small and old, _he_ was never afraid of her. He'd sooner travel in her
than in some of those big cheap ocean liners with more sand in them
than iron or steel--You, know the rest. Further on, in a conversation
concerning the age of these coasters, he said that they'd last fully
thirty years if well painted and looked after. He said that this one
was seldom painted, and never painted properly; and then, seemingly
in direct contradiction to his previously expressed confidence in the
safety and seaworthiness of the _Moa_, he said that he could poke a
stick through her anywhere. We asked him not to do it.
It came on to splash, and we went below to reflect, and search once
more for that half-sovereign. The cabin was small and close, and dimly
lighted, and evil smelling, and shaped like the butt end of a coffin. It
might not have smelt so bad if we hadn't lost that half-sovereign. There
was a party of those gipsy-like Assyrians--two families apparently--the
women and children lying very sick about the lower bunks; and a big,
good-humoured-looking young Maori propped between the end of the table
and the wall, playing a concertina. The sick people were too sick,
and the concertina seemed too much in sympathy with them, and the lost
half-quid haunted us more than ever down there; so we started to climb
out.
The first thing that struck us was the jagged top edge of that iron
hood-like arrangement over the gangway. The top half only of the scuttle
was open. There was nothing to be seen except a fog of spray and a
Newfoundland dog sea-sick under the lee of something. The next thing
that struck us was a tub of salt water, which came like a cannon ball
and broke against the hood affair, and spattered on deck like a crockery
shop. We climbed down again backwards, and sat on the floor with
emphasis, in consequence of stepping down a last step that wasn't there,
and cracked the back of our heads against the edge of the table. The
Maori helped us up, and we had a drink with him at the expense of one
of the half-casers mentioned in the beginning of this sketch. Then the
Maori shouted, then we, then the Maori again, then we again; and then we
thought, “Dash it, what's a half-sovereign? We'll fall on our feet all
right.”
We went up Queen Charlotte's Sound, a long crooked arm of the sea
between big, rugged, black-looking hills. There was a sort of lighthouse
down near the entrance, and they said an old Maori woman kept it. There
were some whitish things on the sides of the hills, which we at first
took for cattle, and then for goats. They were sheep. Someone said that
that country was only fit to carry sheep. It must have been bad, then,
judging from some of the country in Australia which is only fit to carry
sheep. Country that wouldn't carry goats would carry sheep, we think.
Sheep are about the hardiest animals on the face of this planet--barring
crocodiles.
You may rip a sheep open whilst watching for the boss's boots or yarning
to a pen-mate, and then when you have stuffed the works back into the
animal, and put a stitch in the slit, and poked it somewhere with a
tar-stick (it doesn't matter much where) the jumbuck will be all right
and just as lively as ever, and turn up next shearing without the ghost
of a scratch on its skin.
We reached Picton, a small collection of twinkling lights in a dark
pocket, apparently at the top of a sound. We climbed up on to the wharf,
got through between two railway trucks, and asked a policeman where
we were, and where the telegraph office was. There were several pretty
girls in the office, laughing and chyacking the counter clerks, which
jarred upon the feelings of this poor orphan wanderer in strange lands.
We gloomily took a telegram form, and wired to a friend in North Island,
using the following words: “Wire quid; stumped.”
Then we crossed the street to a pub and asked for a roof and they told
us to go up to No. 8. We went up, struck a match, lit the candle, put
our bag in a corner, cleared the looking-glass off the toilet table, got
some paper and a pencil out of our portmanteau, and sat down and wrote
this sketch.
The candle is going out.
“SOME DAY”
The two travellers had yarned late in their camp, and the moon was
getting low down through the mulga. Mitchell's mate had just finished
a rather racy yarn, but it seemed to fall flat on Mitchell--he was in a
sentimental mood. He smoked a while, and thought, and then said:
“Ah! there was one little girl that I was properly struck on. She came
to our place on a visit to my sister. I think she was the best little
girl that ever lived, and about the prettiest. She was just eighteen,
and didn't come up to my shoulder; the biggest blue eyes you ever
saw, and she had hair that reached down to her knees, and so thick you
couldn't span it with your two hands--brown and glossy--and her skin
with like lilies and roses. Of course, I never thought she'd look at a
rough, ugly, ignorant brute like me, and I used to keep out of her way
and act a little stiff towards her; I didn't want the others to think
I was gone on her, because I knew they'd laugh at me, and maybe she'd
laugh at me more than all. She would come and talk to me, and sit near
me at table; but I thought that that was on account of her good nature,
and she pitied me because I was such a rough, awkward chap. I was gone
on that girl, and no joking; and I felt quite proud to think she was a
countrywoman of mine. But I wouldn't let her know that, for I felt sure
she'd only laugh.
“Well, things went on till I got the offer of two or three years' work
on a station up near the border, and I had to go, for I was hard up;
besides, I wanted to get away. Stopping round where she was only made me
miserable.
“The night I left they were all down at the station to see me
off--including the girl I was gone on. When the train was ready to start
she was standing away by herself on the dark end of the platform, and my
sister kept nudging me and winking, and fooling about, but I didn't know
what she was driving at. At last she said:
“'Go and speak to her, you noodle; go and say good-bye to Edie.'
“So I went up to where she was, and, when the others turned their
backs--
“'Well, good-bye, Miss Brown,' I said, holding out my hand; 'I don't
suppose I'll ever see you again, for Lord knows when I'll be back. Thank
you for coming to see me off.'
“Just then she turned her face to the light, and I saw she was crying.
She was trembling all over. Suddenly she said, 'Jack! Jack!' just like
that, and held up her arms like this.”
Mitchell was speaking in a tone of voice that didn't belong to him, and
his mate looked up. Mitchell's face was solemn, and his eyes were fixed
on the fire.
“I suppose you gave her a good hug then, and a kiss?” asked the mate.
“I s'pose so,” snapped Mitchell. “There is some things a man doesn't
want to joke about.... Well, I think we'll shove on one of the billies,
and have a drink of tea before we turn in.”
“I suppose,” said Mitchell's mate, as they drank their tea, “I suppose
you'll go back and marry her some day?”
“Some day! That's it; it looks like it, doesn't it? We all say, 'Some
day.' I used to say it ten years ago, and look at me now. I've been
knocking round for five years, and the last two years constant on the
track, and no show of getting off it unless I go for good, and what
have I got for it? I look like going home and getting married, without a
penny in my pocket or a rag to my back scarcely, and no show of getting
them. I swore I'd never go back home without a cheque, and, what's more,
I never will; but the cheque days are past. Look at that boot! If we
were down among the settled districts we'd be called tramps and beggars;
and what's the difference? I've been a fool, I know, but I've paid for
it; and now there's nothing for it but to tramp, tramp, tramp for your
tucker, and keep tramping till you get old and careless and dirty, and
older, and more careless and dirtier, and you get used to the dust and
sand, and heat, and flies, and mosquitoes, just as a bullock does, and
lose ambition and hope, and get contented with this animal life, like
a dog, and till your swag seems part of yourself, and you'd be lost and
uneasy and light-shouldered without it, and you don't care a damn if
you'll ever get work again, or live like a Christian; and you go on like
this till the spirit of a bullock takes the place of the heart of a man.
Who cares? If we hadn't found the track yesterday we might have lain and
rotted in that lignum, and no one been any the wiser--or sorrier--who
knows? Somebody might have found us in the end, but it mightn't have
been worth his while to go out of his way and report us. Damn the world,
say I!”
He smoked for a while in savage silence; then he knocked the ashes out
of his pipe, felt for his tobacco with a sigh, and said:
“Well, I am a bit out of sorts to-night. I've been thinking.... I think
we'd best turn in, old man; we've got a long, dry stretch before us
to-morrow.”
They rolled out their swags on the sand, lay down, and wrapped
themselves in their blankets. Mitchell covered his face with a piece of
calico, because the moonlight and wind kept him awake.
“BRUMMY USEN”
We caught up with an old swagman crossing the plain, and tramped along
with him till we came to good shade to have a smoke in. We had got
yarning about men getting lost in the bush or going away and being
reported dead.
“Yes,” said the old 'whaler', as he dropped his swag in the shade, sat
down on it, and felt for his smoking tackle, “there's scarcely an old
bushman alive--or dead, for the matter of that--who hasn't been dead a
few times in his life--or reported dead, which amounts to the same thing
for a while. In my time there was as many live men in the bush who
was supposed to be dead as there was dead men who was supposed to be
alive--though it's the other way about now--what with so many jackaroos
tramping about out back and getting lost in the dry country that
they don't know anything about, and dying within a few yards of water
sometimes. But even now, whenever I hear that an old bush mate of mine
is dead, I don't fret about it or put a black band round my hat, because
I know he'll be pretty sure to turn up sometimes, pretty bad with the
booze, and want to borrow half a crown.
“I've been dead a few times myself, and found out afterwards that my
friends was so sorry about it, and that I was such a good sort of a chap
after all, when I was dead that--that I was sorry I didn't stop dead.
You see, I was one of them chaps that's better treated by their friends
and better thought of when--when they're dead.
“Ah, well! Never mind.... Talking of killing bushmen before their time
reminds me of some cases I knew. They mostly happened among the western
spurs of the ranges. There was a bullock-driver named Billy Nowlett. He
had a small selection, where he kept his family, and used to carry from
the railway terminus to the stations up-country. One time he went up
with a load and was not heard of for such a long time that his missus
got mighty uneasy; and then she got a letter from a publican up
Coonamble way to say that Billy was dead. Someone wrote, for the widow,
to ask about the wagon and the bullocks, but the shanty-keeper wrote
that Billy had drunk them before he died, and that he'd also to say that
he'd drunk the money he got for the carrying; and the publican enclosed
a five-pound note for the widow--which was considered very kind of him.
“Well, the widow struggled along and managed without her husband just
the same as she had always struggled along and managed with him--a
little better, perhaps. An old digger used to drop in of evenings and
sit by the widow's fire, and yarn, and sympathize, and smoke, and think;
and just as he began to yarn a lot less, and smoke and think a lot
more, Billy Nowlett himself turned up with a load of rations for a sheep
station. He'd been down by the other road, and the letter he'd wrote to
his missus had gone astray. Billy wasn't surprised to hear that he was
dead--he'd been killed before--but he was surprised about the five quid.
“You see, it must have been another bullock-driver that died. There
was an old shanty-keeper up Coonamble way, so Billy said, that used to
always mistake him for another bullocky and mistake the other bullocky
for him--couldn't tell the one from the other no way--and he used to
have bills against Billy that the other bullock-driver'd run up, and
bills against the other that Billy'd run up, and generally got things
mixed up in various ways, till Billy wished that one of 'em was dead.
And the funniest part of the business was that Billy wasn't no more like
the other man than chalk is like cheese. You'll often drop across some
colour-blind old codger that can't tell the difference between two
people that ain't got a bit of likeness between 'em.
“Then there was young Joe Swallow. He was found dead under a burned-down
tree in Dead Man's Gully--'dead past all recognition,' they said--and he
was buried there, and by and by his ghost began to haunt the gully: at
least, all the schoolkids seen it, and there was scarcely a grown-up
person who didn't know another person who'd seen the ghost--and the
other person was always a sober chap that wouldn't bother about telling
a lie. But just as the ghost was beginning to settle down to work in the
gully, Joe himself turned up, and then the folks began to reckon that
it was another man was killed there, and that the ghost belonged to the
other man; and some of them began to recollect that they'd thought all
along that the ghost wasn't Joe's ghost--even when they thought that it
was really Joe that was killed there.
“Then, again, there was the case of Brummy Usen--Hughison I think they
spelled it--the bushranger; he was shot by old Mr S---, of E---, while
trying to stick the old gentleman up. There's something about it in a
book called 'Robbery Under Arms', though the names is all altered--and
some other time I'll tell you all about the digging of the body up
for the inquest and burying it again. This Brummy used to work for a
publican in a sawmill that the publican had; and this publican and his
daughter identified the body by a woman holding up a branch tattooed
on the right arm. I'll tell you all about that another time. This girl
remembered how she used to watch this tattooed woman going up and down
on Brummy's arm when he was working in the saw-pit--going up and down
and up and down, like this, while Brummy was working his end of the
saw. So the bushranger was inquested and justifiable-homicided as Brummy
Usen, and buried again in his dust and blood stains and monkey-jacket.
“All the same it wasn't him; for the real Brummy turned up later on;
but he couldn't make the people believe he wasn't dead. They was mostly
English country people from Kent and Yorkshire and those places; and the
most self-opinionated and obstinate people that ever lived when they got
a thing into their heads; and they got it into their heads that Brummy
Usen was shot while trying to bail up old Mr S---- and was dead and
buried.
“But the wife of the publican that had the saw-pit knew him; he went to
her, and she recognized him at once; she'd got it into her head from the
first that it wasn't Brummy that was shot, and she stuck to it--she was
just as self-opinionated as the neighbours, and many a barney she had
with them about it. She would argue about it till the day she died, and
then she said with her dying breath: 'It wasn't Brummy Usen.' No more
it was--he was a different kind of man; he hadn't spunk enough to be a
bushranger, and it was a better man that was buried for him; it was a
different kind of woman, holding up a different kind of branch, that
was tattooed on Brummy's arm. But, you see, Brummy'd always kept himself
pretty much to himself, and no one knew him very well; and, besides,
most of them were pretty drunk at the inquest--except the girl, and she
was too scared to know what she was saying--they had to be so because
the corpse was in such a bad state.
“Well, Brummy hung around for a time, and tried to prove that he wasn't
an impostor, but no one wouldn't believe him. He wanted to get some
wages that was owing to him.
“He tried the police, but they were just as obstinate as the rest; and,
beside, they had their dignity to hold up. 'If I ain't Brummy,' he'd
say, 'who are I?' But they answered that he knew best. So he did.
“At last he said that it didn't matter much, any road; and so he went
away--Lord knows where--to begin life again, I s'pose.”
The traveller smoked awhile reflectively; then he quietly rolled up his
right sleeve and scratched his arm.
And on that arm we saw the tattooed figure of a woman, holding up a
branch.
We tramped on by his side again towards the station-thinking very hard
and not feeling very comfortable.
He must have been an awful old liar, now we come to think of it.
SECOND SERIES
THE DROVER'S WIFE
The two-roomed house is built of round timber, slabs, and stringy-bark,
and floored with split slabs. A big bark kitchen standing at one end is
larger than the house itself, veranda included.
Bush all round--bush with no horizon, for the country is flat. No
ranges in the distance. The bush consists of stunted, rotten native
apple-trees. No undergrowth. Nothing to relieve the eye save the darker
green of a few she-oaks which are sighing above the narrow, almost
waterless creek. Nineteen miles to the nearest sign of civilization--a
shanty on the main road.
The drover, an ex-squatter, is away with sheep. His wife and children
are left here alone.
Four ragged, dried-up-looking children are playing about the house.
Suddenly one of them yells: “Snake! Mother, here's a snake!”
The gaunt, sun-browned bushwoman dashes from the kitchen, snatches her
baby from the ground, holds it on her left hip, and reaches for a stick.
“Where is it?”
“Here! gone into the wood-heap!” yells the eldest boy--a sharp-faced
urchin of eleven. “Stop there, mother! I'll have him. Stand back! I'll
have the beggar!”
“Tommy, come here, or you'll be bit. Come here at once when I tell you,
you little wretch!”
The youngster comes reluctantly, carrying a stick bigger than himself.
Then he yells, triumphantly:
“There it goes--under the house!” and darts away with club uplifted.
At the same time the big, black, yellow-eyed dog-of-all-breeds, who
has shown the wildest interest in the proceedings, breaks his chain
and rushes after that snake. He is a moment late, however, and his nose
reaches the crack in the slabs just as the end of its tail disappears.
Almost at the same moment the boy's club comes down and skins the
aforesaid nose. Alligator takes small notice of this, and proceeds to
undermine the building; but he is subdued after a struggle and chained
up. They cannot afford to lose him.
The drover's wife makes the children stand together near the dog-house
while she watches for the snake. She gets two small dishes of milk and
sets them down near the wall to tempt it to come out; but an hour goes
by and it does not show itself.
It is near sunset, and a thunderstorm is coming. The children must be
brought inside. She will not take them into the house, for she knows
the snake is there, and may at any moment come up through a crack in the
rough slab floor; so she carries several armfuls of firewood into
the kitchen, and then takes the children there. The kitchen has no
floor--or, rather, an earthen one--called a “ground floor” in this part
of the bush. There is a large, roughly-made table in the centre of the
place. She brings the children in, and makes them get on this table.
They are two boys and two girls--mere babies. She gives them some
supper, and then, before it gets dark, she goes into the house, and
snatches up some pillows and bedclothes--expecting to see or lay her
hand on the snake any minute. She makes a bed on the kitchen table for
the children, and sits down beside it to watch all night.
She has an eye on the corner, and a green sapling club laid in readiness
on the dresser by her side; also her sewing basket and a copy of the
_Young Ladies' Journal_. She has brought the dog into the room.
Tommy turns in, under protest, but says he'll lie awake all night and
smash that blinded snake.
His mother asks him how many times she has told him not to swear.
He has his club with him under the bedclothes, and Jacky protests:
“Mummy! Tommy's skinnin' me alive wif his club. Make him take it out.”
Tommy: “Shet up, you little---! D'yer want to be bit with the snake?”
Jacky shuts up.
“If yer bit,” says Tommy, after a pause, “you'll swell up, an' smell,
an' turn red an' green an' blue all over till yer bust. Won't he,
mother?”
“Now then, don't frighten the child. Go to sleep,” she says.
The two younger children go to sleep, and now and then Jacky complains
of being “skeezed.” More room is made for him. Presently Tommy says:
“Mother! listen to them (adjective) little possums. I'd like to screw
their blanky necks.”
And Jacky protests drowsily.
“But they don't hurt us, the little blanks!”.
Mother: “There, I told you you'd teach Jacky to swear.” But the remark
makes her smile. Jacky goes to sleep. Presently Tommy asks:
“Mother! Do you think they'll ever extricate the (adjective) kangaroo?”
“Lord! How am I to know, child? Go to sleep.”
“Will you wake me if the snake comes out?”
“Yes. Go to sleep.”
Near midnight. The children are all asleep and she sits there still,
sewing and reading by turns. From time to time she glances round the
floor and wall-plate, and, whenever she hears a noise, she reaches for
the stick. The thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the
cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle. She places it
on a sheltered part of the dresser and fixes up a newspaper to protect
it. At every flash of lightning, the cracks between the slabs gleam like
polished silver. The thunder rolls, and the rain comes down in torrents.
Alligator lies at full length on the floor, with his eyes turned towards
the partition. She knows by this that the snake is there. There are
large cracks in that wall opening under the floor of the dwelling-house.
She is not a coward, but recent events have shaken her nerves. A little
son of her brother-in-law was lately bitten by a snake, and died.
Besides, she has not heard from her husband for six months, and is
anxious about him.
He was a drover, and started squatting here when they were married. The
drought of 18-- ruined him. He had to sacrifice the remnant of his flock
and go droving again. He intends to move his family into the nearest
town when he comes back, and, in the meantime, his brother, who keeps a
shanty on the main road, comes over about once a month with provisions.
The wife has still a couple of cows, one horse, and a few sheep. The
brother-in-law kills one of the latter occasionally, gives her what she
needs of it, and takes the rest in return for other provisions. She is
used to being left alone. She once lived like this for eighteen months.
As a girl she built the usual castles in the air; but all her girlish
hopes and aspirations have long been dead. She finds all the excitement
and recreation she needs in the _Young Ladies' Journal_, and Heaven help
her! takes a pleasure in the fashion-plates.
Her husband is an Australian, and so is she. He is careless, but a good
enough husband. If he had the means he would take her to the city and
keep her there like a princess. They are used to being apart, or at
least she is. “No use fretting,” she says. He may forget sometimes that
he is married; but if he has a good cheque when he comes back he will
give most of it to her. When he had money he took her to the city
several times--hired a railway sleeping compartment, and put up at the
best hotels. He also bought her a buggy, but they had to sacrifice that
along with the rest.
The last two children were born in the bush--one while her husband was
bringing a drunken doctor, by force, to attend to her. She was alone on
this occasion, and very weak. She had been ill with a fever. She prayed
to God to send her assistance. God sent Black Mary--the “whitest” gin in
all the land. Or, at least, God sent King Jimmy first, and he sent Black
Mary. He put his black face round the door post, took in the situation
at a glance, and said cheerfully: “All right, missus--I bring my old
woman, she down alonga creek.”
One of the children died while she was here alone. She rode nineteen
miles for assistance, carrying the dead child.