OVER THE SLIPRAILS

By Henry Lawson

Author of "While the Billy Boils", "When the World was Wide and OtherVerses", "On the Track", "Verses: Popular and Humorous", &c. 

[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalised. Some obviouserrors have been corrected. ]

Preface

 Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared in the columns of [various periodicals], while several now appear in print for the first time. 

 H. L. Sydney, June 9th, 1900. 

Contents

 The Shanty-Keeper's Wife A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper An Incident at Stiffner's The Hero of Redclay The Darling River A Case for the Oracle A Daughter of Maoriland New Year's Night Black Joe They Wait on the Wharf in Black Seeing the Last of You Two Boys at Grinder Brothers' The Selector's Daughter Mitchell on the "Sex" and Other "Problems" The Master's Mistake The Story of the Oracle

OVER THE SLIPRAILS

The Shanty-Keeper's Wife

There were about a dozen of us jammed into the coach, on the box seatand hanging on to the roof and tailboard as best we could. We wereshearers, bagmen, agents, a squatter, a cockatoo, the usual joker--andone or two professional spielers, perhaps. We were tired and stiff andnearly frozen--too cold to talk and too irritable to risk the inevitableargument which an interchange of ideas would have led up to. We had beenlooking forward for hours, it seemed, to the pub where we were to changehorses. For the last hour or two all that our united efforts had beenable to get out of the driver was a grunt to the effect that it was"'bout a couple o' miles. " Then he said, or grunted, "'Tain't fur now, "a couple of times, and refused to commit himself any further; he seemedgrumpy about having committed himself that far. 

He was one of those men who take everything in dead earnest; who regardany expression of ideas outside their own sphere of life as trivial, or, indeed, if addressed directly to them, as offensive; who, in fact, aredarkly suspicious of anything in the shape of a joke or laugh on thepart of an outsider in their own particular dust-hole. He seemed tobe always thinking, and thinking a lot; when his hands were not bothengaged, he would tilt his hat forward and scratch the base of hisskull with his little finger, and let his jaw hang. But his intellectualpowers were mostly concentrated on a doubtful swingle-tree, a misfittingcollar, or that there bay or piebald (on the off or near side) with thesore shoulder. 

Casual letters or papers, to be delivered on the road, were matterswhich troubled him vaguely, but constantly--like the abstract ideas ofhis passengers. 

The joker of our party was a humourist of the dry order, and had beenslyly taking rises out of the driver for the last two or three stages. But the driver only brooded. He wasn't the one to tell you straight ifyou offended him, or if he fancied you offended him, and thus gain yourrespect, or prevent a misunderstanding which would result in life-longenmity. He might meet you in after years when you had forgotten allabout your trespass--if indeed you had ever been conscious of it--and"stoush" you unexpectedly on the ear. 

Also you might regard him as your friend, on occasion, and yet he wouldstand by and hear a perfect stranger tell you the most outrageous lies, to your hurt, and know that the stranger was telling lies, and never putyou up to it. It would never enter his head to do so. It wouldn't be anyaffair of his--only an abstract question. 

It grew darker and colder. The rain came as if the frozen south werespitting at your face and neck and hands, and our feet grew as big ascamel's, and went dead, and we might as well have stamped the footboardswith wooden legs for all the feeling we got into ours. But they weremore comfortable that way, for the toes didn't curl up and pain so much, nor did our corns stick out so hard against the leather, and shoot. 

We looked out eagerly for some clearing, or fence, or light--some signof the shanty where we were to change horses--but there was nothingsave blackness all round. The long, straight, cleared road was no longerrelieved by the ghostly patch of light, far ahead, where the borderingtree-walls came together in perspective and framed the ether. We weredown in the bed of the bush. 

We pictured a haven of rest with a suspended lamp burning in the frostyair outside and a big log fire in a cosy parlour off the bar, and along table set for supper. But this is a land of contradictions; waysideshanties turn up unexpectedly and in the most unreasonable places, andare, as likely as not, prepared for a banquet when you are not hungryand can't wait, and as cold and dark as a bushman's grave when you areand can. 

Suddenly the driver said: "We're there now. " He said this as if he haddriven us to the scaffold to be hanged, and was fiercely glad that he'dgot us there safely at last. We looked but saw nothing; then a lightappeared ahead and seemed to come towards us; and presently we saw thatit was a lantern held up by a man in a slouch hat, with a dark bushybeard, and a three-bushel bag around his shoulders. He held up his otherhand, and said something to the driver in a tone that might have beenused by the leader of a search party who had just found the body. Thedriver stopped and then went on slowly. 

"What's up?" we asked. "What's the trouble?"

"Oh, it's all right, " said the driver. 

"The publican's wife is sick, " somebody said, "and he wants us to comequietly. "

The usual little slab and bark shanty was suggested in the gloom, with abig bark stable looming in the background. We climbed down like so manycripples. As soon as we began to feel our legs and be sure we had theright ones and the proper allowance of feet, we helped, as quietly aspossible, to take the horses out and round to the stable. 

"Is she very bad?" we asked the publican, showing as much concern as wecould. 

"Yes, " he said, in a subdued voice of a rough man who had spent severalanxious, sleepless nights by the sick bed of a dear one. "But, Godwilling, I think we'll pull her through. "

Thus encouraged we said, sympathetically: "We're very sorry to troubleyou, but I suppose we could manage to get a drink and a bit to eat?"

"Well, " he said, "there's nothing to eat in the house, and I've only gotrum and milk. You can have that if you like. "

One of the pilgrims broke out here. 

"Well of all the pubs, " he began, "that I've ever--"

"Hush-sh-sh!" said the publican. 

The pilgrim scowled and retired to the rear. You can't express yourfeelings freely when there's a woman dying close handy. 

"Well, who says rum and milk?" asked the joker, in a low voice. 

"Wait here, " said the publican, and disappeared into the little frontpassage. 

Presently a light showed through a window, with a scratched andfly-bitten B and A on two panes, and a mutilated R on the third, whichwas broken. A door opened, and we sneaked into the bar. It was likehaving drinks after hours where the police are strict and independent. 

When we came out the driver was scratching his head and looking at theharness on the verandah floor. 

"You fellows 'll have ter put in the time for an hour or so. The horsesis out back somewheres, " and he indicated the interior of Australia witha side jerk of his head, "and the boy ain't back with 'em yet. "

"But dash it all, " said the Pilgrim, "me and my mate----"

"Hush!" said the publican. 

"How long are the horses likely to be?" we asked the driver. 

"Dunno, " he grunted. "Might be three or four hours. It's all accordin'. "

"Now, look here, " said the Pilgrim, "me and my mate wanter catch thetrain. "

"Hush-sh-sh!" from the publican in a fierce whisper. 

"Well, boss, " said the joker, "can you let us have beds, then? I don'twant to freeze here all night, anyway. "

"Yes, " said the landlord, "I can do that, but some of you will have tosleep double and some of you'll have to take it out of the sofas, andone or two 'll have to make a shakedown on the floor. There's plenty ofbags in the stable, and you've got rugs and coats with you. Fix it upamongst yourselves. "

"But look here!" interrupted the Pilgrim, desperately, "we can't affordto wait! We're only 'battlers', me and my mate, pickin' up crumbs by thewayside. We've got to catch the----"

"Hush!" said the publican, savagely. "You fool, didn't I tell you mymissus was bad? I won't have any noise. "

"But look here, " protested the Pilgrim, "we must catch the train at DeadCamel----"

"You'll catch my boot presently, " said the publican, with a savage oath, "and go further than Dead Camel. I won't have my missus disturbedfor you or any other man! Just you shut up or get out, and take yourblooming mate with you. "

We lost patience with the Pilgrim and sternly took him aside. 

"Now, for God's sake, hold your jaw, " we said. "Haven't you got anyconsideration at all? Can't you see the man's wife is ill--dyingperhaps--and he nearly worried off his head?"

The Pilgrim and his mate were scraggy little bipeds of the city pushvariety, so they were suppressed. 

"Well, " yawned the joker, "I'm not going to roost on a stump all night. I'm going to turn in. "

"It'll be eighteenpence each, " hinted the landlord. "You can settle nowif you like to save time. "

We took the hint, and had another drink. I don't know how we "fixed itup amongst ourselves, " but we got settled down somehow. There was a lotof mysterious whispering and scuffling round by the light of a couple ofdirty greasy bits of candle. Fortunately we dared not speak loud enoughto have a row, though most of us were by this time in the humour to picka quarrel with a long-lost brother. 

The Joker got the best bed, as good-humoured, good-natured chapsgenerally do, without seeming to try for it. The growler of the partygot the floor and chaff bags, as selfish men mostly do--without seemingto try for it either. I took it out of one of the "sofas", or ratherthat sofa took it out of me. It was short and narrow and down by thehead, with a leaning to one corner on the outside, and had more nailsand bits of gin-case than original sofa in it. 

I had been asleep for three seconds, it seemed, when somebody shook meby the shoulder and said:

"Take yer seats. "

When I got out, the driver was on the box, and the others were gettingrum and milk inside themselves (and in bottles) before taking theirseats. 

It was colder and darker than before, and the South Pole seemed nearer, and pretty soon, but for the rum, we should have been in a worse fixthan before. 

There was a spell of grumbling. Presently someone said:

"I don't believe them horses was lost at all. I was round behind thestable before I went to bed, and seen horses there; and if they wasn'tthem same horses there, I'll eat 'em raw!"

"Would yer?" said the driver, in a disinterested tone. 

"I would, " said the passenger. Then, with a sudden ferocity, "and youtoo!"

The driver said nothing. It was an abstract question which didn'tinterest him. 

We saw that we were on delicate ground, and changed the subject for awhile. Then someone else said:

"I wonder where his missus was? I didn't see any signs of her about, orany other woman about the place, and we was pretty well all over it. "

"Must have kept her in the stable, " suggested the Joker. 

"No, she wasn't, for Scotty and that chap on the roof was there afterbags. "

"She might have been in the loft, " reflected the Joker. 

"There was no loft, " put in a voice from the top of the coach. 

"I say, Mister--Mister man, " said the Joker suddenly to the driver, "Washis missus sick at all?"

"I dunno, " replied the driver. "She might have been. He said so, anyway. I ain't got no call to call a man a liar. "

"See here, " said the cannibalistic individual to the driver, in the toneof a man who has made up his mind for a row, "has that shanty-keeper gota wife at all?"

"I believe he has. "

"And is she living with him?"

"No, she ain't--if yer wanter know. "

"Then where is she?"

"I dunno. How am I to know? She left him three or four years ago. Shewas in Sydney last time I heard of her. It ain't no affair of mine, anyways. "

"And is there any woman about the place at all, driver?" inquired aprofessional wanderer reflectively. 

"No--not that I knows on. There useter be a old black gin come potteringround sometimes, but I ain't seen her lately. "

"And excuse me, driver, but is there anyone round there at all?"enquired the professional wanderer, with the air of a conscientiouswriter, collecting material for an Australian novel from life, with aneye to detail. 

"Naw, " said the driver--and recollecting that he was expected to becivil and obliging to his employers' patrons, he added in surly apology, "Only the boss and the stableman, that I knows of. " Then repentingof the apology, he asserted his manhood again, and asked, in atone calculated to risk a breach of the peace, "Any more questions, gentlemen--while the shop's open?"

There was a long pause. 

"Driver, " asked the Pilgrim appealingly, "was them horses lost at all?"

"I dunno, " said the driver. "He said they was. He's got the lookingafter them. It was nothing to do with me. "

 . . . . . 

"Twelve drinks at sixpence a drink"--said the Joker, as if calculatingto himself--"that's six bob, and, say on an average, four shouts--that'sone pound four. Twelve beds at eighteenpence a bed--that's eighteenshillings; and say ten bob in various drinks and the stuff we broughtwith us, that's two pound twelve. That publican didn't do so bad out ofus in two hours. "

We wondered how much the driver got out of it, but thought it best notto ask him. 

 . . . . . 

We didn't say much for the rest of the journey. There was the usual manwho thought as much and knew all about it from the first, but hewasn't appreciated. We suppressed him. One or two wanted to go back and"stoush" that landlord, and the driver stopped the coach cheerfully attheir request; but they said they'd come across him again and allowedthemselves to be persuaded out of it. It made us feel bad to think howwe had allowed ourselves to be delayed, and robbed, and had sneakedround on tiptoe, and how we had sat on the inoffensive Pilgrim and hismate, and all on account of a sick wife who didn't exist. 

The coach arrived at Dead Camel in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion anddistrust, and we spread ourselves over the train and departed. 

A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper

Steelman and Smith had been staying at the hotel for several days in thedress and character of bushies down for what they considered a spree. The gentleman sharper from the Other Side had been hanging roundthem for three days now. Steelman was the more sociable, and, to allappearances, the greener of the two bush mates; but seemed rathertoo much under the influence of Smith, who was reserved, suspicious, self-contained, or sulky. He almost scowled at Gentleman Sharper's"Good-morning!" and "Fine day!", replied in monosyllables and turnedhalf away with an uneasy, sullen, resentful hump of his shoulder andshuffle of his feet. 

Steelman took Smith for a stroll on the round, bald tussock hillssurrounding the city, and rehearsed him for the last act until aftersundown. 

Gentleman Sharper was lounging, with a cigar, on the end of the balcony, where he had been contentedly contemplating the beautiful death of day. His calm, classic features began to whiten (and sharpen) in the frostymoonlight. 

Steelman and Smith sat on deck-chairs behind a half-screen of fernson the other end of the balcony, smoked their after-dinner smoke, andtalked in subdued tones as befitted the time and the scene--great, softened, misty hills in a semicircle, and the water and harbour lightsin moonlight. 

The other boarders were loitering over dinner, in their rooms, or goneout; the three were alone on the balcony, which was a rear one. 

Gentleman Sharper moved his position, carelessly, noiselessly, yetquickly, until he leaned on the rail close to the ferns and couldoverhear every word the bushies said. He had dropped his cigaroverboard, and his scented handkerchief behind a fern-pot en route. 

"But he looks all right, and acts all right, and talks all right--andshouts all right, " protested Steelman. "He's not stumped, for I sawtwenty or thirty sovereigns when he shouted; and he doesn't seem to carea damn whether we stand in with him or not. "

"There you are! That's just where it is!" said Smith, with somelogic, but in a tone a wife uses in argument (which tone, by the way, especially if backed by logic or common sense, makes a man wild soonerthan anything else in this world of troubles). 

Steelman jerked his chair half-round in disgust. "That's you!" hesnorted, "always suspicious! Always suspicious of everybody andeverything! If I found myself shot into a world where I couldn't trustanybody I'd shoot myself out of it. Life would be worse than not worthliving. Smith, you'll never make money, except by hard graft--hard, bullocking, nigger-driving graft like we had on that damned railwaysection for the last six months, up to our knees in water all winter, and all for a paltry cheque of one-fifty--twenty of that gone already. How do you expect to make money in this country if you won't takeanything for granted, except hard cash? I tell you, Smith, there'sa thousand pounds lost for every one gained or saved by trusting toolittle. How did Vanderbilt and----"

Steelman elaborated to a climax, slipping a glance warily, once ortwice, out of the tail of his eye through the ferns, low down. 

"There never was a fortune made that wasn't made by chancing it. "

He nudged Smith to come to the point. Presently Smith asked, sulkily:

"Well, what was he saying?"

"I thought I told you! He says he's behind the scenes in this gold boom, and, if he had a hundred pounds ready cash to-morrow, he'd make three ofit before Saturday. He said he could put one-fifty to one-fifty. "

"And isn't he worth three hundred?"

"Didn't I tell you, " demanded Steelman, with an impatient ring, andspeaking rapidly, "that he lost his mail in the wreck of the 'Tasman'?You know she went down the day before yesterday, and the divers haven'tgot at the mails yet. "

"Yes. .. . But why doesn't he wire to Sydney for some stuff?"

"I'm----! Well, I suppose I'll have to have patience with a bornnatural. Look here, Smith, the fact of the matter is that he's a sort ofblack-sheep--sent out on the remittance system, if the truth is known, and with letters of introduction to some big-bugs out here--thatexplains how he gets to know these wire-pullers behind the boom. Hispeople have probably got the quarterly allowance business fixed hardand tight with a bank or a lawyer in Sydney; and there'll have to beenquiries about the lost 'draft' (as he calls a cheque) and a letter ormaybe a cable home to England; and it might take weeks. "

"Yes, " said Smith, hesitatingly. "That all sounds right enough. But"--with an inspiration--"why don't he go to one of these big-bugboomsters he knows--that he got letters of introduction to--and get himto fix him up?"

"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Steelman, hopelessly. "Listen to him! Can't yousee that they're the last men he wants to let into his game? Why, hewants to use THEM! They're the mugs as far as he is concerned!"

"Oh--I see!" said Smith, after hesitating, and rather slowly--as if hehadn't quite finished seeing yet. 

Steelman glanced furtively at the fern-screen, and nudged Smith again. 

"He said if he had three hundred, he'd double it by Saturday?"

"That's what he said, " replied Steelman, seeming by his tone to belosing interest in the conversation. 

"And. .. Well, if he had a hundred he could double that, I suppose. "

"Yes. What are you driving at now?"

"If he had twenty----"

"Oh, God! I'm sick of you, Smith. What the----!"

"Hold on. Let me finish. I was only going to say that I'm willing to putup a fiver, and you put up another fiver, and if he doubles that for usthen we can talk about standing in with him with a hundred--provided hecan show his hundred. "

After some snarling Steelman said: "Well, I'll try him! Now are yousatisfied?". .. 

"He's moved off now, " he added in a whisper; "but stay here and talk abit longer. "

Passing through the hall they saw Gentleman Sharper standing carelesslyby the door of the private bar. He jerked his head in the direction ofdrinks. Steelman accepted the invitation--Smith passed on. Steelman tookthe opportunity to whisper to the Sharper--"I've been talking that overwith my mate, and----"

"Come for a stroll, " suggested the professional. 

"I don't mind, " said Steelman. 

"Have a cigar?" and they passed out. 

When they returned Steelman went straight to the room he occupied withSmith. 

"How much stuff have we got, Smith?"

"Nine pounds seventeen and threepence. "

Steelman gave an exclamation of disapproval with that state of financialaffairs. He thought a second. "I know the barman here, and I think heknows me. I'll chew his lug for a bob or may be a quid. "

Twenty minutes later he went to Gentleman Sharper's room with tenpounds--in very dirty Bank of New Zealand notes--such as those withwhich bush contractors pay their men. 

Two mornings later the sharper suggested a stroll. Steelman went withhim, with a face carefully made up to hear the worst. 

After walking a hundred yards in a silence which might have beenominous--and was certainly pregnant--the sharper said:

"Well. .. I tried the water. "

"Yes!" said Steelman in a nervous tone. "And how did you find it?"

"Just as warm as I thought. Warm for a big splash. "

"How? Did you lose the ten quid?"

"Lose it! What did you take me for? I put ten to your ten as I told youI would. I landed 50 Pounds----"

"Fifty pounds for twenty?"

"That's the tune of it--and not much of a tune, either. My God! If I'donly had that thousand of mine by me, or even half of it, I'd have madea pile!"

"Fifty pounds for twenty!" cried Steelman excitedly. "Why, that's grand!And to think we chaps have been grafting like niggers all our lives! ByGod, we'll stand in with you for all we've got!"

"There's my hand on it, " as they reached the hotel. 

"If you come to my room I'll give you the 25 Pounds now, if you like. "

"Oh, that's all right, " exclaimed Steelman impulsively; "you mustn'tthink I don't----"

"That's all right. Don't you say any more about it. You'd best have thestuff to-night to show your mate. "

"Perhaps so; he's a suspicious fool, but I made a bargain with him aboutour last cheque. He can hang on to the stuff, and I can't. If I'd beenon my own I'd have blued it a week ago. Tell you what I'll do--we'llcall our share (Smith's and mine) twenty quid. You take the odd fiverfor your trouble. "

"That looks fair enough. We'll call it twenty guineas to you and yourmate. We'll want him, you know. "

In his own and Smith's room Steelman thoughtfully counted twenty-onesovereigns on the toilet-table cover, and left them there in a pile. 

He stretched himself, scratched behind his ear, and blinked at the moneyabstractedly. Then he asked, as if the thought just occurred to him: "Bythe way, Smith, do you see those yellow boys?"

Smith saw. He had been sitting on the bed with a studiously vacantexpression. It was Smith's policy not to seem, except by request, totake any interest in, or, in fact, to be aware of anything unusual thatSteelman might be doing--from patching his pants to reading poetry. 

"There's twenty-one sovereigns there!" remarked Steelman casually. 

"Yes?"

"Ten of 'em's yours. "

"Thank yer, Steely. "

"And, " added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, "if you get taken down for'em, or lose 'em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much asa shilling in riotous living, I'll stoush you, Smith. "

Smith didn't seem interested. They sat on the beds opposite each otherfor two or three minutes, in something of the atmosphere that pervadesthings when conversation has petered out and the dinner-bell is expectedto ring. Smith screwed his face and squeezed a pimple on his throat;Steelman absently counted the flies on the wall. Presently Steelman, with a yawning sigh, lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped underhis head. 

"Better take a few quid, Smith, and get that suit you were lookingat the other day. Get a couple of shirts and collars, and some socks;better get a hat while you're at it--yours is a disgrace to yourbenefactor. And, I say, go to a chemist and get some cough stuff forthat churchyarder of yours--we've got no use for it just now, and itmakes me sentimental. I'll give you a cough when you want one. Bring mea syphon of soda, some fruit, and a tract. "

"A what?"

"A tract. Go on. Start your boots. "

While Smith was gone, Steelman paced the room with a strange, worried, haunted expression. He divided the gold that was left--(Smith had takenfour pounds)--and put ten sovereigns in a pile on the extreme cornerof the table. Then he walked up and down, up and down the room, armstightly folded, and forehead knitted painfully, pausing abruptly nowand then by the table to stare at the gold, until he heard Smith's step. Then his face cleared; he sat down and counted flies. 

Smith was undoing and inspecting the parcels, having placed the syphonand fruit on the table. Behind his back Steelman hurriedly opened aleather pocketbook and glanced at the portrait of a woman and child andat the date of a post-office order receipt. 

"Smith, " said Steelman, "we're two honest, ignorant, green coves;hard-working chaps from the bush. "

"Yes. "

"It doesn't matter whether we are or not--we are as far as the worldis concerned. Now we've grafted like bullocks, in heat and wet, for sixmonths, and made a hundred and fifty, and come down to have a bit of aholiday before going back to bullock for another six months or a year. Isn't that so, Smith?"

"Yes. "

"You could take your oath on it?"

"Yes. "

"Well, it doesn't matter if it is so or not--it IS so, so far as theworld is concerned. Now we've paid our way straight. We've always beenpretty straight anyway, even if we are a pair of vagabonds, and I don'thalf like this new business; but it had to be done. If I hadn't takendown that sharper you'd have lost confidence in me and wouldn't havebeen able to mask your feelings, and I'd have had to stoush you. We'retwo hard-working, innocent bushies, down for an innocent spree, and werun against a cold-blooded professional sharper, a paltry sneak anda coward, who's got neither the brains nor the pluck to work in thestation of life he togs himself for. He tries to do us out of ourhard-earned little hundred and fifty--no matter whether we had it ornot--and I'm obliged to take him down. Serve him right for a crawler. You haven't the least idea what I'm driving at, Smith, and that's thebest of it. I've driven a nail of my life home, and no pincers ever madewill get it out. "

"Why, Steely, what's the matter with you?"

Steelman rose, took up the pile of ten sovereigns, and placed it neatlyon top of the rest. 

"Put the stuff away, Smith. "

After breakfast next morning, Gentleman Sharper hung round a bit, andthen suggested a stroll. But Steelman thought the weather lookedtoo bad, so they went on the balcony for a smoke. They talked of theweather, wrecks, and things, Steelman leaning with his elbows on thebalcony rail, and Sharper sociably and confidently in the same positionclose beside him. But the professional was evidently growing uneasy inhis mind; his side of the conversation grew awkward and disjointed, and he made the blunder of drifting into an embarrassing silence beforecoming to the point. He took one elbow from the rail, and said, with abungling attempt at carelessness which was made more transparent by theawkward pause before it:

"Ah, well, I must see to my correspondence. By the way, when could youmake it convenient to let me have that hundred? The shares are startingup the last rise now, and we've got no time to lose if we want to doubleit. "

Steelman turned his face to him and winked once--a very hard, tight, cold wink--a wink in which there was no humour: such a wink as Steelmanhad once winked at a half-drunken bully who was going to have a larkwith Smith. 

The sharper was one of those men who pull themselves together in a badcause, as they stagger from the blow. But he wanted to think this time. 

Later on he approached Steelman quietly and proposed partnership. ButSteelman gave him to understand (as between themselves) that he wasn'ttaking on any pupils just then. 

An Incident at Stiffner's

They called him "Stiffner" because he used, long before, to get a livingby poisoning wild dogs near the Queensland border. The name stuck tohim closer than misfortune did, for when he rose to the proud andindependent position of landlord and sole proprietor of an out-back pubhe was Stiffner still, and his place was "Stiffner's"--widely known. 

They do say that the name ceased not to be applicable--that it fittedeven better than in the old dingo days, but--well, they do say so. Allwe can say is that when a shearer arrived with a cheque, and had a drinkor two, he was almost invariably seized with a desire to camp on thepremises for good, spend his cheque in the shortest possible time, andforcibly shout for everything within hail--including the Chinaman cookand Stiffner's disreputable old ram. 

The shanty was of the usual kind, and the scenery is as easily disposedof. There was a great grey plain stretching away from the door in front, and a mulga scrub from the rear; and in that scrub, not fifty yards fromthe kitchen door, were half a dozen nameless graves. 

Stiffner was always drunk, and Stiffner's wife--a hard-featuredAmazon--was boss. The children were brought up in a detached cottage, under the care of a "governess". 

Stiffner had a barmaid as a bait for chequemen. She came from Sydney, they said, and her name was Alice. She was tall, boyishly handsome, andcharacterless; her figure might be described as "fine" or "strapping", but her face was very cold--nearly colourless. She was one of thoseselfishly sensual women--thin lips, and hard, almost vacant grey eyes;no thought of anything but her own pleasures, none for the man's. Someshearers would roughly call her "a squatter's girl". But she "drew";she was handsome where women are scarce--very handsome, thought atall, melancholy-looking jackeroo, whose evil spirit had drawn him toStiffner's and the last shilling out of his pocket. 

Over the great grey plain, about a fortnight before, had come "OldDanny", a station hand, for his semi-annual spree, and one "Yankee Jack"and his mate, shearers with horses, travelling for grass; and, about aweek later, the Sydney jackeroo. There was also a sprinkling of assortedswagmen, who came in through the scrub and went out across the plain, or came in over the plain and went away through the scrub, according towhich way their noses led them for the time being. 

There was also, for one day, a tall, freckled native (son of aneighbouring "cocky"), without a thought beyond the narrow horizonwithin which he lived. He had a very big opinion of himself in a verysmall mind. He swaggered into the breakfast-room and round the table tohis place with an expression of ignorant contempt on his phiz, hissnub nose in the air and his under lip out. But during the meal hecondescended to ask the landlord if he'd noticed that there horse thatchap was ridin' yesterday; and Stiffner having intimated that he had, the native entertained the company with his opinion of that horse, andof a certain "youngster" he was breaking in at home, and divers otherhorses, mostly his or his father's, and of a certain cattle slut, &c. .. . He spoke at the landlord, but to the company, most of the time. Afterbreakfast he swaggered round some more, but condescended to "shove"his hand into his trousers, "pull" out a "bob" and "chuck" it into the(blanky) hat for a pool. Those words express the thing better than anyothers we can think of. Finally, he said he must be off; and, therebeing no opposition to his departure, he chucked his saddle on to hishorse, chucked himself into the saddle, said "s'long, " and slitheredoff. And no one missed him. 

Danny had been there a fortnight, and consequently his personalappearance was not now worth describing--it was better left alone, for the honour of the bush. His hobby was that he was the "stranger'sfriend", as he put it. He'd welcome "the stranger" and chum with him, and shout for him to an unlimited extent, and sympathise with him, hearof jobs or a "show" for him, assure him twenty times a day that he washis friend, give him hints and advice more or less worthless, make himdrunk if possible, and keep him so while the cheque lasted; in short, Danny would do almost anything for the stranger except lend him ashilling, or give him some rations to carry him on. He'd promise thatmany times a day, but he'd sooner spend five pounds on drink for a manthan give him a farthing. 

Danny's cheque was nearly gone, and it was time he was gone too; infact, he had received, and was still receiving, various hints to thateffect, some of them decidedly pointed, especially the more recent ones. But Danny was of late becoming foolishly obstinate in his sprees, andless disposed to "git" when a landlord had done with him. He saw thehints plainly enough, but had evidently made up his mind to be doggedlyirresponsive. It is a mistake to think that drink always dulls aman's feelings. Some natures are all the more keenly sensitive whenalcoholically poisoned. 

Danny was always front man at the shanty while his cheque was fresh--atleast, so he was given to understand, and so he apparently understood. He was then allowed to say and do what he liked almost, even to maulingthe barmaid about. There was scarcely any limit to the free and easymanner in which you could treat her, so long as your money lasted. Shewouldn't be offended; it wasn't business to be so--"didn't pay. " But, assoon as your title to the cheque could be decently shelved, you had totreat her like a lady. Danny knew this--none better; but he had beentreated with too much latitude, and rushed to his destruction. 

It was Sunday afternoon, but that made no difference in things at theshanty. Dinner was just over. The men were in the mean little parlouroff the bar, interested in a game of cards, and Alice sat in one cornersewing. Danny was "acting the goat" round the fireplace; as ill-luckwould have it, his attention was drawn to a basket of clean linen whichstood on the side table, and from it, with sundry winks and grimaces, he gingerly lifted a certain garment of ladies' underwear--to put thematter decently. He held it up between his forefingers and thumbs, andcracked a rough, foolish joke--no matter what it was. The laugh didn'tlast long. Alice sprang to her feet, flinging her work aside, and strucka stage attitude--her right arm thrown out and the forefinger pointingrigidly, and rather crookedly, towards the door. 

"Leave the room!" she snapped at Danny. "Leave the room! How dare youtalk like that before me-e-ee!"

Danny made a step and paused irresolutely. He was sober enough to feelthe humiliation of his position, and having once been a man of spirit, and having still the remnants of manhood about him, he did feel it. Hegave one pitiful, appealing look at her face, but saw no mercy there. She stamped her foot again, jabbed her forefinger at the door, and said, "Go-o-o!" in a tone that startled the majority of the company nearly asmuch as it did Danny. Then Yankee Jack threw down his cards, rose fromthe table, laid his strong, shapely right hand--not roughly--on Danny'sragged shoulder, and engineered the drunk gently through the door. 

"You's better go out for a while, Danny, " he said; "there wasn't muchharm in what you said, but your cheque's gone, and that makes all thedifference. It's time you went back to the station. You've got to becareful what you say now. "

When Jack returned to the parlour the barmaid had a smile for him; buthe didn't take it. He went and stood before the fire, with his footresting on the fender and his elbow on the mantelshelf, and lookedblackly at a print against the wall before his face. 

"The old beast!" said Alice, referring to Danny. "He ought to be kickedoff the place!"

"HE'S AS GOOD AS YOU!"

The voice was Jack's; he flung the stab over his shoulder, and with it alook that carried all the contempt he felt. 

She gasped, looked blankly from face to face, and witheringly at theback of Jack's head; but that didn't change colour or curl the leasttrifle less closely. 

"Did you hear that?" she cried, appealing to anyone. "You're a nice loto' men, you are, to sit there and hear a woman insulted, and not one ofyou man enough to take her part--cowards!"

The Sydney jackeroo rose impulsively, but Jack glanced at him, and hesat down again. She covered her face with her hands and ran hystericallyto her room. 

That afternoon another bushman arrived with a cheque, and shouted fivetimes running at a pound a shout, and at intervals during the rest ofthe day when they weren't fighting or gambling. 

Alice had "got over her temper" seemingly, and was even kind to thehumble and contrite Danny, who became painfully particular with his"Thanky, Alice"--and afterwards offensive with his unnecessarilyfrequent threats to smash the first man who insulted her. 

But let us draw the curtain close before that Sunday afternoon atStiffner's, and hold it tight. Behind it the great curse of the West isin evidence, the chief trouble of unionism--drink, in its most selfish, barren, and useless form. 

 . . . . . 

All was quiet at Stiffner's. It was after midnight, and Stiffner laydead-drunk on the broad of his back on the long moonlit verandah, with all his patrons asleep around him in various grotesque positions. Stiffner's ragged grey head was on a cushion, and a broad maudlin smileon his red, drink-sodden face, the lower half of which was bordered bya dirty grey beard, like that of a frilled lizard. The red handkerchieftwisted round his neck had a ghastly effect in the bright moonlight, making him look as if his throat was cut. The smile was the one hewent to sleep with when his wife slipped the cushion under his head andthoughtfully removed the loose change from about his person. Near himlay a heap that was Danny, and spread over the bare boards were theothers, some with heads pillowed on their swags, and every man about asdrunk as his neighbour. Yankee Jack lay across the door of the barmaid'sbedroom, with one arm bent under his head, the other lying limp on thedoorstep, his handsome face turned out to the bright moonlight. The"family" were sound asleep in the detached cottage, and Alice--the onlycapable person on the premises--was left to put out the lamps and "shutup" for the night. She extinguished the light in the bar, came out, locked the door, and picked her way among and over the drunkards to theend of the verandah. She clasped her hands behind her head, stretchedherself, and yawned, and then stood for a few moments looking out intothe night, which softened the ragged line of mulga to right andleft, and veiled the awful horizon of that great plain with which the"traveller" commenced, or ended, the thirty-mile "dry stretch". Then shemoved towards her own door; before it she halted and stood, with foldedarms, looking down at the drunken Adonis at her feet. 

She breathed a long breath with a sigh in it, went round to the back, and presently returned with a buggy-cushion, which she slipped under hishead--her face close to his--very close. Then she moved his arms gentlyoff the threshold, stepped across him into her room, and locked the doorbehind her. 

There was an uneasy movement in the heap that stood, or lay, for Danny. It stretched out, turned over, struggled to its hands and knees, andbecame an object. Then it crawled to the wall, against which itslowly and painfully up-ended itself, and stood blinking round forthe water-bag, which hung from the verandah rafters in a line with itsshapeless red nose. It staggered forward, held on by the cords, feltround the edge of the bag for the tot, and drank about a quart of water. Then it staggered back against the wall, stood for a moment mutteringand passing its hand aimlessly over its poor ruined head, and finallycollapsed into a shapeless rum-smelling heap and slept once more. 

The jackeroo at the end of the verandah had awakened from his drunkensleep, but had not moved. He lay huddled on his side, with his head onthe swag; the whole length of the verandah was before him; his eyeswere wide open, but his face was in the shade. Now he rose painfully andstood on the ground outside, with his hands in his pockets, and gazedout over the open for a while. He breathed a long breath, too--with agroan in it. Then he lifted his swag quietly from the end of the floor, shouldered it, took up his water-bag and billy, and sneaked over theroad, away from the place, like a thief. He struck across the plain, andtramped on, hour after hour, mile after mile, till the bright moon wentdown with a bright star in attendance and the other bright stars waned, and he entered the timber and tramped through it to the "cleared road", which stretched far and wide for twenty miles before him, with ghostlylittle dust-clouds at short intervals ahead, where the frightenedrabbits crossed it. And still he went doggedly on, with the ghastlydaylight on him--like a swagman's ghost out late. And a mongrel followedfaithfully all the time unnoticed, and wondering, perhaps, at hismaster. 

"What was yer doin' to that girl yesterday?" asked Danny of Yankee Jacknext evening, as they camped on the far side of the plain. "What was youchaps sayin' to Alice? I heerd her cryin' in her room last night. "

But they reckoned that he had been too drunk to hear anything except aninvitation to come and have another drink; and so it passed. 

The Hero of Redclay

The "boss-over-the-board" was leaning with his back to the wall betweentwo shoots, reading a reference handed to him by a green-hand applyingfor work as picker-up or woolroller--a shed rouseabout. It was terriblyhot. I was slipping past to the rolling-tables, carrying three fleecesto save a journey; we were only supposed to carry two. The boss stoppedme:

"You've got three fleeces there, young man?"

"Yes. "

Notwithstanding the fact that I had just slipped a light ragged fleeceinto the belly-wool and "bits" basket, I felt deeply injured, andrighteously and fiercely indignant at being pulled up. It was afearfully hot day. 

"If I catch you carrying three fleeces again, " said the boss quietly, "I'll give you the sack. "

"I'll take it now if you like, " I said. 

He nodded. "You can go on picking-up in this man's place, " he saidto the jackeroo, whose reference showed him to be a non-union man--a"free-labourer", as the pastoralists had it, or, in plain shed terms, "ablanky scab". He was now in the comfortable position of a non-unionistin a union shed who had jumped into a sacked man's place. 

Somehow the lurid sympathy of the men irritated me worse than theboss-over-the-board had done. It must have been on account of the heat, as Mitchell says. I was sick of the shed and the life. It was within acouple of days of cut-out, so I told Mitchell--who was shearing--thatI'd camp up the Billabong and wait for him; got my cheque, rolled upmy swag, got three days' tucker from the cook, said so-long to him, andtramped while the men were in the shed. 

I camped at the head of the Billabong where the track branched, onebranch running to Bourke, up the river, and the other out towards theParoo--and hell. 

About ten o'clock the third morning Mitchell came along with his chequeand his swag, and a new sheep-pup, and his quiet grin; and I wasn't toopleased to see that he had a shearer called "the Lachlan" with him. 

The Lachlan wasn't popular at the shed. He was a brooding, unsociablesort of man, and it didn't make any difference to the chaps whether hehad a union ticket or not. It was pretty well known in the shed--therewere three or four chaps from the district he was reared in--that he'ddone five years hard for burglary. What surprised me was that JackMitchell seemed thick with him; often, when the Lachlan was sittingbrooding and smoking by himself outside the hut after sunset, Mitchellwould perch on his heels alongside him and yarn. But no one else tooknotice of anything Mitchell did out of the common. 

"Better camp with us till the cool of the evening, " said Mitchell tothe Lachlan, as they slipped their swags. "Plenty time for you to startafter sundown, if you're going to travel to-night. "

So the Lachlan was going to travel all night and on a different track. Ifelt more comfortable, and put the billy on. I did not care so much whathe'd been or had done, but I was green and soft yet, and his presenceembarrassed me. 

They talked shearing, sheds, tracks, and a little unionism--the Lachlanspeaking in a quiet voice and with a lot of sound, common sense, itseemed to me. He was tall and gaunt, and might have been thirty, or evenwell on in the forties. His eyes were dark brown and deep set, and hadsomething of the dead-earnest sad expression you saw in the eyes ofunion leaders and secretaries--the straight men of the strikes of '90and '91. I fancied once or twice I saw in his eyes the sudden furtivelook of the "bad egg" when a mounted trooper is spotted near the shed;but perhaps this was prejudice. And with it all there was about theLachlan something of the man who has lost all he had and the chancesof all he was ever likely to have, and is past feeling, or caring, orflaring up--past getting mad about anything--something, all the same, that warned men not to make free with him. 

He and Mitchell fished along the Billabong all the afternoon; I fisheda little, and lay about the camp and read. I had an instinct that theLachlan saw I didn't cotton on to his camping with us, though he wasn'tthe sort of man to show what he saw or felt. After tea, and a smoke atsunset, he shouldered his swag, nodded to me as if I was an accidentalbut respectful stranger at a funeral that belonged to him, and took theoutside track. Mitchell walked along the track with him for a mile orso, while I poked round and got some boughs down for a bed, and fed andstudied the collie pup that Jack had bought from the shearers' cook. 

I saw them stop and shake hands out on the dusty clearing, and theyseemed to take a long time about it; then Mitchell started back, andthe other began to dwindle down to a black peg and then to a dot on thesandy plain, that had just a hint of dusk and dreamy far-away gloamingon it between the change from glaring day to hard, bare, broadmoonlight. 

I thought Mitchell was sulky, or had got the blues, when he came back;he lay on his elbow smoking, with his face turned from the camp towardsthe plain. After a bit I got wild--if Mitchell was going to go on likethat he might as well have taken his swag and gone with the Lachlan. Idon't know exactly what was the matter with me that day, and at last Imade up my mind to bring the thing to a head. 

"You seem mighty thick with the Lachlan, " I said. 

"Well, what's the matter with that?" asked Mitchell. "It ain't the firstfelon I've been on speaking terms with. I borrowed half-a-caser off amurderer once, when I was in a hole and had no one else to go to; andthe murderer hadn't served his time, neither. I've got nothing againstthe Lachlan, except that he's a white man and bears a faint familyresemblance to a certain branch of my tribe. "

I rolled out my swag on the boughs, got my pipe, tobacco, and matcheshandy in the crown of a spare hat, and lay down. 

Mitchell got up, re-lit his pipe at the fire, and mooned round fora while, with his hands behind him, kicking sticks out of the road, looking out over the plain, down along the Billabong, and up through themulga branches at the stars; then he comforted the pup a bit, shoved thefire together with his toe, stood the tea-billy on the coals, and cameand squatted on the sand by my head. 

"Joe! I'll tell you a yarn. "

"All right; fire away! Has it got anything to do with the Lachlan?"

"No. It's got nothing to do with the Lachlan now; but it's about a chaphe knew. Don't you ever breathe a word of this to the Lachlan or anyone, or he'll get on to me. "

"All right. Go ahead. "

"You know I've been a good many things in my time. I did a deal ofhouse-painting at one time; I was a pretty smart brush hand, and mademoney at it. Well, I had a run of work at a place called Redclay, on theLachlan side. You know the sort of town--two pubs, a general store, apost office, a blacksmith's shop, a police station, a branch bank, anda dozen private weatherboard boxes on piles, with galvanized-iron tops, besides the humpies. There was a paper there, too, called the 'RedclayAdvertiser' (with which was incorporated the 'Geebung Chronicle'), anda Roman Catholic church, a Church of England, and a Wesleyan chapel. Now you see more of private life in the house-painting line than inany other--bar plumbing and gasfitting; but I'll tell you about myhouse-painting experiences some other time. 

"There was a young chap named Jack Drew editing the 'Advertiser' then. He belonged to the district, but had been sent to Sydney to a grammarschool when he was a boy. He was between twenty-five and thirty; hadknocked round a good deal, and gone the pace in Sydney. He got on as aboy reporter on one of the big dailies; he had brains and couldwrite rings round a good many, but he got in with a crowd that calledthemselves 'Bohemians', and the drink got a hold on him. The paper stuckto him as long as it could (for the sake of his brains), but they had tosack him at last. 

"He went out back, as most of them do, to try and work out theirsalvation, and knocked round amongst the sheds. He 'picked up' in oneshed where I was shearing, and we carried swags together for a coupleof months. Then he went back to the Lachlan side, and prospected amongstthe old fields round there with his elder brother Tom, who was all therewas left of his family. Tom, by the way, broke his heart digging Jackout of a cave in a drive they were working, and died a few minutes afterthe rescue. [*] But that's another yarn. Jack Drew had a bad spree afterthat; then he went to Sydney again, got on his old paper, went to thedogs, and a Parliamentary push that owned some city fly-blisters andcountry papers sent him up to edit the 'Advertiser' at two quid aweek. He drank again, and no wonder--you don't know what it is to run a'Geebung Advocate' or 'Mudgee Budgee Chronicle', and live there. He wasabout the same build as the Lachlan, but stouter, and had something thesame kind of eyes; but he was ordinarily as careless and devil-may-careas the Lachlan is grumpy and quiet. 

 * See "When the Sun Went Down", in "While the Billy Boils". --

"There was a doctor there, called Dr. Lebinski. They said he was aPolish exile. He was fifty or sixty, a tall man, with the set of anold soldier when he stood straight; but he mostly walked with his handsbehind him, studying the ground. Jack Drew caught that trick offhim towards the end. They were chums in a gloomy way, and kept tothemselves--they were the only two men with brains in that town. Theydrank and fought the drink together. The Doctor was too gloomy andimpatient over little things to be popular. Jack Drew talked toostraight in the paper, and in spite of his proprietors--about pubspieling and such things--and was too sarcastic in his progresscommittee, town council, and toady reception reports. The Doctor had ahawk's nose, pointed grizzled beard and moustache, and steely-grey eyeswith a haunted look in them sometimes (especially when he glanced at yousideways), as if he loathed his fellow men, and couldn't always hide it;or as if you were the spirit of morphia or opium, or a dead girl he'dwronged in his youth--or whatever his devil was, beside drink. He wasclever, and drink had brought him down to Redclay. 

"The bank manager was a heavy snob named Browne. He complained of beinga bit dull of hearing in one ear--after you'd yelled at him three orfour times; sometimes I've thought he was as deaf as a book-keeper inboth. He had a wife and youngsters, but they were away on a visit whileI was working in Redclay. His niece--or, rather, his wife's niece--agirl named Ruth Wilson, did the housekeeping. She was an orphan, adopted by her aunt, and was general slavey and scape-goat to thefamily--especially to the brats, as is often the case. She was ratherpretty, and lady-like, and kept to herself. The women and girls calledher Miss Wilson, and didn't like her. Most of the single men--and someof the married ones, perhaps--were gone on her, but hadn't the brainsor the pluck to bear up and try their luck. I was gone worse than any, Ithink, but had too much experience or common sense. She was very good tome--used to hand me out cups of tea and plates of sandwiches, or breadand butter, or cake, mornings and afternoons the whole time I waspainting the bank. The Doctor had known her people and was very kindto her. She was about the only woman--for she was more woman thangirl--that he'd brighten up and talk for. Neither he nor Jack Drew wereparticularly friendly with Browne or his push. 

"The banker, the storekeeper, one of the publicans, the butcher (apopular man with his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of hishead, and nothing in it), the postmaster, and his toady, the lightningsquirter, were the scrub-aristocracy. The rest were crawlers, mostly pubspielers and bush larrikins, and the women were hags and larrikinesses. The town lived on cheque-men from the surrounding bush. It was a nicelittle place, taking it all round. 

"I remember a ball at the local town hall, where the scrub aristocratstook one end of the room to dance in and the ordinary scum the other. It was a saving in music. Some day an Australian writer will come alongwho'll remind the critics and readers of Dickens, Carlyle, and Thackeraymixed, and he'll do justice to these little customs of ours in thelittle settled-district towns of Democratic Australia. This sort ofthing came to a head one New Year's Night at Redclay, when there was a'public' ball and peace on earth and good will towards all men--mostlyon account of a railway to Redclay being surveyed. We were all there. They'd got the Doc. Out of his shell to act as M. C. 

"One of the aristocrats was the daughter of the local storekeeper;she belonged to the lawn-tennis clique, and they WERE select. For somereason or other--because she looked upon Miss Wilson as a slavey, oron account of a fancied slight, or the heat working on ignorance, or onaccount of something that comes over girls and women that no son of sincan account for--this Miss Tea-'n'-sugar tossed her head and refusedMiss Wilson's hand in the first set and so broke the ladies' chain andthe dance. Then there was a to-do. The Doctor held up his hand to stopthe music, and said, very quietly, that he must call upon Miss So-and-soto apologise to Miss Wilson--or resign the chair. After a lot of fussthe girl did apologise in a snappy way that was another insult. JackDrew gave Miss Wilson his arm and marched her off without a word--I sawshe was almost crying. Some one said, 'Oh, let's go on with the dance. 'The Doctor flashed round on them, but they were too paltry for him, sohe turned on his heel and went out without a word. But I was beneaththem again in social standing, so there was nothing to prevent me frommaking a few well-chosen remarks on things in general--which I did; andbroke up that ball, and broke some heads afterwards, and got myself agood deal of hatred and respect, and two sweethearts; and lost all thejobs I was likely to get, except at the bank, the Doctor's, and theRoyal. 

"One day it was raining--general rain for a week. Rain, rain, rain, overridge and scrub and galvanised iron and into the dismal creeks. I'd doneall my inside work, except a bit under the Doctor's verandah, where he'dbeen having some patching and altering done round the glass doors of hissurgery, where he consulted his patients. I didn't want to lose time. Itwas a Monday and no day for the Royal, and there was no dust, so it wasa good day for varnishing. I took a pot and brush and went along to givethe Doctor's doors a coat of varnish. The Doctor and Drew were insidewith a fire, drinking whisky and smoking, but I didn't know that whenI started work. The rain roared on the iron roof like the sea. All of asudden it held up for a minute, and I heard their voices. The doctorhad been shouting on account of the rain, and forgot to lower his voice. 'Look here, Jack Drew, ' he said, 'there are only two things for youto do if you have any regard for that girl; one is to stop this' (theliquor I suppose he meant) 'and pull yourself together; and I don'tthink you'll do that--I know men. The other is to throw up the'Advertiser'--it's doing you no good--and clear out. ' 'I won't do that, 'says Drew. 'Then shoot yourself, ' said the Doctor. '(There's anotherflask in the cupboard). You know what this hole is like. .. . She's a goodtrue girl--a girl as God made her. I knew her father and mother, and Itell you, Jack, I'd sooner see her dead than. .. . ' The roof roared again. I felt a bit delicate about the business and didn't like to disturbthem, so I knocked off for the day. 

"About a week before that I was down in the bed of the Redclay Creekfishing for 'tailers'. I'd been getting on all right with the housemaidat the 'Royal'--she used to have plates of pudding and hot pie for me onthe big gridiron arrangement over the kitchen range; and after the thirdtuck-out I thought it was good enough to do a bit of a bear-up in thatdirection. She mentioned one day, yarning, that she liked a stroll bythe creek sometimes in the cool of the evening. I thought she'd be offthat day, so I said I'd go for a fish after I'd knocked off. I thoughtI might get a bite. Anyway, I didn't catch Lizzie--tell you about thatsome other time. 

"It was Sunday. I'd been fishing for Lizzie about an hour when I saw askirt on the bank out of the tail of my eye--and thought I'd got a bite, sure. But I was had. It was Miss Wilson strolling along the bank in thesunset, all by her pretty self. She was a slight girl, not very tall, with reddish frizzled hair, grey eyes, and small, pretty features. Shespoke as if she had more brains than the average, and had been bettereducated. Jack Drew was the only young man in Redclay she could talk to, or who could talk to a girl like her; and that was the whole trouble ina nutshell. The newspaper office was next to the bank, and I'd seen herhand cups of tea and cocoa over the fence to his office window more thanonce, and sometimes they yarned for a while. 

"She said, 'Good morning, Mr. Mitchell. '

"I said, 'Good morning, Miss. '

"There's some girls I can't talk to like I'd talk to other girls. Sheasked me if I'd caught any fish, and I said, 'No, Miss. ' She asked me ifit wasn't me down there fishing with Mr. Drew the other evening, and Isaid, 'Yes--it was me. ' Then presently she asked me straight if hewas fishing down the creek that afternoon? I guessed they'd been downfishing for each other before. I said, 'No, I thought he was out oftown. ' I knew he was pretty bad at the Royal. I asked her if she'd liketo have a try with my line, but she said No, thanks, she must be going;and she went off up the creek. I reckoned Jack Drew had got a bite andlanded her. I felt a bit sorry for her, too. 

"The next Saturday evening after the rainy Monday at the Doctor's, Iwent down to fish for tailers--and Lizzie. I went down under the banksto where there was a big she-oak stump half in the water, going quietly, with an idea of not frightening the fish. I was just unwinding the linefrom my rod, when I noticed the end of another rod sticking out fromthe other side of the stump; and while I watched it was dropped into thewater. Then I heard a murmur, and craned my neck round the back ofthe stump to see who it was. I saw the back view of Jack Drew andMiss Wilson; he had his arm round her waist, and her head was on hisshoulder. She said, 'I WILL trust you, Jack--I know you'll give up thedrink for my sake. And I'll help you, and we'll be so happy!' or wordsin that direction. A thunderstorm was coming on. The sky had darkenedup with a great blue-black storm-cloud rushing over, and they hadn'tnoticed it. I didn't mind, and the fish bit best in a storm. But justas she said 'happy' came a blinding flash and a crash that shook theridges, and the first drops came peltering down. They jumped up andclimbed the bank, while I perched on the she-oak roots over the water tobe out of sight as they passed. Half way to the town I saw them standingin the shelter of an old stone chimney that stood alone. He had hisovercoat round her and was sheltering her from the wind. .. . "

"Smoke-oh, Joe. The tea's stewing. "

Mitchell got up, stretched himself, and brought the billy and pint-potsto the head of my camp. The moon had grown misty. The plain horizonhad closed in. A couple of boughs, hanging from the gnarled and blastedtimber over the billabong, were the perfect shapes of two men hangingside by side. Mitchell scratched the back of his neck and looked down atthe pup curled like a glob of mud on the sand in the moonlight, and anidea struck him. He got a big old felt hat he had, lifted his pup, noseto tail, fitted it in the hat, shook it down, holding the hat by thebrim, and stood the hat near the head of his doss, out of the moonlight. "He might get moonstruck, " said Mitchell, "and I don't want that pupto be a genius. " The pup seemed perfectly satisfied with this newarrangement. 

"Have a smoke, " said Mitchell. "You see, " he added, with a sly grin, "I've got to make up the yarn as I go along, and it's hard work. Itseems to begin to remind me of yarns your grandmother or aunt tells ofthings that happened when she was a girl--but those yarns are true. Youwon't have to listen long now; I'm well on into the second volume. 

"After the storm I hurried home to the tent--I was batching with acarpenter. I changed my clothes, made a fire in the fire-bucket withshavings and ends of soft wood, boiled the billy, and had a cup ofcoffee. It was Saturday night. My mate was at the Royal; it was cold anddismal in the tent, and there was nothing to read, so I reckoned I mightas well go up to the Royal, too, and put in the time. 

"I had to pass the Bank on the way. It was the usual weatherboard boxwith a galvanised iron top--four rooms and a passage, and a detachedkitchen and wash-house at the back; the front room to the right (behindthe office) was the family bedroom, and the one opposite it was theliving room. The 'Advertiser' office was next door. Jack Drew campedin a skillion room behind his printing office, and had his meals at theRoyal. I noticed the storm had taken a sheet of iron off theskillion, and supposed he'd sleep at the Royal that night. Next to the'Advertiser' office was the police station (still called the PoliceCamp) and the Courthouse. Next was the Imperial Hotel, where the scrubaristocrats went. There was a vacant allotment on the other side of theBank, and I took a short cut across this to the Royal. 

"They'd forgotten to pull down the blind of the dining-room window, andI happened to glance through and saw she had Jack Drew in there and wasgiving him a cup of tea. He had a bad cold, I remember, and I supposehis health had got precious to her, poor girl. As I glanced she steppedto the window and pulled down the blind, which put me out of face abit--though, of course, she hadn't seen me. I was rather surprised ather having Jack in there, till I heard that the banker, the postmaster, the constable, and some others were making a night of it at theImperial, as they'd been doing pretty often lately--and went on doingtill there was a blow-up about it, and the constable got transferredOut Back. I used to drink my share then. We smoked and played cardsand yarned and filled 'em up again at the Royal till after one in themorning. Then I started home. 

"I'd finished giving the Bank a couple of coats of stone-colour thatweek, and was cutting in in dark colour round the spouting, doors, andwindow-frames that Saturday. My head was pretty clear going home, and asI passed the place it struck me that I'd left out the only varnish brushI had. I'd been using it to give the sashes a coat of varnish colour, and remembered that I'd left it on one of the window-sills--the sillof her bedroom window, as it happened. I knew I'd sleep in next day, Sunday, and guessed it would be hot, and I didn't want the varnish toolto get spoiled; so I reckoned I'd slip in through the side gate, get it, and take it home to camp and put it in oil. The window sash was jammed, I remember, and I hadn't been able to get it up more than a couple ofinches to paint the runs of the sash. The grass grew up close underthe window, and I slipped in quietly. I noticed the sash was still upa couple of inches. Just as I grabbed the brush I heard low voicesinside--Ruth Wilson's and Jack Drew's--in her room. 

"The surprise sent about a pint of beer up into my throat in a lump. Itip-toed away out of there. Just as I got clear of the gate I saw thebanker being helped home by a couple of cronies. 

"I went home to the camp and turned in, but I couldn't sleep. I laythink--think--thinking, till I thought all the drink out of my head. I'dbrought a bottle of ale home to last over Sunday, and I drank that. Itonly made matters worse. I didn't know how I felt--I--well, I felt asif I was as good a man as Jack Drew--I--you see I've--you might think itsoft--but I loved that girl, not as I've been gone on other girls, butin the old-fashioned, soft, honest, hopeless, far-away sort of way; andnow, to tell the straight truth, I thought I might have had her. Youlose a thing through being too straight or sentimental, or not havingenough cheek; and another man comes along with more brass in his bloodand less sentimental rot and takes it up--and the world respects him;and you feel in your heart that you're a weaker man than he is. Why, part of the time I must have felt like a man does when a better manruns away with his wife. But I'd drunk a lot, and was upset andlonely-feeling that night. 

"Oh, but Redclay had a tremendous sensation next day! Jack Drew, of allthe men in the world, had been caught in the act of robbing the bank. According to Browne's account in court and in the newspapers, hereturned home that night at about twelve o'clock (which I knew was alie, for I saw him being helped home nearer two) and immediately retiredto rest (on top of the quilt, boots and all, I suppose). Some timebefore daybreak he was roused by a fancied noise (I suppose it was hishead swelling); he rose, turned up a night lamp (he hadn't lit it, I'll swear), and went through the dining-room passage and office toinvestigate (for whisky and water). He saw that the doors and windowswere secure, returned to bed, and fell asleep again. 

"There is something in a deaf person's being roused easily. I know thecase of a deaf chap who'd start up at a step or movement in the housewhen no one else could hear or feel it; keen sense of vibration, Ireckon. Well, just at daybreak (to shorten the yarn) the banker wokesuddenly, he said, and heard a crack like a shot in the house. There wasa loose flooring-board in the passage that went off like a pistol-shotsometimes when you trod on it; and I guess Jack Drew trod on it, sneaking out, and he weighed nearly twelve stone. If the truth wereknown, he probably heard Browne poking round, tried the window, foundthe sash jammed, and was slipping through the passage to the back door. Browne got his revolver, opened his door suddenly, and caught Drewstanding between the girl's door (which was shut) and the office door, with his coat on his arm and his boots in his hands. Browne covered himwith his revolver, swore he'd shoot if he moved, and yelled for help. Drew stood a moment like a man stunned; then he rushed Browne, and inthe struggle the revolver went off, and Drew got hit in the arm. Two ofthe mounted troopers--who'd been up looking to the horses for an earlystart somewhere--rushed in then, and took Drew. He had nothing to say. What could he say? He couldn't say he was a blackguard who'd takenadvantage of a poor unprotected girl because she loved him. They foundthe back door unlocked, by the way, which was put down to the burglar;of course Browne couldn't explain that he came home too muddled to lockdoors after him. 

"And the girl? She shrieked and fell when the row started, and theyfound her like a log on the floor of her room after it was over. 

"They found in Jack's overcoat pocket a parcel containing a cold chisel, small screw-wrench, file, and one or two other things that he'd boughtthat evening to tinker up the old printing press. I knew that, becauseI'd lent him a hand a few nights before, and he told me he'd have to getthe tools. They found some scratches round the key-hole and knob of theoffice door that I'd made myself, scraping old splashes of paint off thebrass and hand-plate so as to make a clean finish. Oh, it taught me thevalue of circumstantial evidence! If I was judge I wouldn't give a mantill the 'risin' av the coort' on it, any more than I would on the bareword of the noblest woman breathing. 

"At the preliminary examination Jack Drew said he was guilty. But itseemed that, according to law, he couldn't be guilty until after he wascommitted. So he was committed for trial at the next Quarter Sessions. The excitement and gabble were worse than the Dean case, or Federation, and sickened me, for they were all on the wrong track. You lose a lot oflife through being behind the scenes. But they cooled down presently towait for the trial. 

"They thought it best to take the girl away from the place where she'dgot the shock; so the Doctor took her to his house, where he had an oldhousekeeper who was as deaf as a post--a first class recommendation fora housekeeper anywhere. He got a nurse from Sydney to attend on RuthWilson, and no one except he and the nurse were allowed to go nearher. She lay like dead, they said, except when she had to be held downraving; brain fever, they said, brought on by the shock of the attemptedburglary and pistol shot. Dr. Lebinski had another doctor up from Sydneyat his own expense, but nothing could save her--and perhaps it was aswell. She might have finished her life in a lunatic asylum. They weregoing to send her to Sydney, to a brain hospital; but she died a weekbefore the Sessions. She was right-headed for an hour, they said, andasking all the time for Jack. The Doctor told her he was all right andwas coming--and, waiting and listening for him, she died. 

"The case was black enough against Drew now. I knew he wouldn't have thepluck to tell the truth now, even if he was that sort of a man. I didn'tknow what to do, so I spoke to the Doctor straight. I caught him comingout of the Royal, and walked along the road with him a bit. I supposehe thought I was going to show cause why his doors ought to have anothercoat of varnish. 

"'Hallo, Mitchell!' he said, 'how's painting?'

"'Doctor!' I said, 'what am I going to do about this business?'

"'What business?'

"'Jack Drew's. '

"He looked at me sideways--the swift haunted look. Then he walked onwithout a word, for half a dozen yards, hands behind, and studying thedust. Then he asked, quite quietly:

"'Do you know the truth?'

"'Yes!'

"About a dozen yards this time; then he said:

"'I'll see him in the morning, and see you afterwards, ' and he shookhands and went on home. 

"Next day he came to me where I was doing a job on a step ladder. Heleaned his elbow against the steps for a moment, and rubbed his handover his forehead, as if it ached and he was tired. 

"'I've seen him, Mitchell, ' he said. 

"'Yes. '

"'You were mates with him, once, Out Back?'

"'I was. '

"'You know Drew's hand-writing?'

"'I should think so. '

"He laid a leaf from a pocketbook on top of the steps. I read themessage written in pencil:

"'To Jack Mitchell. --We were mates on the track. If you know anything ofmy affair, don't give it away. --J. D. '

"I tore the leaf and dropped the bits into the paint-pot. 

"'That's all right, Doctor, ' I said; 'but is there no way?'

"'None. '

"He turned away, wearily. He'd knocked about so much over the worldthat he was past bothering about explaining things or being surprised atanything. But he seemed to get a new idea about me; he came back to thesteps again, and watched my brush for a while, as if he was thinking, in a broody sort of way, of throwing up his practice and going in forhouse-painting. Then he said, slowly and deliberately:

"'If she--the girl--had lived, we might have tried to fix it up quietly. That's what I was hoping for. I don't see how we can help him now, evenif he'd let us. He would never have spoken, anyway. We must let itgo on, and after the trial I'll go to Sydney and see what I can do atheadquarters. It's too late now. You understand, Mitchell?'

"'Yes. I've thought it out. '

"Then he went away towards the Royal. 

"And what could Jack Drew or we do? Study it out whatever way you like. There was only one possible chance to help him, and that was to go tothe judge; and the judge that happened to be on that circuit was a manwho--even if he did listen to the story and believe it--would have feltinclined to give Jack all the more for what he was charged with. Brownewas out of the question. The day before the trial I went for a long walkin the bush, but couldn't hit on anything that the Doctor might havemissed. 

"I was in the court--I couldn't keep away. The Doctor was there too. There wasn't so much of a change in Jack as I expected, only he had thegaol white in his face already. He stood fingering the rail, as if itwas the edge of a table on a platform and he was a tired and bored andsleepy chairman waiting to propose a vote of thanks. "

The only well-known man in Australia who reminds me of Mitchell is BlandHolt, the comedian. Mitchell was about as good hearted as Bland Holt, too, under it all; but he was bigger and roughened by the bush. But heseemed to be taking a heavy part to-night, for, towards the end of hisyarn, he got up and walked up and down the length of my bed, droppingthe sentences as he turned towards me. He'd folded his arms high andtight, and his face in the moonlight was--well, it was very differentfrom his careless tone of voice. He was like--like an actor actingtragedy and talking comedy. Mitchell went on, speaking quickly--hisvoice seeming to harden:

 . . . . . 

"The charge was read out--I forget how it went--it sounded like a longhymn being given out. Jack pleaded guilty. Then he straightened up forthe first time and looked round the court, with a calm, disinterestedlook--as if we were all strangers and he was noting the size of themeeting. And--it's a funny world, ain't it?--everyone of us shiftedor dropped his eyes, just as if we were the felons and Jack the judge. Everyone except the Doctor; he looked at Jack and Jack looked at him. Then the Doctor smiled--I can't describe it--and Drew smiled back. Itstruck me afterwards that I should have been in that smile. Then theDoctor did what looked like a strange thing--stood like a soldier withhis hands to Attention. I'd noticed that, whenever he'd made up his mindto do a thing, he dropped his hands to his sides: it was a sign that hecouldn't be moved. Now he slowly lifted his hand to his forehead, palmout, saluted the prisoner, turned on his heel, and marched from thecourt-room. 'He's boozin' again, ' someone whispered. 'He's got a touchof 'em. ' 'My oath, he's ratty!' said someone else. One of the trapssaid:

"'Arder in the car-rt!'

"The judge gave it to Drew red-hot on account of the burglary being thecause of the girl's death and the sorrow in a respectable family; thenhe gave him five years' hard. 

"It gave me a lot of confidence in myself to see the law of the landbarking up the wrong tree, while only I and the Doctor and the prisonerknew it. But I've found out since then that the law is often the onlyone that knows it's barking up the wrong tree. "

 . . . . . 

Mitchell prepared to turn in. 

"And what about Drew, " I asked. 

"Oh, he did his time, or most of it. The Doctor went to headquarters, but either a drunken doctor from a geebung town wasn't of much account, or they weren't taking any romance just then at headquarters. So theDoctor came back, drank heavily, and one frosty morning they found himon his back on the bank of the creek, with his face like note-paperwhere the blood hadn't dried on it, and an old pistol in his hand--thathe'd used, they said, to shoot Cossacks from horseback when he was ayoung dude fighting in the bush in Poland. "

Mitchell lay silent a good while; then he yawned. 

"Ah, well! It's a lonely track the Lachlan's tramping to-night; but Is'pose he's got his ghosts with him. "

I'd been puzzling for the last half-hour to think where I'd met or heardof Jack Drew; now it flashed on me that I'd been told that Jack Drew wasthe Lachlan's real name. 

I lay awake thinking a long time, and wished Mitchell had kept his yarnfor daytime. I felt--well, I felt as if the Lachlan's story should havebeen played in the biggest theatre in the world, by the greatest actors, with music for the intervals and situations--deep, strong music, such asthrills and lifts a man from his boot soles. And when I got to sleep Ihadn't slept a moment, it seemed to me, when I started wide awake tosee those infernal hanging boughs with a sort of nightmare idea that theLachlan hadn't gone, or had come back, and he and Mitchell had hangedthemselves sociably--Mitchell for sympathy and the sake of mateship. 

But Mitchell was sleeping peacefully, in spite of a path of moonlightacross his face--and so was the pup. 

The Darling River

The Darling--which is either a muddy gutter or a second Mississippi--isabout six times as long as the distance, in a straight line, from itshead to its mouth. The state of the river is vaguely but generallyunderstood to depend on some distant and foreign phenomena to whichbushmen refer in an off-hand tone of voice as "the Queenslan' rains", which seem to be held responsible, in a general way, for most of theout-back trouble. 

It takes less than a year to go up stream by boat to Walgett or Bourkein a dry season; but after the first three months the passengersgenerally go ashore and walk. They get sick of being stuck in the samesort of place, in the same old way; they grow weary of seeing the sameold "whaler" drop his swag on the bank opposite whenever the boat tiesup for wood; they get tired of lending him tobacco, and listening to hisideas, which are limited in number and narrow in conception. 

It shortens the journey to get out and walk; but then you will have towait so long for your luggage--unless you hump it with you. 

We heard of a man who determined to stick to a Darling boat and travelthe whole length of the river. He was a newspaper man. He started onhis voyage of discovery one Easter in flood-time, and a month later thecaptain got bushed between the Darling and South Australian border. Thewaters went away before he could find the river again, and left his boatin a scrub. They had a cargo of rations, and the crew stuck to the craftwhile the tucker lasted; when it gave out they rolled up their swags andwent to look for a station, but didn't find one. The captain would studyhis watch and the sun, rig up dials and make out courses, and followthem without success. They ran short of water, and didn't smell anyfor weeks; they suffered terrible privations, and lost three of theirnumber, NOT including the newspaper liar. There are even dark hintsconsidering the drawing of lots in connection with something tooterrible to mention. They crossed a thirty-mile plain at last, andsighted a black gin. She led them to a boundary rider's hut, where theywere taken in and provided with rations and rum. 

Later on a syndicate was formed to explore the country and recover theboat; but they found her thirty miles from the river and about eighteenfrom the nearest waterhole deep enough to float her, so they left herthere. She's there still, or else the man that told us about it is thegreatest liar Out Back. 

 . . . . . 

Imagine the hull of a North Shore ferry boat, blunted a little at theends and cut off about a foot below the water-line, and parallel to it, then you will have something shaped somewhat like the hull of a Darlingmud-rooter. But the river boat is much stronger. The boat we were onwas built and repaired above deck after the different ideas of many bushcarpenters, of whom the last seemed by his work to have regarded theoriginal plan with a contempt only equalled by his disgust at the workof the last carpenter but one. The wheel was boxed in, mostly with roundsapling-sticks fastened to the frame with bunches of nails and spikesof all shapes and sizes, most of them bent. The general result wasdecidedly picturesque in its irregularity, but dangerous to the mentalwelfare of any passenger who was foolish enough to try to comprehendthe design; for it seemed as though every carpenter had taken theopportunity to work in a little abstract idea of his own. 

The way they "dock" a Darling River boat is beautiful for itssimplicity. They choose a place where there are two stout trees aboutthe boat's length apart, and standing on a line parallel to the river. They fix pulley-blocks to the trees, lay sliding planks down into thewater, fasten a rope to one end of the steamer, and take the other endthrough the block attached to the tree and thence back aboard a secondsteamer; then they carry a rope similarly from the other end through theblock on the second tree, and aboard a third boat. At a given signalone boat leaves for Wentworth, and the other starts for the Queenslandborder. The consequence is that craft number one climbs the bankamid the cheers of the local loafers, who congregate and watch theproceedings with great interest and approval. The crew pitch tents, andset to work on the hull, which looks like a big, rough shallow box. 

 . . . . . 

We once travelled on the Darling for a hundred miles or so on a boatcalled the 'Mud Turtle'--at least, that's what WE called her. She mightreasonably have haunted the Mississippi fifty years ago. She didn't seemparticular where she went, or whether she started again or stoppedfor good after getting stuck. Her machinery sounded like a chapter ofaccidents and was always out of order, but she got along all the same, provided the steersman kept her off the bank. 

Her skipper was a young man, who looked more like a drover than asailor, and the crew bore a greater resemblance to the unemployed thanto any other body we know of, except that they looked a littlemore independent. They seemed clannish, too, with an unemployed orfree-labour sort of isolation. We have an idea that they regarded ourpersonal appearance with contempt. 

 . . . . . 

Above Louth we picked up a "whaler", who came aboard for the sake ofsociety and tobacco. Not that he hoped to shorten his journey; he had nodestination. He told us many reckless and unprincipled lies, and gaveus a few ornamental facts. One of them took our fancy, and impressedus--with its beautiful simplicity, I suppose. He said: "Some milesabove where the Darlin' and the Warrygo runs inter each other, there's abillygong runnin' right across between the two rivers and makin' a sortof tryhangular hyland; 'n' I can tel'yer a funny thing about it. " Herehe paused to light his pipe. "Now, " he continued, impressively, jerkingthe match overboard, "when the Darlin's up, and the Warrygo's LOW, the billygong runs from the Darlin' into the WARRYGO; AND, when theWarrygo's up 'n' the Darlin's down, the waters runs FROM the Warrygo 'n'inter the Darlin'. "

What could be more simple?

The steamer was engaged to go up a billabong for a load of shearers froma shed which was cutting out; and first it was necessary to tie up inthe river and discharge the greater portion of the cargo in order thatthe boat might safely negotiate the shallow waters. A local fisherman, who volunteered to act as pilot, was taken aboard, and after he wasoutside about a pint of whisky he seemed to have the greatest confidencein his ability to take us to hell, or anywhere else--at least, he saidso. A man was sent ashore with blankets and tucker to mind the wool, andwe crossed the river, butted into the anabranch, and started out back. Only the Lord and the pilot know how we got there. We travelled over thebush, through its branches sometimes, and sometimes through grass andmud, and every now and then we struck something that felt and soundedlike a collision. The boat slid down one hill, and "fetched" a stump atthe bottom with a force that made every mother's son bite his tongue orbreak a tooth. 

The shearers came aboard next morning, with their swags and twocartloads of boiled mutton, bread, "brownie", and tea and sugar. Theynumbered about fifty, including the rouseabouts. This load of sin sankthe steamer deeper into the mud; but the passengers crowded over toport, by request of the captain, and the crew poked the bank away withlong poles. When we began to move the shearers gave a howl like theyell of a legion of lost souls escaping from down below. They gave threecheers for the rouseabouts' cook, who stayed behind; then they cursedthe station with a mighty curse. They cleared a space on deck, hada jig, and afterwards a fight between the shearers' cook and hisassistant. They gave a mighty bush whoop for the Darling when the boatswung into that grand old gutter, and in the evening they had a generalall-round time. We got back, and the crew had to reload the wool withoutassistance, for it bore the accursed brand of a "freedom-of-contract"shed. 

We slept, or tried to sleep, that night on the ridge of two wool baleslaid with the narrow sides up, having first been obliged to get ashoreand fight six rounds with a shearer for the privilege of roosting there. The live cinders from the firebox went up the chimney all night, andfell in showers on deck. Every now and again a spark would burn throughthe "Wagga rug" of a sleeping shearer, and he'd wake suddenly and get upand curse. It was no use shifting round, for the wind was all ways, and the boat steered north, south, east, and west to humour the river. Occasionally a low branch would root three or four passengers off theirwool bales, and they'd get up and curse in chorus. The boat started twosnags; and towards daylight struck a stump. The accent was on the stump. A wool bale went overboard, and took a swag and a dog with it; then theowner of the swag and dog and the crew of the boat had a swearing matchbetween them. The swagman won. 

About daylight we stretched our cramped limbs, extricated one leg frombetween the wool bales, and found that the steamer was just crayfishingaway from a mud island, where she had tied up for more wool. Some of thechaps had been ashore and boiled four or five buckets of tea and coffee. Shortly after the boat had settled down to work again an incident camealong. A rouseabout rose late, and, while the others were at breakfast, got an idea into his head that a good "sloosh" would freshen him up; sohe mooched round until he found a big wooden bucket with a rope to it. He carried the bucket aft of the wheel. The boat was butting up streamfor all she was worth, and the stream was running the other way, ofcourse, and about a hundred times as fast as a train. The jackeroo gavethe line a turn round his wrist; before anyone could see him in time tosuppress him, he lifted the bucket, swung it to and fro, and dropped itcleverly into the water. 

This delayed us for nearly an hour. A couple of men jumped into the rowboat immediately and cast her adrift. They picked up the jackeroo abouta mile down the river, clinging to a snag, and when we hauled him aboardhe looked like something the cat had dragged in, only bigger. We revivedhim with rum and got him on his feet; and then, when the captain andcrew had done cursing him, he rubbed his head, went forward, and had alook at the paddle; then he rubbed his head again, thought, and remarkedto his mates:

"Wasn't it lucky I didn't dip that bucket FOR'ARD the wheel?"

This remark struck us forcibly. We agreed that it was lucky--for him;but the captain remarked that it was damned unlucky for the world, which, he explained, was over-populated with fools already. 

Getting on towards afternoon we found a barge loaded with wool and tiedup to a tree in the wilderness. There was no sign of a man to be seen, nor any sign, except the barge, that a human being had ever been there. The captain took the craft in tow, towed it about ten miles up thestream, and left it in a less likely place than where it was before. 

Floating bottles began to be more frequent, and we knew by that sametoken that we were nearing "Here's Luck!"--Bourke, we mean. And thisreminds us. 

When the Brewarrina people observe a more than ordinary number ofbottles floating down the river, they guess that Walgett is on thespree; when the Louth chaps see an unbroken procession of dead marinesfor three or four days they know that Bourke's drunk. The poor, God-abandoned "whaler" sits in his hungry camp at sunset and watches theempty symbols of Hope go by, and feels more God-forgotten than ever--andthirstier, if possible--and gets a great, wide, thirsty, quaking, emptylonging to be up where those bottles come from. If the townspeople knewhow much misery they caused by their thoughtlessness they would drowntheir dead marines, or bury them, but on no account allow them to godrifting down the river, and stirring up hells in the bosoms of lessfortunate fellow-creatures. 

There came a man from Adelaide to Bourke once, and he collected all theempty bottles in town, stacked them by the river, and waited for a boat. What he wanted them for the legend sayeth not, but the people reckonedhe had a "private still", or something of that sort, somewhere down theriver, and were satisfied. What he came from Adelaide for, or whether hereally did come from there, we do not know. All the Darling bunyips aresupposed to come from Adelaide. Anyway, the man collected all the emptybottles he could lay his hands on, and piled them on the bank, wherethey made a good show. He waited for a boat to take his cargo, and, while waiting, he got drunk. That excited no comment. He stayed drunkfor three weeks, but the townspeople saw nothing unusual in that. Inorder to become an object of interest in their eyes, and in that line, he would have had to stay drunk for a year and fight three times aday--oftener, if possible--and lie in the road in the broilingheat between whiles, and be walked on by camels and Afghans andfree-labourers, and be locked up every time he got sober enough to smasha policeman, and try to hang himself naked, and be finally squashed by aloaded wool team. 

But while he drank the Darling rose, for reasons best known to itself, and floated those bottles off. They strung out and started for theAntarctic Ocean, with a big old wicker-worked demijohn in the lead. 

For the first week the down-river men took no notice; but after thebottles had been drifting past with scarcely a break for a fortnight orso, they began to get interested. Several whalers watched the processionuntil they got the jimjams by force of imagination, and when theirbodies began to float down with the bottles, the down-river people gotanxious. 

At last the Mayor of Wilcannia wired Bourke to know whether Dibbs orParkes was dead, or democracy triumphant, or if not, wherefore thejubilation? Many telegrams of a like nature were received during thatweek, and the true explanation was sent in reply to each. But it wasn'tbelieved, and to this day Bourke has the name of being the most drunkentown on the river. 

After dinner a humorous old hard case mysteriously took us aside andsaid he had a good yarn which we might be able to work up. We asked himhow, but he winked a mighty cunning wink and said that he knew all aboutus. Then he asked us to listen. He said:

"There was an old feller down the Murrumbidgee named Kelly. He was abit gone here. One day Kelly was out lookin' for some sheep, when hegot lost. It was gettin' dark. Bymeby there came an old crow in a treeoverhead. 

"'Kel-ley, you're lo-o-st! Kel-ley, you're lo-o-st!' sez the crow. 

"'I know I am, ' sez Kelly. 

"'Fol-ler me, fol-ler me, ' sez the crow. 

"'Right y'are, ' sez Kelly, with a jerk of his arm. 'Go ahead. '

"So the crow went on, and Kelly follered, an' bymeby he found he was onthe right track. 

"Sometime after Kelly was washin' sheep (this was when we useter washthe sheep instead of the wool). Kelly was standin' on the platform witha crutch in his hand landin' the sheep, when there came a old crow inthe tree overhead. 

"'Kelly, I'm hun-gry! Kel-ley, I'm hun-ger-ry!' sez the crow. 

"'Alright, ' sez Kelly; 'be up at the hut about dinner time 'n' I'llsling you out something. '

"'Drown--a--sheep! Drown--a--sheep, Kel-ley, ' sez the crow. 

"'Blanked if I do, ' sez Kelly. 'If I drown a sheep I'll have to pay forit, be-God!'

"'Then I won't find yer when yer lost agin, ' sez the crow. 

"'I'm damned if yer will, ' says Kelly. 'I'll take blanky good care Iwon't get lost again, to be found by a gory ole crow. '"

 . . . . . 

There are a good many fishermen on the Darling. They camp along thebanks in all sorts of tents, and move about in little box boats thatwill only float one man. The fisherman is never heavy. He is mostly awithered little old madman, with black claws, dirty rags (which he neverchanges), unkempt hair and beard, and a "ratty" expression. We cannotsay that we ever saw him catch a fish, or even get a bite, and wecertainly never saw him offer any for sale. 

He gets a dozen or so lines out into the stream, with the shore endfastened to pegs or roots on the bank, and passed over sticks about fourfeet high, stuck in the mud; on the top of these sticks he hangs bullockbells, or substitutes--jam tins with stones fastened inside to bits ofstring. Then he sits down and waits. If the cod pulls the line the bellrings. 

The fisherman is a great authority on the river and fish, but hasusually forgotten everything else, including his name. He chops firewoodfor the boats sometimes, but it isn't his profession--he's a fisherman. He is only sane on points concerning the river, though he has all thefisherman's eccentricities. Of course he is a liar. 

When he gets his camp fixed on one bank it strikes him he ought to beover on the other, or at a place up round the bend, so he shifts. Thenhe reckons he was a fool for not stopping where he was before. Henever dies. He never gets older, or drier, or more withered looking, or dirtier, or loonier--because he can't. We cannot imagine him as everhaving been a boy, or even a youth. We cannot even try to imagine himas a baby. He is an animated mummy, who used to fish on the Nile threethousand years ago, and catch nothing. 

 . . . . . 

We forgot to mention that there are wonderfully few wrecks on theDarling. The river boats seldom go down--their hulls are not built thatway--and if one did go down it wouldn't sink far. But, once down, a boatis scarcely ever raised again; because, you see, the mud silts up roundit and over it, and glues it, as it were, to the bottom of the river. Then the forty-foot alligators--which come down with the "Queenslan'rains", we suppose--root in the mud and fill their bellies with soddenflour and drowned deck-hands. 

They tried once to blow up a wreck with dynamite because it (thewreck) obstructed navigation; but they blew the bottom out of the riverinstead, and all the water went through. The Government have been boringfor it ever since. I saw some of the bores myself--there is one atCoonamble. 

There is a yarn along the Darling about a cute Yankee who was invitedup to Bourke to report on a proposed scheme for locking the river. Hearrived towards the end of a long and severe drought, and was met at therailway station by a deputation of representative bushmen, who invitedhim, in the first place, to accompany them to the principal pub--whichhe did. He had been observed to study the scenery a good deal whilecoming up in the train, but kept his conclusions to himself. On the wayto the pub he had a look at the town, and it was noticed that he tiltedhis hat forward very often, and scratched the back of his head agood deal, and pondered a lot; but he refrained from expressing anopinion--even when invited to do so. He guessed that his opinionswouldn't do much good, anyway, and he calculated that they would keeptill he got back "over our way"--by which it was reckoned he meant theStates. 

When they asked him what he'd have, he said to Watty the publican:

"Wal, I reckon you can build me your national drink. I guess I'll tryit. "

A long colonial was drawn for him, and he tried it. He seemed ratherstartled at first, then he looked curiously at the half-empty glass, set it down very softly on the bar, and leaned against the same andfell into a reverie; from which he roused himself after a while, with asorrowful jerk of his head. 

"Ah, well, " he said. "Show me this river of yourn. "

They led him to the Darling, and he had a look at it. 

"Is this your river?" he asked. 

"Yes, " they replied, apprehensively. 

He tilted his hat forward till the brim nearly touched his nose, scratched the back of his long neck, shut one eye, and looked at theriver with the other. Then, after spitting half a pint of tobacco juiceinto the stream, he turned sadly on his heel and led the way back to thepub. He invited the boys to "pisen themselves"; after they were servedhe ordered out the longest tumbler on the premises, poured a drop intoit from nearly every bottle on the shelf, added a lump of ice, and drankslowly and steadily. 

Then he took pity on the impatient and anxious population, opened hismouth, and spake. 

"Look here, fellows, " he drawled, jerking his arm in the direction ofthe river, "I'll tell you what I'll dew. I'll bottle that damned riverof yourn in twenty-four hours!"

Later on he mellowed a bit, under the influence of several drinks whichwere carefully and conscientiously "built" from plans and specificationssupplied by himself, and then, among other things, he said:

"If that there river rises as high as you say it dew--and if this wasthe States--why, we'd have had the Great Eastern up here twenty yearsago"----or words to that effect. 

Then he added, reflectively:

"When I come over here I calculated that I was going to make thingshum, but now I guess I'll have to change my prospectus. There's a lot ofloose energy laying round over our way, but I guess that if I wantedto make things move in your country I'd have to bring over the entireAmerican nation--also his wife and dawg. You've got the makings of aglorious nation over here, but you don't get up early enough!"

 . . . . . 

The only national work performed by the blacks is on the Darling. Theythrew a dam of rocks across the river--near Brewarrina, we think--tomake a fish trap. It's there yet. But God only knows where they got thestones from, or how they carried them, for there isn't a pebble withinforty miles. 

A Case for the Oracle

The Oracle and I were camped together. The Oracle was a bricklayer bytrade, and had two or three small contracts on hand. I was "doing abit of house-painting". There were a plasterer, a carpenter, and aplumber--we were all T'othersiders, and old mates, and we workedthings together. It was in Westralia--the Land of T'othersiders--and, therefore, we were not surprised when Mitchell turned up early onemorning, with his swag and an atmosphere of salt water about him. 

He'd had a rough trip, he said, and would take a spell that day and takethe lay of the land and have something cooked for us by the time we camehome; and go to graft himself next morning. And next morning he went towork, "labouring" for the Oracle. 

The Oracle and his mates, being small contractors and not pressed fortime, had dispensed with the services of a labourer, and had done theirown mixing and hod-carrying in turns. They didn't want a labourer now, but the Oracle was a vague fatalist, and Mitchell a decided one. So itpassed. 

The Oracle had a "Case" right under his nose--in his own employ, infact; but was not aware of the fact until Mitchell drew his attentionto it. The Case went by the name of Alfred O'Briar--which hinted a mixedparentage. He was a small, nervous working-man, of no particular colour, and no decided character, apparently. If he had a soul above bricks, henever betrayed it. He was not popular on the jobs. There was somethingsly about Alf, they said. 

The Oracle had taken him on in the first place as a day-labourer, but afterwards shared the pay with him as with Mitchell. O'Briarshouted--judiciously, but on every possible occasion--for the Oracle;and, as he was an indifferent workman, the boys said he only did this sothat the Oracle might keep him on. If O'Briar took things easy and didno more than the rest of us, at least one of us would be sure to get itinto his head that he was loafing on us; and if he grafted harder thanwe did, we'd be sure to feel indignant about that too, and reckon thatit was done out of nastiness or crawlsomeness, and feel a contempt forhim accordingly. We found out accidentally that O'Briar was an excellentmimic and a bit of a ventriloquist, but he never entertained us with hispeculiar gifts; and we set that down to churlishness. 

O'Briar kept his own counsel, and his history, if he had one; and hidhis hopes, joys, and sorrows, if he had any, behind a vacant grin, as Mitchell hid his behind a quizzical one. He never resented allegedsatire--perhaps he couldn't see it--and therefore he got the name ofbeing a cur. As a rule, he was careful with his money, and was calledmean--not, however, by the Oracle, whose philosophy was simple, andwhose sympathy could not realise a limit; nor yet by Mitchell. Mitchellwaited. 

 . . . . . 

O'Briar occupied a small tent by himself, and lived privately ofevenings. When we began to hear two men talking at night in his tent, we were rather surprised, and wondered in a vague kind of way how any ofthe chaps could take sufficient interest in Alf to go in and yarn withhim. In the days when he was supposed to be sociable, we had voted him abore; even the Oracle was moved to admit that he was "a bit slow". 

But late one night we distinctly heard a woman's voice in O'Briar'stent. The Oracle suddenly became hard of hearing, and, though we heardthe voice on several occasions, he remained exasperatingly deaf, yetaggressively unconscious of the fact. "I have got enough to do puzzlingover me own whys and wherefores, " he said. Mitchell began to take someinterest in O'Briar, and treated him with greater respect. But our camphad the name of being the best-constructed, the cleanest, and the mostrespectable in the vicinity. The health officer and constable in chargehad complimented us on the fact, and we were proud of it. And there werethree young married couples in camp, also a Darby and Joan; therefore, when the voice of a woman began to be heard frequently and atdisreputable hours of the night in O'Briar's tent, we got uneasy aboutit. And when the constable who was on night duty gave us a friendlyhint, Mitchell and I agreed that something must be done. 

"Av coorse, men will be men, " said the constable, as he turned hishorse's head, "but I thought I'd mention it. O'Briar is a dacent man, and he's one of yer mates. Av coorse. There's a bad lot in that camp inthe scrub over yander, and--av coorse. Good-day to ye, byes. "

 . . . . . 

Next night we heard the voice in O'Briar's tent again, and decided tospeak to Alf in a friendly way about it in the morning. We listenedoutside in the dark, but could not distinguish the words, though Ithought I recognised the voice. 

"It's the hussy from the camp over there; she's got holt of that fool, and she'll clean him out before she's done, " I said. "We're Alf's mates, any way it goes, and we ought to put a stop to it. "

"What hussy?" asked Mitchell; "there's three or four there. "

"The one with her hair all over her head, " I answered. 

"Where else should it be?" asked Mitchell. "But I'll just have a peepand see who it is. There's no harm in that. "

He crept up to the tent and cautiously moved the flap. Alf's candle wasalight; he lay on his back in his bunk with his arms under his head, calmly smoking. We withdrew. 

"They must have heard us, " said Mitchell; "and she's slipped out underthe tent at the back, and through the fence into the scrub. "

Mitchell's respect for Alf increased visibly. 

But we began to hear ominous whispers from the young married couples, and next Saturday night, which was pay-night, we decided to see itthrough. We did not care to speak to Alf until we were sure. He stayedin camp, as he often did, on Saturday evening, while the others wentup town. Mitchell and I returned earlier than usual, and leaned on thefence at the back of Alf's tent. 

We were scarcely there when we were startled by a "rat-tat-tat" as ofsomeone knocking at a door. Then an old woman's voice INSIDE the tentasked: "Who's there?"

"It's me, " said Alf's voice from the front, "Mr. O'Briar from Perth. "

"Mary, go and open the door!" said the old woman. (Mitchell nudged me tokeep quiet. )

"Come in, Mr. O'Breer, " said the old woman. "Come in. How do you do?When did you get back?"

"Only last night, " said Alf. 

"Look at that now! Bless us all! And how did you like the country atall?"

"I didn't care much for it, " said Alf. We lost the thread of it untilthe old woman spoke again. 

"Have you had your tea, Mr. O'Breer?"

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. O'Connor. "

"Are you quite sure, man?"

"Quite sure, thank you, Mrs. O'Connor. " (Mitchell trod on my foot. )

"Will you have a drop of whisky or a glass of beer, Mr. O'Breer?"

"I'll take a glass of beer, thank you, Mrs. O'Connor. "

There seemed to be a long pause. Then the old woman said, "Ah, well, Imust get my work done, and Mary will stop here and keep you company, Mr. O'Breer. " The arrangement seemed satisfactory to all parties, for therewas nothing more said for a while. (Mitchell nudged me again, withemphasis, and I kicked his shin. )

Presently Alf said: "Mary!" And a girl's voice said, "Yes, Alf. "

"You remember the night I went away, Mary?"

"Yes, Alf, I do. "

"I have travelled long ways since then, Mary; I worked hard and livedclose. I didn't make my fortune, but I managed to rub a note or twotogether. It was a hard time and a lonesome time for me, Mary. Thesummer's awful over there, and livin's bad and dear. You couldn't haveany idea of it, Mary. "

"No, Alf. "

"I didn't come back so well off as I expected. "

"But that doesn't matter, Alf. "

"I got heart-sick and tired of it, and couldn't stand it any longer, Mary. "

"But that's all over now, Alf; you mustn't think of it. "

"Your mother wrote to me. "

"I know she did"--(very low and gently). 

"And do you know what she put in it, Mary?"

"Yes, Alf. "

"And did you ask her to put it in?"

"Don't ask me, Alf. "

"And it's all true, Mary?"

There was no answer, but the silence seemed satisfactory. 

"And be sure you have yourself down here on Sunday, Alf, me son. "("There's the old woman come back!" said Mitchell. )

"An' since the girl's willin' to have ye, and the ould woman'swillin'--there's me hand on it, Alf, me boy. An' God bless ye both. "("The old man's come now, " said Mitchell. )

 . . . . . 

"Come along, " said Mitchell, leading the way to the front of the tent. 

"But I wouldn't like to intrude on them. It's hardly right, Mitchell, isit?"

"That's all right, " said Mitchell. He tapped the tent pole. 

"Come in, " said Alf. Alf was lying on his bunk as before, with his armsunder his head. His face wore a cheerful, not to say happy, expression. There was no one else in the tent. I was never more surprised in mylife. 

"Have you got the paper, Alf?" said Mitchell. 

"Yes. You'll find it there at the foot of the bunk. There it is. Won'tyou sit down, Mitchell?"

"Not to-night, " said Mitchell. "We brought you a bottle of ale. We'rejust going to turn in. "

And we said "good-night". "Well, " I said to Mitchell when we got inside, "what do you think of it?"

"I don't think of it at all, " said Mitchell. "Do you mean to say youcan't see it now?"

"No, I'm dashed if I can, " I said. "Some of us must be drunk, I think, or getting rats. It's not to be wondered at, and the sooner we get outof this country the better. "

"Well, you must be a fool, Joe, " said Mitchell. "Can't you see? ALFTHINKS ALOUD. "

"WHAT?"

"Talks to himself. He was thinking about going back to his sweetheart. Don't you know he's a bit of a ventriloquist?"

Mitchell lay awake a long time, in the position that Alf usually lay in, and thought. Perhaps he thought on the same lines as Alf did that night. But Mitchell did his thinking in silence. 

We thought it best to tell the Oracle quietly. He was deeply interested, but not surprised. "I've heerd of such cases before, " he said. But theOracle was a gentleman. "There's things that a man wants to keep tohimself that ain't his business, " he said. And we understood this remarkto be intended for our benefit, and to indicate a course of action uponwhich the Oracle had decided, with respect to this case, and which we, in his opinion, should do well to follow. 

Alf got away a week or so later, and we all took a holiday and went downto Fremantle to see him off. Perhaps he wondered why Mitchell grippedhis hand so hard and wished him luck so earnestly, and was surprisedwhen he gave him three cheers. 

"Ah, well!" remarked Mitchell, as we turned up the wharf. 

"I've heerd of such cases before, " said the Oracle, meditatively. "Theyain't common, but I've hear'd of such cases before. "

A Daughter of Maoriland

 A sketch of poor-class Maoris

The new native-school teacher, who was "green", "soft", and poetical, and had a literary ambition, called her "August", and fondly hoped tobuild a romance on her character. She was down in the school registersas Sarah Moses, Maori, 16 years and three months. She looked twenty; butthis was nothing, insomuch as the mother of the youngest child in theschool--a dear little half-caste lady of two or three summers--had notherself the vaguest idea of the child's age, nor anybody else's, norof ages in the abstract. The church register was lost some six yearsbefore, when "Granny", who was a hundred, if a day, was supposed tobe about twenty-five. The teacher had to guess the ages of all the newpupils. 

August was apparently the oldest in the school--a big, ungainly, awkwardgirl, with a heavy negro type of Maori countenance, and about as muchanimation, mentally or physically, as a cow. She was given to brooding;in fact, she brooded all the time. She brooded all day over her schoolwork, but did it fairly well. How the previous teachers had taught herall she knew was a mystery to the new one. There had been a tragedy inAugust's family when she was a child, and the affair seemed to have casta gloom over the lives of the entire family, for the lowering broodingcloud was on all their faces. August would take to the bush when thingswent wrong at home, and climb a tree and brood till she was found andcoaxed home. Things, according to pa gossip, had gone wrong with herfrom the date of the tragedy, when she, a bright little girl, wastaken--a homeless orphan--to live with a sister, and, afterwards, withan aunt-by-marriage. They treated her, 'twas said, with a brutalitywhich must have been greatly exaggerated by pa-gossip, seeingthat unkindness of this description is, according to all the bestauthorities, altogether foreign to Maori nature. 

Pa-gossip--which is less reliable than the ordinary washerwoman kind, because of a deeper and more vicious ignorance--had it that one timewhen August was punished by a teacher (or beaten by her sister oraunt-by-marriage) she "took to the bush" for three days, at theexpiration of which time she was found on the ground in an exhaustedcondition. She was evidently a true Maori or savage, and this was one ofthe reasons why the teacher with the literary ambition took an interestin her. She had a print of a portrait of a man in soldier's uniform, taken from a copy of the 'Illustrated London News', pasted over thefireplace in the whare where she lived, and neatly bordered by vandykedstrips of silvered tea-paper. She had pasted it in the place of honour, or as near as she could get to it. The place of honour was sacredto framed representations of the Nativity and Catholic subjects, half-modelled, half-pictured. The print was a portrait of the last Czarof Russia, of all the men in the world; and August was reported to havesaid that she loved that man. His father had been murdered, so had hermother. This was one of the reasons why the teacher with the literaryambition thought he could get a romance out of her. 

After the first week she hung round the new schoolmistress, dog-like--with "dog-like affection", thought the teacher. She came downoften during the holidays, and hung about the verandah and back door foran hour or so; then, by-and-bye, she'd be gone. Her brooding seemedless aggressive on such occasions. The teacher reckoned that she hadsomething on her mind, and wanted to open her heart to "the wife", butwas too ignorant or too shy, poor girl; and he reckoned, from his theoryof Maori character, that it might take her weeks, or months, to come tothe point. One day, after a great deal of encouragement, she explainedthat she felt "so awfully lonely, Mrs. Lorrens. " All the other girlswere away, and she wished it was school-time. 

She was happy and cheerful again, in her brooding way, in theplayground. There was something sadly ludicrous about her great, ungainly figure slopping round above the children at play. Theschoolmistress took her into the parlour, gave her tea and cake, and waskind to her; and she took it all with broody cheerfulness. 

One Sunday morning she came down to the cottage and sat on the edge ofthe verandah, looking as wretchedly miserable as a girl could. She wasin rags--at least, she had a rag of a dress on--and was barefooted andbareheaded. She said that her aunt had turned her out, and she was goingto walk down the coast to Whale Bay to her grandmother--a long day'sride. The teacher was troubled, because he was undecided what to do. He had to be careful to avoid any unpleasantness arising out of Maoricliquism. As the teacher he couldn't let her go in the state she was in;from the depths of his greenness he trusted her, from the depths ofhis softness he pitied her; his poetic nature was fiercely indignant onaccount of the poor girl's wrongs, and the wife spoke for her. Then hethought of his unwritten romance, and regarded August in the light ofcopy, and that settled it. While he talked the matter over with hiswife, August "hid in the dark of her hair, " awaiting her doom. Theteacher put his hat on, walked up to the pa, and saw her aunt. Shedenied that she had turned August out, but the teacher believedthe girl. He explained his position, in words simplified for Maoricomprehension, and the aunt and relations said they understood, and thathe was "perfectly right, Mr. Lorrens. " They were very respectful. Theteacher said that if August would not return home, he was willing to lether stay at the cottage until such time as her uncle, who was absent, returned, and he (the teacher) could talk the matter over with him. Therelations thought that that was the very best thing that could be done, and thanked him. The aunt, two sisters, and as many of the others, including the children, as were within sight or hail at the time--mostof them could not by any possible means have had the slightestconnection with the business in hand--accompanied the teacher to thecottage. August took to the flax directly she caught sight of herrelations, and was with difficulty induced to return. There was a lotof talk in Maori, during which the girl and her aunt shuffled and swunground at the back of each other, and each talked over her shoulder, andlaughed foolishly and awkwardly once or twice; but in the end the girlwas sullenly determined not to return home, so it was decided that sheshould stay. The schoolmistress made tea. 

August brightened from the first day. She was a different girlaltogether. "I never saw such a change in a girl, " said the youngschoolmistress, and one or two others. "I always thought she was agood girl if taken the right way; all she wanted was a change and kindtreatment. " But the stolid old Maori chairman of the school committeeonly shrugged his shoulders and said (when the schoolmistress, woman-like, pressed him for an opinion to agree with her own), "You canlook at it two ways, Mrs. Lorrens. " Which, by the way, was about theonly expression of opinion that the teacher was ever able to get out ofhim on any subject. 

August worked and behaved well. She was wonderfully quick in picking upEnglish ways and housework. True, she was awkward and not over cleanlyin some things, but her mistress had patience with her. Who wouldn'thave? She "couldn't do enough" for her benefactress; she hung on herwords and sat at her footstool of evenings in a way that gladdened theteacher's sentimental nature; she couldn't bear to see him help his wifewith a hat-pin or button--August must do it. She insisted on doing hermistress' hair every night. In short, she tried in every way to show hergratitude. The teacher and his wife smiled brightly at each other behindher back, and thought how cheerful the house was since she came, andwondered what they'd do without her. It was a settled thing that theyshould take her back to the city with them, and have a faithful andgrateful retainer all their lives and a sort of Aunt Chloe for theirchildren, when they had any. The teacher got yards of copy out of herfor his "Maori Sketches and Characters", worked joyously at his romance, and felt great already, and was happy. She had a bed made up temporarily(until the teacher could get a spring mattress for her from town) on thefloor in the dining-room, and when she'd made her bed she'd squat on itin front of the fire and sing Maori songs in a soft voice. She'd singthe teacher and his wife, in the next room, to sleep. Then she'd get upand have a feed, but they never heard her. 

Her manners at the table (for she was treated "like one of themselves"in the broadest sense of the term) were surprisingly good, consideringthat the adults of her people were decidedly cow-like in white society, and scoffed sea-eggs, shell-fish, and mutton-birds at home with a gallopwhich was not edifying. Her appetite, it was true, was painful at timesto the poetic side of the teacher's nature; but he supposed that she'dbeen half-starved at home, poor girl, and would get over it. Anyway, thecopy he'd get out of her would repay him for this and other expenses ahundredfold. Moreover, begging and borrowing had ceased with her advent, and the teacher set this down to her influence. 

The first jar came when she was sent on horseback to the town forgroceries, and didn't get back till late the next day. She explainedthat some of her relations got hold of her and made her stay, and wantedher to go into public-houses with them, but she wouldn't. She said thatSHE wanted to come home. But why didn't she? The teacher let it pass, and hoped she'd gain strength of character by-and-bye. He had waited uplate the night before with her supper on the hob; and he and his wifehad been anxious for fear something had happened to the poor girlwho was under their care. He had walked to the treacherous river-fordseveral times during the evening, and waited there for her. So perhapshe was tired, and that was why he didn't write next night. 

The sugar-bag, the onion-basket, the potato-bag and the tea-chest beganto "go down" alarmingly, and an occasional pound of candles, a pigeon, a mutton-bird (plucked and ready for Sunday's cooking), and other littletrifles went, also. August couldn't understand it, and the teacherbelieved her, for falsehood and deceit are foreign to the simple naturesof the modern Maoris. There were no cats; but no score of ordinary catscould have given colour to the cat theory, had it been raised in thiscase. The breath of August advertised onions more than once, but nohuman stomach could have accounted for the quantity. She surely couldnot have eaten the other things raw--and she had no opportunities forprivate cooking, as far as the teacher and his wife could see. The otherMaoris were out of the question; they were all strictly honest. 

Thefts and annoyances of the above description were credited to the"swaggies" who infested the roads, and had a very bad name down thatway; so the teacher loaded his gun, and told August to rouse him atonce, if she heard a sound in the night. She said she would; but aheavy-weight "swaggie" could have come in and sat on her and had a smokewithout waking her. 

She couldn't be trusted to go a message. She'd take from three to sixhours, and come back with an excuse that sounded genuine from its verysimplicity. Another sister of hers lay ill in an isolated hut, alone anduncared for, except by the teacher's wife, and occasionally by a poor paoutcast who had negro blood in her veins, and a love for a white loafer. God help her! All of which sounds strange, considering that Maoris arevery kind to each other. The schoolmistress sent August one night tostay with the sick Maori woman and help her as she could, and gave herstrict instructions to come to the cottage first thing in the morning, and tell her how the sick woman was. August turned up at lunch-time nextday. The teacher gave her her first lecture, and said plainly that hewasn't to be taken for a fool; then he stepped aside to get cool, and, when he returned, the girl was sobbing as if her heart would break, andthe wife comforting her. She had been up all night, poor girl, and wasthoroughly worn out. Somehow the teacher didn't feel uncomfortable aboutit. He went down to the whare. August had not touched a dishcloth orbroom. She had slept, as she always did, like a pig, all night, whileher sister lay and tossed in agony; in the morning she ate everythingthere was to eat in the house (which, it seemed, was the Maori way ofshowing sympathy in sickness and trouble), after which she broodedby the fire till the children, running out of school, announced theteacher's lunch hour. 

August braced up again for a little while. The master thought of thetrouble they had with Ayacanora in "Westward Ho", and was comforted, andtackled his romance again. Then the schoolmistress fell sick and thingswent wrong. The groceries went down faster than ever, and the house gotvery dirty, and began to have a native smell about it. August grew fat, and lazy, and dirty, and less reliable on washing-days, or when therewas anything special to do in the house. "The savage blood is strong, "thought the teacher, "and she is beginning to long for her own peopleand free unconventional life. " One morning--on a washing-day, too, as ithappened--she called out, before the teacher and his wife were up, thatthe Maoris who supplied them with milk were away, and she had promisedto go up and milk the cow and bring the milk down. The teacher gave herpermission. One of the scholars usually brought the milk early. Lunchtime came and no August, no milk--strangest of all, only half the schoolchildren. The teacher put on his hat, and went up to the pa once more. He found August squatted in the midst of a circle of relations. She wasentertaining them with one of a series of idealistic sketches of theteacher's domestic life, in which she showed a very vivid imagination, and exhibited an unaccountable savage sort of pessimism. Her intervalsof absence had been occupied in this way from the first. The astoundingslanders she had circulated concerning the teacher's private life cameback, bit by bit, to his ears for a year afterwards, and her charactersketches of previous teachers, and her own relations--for she sparednobody--would have earned a white woman a long and well-merited term ofimprisonment for criminal libel. She had cunningly, by straightforwardand unscrupulous lying, prejudiced the principal mother and boss womanof the pa against the teacher and his wife; as a natural result of whichthe old lady, who, like the rest, was very ignorant and ungrateful, "turned nasty" and kept the children from school. The teacher losthis temper, so the children were rounded up and hurried down toschool immediately; with them came August and her aunt, with allegedexplanations and excuses, and a shell-fish. The aunt and sisters saidthey'd have nothing to do with August. They didn't want her and wouldn'thave her. The teacher said that, under those circumstances, she'd bettergo and drown herself; so she went home with them. 

The whole business had been a plot by her nearest relations. Theygot rid of the trouble and expense of keeping her, and the bother ofborrowing in person, whenever in need of trifles in the grocery line. Borrowing recommenced with her dismissal; but the teacher put a fullstop to it, as far as he was concerned. Then August, egged on by heraunt, sent a blackguardly letter to the teacher's wife; the sick sister, by the way, who had been nursed and supplied with food by her all along, was in it, and said she was glad August sent the letter, and it servedthe schoolmistress right. The teacher went up to the pa once more; anhour later, August in person, accompanied, as usual, by a relationor two, delivered at the cottage an abject apology in writing, thecomposition of which would have discouraged the most enthusiasticadvocate of higher education for the lower classes. 

Then various petty annoyances were tried. The teacher is firmlyconvinced that certain animal-like sounds round the house at night weredue to August's trying to find out whether his wife was as likely to behaunted as the Maoris were. He didn't dream of such a thing at the time, for he did not believe that one of them had the pluck to venture outafter dark. But savage superstition must give way to savage hate. The girl's last "try-on" was to come down to the school fence, andostentatiously sharpen a table-knife on the wires, while she scowledmurderously in the direction of the schoolmistress, who was hanging outher washing. August looked, in her dark, bushy, Maori hair, a thoroughlywild savage. Her father had murdered her mother under particularlybrutal circumstances, and the daughter took after her father. 

The teacher called her and said: "Now, look here, my lady, the bestthing you can do is to drop that nonsense at once" (she had dropped theknife in the ferns behind her), "for we're the wrong sort of peopleto try it on with. Now you get out of this and tell your aunt--she'ssneaking there in the flax--what I tell you, and that she'd better clearout of this quick, or I'll have a policeman out and take the wholegang into town in an hour. Now be off, and shut that gate behind you, carefully, and fasten it. " She did, and went. 

The worst of it was that the August romance copy was useless. Her lieswere even less reliable and picturesque than the common Jones Alley haglie. Then the teacher thought of the soft fool he'd been, and that madehim wild. He looked like a fool, and was one to a great extent, but itwasn't good policy to take him for one. 

Strange to say, he and others had reason to believe that Augustrespected him, and liked him rather than otherwise; but she hated hiswife, who had been kind to her, as only a savage can hate. The youngerpupils told the teacher, cheerfully and confidently, that August saidshe'd cut Mrs. Lorrens' throat the first chance she got. Next week theaunt sent down to ask if the teacher could sell her a bar of soap, andsent the same old shilling; he was tired of seeing it stuck out in frontof him, so he took it, put it in his pocket, and sent the soap. Thismust have discouraged them, for the borrowing industry petered out. Hesaw the aunt later on, and she told him, cheerfully, that August wasgoing to live with a half-caste in a certain house in town. 

Poor August! For she was only a tool after all. Her "romance" wasbriefly as follows:--She went, per off-hand Maori arrangement, as'housekeeper' in the hut of a labourer at a neighbouring saw-mill. Shestayed three months, for a wonder; at the expiration of which time sheput on her hat and explained that she was tired of stopping there, andwas going home. He said, 'All right, Sarah, wait a while and I'll takeyou home. ' At the door of her aunt's house he said, 'Well, good-bye, Sarah, ' and she said, in her brooding way, 'Good-bye, Jim. ' And that wasall. 

As the last apparent result of August's mischief-making, her brotheror someone one evening rode up to the cottage, drunk and inclined tobluster. He was accompanied by a friend, also drunk, who came to see thefun, and was ready to use his influence on the winning side. The teacherwent inside, brought out his gun, and slipped two cartridges in. "I've had enough of this, " he said. "Now then, be off, you insolentblackguards, or I'll shoot you like rabbits. Go!" and he snapped his jawand the breech of his gun together. As they rode off, the old local hawkhappened to soar close over a dead lamb in the fern at the corner of thegarden, and the teacher, who had been "laying" for him a long time, letfly both barrels at him, without thinking. When he turned, there wasonly a cloud of dust down the track. 

 . . . . . 

The teacher taught that school for three years thereafter, without ahitch. But he went no more on Universal Brotherhood lines. And, foryears after he had gone, his name was spoken of with great respect bythe Maoris. 

New Year's Night

It was dark enough for anything in Dead Man's Gap--a round, warm, closedarkness, in which retreating sounds seemed to be cut off suddenly at adistance of a hundred yards or so, instead of growing faint and fainter, and dying away, to strike the ear once or twice again--and afterminutes, it might seem--with startling distinctness, before beingfinally lost in the distance, as it is on clear, frosty nights. So withthe sounds of horses' hoofs, stumbling on the rough bridle-track throughthe "saddle", the clatter of hoof-clipped stones and scrape of graveldown the hidden "siding", and the low sound of men's voices, blurredand speaking in monosyllables and at intervals it seemed, and in hushed, awed tones, as though they carried a corpse. To practical eyes, grownused to such a darkness, and at the nearest point, the passing blurrswould have suggested two riders on bush hacks leading a third with anempty saddle on its back--a lady's or "side-saddle", if one could havedistinguished the horns. They may have struck a soft track or level, orrounded the buttress of the hill higher up, but before they had timeto reach or round the foot of the spur, blurs, whispers, stumble andclatter of hoofs, jingle of bridle rings, and the occasional clanktogether of stirrup irons, seemed shut off as suddenly and completely asthough a great sound-proof door had swung to behind them. 

It was dark enough on the glaringest of days down in the lonely hollowor "pocket", between two spurs, at the head of a blind gully behindMount Buckaroo, where there was a more or less dusty patch, barelydefined even in broad daylight by a spidery dog-legged fence onthree sides, and a thin "two-rail" (dignified with the adjective"split-rail"--though rails and posts were mostly of saplings split inhalves) running along the frontage. In about the middle of it a littleslab hut, overshadowed by a big stringy-bark shed, was pointed out asJohnny Mears's Farm. 

"Black as--as charcoal, " said Johnny Mears. He had never seen coal, andwas a cautious man, whose ideas came slowly. He stooped, close by thefence, with his hands on his knees, to "sky" the loom of his big shedand so get his bearings. He had been to have a look at the pennedcalves, and see that all slip-rails were up and pegged, for the words ofJohn Mears junior, especially when delivered rapidly and shrilly and ininjured tones, were not to be relied upon in these matters. 

"It's hot enough to melt the belly out of my fiddle, " said Johnny Mearsto his wife, who sat on a three-legged stool by the rough table in thelittle whitewashed "end-room", putting a patch of patches over the seatof a pair of moleskin knickerbockers. He lit his pipe, moved a stoolto the side of the great empty fireplace, where it looked cooler--mighthave been cooler on account of a possible draught suggested by thepresence of the chimney, and where, therefore, he felt a breathcooler. He took his fiddle from a convenient shelf, tuned it slowly andcarefully, holding his pipe (in his mouth) well up and to one side, asif the fiddle were an inquisitive and restless baby. He played "LittleDrops o' Brandy" three times, right through, without variations, blinking solemnly the while; then he put the violin carefully back inits box, and started to cut up another pipeful. 

"You should have gone, Johnny, " said the haggard little woman. 

"Rackin' the horse out a night like this, " retorted Johnny, "andstartin' ploughin' to-morrow. It ain't worth while. Let them come for meif they want me. Dance on a night like this! Why! they'll dance in----"

"But you promised. It won't do you no good, Johnny. "

"It won't do me no harm. "

The little woman went on stitching. 

"It's smotherin' hot, " said Johnny, with an impatient oath. "I don'tknow whether I'll turn in, or turn out, under the shed to-night. It'stoo d----d hot to roost indoors. "

She bent her head lower over the patch. One smoked and the otherstitched in silence for twenty minutes or so, during which time Johnnymight be supposed to have been deliberating listlessly as to whetherhe'd camp out on account of the heat, or turn in. But he broke thesilence with a clout at a mosquito on the nape of his neck, and a badword. 

"I wish you wouldn't swear so much, Johnny, " she said wearily--"at leastnot to-night. "

He looked at her blankly. 

"Why--why to-night? What's the matter with you to-night, Mary? What'sto-night more than any other night to you? I see no harm--can't a manswear when a mosquito sticks him?"

"I--I was only thinking of the boys, Johnny. "

"The boys! Why, they're both on the hay in the shed. " He stared ather again, shifted uneasily, crossed the other leg tightly, frowned, blinked, and reached for the matches. "You look a bit off-colour, Mary. It's the heat that makes us all a bit ratty at times. Better put that byand have a swill o' oatmeal and water, and turn in. "

"It's too hot to go to bed. I couldn't sleep. I'm all right. I'll--I'lljust finish this. Just reach me a drink from the water-bag--thepannikin's on the hob there, by your boot. "

He scratched his head helplessly, and reached for the drink. When hesat down again, he felt strangely restless. "Like a hen that didn't knowwhere to lay, " he put it. He couldn't settle down or keep still, anddidn't seem to enjoy his pipe somehow. He rubbed his head again. 

"There's a thunderstorm comin', " he said. "That's what it is; and thesooner it comes the better. "

He went to the back door, and stared at the blackness to the east, and, sure enough, lightning was blinking there. 

"It's coming, sure enough; just hang out and keep cool for another hour, and you'll feel the difference. "

He sat down again on the three-legged stool, folded his arms, with hiselbows on his knees, drew a long breath, and blinked at the clay floorfor a while; then he twisted the stool round on one leg, until he facedthe old-fashioned spired wooden clock (the brass disc of the pendulummoving ghost-like through a scarred and scratched marine scene--Margatein England--on the glass that covered the lower half) that stood aloneon the slab shelf over the fireplace. The hands indicated half-pasttwo, and Johnny, who had studied that clock and could "hit the time nighenough by it, " after knitting his brows and blinking at the dial for afull minute by its own hand, decided "that it must be getting on towardnine o'clock. "

It must have been the heat. Johnny stood up, raking his hair, turned tothe door and back again, and then, after an impatient gesture, took uphis fiddle and raised it to his shoulder. Then the queer thing happened. He said afterwards, under conditions favourable to such sentimentalconfidence, that a cold hand seemed to take hold of the bow, throughhis, and--anyway, before he knew what he was about he had played thefirst bars of "When First I Met Sweet Peggy", a tune he had playedoften, twenty years before, in his courting days, and had never happenedto play since. He sawed it right through (the cold hand left after thefirst bar or two) standing up; then still stood with fiddle and bowtrembling in his hands, with the queer feeling still on him, and arush of old thoughts going through his head, all of which he set downafterwards to the effect of the heat. He put the fiddle away hastily, damning the bridge of it at the same time in loud but hurried tones, with the idea of covering any eccentricity which the wife might havenoticed in his actions. "Must 'a' got a touch o' sun, " he mutteredto himself. He sat down, fumbled with knife, pipe, and tobacco, andpresently stole a furtive glance over his shoulder at his wife. 

The washed-out little woman was still sewing, but stitching blindly, forgreat tears were rolling down her worn cheeks. 

Johnny, white-faced on account of the heat, stood close behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other clenched on the table; but theclenched hand shook as badly as the loose one. 

"Good God! What is the matter, Mary? You're sick!" (They had had littleor no experience of illness. ) "Tell me, Mary--come now! Has the boysbeen up to anything?"

"No, Johnny; it's not that. "

"What is it then? You're taken sick! What have you been doing withyourself? It might be fever. Hold up a minute. You wait here quiet whileI roost out the boys and send 'em for the doctor and someone----"

"No! no! I'm not sick, John. It's only a turn. I'll be all right in aminute. "

He shifted his hand to her head, which she dropped suddenly, with alife-weary sigh, against his side. 

"Now then!" cried Johnny, wildly, "don't you faint or go intodisterricks, Mary! It'll upset the boys; think of the boys! It's onlythe heat--you're only takin' queer. "

"It's not that; you ought to know me better than that. Itwas--I--Johnny, I was only thinking--we've been married twenty yearsto-night--an'--it's New Year's Night!"

"And I've never thought of it!" said Johnny (in the afterwards). "Showswhat a God-forgotten selection will make of a man. She'd thought of itall the time, and was waiting for it to strike me. Why! I'd agreed to goand play at a darnce at Old Pipeclay School-house all night--that verynight--and leave her at home because she hadn't asked to come; andit never struck me to ask her--at home by herself in that hole--fortwenty-five bob. And I only stopped at home because I'd got the hump, and knew they'd want me bad at the school. "

They sat close together on the long stool by the table, shy and awkwardat first; and she clung to him at opening of thunder, and they startedapart guiltily when the first great drops sounded like footsteps on thegravel outside, just as they'd done one night-time before--twenty yearsbefore. 

If it was dark before, it was black now. The edge of the awfulstorm-cloud rushed up and under the original darkness like the best"drop" black-brushed over the cheap "lamp" variety, turning it grey bycontrast. The deluge lasted only a quarter of an hour; but it clearedthe night, and did its work. There was hail before it, too--big as emueggs, the boys said--that lay feet deep in the old diggers' holes onPipeclay for days afterwards--weeks some said. 

The two sweethearts of twenty years ago and to-night watched the retreatof the storm, and, seeing Mount Buckaroo standing clear, they went tothe back door, which opened opposite the end of the shed, and saw to theeast a glorious arch of steel-blue, starry sky, with the distant peaksshowing clear and blue away back under the far-away stars in the depthof it. 

They lingered awhile--arms round each other's waists--before she calledthe boys, just as they had done this time of night twenty years ago, after the boys' grandmother had called her. 

"Awlright, mother!" bawled back the boys, with unfilial independenceof Australian youth. "We're awlright! We'll be in directly! Wasn't it apelterer, mother?"

They went in and sat down again. The embarrassment began to wear off. 

"We'll get out of this, Mary, " said Johnny. "I'll take Mason's offerfor the cattle and things, and take that job of Dawson's, boss or noboss"--(Johnny's bad luck was due to his inability in the past to "geton" with any boss for any reasonable length of time)--"I can get theboys on, too. They're doing no good here, and growing up. It ain't doingjustice to them; and, what's more, this life is killin' you, Mary. Thatsettles it! I was blind. Let the jumpt-up selection go! It's making awall-eyed bullock of me, Mary--a dry-rotted rag of a wall-eyed bullocklike Jimmy Nowlett's old Strawberry. And you'll live in town like alady. "

"Somebody coming!" yelled the boys. 

There was a clatter of sliprails hurriedly thrown down, and clipped byhorses' hoofs. 

"Insoide there! Is that you, Johnny?"

"Yes!" ("I knew they'd come for you, " said Mrs. Mears to Johnny. )

"You'll have to come, Johnny. There's no get out of it. Here's JimMason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you showfight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan bursthis concertina, and they're in a fix. "

"But I can't leave the missus. "

"That's all right. We've got the school missus's mare and side-saddle. She says you ought to be jolly well ashamed of yourself, Johnny Mears, for not bringing your wife on New Year's Night. And so you ought!"

Johnny did not look shame-faced, for reasons unknown to them. 

"The boys couldn't find the horses, " put in Mrs. Mears. "Johnny was justgoing down the gully again. "

He gave her a grateful look, and felt a strange, new thrill ofadmiration for his wife. 

"And--there's a bottle of the best put by for you, Johnny, " added PatMcDurmer, mistaking Johnny's silence; "and we'll call it thirty bob!"(Johnny's ideas were coming slowly again, after the recent rush. )"Or--two quid!--there you are!"

"I don't want two quid, nor one either, for taking my wife to a dance onNew Year's Night!" said Johnny Mears. "Run and put on your best bib andtucker, Mary. "

And she hurried to dress as eager and excited, and smiling to herselfas girlishly as she had done on such occasions on evenings before thebright New Year's Night twenty years ago. --For a related story, see "ABush Dance", in "Joe Wilson and His Mates". --A. L. , 1998. --

Black Joe

They called him Black Joe, and me White Joe, by way of distinction andfor the convenience of his boss (my uncle), and my aunt, and mother; so, when we heard the cry of "Bla-a-ack Joe!" (the adjective drawn out untilit became a screech, after several repetitions, and the "Joe" shortand sharp) coming across the flat in a woman's voice, Joe knew that themissus wanted him at the house, to get wood or water, or mind the baby, and he kept carefully out of sight; he went at once when uncle called. And when we heard the cry of "Wh-i-i-te Joe!" which we did withdifficulty and after several tries--though Black Joe's ears were of thekeenest--we knew that I was overdue at home, or absent without leave, and was probably in for a warming, as the old folk called it. On someoccasions I postponed the warming as long as my stomach held out, whichwas a good while in five-corner, native-cherry, or yam season--but thewarming was none the cooler for being postponed. 

Sometimes Joe heard the wrong adjective, or led me to believe hedid--and left me for a whole afternoon under the impression that therace of Ham was in demand at the homestead, when I myself was wantedthere, and maternal wrath was increasing every moment of my absence. 

But Joe knew that my conscience was not so elastic as his, and--well, you must expect little things like this in all friendships. 

Black Joe was somewhere between nine and twelve when I first met him, on a visit to my uncle's station; I was somewhere in those years too. He was very black, the darker for being engaged in the interesting butuncertain occupation of "burning off" in his spare time--which wasn'tparticularly limited. He combined shepherding, 'possum and kangaroohunting, crawfishing, sleeping, and various other occupations andengagements with that of burning off. I was very white, being a sicklytown boy; but, as I took great interest in burning off, and was notparticularly fond of cold water--it was in winter time--the differencein our complexions was not so marked at times. 

Black Joe's father, old Black Jimmie, lived in a gunyah on the riseat the back of the sheepyards, and shepherded for my uncle. He was agentle, good-humoured, easy-going old fellow with a pleasant smile;which description applies, I think, to most old blackfellows incivilisation. I was very partial to the old man, and chummy with him, and used to slip away from the homestead whenever I could, and squatby the campfire along with the other piccaninnies, and think, andyarn socially with Black Jimmie by the hour. I would give something toremember those conversations now. Sometimes somebody would be sent tobring me home, when it got too late, and Black Jimmie would say:

"Piccaninnie alonga possum rug, " and there I'd be, sound asleep, withthe other young Australians. 

I liked Black Jimmie very much, and would willingly have adopted himas a father. I should have been quite content to spend my days in thescrub, enjoying life in dark and savage ways, and my nights "alongapossum rug"; but the family had other plans for my future. 

It was a case of two blackfellows and one gin, when Black Jimmie wenta-wooing--about twelve years before I made his acquaintance--and hefought for his bride in the black fashion. It was the last affair ofthat kind in the district. My uncle's brother professed to have beenpresent at the fight, and gave me an alleged description of it. He saidthat they drew lots, and Black Jimmie put his hands on his knees andbent his head, and the other blackfellow hit him a whack on the skullwith a nulla nulla. Then they had a nip of rum all round--Black Jimmiemust have wanted it, for the nulla nulla was knotted, and heavy, andmade in the most approved fashion. Then the other blackfellow bent hishead, and Jimmie took the club and returned the whack with interest. Then the other fellow hit Jimmie a lick, and took a clout in return. Then they had another drink, and continued thus until Jimmie's rivallost all heart and interest in the business. But you couldn't takeeverything my uncle's brother said for granted. 

Black Mary was a queen by right, and had the reputation of beingthe cleanest gin in the district; she was a great favourite with thesquatters' wives round there. Perhaps she hoped to reclaim Jimmie--hewas royal, too, but held easy views with regard to religion and theconventionalities of civilisation. Mary insisted on being marriedproperly by a clergyman, made the old man build a decent hut, had allher children christened, and kept him and them clean and tidy up to thetime of her death. 

Poor Queen Mary was ambitious. She started to educate her children, and when they got beyond her--that is when they had learnt theirletters--she was grateful for any assistance from the good-natured bushmen and women of her acquaintance. She had decided to get her eldest boyinto the mounted police, and had plans for the rest, and she worked hardfor them, too. Jimmie offered no opposition, and gave her no assistancebeyond the rations and money he earned shepherding--which was as much ascould be expected of him. 

He did as many husbands do "for the sake of peace and quietness"--hedrifted along in the wake of his wife, and took things as easily as herschemes of reformation and education would allow him to. 

Queen Mary died before her time, respected by all who knew or had heardof her. The nearest squatter's wife sent a pair of sheets for a shroud, with instructions to lay Mary out, and arranged (by bush telegraph) todrive over next morning with her sister-in-law and two other white womenin the vicinity, to see Mary decently buried. 

But the remnant of Jimmie's tribe were there beforehand. They tore thesheets in strips and tied Mary up in a bundle, with her chin to herknees--preparing her for burial in their own fashion--and mourned allnight in whitewash and ashes. At least, the gins did. The white womensaw that it was hopeless to attempt to untie any of the innumerableknots and double knots, even if it had been possible to lay Mary outafterwards; so they had to let her be buried as she was, with black andwhite obsequies. And we've got no interest in believing that she did not"jump up white woman" long ago. 

My uncle and his brother took the two eldest boys. Black Jimmieshifted away from the hut at once with the rest of his family--for the"devil-devil" sat down there--and Mary's name was strictly "tabooed" inaccordance with aboriginal etiquette. 

Jimmie drifted back towards the graves of his fathers in company witha decreasing flock of sheep day by day (for the house of my uncle hadfallen on times of drought and depression, and foot-rot and wool rings, and over-drafts and bank owners), and a few strips of bark, a dyingfire, a black pipe, some greasy 'possum rugs and blankets, a litter ofkangaroo tails, etc. , four neglected piccaninnies, half a score of mangymongrels, and, haply, a "lilly drap o' rum", by night. 

The four little Australians grew dirtier and more shy and savage, andate underdone kangaroo and 'possum and native bear, with an occasionaltreat of oak grubs and goanna by preference--and died out, one byone, as blacks do when brought within the ever widening circle ofcivilisation. Jimmie moved promptly after each death, and left theevil one in possession, and built another mia-mia--each one being lesspretentious than the last. Finally he was left, the last of his tribe, to mourn his lot in solitude. 

But the devil-devil came and sat down by King Jimmie's side one night, so he, too, moved out across the Old Man border, and the mia-mia rottedinto the ground and the grass grew there. 

 . . . . . 

I admired Joe; I thought him wiser and cleverer than any white boy inthe world. He could smell out 'possums unerringly, and I firmly believedhe could see yards through the muddiest of dam water; for once, when Idropped my boat in, and was not sure of the spot, he fished it out firsttry. With cotton reels and bits of stick and bark he would make themodel of a station homestead, slaughter-yards, sheep-yards, and allcomplete, working in ideas and improvements of his own which mighthave been put into practice with advantage. He was a most original andinteresting liar upon all subjects upon which he was ignorant andwhich came up incidentally. He gave me a very interesting account of aninterview between his father and Queen Victoria, and mentioned casuallythat his father had walked across the Thames without getting wet. 

He also told me how he, Joe, had tied a mounted trooper to a verandahpost and thrashed him with pine saplings until the timber gave out andhe was tired. I questioned Jimmie, but the incidents seemed to haveescaped the old king's memory. 

Joe could build bigger woodheaps with less wood than any black or whitetramp or loafer round there. He was a born architect. He took a worldof pains with his wood-heaps--he built them hollow, in the shape of abreak-wind, with the convex side towards the house for the benefit ofhis employers. Joe was easy-going; he had inherited a love of peace andquietness from his father. Uncle generally came home after dark, and Joewould have little fires lit at safe distances all round the house, in order to convey an impression that the burning off was proceedingsatisfactorily. 

When the warm weather came, Joe and I got into trouble with an old hagfor bathing in a waterhole in the creek in front of her shanty, and sheimpounded portions of our wardrobe. We shouldn't have lost much if shehad taken it all; but our sense of injury was deep, especially as sheused very bad grammar towards us. 

Joe addressed her from the safe side of the water. He said, "Look here!Old leather-face, sugar-eye, plar-bag marmy, I call it you. "

"Plar-bag marmy" meant "Mother Flour-bag", and ration sugar wasdecidedly muddy in appearance. 

She came round the waterhole with a clothes prop, and made good time, too; but we got across and away with our clothes. 

That little incident might have changed the whole course of myexistence. Plar-bag Marmy made a formal complaint to uncle, who happenedto pass there on horseback about an hour later; and the same eveningJoe's latest and most carefully planned wood heap collapsed while auntwas pulling a stick out of it in the dark, and it gave her a bad scare, the results of which might have been serious. 

So uncle gave us a thrashing, without the slightest regard for racialdistinctions, and sent us to bed without our suppers. 

We sought Jimmie's camp, but Joe got neither sympathy nor damper fromhis father, and I was sent home with a fatherly lecture "for goingalonga that fella, " meaning Joe. 

Joe and I discussed existence at a waterhole down the creek nextafternoon, over a billy of crawfish which we had boiled and a piece ofgritty damper, and decided to retire beyond the settled districts--somefive hundred miles or so--to a place that Joe said he knew of, wherethere were lagoons and billabongs ten miles wide, alive with ducks andfish, and black cockatoos and kangaroos and wombats, that only waited tobe knocked over with a stick. 

I thought I might as well start and be a blackfellow at once, so wegot a rusty pan without a handle, and cooked about a pint of fat yellowoak-grubs; and I was about to fall to when we were discovered, and thefull weight of combined family influence was brought to bear on thesituation. We had broken a new pair of shears digging out those grubsfrom under the bark of the she-oaks, and had each taken a blade as hisown especial property, which we thought was the best thing to do underthe circumstances. Uncle wanted those shears badly, so he received uswith the buggy whip--and he didn't draw the colour line either. Allthat night and next day I wished he had. I was sent home, and Joe wentdroving with uncle soon after that, else I might have lived a life offreedom and content and died out peacefully with the last of my adoptedtribe. 

Joe died of consumption on the track. When he was dying uncle asked: "Isthere anything you would like?"

And Joe said: "I'd like a lilly drap o' rum, boss. "

Which were his last words, for he drank the rum and died peacefully. 

I was the first to hear the news at home, and, being still a youngster, I ran to the house, crying "Oh, mother! aunt's Joe is dead!"

There were visitors at our place at the time, and, as the eldest childof the maternal aunt in question had also been christened Joe--after agrandfather of our tribe (my tribe, not Black Joe's)--the news causeda sudden and unpleasant sensation. But cross-examination explained themistake, and I retired to the rear of the pig-sty, as was my custom whenthings went wrong, with another cause for grief. 

They Wait on the Wharf in Black

 "Seems to me that honest, hard-working men seem to accumulate the heaviest swags of trouble in this world. "--Steelman. 

 Told by Mitchell's Mate. 

We were coming back from West Australia, steerage--Mitchell, the Oracle, and I. I had gone over saloon, with a few pounds in my pocket. Mitchellsaid this was a great mistake--I should have gone over steerage withnothing but the clothes I stood upright in, and come back saloon with apile. He said it was a very common mistake that men made, but, as faras his experience went, there always seemed to be a deep-rooted popularprejudice in favour of going away from home with a few pounds in one'spocket and coming back stumped; at least amongst rovers and vagabondslike ourselves--it wasn't so generally popular or admired at home, or inthe places we came back to, as it was in the places we went to. Anywayit went, there wasn't the slightest doubt that our nearest and dearestfriends were, as a rule, in favour of our taking away as little as wecould possibly manage with, and coming back with a pile, whether we cameback saloon or not; and that ought to settle the matter as far as anychap that had the slightest consideration for his friends or family wasconcerned. 

There was a good deal of misery, underneath, coming home in thatsteerage. One man had had his hand crushed and amputated out Coolgardieway, and the stump had mortified, and he was being sent to Melbourne byhis mates. Some had lost their money, some a couple of years of theirlife, some their souls; but none seemed to have lost the heart tocall up the quiet grin that southern rovers, vagabonds, travellers for"graft" or fortune, and professional wanderers wear in front of itall. Except one man--an elderly eastern digger--he had lost his wife inSydney while he was away. 

They sent him a wire to the Boulder Soak, or somewhere out back ofWhite Feather, to say that his wife was seriously ill; but the wire wentwrong, somehow, after the manner of telegrams not connected with mining, on the lines of "the Western". They sent him a wire to say that his wifewas dead, and that reached him all right--only a week late. 

I can imagine it. He got the message at dinner-time, or when they cameback to the camp. His mate wanted him to sit in the shade, or lie inthe tent, while he got the billy boiled. "You must brace up and pullyourself together, Tom, for the sake of the youngsters. " And Tom forlong intervals goes walking up and down, up and down, by the camp--underthe brassy sky or the gloaming--under the brilliant star-clusters thathang over the desert plain, but never raising his eyes to them; kickinga tuft of grass or a hole in the sand now and then, and seeming to watchthe progress of the track he is tramping out. The wife of twenty yearswas with him--though two thousand miles away--till that message came. 

I can imagine Tome sitting with his mates round the billy, they talkingin quiet, subdued tones about the track, the departure of coaches, trains and boats--arranging for Tom's journey East, and the working ofthe claim in his absence. Or Tom lying on his back in his bunk, with hishands under his head and his eyes fixed on the calico above--thinking, thinking, thinking. Thinking, with a touch of his boyhood's faithperhaps; or wondering what he had done in his long, hard-working marriedlife, that God should do this thing to him now, of all times. 

"You'd best take what money we have in the camp, Tom; you'll want itall ag'in' the time you get back from Sydney, and we can fix it uparterwards. .. . There's a couple o' clean shirts o' mine--you'd best take'em--you'll want 'em on the voyage. .. . You might as well take them therenew pants o' mine, they'll only dry-rot out here--and the coat, too, if you like--it's too small for me, anyway. You won't have any time inPerth, and you'll want some decent togs to land with in Sydney. "

 . . . . . 

"I wouldn't 'a' cared so much if I'd 'a' seen the last of her, " he said, in a quiet, patient voice, to us one night by the rail. "I would 'a'liked to have seen the last of her. "

"Have you been long in the West?"

"Over two years. I made up to take a run across last Christmas, and havea look at 'em. But I couldn't very well get away when 'exemption-time'came. I didn't like to leave the claim. "

"Do any good over there?"

"Well, things brightened up a bit the last month or two. I had a hardpull at first; landed without a penny, and had to send back everyshilling I could rake up to get things straightened up a bit at home. Then the eldest boy fell ill, and then the baby. I'd reckoned onbringing 'em over to Perth or Coolgardie when the cool weather came, andhaving them somewheres near me, where I could go and have a look at 'emnow and then, and look after them. "

"Going back to the West again?"

"Oh, yes. I must go for the sake of the youngsters. But I don't seemto have much heart in it. " He smoked awhile. "Over twenty years westruggled along together--the missus and me--and it seems hard that Icouldn't see the last of her. It's rough on a man. "

"The world is damned rough on a man sometimes, " said Mitchell, "mostespecially when he least deserves it. "

The digger crossed his arms on the rail like an old "cocky" at the fencein the cool of the evening, yarning with an old crony. 

"Mor'n twenty years she stuck to me and struggled along by my side. Shenever give in. I'll swear she was on her feet till the last, withher sleeves tucked up--bustlin' round. .. . And just when things wasbrightening and I saw a chance of giving her a bit of a rest and comfortfor the end of her life. .. . I thought of it all only t'other week whenthings was clearing up ahead; and the last 'order' I sent over I setto work and wrote her a long letter, putting all the good news andencouragement I could think of into it. I thought how that letter wouldbrighten up things at home, and how she'd read it round. I thought oflots of things that a man never gets time to think of while his nose iskept to the grindstone. And she was dead and in her grave, and I neverknowed it. "

Mitchell dug his elbow into my ribs and made signs for the matches tolight his pipe. 

"An' yer never knowed, " reflected the Oracle. 

"But I always had an idea when there was trouble at home, " the diggerwent on presently, in his quiet, patient tone. "I always knowed; Ialways had a kind of feeling that way--I felt it--no matter how far Iwas away. When the youngsters was sick I knowed it, and I expected theletter that come. About a fortnight ago I had a feeling that way whenthe wife was ill. The very stars out there on the desert by the BoulderSoak seemed to say: 'There's trouble at home. Go home. There's troubleat home. ' But I never dreamed what that trouble was. One night I didmake up my mind to start in the morning, but when the morning came Ihadn't an excuse, and was ashamed to tell my mates the truth. They mighthave thought I was going ratty, like a good many go out there. " Then hebroke off with a sort of laugh, as if it just struck him that wemight think he was a bit off his head, or that his talk was gettinguncomfortable for us. "Curious, ain't it?" he said. 

"Reminds me of a case I knowed, ----" commenced the Oracle, after apause. 

I could have pitched him overboard; but that was a mistake. He and theold digger sat on the for'ard hatch half the night yarning, mostly aboutqueer starts, and rum go's, and curious cases the Oracle had knowed, and I think the Oracle did him a lot of good somehow, for he seemed morecheerful in the morning. 

We were overcrowded in the steerage, but Mitchell managed to give up hisberth to the old digger without letting him know it. Most of the chapsseemed anxious to make a place at the first table and pass the firsthelpings of the dishes to the "old cove that had lost his missus. "

They all seemed to forget him as we entered the Heads; they had theirown troubles to attend to. They were in the shadow of the shame ofcoming back hard up, and the grins began to grow faint and sickly. But Ididn't forget him. I wish sometimes that I didn't take so much notice ofthings. 

There was no mistaking them--the little group that stood apart near theend of the wharf, dressed in cheap black. There was the eldest singlesister--thin, pale, and haggard-looking--that had had all the hardworry in the family till her temper was spoilt, as you could see by thepeevish, irritable lines in her face. She had to be the mother of themall now, and had never known, perhaps, what it was to be a girl or asweetheart. She gave a hard, mechanical sort of smile when she saw herfather, and then stood looking at the boat in a vacant, hopeless sort ofway. There was the baby, that he saw now for the first time, crowing andjumping at the sight of the boat coming in; there was the eldest boy, looking awkward and out of place in his new slop-suit of black, shiftinground uneasily, and looking anywhere but at his father. But the littlegirl was the worst, and a pretty little girl she was, too; she nevertook her streaming eyes off her father's face the whole time. You couldsee that her little heart was bursting, and with pity for him. They weretoo far apart to speak to each other as yet. The boat seemed a cruellong long time swinging alongside--I wished they'd hurry up. He'dbrought his traps up early, and laid 'em on the deck under the rail; hestood very quiet with his hands behind him, looking at his children. Hehad a strong, square, workman's face, but I could see his chin and mouthquivering under the stubbly, iron-grey beard, and the lump working inhis throat; and one strong hand gripped the other very tight behind, buthis eyelids never quivered--only his eyes seemed to grow more and moresad and lonesome. These are the sort of long, cruel moments when a mansits or stands very tight and quiet and calm-looking, with his wholepast life going whirling through his brain, year after year, and overand over again. Just as the digger seemed about to speak to them he metthe brimming eyes of his little girl turned up to his face. He lookedat her for a moment, and then turned suddenly and went below as ifpretending to go down for his things. I noticed that Mitchell--whohadn't seemed to be noticing anything in particular--followed him down. When they came on deck again we were right alongside. 

"'Ello, Nell!" said the digger to the eldest daughter. 

"'Ello, father!" she said, with a sort of gasp, but trying to smile. 

"'Ello, Jack, how are you getting on?"

"All right, father, " said the boy, brightening up, and seeming greatlyrelieved. 

He looked down at the little girl with a smile that I can't describe, but didn't speak to her. She still stood with quivering chin and mouthand great brimming eyes upturned, full of such pity as I never sawbefore in a child-face--pity for him. 

"You can get ashore now, " said Mitchell; "see, they've got the gangwayout aft. "

Presently I saw Mitchell with the portmanteau in his hand, and the babyon his arm, steering them away to a quiet corner of the shed at the topof the wharf. The digger had the little girl in his arms, and both herswere round his neck, and her face hidden on his shoulder. 

When Mitchell came back, he leant on the rail for a while by my side, asif it was a boundary fence out back, and there was no hurry to break upcamp and make a start. 

"What did you follow him below that time for, Mitchell?" I askedpresently, for want of something better to say. 

Mitchell looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. 

"I wanted to score a drink!" he said. "I thought he wanted one andwouldn't like to be a Jimmy Woodser. "

Seeing the Last of You

"When you're going away by boat, " said Mitchell, "you ought to saygood-bye to the women at home, and to the chaps at the last pub. I hatewaiting on the wharf or up on deck when the boat's behind time. There'sno sense in it, and a lot of unnecessary misery. Your friends wait onthe wharf and you are kept at the rail to the bitter end, just when theyand you most want a spell. And why? Some of them hang out because theylove you, and want to see the last of you; some because they don't likeyou to see them going away without seeing the last of you; and you hangout mostly because it would hurt 'em if you went below and didn't givethem a chance of seeing the last of you all the time--and you curse theboat and wish to God it would start. And those who love you most--thewomen-folk of the family--and who are making all the fuss and breakingtheir hearts about having to see the last of you, and least want to doit--they hang out the longest, and are the most determined to see it. Where's the sense in it? What's the good of seeing the last of you? Howdo women manage to get consolation out of a thing like that?

"But women get consolation out of queer things sometimes, " he addedreflectively, "and so do men. 

"I remember when I was knocking about the coasts, an old aunt of minealways persisted in coming down to see the last of me, and bringing thewhole family too--no matter if I was only going away for a month. I washer favourite. I always turned up again in a few months; but if I'd comeback every next boat it wouldn't have made the slightest difference toher. She'd say that I mightn't come back some day, and then she'd neverforgive herself nor the family for not seeing me off. I suppose she'llsee the end of me yet if she lives long enough--and she's a wiry oldlady of the old school. She was old-fashioned and dressed like a fright, they said at home. They hated being seen in public with her; to tell thetruth, I felt a bit ashamed, too, at times. I wouldn't be, now. When I'dget her off on to the wharf I'd be overcome with my feelings, and haveto retire to the privacy of the bar to hide my emotions till theboat was going. And she'd stand on the end of the pier and wave herhandkerchief and mop her old eyes with it until she was removed byforce. 

"God bless her old heart! There wasn't so much affection wasted on meat home that I felt crowded by hers; and I never lost anything by herseeing the last of me. 

"I do wish the Oracle would stop that confounded fiddle of his--it makesyou think over damned old things. "

Two Boys at Grinder Brothers'

Five or six half-grown larrikins sat on the cemented sill of the bigwindow of Grinder Bros. ' Railway Coach Factory waiting for the workbell, and one of the number was Bill Anderson--known as "CarstorHoil"--a young terror of fourteen or fifteen. 

"Here comes Balmy Arvie, " exclaimed Bill as a pale, timid-looking littlefellow rounded the corner and stood against the wall by the door. "How'syour parents, Balmy?"

The boy made no answer; he shrank closer to the entrance. The first bellwent. 

"What yer got for dinner, Balmy? Bread 'n' treacle?" asked the youngruffian; then for the edification of his chums he snatched the boy'sdinner bag and emptied its contents on the pavement. 

The door opened. Arvie gathered up his lunch, took his time-ticket, andhurried in. 

"Well, Balmy, " said one of the smiths as he passed, "what do you thinkof the boat race?"

"I think, " said the boy, goaded to reply, "that it would be better ifyoung fellows of this country didn't think so much about racin' an'fightin'. "

The questioner stared blankly for a moment, then laughed suddenly in theboy's face, and turned away. The rest grinned. 

"Arvie's getting balmier than ever, " guffawed young Bill. 

"Here, Carstor Hoil, " cried one of the smiths' strikers, "how much oilwill you take for a chew of terbaccer?"

"Teaspoonful?"

"No, two. "

"All right; let's see the chew, first. "

"Oh, you'll get it. What yer frighten' of?. .. Come on, chaps, 'n' seeBill drink oil. "

Bill measured out some machine oil and drank it. He got the tobacco, andthe others got what they called "the fun of seein' Bill drink oil!"

The second bell rang, and Bill went up to the other end of the shop, where Arvie was already at work sweeping shavings from under a bench. 

The young terror seated himself on the end of this bench, drummed hisheels against the leg, and whistled. He was in no hurry, for his foremanhad not yet arrived. He amused himself by lazily tossing chips atArvie, who made no protest for a while. "It would be--better--for thiscountry, " said the young terror, reflectively and abstractedly, cockinghis eye at the whitewashed roof beams and feeling behind him on thebench for a heavier chip--"it would be better--for this country--ifyoung fellers didn't think so much about--about--racin'--AND fightin'. "

"You let me alone, " said Arvie. 

"Why, what'll you do?" exclaimed Bill, bringing his eye down withfeigned surprise. Then, in an indignant tone, "I don't mind takin' afall out of yer, now, if yer like. "

Arvie went on with his work. Bill tossed all the chips within reach, andthen sat carelessly watching some men at work, and whistling the "DeadMarch". Presently he asked:

"What's yer name, Balmy?"

No answer. 

"Carn't yer answer a civil question? I'd soon knock the sulks out of yerif I was yer father. "

"My name's Arvie; you know that. "

"Arvie what?"

"Arvie Aspinall. "

Bill cocked his eye at the roof and thought a while and whistled; thenhe said suddenly:

"Say, Balmy, where d'yer live?"

"Jones' Alley. "

"What?"

"Jones' Alley. "

A short, low whistle from Bill. "What house?"

"Number Eight. "

"Garn! What yer giv'nus?"

"I'm telling the truth. What's there funny about it? What do I want totell you a lie for?"

"Why, we lived there once, Balmy. Old folks livin'?"

"Mother is; father's dead. "

Bill scratched the back of his head, protruded his under lip, andreflected. 

"I say, Arvie, what did yer father die of?"

"Heart disease. He dropped down dead at his work. "

Long, low, intense whistle from Bill. He wrinkled his forehead andstared up at the beams as if he expected to see something unusual there. After a while he said, very impressively: "So did mine. "

The coincidence hadn't done striking him yet; he wrestled with it fornearly a minute longer. Then he said:

"I suppose yer mother goes out washin'?"

"Yes. "

"'N' cleans offices?"

"Yes. "

"So does mine. Any brothers 'n' sisters?"

"Two--one brother 'n' one sister. "

Bill looked relieved--for some reason. 

"I got nine, " he said. "Yours younger'n you?"

"Yes. "

"Lot of bother with the landlord?"

"Yes, a good lot. "

"Had any bailiffs in yet?"

"Yes, two. "

They compared notes a while longer, and tailed off into a silence whichlasted three minutes and grew awkward towards the end. 

Bill fidgeted about on the bench, reached round for a chip, butrecollected himself. Then he cocked his eye at the roof once more andwhistled, twirling a shaving round his fingers the while. At lasthe tore the shaving in two, jerked it impatiently from him, and saidabruptly:

"Look here, Arvie! I'm sorry I knocked over yer barrer yesterday. "

"Thank you. "

This knocked Bill out the first round. He rubbed round uneasily onthe bench, fidgeted with the vise, drummed his fingers, whistled, andfinally thrust his hands in his pockets and dropped on his feet. 

"Look here, Arvie!" he said in low, hurried tones. "Keep close to megoin' out to-night, 'n' if any of the other chaps touches yer or saysanything to yer I'll hit 'em!"

Then he swung himself round the corner of a carriage "body" and wasgone. 

 . . . . . 

Arvie was late out of the shop that evening. His boss was asub-contractor for the coach-painting, and always tried to find twentyminutes' work for his boys just about five or ten minutes before thebell rang. He employed boys because they were cheap and he had a lot ofrough work, and they could get under floors and "bogies" with their potsand brushes, and do all the "priming" and paint the trucks. His name wasCollins, and the boys were called "Collins' Babies". It was a jokein the shop that he had a "weaning" contract. The boys were all "overfourteen", of course, because of the Education Act. Some were nine orten--wages from five shillings to ten shillings. It didn't matterto Grinder Brothers so long as the contracts were completed and thedividends paid. Collins preached in the park every Sunday. But this hasnothing to do with the story. 

When Arvie came out it was beginning to rain and the hands had all goneexcept Bill, who stood with his back to a verandah-post, spitting withvery fair success at the ragged toe of one boot. He looked up, noddedcarelessly at Arvie, and then made a dive for a passing lorry, on theend of which he disappeared round the next corner, unsuspected by thedriver, who sat in front with his pipe in his mouth and a bag over hisshoulders. 

Arvie started home with his heart and mind pretty full, and a stronger, stranger aversion to ever going back to the shop again. This new, unexpected, and unsought-for friendship embarrassed the poor lonelychild. It wasn't welcome. 

But he never went back. He got wet going home, and that night he was adying child. He had been ill all the time, and Collins was one "baby"short next day. 

The Selector's Daughter

 I. 

She rode slowly down the steep siding from the main road to a track inthe bed of the Long Gully, the old grey horse picking his way zig-zagfashion. She was about seventeen, slight in figure, and had a prettyfreckled face with a pathetically drooping mouth, and big sad browneyes. She wore a faded print dress, with an old black riding skirt drawnover it, and her head was hidden in one of those ugly, old-fashionedwhite hoods, which, seen from the rear, always suggest an old woman. She carried several parcels of groceries strapped to the front of thedilapidated side-saddle. 

The track skirted a chain of rocky waterholes at the foot of the gully, and the girl glanced nervously at these ghastly, evil-looking pools asshe passed them by. The sun had set, as far as Long Gully was concerned. The old horse carefully followed a rough bridle track, which ran up thegully now on one side of the watercourse and now on the other; the gullygrew deeper and darker, and its sullen, scrub-covered sides rose moresteeply as he progressed. 

The girl glanced round frequently, as though afraid of someone followingher. Once she drew rein, and listened to some bush sound. "Kangaroos, "she murmured; it was only kangaroos. She crossed a dimmed littleclearing where a farm had been, and entered a thick scrub of box andstringy-bark saplings. Suddenly with a heavy thud, thud, an "old man"kangaroo leapt the path in front, startling the girl fearfully, and wentup the siding towards the peak. 

"Oh, my God!" she gasped, with her hand on her heart. 

She was very nervous this evening; her heart was hurt now, and she heldher hand close to it, while tears started from her eyes and glistened inthe light of the moon, which was rising over the gap ahead. 

"Oh, if I could only go away from the bush!" she moaned. 

The old horse plodded on, and now and then shook his head--sadly, itseemed--as if he knew her troubles and was sorry. 

She passed another clearing, and presently came to a small homestead ina stringy-bark hollow below a great gap in the ridges--"Deadman'sGap". The place was called "Deadman's Hollow", and looked like it. The "house"--a low, two-roomed affair, with skillions--was built ofhalf-round slabs and stringy-bark, and was nearly all roof; the bark, being darkened from recent rain, gave it a drearier appearance thanusual. 

A big, coarse-looking youth of about twenty was nailing a green kangarooskin to the slabs; he was out of temper because he had bruised histhumb. The girl unstrapped the parcels and carried them in; as shepassed her brother, she said:

"Take the saddle off for me, will you, Jack?"

"Oh, carnt yer take it off yerself?" he snarled; "carnt yer see I'mbusy?"

She took off the saddle and bridle, and carried them into a shed, whereshe hung them on a beam. The patient old hack shook himself with anenergy that seemed ill-advised, considering his age and condition, andwent off towards the "dam". 

An old woman sat in the main room beside a fireplace which took upalmost the entire end of the house. A plank-table, supported on stakesdriven into the ground, stood in the middle of the room, and two slabbenches were fixtures on each side. The floor was clay. All was cleanand poverty-stricken; all that could be whitewashed was white, andeverything that could be washed was scrubbed. The slab shelves werecovered with clean newspapers, on which bright tins, and pannikins, andfragments of crockery were set to the greatest advantage. The walls, however, were disfigured by Christmas supplements of illustratedjournals. 

The girl came in and sat down wearily on a stool opposite to the oldwoman. 

"Are you any better, mother?" she asked. 

"Very little, Mary, very little. Have you seen your father?"

"No. "

"I wonder where he is?"

"You might wonder. What's the use of worrying about it, mother?"

"I suppose he's drinking again. "

"Most likely. Worrying yourself to death won't help it!"

The old woman sat and moaned about her troubles, as old women do. Shehad plenty to moan about. 

"I wonder where your brother Tom is? We haven't heard from him for ayear now. He must be in trouble again; something tells me he must be introuble again. "

Mary swung her hood off into her lap. 

"Why do you worry about it, mother? What's the use?"

"I only wish I knew. I only wish I knew!"

"What good would that do? You know Tom went droving with Fred Dunn, andFred will look after him; and, besides, Tom's older now and got moresense. "

"Oh, you don't care--you don't care! You don't feel it, but I'm hismother, and----"

"Oh, for God's sake, don't start that again, mother; it hurts me morethan you think. I'm his sister; I've suffered enough, God knows! Don'tmake matters worse than they are!"

"Here comes father!" shouted one of the children outside, "'n' he'sbringing home a steer. "

The old woman sat still, and clasped her hands nervously. Mary tried tolook cheerful, and moved the saucepan on the fire. A big, dark-beardedman, mounted on a small horse, was seen in the twilight driving a steertowards the cow-yard. A boy ran to let down the slip-rails. 

Presently Mary and her mother heard the clatter of rails let down andput up again, and a minute later a heavy step like the tread of a horsewas heard outside. The selector lumbered in, threw his hat in acorner, and sat down by the table. His wife rose and bustled round withsimulated cheerfulness. Presently Mary hazarded--

"Where have you been, father?"

"Somewheers. "

There was a wretched silence, lasting until the old woman took courageto say timidly:

"So you've brought a steer, Wylie?"

"Yes!" he snapped; the tone seemed defiant. 

The old woman's hands trembled, so that she dropped a cup. Mary turned ashade paler. 

"Here, git me some tea. Git me some TEA!" shouted Mr. Wylie. "I ain'tagoin' to sit here all night!"

His wife made what haste her nervousness would allow, and they soon satdown to tea. Jack, the eldest son, was sulky, and his father mutteredsomething about knocking the sulks out of him with an axe. 

"What's annoyed you, Jack?" asked his mother, humbly. 

He scowled and made no answer. 

The younger children--three boys and a girl--began quarrelling as soonas they sat down. Wylie yelled at them now and then, and grumbled at thecooking, and at his wife for not being able to keep the children quiet. It was: "Marther! you didn't put no sugar in my tea. " "Mother, Jimmy'sgot my place; make him move. " "Mawther! do speak to this Fred. " "Oh!father, this big brute of a Harry's kickin' me!" And so on. 

 II. 

When the miserable meal was over, Wylie got a rope and a butcher'sknife, and went out to slaughter the steer; but first there was a row, because he thought--or pretended to think--that somebody had beenusing his knife. He lassoed the beast, drew it up to the rails, andslaughtered it. 

Meanwhile, Jack and his next brother took an old gun, let the dogsloose, and went 'possum shooting. 

Presently Wylie came in again, sat down by the fire, and smoked. Thechildren quarrelled over a boy's book; Mrs. Wylie made weak attemptsto keep the peace, but they took no notice of her. Suddenly her husbandrose with an oath, seized the novel, and threw it behind the fire. 

"Git to bed! git to bed!" he roared at the children; "git to bed, orI'll smash your brains with the axe!"

They got to bed. It was made of saplings and bark, covered with threebushel-bags full of straw and old pieces of blanket sewn together. Thechildren quarrelled in bed till their father took off his belt and "wentinto" them, according to promise. There was a sudden hush, followed bya sound like a bird-clapper; then howls; then a peaceful calm fell uponthat happy home. 

Wylie went out again, and was absent an hour; on his return he sat bythe fire and smoked sullenly. After a while he snatched the pipe fromhis mouth, and looked impatiently at the old woman. 

"Oh! for God's sake, git to bed, " he snapped, "and don't be asittin'there like a blarsted funeral! You're enough to give a man the dismals. "

Mrs. Wylie gathered up her sewing and retired. Then he said to hisdaughter: "You come and hold the candle. "

Mary put on her hood and followed her father to the yard. The carcaselay close to the rails, against which two sheets of bark had been raisedas a break-wind. The beast had been partly skinned, and a portion ofthe hide, where a brand might have been, was carefully turned back. Marynoticed this at once. Her father went on with his work, and occasionallygrumbled at her for not holding the candle right. 

"Where did you buy the steer, father?" she asked. 

"Ask no questions and hear no lies. " Then he added, "Carn't you see it'sa clear skin?"

She had a keen sense of humour, and the idea of a "'clear skin' steer"would have amused her at any other time. She didn't smile now. 

He turned the carcase over; the loose hide fell back, and the lightshone on a distinct brand. White as a sheet went Mary's face, and herhand trembled so that she nearly let the candle fall. 

"What are you adoin' of now?" shouted her father. "Hold the candle, carn't you? You're worse than the old woman. "

"Father! the beast is branded! See!---- What does PB stand for?"

"Poor Beggar, like myself. Hold the candle, carn't you?--and hold yourtongue. "

Mary was startled again by hearing the tread of a horse, but it was onlythe old grey munching round. Her father finished skinning, and drew thecarcase up to a make-shift "gallows". "Now you can go to bed, " he said, in a gentler tone. 

She went to her bedroom--a small, low, slab skillion, built on to theend of the house--and fell on her knees by the bunk. 

"God help me! God help us all!" she cried. 

She lay down, but could not sleep. She was nervously ill--nearly mad, because of the dark, disgraceful cloud of trouble which hung over herhome. Always in trouble--always in trouble. It started long ago, whenher favourite brother Tom ran away. She was little more than a childthen, intensely sensitive; and when she sat in the old bark school shefancied that the other children were thinking or whispering to eachother, "Her brother's in prison! Mary Wylie's brother's in prison! TomWylie's in gaol!" She was thinking of it still. They were ever with her, those horrible days and nights of the first shadow of shame. She had thesame horror of evil, the same fearful dread of disgrace that her motherhad. She had been ambitious; she had managed to read much, and had wilddreams of going to the city and rising above the common level, but thatwas all past now. 

How could she rise when the cruel hand of disgrace was ever ready todrag her down at any moment. "Ah, God!" she moaned in her misery, "ifwe could only be born without kin--with no one to disgrace us butourselves! It's cruel, God, it's cruel to suffer for the crimes ofothers!" She was getting selfish in her troubles--like her mother. "Iwant to go away from the bush and all I know. .. . O God, help me togo away from the bush!" Presently she fell asleep--if sleep it may becalled--and dreamt of sailing away, sailing away far out on the seabeyond the horizon of her dread. Then came a horrible nightmare, inwhich she and all her family were arrested for a terrible crime. Shewoke in a fright, and saw a reddish glare on the window. Her fatherwas poking round some logs where they had been "burning-off". A pungentodour came through a broken pane and turned her sick. He was burning thehide. 

Wylie did not go to bed that night; he got his breakfast beforedaylight, and rode up through the frosty gap while the stars were stillout, carrying a bag of beef in front of him on the grey horse. Mary saidnothing about the previous night. Her mother wondered how much "father"had given for the steer, and supposed he had gone into town to sellthe hide; the poor soul tried to believe that he had come by the steerhonestly. Mary fried some meat, and tried to eat it for her mother'ssake, but could manage only a few mouthfuls. Mrs. Wylie also seemedto have lost her appetite. Jack and his brother, who had been outall night, made a hearty breakfast. Then Jimmy started to peg out the'possum skins, while Jack went to look for a missing pony. Mary was leftto milk all the cows, and feed the calves and pigs. 

Shortly after dinner one of the children ran to the door, and cried:

"Why, mother--here's three mounted troopers comin' up the gully!"

"Oh, my God!" cried the mother, sinking back in her chair and tremblinglike a leaf. The children ran and hid in the scrub. Mary stood up, terribly calm, and waited. The eldest trooper dismounted, came to thedoor, glanced suspiciously at the remains of the meal, and abruptlyasked the dreaded question:

"Mrs. Wylie, where's your husband?"

She dropped the tea-cup, from which she had pretended to be drinkingunconcernedly. 

"What? Why, what do you want my husband for?" she asked in pitifuldesperation. SHE looked like the guilty party. 

"Oh, you know well enough, " he sneered impatiently. 

Mary rose and faced him. "How dare you talk to my mother like that?" shecried. "If my poor brother Tom was only here--you--you coward!"

The youngest trooper whispered something to his senior, and then, stungby a sharp retort, said:

"Well, you needn't be a pig. "

His two companions passed through into the spare skillion, where theyfound some beef in a cask, and more already salted down under a bag onthe end of a bench; then they went out at the back and had a look at thecow-yard. The younger trooper lingered behind. 

"I'll try and get them up the gully on some excuse, " he whispered toMary. "You plant the hide before we come back. "

"It's too late. Look there!" She pointed through the doorway. 

The other two were at the logs where the fire had been; the burning hidehad stuck to the logs in places like glue. 

"Wylie's a fool, " remarked the old trooper. 

 III. 

Jack disappeared shortly after his father's arrest on a charge of horseand cattle-stealing, and Tom, the prodigal, turned up unexpectedly. He was different from his father and eldest brother. He had an opengood-humoured face, and was very kind-hearted; but was subject topeculiar fits of insanity, during which he did wild and foolish thingsfor the mere love of notoriety. He had two natures--one bright andgood, the other sullen and criminal. A taint of madness ran in thefamily--came down from drunken and unprincipled fathers of deadgenerations; under different conditions, it might have developed intogenius in one or two--in Mary, perhaps. 

"Cheer up, old woman!" cried Tom, patting his mother on the back. "We'llbe happy yet. I've been wild and foolish, I know, and gave you someawful trouble, but that's all done with. I mean to keep steady, andby-and-bye we'll go away to Sydney or Queensland. Give us a smile, mother. "

He got some "grubbing" to do, and for six months kept the familyin provisions. Then a change came over him. He became moody andsullen--even brutal. He would sit for hours and grin to himself withoutany apparent cause; then he would stay away from home for days together. 

"Tom's going wrong again, " wailed Mrs. Wylie. "He'll get into troubleagain, I know he will. We are disgraced enough already, God knows. "

"You've done your best, mother, " said Mary, "and can do no more. People will pity us; after all, the thing itself is not so bad as theeverlasting dread of it. This will be a lesson for father--he wantedone--and maybe he'll be a better man. " (She knew better than that. ) "YOUdid your best, mother. "

"Ah, Mary! you don't know what I've gone through these thirty yearsin the bush with your father. I've had to go down on my knees and begpeople not to prosecute him--and the same with your brother Tom; andthis is the end of it. "

"Better to have let them go, mother; you should have left father whenyou found out what sort of a man he was; it would have been better forall. "

"It was my duty to stick by him, child; he was my husband. Your fatherwas always a bad man, Mary--a bad man; I found it out too late. I couldnot tell you a quarter of what I have suffered with him. .. . I was proud, Mary; I wanted my children to be better than others. .. . It's my fault;it's a judgment. .. . I wanted to make my children better than others. .. . I was so proud, Mary. "

Mary had a sweetheart, a drover, who was supposed to be in Queensland. He had promised to marry her, and take her and her mother away when hereturned; at least, she had promised to marry him on that condition. Hehad now been absent on his latest trip for nearly six months, and therewas no news from him. She got a copy of a country paper to look for the"stock passings"; but a startling headline caught her eye:

 IMPUDENT ATTEMPT AT ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. ---- "A drover known to the police as Frederick Dunn, alias Drew, was arrested last week at----"

She read to the bitter end, and burned the paper. And the shadow ofanother trouble, darker and drearier than all the rest, was upon her. 

So the little outcast family in Long Gully existed for several months, seeing no one save a sympathetic old splitter who would come and smokehis pipe by the fire of nights, and try to convince the old woman thatmatters might have been worse, and that she wouldn't worry so much ifshe knew the troubles of some of our biggest families, and that thingswould come out all right and the lesson would do Wylie good. Also, thatTom was a different boy altogether, and had more sense than to gowrong again. "It was nothing, " he said, "nothing; they didn't know whattrouble was. "

But one day, when Mary and her mother were alone, the troopers cameagain. 

"Mrs. Wylie, where's your son Tom?" they asked. 

She sat still. She didn't even cry, "Oh, my God!"

"Don't be frightened, Mrs. Wylie, " said one of the troopers, gently. "Itain't for much anyway, and maybe Tom'll be able to clear himself. "

Mary sank on her knees by her mother's side, crying "Speak to me, mother. Oh, my God, she's dying! Speak for my sake, mother. Don't die, mother; it's all a mistake. Don't die and leave me here alone. "

But the poor old woman was dead. 

 . . . . . 

Wylie came out towards the end of the year, and a few weeks later hebrought home a--another woman. 

 IV. 

Bob Bentley, general hawker, was camping under some rocks by the mainroad, near the foot of Long Gully. His mate was fast asleep under thetilted trap. Bob stood with his back to the fire, his pipe in his mouth, and his hands clasped behind him. The fire lit up the undersides of thebranches above; a native bear sat in a fork blinking down at it, whilethe moon above him showed every hair on his ears. From among the treescame the pleasant jingle of hobble-chains, the slow tread of hoofs, andthe "crunch, crunch" at the grass, as the horses moved about and grazed, now in moonlight, now in the soft shadows. "Old Thunder", a big blackdog of no particular breed, gave a meaning look at his master, andstarted up the ridge, followed by several smaller dogs. Soon Bob heardfrom the hillside the "hy-yi-hi, whomp, whomp, whomp!" of old Thunder, and the yop-yop-yopping of the smaller fry--they had tree'd a 'possum. Bob threw himself on the grass, and pretended to be asleep. There wasa sound as of a sizeable boulder rolling down the hill, and presentlyThunder trotted round the fire to see if his master would come. Bobsnored. The dog looked suspiciously at him, trotted round once or twice, and as a last resource gave him two great slobbery licks across theface. Bob got up with a good-natured oath. 

"Well, old party, " he said to Thunder, "you're a thundering oldnuisance; but I s'pose you won't be satisfied till I come. " He got a gunfrom the waggonette, loaded it, and started up the ridge; old Thunderrushing to and fro to show the way--as if the row the other dogs weremaking wasn't enough to guide his master. 

When Bob returned with the 'possums he was startled to see a woman inthe camp. She was sitting on a log by the fire, with her elbows on herknees and her face in her hands. 

"Why--what the dev--who are you?"

The girl raised a white desperate face to him. It was Mary Wylie. 

"My father and--and the woman--they're drinking--they turned me out!they turned me out. "

"Did they now? I'm sorry for that. What can I do for you?. .. She's madsure enough, " he thought to himself; "I thought it was a ghost. "

"I don't know, " she wailed, "I don't know. You're a man, and I'm ahelpless girl. They turned me out! My mother's dead, and my brothersgone away. Look! Look here!" pointing to a bruise on her forehead. "Thewoman did that. My own father stood by and saw it done--said it servedme right! Oh, my God!"

"What woman? Tell me all about it. "

"The woman father brought home!. .. I want to go away from the bush! Oh!for God's sake take me away from the bush!. .. Anything! anything!--youknow!--only take me away from the bush!"

Bob and his mate--who had been roused--did their best to soothe her;but suddenly, without a moment's warning, she sprang to her feet andscrambled to the top of the rock overhanging the camp. She stood for amoment in the bright moonlight, gazing intently down the vacant road. 

"Here they come!" she cried, pointing down the road. "Here theycome--the troopers! I can see their cap-peaks glistening inthe moonlight!. .. I'm going away! Mother's gone. I'm goingnow!--Good-bye!--Good-bye! I'm going away from the bush!"

Then she ran through the trees towards the foot of Long Gully. Bob andhis mate followed; but, being unacquainted with the locality, they losther. 

She ran to the edge of a granite cliff on the higher side of the deepestof the rocky waterholes. There was a heavy splash, and three startledkangaroos, who had been drinking, leapt back and sped away, like threegrey ghosts, up the ridge towards the moonlit peak. 

Mitchell on the "Sex" and Other "Problems"

"I agree with 'T' in last week's 'Bulletin', " said Mitchell, aftercogitating some time over the last drop of tea in his pannikin, heldat various angles, "about what they call the 'Sex Problem'. There's noproblem, really, except Creation, and that's not our affair; we can'tsolve it, and we've no right to make a problem out of it for ourselvesto puzzle over, and waste the little time that is given us about. It'swe that make the problems, not Creation. We make 'em, and they onlysmother us; they'll smother the world in the end if we don't lookout. Anything that can be argued, for and against, from half a dozendifferent points of view--and most things that men argue over canbe--and anything that has been argued about for thousands of years (asmost things have) is worse than profitless; it wastes the world's timeand ours, and often wrecks old mateships. Seems to me the deeper youread, think, talk, or write about things that end in ism, the lesssatisfactory the result; the more likely you are to get bushed anddissatisfied with the world. And the more you keep on the surface ofplain things, the plainer the sailing--the more comfortable for you andeverybody else. We've always got to come to the surface to breathe, inthe end, in any case; we're meant to live on the surface, and we mightas well stay there and look after it and ourselves for all the good wedo diving down after fish that aren't there, except in our imagination. And some of 'em are very dead fish, too--the 'Sex Problem', forinstance. When we fall off the surface of the earth it will be timeenough to make a problem out of the fact that we couldn't stick on. I'ma Federal Pro-trader in this country; I'm a Federalist because I thinkFederation is the plain and natural course for Australia, and I'm aFree-tectionist because I'm in favour of sinking any question, or anytwo things, that enlightened people can argue and fight over, and try, one after the other, for fifty years without being able to come to adecision about, or prove which is best for the welfare of the country. It only wastes a young country's time, and keeps it off the right track. Federation isn't a problem--it's a plain fact--but they make a problemout of every panel they have to push down in the rotten old boundaryfences. "

"Personal interests, " suggested Joe. 

"Of course. It's personal interest of the wrong sort that makes all theproblems. You can trace the sex problem to people who trade in unhealthypersonal interests. I believe in personal interests of the rightsort--true individualism. If we all looked after ourselves, and ourwives and families--if we have any--in the proper way, the world wouldbe all right. We waste too much time looking after each other. 

"Now, supposing we're travelling and have to get a shed and make acheque so's to be able to send a few quid home, as soon as we can, tothe missus, or the old folks, and the next water is twenty miles ahead. If we sat down and argued over a social problem till doomsday, wewouldn't get to the tank; we'd die of thirst, and the missus and kids, or the old folks, would be sold up and turned out into the streets, and have to fall back on a 'home of hope', or wait their turn at theBenevolent Asylum with bags for broken victuals. I've seen that, and Idon't want anybody belonging to me to have to do it. 

"Reminds me that when a poor, deserted girl goes to a 'home' they don'tmake a problem of her--they do their best for her and try to get herrighted. And the priests, too: if there's anything in the sex or anyother problem--anything that hasn't been threshed out--they're the menthat'll know it. I'm not a Catholic, but I know this: that if a girlthat's been left by one--no matter what Church she belongs to--goes tothe priest, they'll work all the points they know (and they know 'emall) to get her righted, and, if the chap, or his people, won't come upto the scratch, Father Ryan'll frighten hell out of 'em. I can't say asmuch for our own Churches. "

"But you're in favour of socialism and democracy?" asked Joe. 

"Of course I am. But the world won't do any good arguing over it. The people will have to get up and walk, and, what's more, sticktogether--and I don't think they'll ever do that--it ain't in humannature. Socialism, or democracy, was all right in this country tillit got fashionable and was made a fad or a problem of. Then it gotsmothered pretty quick. And a fad or a problem always breeds a host ofparasites or hangers-on. Why, as soon as I saw the advanced idealistfools--they're generally the middle-class, shabby-genteel families thatcatch Spiritualism and Theosophy and those sort of complaints, at theend of the epidemic--that catch on at the tail-end of things and thinkthey've caught something brand, shining, new;--as soon as I saw them, and the problem spielers and notoriety-hunters of both sexes, beginningto hang round Australian Unionism, I knew it was doomed. And so it was. The straight men were disgusted, or driven out. There are women who hangon for the same reason that a girl will sometimes go into the dock andswear an innocent man's life away. But as soon as they see that thecause is dying, they drop it at once, and wait for another. They comelike bloody dingoes round a calf, and only leave the bones. They'reabout as democratic as the crows. And the rotten 'sex-problem' sort ofthing is the cause of it all; it poisons weak minds--and strong ones toosometimes. 

"Why, you could make a problem out of Epsom salts. You might argue as towhy human beings want Epsom salts, and try to trace the causes thatled up to it. I don't like the taste of Epsom salts--it's nasty inthe mouth--but when I feel that way I take 'em, and I feel betterafterwards; and that's good enough for me. We might argue that black iswhite, and white is black, and neither of 'em is anything, and nothingis everything; and a woman's a man and a man's a woman, and it's reallythe man that has the youngsters, only we imagine it's the woman becauseshe imagines that she has all the pain and trouble, and the doctor isunder the impression that he's attending to her, not the man, and theman thinks so too because he imagines he's walking up and down outside, and slipping into the corner pub now and then for a nip to keep hiscourage up, waiting, when it's his wife that's doing that all the time;we might argue that it's all force of imagination, and that imaginationis an unknown force, and that the unknown is nothing. But, when we'vesettled all that to our own satisfaction, how much further ahead are we?In the end we'll come to the conclusion that we ain't alive, and neverexisted, and then we'll leave off bothering, and the world will go onjust the same. "

"What about science?" asked Joe. 

"Science ain't 'sex problems'; it's facts. .. . Now, I don't mindSpiritualism and those sort of things; they might help to break themonotony, and can't do much harm. But the 'sex problem', as it's writtenabout to-day, does; it's dangerous and dirty, and it's time to settle itwith a club. Science and education, if left alone, will look after sexfacts. 

"You can't get anything out of the 'sex problem', no matter how youargue. In the old Bible times they had half a dozen wives each, but wedon't know for certain how THEY got on. The Mormons tried it again, andseemed to get on all right till we interfered. We don't seem to be ableto get on with one wife now--at least, according to the 'sex problem'. The 'sex problem' troubled the Turks so much that they tried three. Lotsof us try to settle it by knocking round promiscuously, and that leadsto actions for maintenance and breach of promise cases, and all sorts oftrouble. Our blacks settle the 'sex problem' with a club, and so far Ihaven't heard any complaints from them. 

 . . . . . 

"Take hereditary causes and surrounding circumstances, for instance. Inorder to understand or judge a man right, you would need to live underthe same roof with him from childhood, and under the same roofs, ortents, with his parents, right back to Adam, and then you'd be blockedfor want of more ancestors through which to trace the causes that ledto Abel--I mean Cain--going on as he did. What's the use or sense of it?You might argue away in any direction for a million miles and a millionyears back into the past, but you've got to come back to where you areif you wish to do any good for yourself, or anyone else. 

"Sometimes it takes you a long while to get back to where youare--sometimes you never do it. Why, when those controversies werestarted in the 'Bulletin' about the kangaroos and other things, Ithought I knew something about the bush. Now I'm damned if I'm sure Icould tell a kangaroo from a wombat. 

"Trying to find out things is the cause of all the work and trouble inthis world. It was Eve's fault in the first place--or Adam's, rather, because it might be argued that he should have been master. Some men aretoo lazy to be masters in their own homes, and run the show properly;some are too careless, and some too drunk most of their time, and sometoo weak. If Adam and Eve hadn't tried to find out things there'd havebeen no toil and trouble in the world to-day; there'd have been nobloated capitalists, and no horny-handed working men, and no politics, no freetrade and protection--and no clothes. The woman next doorwouldn't be able to pick holes in your wife's washing on the line. We'dhave been all running about in a big Garden of Eden with nothing on, andnothing to do except loaf, and make love, and lark, and laugh, and playpractical jokes on each other. "

Joe grinned. 

"That would have been glorious. Wouldn't it, Joe? There'd have been no'sex problem' then. "

The Master's Mistake

William Spencer stayed away from school that hot day, and "wentswimming". The master wrote a note to William's father, and gave it toWilliam's brother Joe to carry home. 

"You'll give that to your father to-night, Joseph. "

"Yes, sir. "

Bill waited for Joe near the gap, and walked home with him. 

"I s'pose you've got a note for father. "

"Yes, " said Joe. 

"I s'pose you know what's in it?"

"Ye--yes. Oh, why did you stop away, Bill?"

"You don't mean to say that you're dirty mean enough to give it tofather? Hey?"

"I must, Will. I promised the master. "

"He needn't never know. "

"Oh, yes, he will. He's coming over to our place on Saturday, and he'ssure to ask me to-morrow. "

Pause. 

"Look here, Joe!" said Bill, "I don't want to get a hiding and gowithout supper to-night. I promised to go 'possuming with JohnnyNowlett, and he's going to give me a fire out of his gun. You can come, too. I don't want to cop out on it to-night--if I do I'll run away fromhome again, so there. "

Bill walked on a bit in moody, Joe in troubled, silence. 

Bill tried again: he threatened, argued, and pleaded, but Joe was firm. "The master trusted me, Will, " he said. 

"Joe, " said Bill at last, after a long pause, "I wouldn't do it to you. "

Joe was troubled. 

"I wouldn't do it to you, Joe. "

Joe thought how Bill had stood up and fought for him only last week. 

"I'd tear the note in bits; I'd tell a hundred lies; I'd take a dozenhidings first, Joe--I would. "

Joe was greatly troubled. His chest heaved, and the tears came to hiseyes. 

"I'd do more than that for you, Joe, and you know it. "

Joe knew it. They were crossing the old goldfield now. There was a shaftclose to the path; it had fallen in, funnel-shaped, at the top, but wasstill thirty or forty feet deep; some old logs were jammed across aboutfive feet down. Joe suddenly snatched the note from his pocket and threwit in. It fluttered to the other side and rested on a piece of the oldtimber. Bill saw it, but said nothing, and, seeing their father cominghome from work, they hurried on. 

Joe was deep in trouble now. Bill tried to comfort and cheer him, but itwas no use. Bill promised never to run away from home any more, to goto school every day, and never to fight, or steal, or tell lies. But Joehad betrayed his trust for the first time in his life, and wouldn't becomforted. 

Some time in the night Bill woke, and found Joe sitting up in bedcrying. 

"Why, what's the matter, Joe?"

"I never done a mean thing like that before, " sobbed Joe. "I wished I'dchucked meself down the shaft instead. The master trusted me, Will; an'now, if he asks me to-morrow, I'll have to tell a lie. "

"Then tell the truth, Joe, an' take the hidin'; it'll soon be over--justa couple of cuts with the cane and it'll be all over. "

"Oh, no, it won't. He won't never trust me any more. I've never beencaned in that school yet, Will, and if I am I'll never go again. Oh! whywill you run away from home, Will, and play the wag, and steal, andget us all into such trouble? You don't know how mother takes on aboutit--you don't know how it hurts father! I've deceived the master, andmother and father to-day, just because you're so--so selfish, " and helaid down and cried himself to sleep. 

Bill lay awake and thought till daylight; then he got up quietly, put onhis clothes, and stole away from the house and across the flat, followedby the dog, who thought it was a 'possum-hunting expedition. Bill wishedthe dog would not be quite so demonstrative, at least until they gotaway from the house. He went straight to the shaft, let himself downcarefully on to one of the old logs, and stooped to pick up the note, gleaming white in the sickly summer daylight. Then the rotten timbergave way suddenly, without a moment's warning. 

 . . . . . 

They found him that morning at about nine o'clock. The dog attractedthe attention of an old fossicker passing to his work. The letter wasgripped in Bill's right hand when they brought him up. They took himhome, and the father went for a doctor. Bill came to himself a littlejust before the last, and said: "Mother! I wasn't running away, mother--tell father that--I--I wanted to try and catch a 'possum on theground. .. . Where's Joe? I want Joe. Go out, mother, a minute, and sendJoe. "

"Here I am, Bill, " said Joe, in a choking, terrified voice. 

"Has the master been yet?"

"No. "

"Bend down, Joe. I went for the note, and the logs gave way. I meant tobe back before they was up. I dropped it down inside the bed; you watchyour chance and get it; and say you forgot it last night--say youdidn't like to give it--that won't be a lie. Tell the master I'm--I'msorry--tell the master never to send no notes no more--except bygirls--that's all. .. . Mother! Take the blankets off me--I'm dyin'. "

The Story of the Oracle

"We young fellows, " said "Sympathy Joe" to Mitchell, after tea, intheir first camp west the river--"and you and I ARE young fellows, comparatively--think we know the world. There are plenty of young chapsknocking round in this country who reckon they've been through itall before they're thirty. I've met cynics and men-o'-the-world, agedtwenty-one or thereabouts, who've never been further than a trip toSydney. They talk about 'this world' as if they'd knocked around inhalf-a-dozen other worlds before they came across here--and they arejust as off-hand about it as older Australians are when they talk aboutthis colony as compared with the others. They say: 'My oath!--samehere. ' 'I've been there. ' 'My oath!--you're right. ' 'Take it from me!'and all that sort of thing. They understand women, and have a contemptfor 'em; and chaps that don't talk as they talk, or do as they do, orsee as they see, are either soft or ratty. A good many reckon that 'lifeain't blanky well worth livin''; sometimes they feel so blanky somehowthat they wouldn't give a blank whether they chucked it or not; butthat sort never chuck it. It's mostly the quiet men that do that, andif they've got any complaints to make against the world they make 'em atthe head station. Why, I've known healthy, single, young fellowsunder twenty-five who drank to drown their troubles--some becausethey reckoned the world didn't understand nor appreciate 'em--as if itCOULD!"

"If the world don't understand or appreciate you, " said Mitchellsolemnly, as he reached for a burning stick to light his pipe--"MAKEit!"

"To drown THEIR troubles!" continued Joe, in a tone of impatientcontempt. "The Oracle must be well on towards the sixties; he can takehis glass with any man, but you never saw him drunk. "

"What's the Oracle to do with it?"

"Did you ever hear his history?"

"No. Do you know it?"

"Yes, though I don't think he has any idea that I do. Now, we weretalking about the Oracle a little while ago. We know he's an old ass;a good many outsiders consider that he's a bit soft or ratty, and, as we're likely to be mates together for some time on that fencingcontract, if we get it, you might as well know what sort of a man he isand was, so's you won't get uneasy about him if he gets deaf for a whilewhen you're talking, or does funny things with his pipe or pint-pot, orwalks up and down by himself for an hour or so after tea, or sits on alog with his head in his hands, or leans on the fence in the gloamingand keeps looking in a blank sort of way, straight ahead, across theclearing. For he's gazing at something a thousand miles across country, south-east, and about twenty years back into the past, and no doubt hesees himself (as a young man), and a Gippsland girl, spooning under thestars along between the hop-gardens and the Mitchell River. And, if youget holt of a fiddle or a concertina, don't rasp or swank too muchon old tunes, when he's round, for the Oracle can't stand it. Playsomething lively. He'll be down there at that surveyor's camp yarningtill all hours, so we'll have plenty of time for the story--but don'tyou ever give him a hint that you know. 

"My people knew him well; I got most of the story from them--mostly fromUncle Bob, who knew him better than any. The rest leaked out through thewomen--you know how things leak out amongst women?"

Mitchell dropped his head and scratched the back of it. HE knew. 

"It was on the Cudgegong River. My Uncle Bob was mates with him on oneof those 'rushes' along there--the 'Pipeclay', I think it was, or the'Log Paddock'. The Oracle was a young man then, of course, and so wasUncle Bob (he was a match for most men). You see the Oracle now, and youcan imagine what he was when he was a young man. Over six feet, and asstraight as a sapling, Uncle Bob said, clean-limbed, and as fresh asthey made men in those days; carried his hands behind him, as he doesnow, when he hasn't got the swag--but his shoulders were back inthose days. Of course he wasn't the Oracle then; he was young TomMarshall--but that doesn't matter. Everybody liked him--especially womenand children. He was a bit happy-go-lucky and careless, but he didn'tknow anything about 'this world', and didn't bother about it; he hadn't'been there'. 'And his heart was as good as gold, ' my aunt used tosay. He didn't understand women as we young fellows do nowadays, andtherefore he hadn't any contempt for 'em. Perhaps he understood, andunderstands, them better than any of us, without knowing it. Anyway, youknow, he's always gentle and kind where a woman or child is concerned, and doesn't like to hear us talk about women as we do sometimes. 

"There was a girl on the goldfields--a fine lump of a blonde, and prettygay. She came from Sydney, I think, with her people, who kept shantieson the fields. She had a splendid voice, and used to sing 'Madeline'. There might have been one or two bad women before that, in the Oracle'sworld, but no cold-blooded, designing ones. He calls the bad ones'unfortunate'. 

"Perhaps it was Tom's looks, or his freshness, or his innocence, orsoftness--or all together--that attracted her. Anyway, he got mixed upwith her before the goldfield petered out. 

"No doubt it took a long while for the facts to work into Tom's headthat a girl might sing like she did and yet be thoroughly unprincipled. The Oracle was always slow at coming to a decision, but when he doesit's generally the right one. Anyway, you can take that for granted, foryou won't move him. 

"I don't know whether he found out that she wasn't all that shepretented to be to him, or whether they quarrelled, or whether shechucked him over for a lucky digger. Tom never had any luck on thegoldfields. Anyway, he left and went over to the Victorian side, wherehis people were, and went up Gippsland way. It was there for the firsttime in his life that he got what you would call 'properly gone on agirl'; he got hard hit--he met his fate. 

"Her name was Bertha Bredt, I remember. Aunt Bob saw her afterwards. Aunt Bob used to say that she was 'a girl as God made her'--a good, true, womanly girl--one of those sort of girls that only love once. Tomgot on with her father, who was packing horses through the ranges to thenew goldfields--it was rough country and there were no roads; they hadto pack everything there in those days, and there was money in it. Thegirl's father took to Tom--as almost everybody else did--and, as far asthe girl was concerned, I think it was a case of love at first sight. They only knew each other for about six months, and were only 'courting'(as they called it then) for three or four months altogether, but shewas that sort of girl that can love a man for six weeks and lose him forever, and yet go on loving him to the end of her life--and die with hisname on her lips. 

"Well, things were brightening up every way for Tom, and he and hissweetheart were beginning to talk about their own little home in future, when there came a letter from the 'Madeline' girl in New South Wales. 

"She was in terrible trouble. Her baby was to be born in a month. Herpeople had kicked her out, and she was in danger of starving. She beggedand prayed of him to come back and marry her, if only for his child'ssake. He could go then, and be free; she would never trouble him anymore--only come and marry her for the child's sake. 

"The Oracle doesn't know where he lost that letter, but I do. It wasburnt afterwards by a woman, who was more than a mother to him in histrouble--Aunt Bob. She thought he might carry it round with the rest ofhis papers, in his swag, for years, and come across it unexpectedly whenhe was camped by himself in the bush and feeling dull. It wouldn't havedone him any good then. 

"He must have fought the hardest fight in his life when he got thatletter. No doubt he walked to and fro, to and fro, all night, with hishands behind him, and his eyes on the ground, as he does now sometimes. Walking up and down helps you to fight a thing out. 

"No doubt he thought of things pretty well as he thinks now: the poorgirl's shame on every tongue, and belled round the district by every hagin the township; and she looked upon by women as being as bad as anyman who ever went to Bathurst in the old days, handcuffed between twotroopers. There is sympathy, a pipe and tobacco, a cheering word, and, maybe, a whisky now and then, for the criminal on his journey; butthere is no mercy, at least as far as women are concerned, for thepoor foolish girl, who has to sneak out the back way and round by backstreets and lanes after dark, with a cloak on to hide her figure. 

"Tom sent what money he thought he could spare, and next day he went tothe girl he loved and who loved him, and told her the truth, and showedher the letter. She was only a girl--but the sort of girl you COULD goto in a crisis like that. He had made up his mind to do the right thing, and she loved him all the more for it. And so they parted. 

"When Tom reached 'Pipeclay', the girl's relations, that she wasstopping with, had a parson readied up, and they were married the sameday. "

"And what happened after that?" asked Mitchell. 

"Nothing happened for three or four months; then the child was born. Itwasn't his!"

Mitchell stood up with an oath. 

"The girl was thoroughly bad. She'd been carrying on with God knows howmany men, both before and after she trapped Tom. "

"And what did he do then?"

"Well, you know how the Oracle argues over things, and I suppose he wasas big an old fool then as he is now. He thinks that, as most men woulddeceive women if they could, when one man gets caught, he's got no callto squeal about it; he's bound, because of the sins of men in generalagainst women, to make the best of it. What is one man's wrong countedagainst the wrongs of hundreds of unfortunate girls. 

"It's an uncommon way of arguing--like most of the Oracle's ideas--butit seems to look all right at first sight. 

"Perhaps he thought she'd go straight; perhaps she convinced him that hewas the cause of her first fall; anyway he stuck to her for more thana year, and intended to take her away from that place as soon as he'dscraped enough money together. It might have gone on up till now, ifthe father of the child--a big black Irishman named Redmond--hadn't comesneaking back at the end of a year. He--well, he came hanging round Mrs. Marshall while Tom was away at work--and she encouraged him. And Tom wasforced to see it. 

"Tom wanted to fight out his own battle without interference, but thechaps wouldn't let him--they reckoned that he'd stand very little showagainst Redmond, who was a very rough customer and a fighting man. Myuncle Bob, who was there still, fixed it up this way: The Oracle wasto fight Redmond, and if the Oracle got licked Uncle Bob was to takeRedmond on. If Redmond whipped Uncle Bob, that was to settle it; but ifUncle Bob thrashed Redmond, then he was also to fight Redmond'smate, another big, rough Paddy named Duigan. Then the affair would befinished--no matter which way the last bout went. You see, Uncle Bob wasreckoned more of a match for Redmond than the Oracle was, so the thinglooked fair enough--at first sight. 

"Redmond had his mate, Duigan, and one or two others of the rough gangthat used to terrorise the fields round there in the roaring days ofGulgong. The Oracle had Uncle Bob, of course, and long Dave Regan, thedrover--a good-hearted, sawny kind of chap that'd break the devil'sown buck-jumper, or smash him, or get smashed himself--and little JimmyNowlett, the bullocky, and one or two of the old, better-class diggersthat were left on the field. 

"There's a clear space among the saplings in Specimen Gully, where theyused to pitch circuses; and here, in the cool of a summer evening, thetwo men stood face to face. Redmond was a rough, roaring, foul-mouthedman; he stripped to his shirt, and roared like a bull, and swore, andsneered, and wanted to take the whole of Tom's crowd while he was at it, and make one clean job of 'em. Couldn't waste time fighting them all oneafter the other, because he wanted to get away to the new rush at CattleCreek next day. The fool had been drinking shanty-whisky. 

"Tom stood up in his clean, white moles and white flannel shirt--one ofthose sort with no sleeves, that give the arms play. He had a sortof set expression and a look in his eyes that Uncle Bob--nor none ofthem--had ever seen there before. 'Give us plenty of----room!' roaredRedmond; 'one of us is going to hell, now! This is going to be a fightto a----finish, and a----short one!' And it was!" Joe paused. 

"Go on, " said Mitchell--"go on!"

Joe drew a long breath. 

"The Oracle never got a mark! He was top-dog right from the start. Perhaps it was his strength that Redmond had underrated, or his wantof science that puzzled him, or the awful silence of the man thatfrightened him (it made even Uncle Bob uneasy). Or, perhaps, it wasProvidence (it was a glorious chance for Providence), but, anyway, asI say, the Oracle never got a mark, except on his knuckles. After a fewrounds Redmond funked and wanted to give in, but the chaps wouldn't lethim--not even his own mates--except Duigan. They made him take it aslong as he could stand on his feet. He even shammed to be knocked out, and roared out something about having broken his----ankle--but it wasno use. And the Oracle! The chaps that knew thought that he'd refuse tofight, and never hit a man that had given in. But he did. He just stoodthere with that quiet look in his eyes and waited, and, when he did hit, there wasn't any necessity for Redmond to PRETEND to be knocked down. You'll see a glint of that old light in the Oracle's eyes even now, oncein a while; and when you do it's a sign that you or someone are goingtoo far, and had better pull up, for it's a red light on the line, oldas he is. 

"Now, Jimmy Nowlett was a nuggety little fellow, hard as cast iron, good-hearted, but very excitable; and when the bashed Redmond wasbeing carted off (poor Uncle Bob was always pretty high-strung, and wassitting on a log sobbing like a great child from the reaction), Duiganmade some sneering remark that only Jimmy Nowlett caught, and in aninstant he was up and at Duigan. 

"Perhaps Duigan was demoralised by his mate's defeat, or by thesuddenness of the attack; but, at all events, he got a hiding, too. Uncle Bob used to say that it was the funniest thing he ever saw in hislife. Jimmy kept yelling: 'Let me get at him! By the Lord, let me get athim!' And nobody was attempting to stop him, he WAS getting at him allthe time--and properly, too; and, when he'd knocked Duigan down, he'ddance round him and call on him to get up; and every time he jumped orbounced, he'd squeak like an india-rubber ball, Uncle Bob said, and hewould nearly burst his boiler trying to lug the big man on to his feetso's he could knock him down again. It took two of Jimmy's mates alltheir time to lam him down into a comparatively reasonable state of mindafter the fight was over. 

"The Oracle left for Sydney next day, and Uncle Bob went with him. Hestayed at Uncle Bob's place for some time. He got very quiet, they said, and gentle; he used to play with the children, and they got mighty fondof him. The old folks thought his heart was broken, but it went througha deeper sorrow still after that and it ain't broken yet. It takes a lotto break the heart of a man. "

"And his wife, " asked Mitchell--"what became of her?"

"I don't think he ever saw her again. She dropped down pretty low afterhe left her--I've heard she's living somewhere quietly. The Oracle'sbeen sending someone money ever since I knew him, and I know it's awoman. I suppose it's she. He isn't the sort of a man to see a womanstarve--especially a woman he had ever had anything to do with. "

"And the Gippsland girl?" asked Mitchell. 

"That's the worst part of it all, I think. The Oracle went up Northsomewhere. In the course of a year or two his affair got over Gippslandway through a mate of his who lived over there, and at last the storygot to the ears of this girl, Bertha Bredt. She must have written adozen letters to him, Aunt Bob said. She knew what was in 'em, but, ofcourse, she'd never tell us. The Oracle only wrote one in reply. Then, what must the girl do but clear out from home and make her way over toSydney--to Aunt Bob's place, looking for Tom. She never got any further. She took ill--brain-fever, or broken heart, or something of that sort. All the time she was down her cry was--'I want to see him! I want tofind Tom! I only want to see Tom!'

"When they saw she was dying, Aunt Bob wired to the Oracle to come--andhe came. When the girl saw it was Tom sitting by the bed, she just gaveone long look in his face, put her arms round his neck, and laid herhead on his shoulder--and died. .. . Here comes the Oracle now. "

Mitchell lifted the tea-billy on to the coals. 

[End of original text. ]

From the original advertisements (March, 1900), books by the sameauthor:

When the World was Wide & Other Verses

By Henry Lawson, Author of "While the Billy Boils". 

 Ninth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 5s. ; post free, 5s. 5d. 

Mr. R. Le Gallienne, in The Idler: "A striking volume of balladpoetry. A volume to console one for the tantalising postponement of Mr. Kipling's promised volume of sea ballads. "

Weekly Chronicle, Newcastle (Eng. ): "Swinging, rhythmic verse. "

Sydney Morning Herald: "The verses have natural vigour, the writer hasa rough, true faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of thesoil from cover to cover. "

Melbourne Age: "'In the Days when the World was Wide and Other Verses', by Henry Lawson, is poetry, and some of it poetry of a very high order. "

Otago Witness: "It were well to have such books upon our shelves. .. Theyare true History. "

New Zealand Herald: "There is a heart-stirring ring about the verses. "

Bulletin: "How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong. "

While the Billy Boils: Australian Stories. 

By Henry Lawson. 

Author of "In the Days when the World was Wide". 

 Twelfth Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (postage, 6d. )

 Also in two parts (each complete in itself), in picture covers, at 1s. ; post free, 1s. 3d. Each (Commonwealth Series). 

The Academy: "A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writingabout Australia from within is worth a library of travellers' tales. Mr. Lawson shows us what living in the bush really means. The result isa real book--a book in a hundred. His language is terse, supple, andrichly idiomatic. "

Mr. A. Patchett Martin, in Literature (London): "A book which Mrs. Campbell Praed, the Australian novelist, assured me made her feel thatall she had written of bush life was pale and ineffective. "

The Spectator: "In these days when short, dramatic stories are eagerlylooked for, it is strange that one we would venture to call the greatestAustralian writer should be practically unknown in England. Shortstories, but biting into the very heart of the bushman's life, ruthlessin truth, extraordinarily dramatic, and pathetically uneven. .. . "

The Times: "A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories ofAustralian life and character. A little in Bret Harte's manner, crossed, perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant. "

[The Announcements at the end of this section give alternate titlesfor two of Lawson's works, to wit: "On the Track" is given as such, but"Over the Sliprails" is given as "By the Sliprails", and the combinedwork "On the Track and Over the Sliprails" is given as "By Track andSliprails". Of course, only "On the Track" had actually been printed atthe date of the advertisement, so it might be theorized that these hadbeen working titles, afterwards discarded, whose inclusion here wasoverlooked. --A. L. , 1998. ]

About the author:

Henry Lawson was born near Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia on17 June 1867. Although he has since become Australia's most acclaimedwriter, in his own lifetime his writing was often "on the side"--his"real" work being whatever he could find. His writing was frequentlytaken from memories of his childhood, especially at Pipeclay/Eurunderee. In his autobiography, he states that many of his characters weretaken from the better class of diggers and bushmen he knew there. His experiences at this time deeply influenced his work, for it isinteresting to note a number of descriptions and phrases that areidentical in his autobiography and in his stories and poems. He died atSydney, 2 September 1922. He is most famous for his short stories. 

"On the Track" and "Over the Sliprails" were both published at Sydneyin 1900, the prefaces being dated March and June respectively--and so, though printed separately, a combined edition was printed the sameyear (the two separate, complete works were simply put together in onebinding); hence they are sometimes referred to as "On the Track and Overthe Sliprails". The opposite occurred with "Joe Wilson and His Mates", which was later divided into "Joe Wilson" and "Joe Wilson's Mates"(1901). All of these works are now online, as well as one book ofLawson's verse, "In the Days When the World was Wide" (1896). 

 . . . . . 

An incomplete glossary of Australian terms and concepts which may provehelpful to understanding this book:

 Billy: Any container used to boil water, especially for tea; a special container designed for this purpose. 

 Bunyip: [pronounced bun-yup] A large mythological creature, said by the Aborigines to inhabit watery places. There may be some relation to an actual creature that is now extinct. Lawson uses an obsolete sense of the term, meaning "imposter". 

 Gin: An aboriginal woman; use of the term is analogous to "squaw" in N. America. May be considered derogatory in modern usage. 

 Goanna: Any of various lizards of the genus Varanus (monitor lizards) native to Australia. 

 Graft: Work; hard work. 

 Gunyah: (Aboriginal) A rough or temporary hut or shelter in the bush, especially one built from bark, branches, and the like. A humpy, wurley, or mia-mia. Variant: Gunya. 

 Jackeroo/Jackaroo: At the time Lawson wrote, a Jackaroo was a "new chum" or newcomer to Australia, who sought work on a station to gain experience. The term now applies to any young man working as a station hand. A female station hand is a Jillaroo. 

 Jimmy Woodser: A person who drinks alone; a drink drunk alone. 

 Larrikin: A hoodlum. 

 Lorry: A large, low wagon without sides, used for heavy loads. 

 Mia-mia: (Aboriginal) A rough or temporary hut or shelter in the bush, especially one built from bark, branches, and the like. A humpy, wurley, or gunyah. 

 Native bear: A koala. 

 Pa: A Maori village. 

 'Possum/Possum: In Australia, a class of marsupials that were originally mistaken for the American animal of the same name. They are not especially related to the possums of North and South America, other than being marsupials. 

 Public/Pub. : The traditional pub. In Australia was a hotel with a "public" bar--hence the name. The modern pub has often (not always) dispensed with the lodging, and concentrated on the bar. 

 Push: A group of people sharing something in common; Lawson uses the word in an older and more particular sense, as a gang of violent city hoodlums. 

 Ratty: Shabby, dilapidated; somewhat eccentric, perhaps even slightly mad. 

 Selector: A free selector, a farmer who selected and settled land by lease or license from the government. 

 Shout: To buy a round of drinks. 

 Skillion: A lean-to or outbuilding. 

 Sliprails/slip-rails: movable rails, forming a section of fence, which can be taken down in lieu of a gate. "Over the Sliprails", the title of this volume, might be translated as "Through the Gate". 

 Squatter: A person who first settled on land without government permission, and later continued by lease or license, generally to raise stock; a wealthy rural landowner. 

 Station: A farm or ranch, especially one devoted to cattle or sheep. 

 Stoush: Violence; to do violence to. 

 Tea: In addition to the regular meaning, Tea can also mean a light snack or a meal (i. E. , where Tea is served). In particular, Morning Tea (about 10 AM) and Afternoon Tea (about 3 PM) are nothing more than a snack, but Evening Tea (about 6 PM) is a meal. When just "Tea" is used, it usually means the evening meal. Variant: Tea- time. 

 Tucker: Food. 

 Whare: [pronounced war-ee] A Maori term for a hut or similar dwelling. 

 Also: a hint with the seasons--remember that the seasons are reversed from those in the northern hemisphere, hence June may be hot, but December is even hotter. Australia is at a lower latitude than the United States, so the winters are not harsh by US standards, and are not even mild in the north. In fact, large parts of Australia are governed more by "dry" versus "wet" than by Spring- Summer-Fall-Winter. 

(Alan R. Light, Monroe, North Carolina, April 1998. )

A number of obvious errors were corrected, after being compared againstother editions. The original edition was the primary source.