Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

“Because whenever I see an old man poking round the place on a stick I always make for him straight and inquire about his trouble; and no matter what complaint he’s got, my old man suffered from it for years. It’s pretty hard graft listening to an old man with a pet leg, but I find it pays; and I always finish up by advising him to try St Jacob’s oil. Perhaps he’s been trying it for years, but that doesn’t matter; the consultation works out all right all the same, and there’s never been a remedy tried yet but I’ve got another.

“I’ve got a lot of Maori and blackfellow remedies in my mind, and when they fail I can fall back on the Chinese; and if that isn’t enough I’ve got a list of my grandmother’s remedies that she wrote down for me when I was leaving home, and I kept it for a curiosity. It took her three days to write them, and I reckon they’ll fill the bill.

“You don’t want a shave. You look better with that stubble on. You needn’t say anything; just stand by and wear your usual expression, and if they ask me what’s the matter with my mate I’ll fix up a disease for you to have, and get something extra on your account, poor beggar!

“I wish we had a chap with us that could sing a bit and run the gamut on a fiddle or something. With a sickly-looking fish like you to stand by and look interesting and die slowly of consumption all the time, and me to do the talking, we’d be able to travel from one end of the bush to the other and live on the fat of the land. I wouldn’t cure you for a hundred pounds:”

They reached the shanty, and there, sure enough, was an old man pottering round with a list to starboard. He was working with a hoe inside a low paling fence round a sort of garden. Steelman and Smith stopped outside the fence.

“Good day, boss!”

“’Day.”

“It’s hot.”

“It’s hot.”

So far it was satisfactory.

He was a little man, with a wiry, red beard. He might have been a Scandinavian.

“You seem to be a bit lame,” said Steelman. “Hurt your foot?”

“Naw,” said the old man. “It’s an old thing.”

“Ah!” said Steelman, “lumbago, I suppose? My father suffered cruel from it for years.”

“Naw,” said the old man, moving closer to the fence. “It ain’t in me back; the trouble’s with me leg.”

“Oh!” said Steelman. “One a bit shorter than the other?”

“Well, yes. It seems to be wearin’ a bit shorter. I must see to it.”

“Hip disease, perhaps?” said Steelman. “A brother o’ mine had——”

“Naw, it’s not in the hip,” said the old man. “My leg’s gone at the knee.”

“Oh! stiff joint; I know what that is. Had a touch of it once myself. An uncle of mine was nearly crippled with it. He used to use St Jacob’s oil. Ever try St Jacob’s oil?”

“Naw,” said the old man, “not that I know of. I’ve used linseed oil though.”

“Linseed oil!” said Steelman; “I’ve never heard of that for stiff knee. How do you use it?”

“Use it raw,” said the old man. “Raw linseed oil; I’ve rubbed it in, and I’ve soaked me leg in it.”

“Soaked your leg in it!” said Steelman. “And did it do it any good?”

“Well, it seems to preserve it—keeps it from warping, and it wears better—and it makes it heavier. It seemed a bit too light before.”

Steelman nudged Smith under cover of the palings. The old man was evidently a bit ratty.

“Well, I hope your leg will soon be all right, boss,” said Steelman.

“Thank you,” said the old man, “but I don’t think there’s much hope. I suppose you want some tucker?”

“Well, yes,” said Steelman, rather taken aback by the old man’s sudden way of putting it. “We’re hard up.”

“Well, come along to the house and I’ll see if I can get yer something,” said the old man; and they walked along outside the fence, and he hobbled along inside, till he came to a little gate at the corner. He opened the gate and stumped out. He had a wooden leg. He wore his trouser-leg down over it, and the palings had hidden the bottom from Steelman and Smith.

He wanted them to stay to dinner, but Steelman didn’t feel comfortable, and thanked him, and said they’d rather be getting on (Steelman always spoke for Smith); so the old man gave them some cooked meat, bread, and a supply of tea and sugar. Steelman watched his face very close, but he never moved a muscle. But when they looked back he was leaning on his hoe, and seemed to be shaking.

“Took you back a bit, Steely, didn’t it?” suggested Smith.

“How do you make that out?” snorted Steelman, turning on him suddenly. “I knew a carpenter who used to soak his planes in raw linseed oil to preserve them and give them weight. There’s nothing funny about that.”

Smith rubbed his head.

A BUSH PUBLICAN’S LAMENT

“... For thirst is long and throats is short Among the sons o’ men.” M. J. C.

I wish I was spifflicated before I ever seen a pub!

You see, it’s this way. Suppose a cove comes along on a blazin’ hot day in the drought—an’ _you_ ought to know how hell-hot it can be out here—an’ he dumps his swag in the corner of the bar; an’ he turns round an’ he ses ter me, “Look here boss, I ain’t got a lonely steever on me, an’ God knows when I’ll git one. I’ve tramped ten mile this mornin’, an’ I’ll have ter tramp another ten afore to-night. I’m expectin’ ter git on shearin’ with of Baldy Thompson at West-o’-Sunday nex’ week. I got a thirst on me like a sun-struck bone, an’, for God sake, put up a couple o’ beers for me an’ my mate, an’ I’ll fix it up with yer when I come back after shearin’.”

An’ what’s a feller ter do? I bin there meself, an—I put it to you! I’ve known what it is to have a thirst on me.

An’ suppose a poor devil comes along in the jim-jams, with every inch on him jumpin’ an’ a look in his eyes like a man bein’ murdered an’ sent ter hell, an’ a whine in his voice like a whipped cur, an’ the snakes a-chasing of him; an’ he hooks me with his finger ter the far end o’ the bar—as if he was goin’ ter tell me that the world was ended—an’ he hangs over the bar an’ chews me lug, an’ tries to speak, an’ breaks off inter a sort o’ low shriek, like a terrified woman, an’ he says, “For Mother o’ Christ’s sake, giv’ me a drink!” An’ what am I to do? I bin there meself. I knows what the horrors is. He mighter blued his cheque at the last shanty. But what am I ter do? I put it ter you. If I let him go he might hang hisself ter the nex’ leanin’ tree.

What’s a drink? yer might arst—I don’t mind a drink or two; but when it comes to half a dozen in a day it mounts up, I can tell yer. Drinks is sixpence here—I have to pay for it, an’ pay carriage on it. It’s all up ter me in the end. I used sometimes ter think it was lucky I wasn’t west o’ the sixpenny line, where I’d lose a shillin’ on every drink I give away.

An’ supposen a sundowner comes along smokin’ tea-leaves, an’ ses ter me, “Look her, boss! me an’ my mate ain’t had a smoke for three days!” What’s a man ter do? I put it ter you! I’m a heavy smoker meself, an’ I’ve known what it is to be without a smoke on the track. But “nail-rod” is ninepence a stick out here, an’ I have ter pay carriage. It all mounts up, I can tell yer.

An’ supposen Ole King Billy an’ his ole black gin comes round at holiday time and squats on the verander, an’ blarneys an’ wheedles and whines and argues like a hundred Jews an’ ole Irishwomen put tergether, an’ accuses me o’ takin’ his blarsted country from him, an’ makes me an’ the missus laugh; an’ we gives him a bottl’er rum an’ a bag of grub ter get rid of him an’ his rotten ole scarecrow tribe—It all tells up. I was allers soft on the blacks, an’, beside, a ole gin nursed me an’ me mother when I was born, an’ saved me blessed life—not that that mounts to much. But it all tells up, an’ I got me licence ter pay. An’ some bloody skunk goes an’ informs on me for supplyin’ the haboriginalls with intossicatin’ liquor, an’ I have ter pay a fine an’ risk me licence. But what’s a man ter do?

An’ three or four herrin’-gutted jackaroos comes along about dinner-time, when the table’s set and the cookin’ smellin’ from the kichen, with their belts done up three holes, an’ not the price of a feed on ’em. What’s a man ter do? I’ve known what it is ter do a perish on the track meself. It’s not the tucker I think on. I don’t care a damn for that. When the shearers come every one is free to go inter the kitchin an’ forage for hisself when he feels hungry—so long as he pays for his drink. But the jackaroos can’t pay for drinks, an’ I have ter pay carriage on the flour an’ tea an’ sugar an’ groceries—an’ it all tells up by the end o’ the year.

An’ a straight chap that knows me gets a job to take a flock o’ sheep or a mob o’ cattle ter the bloomin’ Gulf, or South Australia, or somewheers—an’ loses one of his horses goin’ out ter take charge, an’ borrers eight quid from me ter buy another. He’ll turn up agen in a year or two an’ most likely want ter make me take twenty quid for that eight—an’ make everybody about the place blind drunk—but I’ve got ter wait, an’ the wine an’ sperit merchants an’ the brewery won’t. They know I can’t do without liquor in the place.

An’ lars’ rains Jimmy Nowlett, the bullick-driver, gets bogged over his axle-trees back there on the Blacksoil Plains between two flooded billerbongs, an’ prays till the country steams an’ his soul’s busted, an’ his throat like a lime-kiln. He taps a keg o’ rum or beer ter keep his throat in workin’ order. I don’t mind that at all, but him an’ his mates git flood-bound for near a week, an’ broach more kegs, an’ go on a howlin’ spree in ther mud, an’ spill mor’n they swipe, an’ leave a tarpaulin off a load, an’ the flour gets wet, an’ the sugar runs out of the bags like syrup, an’— What’s a feller ter do? Do yer expect me to set the law onter Jimmy? I’ve knowed him all my life, an’ he knowed my father afore I was born. He’s been on the roads this forty year, till he’s as thin as a rat, and as poor as a myall black; an’ he’s got a family ter keep back there in Bourke. No, I have ter pay for it in the end, an’ it all mounts up, I can tell yer.

An’ suppose some poor devil of a new-chum black sheep comes along, staggerin’ from one side of the track to the other, and spoutin’ poetry; dyin’ o’ heat or fever, or heartbreak an’ home-sickness, or a life o’ disserpation he’d led in England, an’ without a sprat on him, an’ no claim on the bush; an’ I ketches him in me arms as he stumbles inter the bar, an’ he wants me ter hold him up while he turns English inter Greek for me. An’ I put him ter bed, an’ he gits worse, an’ I have ter send the buggy twenty mile for a doctor—an’ pay him. An’ the jackaroo gits worse, an’ has ter be watched an’ nursed an’ held down sometimes; an’ he raves about his home an’ mother in England, an’ the blarsted University that he was eddicated at—an’ a woman—an’ somethin’ that sounds like poetry in French; an’ he upsets my missus a lot, an’ makes her blubber. An’ he dies, an’ I have ter pay a man ter bury him (an’ knock up a sort o’ fence round the grave arterwards ter keep the stock out), an’ send the buggy agen for a parson, an’—Well, what’s a man ter do? I couldn’t let him wander away an’ die like a dog in the scrub, an’ be shoved underground like a dog, too, if his body was ever found. The Government might pay ter bury him, but there ain’t never been a pauper funeral from my house yet, an’ there won’t be one if I can help it—except it be meself.

An’ then there’s the bother goin’ through his papers to try an’ find out who he was an’ where his friends is. An’ I have ter get the missus to write a letter to his people, an’ we have ter make up lies about how he died ter make it easier for ’em. An’ goin’ through his letters, the missus comes across a portrait an’ a locket of hair, an’ letters from his mother an’ sisters an’ girl; an’ they upset her, an’ she blubbers agin, an’ gits sentimental—like she useter long ago when we was first married.

There was one bit of poetry—I forgit it now—that that there jackaroo kep’ sayin’ over an’ over agen till it buzzed in me head; an’, weeks after, I’d ketch the missus mutterin’ it to herself in the kitchen till I thought she was goin’ ratty.

An’ we gets a letter from the jackaroo’s friends that puts us to a lot more bother. I hate havin’ anythin’ to do with letters. An’ someone’s sure to say he was lambed down an’ cleaned out an’ poisoned with bad bush liquor at my place. It’s almost enough ter make a man wish there _was_ a recorin’ angel.

An’ what’s the end of it? I got the blazin’ bailiff in the place now! I can’t shot him out because he’s a decent, hard-up, poor devil from Bourke, with consumption or somethin’, an’ he’s been talkin’ to the missus about his missus an’ kids; an’ I see no chance of gittin’ rid of him, unless the shearers come along with their cheques from West-o’-Sunday nex’ week and act straight by me. Like as not I’ll have ter roll up me swag an’ take the track meself in the end. They say publicans are damned, an’ I think so, too; an’ I wish I’d bin operated on before ever I seen a pub.

THE SHEARER’S DREAM

Mitchell and I rolled up our swags after New Year and started to tramp west. It had been a very bad season after a long drought. Old Baldy Thompson had only shorn a few bales of grass-seed and burrs, so he said, and thought of taking the track himself; but we hoped to get on shearing stragglers at West-o’-Sunday or one of the stations of the Hungerford track.

It was very hot weather, so we started after sunset, intending to travel all night. We crossed the big billabong, and were ploughing through the dust and sand towards West Bourke, when a buggy full of city girls and swells passed by. They were part of a theatrical company on tour in the Back-Blocks, and some local Johnnies. They’d been driven out to see an artesian bore, or wool-shed, or something. The horses swerved, and jerked a little squawk out of one of the girls. Then another said:

“Ow-w! Two old swaggies. He! he! he!”

I glanced at Mitchell to see if he was hit, and caught his head down; but he pulled himself up and pretended to hitch his swag into an easier position.

About a hundred yards further on he gave me a side look and said:

“Did that touch you, Harry”

“No,” I said, and I laughed.

“You see,” reflected Mitchell, “they’re more to be pitied than blamed. It’s their ignorance. In the first place, we’re not two old tramps, as they think. We are professional shearers; and the Australian shearers are about the most independent and intelligent class of men in the world. We’ve got more genius in one of our little fingers than there is in the whole of that wagonette-load of diddle-daddle and fiddle-faddle and giggles. Their intellects are on a level with the rotten dramas they travel with, and their lives about as false. They are slaves to the public, and their home is the pub-parlour, with sickly, senseless Johnnies to shout suppers and drink for them and lend their men money. If one of those girls is above the average, how she must despise those Johnnies—and the life! She must feel a greater contempt for them than the private-barmaid does for the boozer she cleans out. He gets his drink and some enjoyment, anyhow. And how she must loathe the life she leads! And what’s the end of it as often as not? I remember once, when I was a boy, I was walking out with two aunts of mine—they’re both dead now. God rest their fussy, innocent old souls!—and one of ’em said suddenly, ‘Look! Quick, Jack! There’s Maggie So-and-So, the great actress.’ And I looked and saw a woman training vines in a porch. It seemed like seeing an angel to me, and I never forgot her as she was then. The diggers used to go miles out of town to meet the coach that brought her, and take the horses out and drag it in, and throw gold in her lap, and worship her.

“The last time I was in Sydney I saw her sitting in the back parlour of a third-rate pub. She was dying of dropsy and couldn’t move from her chair. She showed me a portrait of herself as I remembered her, and talked quite seriously about going on the stage again.

“Now, our home is about two thousand miles wide, and the world’s our stage. If the worst comes to the worst we can always get tucker and wood and water for nothing. If we’re camping at a job in a tent there’s no house-cleaning to bother us. All we’ve got to do when the camp gets too dirty is to shift the tent to a fresh place. We’ve got time to think and—we’re free.

“But then, agen,” he reflected, “there’s the world’s point of view to be considered. Some day I might be flashing past in a buggy or saloon-carriage—or, the chances are it will be you—and you might look out the window and see an old swaggy tramping along in the dust, or camped under a strip of calico in the rain in the scrub. (And it might be me—old Mitchell—that really wrote your books, only the world won’t know it.) And then you’ll realize what a wretched, miserable life it was. We never realize the miseries of life till we look back—the mistakes and miseries that had to be and couldn’t be helped. It’s all luck—luck and chance.”

But those girls seemed to have gravelled Mitchell, and he didn’t seem able to talk himself round. He tramped on, brooding for a while, and then suddenly he said:

“Look here, Harry! Those girls are giving a dance to-night, and if I liked to go back to Bourke and tog up and go to the dance I could pick out the prettiest, dance with her all the evening, and take her for a stroll afterwards, old tramp as they thought me. I’ve lived—but it wouldn’t be worth my while now.”

I’d seen Jack in a mood like this before, and thought it best to say nothing. Perhaps the terrible heat had affected him a little. We walked on in silence until we came to the next billabong. “Best boil the billy here, Harry,” said Mitchell, “and have some tea before we go any further.”

I got some sticks together and made a fire and put the billy on. The country looked wretched—like the ghost of a burnt-out land—in the moonlight. The banks of the creek were like ashes, the thin, gnarled gum-bush seemed dry-rotting fast, and in many places the surface of the ground was cracked in squares where it had shrunk in the drought. In the bed of the creek was a narrow gutter of water that looked like bad milk.

Mitchell sat on his swag, with his pint of tea on the ground by his foot, and chewed his pipe.

“What’s up, Jack?” I asked. “Have you got the blues?”

“Well, yes, Harry,” he said. “I’m generally dull the first day on the track. The first day is generally the worst, anywhere or anytime—except, perhaps, when you’re married.... I got—well, I got thinking of the time when a woman’s word could have hurt me.”

Just then one of the “travellers” who were camped a bit up the creek suddenly commenced to sing. It was a song called “The Shearer’s Dream,” and I suppose the buggy of girls, or the conversation they started, reminded him of it. He started his verses and most of his lines with a howl; and there were unexpected howls all through the song, and it wailed off, just as unexpectedly, in places where there was no pathos that I could see:

Oh, I dreamt I shore in a shearer’s shed, and it was a dream of joy, For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy— Dressed up like a page in a pantomime, and the prettiest ever seen— They had flaxen hair, they had coal-black hair—and every shade between.

“Every” with sudden and great energy, a long drop on to “shade,” and a wail of intense sadness and regret running on into “between,” the dirge reaching its wailsomest in the “tween” in every case.

The shed was cooled by electric fans that was over every “shoot”; The pens was of polished ma-ho-gany, and ev’rything else to suit; The huts was fixed with spring-mattresses, and the tucker was simply grand, And every night by the biller-bong we darnced to a German band.

“_Chorus, boys!”_

There was short, plump girls, there was tall, slim girls, and the handsomest ever seen They was four-foot-five, they was six-foot high, and hevery size between.

Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks’ backs, so we shore till all was blue The sheep was washed afore they was shore (and the rams was scented too); And we all of us cried when the shed cut out, in spite of the long, hot days, For hevery hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and beer on tr-a-a-a-ys!

“_Chorus_! _you_ ——!”

They had kind grey eyes, they had coal-black eyes, and the grandest ever seen They had plump pink hands, they had slim white hands, and hevery shape be-tw-e-e-n.

There was three of them girls to every chap, and as jealous as they could be—

“Ow! you ——”

The singer’s voice or memory seemed suddenly to have failed him at this point, but whether his mates hit him on the back of the head with a tomahawk, or only choked him, I do not know. Mitchell was inclined to think, from the sound of it, that they choked him.

THE LOST SOULS’ HOTEL

Hunqerford Road, February. One hundred and thirty miles of heavy reddish sand, bordered by dry, hot scrubs. Dense cloud of hot dust. Four wool-teams passing through a gate in a “rabbit proof” fence which crosses the road. Clock, clock, clock of wheels and rattle and clink of chains, crack of whips and explosions of Australian language. Bales and everything else coated with dust. Stink of old axle-grease and tarpaulins. Tyres hot enough to fry chops on: bows and chains so hot that it’s a wonder they do not burn through the bullock’s hides. Water lukewarm in blistered kegs slung behind the wagons. Bullocks dragging along as only bullocks do. Wheels ploughing through the deep sand, and the load lurching from side to side. Half-way on a “dry-stretch” of seventeen miles. Big “tank” full of good water through the scrub to the right, but it is a private tank and a boundary-rider is shepherding it. Mulga scrub and sparse, spiky undergrowth.

The carriers camp for dinner and boil their billies while the bullocks droop under their yokes in the blazing heat; one or two lie down and the leaders drag and twist themselves round under a dead tree, under the impression that there is shade there. The carriers look like Red Indians, with the masks of red dust “bound” with sweat on their faces, but there is an unhealthy-looking, whitish space round their eyes, caused by wiping away the blinding dust, sweat, and flies. The dry sticks burn with a pale flame and an almost invisible thin pale blue smoke. The sun’s heat dancing and dazzling across every white fence-post, sandhill, or light-coloured object in the distance.

One man takes off his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely curious to see if he is still a white man.

The Hungerford coach ploughs past in a dense cloud of dust.

The teams drag on again like a “wounded snake that dies at sundown,” if a wounded snake that dies at sundown could revive sufficiently next morning to drag on again until another sun goes down.

Hopeless-looking swagmen are met with during the afternoon, and one carrier—he of the sanded leg—lends them tobacco; his mates contribute “bits o’” tea, flour, and sugar.

Sundown and the bullocks done up. The teamsters unyoke them and drive them on to the next water—five miles—having previously sent a mate to reconnoitre and see that boundary-rider is not round, otherwise, to make terms with him, for it is a squatter’s bore. They hurry the bullocks down to the water and back in the twilight, and then, under cover of darkness, turn them into a clearing in the scrub off the road, where a sign in the grass might be seen—if you look close. But the “bullockies” are better off than the horse-teamsters, for bad chaff is sold by the pound and corn is worth its weight in gold.

Mitchell and I turned off the track at the rabbit-proof fence and made for the tank in the mulga. We boiled the billy and had some salt mutton and damper. We were making back for Bourke, having failed to get a cut in any of the sheds on the Hungerford track. We sat under a clump of mulga saplings, with our backs to the trunks, and got out our pipes. Usually, when the flies were very bad on the track, we had to keep twigs or wild-turkey=tail feathers going in front of our faces the whole time to keep the mad flies out of our eyes; and, when we camped, one would keep the feather going while the other lit his pipe—then the smoke would keep them away. But the flies weren’t so bad in a good shade or in a darkened hut. Mitchell’s pipe would have smoked out Old Nick; it was an ancient string-bound meerschaum, and strong enough to kill a blackfellow. I had one smoke out of it, once when I felt bad in my inside and wanted to be sick, and the result was very satisfactory.

Mitchell looked through his old pocket-book—more by force of habit than anything else—and turned up a circular from Tattersall’s. And that reminded him.

“Do you know what I’d do, Harry,” he said, “if I won Tattersall’s big sweep, or was to come into fifty or a hundred thousand pounds, or, better still, a million?”

“Nothing I suppose,” I said, “except to get away to Sydney or some cooler place than this.”

“I’ll tell you what I’d do,” said Mitchell, talking round his pipe. “I’d build a Swagman’s Rest right here.”

“A Swagman’s Rest?”

“Yes. Right here on this very God-forsaken spot. I’d build a Swagman’s Rest and call it the Lost Souls’ Hotel, or the Sundowners’ Arms, or the Half-way House to ——, or some such name that would take the bushmen’s fancy. I’d have it built on the best plans for coolness in a hot country; bricks, and plenty of wide verandas with brick floors, and balconies, and shingles, in the old Australian style. I wouldn’t have a sheet of corrugated iron about the place. And I’d have old-fashioned hinged sashes with small panes and vines round ’em; they look cooler and more homely and romantic than the glaring sort that shove up.

“And I’d dig a tank or reservoir for surface water as big as a lake, and bore for artesian water—and get it, too, if I had to bore right through to England; and I’d irrigate the ground and make it grow horse-feed and fruit, and vegetables too, if I had to cart manure from Bourke. And every teamster’s bullock or horse, and every shearer’s hack, could burst itself free, but I’d make travelling stock pay—for it belongs to the squatters and capitalists. All carriers could camp for one night only. And I’d—no, I wouldn’t have any flowers; they might remind some heart-broken, new-chum black sheep of the house where he was born, and the mother whose heart he broke—and the father whose grey hairs he brought down in sorrow to the grave—and break him up altogether.”

“But what about the old-fashioned windows and the vines?” I asked.

“Oh!” said Mitchell, “I forgot them. On second thought, I think I would have some flowers; and maybe a bit of ivy-green. The new chum might be trying to work out his own salvation, and the sight of the roses and ivy would show him that he hadn’t struck such a God-forgotten country after all, and help strengthen the hope for something better that’s in the heart of every vagabond till he dies.”

Puff, puff, puff, slowly and reflectively.

“Until he dies,” repeated Mitchell. “And, maybe,” he said, rousing himself, “I’d have a little room fixed up like a corner of a swell restaurant, with silver and napkins on the table, and I’d fix up a waiter, so that when a broken-down University wreck came along he might feel, for an hour or so, something like the man he used to be. But I suppose,” Mitchell reflected, “he wouldn’t feel completely his old self without a lady friend sitting opposite to him. I might fix up a black gin for him, but I suppose he’d draw the colour line. But that’s nonsense.

“All teamsters and travellers could camp there for one night only. I’d have shower-baths; but I wouldn’t force any man to have a bath against his will. They could sit down to a table and have a feed off a table-cloth, and sleep in sheets, and feel like they did before their old mothers died, or before they ran away from home.”

“Who? The mothers?” I asked.

“Yes, in some cases,” said Mitchell. “And I’d have a nice, cool little summer-house down near the artificial lake, out of earshot of the house, where the bullock-drivers could sit with their pipes after tea, and tell yarns, and talk in their own language. And I’d have boats on the lake, too, in case an old Oxford or Cambridge man, or an old sailor came along—it might put years on to his life to have a pull at the oars. You remember that old sailor we saw in charge of the engine back there at the government tank? You saw how he had the engine?—clean and bright as a new pin—everything spick-and-span and shipshape, and his hut fixed up like a ship’s cabin. I believe he thinks he’s at sea half his time, and shoving her through it, instead of pumping muddy water out of a hole in the baking scrubs for starving stock. Or maybe he reckons he’s keeping her afloat.”

“And would you have fish in this lake of yours?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Mitchell, “and any ratty old shepherd or sundowner, that’s gone mad of heat and loneliness—like the old codger we met back yonder—he could sit by the lagoon in the cool of the evening and fish to his heart’s content with a string and a bent pin, and dream he’s playing truant from school and fishing in the brook near his native village in England about fifty years ago. It would seem more real than fishing in the dust as some mad old bushmen do.”

“But you’d draw the line somewhere?” I asked.

“No,” said Mitchell, “not even at poets. I’d try to cure them, too, with good wholesome food and plenty of physical exercise. The Lost Souls’ Hotel would be a refuge for men who’d been jail-birds once as well as men who were gentlemen once, and for physical wrecks and ruined drunkards as well as healthy honest shearers. I’d sit down and talk to the boozer or felon just as if I thought he was as good a man as me—and he might be, for that matter—God knows.

“The sick man would be kept till he recovered, or died; and the boozer, suffering from a recovery, I’d keep him till he was on his legs again.”

“Then you’d have to have a doctor,” I said.

“Yes,” said Mitchell, “I’d fix that up all right. I wouldn’t bother much about a respectable medical practitioner from the city. I’d get a medical wreck who had a brilliant career before him once in England and got into disgrace, and cleared out to the colonies—a man who knows what the d.t.’s is—a man who’s been through it all and knows it all.”

“Then you’d want a manager, or a clerk or secretary,” I suggested.

“I suppose I would,” said Mitchell. “I’ve got no head for figures. I suppose I’d have to advertise for him. If an applicant came with the highest testimonials of character, and especially if one was signed by a parson, I’d tell him to call again next week; and if a young man could prove that he came of a good Christian family, and went to church regularly, and sang in the choir, and taught Sunday-school, I’d tell him that he needn’t come again, that the vacancy was filled, for I couldn’t trust, him. The man who’s been extra religious and honest and hard-working in his young days is most likely to go wrong afterwards. I’d sooner trust some poor old devil of a clerk who’d got into the hands of a woman or racing men when he was young, and went wrong, and served his time for embezzlement; anyway, I’d take him out and give him another chance.”

“And what about woman’s influence?” I asked.

“Oh, I suppose there’d have to be a woman, if only to keep the doctor on the line. I’d get a woman with a past, one that hadn’t been any better than she should have been, they’re generally the most kind-hearted in the end. Say an actress who’d come down in the world, or an old opera-singer who’d lost her voice but could still sing a little. A woman who knows what trouble is. And I’d get a girl to keep her company, a sort of housemaid, with a couple of black gins or half-castes to help her. I’d get hold of some poor girl who’d been deceived and deserted: and a baby or two wouldn’t be an objection—the kids would amuse the chaps and help humanize the place.”

“And what if the manageress fell in love with the doctor?” I asked.

“Well, I couldn’t provide against love,” said Mitchell. “I fell in love myself more than once—and I don’t suppose I’d have been any worse off if I’d have stayed in love. Ah, well! But suppose she did fall in love with the doctor and marry him, or suppose she fell in love with him and didn’t marry him, for that matter—and suppose the girl fell in love with the secretary? There wouldn’t be any harm done; it would only make them more contented with the home and bind them to it. They’d be a happy family, and the Lost Souls’ Hotel would be more cheerful and homelike than ever.”

“But supposing they all fell in love with each other and cleared out,” I said.

“I don’t see what they’d have to clear out for,” said Mitchell. “But suppose they did. There’s more than one medical wreck in Australia, and more than one woman with a past, and more than one broken old clerk who went wrong and was found out, and who steadied down in jail, and there’s more than one poor girl that’s been deceived. I could easily replace ’em. And the Lost Souls’ Hotel might be the means of patching up many wrecked lives in that way—giving people with pasts the chance of another future, so to speak.”

“I suppose you’d have music and books and pictures?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” said Mitchell. “But I wouldn’t have any bitter or sex-problem books. They do no good. Problems have been the curse of the world ever since it started. I think one noble, kindly, cheerful character in a book does more good than all the clever villains or romantic adventurers ever invented. And I think a man ought to get rid of his maudlin sentiment in private, or when he’s drunk. It’s a pity that every writer couldn’t put all his bitterness into one book and then burn it.

“No; I’d have good cheerful books of the best and brightest sides of human nature—Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain, and Bret Harte, and those men. And I’d have all Australian pictures—showing the brightest and best side of Australian life. And I’d have all Australian songs. I wouldn’t have ‘Swannie Ribber,’ or ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ or ‘Annie Laurie,’ or any of those old songs sung at the Lost Souls’ Hotel—they’re the cause of more heartbreaks and drink and suicide in the bush than anything else. And if a jackaroo got up to sing, ‘Just before the battle, mother,’ or, ‘Mother bit me in me sleep,’ he’d find it was just before the battle all right. He’d have to go out and sleep in the scrub, where the mosquitoes and bulldog ants would bite him out of his sleep. I hate the man who’s always whining about his mother through his nose, because, as a rule, he never cared a rap for his old mother, nor for anyone else, except his own paltry, selfish little self.

“I’d have intellectual and elevating conversation for those that——”

“Who’d take charge of that department?” I inquired hurriedly.

“Well,” reflected Mitchell, “I did have an idea of taking it on myself for a while anyway; but, come to think of it, the doctor or the woman with the past would have more experience; and I could look after that part of the business at a pinch. Of course you’re not in a position to judge as to my ability in the intellectual line; you see, I’ve had no one to practise on since I’ve been with you. But no matter—— There’d be intellectual conversation for the benefit of black-sheep new chums. And any broken-down actors that came along could get up a play if they liked—it would brighten up things and help elevate the bullock-drivers and sundowners. I’d have a stage fixed up and a bit of scenery. I’d do all I could to attract shearers to the place after shearing, and keep them from rushing to the next shanty with their cheques, or down to Sydney, to be cleaned out by barmaids.

“And I’d have the hero squashed in the last act for a selfish sneak, and marry the girl to the villain—he’d be more likely to make her happy in the end.”

“And what about the farm?” I asked. “I suppose you’d get some expert from the agricultural college to manage that?”

“No,” said Mitchell. “I’d get some poor drought-ruined selector and put him in charge of the vegetation. Only, the worst of it is,” he reflected, “if you take a selector who has bullocked all his life to raise crops on dusty, stony patches in the scrubs, and put him on land where there’s plenty of water and manure, and where he’s only got to throw the seed on the ground and then light his pipe and watch it grow, he’s apt to get disheartened. But that’s human nature.

“And, of course, I’d have to have a ‘character’ about the place—a sort of identity and joker to brighten up things. I wouldn’t get a man who’d been happy and comfortable all his life; I’d get hold of some old codger whose wife had nagged him till she died, and who’d been sold off many times, and run in for drowning his sorrows, and who started as an undertaker and failed at that, and finally got a job pottering round—gardener, or gatekeeper, or something—in a lunatic asylum. I’d get him. He’d most likely be a humorist and a philosopher, and he’d help cheer up the Lost Souls’ Hotel. I reckon the lost souls would get very fond of him.”

“And would you have drink at Lost Souls’?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mitchell. “I’d have the best beer and spirits and wine to be had. After tea I’d let every man have just enough to make him feel comfortable and happy, and as good and clever, and innocent and honest as any other man, but no more. But if a poor devil came along in the horrors, with every inch of him jumping, and snakes, and green-eyed yahoos, and flaming-nosed bunyips chasing him, we’d take him in and give him soothing draughts, and nurse him, and watch him, and clear him out with purgatives, and keep giving him nips of good whisky, and, above all, we’d sympathize with him, and tell him that we were worse than he was many a time. We wouldn’t tell him what a weak, selfish man he was, or harp on his ruined life. We’d try to make him out a good deal better morally than he really was. It’s remorse that hurries most men to hell—especially in the Bush. When a man firmly believes he is a hopeless case, then there’s no hope for him: but let him have doubts and there’s a chance. Make him believe that there are far worse cases than his. We wouldn’t preach the sin of dissipation to him, no—but we’d try to show him the _folly_ of a wasted life. I ought to be able to preach that, God knows.

“And, above all, we’d try to drive out of his head the cursed old popular idea that it’s hard to reform—that a man’s got to fight a hard battle with himself to get away from drink—pity drunkards can’t believe how easy it is. And we’d put it to him straight whether his few hours’ enjoyment were worth the days he had to suffer hell for it.”

“And, likely as not,” I said, “when you’d put him on his feet he’d take the nearest track to the next shanty, and go on a howling spree, and come back to Lost Souls’ in a week, raving aid worse than ever. What would you do then?”

“We’d take him in again, and build him up some more; and a third or fourth time if necessary. I believe in going right on with a thing once I take it in hand. And if he didn’t turn up after the last spree we’d look for him up the scrub and bring him in and let him die on a bed, and make his death as comfortable as possible. I’ve seen one man die on the ground, and found one dead in the bush. We’d bury him under a gum and put ‘Sacred to the Memory of a Man who Died. (Let him R.I.P.)’ over him. I’d have a nice little graveyard, with gums for tombstones—and I’d have some original epitaphs—I promise you.”

“And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost Souls’ Hotel?” I asked.

“None,” said Mitchell, promptly. “It wouldn’t be a Gratitude Discovery Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls’ Hotel was a den for kidnapping women and girls to be used as decoys for the purpose of hocussing and robbing bushmen, and the law and retribution might come after me—but I’d fight the thing out. Or they might want to make a K.C.M.G., or a god of me, and worship me before they hung me. I reckon a philanthropist or reformer is lucky if he escapes with a whole skin in the end, let alone his character— But there!— Talking of gratitude: it’s the fear of ingratitude that keeps thousands from doing good. It’s just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that curses the world—it’s rather more selfish than most fears, in fact—take the fear of being thought a coward, or being considered eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance. The man that’s always canting about the world’s ingratitude has no gratitude owing to him as a rule—generally the reverse—he ought to be grateful to the world for being let live. He broods over the world’s ingratitude until he gets to be a cynic. He sees the world like the outside of a window, as it were, with the blind drawn and the dead, cold moonlight shining on it, and he passes on with a sour face; whereas, if he took the trouble to step inside he’d most likely find a room full of ruddy firelight, and sympathy and cheerfulness, and kindness, and love, and gratitude. Sometimes, when he’s right down on his uppers, and forced to go amongst people and hustle for bread, he gets a lot of surprises at the amount of kindness he keeps running against in the world—and in places where he’d never have expected to find it. But—ah, well! I’m getting maudlin.”

“And you’ve forgot all about the Lost Souls’ Hotel,” I said.

“No, I haven’t,” said Mitchell; “I’d fix that up all right. As soon as I’d got things going smoothly under a man I could trust, I’d tie up every penny I had for the benefit of the concern; get some ‘white men’ for trustees, and take the track again. I’m getting too old to stay long in one place—(I’m a lost soul that always got along better in another place). I’m so used to the track that if I was shut up in a house I’d get walking up and down in my room of nights and disturb the folk; and, besides, I’d feel lost and light-shouldered without the swag.”

“So you’d put all your money in the concern?”

“Yes—except a pound or two to go on the track with—for, who knows, I might come along there, dusty and tired, and ragged and hard up and old, some day, and be very glad of a night’s rest at the Lost Souls’ Hotel. But I wouldn’t let on that I was old Mitchell, the millionaire, who founded Lost Souls’. They might be too officious, and I hate fuss.... But it’s time to take the track, Harry.”

There came a cool breeze with sunset; we stood up stiffly, shouldered our swags and tucker-bags, and pushed on, for we had to make the next water before we camped. We were out of tobacco, so we borrowed some from one of the bullock-drivers.

THE BOOZERS’ HOME

“A dipsomaniac,” said Mitchell, “needs sympathy and commonsense treatment. (Sympathy’s a grand and glorious thing, taking it all round and looking at it any way you will: a little of it makes a man think that the world’s a good world after all, and there’s room and hope for sinners, and that life’s worth living; enough of it makes him sure of it: and an overdose of sympathy makes a man _feel_ weak and ashamed of himself, and so moves him to stop whining—and wining—and buck up.)

“Now, I’m not taking the case of a workman who goes on the spree on pay night and sweats the drink out of himself at work next day, nor a slum-bred brute who guzzles for the love of it; but a man with brains, who drinks to drown his intellect or his memory. He’s generally a man under it all, and a sensitive, generous, gentle man with finer feelings as often as not. The best and cleverest and whitest men in the world seem to take to drink mostly. It’s an awful pity. Perhaps it’s because they’re straight and the world’s crooked and they can see things too plain. And I suppose in the bush the loneliness and the thoughts of the girl-world they left behind help to sink ’em.

“Now a drunkard seldom reforms at home, because he’s always surrounded by the signs of the ruin and misery he has brought on the home; and the sight and thought of it sets him off again before he’s had time to recover from the last spree. Then, again, the noblest wife in the world mostly goes the wrong way to work with a drunken husband—nearly everything she does is calculated to irritate him. If, for instance, he brings a bottle home from the pub, it shows that he wants to stay at home and not go back to the pub any more; but the first thing the wife does is to get hold of the bottle and plant it, or smash it before his eyes, and that maddens him in the state he is in then.

“No. A dipsomaniac needs to be taken away from home for a while. I knew a man that got so bad that the way he acted at home one night frightened him, and next morning he went into an inebriate home of his own accord—to a place where his friends had been trying to get him for a year past. For the first day or two he was nearly dead with remorse and shame—mostly shame; and he didn’t know what they were going to do to him next—and he only wanted them to kill him quick and be done with it. He reckons he felt as bad as if he was in jail. But there were ten other patients there, and one or two were worse than he was, and that comforted him a lot. They compared notes and sympathized and helped each other. They discovered that all their wives were noble women. He struck one or two surprises too—one of the patients was a doctor who’d attended him one time, and another was an old boss of his, and they got very chummy. And there was a man there who was standing for Parliament—he was supposed to be having a rest down the coast.... Yes, my old mate felt very bad for the first day or two; it was all Yes, Nurse, and Thank you, Nurse, and Yes, Doctor, and No, Doctor, and Thank you, Doctor. But, inside a week, he was calling the doctor ‘Ol’ Pill-Box’ behind his back, and making love to one of the nurses.

“But he said it was pitiful when women relatives came to visit patients the first morning. It shook the patients up a lot, but I reckon it did ’em good. There were well-bred old lady mothers in black, and hard-working, haggard wives and loving daughters—and the expressions of sympathy and faith and hope in those women’s faces! My old mate said it was enough in itself to make a man swear off drink for ever.... Ah, God—what a world it is!

“Reminds me how I once went with the wife of another old mate of mine to see him. He was in a lunatic asylum. It was about the worst hour I ever had in my life, and I’ve had some bad ones. The way she tried to coax him back to his old self. She thought she could do it when all the doctors had failed. But I’ll tell you about him some other time.