Chapter IV (2)

"Did you ever make a terrible mistake in life, Collins?" he asked, at length. Before I could reply, he resumed absently, "When I was a boy, away on the Queensland border, I knew a squatter--as fine a fellow as ever lived-- and this man married some young lady in Sydney, and brought her to live on the station. A few months afterward, he came home unexpectedly at about two o'clock one morning, and found his place occupied by an intimate friend of his own--a young barrister, who was staying at the station as a guest. He managed to conceal his discovery; and, within the next few days, he got his friend to draw out a new will, by which he left everything, without reservation, to his wife. A day or two after completing the will, he took his gun and went out alone, turkey-shooting. He didn't come home that night; and next day one of the station hands found him at a wire fence, shot straight through the heart. Accidentally, of course. But we knew better."

"It might have been accidental, Alf," I suggested. "There's a lot of supposition in the story."

"None, Collins. Before going out with his gun, he wrote a letter to my father, and sent it by a trustworthy blackfellow. My father got the letter about ten o'clock at night; and he had a horse run-in at once, and started off for the station through a raging thunderstorm, arriving next day only in time to see his friend's body before it was moved to the house. My father was terribly cut-up about it. He was manager of an adjoining station at the time.

"Now let me tell you another true story," pursued Alf dreamily. "Five years ago, I knew a man on the Maroo, a tank-sinker, with a wife and two children. The wife got soft on a young fellow at the camp; and everybody, except the husband, saw how things stood. Presently the husband began to circulate the report that he was going to New Zealand. In the meantime, he sent the two children to a boarding-school in Wagga. He was in no hurry. Afterward, he sold his plant to the station, and bade good-bye, in the most friendly way, to all hands, including the Don Juan. Then he started across the country to Wagga, alone with his wife, in a wagonette. Are you listening?"

"Attentively, Alf. But suppose I boil your billy, and"----

"Two years afterward, a flock was sold off the station I was speaking of, for Western Queensland; and one of the station men went with the drover's party, to see the sheep delivered. Curious coincidence: he met on the new station his old acquaintance, the tank-sinker, with his two children and a second wife. The tank-sinker told him that his first wife had died soon after leaving the Maroo, and that he had changed his mind about going to New Zealand. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes; so far. You know the man you're speaking of?"

"Slightly. I delivered goods to him once on the Maroo, and casually heard the scandal that was in the air. Well, the shearing came round on the Maroo just as the station man got back from Queensland; and while the adjoining station was mustering for the shed, a boundary man found, in the centre of one of the paddocks--in the loneliest, barrenest hole of a place in New South Wales--he found where a big fire had been made, and some bones burnt into white cinders and smashed small with a stick. He kicked the ashes over, and found the steel part of a woman's stays, and the charred heel of a woman's boot, and even a thimble and a few shillings that had probably been in her pocket. I was on the station at the time, waiting for wool, and saw the relics when the boundary man brought them in. There are queer things done when every man is a law unto himself."

"Supposition, Alf; and strained supposition at that. But why should you trouble your mind about these things?"

"There was no supposition on the station where the things were found, nor on the station the tank-sinker had left, when they compared notes. The things were found three or four miles off a bit of a track that led to Wagga; and there was a pine of a year and a half old growing in the ashes. But we'll pass that story. I want you to listen to another."

"Some other time, Alf. I'll make you a drink of tea, and"----

"When I was young," continued Alf doggedly, "I was very intimate with an American, a man of high principle and fine education. Best-informed man I ever knew. This poor fellow was a drunkard, occasional, but incorrigible. Misfortune had driven him to it. His wife was dead; his children had died in infancy; and at forty-five he was a hopeless wreck. He worked at my father's farm on the Hawkesbury for two or three years, and died at our place when I was about twenty-five, immediately before I left home"----

"I don't like to correct you, Alf," I interposed; "but I understood you to say that your father was a station-manager, on the Queensland border.

"Up to the time I was twenty-one or twenty-two. Then he bought a place on the Hawkesbury, intending, poor man! to spend the evening of his life indulging his hobby of chemistry, while I took the care of the place off his hands--for though I have two sisters, I was his only son. His great ambition was to bequeath some chemical discovery to future generations. But I demolished his castles in the air along with my own. It's no odds about myself; but my poor father deserved better, after all his work and worry. Ah, my God! we parted in anger; and now I don't know whether he's alive or dead!" The prodigal paused, and sighed bitterly.

"And your mother?" I suggested experimentally.

"She was an invalid for several years before I left home," replied Alf, his tone fulfilling my anticipation.

(Have you ever noticed that the prodigal son of real life, in nineteen cases out of twenty, speaks spontaneously and feelingly of his father, with, perhaps, a dash of reverent humour; whereas, to quote Menenius, he no more remembers his mother than an eight-year-old horse? This is cruel beyond measure, and unjust beyond comment; but, sad to say, it is true; and the platitudinous tract-liar, for the sake of verisimilitude, as well as of novelty, should make a memo. of it. Amongst all the hard-cases of my acquaintance, I can only think of one whose mother's unseen presence is a power, and her memory a holy beacon, shining, by-the-way, with a decidedly intermittent light. Unfortunately, a glance along the three 9ths yet to come shows me that this nobly spurious type of prodigal-Jack the Shellback, vassal of Runnymede Station--will not come within the scope of these memoirs).

Alf dreamily resumed his inconsequent story: "However, this Charley Cross, or Yankee Charley, was an old Victorian digger. About twelve years before his death, he was working on Inglewood, with a mate that he would have trusted, and did trust, to any extent, and in any way. But it was the old, old story. He got a friendly hint, and watched, and watched, for weeks, without betraying any suspicion. At last he was satisfied. Then he carefully laid down his line of action, and followed it to the end. One day, his mate, sitting on the edge of the shaft, ready to put his foot in the rope, suddenly overbalanced, and went down head-foremost. Of course, Cross was close beside him at the time, and no one else was in sight. Cross gave the alarm, and, in the meantime, went hand-under-hand down the rope, intending, like Bruce, to 'mak sicker'; for the shaft was only about forty feet deep. But it happened that the man's neck was broken in the fall. Cross forgave his wife, and never breathed a word of his discovery or his vengeance; but in spite of this, the woman seemed to live in fear and horror. During the next couple of years, luck favoured him, and he made an independence. He invested his money judiciously; but there's no guarantee for domestic happiness--in fact, there's no guarantee for anything. First, his two surviving children died of diphtheria; then his wife followed, dying, Cross assured me, of a broken heart. He sorrowed for her more deeply, perhaps, because she had cost him so dear; and this, no doubt, was what drove him to drink."

"Very probably," I replied. "But, Alf, this taxing of your mind is about as good for you just now as footballing or boxing. Are you a smoker?"

"No."

"That's what I feared. Now, take my advice, and give yourself absolute rest, while I boil"----

"One more story, Collins, as well authenticated as any of the three I have told. I knew a young fellow of between twenty-five and thirty"----

"This won't do," I interposed firmly, for he had become restless and excited. "Why should you allow your mind to dwell so exclusively on the manifestations of one particular phase of moral aberration, and, to do bare justice to womanhood, an exceedingly rare one--except among the very highest and the very lowest classes? Unless you handle such questions in a scientific spirit, you'll find them--or unfortunately, you won't find them--envelop your reasoning faculties in a most unwholesome atmosphere. The perpetual brooding over any one evil, however fatal that evil may be, naturally side-blinds the mind into a narrow fanaticism which is apt to condone ten times as much wrong as it condemns; and you drift into the position of the man who strains at the moderate drinker, and swallows the usurer. We see this in the Good Templar, the Social Purity person, the Trades Unionist, and the moral faddist generally. Musonius Rufus sternly reminded Epictetus that there were other crimes besides setting the Capitol on fire."

"Have you done? " asked Alf, coldly but gently. "Let me tell you one more story while I'm able. I'll soon be silent enough.----The man I'm thinking of was a saw-mill owner. He had been married a couple of years, and had one child. I could n't say that he actually loved his wife; in fact, she was n't a woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking. At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant, and vain, and utterly unprincipled--no, not exactly unprincipled, but non-principled. She was essentially low--if you understand my meaning-- low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes, low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have been what is called a bad woman, but--that miserable want of self-reverence-- I can't understand how----Would you give me another drink, please?"

He drank very little this time. He had been speaking with an effort, and a haggard, hopeless look was intensifying in his face. I began to suspect a temporary delirium. The presentiment of impending death was unreasonable, though not ominous; so also with the determination to narrate irrelevant stories; but the incongruity of the two associated notions set me speculating in a sympathetic way.

"Alf," said I gravely; "it's foolish to tax your memory for anecdotes now. Try if you can settle yourself to sleep. I'm sure I'll have great pleasure in exchanging yarns with you at some future time, when you're more fit."

"Listen, Collins," he replied sullenly. "Our saw-mill owner got the inevitable glimpse of the truth. He was blind before; now he was incredulous. He condescended to play the spy, and he was soon satisfied. This time it was a Government official-clerk of the local Court--a blackleg vagabond, with interest at head-quarters--about the vilest rat, and certainly the vilest-looking rat, that ever breathed the breath of life. Our hero took no further notice of him than to terrify him into confession, and drive him into laying the blame on his paramour. And the amusing feature of the case was, that she, finding herself fairly run to earth, thought she had nothing to do but to turn from the evil of her ways, and take her husband's part against the other fellow. But no, no. Our hero, after thinking the matter over, took her into his confidence, without giving her any voice in the new arrangement. He sold-out to the best advantage, and divided the proceeds with her; reserving to himself enough to start him in a line of life that he could follow without the annoyance of being associated with anyone. All that he earned afterward, beyond bare expenses, he forwarded to her, to save or squander as she pleased; the only condition being that she should acknowledge each remittance, and answer, as briefly as possible, such questions as he chose to ask. She humbly assented to all this, evidently looking forward to forgiveness and reconciliation, somewhere in-time or eternity. But, by God! she mistook her mark!" He laughed harshly, paused half-a-minute, and resumed,

"One restraint upon our hero was the thought of his little boy, only old enough to creep about, and incredibly fond of him; though this never softened him towards the worthless, cursed mother. Anyway, after about three years, the little boy died; and his heart was turned to stone. Still, through mere bitterness and obstinacy he followed the course he had adopted; meeting with a run of success that surprised himself. The very curse that was on him seemed to protect him from the mishaps that befell other men in his line of work; and he found life worth living for the sake of hating and despising the whole human race, including himself. There's no pleasure like the pleasure of being a devil, when you feel yourself master of the situation, and--Now I've done, Collins."

"That's right. I've been thinking how to fix things for you till you're able to"----

"First, I have one question to ask you," persisted Alf. "You notice that all these men acted differently. Which of them acted right?--or did any of them? You know, there are two other courses open: to appeal to the law, or to pass the matter over quietly, for fear of scandal. Is either of these right? One course must be right, and all the others must be wrong."

By this time, I had made up my mind to humour him. "Well," I replied; "it happens that I have given the subject some thought, as I intend, if I can find time, to write a few words on the varied manifestations of jealousy in the so-called Shakespear Plays. You're familiar with the plays, of course?"

"I've read bits of them."

"Possibly you remember, then, that Posthumus, in Cymbeline, on receiving proofs of his wife's infidelity (we know her to be loyal, but that does n't affect his proofs) harbours not one thought of revenge toward the man who has supplanted him. Indeed, as an artistic illustration of Iachimo's immunity from retribution, Posthumus is afterward represented as disarming and sparing him in battle--a concession he would n't have made to an ordinary enemy. He looks to Imogen alone. Nothing but the sacrifice of her life will satisfy him. On the eve of the same battle, we find him, though seeking for death himself, still gloating over the handkerchief supposed to be stained with her life-blood. Very well. Now Troilus in Troilus and Cressida, is a man very much resembling Posthumus in temperament--brave, resolute, truthful, unsuspicious, and more liberally endowed with muscle than brains"----

"But this has nothing to do with it," interrupted Alf. "I was asking your opinion as to which of the four acted rightly?--or did any of them?"

"Yes, Alf; I'm coming to that. I was going to remark that, though the temperamental conditions of Posthumus and Troilus are apparently so similar--apparently, mind--and their position as betrayed husbands so identical, we find them acting in directly opposite ways. Troilus entertains no thought of revenge upon his faithless wife; he gives his whole attention to the co-respondent. Now let us glance at Othello. Here is a man who, allowing for his maturer age, is much like the Briton and the Trojan in temperament, even to the extent of being more liberally endowed with muscle than"----

"But you're not answering my question," moaned Alf. "Which of the four acted right?"

"Well," I replied; "I'm afraid my conclusions won't have the rounded completeness we value so much in moral inferences unless I'm allowed to empanel Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, as well as Othello, and thus work from a solid foundation. But we'll see. I'll put my answer in this way: A casual thinker might pronounce it impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rule of conduct here, on account of necessary diversity in conditions. He would, perhaps, argue that, though abstract Right is absolute and unchangeable, the alternative Wrong, though never shading down into Right, varies immeasurably in degree of turpitude; so that the action which is intrinsically wrong may be more excusable in one man than in another, or under certain conditions than under others. Now, I'm not going to deny that it lies within our province, as rational beings, to classify wrongs, provided we do so from a purely objective stand-point. I shall endeavour to deal with that issue by-and-by. I merely notice"----

"Stop! stop!" interrupted Alf, rolling his head from side to side. "Answer my question!"

"Well, if you must have it like a half-raw potato, I give my vote in favour of Potiphar the Fourth, the saw-mill man. I don't see what better he could have done. It was n't the most romantic course, perhaps; but I'm not a romantic person--rather the reverse--and it meets my approval."

"And your deliberate conviction is that he acted rightly--rightly, mind?"

"Assuredly he did. That is what I was driving at; but now you have to take my conclusion as an ipse dixit, rather than as a theorem. The misanthropy of the gentleman's after-life is another question, and one which would lead us into a different, and much wider, region of philosophy. But I think we'll find it interesting to trace, step by step, from its genesis to its culmination, the involuntary process of thought which led each of your Potiphars, separately, to his independent action. We can't embark on this inquiry just now, Alf, for we shall have to grapple with the most minute and subtle shades of psychical distinction, and we shall have to deal largely in postulates; for though"----

"I want to tell you something, Collins," interrupted Alf, in a tone now free from all trace of the distraction and constraint which made it painful to listen to him. "Like poor Cross, I feel impelled to place my tragedy on record, but in one man's memory only. I trust entirely to your discretion. Did you know I was a married man?"

"No; I certainly did n't," I replied, recalling myself; for I had been half-listening to a sound in the lignum. But as he spoke there flashed across my mental vision the picture of his wife--a tawny-haired tigress, with slumbrous dark eyes; a Circe, whose glorious voice had been silent in death for ten years, and lost to him for three years longer. Hence, by some sequence worth tracing, the voluntary exile, the Ishmaelite occupation; the morbid, malevolent interest in the Messalinas at large; and the generally pervading smell of husks. This, let me tell you, is what comes of meddling with tawny-haired tigresses, who harass a man out of individuality, and then die or abscond, leaving him like the last cactus of summer.

"No young fellow could have started in life with a fairer prospect than I had," continued Alf, in a grave, composed tone. "But I was guilty of one deliberately fiendish and heartless action, and following upon that action, I made a mistake that nothing but death can absolve. I married a woman, who, I believe, was divinely assigned to me as a punishment. I'll tell you the whole story"----

"Wait, Alf," said I hastily. "I must leave you for a few minutes. Do you want anything before I go?"

"Nothing, thank you. Don't stay long."

"You may be sure I won't. Try if you can go to sleep."

I jumped off the wagon. There was no time to lose. During the last few minutes, a peculiar cadence in the sound of Alf's bells had told me, just as surely as words could have done, that the bullocks were mustered, and travelling away. My horses were not far off; and, to save time, I took Alf's saddle and bridle from under his wagon. As I did so, I heard his voice, low and monotonous. I paused involuntarily.----

"O Molly! Molly, my girl!--my poor love!--my darling!"----

I hurried away, and put the saddle and bridle on Bunyip. Body o' me! I thought--can a tawny-haired tigress be called Molly? This must be seen into when I have time.

In a couple of minutes Bunyip had settled down to that flying trot which would have been an independence to anyone except myself. After clearing the lignum, I got a back elevation of the bullocks, half-a-mile out on the plain; and, rapidly overhauling them, I perceived that I should have to pit myself against the Chinese boundary rider this time. Consequently I felt, like Cassius, fresh of spirit and resolved to meet all perils very constantly.

"Out of my way, you Manchurian leper, or I'll run over you!" I shouted gaily, as I swung round the cattle, turning them back.

"Muck-a-hi-lo! sen-ling, ay-ya; ilo-ilo!" remonstrated the unbeliever, drawing his horse aside to let them pass.

"You savvy, John," said I, suiting my language to his comprehension, while from my eye the Gladiator broke--"bale you snavel-um that peller bullock. Me fetch-um you ole-man lick under butt of um lug; me gib-it you big one dressum down. Compranny pah, John?" The Chinaman had turned back with me, and, as if he had been hired for the work, was stolidly assisting to return the cattle to the spot whence he had taken them.

"Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" I asked, thanklessly quoting from the familiar hexameter, and lighting my pipe as I spoke.

"Eulopean dam logue," responded the heathen in his blindness.

"In contradistinction to the Asiatic and the Australian, who are scrupulously honest," I observed pleasantly. "You savvy who own-um that peller bullock, John?"

"Walligal Alp," replied the pagan promptly. "Me collal him bullock two-tlee time to-molla, all li; two-tlee time nex day, all li."

"All li, John--you collar-um that peller bullock one more time, me manhandle you; pull-um off you dud; tie-um you on ant-bed, allee same spread-eagle; cut-um off you eye-lid; likee do long-a China; bimeby sun jump up, roast-um you eye two-tlee day; bull-dog ant comballee, eat-um you meat, pick-um you bone; bimeby you tumble-down-die; go like-it dibil-dibil; budgeree fire long-a that peller. You savvy, John?"

"Me tellee Missa Smyte you lescue," replied John doggedly. "All li; you name Collin; you b'long-a Gullamen Clown; all li; you killee me bimeby; all li." With this the discomfited Mongol turned his horse in the direction of Mondunbarra homestead, and, like a driver starting an engine when there is danger of the belt flying off, gradually worked up his pace to a canter, leaving me in possession of the field.

But in cases of this kind, there is only one thing worse than victory. I was fairly in a fix with Alf's bullocks. You must understand that these beasts had no legal right to be anywhere except travelling along the track, or floating down the river. If they scattered off the track--not being attended by some capable person--their owner would, there and then, and as often as this occurred, be liable for trespass; twenty times a day, if you like, and a shilling per head each time. If I wished to remove them across a five or ten-mile paddock, the only way I could legally do so would be by means of a balloon. The thousands of homeless bullocks and horses which carry on the land-transport trade had to live and work, or starve and work, on squatters' grass, year after year. So the right to live, being in the nature of a boon or benefaction, went largely by favour--like the slobbery salute imagined by poets--and poor Alf was no favourite with anyone.

The managers of all these three stations were out of reach; and besides, there was no great hope in appealing to any of them.

Yoongoolee homestead, across the river, was about sixteen miles distant; and Hungry M'Intyre, from what I knew of him, was little likely to make concessions to any member of the guild whose representatives had selected within sight of his wool-shed. Yoongoolee was avoided by all the floating population of the country, and particularly by those who could n't afford to be independent, forasmuch as there was nothing there but Highland pride, and Highland eczema and hunger. Most squatters have titles; M'Intyre had two, which were used indifferently; one of these was derived from the hunger, the other from the eczema.

And, of all Alf's enemies, perhaps the most inveterate was the Chinaman's boss, Mr. Smythe, managing partner of Mondunbarra. This gentleman, whose exclusiveness took the very usual form of excluding all considerations not tending to his own profit, and whose refinement manifested itself to the vulgar eye chiefly in cutting things fine about the station, had, a couple of years previously, taken Alf in the very act of running one of his own bullocks out of the station cattle. An altercation had ensued, followed by a summons; and Alf had been mulcted in five shillings trespass, with six guineas costs, besides having to travel seventy or eighty miles to Court, and the same distance back to his wagon. This was trying enough to a man of Alf's avaricious and irascible bent. It had caused him to speak a word in private to Mr. Smythe; and, from that time forward, the squatter hated the bullock driver considerably more than he hated sin, and feared him more than he feared his reputed Maker.

Poor Smythe! the remembrance of him wrings my soul with pity, even now. He was parsimonious, cunning, pusillanimous, fastidious, and hysterically excitable. He was cruelly sat-on by his inexorable partner, M'Gregor; contemned by his social equals; hated by his inferiors, and popularly known as the Marquis of Canton. His only friend was his brother Bert, a quiet youth, who attended him with Montholon-fidelity; and his appreciation of the cheap and reliable Asiatic was passively recognised by a station staff of Joss-devotees.

There was no use in my appealing to this gentleman, for, though most men in his place would have accepted the opportunity of laying Alf under an obligation, I knew his unhappy moral organisation well enough to be certain that neither policy nor magnanimity could intervene on behalf of a prostrate enemy. And to make matters more hopeless, Confucius would be just ahead of me, with his story of forcible rescue, coupled with personal threats of the gravest character.

Avondale remained. This station belonged to that grand old colonist, Captain Royce, who governed the seigneury from his Toorak mansion, like Von Moltke commanding an army from his telegraph-office. The large-hearted patriarchal traditions of early days were still current on the station; but that property had to pay, and pay well, at the manager's peril. To illustrate this: Captain Royce, in responding to 'Our Pastoral Interests,' never failed to remark that no working beast had ever been impounded from Avondale. This, of course, conveyed the impression that it was a run flowing with grass and water for distressed teams; but the unhappy manager, watched and reported always by at least one narangy, and ground, as you see, between the upper mill-stone of Royce the munificent and the nether and much harder one of Royce the businessman, had to transmute every blade of grass, or twig of cotton-bush, into a filament of wool, or let somebody else have a try. Consequently, the boundary riders of Avondale had strict orders to hunt all strays and trespassers across the frontiers of stations that did impound; so the fine old squatter-king got there just the same--also the carriers' teams and the drovers' horses.

One characteristic of Avondale was that the rank and file of the station were always treated with fatherly benevolence, and were never discharged. They gradually got useless by reason of mere antiquity, and, without actually dying, slowly mummified, and were duly interred in the cemetery at the homestead.

In view of the rigorous usages specified, it was no marvel that a deficiency in the Avondale clip of '83 had led to the resignation of Mr. Angus Cameron, and the installation of a new manager, a few weeks before the date of these incidents. But the appointment of a strange boundary rider to the paddock adjoining Alf's camp--an event which had taken place three or four months before the same date--seemed like a sudden angle and break in the corridor of Time.

Avondale home-station was nine miles distant. I had never met the new manager; but his name was Wentworth St. John Ffrench; and, by all accounts, he acted up to it. Popular rumour likened him to the man with the whole pound of tobacco, who had sworn against borrowing or lending. Mr. Ffrench could afford to be independent of such men as Alf, but couldn't afford to establish a precedent for invalided carriers loafing on the run. Of course, you would n't look at the thing in that light; but then, your name is not Wentworth St. John Ffrench, and you would n't do for a manager of Avondale. You would have the run swarming with a most tenacious type of trespassers before you knew what you were doing. Moreover, the moral responsibility (if any) of the matter rested on Mondunbarra, not on Avondale.

Neither had I ever seen the new Avondale boundary man; but I was prejudiced against him also. It required no deep dive into the mysteries of Nomenology to augur ill from the nickname of 'Terrible Tommy.' The title was, of course, satirical; the man an imbecile and fickle windbag. Still, this name was better than the manager's.

Evidently, my only chance was to deal directly with some one of the boundary men. I had already failed to melt the musing Briton's eyes; and though I had, in a sense, prevailed over the Mongol, I could make no use of him; so I found myself hanging, as you might say, by one strand, that strand being Terrible Tommy.

I must enlist this man, I mentally concluded, as a willing accomplice; and, by my faith, I'll do so before I leave him. I care not an he be the devil; give me faith, say I.

By this time, the sun was just setting. I left the bullocks near the boundary fence, turned Bunyip adrift, and placed the saddle and bridle where I could find them again. Then crossing into Avondale, I picked my way through a belt of tall lignum, sloppy with warm water, and alive with mosquitos; then on through scattered timber until, a mile from the fence, appeared the one-roomed abode of the man I wanted. I knew where to find the place, having stayed there one night when Bendigo Bill was in charge of the paddock. But now, nearing the house, how I wished I had that frank, good-hearted old Eureka rebel to deal with instead of the hard-featured, sandy-complexioned man whom I saw carrying home a couple of buckets of water on a wooden hoop. Our old friends, the Irresistible and the Immovable were about to encounter once more.

"Evening, sir," I cooed, with an urbanity born of the conditions already set down.

"Gude evenin' (Squire Western's expression!) Ye maun gang fairther, ye ken; fir fient haet o' sipper ye'se hae frae me the nicht. De'il tak' ye, ye lang-leggit, lazy loun, flichterin' roun' wi' yir 'Gude evenin' sir!' an' a' sic' clishmaclaver. Awa' wi ye! dinna come fleechin' tae me! The kintra's I-sy wi' sic' haverils, comin' sundoonin' on puir folk 'at henna mickle mair nir eneugh fir thir ain sel's. Tak' aff yir coat an' wark, ye glaikit-De'il tak' ye; wha' fir ye girnin' at?"

"Gude save's!" I snarled; "wha'gar ye mak' sic' a splore? Hoo daur ye tak' on ye till misca' a body sae sair's ye dae, ye bletherin' coof? Hae ye gat oot the wrang side yir bed the morn?-ir d'ye tak' me fir a rief-randy?--ir wha' the de'il fashes ye the noo? Ye ken, A was compit doon ayont the boondary, an' A thocht A wad dauner owre an' hae a wee bit crack wi' ye the nicht. A wantit tae ken wha' like mon yir new maunager micht be, an' tae speer twa-three ither things firbye; bit sin' yir sae skrunty, ye maun tak' yir domd sipper till yir ain bethankit ava, an' A'll gang awa' bock till ma ain comp. Heh!" And I turned away with unconcealed resentment and contempt.

"Haud a wee," said the boundary rider, setting down his buckets, and slapping the back of his neck. "Ye ken, A'm sae owrecam wi' thir awfu' mustikies that whiles A canna-Bit cam awa' tae the biggin; cam awa' tae the biggin, an' rest yirsel'." The Irresistible had scored this time. Such is life.

I helped Tommy out of his embarrassment by an occasional 'Ay, mun,' interjected into his apologetic and cordial monologue; and so we reached the hut, where, after directing me to a seat, he filled a billy with some of the water he had brought, and hung it on the crook.

"An' wha' dae they ca' ye?" he asked, turning his back to the fire, and surveying me with a kindly interest which made me feel as uneasy as if I had been sleeping in a fowl-house.

"Tam Collins," I replied readily, though interrupted by a fit of coughing as I pronounced my surname.

"Ye'll no be yin o' the M'Callums o' Auchtermauchtie?" he inquired eagerly. "A kent them weel."

I shook my head. "An' wha' dae they ca' yirsel'?" I asked.

"Tam Airmstrang-anither Tam, ye ken. An' whaur ye frae? Wha' pairt o' the kintra was ye born in syne?" A boggy-looking place for a man to carry his integrity safely across; however, I replied,

"Ye'se aiblins be acquent wi' yon auld sang:--

Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braff,
That wander through the bloomin' heather.

Aweel, A was born on the braes o' Yarra. Ye ken, the time's gane lang wi' me sin' A rin aboot the braes, an' pu'd the gowans fine. Ay, mun!"

"A-y-y, mun!" rejoined my companion, echoing my home-sick sigh. "D'ye ken-A wadna' thocht ye was a Selkirksheer mon. A wad hae thocht ye was frae Lanarksheer, ir aiblins frae"--

"Whaur micht ye be frae yirsel'?" I interrupted desperately.

He seemed about to reply, but checked himself, and looked at me absently; then he turned to the fire, took his canister from the shelf, and mechanically measured out a handful of tea. He stood gazing into the fire till recalled to himself by the boiling of the billy; then a triumphant smile invaded his stern features; he took the billy off the crook, threw the tea into it, clapped both hands on my shoulders, and quoted with fine effect that lucid passage from Burns:--

Bye attour, ma gutcher has
A heigh hoose an' a leigh
A' firbye ma bony sel',
The lad o' Ecclefechan!

"Ha-ha-ha! The lad o' Ecclefechan, ye ken-no the lass o' Ecclefechan! Losh! A hae whiles laffit mysen gey near daft at yon! The lad o' Ecclefechan!" He gave way to another burst of hilarity, in which I sincerely joined. "A henna' thocht aboot yon a towmond syne," he continued, wiping the dew of merriment from his eyes; "bit ye hae brocht it bock the nicht. The lad o' Ecclefechan! ha-ha-ha! Ay, mun; A'm frae Ecclefechan, an' ma feyther afore me. Syne, A hae been a' ip an' doon Ayrsheer, frae yin fair till anither wi' nowte. Brawly dae A ken Mossgeil, an' Mauchline, an' Loughlea, an' the auld Brig o' Doon, firbye a wheen ither spotes ye 'se aiblins hear tell o'."

"Ye'll hae seen Alloway Kirk?" I conjectured.

"Seen't! ay," he replied magnificently. "A thocht naethin' o"t!"

"Ye what?" I retorted, in the mere wantonness of power. "Ye hae seen yon auld hauntet kirk, whaur witches an' warlocks Hang an' loupit, an' Auld Nick himsel' screwt his pipes an' gart them skirl, till roof an' rafters a' did dirl! ye hae keekit intil yon eerie auld ruin!--an' syne ye daunert awa', an' thocht naethin' o' 't! Be ma saul, Bobbie Birns didna' think naethin' o' 't! Heh!"

Tommy was now laying the table. He made no reply to my rebuke, but the forced and deprecating smile which struggled to his face showed that the Irresistible had scored again.

But one of the most unpleasant experiences I can now recall to mind was the sitting down with that unsuspecting fellow-mortal to his soda-bread and cold mutton, while I smiled, and smiled, and was a Scotchman. The easy victory, tested by that moral straight-edge we all carry, made me feel as mean as a liveried servant; and when Tommy requested me to ask a blessing, and sat with his elbow on the table and his face reverently veiled by his hand, whilst I wove a protracted and incoherent grace from the Lowland vocabulary, I seemed to sink to the level of a prince's equerry. In fact, I would almost as soon make one of a crowd to hurrah for a Governor as go through such an ordeal again. My truthfulness--perhaps the only quality in which I attain an insulting pre-eminence--seemed outraged to the limit of endurance as I looked forward to the inevitable detection, soon or late, of the impromptu deception which, in spite of me, was expanding and developing like a snake-lie, or an election squabble.

However, I contented myself with directing the stream of conversation, and leaving the rest to Tommy. It transpired that he had been four months in his present situation, and only nine in the country altogether. He had got employment on Avondale by a lucky chance; and, though engaged only for six months, entertained hopes that he might be baptised into the billet, to the permanent exclusion of Bendigo Bill.

For menial employment on Avondale was like membership in a Church, only that, to the carnal mind, there was more in it; moreover, the initiation was attended with greater ceremony, and the possibility of expulsion was kept further in the background. Once admitted into Avondale fellowship, the communicant might turn out a white sheep or a black one; but he was still a sheep, whilst all outside the fold, white or black, as the case might be, were goats. This may be illustrated by the incident which had just given Tommy the footing of an unbaptised believer, provisionally admitted amongst the elect. He gave me the account, so far as it affected himself; and Bendigo Bill, sitting on the same kerosene-case, long afterward narrated the episode fully.

Two years before the date of this record, Bendigo Bill's mind, such as it was, had been disturbed by the discovery of gold at Mount Brown. As time went on, the occasional sight of northward-bound drays and pack-horses revived the old lunacy in its most malignant form, till the demoniac at last gave formal notice of his intention to leave the station, and push his fortune on the diggings. His resignation was in due course forwarded to Captain Royce; whereupon that potentate sent him a peremptory order to mind his paddock, and not make an infernal exhibition of himself. The demon quaked and collapsed for the time, and Bill, in his proper person, acquiesced with the humility customarily manifested by Avondale people when Captain Royce was conducting the other side of the argument. But the evil spirit was scotched, not killed; and Bill became a harmless melancholic, dwelling on old time memories of the diggings, and gradually lying himself into the conviction that, if he had gone to Mount Brown, he could have told by the lay of the country, unerringly, and at the first glance, where the gold was.

Things being in this posture, there reached Avondale, in the winter of '83, a vague, intangible bruit of somebody expecting to hit it on Mount Brown; and, shortly afterward, Bill, in a vision of the night, found himself paddocking a bit of four-foot ground for a free, lively, six-inch wash, running something like ten ounces to the dish-rough, shotty, water-worn gold. Next night the dream was repeated, but with this addition, that the dreamer bent the point of his pick whilst hooking out of a sort of pocket in the pipeclay a flat, damper-shaped nugget that he could hardly lift. The third night found the ground richer than ever; but Bill, knowing it to be a dream, and having no way of permanently retaining the gold he might get under such conditions, very wisely contented himself with taking accurate observations of his landmarks, so that he might know the place again when he saw it by daylight. Whilst so engaged, his attention was attracted by two emus, which resolved themselves, respectively, into Captain Royce and Mick Magee--the latter being an old mate of his own, accidentally killed on the Jim Crow, about fifteen years before. This made the assurance of the thrice-repeated dream triply sure; for the emu is one of the luckiest things a person can dream about; and its identification with Captain Royce was as good as an old boot thrown by that awesome magnate; whilst its association with Mick Magee made the cup of blessing overslop in all directions--Mick having been, in the days of his vanity, a man that brought luck with him wherever he went, particularly in shallow ground.

So Bill wiped from the tablet of his memory everything except the picture of a place where two gullies met, after the fashion of a Y, and formed a bit of a blind creek, running between low ranges broken here and there by the outcrop of a hungry white quartz. His dream intuitively conveyed the further knowledge that the surrounding country had been prospected for a few floaters, and the creek, lower down, rooted-up for bare tucker, while this little spur of made ground, between the prongs of the Y, remained intact--and there was the jeweller's shop.

Again Bill, emboldened by the unholy afflatus caught from his earlier life, gave notice to the manager; this time following up his action by buying a horse and spring-cart from a tank-sinker, and conditionally selling his own two horses. Then came Captain Royce's ukase, to the effect that no man must be allowed to swag the country, ragged and homeless, with the story in his mouth that he had been boundary riding on Avondale for ten years. Therefore, Bill's notice was passed over with the contempt it merited. But something must be done; so a six months' leave of absence was granted; and the manager was instructed to employ, for that time only, the first likely-looking stranger who presented himself--the latter being clearly given to understand that he was only in the loosest sense of the word an Avondale employe. If Bill returned on the expiration of his furlough, he should be reinstated, and all would be forgiven; if he failed to return, such default would be taken as evidence of contumacy; excommunication would promptly follow, and the station would thereby be acquitted of all responsibility touching any destitute old bummer who might swag the country with the yarn that he had been boundary riding on Avondale for ten years. Captain Royce could be stern enough when he let himself out.

The emu-section of the dream being thus partly fulfilled, Bill clutched at a release in any form; and it happened that, simultaneously with the arrival of Captain Royce's mandate, came Tom Armstrong and his mate, Andrew Glover, from a job of ringing on the Yanko. The manager, being named Angus Cochrane, plumped Tom into the vacancy, and supplied him with a couple of old station horses. Bill remained a few days longer, teaching Tom the routine of his work; then the manager slacked-off, and Bill harnessed his horse and fled northward--not because he disliked Avondale, but because he liked it so well that he was impatient to make Captain Royce such a bid for the property as that nabob could n't think of refusing, with any hope of luck afterward.

On my mentioning Alf's bullocks, Tom told me that he had heard bells among the lignum in the corner of Mondunbana, a few nights before, and had next morning found twenty bullocks and a bay horse on the Avondale side of the fence. He knew that the Chow had passed them on to him to save trouble, so he immediately passed them back to the Chow. Next evening, his neighbour had re-delivered them to Avondale f.o.b., and in the morning, Tom returned them to Mondunbarra c.o.d. Next night, the untiring Asiatic had them back on Avondale o.r.; and in the morning, Tom did what he should have done at first--put them across the river on to the station from whose bourne no trespasser returned. The ensuing adventures of the bullocks you already know.

Tom had acquired, without any severe wrench of his finer feelings, the boundary man's hostility to the bullock driver, and was cultivating the same with all the energy of his race. His title, after all, was no more quizzical in its application than that of Ivan the Terrible; and to understand how nasty a station vassal can sometimes make himself, you must know a little concerning the manners none and customs beastly of the time and place wherein our scene is laid.

And, to my unspeakable disgust, I found that though Tom had never met Alf personally, the unfortunate outlaw was his Doctor Fell too. And the very spirit of Leviticus breathed in his tone as he informed me that gin he had umquhile kent the nowte belangit tae yon ill-hairtet raff, he wad hae whummelt them owre the burn (the Lachlan a burn! O, my country) lang syne, an' no fashit himsel' wi' ony sic' fiddle-fyke.

Nothing but extreme caution would do here. The brutal truth of my unwarranted solicitude for the sick man would certainly cause friction, and might spoil all. So, in a few well-chosen words, I informed Tom that there was a trifle between Alf and me; and he was sick, just when I wanted to keep him on his feet for a while. Would Tom (and my patois became so hideously homely that, for the reader's sake, I have to paraphrase it)--would Tom, as a personal favour to me, call round at Alf's camp, morning and evening, for a few days, and in the meantime keep his bullocks safe?

No answer. The silken bond of our nationality would n't stand such a strain. Then I slowly drew out my pocket-book, and, with the stifled sigh of a thrifty man, handed my compatriot one of the four one-pound notes which excluded me from the state of grace enjoyed by Lazarus; remarking, half-sullenly, that he could n't be expected to take all this trouble for nothing; and though I was a poor man like himself, it would pay me to get Alf at work again. And, considering that a bullock driver often has it in his power to do a good turn for a boundary man, would n't it be better, I suggested, for Tom to do all this on his own account, without a whisper concerning my interposition?

I had known better than to make such a proposition to Sollicker. That impracticable animal--who would have uncovered his head to receive backsheesh, as backsheesh, from a 'gentleman'--would have spurned my lubricant as an unholy thing; and woe to Alf's bullocks if he had caught them again! But I was n't surprised to find my modus vivendi accepted by this passive product of a social code fabricated and compiled in the nethermost pit--a code which, under the heading of Thrift, frankly teaches the poor to grind each other without scruple, whilst religiously avoiding all inquiry into the claims of the rich--a code, in fact, which makes the greasing of the fat pig a work holy unto the Lord. The keen selfishness of my proposal touched a kindred chord in poor Tom's bosom; the mettlesome casting of my sprat upon the waters, in sure hope of finding a mackerel after many days, awoke his admiration; whilst an immediate and prospective advantage to himself stood out through it all. Yet, under this crust of clannishness, cunning, and money-hunger, there lay a fine manhood. I saw the latter come to the surface a few months afterward. But that is another episode; and I must confine myself to the case before the Court.

Tom knew of an island among the lignum, where the bullocks would be safe; and he would put them there in the morning, after he had visited Alf. But I must take the bells off first. I thanked him with a sincerity out of all keeping with my accent, and shortly afterward drew the intolerable conference gently to a close. Upon the whole, I had impressed my host as a shrewd, well-informed person, too much taken-up with the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches to dwell upon personal memories of the auld kintra. I was touched to notice a certain disappointment and forlornness in his manner as he accompanied me to the boundary fence, where we shook hands, and parted--each looking forward to the probability of meeting again, but with different degrees of longing.

And now, thought I, as I recovered Alf's saddle and bridle, heaven grant that that parting may be a Kathleen Mavourneen one; and let me have some other class of difficulty to deal with next time.

Thus, in the best of spirits, owing to the prospect of some smooth travelling on my main trunk line, after having traversed the steep and crooked section to which I had been committed by one touch of the switch two hours before, I made my way through the lignum to Alf's camp; guided partly by the instinct which we share unequally with the lower creation, and partly by the smell of the dead dog, zephyr-borne on the night air. After dragging the poor animal's body a little distance away, I vaulted into the wagon, and spoke cheerily to Alf.

No reply. I struck a match, and saw him sleeping the peaceful, dreamless sleep of a tired child. I lit a bit of candle I had noticed in the daytime, and sat down to note his progress in a professional way. His pulse was right, as I found by timing it with my own; and the hard swelling of the elbows seemed to have relaxed a little. The backs of his hands were pretty bad with the external scurvy known as 'Barcoo rot'--produced by unsuitable food and extreme hardship--but that had nothing to do with the complaint which had so strangely overtaken him. His breathing was gentle and regular, though his face was covered with gorged mosquitos. The healthy moistness of the skin showed that my prescription had operated as a sudorific, no less than as a soporific. Altogether, there was a marked diminution of what we call febrile symptoms; and, better still, he had managed to turn himself over since I left him.

I lit my pipe, and contemplated the unconscious outlaw. Without being aggressively handsome, like Dixon or Willoughby, Alf, in his normal state, was a decidedly noble-looking man, of the so-called Anglo-Saxon type, modified hy sixty or eighty years of Australian deterioration. His grandfather had probably been something like Sollicker; and the apprehensions of that discomfortable cousin were being fulfilled only too ruthlessly. The climate had played Old Gooseberry with the fine primordial stock. Physically, the Suffolk Punch had degenerated into the steeplechaser; psychologically, the chasm between the stolid English peasant and the saturnine, sensitive Australian had been spanned with that facilis which marks the descensus Averni.

But the question of racial degeneracy, past, present, or to come, troubled its victim very little as he lay there. Indeed, it had never troubled him much. He was one of those men who cannot learn to think systematically, but who make up their deficiency by feeling the more intensely. And now that the unseen Guide had given His beloved sleep, and the stern, defiant blue eyes were veiled, and the habitual frown smoothed from the fine forehead, I found something pathetic in the worn repose of the sleeper's face.