordion that night. ‘You ought

to fetch the girls now, Joe. But never mind, your face’ll go down

in about three weeks. My lower jaw is crooked yet; but that fight

straightened my nose, that had been knocked crooked when I was a boy--so

I didn’t lose much beauty by it.’

When we’d done in the shed, Jack took me aside and said--

‘Look here, Joe! if you won’t come to the dance to-night--and I can’t

say you’d ornament it--I tell you what you’ll do. You get little Mary

away on the quiet and take her out for a stroll--and act like a man. The

job’s finished now, and you won’t get another chance like this.’

‘But how am I to get her out?’ I said.

‘Never you mind. You be mooching round down by the big peppermint-tree

near the river-gate, say about half-past ten.’

‘What good’ll that do?’

‘Never you mind. You just do as you’re told, that’s all you’ve got to

do,’ said Jack, and he went home to get dressed and bring his wife.

After the dancing started that night I had a peep in once or twice. The

first time I saw Mary dancing with Jack, and looking serious; and the

second time she was dancing with the blarsted Jackaroo dude, and looking

excited and happy. I noticed that some of the girls, that I could see

sitting on a stool along the opposite wall, whispered, and gave Mary

black looks as the Jackaroo swung her past. It struck me pretty forcibly

that I should have taken fighting lessons from him instead of from poor

Romany. I went away and walked about four miles down the river road,

getting out of the way into the Bush whenever I saw any chap riding

along. I thought of poor Romany and wondered where he was, and thought

that there wasn’t much to choose between us as far as happiness was

concerned. Perhaps he was walking by himself in the Bush, and feeling

like I did. I wished I could shake hands with him.

But somehow, about half-past ten, I drifted back to the river slip-rails

and leant over them, in the shadow of the peppermint-tree, looking at

the rows of river-willows in the moonlight. I didn’t expect anything, in

spite of what Jack said.

I didn’t like the idea of hanging myself: I’d been with a party who

found a man hanging in the Bush, and it was no place for a woman round

where he was. And I’d helped drag two bodies out of the Cudgeegong river

in a flood, and they weren’t sleeping beauties. I thought it was a pity

that a chap couldn’t lie down on a grassy bank in a graceful position in

the moonlight and die just by thinking of it--and die with his eyes

and mouth shut. But then I remembered that I wouldn’t make a beautiful

corpse, anyway it went, with the face I had on me.

I was just getting comfortably miserable when I heard a step behind me,

and my heart gave a jump. And I gave a start too.

‘Oh, is that you, Mr Wilson?’ said a timid little voice.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Is that you, Mary?’

And she said yes. It was the first time I called her Mary, but she did

not seem to notice it.

‘Did I frighten you?’ I asked.

‘No--yes--just a little,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know there was any

one----’ then she stopped.

‘Why aren’t you dancing?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, I’m tired,’ she said. ‘It was too hot in the wool-shed. I thought

I’d like to come out and get my head cool and be quiet a little while.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it must be hot in the wool-shed.’

She stood looking out over the willows. Presently she said, ‘It must be

very dull for you, Mr Wilson--you must feel lonely. Mr Barnes said----’

Then she gave a little gasp and stopped--as if she was just going to put

her foot in it.

‘How beautiful the moonlight looks on the willows!’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘doesn’t it? Supposing we have a stroll by the river.’

‘Oh, thank you, Mr Wilson. I’d like it very much.’

I didn’t notice it then, but, now I come to think of it, it was a

beautiful scene: there was a horseshoe of high blue hills round behind

the house, with the river running round under the slopes, and in front

was a rounded hill covered with pines, and pine ridges, and a soft blue

peak away over the ridges ever so far in the distance.

I had a handkerchief over the worst of my face, and kept the best side

turned to her. We walked down by the river, and didn’t say anything for

a good while. I was thinking hard. We came to a white smooth log in a

quiet place out of sight of the house.

‘Suppose we sit down for a while, Mary,’ I said.

‘If you like, Mr Wilson,’ she said.

There was about a foot of log between us.

‘What a beautiful night!’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘isn’t it?’

Presently she said, ‘I suppose you know I’m going away next month, Mr

Wilson?’

I felt suddenly empty. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I thought you knew. I’m going to try and get into the

hospital to be trained for a nurse, and if that doesn’t come off I’ll

get a place as assistant public-school teacher.’

We didn’t say anything for a good while.

‘I suppose you won’t be sorry to go, Miss Brand?’ I said.

‘I--I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Everybody’s been so kind to me here.’

She sat looking straight before her, and I fancied her eyes glistened.

I put my arm round her shoulders, but she didn’t seem to notice it. In

fact, I scarcely noticed it myself at the time.

‘So you think you’ll be sorry to go away?’ I said.

‘Yes, Mr Wilson. I suppose I’ll fret for a while. It’s been my home, you

know.’

I pressed my hand on her shoulder, just a little, so as she couldn’t

pretend not to know it was there. But she didn’t seem to notice.

‘Ah, well,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’ll be on the wallaby again next week.’

‘Will you, Mr Wilson?’ she said. Her voice seemed very soft.

I slipped my arm round her waist, under her arm. My heart was going like

clockwork now.

Presently she said--

‘Don’t you think it’s time to go back now, Mr Wilson?’

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time!’ I said. I shifted up, and put my arm

farther round, and held her closer. She sat straight up, looking right

in front of her, but she began to breathe hard.

‘Mary,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Call me Joe,’ I said.

‘I--I don’t like to,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it would be right.’

So I just turned her face round and kissed her. She clung to me and

cried.

‘What is it, Mary?’ I asked.

She only held me tighter and cried.

‘What is it, Mary?’ I said. ‘Ain’t you well? Ain’t you happy?’

‘Yes, Joe,’ she said, ‘I’m very happy.’ Then she said, ‘Oh, your poor

face! Can’t I do anything for it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s all right. My face doesn’t hurt me a bit now.’

But she didn’t seem right.

‘What is it, Mary?’ I said. ‘Are you tired? You didn’t sleep last

night----’ Then I got an inspiration.

‘Mary,’ I said, ‘what were you doing out with the gun this morning?’

And after some coaxing it all came out, a bit hysterical.

‘I couldn’t sleep--I was frightened. Oh! I had such a terrible dream

about you, Joe! I thought Romany came back and got into your room and

stabbed you with his knife. I got up and dressed, and about daybreak

I heard a horse at the gate; then I got the gun down from the

wall--and--and Mr Barnes came round the corner and frightened me. He’s

something like Romany, you know.’

Then I got as much of her as I could into my arms.

And, oh, but wasn’t I happy walking home with Mary that night! She was

too little for me to put my arm round her waist, so I put it round

her shoulder, and that felt just as good. I remember I asked her who’d

cleaned up my room and washed my things, but she wouldn’t tell.

She wouldn’t go back to the dance yet; she said she’d go into her room

and rest a while. There was no one near the old verandah; and when she

stood on the end of the floor she was just on a level with my shoulder.

‘Mary,’ I whispered, ‘put your arms round my neck and kiss me.’

She put her arms round my neck, but she didn’t kiss me; she only hid her

face.

‘Kiss me, Mary!’ I said.

‘I--I don’t like to,’ she whispered.

‘Why not, Mary?’

Then I felt her crying or laughing, or half crying and half laughing.

I’m not sure to this day which it was.

‘Why won’t you kiss me, Mary? Don’t you love me?’

‘Because,’ she said, ‘because--because I--I don’t--I don’t think it’s

right for--for a girl to--to kiss a man unless she’s going to be his

wife.’

Then it dawned on me! I’d forgot all about proposing.

‘Mary,’ I said, ‘would you marry a chap like me?’

And that was all right.

*****

Next morning Mary cleared out my room and sorted out my things, and

didn’t take the slightest notice of the other girls’ astonishment.

But she made me promise to speak to old Black, and I did the same

evening. I found him sitting on the log by the fence, having a yarn on

the quiet with an old Bushman; and when the old Bushman got up and went

away, I sat down.

‘Well, Joe,’ said Black, ‘I see somebody’s been spoiling your face for

the dance.’ And after a bit he said, ‘Well, Joe, what is it? Do you want

another job? If you do, you’ll have to ask Mrs Black, or Bob’ (Bob was

his eldest son); ‘they’re managing the station for me now, you know.’ He

could be bitter sometimes in his quiet way.

‘No,’ I said; ‘it’s not that, Boss.’

‘Well, what is it, Joe?’

‘I--well the fact is, I want little Mary.’

He puffed at his pipe for a long time, then I thought he spoke.

‘What did you say, Boss?’ I said.

‘Nothing, Joe,’ he said. ‘I was going to say a lot, but it wouldn’t be

any use. My father used to say a lot to me before I was married.’

I waited a good while for him to speak.

‘Well, Boss,’ I said, ‘what about Mary?’

‘Oh! I suppose that’s all right, Joe,’ he said. ‘I--I beg your pardon. I

got thinking of the days when I was courting Mrs Black.’

Brighten’s Sister-In-Law.

Jim was born on Gulgong, New South Wales. We used to say ‘on’

Gulgong--and old diggers still talked of being ‘on th’ Gulgong’--though

the goldfield there had been worked out for years, and the place was

only a dusty little pastoral town in the scrubs. Gulgong was about the

last of the great alluvial ‘rushes’ of the ‘roaring days’--and dreary

and dismal enough it looked when I was there. The expression ‘on’ came

from being on the ‘diggings’ or goldfield--the workings or the goldfield

was all underneath, of course, so we lived (or starved) ON them--not in

nor at ‘em.

Mary and I had been married about two years when Jim came----His name

wasn’t ‘Jim’, by the way, it was ‘John Henry’, after an uncle godfather;

but we called him Jim from the first--(and before it)--because Jim was a

popular Bush name, and most of my old mates were Jims. The Bush is full

of good-hearted scamps called Jim.

We lived in an old weather-board shanty that had been a sly-grog-shop,

and the Lord knows what else! in the palmy days of Gulgong; and I did

a bit of digging [‘fossicking’, rather), a bit of shearing, a bit of

fencing, a bit of Bush-carpentering, tank-sinking,--anything, just to

keep the billy boiling.

We had a lot of trouble with Jim with his teeth. He was bad with every

one of them, and we had most of them lanced--couldn’t pull him through

without. I remember we got one lanced and the gum healed over before

the tooth came through, and we had to get it cut again. He was a plucky

little chap, and after the first time he never whimpered when the doctor

was lancing his gum: he used to say ‘tar’ afterwards, and want to bring

the lance home with him.

The first turn we got with Jim was the worst. I had had the wife and Jim

out camping with me in a tent at a dam I was making at Cattle Creek; I

had two men working for me, and a boy to drive one of the tip-drays,

and I took Mary out to cook for us. And it was lucky for us that the

contract was finished and we got back to Gulgong, and within reach of

a doctor, the day we did. We were just camping in the house, with our

goods and chattels anyhow, for the night; and we were hardly back home

an hour when Jim took convulsions for the first time.

Did you ever see a child in convulsions? You wouldn’t want to see it

again: it plays the devil with a man’s nerves. I’d got the beds fixed up

on the floor, and the billies on the fire--I was going to make some tea,

and put a piece of corned beef on to boil over night--when Jim

(he’d been queer all day, and his mother was trying to hush him to

sleep)--Jim, he screamed out twice. He’d been crying a good deal, and

I was dog-tired and worried (over some money a man owed me) or I’d have

noticed at once that there was something unusual in the way the child

cried out: as it was I didn’t turn round till Mary screamed ‘Joe!

Joe!’ You know how a woman cries out when her child is in danger or

dying--short, and sharp, and terrible. ‘Joe! Look! look! Oh, my God! our

child! Get the bath, quick! quick! it’s convulsions!’

Jim was bent back like a bow, stiff as a bullock-yoke, in his mother’s

arms, and his eyeballs were turned up and fixed--a thing I saw twice

afterwards, and don’t want ever to see again.

I was falling over things getting the tub and the hot water, when the

woman who lived next door rushed in. She called to her husband to run

for the doctor, and before the doctor came she and Mary had got Jim into

a hot bath and pulled him through.

The neighbour woman made me up a shake-down in another room, and stayed

with Mary that night; but it was a long while before I got Jim and

Mary’s screams out of my head and fell asleep.

You may depend I kept the fire in, and a bucket of water hot over it,

for a good many nights after that; but (it always happens like this)

there came a night, when the fright had worn off, when I was too tired

to bother about the fire, and that night Jim took us by surprise. Our

wood-heap was done, and I broke up a new chair to get a fire, and had

to run a quarter of a mile for water; but this turn wasn’t so bad as the

first, and we pulled him through.

You never saw a child in convulsions? Well, you don’t want to. It must

be only a matter of seconds, but it seems long minutes; and half an

hour afterwards the child might be laughing and playing with you,

or stretched out dead. It shook me up a lot. I was always pretty

high-strung and sensitive. After Jim took the first fit, every time he

cried, or turned over, or stretched out in the night, I’d jump: I was

always feeling his forehead in the dark to see if he was feverish, or

feeling his limbs to see if he was ‘limp’ yet. Mary and I often laughed

about it--afterwards. I tried sleeping in another room, but for nights

after Jim’s first attack I’d be just dozing off into a sound sleep,

when I’d hear him scream, as plain as could be, and I’d hear Mary cry,

‘Joe!--Joe!’--short, sharp, and terrible--and I’d be up and into their

room like a shot, only to find them sleeping peacefully. Then I’d feel

Jim’s head and his breathing for signs of convulsions, see to the fire

and water, and go back to bed and try to sleep. For the first few nights

I was like that all night, and I’d feel relieved when daylight came.

I’d be in first thing to see if they were all right; then I’d sleep till

dinner-time if it was Sunday or I had no work. But then I was run down

about that time: I was worried about some money for a wool-shed I put up

and never got paid for; and, besides, I’d been pretty wild before I met

Mary.

I was fighting hard then--struggling for something better. Both Mary and

I were born to better things, and that’s what made the life so hard for

us.

Jim got on all right for a while: we used to watch him well, and have

his teeth lanced in time.

It used to hurt and worry me to see how--just as he was getting fat

and rosy and like a natural happy child, and I’d feel proud to take him

out--a tooth would come along, and he’d get thin and white and pale and

bigger-eyed and old-fashioned. We’d say, ‘He’ll be safe when he gets his

eye-teeth’: but he didn’t get them till he was two; then, ‘He’ll be safe

when he gets his two-year-old teeth’: they didn’t come till he was going

on for three.

He was a wonderful little chap--Yes, I know all about parents thinking

that their child is the best in the world. If your boy is small for his

age, friends will say that small children make big men; that he’s a

very bright, intelligent child, and that it’s better to have a bright,

intelligent child than a big, sleepy lump of fat. And if your boy is

dull and sleepy, they say that the dullest boys make the cleverest

men--and all the rest of it. I never took any notice of that sort of

clatter--took it for what it was worth; but, all the same, I don’t

think I ever saw such a child as Jim was when he turned two. He was

everybody’s favourite. They spoilt him rather. I had my own ideas about

bringing up a child. I reckoned Mary was too soft with Jim. She’d say,

‘Put that’ (whatever it was) ‘out of Jim’s reach, will you, Joe?’ and

I’d say, ‘No! leave it there, and make him understand he’s not to have

it. Make him have his meals without any nonsense, and go to bed at a

regular hour,’ I’d say. Mary and I had many a breeze over Jim. She’d

say that I forgot he was only a baby: but I held that a baby could be

trained from the first week; and I believe I was right.

But, after all, what are you to do? You’ll see a boy that was brought up

strict turn out a scamp; and another that was dragged up anyhow (by the

hair of the head, as the saying is) turn out well. Then, again, when

a child is delicate--and you might lose him any day--you don’t like to

spank him, though he might be turning out a little fiend, as delicate

children often do. Suppose you gave a child a hammering, and the same

night he took convulsions, or something, and died--how’d you feel about

it? You never know what a child is going to take, any more than you can

tell what some women are going to say or do.

I was very fond of Jim, and we were great chums. Sometimes I’d sit

and wonder what the deuce he was thinking about, and often, the way he

talked, he’d make me uneasy. When he was two he wanted a pipe above all

things, and I’d get him a clean new clay and he’d sit by my side, on the

edge of the verandah, or on a log of the wood-heap, in the cool of the

evening, and suck away at his pipe, and try to spit when he saw me do

it. He seemed to understand that a cold empty pipe wasn’t quite the

thing, yet to have the sense to know that he couldn’t smoke tobacco

yet: he made the best he could of things. And if he broke a clay pipe

he wouldn’t have a new one, and there’d be a row; the old one had to be

mended up, somehow, with string or wire. If I got my hair cut, he’d

want his cut too; and it always troubled him to see me shave--as if he

thought there must be something wrong somewhere, else he ought to have

to be shaved too. I lathered him one day, and pretended to shave him:

he sat through it as solemn as an owl, but didn’t seem to appreciate

it--perhaps he had sense enough to know that it couldn’t possibly be the

real thing. He felt his face, looked very hard at the lather I scraped

off, and whimpered, ‘No blood, daddy!’

I used to cut myself a good deal: I was always impatient over shaving.

Then he went in to interview his mother about it. She understood his

lingo better than I did.

But I wasn’t always at ease with him. Sometimes he’d sit looking into

the fire, with his head on one side, and I’d watch him and wonder what

he was thinking about (I might as well have wondered what a Chinaman

was thinking about) till he seemed at least twenty years older than me:

sometimes, when I moved or spoke, he’d glance round just as if to see

what that old fool of a dadda of his was doing now.

I used to have a fancy that there was something Eastern, or

Asiatic--something older than our civilisation or religion--about

old-fashioned children. Once I started to explain my idea to a woman I

thought would understand--and as it happened she had an old-fashioned

child, with very slant eyes--a little tartar he was too. I suppose

it was the sight of him that unconsciously reminded me of my infernal

theory, and set me off on it, without warning me. Anyhow, it got me

mixed up in an awful row with the woman and her husband--and all their

tribe. It wasn’t an easy thing to explain myself out of it, and the row

hasn’t been fixed up yet. There were some Chinamen in the district.

I took a good-size fencing contract, the frontage of a ten-mile paddock,

near Gulgong, and did well out of it. The railway had got as far as the

Cudgeegong river--some twenty miles from Gulgong and two hundred

from the coast--and ‘carrying’ was good then. I had a couple of

draught-horses, that I worked in the tip-drays when I was tank-sinking,

and one or two others running in the Bush. I bought a broken-down waggon

cheap, tinkered it up myself--christened it ‘The Same Old Thing’--and

started carrying from the railway terminus through Gulgong and along the

bush roads and tracks that branch out fanlike through the scrubs to the

one-pub towns and sheep and cattle stations out there in the howling

wilderness. It wasn’t much of a team. There were the two heavy horses

for ‘shafters’; a stunted colt, that I’d bought out of the pound for

thirty shillings; a light, spring-cart horse; an old grey mare, with

points like a big red-and-white Australian store bullock, and with the

grit of an old washerwoman to work; and a horse that had spanked along

in Cob & Co.’s mail-coach in his time. I had a couple there that didn’t

belong to me: I worked them for the feeding of them in the dry weather.

And I had all sorts of harness, that I mended and fixed up myself. It

was a mixed team, but I took light stuff, got through pretty quick, and

freight rates were high. So I got along.

Before this, whenever I made a few pounds I’d sink a shaft somewhere,

prospecting for gold; but Mary never let me rest till she talked me out

of that.

I made up my mind to take on a small selection farm--that an old mate of

mine had fenced in and cleared, and afterwards chucked up--about thirty

miles out west of Gulgong, at a place called Lahey’s Creek. (The places

were all called Lahey’s Creek, or Spicer’s Flat, or Murphy’s Flat, or

Ryan’s Crossing, or some such name--round there.) I reckoned I’d have

a run for the horses and be able to grow a bit of feed. I always had a

dread of taking Mary and the children too far away from a doctor--or a

good woman neighbour; but there were some people came to live on Lahey’s

Creek, and besides, there was a young brother of Mary’s--a young scamp

(his name was Jim, too, and we called him ‘Jimmy’ at first to make room

for our Jim--he hated the name ‘Jimmy’ or James). He came to live with

us--without asking--and I thought he’d find enough work at Lahey’s

Creek to keep him out of mischief. He wasn’t to be depended on much--he

thought nothing of riding off, five hundred miles or so, ‘to have a look

at the country’--but he was fond of Mary, and he’d stay by her till I

got some one else to keep her company while I was on the road. He would

be a protection against ‘sundowners’ or any shearers who happened to

wander that way in the ‘D.T.’s’ after a spree. Mary had a married sister

come to live at Gulgong just before we left, and nothing would suit her

and her husband but we must leave little Jim with them for a month or

so--till we got settled down at Lahey’s Creek. They were newly married.

Mary was to have driven into Gulgong, in the spring-cart, at the end

of the month, and taken Jim home; but when the time came she wasn’t too

well--and, besides, the tyres of the cart were loose, and I hadn’t time

to get them cut, so we let Jim’s time run on a week or so longer, till I

happened to come out through Gulgong from the river with a small load of

flour for Lahey’s Creek way. The roads were good, the weather grand--no

chance of it raining, and I had a spare tarpaulin if it did--I would

only camp out one night; so I decided to take Jim home with me.

Jim was turning three then, and he was a cure. He was so old-fashioned

that he used to frighten me sometimes--I’d almost think that there was

something supernatural about him; though, of course, I never took any

notice of that rot about some children being too old-fashioned to live.

There’s always the ghoulish old hag (and some not so old nor haggish

either) who’ll come round and shake up young parents with such croaks

as, ‘You’ll never rear that child--he’s too bright for his age.’ To the

devil with them! I say.

But I really thought that Jim was too intelligent for his age, and I

often told Mary that he ought to be kept back, and not let talk too much

to old diggers and long lanky jokers of Bushmen who rode in and hung

their horses outside my place on Sunday afternoons.

I don’t believe in parents talking about their own children

everlastingly--you get sick of hearing them; and their kids are

generally little devils, and turn out larrikins as likely as not.

But, for all that, I really think that Jim, when he was three years old,

was the most wonderful little chap, in every way, that I ever saw.

For the first hour or so, along the road, he was telling me all about

his adventures at his auntie’s.

‘But they spoilt me too much, dad,’ he said, as solemn as a native bear.

‘An’ besides, a boy ought to stick to his parrans!’

I was taking out a cattle-pup for a drover I knew, and the pup took up a

good deal of Jim’s time.

Sometimes he’d jolt me, the way he talked; and other times I’d have

to turn away my head and cough, or shout at the horses, to keep from

laughing outright. And once, when I was taken that way, he said--

‘What are you jerking your shoulders and coughing, and grunting, and

going on that way for, dad? Why don’t you tell me something?’

‘Tell you what, Jim?’

‘Tell me some talk.’

So I told him all the talk I could think of. And I had to brighten up,

I can tell you, and not draw too much on my imagination--for Jim was a

terror at cross-examination when the fit took him; and he didn’t think

twice about telling you when he thought you were talking nonsense. Once

he said--

‘I’m glad you took me home with you, dad. You’ll get to know Jim.’

‘What!’ I said.

‘You’ll get to know Jim.’

‘But don’t I know you already?’

‘No, you don’t. You never has time to know Jim at home.’

And, looking back, I saw that it was cruel true. I had known in my heart

all along that this was the truth; but it came to me like a blow from

Jim. You see, it had been a hard struggle for the last year or so; and

when I was home for a day or two I was generally too busy, or too tired

and worried, or full of schemes for the future, to take much notice of

Jim. Mary used to speak to me about it sometimes. ‘You never take notice

of the child,’ she’d say. ‘You could surely find a few minutes of an

evening. What’s the use of always worrying and brooding? Your brain will

go with a snap some day, and, if you get over it, it will teach you a

lesson. You’ll be an old man, and Jim a young one, before you realise

that you had a child once. Then it will be too late.’

This sort of talk from Mary always bored me and made me impatient with

her, because I knew it all too well. I never worried for myself--only

for Mary and the children. And often, as the days went by, I said to

myself, ‘I’ll take more notice of Jim and give Mary more of my time,

just as soon as I can see things clear ahead a bit.’ And the hard days

went on, and the weeks, and the months, and the years---- Ah, well!

Mary used to say, when things would get worse, ‘Why don’t you talk

to me, Joe? Why don’t you tell me your thoughts, instead of shutting

yourself up in yourself and brooding--eating your heart out? It’s hard

for me: I get to think you’re tired of me, and selfish. I might be cross

and speak sharp to you when you are in trouble. How am I to know, if you

don’t tell me?’

But I didn’t think she’d understand.

And so, getting acquainted, and chumming and dozing, with the gums

closing over our heads here and there, and the ragged patches of

sunlight and shade passing up, over the horses, over us, on the front of

the load, over the load, and down on to the white, dusty road again--Jim

and I got along the lonely Bush road and over the ridges, some fifteen

miles before sunset, and camped at Ryan’s Crossing on Sandy Creek for

the night. I got the horses out and took the harness off. Jim wanted

badly to help me, but I made him stay on the load; for one of the

horses--a vicious, red-eyed chestnut--was a kicker: he’d broken a

man’s leg. I got the feed-bags stretched across the shafts, and the

chaff-and-corn into them; and there stood the horses all round with

their rumps north, south, and west, and their heads between the shafts,

munching and switching their tails. We use double shafts, you know, for

horse-teams--two pairs side by side,--and prop them up, and stretch bags

between them, letting the bags sag to serve as feed-boxes. I threw the

spare tarpaulin over the wheels on one side, letting about half of

it lie on the ground in case of damp, and so making a floor and a

break-wind. I threw down bags and the blankets and ‘possum rug against

the wheel to make a camp for Jim and the cattle-pup, and got a gin-case

we used for a tucker-box, the frying-pan and billy down, and made a good

fire at a log close handy, and soon everything was comfortable. Ryan’s

Crossing was a grand camp. I stood with my pipe in my mouth, my hands

behind my back, and my back to the fire, and took the country in.

Reedy Creek came down along a western spur of the range: the banks here

were deep and green, and the water ran clear over the granite bars,

boulders, and gravel. Behind us was a dreary flat covered with those

gnarled, grey-barked, dry-rotted ‘native apple-trees’ (about as much

like apple-trees as the native bear is like any other), and a nasty bit

of sand-dusty road that I was always glad to get over in wet weather.

To the left on our side of the creek were reedy marshes, with frogs

croaking, and across the creek the dark box-scrub-covered ridges ended

in steep ‘sidings’ coming down to the creek-bank, and to the main road

that skirted them, running on west up over a ‘saddle’ in the ridges and

on towards Dubbo. The road by Lahey’s Creek to a place called Cobborah

branched off, through dreary apple-tree and stringy-bark flats, to the

left, just beyond the crossing: all these fanlike branch tracks from the

Cudgeegong were inside a big horse-shoe in the Great Western Line, and

so they gave small carriers a chance, now that Cob & Co.’s coaches and

the big teams and vans had shifted out of the main western terminus.

There were tall she-oaks all along the creek, and a clump of big ones

over a deep water-hole just above the crossing. The creek oaks have

rough barked trunks, like English elms, but are much taller, and higher

to the branches--and the leaves are reedy; Kendel, the Australian

poet, calls them the ‘she-oak harps Aeolian’. Those trees are always

sigh-sigh-sighing--more of a sigh than a sough or the ‘whoosh’ of

gum-trees in the wind. You always hear them sighing, even when you can’t

feel any wind. It’s the same with telegraph wires: put your head against

a telegraph-post on a dead, still day, and you’ll hear and feel the

far-away roar of the wires. But then the oaks are not connected with the

distance, where there might be wind; and they don’t ROAR in a gale, only

sigh louder and softer according to the wind, and never seem to go above

or below a certain pitch,--like a big harp with all the strings the

same. I used to have a theory that those creek oaks got the wind’s voice

telephoned to them, so to speak, through the ground.

I happened to look down, and there was Jim (I thought he was on the

tarpaulin, playing with the pup): he was standing close beside me with

his legs wide apart, his hands behind his back, and his back to the

fire.

He held his head a little on one side, and there was such an old, old,

wise expression in his big brown eyes--just as if he’d been a child for

a hundred years or so, or as though he were listening to those oaks and

understanding them in a fatherly sort of way.

‘Dad!’ he said presently--‘Dad! do you think I’ll ever grow up to be a

man?’

‘Wh--why, Jim?’ I gasped.

‘Because I don’t want to.’

I couldn’t think of anything against this. It made me uneasy. But I

remembered *I* used to have a childish dread of growing up to be a man.

‘Jim,’ I said, to break the silence, ‘do you hear what the she-oaks

say?’

‘No, I don’t. Is they talking?’

‘Yes,’ I said, without thinking.

‘What is they saying?’ he asked.

I took the bucket and went down to the creek for some water for tea. I

thought Jim would follow with a little tin billy he had, but he didn’t:

when I got back to the fire he was again on the ‘possum rug, comforting

the pup. I fried some bacon and eggs that I’d brought out with me. Jim

sang out from the waggon--

‘Don’t cook too much, dad--I mightn’t be hungry.’

I got the tin plates and pint-pots and things out on a clean new

flour-bag, in honour of Jim, and dished up. He was leaning back on the

rug looking at the pup in a listless sort of way. I reckoned he was

tired out, and pulled the gin-case up close to him for a table and put

his plate on it. But he only tried a mouthful or two, and then he said--

‘I ain’t hungry, dad! You’ll have to eat it all.’

It made me uneasy--I never liked to see a child of mine turn from his

food. They had given him some tinned salmon in Gulgong, and I was afraid

that that was upsetting him. I was always against tinned muck.

‘Sick, Jim?’ I asked.

‘No, dad, I ain’t sick; I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’

‘Have some tea, sonny?’

‘Yes, dad.’

I gave him some tea, with some milk in it that I’d brought in a bottle

from his aunt’s for him. He took a sip or two and then put the pint-pot

on the gin-case.

‘Jim’s tired, dad,’ he said.

I made him lie down while I fixed up a camp for the night. It had turned

a bit chilly, so I let the big tarpaulin down all round--it was made to

cover a high load, the flour in the waggon didn’t come above the rail,

so the tarpaulin came down well on to the ground. I fixed Jim up a

comfortable bed under the tail-end of the waggon: when I went to lift

him in he was lying back, looking up at the stars in a half-dreamy,

half-fascinated way that I didn’t like. Whenever Jim was extra

old-fashioned, or affectionate, there was danger.

‘How do you feel now, sonny?’

It seemed a minute before he heard me and turned from the stars.

‘Jim’s better, dad.’ Then he said something like, ‘The stars are looking

at me.’ I thought he was half asleep. I took off his jacket and boots,

and carried him in under the waggon and made him comfortable for the

night.

‘Kiss me ‘night-night, daddy,’ he said.

I’d rather he hadn’t asked me--it was a bad sign. As I was going to the

fire he called me back.

‘What is it, Jim?’

‘Get me my things and the cattle-pup, please, daddy.’

I was scared now. His things were some toys and rubbish he’d brought

from Gulgong, and I remembered, the last time he had convulsions, he

took all his toys and a kitten to bed with him. And ‘’night-night’ and

‘daddy’ were two-year-old language to Jim. I’d thought he’d forgotten

those words--he seemed to be going back.

‘Are you quite warm enough, Jim?’

‘Yes, dad.’

I started to walk up and down--I always did this when I was extra

worried.

I was frightened now about Jim, though I tried to hide the fact from

myself. Presently he called me again.

‘What is it, Jim?’

‘Take the blankets off me, fahver--Jim’s sick!’ (They’d been teaching

him to say father.)

I was scared now. I remembered a neighbour of ours had a little girl die

(she swallowed a pin), and when she was going she said--

‘Take the blankets off me, muvver--I’m dying.’

And I couldn’t get that out of my head.

I threw back a fold of the ‘possum rug, and felt Jim’s head--he seemed

cool enough.

‘Where do you feel bad, sonny?’

No answer for a while; then he said suddenly, but in a voice as if he

were talking in his sleep--

‘Put my boots on, please, daddy. I want to go home to muvver!’

I held his hand, and comforted him for a while; then he slept--in a

restless, feverish sort of way.

I got the bucket I used for water for the horses and stood it over the

fire; I ran to the creek with the big kerosene-tin bucket and got

it full of cold water and stood it handy. I got the spade (we always

carried one to dig wheels out of bogs in wet weather) and turned a

corner of the tarpaulin back, dug a hole, and trod the tarpaulin down

into the hole, to serve for a bath, in case of the worst. I had a tin of

mustard, and meant to fight a good round for Jim, if death came along.

I stooped in under the tail-board of the waggon and felt Jim. His head

was burning hot, and his skin parched and dry as a bone.

Then I lost nerve and started blundering backward and forward between

the waggon and the fire, and repeating what I’d heard Mary say the last

time we fought for Jim: ‘God! don’t take my child! God! don’t take my

boy!’ I’d never had much faith in doctors, but, my God! I wanted one

then. The nearest was fifteen miles away.

I threw back my head and stared up at the branches, in desperation;

and--Well, I don’t ask you to take much stock in this, though most old

Bushmen will believe anything of the Bush by night; and--Now, it might

have been that I was all unstrung, or it might have been a patch of sky

outlined in the gently moving branches, or the blue smoke rising up. But

I saw the figure of a woman, all white, come down, down, nearly to the

limbs of the trees, point on up the main road, and then float up and up

and vanish, still pointing. I thought Mary was dead! Then it flashed on

me----

Four or five miles up the road, over the ‘saddle’, was an old shanty

that had been a half-way inn before the Great Western Line got round as

far as Dubbo and took the coach traffic off those old Bush roads. A man

named Brighten lived there. He was a selector; did a little farming,

and as much sly-grog selling as he could. He was married--but it wasn’t

that: I’d thought of them, but she was a childish, worn-out, spiritless

woman, and both were pretty ‘ratty’ from hardship and loneliness--they

weren’t likely to be of any use to me. But it was this: I’d heard talk,

among some women in Gulgong, of a sister of Brighten’s wife who’d gone

out to live with them lately: she’d been a hospital matron in the city,

they said; and there were yarns about her. Some said she got the sack

for exposing the doctors--or carrying on with them--I didn’t remember

which. The fact of a city woman going out to live in such a place, with

such people, was enough to make talk among women in a town twenty miles

away, but then there must have been something extra about her, else

Bushmen wouldn’t have talked and carried her name so far; and I wanted

a woman out of the ordinary now. I even reasoned this way, thinking

like lightning, as I knelt over Jim between the big back wheels of the

waggon.

I had an old racing mare that I used as a riding hack, following the

team. In a minute I had her saddled and bridled; I tied the end of a

half-full chaff-bag, shook the chaff into each end and dumped it on to

the pommel as a cushion or buffer for Jim; I wrapped him in a blanket,

and scrambled into the saddle with him.

The next minute we were stumbling down the steep bank, clattering and

splashing over the crossing, and struggling up the opposite bank to the

level. The mare, as I told you, was an old racer, but broken-winded--she

must have run without wind after the first half mile. She had the old

racing instinct in her strong, and whenever I rode in company I’d have

to pull her hard else she’d race the other horse or burst. She ran low

fore and aft, and was the easiest horse I ever rode. She ran like

wheels on rails, with a bit of a tremble now and then--like a railway

carriage--when she settled down to it.

The chaff-bag had slipped off, in the creek I suppose, and I let the

bridle-rein go and held Jim up to me like a baby the whole way. Let the

strongest man, who isn’t used to it, hold a baby in one position for

five minutes--and Jim was fairly heavy. But I never felt the ache in my

arms that night--it must have gone before I was in a fit state of mind

to feel it. And at home I’d often growled about being asked to hold the

baby for a few minutes. I could never brood comfortably and nurse a baby

at the same time. It was a ghostly moonlight night. There’s no timber in

the world so ghostly as the Australian Bush in moonlight--or just about

daybreak. The all-shaped patches of moonlight falling between ragged,

twisted boughs; the ghostly blue-white bark of the ‘white-box’ trees; a

dead naked white ring-barked tree, or dead white stump starting out here

and there, and the ragged patches of shade and light on the road that

made anything, from the shape of a spotted bullock to a naked

corpse laid out stark. Roads and tracks through the Bush made by

moonlight--every one seeming straighter and clearer than the real one:

you have to trust to your horse then. Sometimes the naked white trunk of

a red stringy-bark tree, where a sheet of bark had been taken off, would

start out like a ghost from the dark Bush. And dew or frost glistening

on these things, according to the season. Now and again a great grey

kangaroo, that had been feeding on a green patch down by the road, would

start with a ‘thump-thump’, and away up the siding.

The Bush seemed full of ghosts that night--all going my way--and being

left behind by the mare. Once I stopped to look at Jim: I just sat

back and the mare ‘propped’--she’d been a stock-horse, and was used

to ‘cutting-out’. I felt Jim’s hands and forehead; he was in a burning

fever. I bent forward, and the old mare settled down to it again. I kept

saying out loud--and Mary and me often laughed about it (afterwards):

‘He’s limp yet!--Jim’s limp yet!’ (the words seemed jerked out of me by

sheer fright)--‘He’s limp yet!’ till the mare’s feet took it up. Then,

just when I thought she was doing her best and racing her hardest, she

suddenly started forward, like a cable tram gliding along on its own and

the grip put on suddenly. It was just what she’d do when I’d be riding

alone and a strange horse drew up from behind--the old racing instinct.

I FELT the thing too! I felt as if a strange horse WAS there! And

then--the words just jerked out of me by sheer funk--I started saying,

‘Death is riding to-night!... Death is racing to-night!... Death is

riding to-night!’ till the hoofs took that up. And I believe the old

mare felt the black horse at her side and was going to beat him or break

her heart.

I was mad with anxiety and fright: I remember I kept saying, ‘I’ll be

kinder to Mary after this! I’ll take more notice of Jim!’ and the rest

of it.

I don’t know how the old mare got up the last ‘pinch’. She must have

slackened pace, but I never noticed it: I just held Jim up to me and

gripped the saddle with my knees--I remember the saddle jerked from the

desperate jumps of her till I thought the girth would go. We topped the

gap and were going down into a gully they called Dead Man’s Hollow, and

there, at the back of a ghostly clearing that opened from the road

where there were some black-soil springs, was a long, low, oblong

weatherboard-and-shingle building, with blind, broken windows in the

gable-ends, and a wide steep verandah roof slanting down almost to the

level of the window-sills--there was something sinister about it, I

thought--like the hat of a jail-bird slouched over his eyes. The place

looked both deserted and haunted. I saw no light, but that was because

of the moonlight outside. The mare turned in at the corner of the

clearing to take a short cut to the shanty, and, as she struggled across

some marshy ground, my heart kept jerking out the words, ‘It’s deserted!

They’ve gone away! It’s deserted!’ The mare went round to the back and

pulled up between the back door and a big bark-and-slab kitchen. Some

one shouted from inside--

‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s me. Joe Wilson. I want your sister-in-law--I’ve got the boy--he’s

sick and dying!’

Brighten came out, pulling up his moleskins. ‘What boy?’ he asked.

‘Here, take him,’ I shouted, ‘and let me get down.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Brighten, and he seemed to hang

back. And just as I made to get my leg over the saddle, Jim’s head went

back over my arm, he stiffened, and I saw his eyeballs turned up and

glistening in the moonlight.

I felt cold all over then and sick in the stomach--but CLEAR-HEADED in

a way: strange, wasn’t it? I don’t know why I didn’t get down and rush

into the kitchen to get a bath ready. I only felt as if the worst had

come, and I wished it were over and gone. I even thought of Mary and the

funeral.

Then a woman ran out of the house--a big, hard-looking woman. She had

on a wrapper of some sort, and her feet were bare. She laid her hand on

Jim, looked at his face, and then snatched him from me and ran into the

kitchen--and me down and after her. As great good luck would have it,

they had some dirty clothes on to boil in a kerosene tin--dish-cloths or

something.

Brighten’s sister-in-law dragged a tub out from under the table,

wrenched the bucket off the hook, and dumped in the water, dish-cloths

and all, snatched a can of cold water from a corner, dashed that in,

and felt the water with her hand--holding Jim up to her hip all the

time--and I won’t say how he looked. She stood him in the tub and

started dashing water over him, tearing off his clothes between the

splashes.

‘Here, that tin of mustard--there on the shelf!’ she shouted to me.

She knocked the lid off the tin on the edge of the tub, and went on

splashing and spanking Jim.

It seemed an eternity. And I? Why, I never thought clearer in my life. I

felt cold-blooded--I felt as if I’d like an excuse to go outside till

it was all over. I thought of Mary and the funeral--and wished that that

was past. All this in a flash, as it were. I felt that it would be a

great relief, and only wished the funeral was months past. I felt--well,

altogether selfish. I only thought for myself.

Brighten’s sister-in-law splashed and spanked him hard--hard enough to

break his back I thought, and--after about half an hour it seemed--the

end came: Jim’s limbs relaxed, he slipped down into the tub, and the

pupils of his eyes came down. They seemed dull and expressionless, like

the eyes of a new baby, but he was back for the world again.

I dropped on the stool by the table.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It’s all over now. I wasn’t going to let

him die.’ I was only thinking, ‘Well it’s over now, but it will come on

again. I wish it was over for good. I’m tired of it.’

She called to her sister, Mrs Brighten, a washed-out, helpless little

fool of a woman, who’d been running in and out and whimpering all the

time--

‘Here, Jessie! bring the new white blanket off my bed. And you,

Brighten, take some of that wood off the fire, and stuff something in

that hole there to stop the draught.’

Brighten--he was a nuggety little hairy man with no expression to be

seen for whiskers--had been running in with sticks and back logs from

the wood-heap. He took the wood out, stuffed up the crack, and went

inside and brought out a black bottle--got a cup from the shelf, and put

both down near my elbow.

Mrs Brighten started to get some supper or breakfast, or whatever it

was, ready. She had a clean cloth, and set the table tidily. I noticed

that all the tins were polished bright (old coffee- and mustard-tins

and the like, that they used instead of sugar-basins and tea-caddies and

salt-cellars), and the kitchen was kept as clean as possible. She was

all right at little things. I knew a haggard, worked-out Bushwoman who

put her whole soul--or all she’d got left--into polishing old tins till

they dazzled your eyes.

I didn’t feel inclined for corned beef and damper, and post-and-rail

tea. So I sat and squinted, when I thought she wasn’t looking, at

Brighten’s sister-in-law. She was a big woman, her hands and feet were

big, but well-shaped and all in proportion--they fitted her. She was a

handsome woman--about forty I should think. She had a square chin, and

a straight thin-lipped mouth--straight save for a hint of a turn down

at the corners, which I fancied (and I have strange fancies) had been a

sign of weakness in the days before she grew hard. There was no sign

of weakness now. She had hard grey eyes and blue-black hair. She hadn’t

spoken yet. She didn’t ask me how the boy took ill or I got there, or

who or what I was--at least not until the next evening at tea-time.

She sat upright with Jim wrapped in the blanket and laid across her

knees, with one hand under his neck and the other laid lightly on him,

and she just rocked him gently.

She sat looking hard and straight before her, just as I’ve seen a tired

needlewoman sit with her work in her lap, and look away back into the

past. And Jim might have been the work in her lap, for all she seemed to

think of him. Now and then she knitted her forehead and blinked.

Suddenly she glanced round and said--in a tone as if I was her husband

and she didn’t think much of me--

‘Why don’t you eat something?’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Eat something!’

I drank some tea, and sneaked another look at her. I was beginning to

feel more natural, and wanted Jim again, now that the colour was coming

back into his face, and he didn’t look like an unnaturally stiff and

staring corpse. I felt a lump rising, and wanted to thank her. I sneaked

another look at her.

She was staring straight before her,--I never saw a woman’s face change

so suddenly--I never saw a woman’s eyes so haggard and hopeless. Then

her great chest heaved twice, I heard her draw a long shuddering breath,

like a knocked-out horse, and two great tears dropped from her wide

open eyes down her cheeks like rain-drops on a face of stone. And in the

firelight they seemed tinged with blood.

I looked away quick, feeling full up myself. And presently (I hadn’t

seen her look round) she said--

‘Go to bed.’

‘Beg pardon?’ (Her face was the same as before the tears.)

‘Go to bed. There’s a bed made for you inside on the sofa.’

‘But--the team--I must----’

‘What?’

‘The team. I left it at the camp. I must look to it.’

‘Oh! Well, Brighten will ride down and bring it up in the morning--or

send the half-caste. Now you go to bed, and get a good rest. The boy

will be all right. I’ll see to that.’

I went out--it was a relief to get out--and looked to the mare. Brighten

had got her some corn* and chaff in a candle-box, but she couldn’t eat

yet. She just stood or hung resting one hind-leg and then the other,

with her nose over the box--and she sobbed. I put my arms round her neck

and my face down on her ragged mane, and cried for the second time since

I was a boy.

* Maize or Indian corn--wheat is never called corn in

Australia.--

As I started to go in I heard Brighten’s sister-in-law say, suddenly and

sharply--

‘Take THAT away, Jessie.’

And presently I saw Mrs Brighten go into the house with the black

bottle.

The moon had gone behind the range. I stood for a minute between the

house and the kitchen and peeped in through the kitchen window.

She had moved away from the fire and sat near the table. She bent over

Jim and held him up close to her and rocked herself to and fro.

I went to bed and slept till the next afternoon. I woke just in time

to hear the tail-end of a conversation between Jim and Brighten’s

sister-in-law. He was asking her out to our place and she promising to

come.

‘And now,’ says Jim, ‘I want to go home to “muffer” in “The Same Ol’

Fling”.’

‘What?’

Jim repeated.

‘Oh! “The Same Old Thing”,--the waggon.’

The rest of the afternoon I poked round the gullies with old Brighten,

looking at some ‘indications’ (of the existence of gold) he had found.

It was no use trying to ‘pump’ him concerning his sister-in-law;

Brighten was an ‘old hand’, and had learned in the old Bush-ranging and

cattle-stealing days to know nothing about other people’s business. And,

by the way, I noticed then that the more you talk and listen to a bad

character, the more you lose your dislike for him.

I never saw such a change in a woman as in Brighten’s sister-in-law

that evening. She was bright and jolly, and seemed at least ten years

younger. She bustled round and helped her sister to get tea ready. She

rooted out some old china that Mrs Brighten had stowed away somewhere,

and set the table as I seldom saw it set out there. She propped Jim up

with pillows, and laughed and played with him like a great girl. She

described Sydney and Sydney life as I’d never heard it described before;

and she knew as much about the Bush and old digging days as I did. She

kept old Brighten and me listening and laughing till nearly midnight.

And she seemed quick to understand everything when I talked. If she

wanted to explain anything that we hadn’t seen, she wouldn’t say that it

was ‘like a--like a’--and hesitate (you know what I mean); she’d hit the

right thing on the head at once. A squatter with a very round, flaming

red face and a white cork hat had gone by in the afternoon: she said

it was ‘like a mushroom on the rising moon.’ She gave me a lot of good

hints about children.