LOCAL COLOUR
I often wonder what G. would have done if he had been a weakly man or
an indifferent rider. There were lengthy periods during which he
practically lived in the saddle, getting out of it merely for meals
and sleep. For a time we kept records of the totals of miles covered
per week or per year, but, these matters ceasing to be notable, we
lost them long ago. And it is better not to trust even to his memory
to reproduce them, for I am certain that no figure near the truth
would be credited by the English reader.
The following is the programme for a monthly Sunday in W----, where
the breaking-in began:--Up at 4 A.M. Breakfast at a station
twenty-five miles distant. Morning service five miles further distant
(in an open shed, the congregation sitting on wheat-sacks or what
not). Dinner near by, and ride of twelve miles to afternoon service.
Tea, and ride of five miles to evening service. Ride of seventeen
miles home. Of course he could have started on Saturday and returned
on Monday, but he never spent a night away from his own house unless
absolutely compelled. I used to wake from my first sleep at the sound
of the cantering hoofs, pop on my dressing-gown, and go and hold the
lantern for him while he made his horse comfortable, and then join
him at his well-earned supper. He was always fresh at the end of this
tremendous day, or, at anyrate, not more than pleasantly
tired--generally more disposed to sit up and gossip than to go to bed.
The horse, too, which had carried him all day, though glad to reach
his journey's end, was undistressed. It was by no means an exceptional
day's work for an Australian horse.
Only once do I remember seeing G., at the end of one of these Bush
excursions, thoroughly knocked up. That was in furnace-hot midsummer
weather, when he had been out all day in a north wind. He had been
sent for to take a burial service, and was first driven twenty-five
miles to the station where the body was lying. Hence the funeral
party, on horseback and in black clothes and hats, proceeded at a slow
foot-pace another twenty-five miles to the station where the family
burying-ground was situated. Here, at the grave, one mourner fell,
sun-struck; the rest were more or less prostrated. G. rode those
terrible twenty-five miles, and the same distance back to the first
station; there he had a meal and a short rest, and then rode home in
the night, which was pitchy dark. The temperature was still over 100 deg.
and the wind in the north, and the whole thing proved too much even
for his strength. He was really tired out, for once. But that was the
only time that I remember him being so (from riding) in all the years
that I have known him.
I may mention another funeral with some old-time features about it.
The summons came one evening, from a long distance, and the man
bringing it left directions for G. to follow in riding to the
appointed spot next day--for he had but just arrived in the district,
which was all unknown land to him. The man promised to meet him at a
certain swamp of some miles in extent; the funeral would have to skirt
round this swamp, but there was a track through it, known to the
initiated, by which a rider could save much distance; he had, however,
to be a good rider, on a good horse, because it was a quicksandy sort
of ground, and a guide was necessary. G. managed to find this place
and duly met his guide, who upbraided him for not being there earlier.
The man then led the way through the swamp, at a pace as near to
flying as possible, to avoid being sucked in; if a horse rested his
weight on the ground for a moment, he began to sink. They were awful
places, those. I once saw G. (I was riding behind him) caught by one
unawares. The instant he knew it he rolled off the saddle and back to
_terra firma_ like a streak of lightning, and eventually he got his
horse out too; but it gave me cold shivers to think what might have
happened. Though, as I never heard of anyone being engulfed entirely,
I suppose there were bottoms somewhere.
On this occasion the guide tore along at the pace I have mentioned,
kicking up the sticky stuff behind him; G., obliged to ride in his
tracks and close at his heels, was smothered in the shower, and when
he joined the funeral procession was a cake of black mud from head to
foot. Arrived at the cemetery, it was found that the grave had not
been dug--not begun to be dug--and the party had to sit around for
three hours while this necessary business was transacted. A hospitable
soul amongst the mourners took G. to his neighbouring shanty, cleaned
him down a bit, and gave him eggs and chops and tea and all the usual
kindness. Word was brought to them when the grave was ready, and they
returned to finish the proceedings.
This cemetery, although remote and small, was a public one; that of
the other funeral was private. I have known several of these family
burying-places, made in the first instance for the pioneers who "took
up" the land--crown land, become freehold and virtually entailed--now
occupied by their descendants; some of them are used still. Only a
short time ago I was visiting one of the old homes, a wealthy station,
administered by the third generation of its possessors; and, walking
about the grounds after luncheon, I was shown the cemetery, with its
rows of head-stones and monuments and its fence and gate, like a
section cut out of any well kept municipal burial-ground; only this
lay amongst garden-beds and orange-groves, in full view of the windows
on one side of the house. Hither had been brought back the daughters
who had married and gone away. "And here," said my white-haired host,
"we," indicating the family group of which he was the centre, "shall
all come, I hope." I trust there will be no law made to prevent it.
Technically unconsecrated, as I suppose they are, these little family
burying-places have a peculiar sacredness, to my thinking, not
belonging to the common gathering-places of the dead; the difference
is as between a bed at home and a bed in a hotel.
One friend of ours, bachelor-owner of one of the finest properties in
the wealthy Western District, ordered that he should be interred on
the top of a hill on his estate, and that no monument was to be
erected over him. His wishes were carried out. G. read the burial
service at the lonely grave, which is marked only by a cairn of
stones.
Some of the Bush weddings of those early times were as unconventional
as the Bush funerals. Our verger and odd man about the church at Y----
(we took him over from our predecessor) could not read. G. called upon
him one day to say the responses at a marriage service, there being no
other congregation, and he pleaded this disability. "Well, at least,"
said G., "you can say 'Amen' can't you?" Oh, yes, he could do that.
And he did--with a vengeance. Every time G. paused to take a breath,
no matter where, a loud "Amen!" was shot into the breach. Who giveth
this woman to be married to this man?--"Amen!" There was nothing for
it but to race through the ceremony, and "Old Jimmy" was not required
to officiate again.
G. was often nonplussed in this way, by finding ignorance where he
expected knowledge as a matter of course. Once he started to read the
Litany in a strange place for the first time. Dead silence followed
the opening sentence. In a low voice he directed the congregation what
to do, but nothing would make them do it; evidently they had never had
the Litany before, and did not know what to make of it. In the end he
had to read the whole alone. I myself came upon a crowded class of
Sunday-school children who did not know who Noah was. I was trying to
stuff them with that legend of a submerged world, and I put the
question encouragingly: "Now, who was the good man whom God spared
when all the rest were drowned?" Rows and rows, dozens and dozens
(they filled that flower-stand-like arrangement of stair-seats running
up the wall, which the village school provides for the infant
scholars) of blank little faces were interrogated one by one. "Can't
you tell me? Can't _you_?" No, none of them could. At last one bright
little boy spoke up. "I know, teacher!" "Ah, then you tell these other
little boys and girls. Who was it?" He shouted triumphantly, "Robinson
Crusoe!"
There was a Bush wedding that would have made quite a romantic story,
if I had thought to write it. G. was on the Murray Journey, and it was
one of his engagements for the outward route. Cantering along through
the Bush, he was met and accosted by a drunken old man, who asked him
whether he was not the parson and on the way to marry So-and-so. G.
informed him that he was. "Well, don't you do it," said the man. "I'm
the girl's father, and she's under age, and she can't marry without my
consent, and I won't give it." G. rode on, and at the appointed
rendezvous met the young couple, a nice modest girl and a
respectable-looking young man. Documents were produced for filling up
and signing, and G. asked for that necessary one which he feared would
not be forthcoming. It was not. The bridegroom-elect pretended that it
had been mislaid--"bluffed" all he knew, poor fellow--but he could not
produce it, and without it there could be no marriage. The bride,
being in her teens, must have her father's written consent, and this
father had refused it. They tried to persuade G. to marry them without
it, but, as he told them, it was more than his place was worth; the
law was plain and had to be obeyed. They retired for a while to
discuss the unhappy situation, and then the bride came back alone,
weeping, to renew the useless appeal. She had a wretched life with her
drunken father, who ill-used her, and her lover had prepared for her a
good and happy home, and oh, couldn't G., for once and in
consideration of the hard circumstances, stretch a point? He was
sorry enough that he could not. All he could do was to promise to see
them again on his homeward journey, and to marry them then if in the
meantime they had been able to soften the father's heart. But when he
returned he found the situation unchanged; the old ruffian's heart was
flint. The end of it all was that the poor young things, using the
legal knowledge acquired from G., went off to another colony and
another clergyman who knew them not, to whom the bride gave her age as
over twenty-one. G., when he heard of this, did not make it his
business to denounce the desperate young criminals.
He celebrated another Bush wedding--and there was a wedding party to
it--in the destined home of the happy pair. It was a bark hut, with a
mud floor and as yet without a shred of furniture in it. The papers
were filled up and signed on an up-ended cask. At another marriage
feast all the guests were drunk to start with. They offered him a
glass of neat brandy in which to drink the health of the contracting
parties. In all sorts of places, and at all hours of the day and
night, he has been called upon to weld the bands of holy matrimony;
the evening--after dark--is the time preferred by those casual couples
who do not bother about wedding garments and the other conventional
displays.
I once got a pathetic glimpse of one of these belated functions; it
was performed for G. by a _locum tenens_ in one of our country
parishes. "Why," said he to me, before going into church, "why do
these people make a point of being married in the vestry and not
before the altar?" They had pressed this point with such earnestness
that he had yielded to it. His idea was that they did not feel
themselves smart enough for the usual observances, although there were
to be no spectators; but even to him it seemed an absurd one. We knew
them well--that the mother, authorising the marriage as the only
surviving parent, was a highly-respected lady, and the bridegroom a
steady young man, long a member of her establishment; the bride, who
was very young, was her only child. The hour and the place chosen, and
the secrecy of the whole affair, puzzled us, though we might easily
have guessed their meaning. I happened to see the vestry door open on
the conclusion of the ceremony. In the bright patch of light suddenly
flung upon the screen of darkness stood mother and daughter, locked in
each other's arms, apparently weeping bitterly. "Tell me," said the
officiating minister, when he came in, "tell me how this business
turns out," and he left us next day for his home in Melbourne. The
first thing I heard was the news that the girl had been married, all
unbeknown to her friends and at some distant church, several months
before the date on which I knew she had been married; everybody told
me this, and of course I did not contradict the statement. Four or
five months later I met her in a railway carriage, and she had a
bouncing baby in her arms. The strict moralist would have been
horrified to see how proud of it she was, and how blooming and happy
and satisfied she looked.
Strange to say, evening weddings are _de rigueur_ in the upper circles
of the place where I now live--the only place thus distinguished, so
far as I know. Soon after we came here a particularly "swell" wedding
took place--that may have set the fashion--the hour of which was fixed
at 8 P.M. The bridal robe, with its court train, had been sent from
London, the gift of a wealthy sister; it was a wonderful white
brocade shot with silver threads, and certainly shimmered in the
gaslight as it could not have done by day. The gorgeous costumes of
the guests also "lit up" with great effectiveness, as did the
elaborate decorations of the church. It was really a dramatic
spectacle. And the church was almost pulled to pieces by the crowd who
went to see it.
And so now all the butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers have
their weddings at night. Business is over, and they can revel
thoroughly while they are about it. And outsiders, being also free to
enjoy themselves, come in shoals to see the fun. Gates have to be
locked and defended by brute force like barricades against besiegers,
and the police are welcome when they deign to grace the scene. We hate
this custom, which for several reasons is not nice to think of, but
cannot alter it. Fashion is always irresistible when there is no law
to the contrary, and canonical hours are ignored in this country. In
the Bush, in the old days, persons got married at night only because
they were ashamed to do so by day, or because they had no choice.
Another more purely social function of the Church had its Australian
peculiarities, so marked at times as to obscure the lines of the
original model, followed with such religious care. I allude to the
time-honoured tea-meeting. I shall never forget how the first one that
I attended on this side of the world astonished me.
It was while we were at W----, and the occasion was the laying of the
foundation stone of a church at a mining township some twelve miles
off. A large party of us, headed by our archdeacon, had a pleasant
drive to the spot during the afternoon; on arrival our buggies were
variously disposed of amongst the local residents, who, after the
business ceremony, welcomed us to the hall or schoolroom where the
festive tables were spread. I had seen the festive tables at
home--bread and butter, substantial whitish cake, currant buns--and
expected some approximation to that immemorial bill of fare, which to
me was all one with the Rubrics.
I did not know--though I soon learnt--that the poorest Sunday-school
child would not look at it. For the Sunday-school treat--just so much
on a lower plane than a tea-meeting as boys and girls are inferior to
men and women--you must have nothing plainer than ham-sandwich; that
is the basis on which to build the rich edifice of sweets. Ham it must
be, and no meaner substitute. So, at least, it was when I took active
part in such affairs; for I know that once, when we thought to
economise with beef, an irate mother came to ask us what we meant by
it. The children never had been put off with beef, and she considered
it a burning shame. One year, when the "treat" food was provided, as
usual, by the ladies of the congregation, each cooking to outvie the
rest, I took upon myself to remonstrate with them for _their_
cruelty--in stuffing the poor children with unlimited cream-cakes and
meringues. Yes, actually meringues, on my word of honour. But that, I
must admit, was an exceptional circumstance.
Nowadays, as I am informed, things are not quite the same. For
instance, the current Sunday-school attached to this establishment
makes its annual sandwiches of ham, beef, and German sausage, in about
equal parts, and I do not hear of any complaints. It is a large
Sunday-school, and therefore not so much all one family as those
little ones of the past: and ham is something like a shilling a
pound; and town ways are not as Bush ways. In town it is a common
thing to employ a caterer at so much per head. So that we may say the
times have changed. But the children, wherever they are and whoever
makes it for them, still pack rich puff pastry on the top of their
sandwiches, and rich plum cake on the top of that, and miscellaneous
"lollies" on the top of all, until there is no room for a crumb more;
and what happens to them next day, and the day after, is a question
that yearly agitates my mind. Quite unnecessarily, I suppose. Their
little stomachs are hardened to it.
So the aspect of my Bush feast--the tea-meeting tea--may be inferred.
Chickens and turkeys, hams and tongues, pies and sucking-pigs, jellies
and trifles--in short, all the features of an old-fashioned wedding
breakfast or a ball supper were there, except the wine. You had,
naturally, to drink tea at a tea-meeting--if you wanted to drink
anything with such oceans of whipped cream. But the tea is the only
remaining link between the Australian tea-meeting and the English one,
unless the English one has changed greatly since my time.
A purely social function, did I call it? It had, of course, its
_raison d'etre_ if only to "draw the people together," which is its
last excuse (the first always "goes without saying"). On one occasion
a tea-meeting was attached to a movement for getting some parochial
work done, of which part of the parish approved and part did not.
Speeches for and against were made when the tables had been cleared,
and G. spoke for the side that he personally espoused. The local
paper, which was on the opposite side, reported his speech in the
following ingenious manner: "The reverend gentleman was understood to
say" so and so (substantially what he actually did say), "but what he
meant to say was" so and so (what the local paper and its party
thought he ought to have said).
The great tea-meeting of all is what is called the Diocesan Festival.
It is held annually, at the time of the sitting of the Church
Assembly, which is our House of Convocation; and all the leading
(English) Churchmen of the diocese, lay and clerical, take their part
in "running the show." The Melbourne Town Hall is filled with
tea-tables, individually donated by parishes or private families;
Church of England people, and many besides, flock thither and pack the
place to suffocation before six o'clock, at which hour they sit down
to eat and drink, having paid eighteen pence per head for the
privilege. When tea is over there is a great struggle for room to
remove the tables and their furnishings, but it is done somehow, and
only benches and chairs left for the evening assembly, augmented by
many not present at the tea. During this interval the cathedral
organist gives selections on the great instrument that was the city's
pride in the seventies and eighties, but now needs more money than
City fathers care to give (for mere artistic purposes) to bring it up
to the requirements of these times and of a self-respecting performer;
then, when all is ready, the orchestra platform fills with
big-wigs--governor, bishops, "special attractions" bespoken long
before--and stirring speeches fill the rest of the bill. It is a great
carnival for pious folk, and not without interest for mere ordinary
beings like myself; and the substantial profit resulting from it is
one of the mainstays of the "Bishop of Melbourne's Fund," which is the
general fund in aid of general diocesan distress.
Substantial profit, it is needless to remark, is the first object of
the promoters of all these entertainments, so many and
various--tea-meetings, bazaars, "sales of gifts," Bruce auctions, cake
fairs, concerts, etc., etc.--and has to be so while the voluntary
system and poor human nature exist together. Each event is contrived
"for the benefit of the Church," a term well understood by all its
members, who will contribute pounds of money and endless time and
trouble to such affairs sooner than lay an extra shilling or two in
the offertory plate. Every parish is running its little money-making
enterprise at short intervals, the other denominations, whose parish
it is also, doing the same. Sometimes there is an unfriendly
competition between the churches, smart dodges to take the wind out of
a rival's sails; more often they have a tacit fraternal arrangement to
aid each other, or at anyrate not get into each other's way. You will
hear it said at a ladies' working party, "What a shame of the
Catholics to take our conversazione night for their concert!" Or, "The
Presbyterians sent a lot of things to our bazaar, so it is only right
we should help them with theirs."
The concert is the commonest of these events. It costs, in money,
time, and trouble, less to get up than the others. Domestically, this
is a musical country, and local performers are never hard to find. My
natural impulse is to stay at home when the miscellaneous amateur is
abroad, but sometimes, when I have steeled myself to endure him or
her, I have been rewarded beyond my expectations or deserts. One thing
stands out from my experiences in this line that is worthy of
note--the high average of excellence in the quality of the amateur
voice. I am convinced there are as good fish in the sea as the Melbas
and Crossleys that have come out of it, judging by the number of
little girls, hardly past childhood, whom I have seen come upon the
stage in parish schoolrooms and rural shire-halls, and proceed to give
forth full, ringing notes that, for power, would do justice to the
Albert Hall or the Crystal Palace, and with the right training (as I
think) might do anything. I believe it is the climate that accounts
for it--the air that throat and lungs have grown on; and if so, this
is the place for the speculator in such wares to come to. Expert
fossicking might reveal a new Kimberley to the world.
Still, in spite of these occasional surprises, the parish
concert--after so many of them--is apt to pall upon the too-accustomed
ear. One looks to the human interest for entertainment, rather than to
art. In what I believe was the very first parish concert that I went
to, this element largely predominated.
It was held at a hamlet some eight or ten miles from head-quarters,
and we drove to it in a party, taking several of the performers with
us. Before business began, our _prima donna_, a young married lady,
confessed to not feeling very well; she said she had been eating
fruit, which had disagreed with her. However, she went through the two
hours' programme unflinchingly, and so acquitted herself as to rouse
no suspicion of the fact that she herself was perfectly aware of. She
was a tall, handsome, resolute sort of woman, who, finding herself in
a horrible dilemma, determined to brave it out. "I _had_ to do it,"
she said to us afterwards, "or else upset everything and make a
disgraceful exhibition of myself. And I thought there would be plenty
of time." But she had miscalculated in this respect, as it is so easy
to do, and the situation had grown desperate before she was nearly
through with her last number; I noted her damp brow and deeply flushed
face, and wondered at the unsmiling look in her eyes when they met
mine; her accompanist also was put about a little here and there;
nevertheless, she made a finish of her song before she bowed to our
applause and bowed herself off the stage. Then a word went round
amongst the matrons which filled us with dismay and concern. The
doctor's horses were put to his buggy, and the doctor and his wife and
Mrs T. were gone ere "God Save the Queen" was finished. When the rest
of us got home afterwards, it was to hear that our _prima donna_ had
become a mother rather less than two minutes after gaining the shelter
of her own house.
I think that was the most interesting concert I was ever at. Others
who were there, remembering it with equal vividness, say the same.