Many people have their special antipathies. There are instances on record of one fainting at the scent of heliotrope; of another becoming hysterical at the mewing of a cat; and so on, and so on, ad infinitum. The Scotch, as a rule, are anything but a nervously susceptible nation, taken either collectively or individually. Nor have I heard that those members of it who follow the sea as a calling are more so than their shorekeeping compatriots.
Still, to the present day, and probably to the day of his departure, John M‘Cracken, retired master mariner, of Aberdeen, becomes signally and powerfully moved by the cry of the domestic duck, rendered universally and approximately as ‘Quack!’ His red face grows redder, his light blue eyes glower menacingly, and his hands open and close nervously, as if longing for some missile wherewith to annihilate the unconscious fowl—or its human imitator.
The Sparrowhawk, barque, M‘Cracken master, was chartered to convey returning Chinese passengers from Singapore to Amoy.
[92]
I think the regulations as to space, numbers, etc., etc.,
could not, in those days, have been very strict. Be this
as it may, Skipper M‘Cracken filled up until he could fill
no more. The ’tween deck was like a freshly-opened
sardine tin; on the main deck they lay in double tiers.
Many roosted in the tops. The boats on the davits and
the long-boat on the skids swarmed with the home-going
children of the Flowery Land. The better class,
merchants, tradesmen, etc., had secured everything aft,
from the captain’s cabin to the steward’s pantry, for
which accommodation fabulous sums found their way
into the pockets of M‘Cracken and his mates. For’ard,
the crew had vacated the forecastle in consideration of
sundry handfuls per man of dollars, which they had
subsequently discovered to be ‘chop.’
The mild-eyed heathen in his leisure moments had amused himself by punching pellets of good silver out of them, and filling the holes up with lead. From taffrail to bowsprit-heel, from waterways to keelson, the Sparrowhawk seethed and stank with a sweltering mass of yellow humanity. Every soul had a square of matting and a water-jar, also an umbrella. They also all had money—more or less. The fellows aft, with the flowing silk gowns and long finger-nails, owned chests of it, all in silver specie, stowed snugly away in the lazarette. The herd carried their little fortunes, hardly earned by years of incessant toil as sampan men, porters, or what not, in the great border city on the sea, hidden upon their persons.
The vessel looked grotesque to a degree. She was flying light, and towered loftily out of the water. Upon [93] her deck, amidships, rose two big arrangements after the nature of boilers. These were for cooking rice, and were occasionally the scenes of fierce fighting, during which the Europeans would clamber into the rigging, leaving a clear field, and applaud vociferously. They were a harmless people, and fought like sheep-dogs, rarely doing one another much harm.
From the barque’s side protruded curious cage-like structures connected with the sanitary affairs of the multitude. This last lay everywhere, pervaded everything. If you wanted a rope you had to dislodge half-a-dozen grunting, naked bodies. Trimming the yards o’ nights the watches tripped and fell amongst the prostrate ranks.
The passengers, however, bore it all placidly. They had paid M‘Cracken so many dollars per head for a piece of his deck, and the situation of it was quite immaterial. Moreover, were they not homeward bound after years of separation from wives and little ones with fortunes made beyond the sea? Men in such circumstances are apt to be good-tempered. A heavy squall would probably have caused the loss of the Sparrowhawk and all on board. But Captain M‘Cracken took the risk—and the dollars. He slept on an old sail folded across the cuddy skylight. His mattress he had leased along with his state-room to one of the merchants who, he understood, was a convert to Christianity. The wind kept light, with showers at intervals. At the first drop, up would go every umbrella; and, looking from aloft, the sight was a queer one.
On leaving Singapore the skipper had been warned [94] that pirates were still to be met with in Chinese waters, and, short though the passage was, advised to arm, at all events in some sort, his ship and crew. This he did. At a marine store he bought, second-hand, a couple of cannon—three pounders—also several dozen of grape shot. In exchange for a worn mizzen-topsail and the fat saved by the cook (of usage the latter’s perquisite) on the passage out, he procured some old Tower muskets, a few boarding-pikes, and three horse-pistols for his own and his officers’ especial use. These last had flintlocks and mouths like a bell. Thus equipped, he declared himself ready for any piratical attack.
The ship’s agents smiled meaningly, and winked at each other; but, knowing their man, forbore further advice, well recognising the inutility of it. A Scotchman who owns a full half interest in his ship, who hails from Aberdeen, and habitually comes ashore in latitude 0 with a Glengarry cap on, no umbrella, and naked feet, is not a being to stand argument.
One night the moon rose full, and right aft. She rose, too, with a big black spot in her disc that had no right to be there.
There was too much samshoo aboard for a very sharp look-out to be kept for’ard. That native spirit gets into men’s eyes and weakens them. But aft the skipper caught sight of the object.
‘It’ll be a junk, I’m thinkin’!’ he said presently, after working away for a while with his glass; ‘an a muckle ane at that. She’s fetchin’ a breezie wi’ her, whilk’s a comfort.’
[95]
Some of the long-nailed aristocrats were lounging
about the poop. They needed no glass to make out the
approaching vessel. Gathering in a group, they cackled
noisily, pointing and gesticulating among themselves.
Then, coming up to the captain, one—it was his Christian friend—plucked him by the arm and uttered laconically, with extended digit, ‘Prat!’
‘Weel, Johnnie,’ replied old M‘Cracken coolly, as he gathered the other’s meaning, ‘pireet, or no pireet, gin he come a wee closer, we’ll just pepper the hide o’ him wi’ cauld airn.’
Without more ado, the Chinaman dived into his cabin and in a minute or two reappeared with a most hideous idol and a bundle of perfumed paper. Placing the thing right under the skipper’s nose, he lit a yard of paper and began to screech an invocation. As of good Presbyterian stock, M‘Cracken was irritated and shocked.
‘Mon, mon,’ he exclaimed, ‘what wad ye be at! Hae ye niver been tauld that a’ graven eemages is an abomination in the sicht o’ the Lord? An’ I thocht ye was a Christian.’ So saying, he seized the joss and flung it far overboard into the silvery water, just rippling under the coming breeze. The worshipper uttered a yell of dismay. But there was no time to lose, and, rushing below, he brought up another god, ten times as hideous as the first one, and, descending to the main deck, aroused the ship with his devotions.
Then arose the sound of a multitude waking in fear—an impressive sound and a catching. Up the open hatchways from the steaming, fœtid ’tween decks they [96] streamed in hundreds, like disturbed ants, with cries of alarm and grief, and strong callings upon their gods. In a minute the ship was alive with lights burning before idols of every description. A thousand half-naked figures crouched cowering from the break of the poop right for’ard. Aft, a handful of rugged Scotch seamen gazed quietly at the black spot over the water. Presently the two little guns were crammed half up to the muzzle with powder and grape, and placed each in a socket cut out for it after leaving Singapore. The remainder of the weapons were, with a stock of ammunition, divided amongst the crew. Hot irons were put in the galley fire; and the skipper, having thus placed his ship in a thorough state of defence, felt complacent, and half-inclined to shorten sail, wait for the pirates to come up, and then give them a lesson. Old seaman though he was, he was a new hand in these Eastern waters.
Confiding his notion to the second mate, who was also carpenter, also sailmaker, a grizzled ancient shellback of much experience and endless voyaging, the other laughed aloud, but not mirthfully.
‘If,’ said he, ‘yon’s a “prat,” as Johnnie there ca’s it, we’ll a’ be meat for the fishes afore the sun’s risen!’
‘Hoots!’ exclaimed the skipper angrily, ‘whaur’s yer pluck, Davie, mon! I didna think ye’d be for showin’ the white feather a’ready, an’ ye a Newburgh lad as weel’s mysel’! What’s a handfu’ o’ naked salvages like yon, in compare wi’ us an’ oor arteelery?’
‘An’ hoo mony men micht she carry yonder, div ye think?’ queried the other, taking a squint at the junk, [97] whose huge oblong sails shone whitely under the moonbeams.
‘Mebbe a score or sae,’ replied M‘Cracken, ‘airmed maistley wi’ spears, an’ skeens, sic, as I’ve been tauld, bein’ their usual weepons.’
The other chuckled hoarsely as he said, ‘If she’s a pireet, she’ll hae at the vera leest a guid twa ’unnered aboord, a’ airmed wi’ muskets an’ swords, forbye things they ca’ gingals, takin’ a sax-ounce ball, to say nothin’ o’ stinkpots an’ ither deviltries. Mon, I’ve seen ’em wi’ guns they cannonies there wadna mak’ rammars for. But if that chap has ony, I doubt we sud ha’ heard frae him ere the noo.
‘I was ance,’ continued he, ‘lyin’ in Hongkong Harbour, when they cut oot the Cashmere, a bouncin’ ocean steamer, in the braid daylicht, an’ murthered ivery soul on boord o’ her. Na, na, skipper; let her but get a haud on us, and ye’ll see the deil gang o’er Jock Wabster sure aneuch.’
The skipper listened silently. Then, wetting his finger and holding it up, he said,—
‘Perhaps, after a’, Davie, mon, ye might ’s weel set they t’g’nt stun’s’ls, gin ye can get them up, wi’ sic an awfu’ rabble as is aboot the deck.’
The breeze had died away again. There was only just enough of it to keep the sails full. The fresh canvas, however, sent the Sparrowhawk through the water half a knot faster, and she was beginning to perceptibly leave the junk astern, when suddenly out from her sides flashed a long row of sweeps, under [98] whose impulse she recovered her lost ground very quickly. If there had been any doubt about the character of the stranger, there remained none now; and the uproar, which had partially ceased, arose with tenfold vigour.
Some of the passengers went down into the lazarette and commenced to stow as many dollars as they could about their clothing. Others divided their attention between their idols and the skipper, running frantically from one to the other. Curiously enough the junk appeared satisfied to maintain her distance, although, had she so desired, she could with her sweeps have easily overhauled the barque.
Now, from away on the port hand, where lay the outline of the Chinese coast, black beneath the moon, came a gentle mist hanging low and thick upon the water. As it gradually enveloped the ship, hiding all but close objects from view, she was kept away three or four points. But, presently, with the haze, what wind there was left her, the sails gave a few ominous flaps, and then hung limply down. At this moment a Chinaman, uttering a loud yell of fright, pointed over the starboard quarter. There, close aboard, loomed up a dark mass almost, high as she was, on a level with the Sparrowhawk’s poop-railing. It was the junk.
‘The het poker, quick!’ shouted the captain. Some one brought it and, unheeding the skipper, dabbed it straightway on the touch-hole of the little cannon pointing directly, as it happened, at the pirate.
The powder being damp, fizzed for a minute, and, [99] just as M‘Cracken sung out, ‘More pouther; she’s fluffed ’i the pan!’ with a roar the thing went off. Off and up as well, for it sprung six feet in the air, and descended with a crash into the binnacle.
‘Fetch the ither ane,’ shouted M‘Cracken, ‘an’ gie ’em anither dose i’ the wame. Hear till ’em,’ he continued, as a most extraordinary noise arose from the junk now just abreast of the mizzen-rigging. ‘Hear till ’em scraighin’, the thievin’ heathen pireets. They havena muckle likin’ for sic a med’cin’. It gives them the mirligoes. Pit yer fut on her, Tam Wulson, whiles I send her aff,’ he went on, addressing a sailor, as the other gun was brought over and shipped.
‘Pit yer ain fut on her, captain,’ answered the man. ‘I dinna a’thegither like the notion. She’ll lat oot like ony cuddy, judgin’ frae her mate.’ But the skipper was too excited to argue, and, applying the hot iron, spit—fizzle—bang, and the piece went up, and, this time, clean overboard.
A thousand capering madmen were yelling at the top of their voices on board the Sparrowhawk; but high and shrill above even that clamour could be heard the screech from the junk at that last discharge. The fog was still thick around the latter, and the ship’s sails being aback, she was making a stern board towards the enemy, to whom M‘Cracken, exulting, determined to administer a coup de grâce.
‘Noo then, a’thegither,’ he cried, and the old muskets and the bell-muzzled pistols roared and kicked and sent a leaden shower somewhere, while, amidst an [100] indescribable medley of yells and cheers, the defeated pirate vanished into the mist.
Someone cried out that she had sunk. But presently the sound of her sweeps could be heard in the distance.
Then the skipper, flushed and elated with victory, snapped his fingers in the second mate’s face, as he exclaimed,—
‘That for yer Chinese pireets, Davie M‘Phairson! Whaurs a’ their muskets an’ gingals an’ sic-like the noo? Gin they had ony, they were ower frichted to make use o’ them I expeck! But,’ growing serious, ‘my name’s nae Sandy M‘Cracken gin I dinna chairge Tam Wulson two pun ten shillin’—whilk is the price o’ her at cost—for lettin’ the wee bit cannonie gang overboord. I tellt him to keep her down wi’ his feet, and he wadna.’
. . . . . . . . . .
Swatow at last; and the Sparrowhawk surrounded with a thousand sampans whose occupants welcomed their returned friends and relatives by trying to emulate Babel.
M‘Cracken was deified. His cabin could not hold the presents—mostly in kind—that he received. Also, his grateful passengers, having set apart a day for special rejoicing and thanksgiving, returned, and, willy nilly, decorated the Sparrowhawk after the manner of their land with banners and lanterns, and had a high old time on board under the leadership of the convert, who bewailed his backsliding, and privately asked M‘Cracken to baptise him anew.
The story of the fight ran all up and down the [101] seaboard. Hongkong heard of it, or a version of it, and the Gazette published a long story headed in big caps: ‘Another Piratical Outrage.—The Sparrowhawk turns on her Pursuer—Conspicuous Bravery of the Captain and Crew—The Pirate Beaten off with Great Loss.’ Singapore heard it, and the Straits Times followed suit with ‘Four Junks and Terrible Slaughter.’ This latter item, as we shall presently see, being pretty near the mark.
. . . . . . . . . .
But what cripple is this that, in a couple of days, comes staggering up to the Swatow anchorage with her mat sails full of holes and her decks covered with scarcely dry blood, and whose crew dance and screech a wild defiance at the Sparrowhawk as she passes on to the inner harbour?
Presently off comes a mandarin and a guard of soldiers and hales M‘Cracken ashore, protesting and threatening.
The British Consul is just dead of enteric fever. There is, however, a French one, and in his room the complaint of Sum Kum On, master of the Delight of the Foaming Seas, is heard. The tribunal is a mixed one, consisting of two mandarins and the Consul. The first witness called is Sum Kum On. He states that his vessel is a coaster, engaged mostly in the poultry trade. That, on the present trip, he left Kin Fo, a small port four days’ sail from Swatow, laden with a deck cargo of ducks for the Swatow and Chee Foo markets. Had on board one passenger, a wealthy tea-grower of Honan, who, carrying with him many dollars, was naturally nervous, and afraid [102] of pirates. Sighting the big vessel, the tea-grower, now in court, and prepared to give evidence, prayed him (Sum Kum On) to keep close to it for protection from said pirates.
He did so. But in the calm and mist he unwittingly, and without evil intent (being, as their Highnesses could see, only a poor trader) came too near, when to his amazement showers of bullets and great cannon balls tore his sails to pieces; and, but for the coops being piled high on deck, assuredly every soul must have perished.
In spite of explanations and shouts for mercy he was repeatedly fired into, all his cargo killed, sixty new coops of the best bamboo knocked to atoms; one of his crew desperately wounded, his vessel irretrievably damaged. His claim was for five hundred dollars; and he retired, secure in the knowledge that the Heaven-Born Son of the great foreign nation who, that day, with the Twin Lights of Justice, occupied the judgment-seat, would mete out compensation with an unsparing hand.
The dealer gave evidence much to the same effect. Then the wounded sailor, whose scalp had been furrowed by a ball, ghastly with bandages and the gore which he had liberally smeared over his features, told his tale. To wind up with, the unlucky jumping cannon, which had pitched on to the deck of the junk, was produced as evidence of identity. Outside, in piles, lay other witnesses—hundreds of fine fat ducks, stiff and ‘high.’
Around the building the fickle crowd could be heard raging for the blood of the unfortunate M‘Cracken, so [103] lately their hero. The Consul, who spoke English well, was obviously ill at ease. The two mandarins glared sourly at the poor skipper.
‘I think, captain, you’d better pay at once,’ said the Consul. ‘Evidently a most unfortunate mistake has been made; and that is the only way out of it that I can see.’
‘I’ll see him dom’d afore I do!’ exclaimed the skipper. ‘Five hundred dollars! Why, it’s a hundred pun sterlin’ o’ oor money! An’ a’ for a wheen dukes an’ a crackit heid! Na, na! Tell the skirlin’ fule I’ll gie him fifty dollars, and that’s mair than a’ his gear’s worth. I’ll gang to preesin suner than pay as muckle siller as he’s askin’!’
Outside the ‘Children of far Cathay’ could be heard yelling louder than ever for the heart, liver, and entrails of the white devil. The Consul’s face grew graver as he listened to the wounded sailor, just below the open window haranguing the crowd.
‘What’s a’ that claver aboot?’ asked the skipper.
‘They are demanding,’ replied the Consul, ‘that these gentlemen’—indicating the mandarins—‘should have you crucified at once. And, upon my word, captain, if you don’t soon make up your mind, they’ll do it. I am powerless to assist you in any way beyond finding you the money.’
M‘Cracken turned blue. It was like parting with his life, the parting with that hundred pounds. But he could see no escape. As the Consul quickly told him, this was no question of imprisonment, but one of cash [104] down. So he paid; and, presently, followed by a coolie carrying the little cannon, made his way to the boat between lines of grinning soldiery, over whose shoulders the rabble, derisive now, quacked itself hoarse. And amongst the noisiest of them he caught sight of his Christian passenger.
The Sparrowhawk took no freight from Swatow. She sailed for Rangoon speedily; but there it was just as bad. The joke was too good not to circulate. In every eastern port she and her people were greeted with volleys of ‘quacks’ by the native population both on land and water. Legions of imps, black and copper-coloured, and all quacking with might and main, formed the skipper’s retinue if he went ashore anywhere between Yokohama and Bombay.
Native masters of country wallahs, lying within hail, would grin, and ask him for the protection of the Sparrowhawk to their next port of call. It became unbearable. India, China and Japan seemed to turn into duck-pens at his approach.
So he took the Sparrowhawk out of those waters altogether, and shortly afterwards gave up the sea. But, although there are no ducks within a mile of his house on the Aythen, there are urchins—Scotch urchins—and he has not perfect peace. The story is too well known.
As for his crew, even yet, if one should, with intent, imitate the cry of that fowl disastrous where two or three of them happen to be foregathered, they will come at you with the weapons nearest.
Quæ amissa, salva.
The parlour of the ‘Woolpack’ was full of men in from their stations for ‘Land Court Day.’ A babel of talk was toward—mostly ‘shop.’ ‘Footrot!’ shouted a small energetic looking man, ‘I’ll tell you how I cure my sheep! You boil vinegar, and arsenic, and blue-stone up—No, Polly, I ordered lager. And then—’ ‘Worms,’ my dear fellow, another was saying, ‘You can’t cure ’em! Don’t tell me! You go and make an infernal chemist’s shop of your sheep’s stomach, ruin the wool and constitution; and, after all your trouble, up bobs the little worm serenely as ever.’ ‘Strike,’ came from another corner of the big room. ‘No fear! No strike this year if we hang together like we mean to do. I think we’re pretty right in this district, anyhow. Everybody’s joined, bar M‘Pherson, and he’ll come-to presently. By jingo, here he is! Touch the bell, Bob, and let’s have ’em again.’ As the speaker finished, a burly, grey-whiskered man entered with, in his wake, another person who had evidently been closely pressing his [106] companion with argument and persuasion, for the latter was saying irritably,—
‘Once for a’, I tell ye, no. I’ll nae join. I’ll just stan’ on my ain bottom, an’ employ wha I like. When I want my wool aff, aff it comes; an’ wha takes it aff I dinna care a damn, so it’s taken off to my satisfaction! Will that do ye?’
‘The gospel of selfishness according to M‘Pherson,’ said a voice from out the smoke-clouds. ‘The assessment ’d drive him mad.’ ‘Bang went saxpence!’ sang out someone else, as the Scotch squatter turned angrily round with a dim idea that he was being baited.
But the older men quietened the youngsters who threatened to break bounds.
They still hoped—stubborn and untouchable, except by way of his pocket, though he was—to gain M‘Pherson to the cause.
He was the largest sheepowner in the district, and that was saying a good deal when the smallest shore 40,000. Palkara shed was one of the shearing prizes of the colony, and the A.S.[Footnote 7] Union officials viewed the defection of its owner with joy.
‘So I hear you bought the “Duke” down at the sales, Mac?’ said one presently, as the old man, his wrath subsiding, sipped his whisky and water.
‘Ay,’ responded he, ‘it was a stiff price to gie, but I’m no regrettin’ it. He’s a wonnerfu’ fine beast.’
They were sitting with their backs to the open [107] windows, which gave on to a many-seated crowded verandah, and from this came,—
‘That you may lose him before you’ve had him a week, unless you join the Association!’
‘If I do, I’ll join, and ask it to help me find him,’ retorted M‘Pherson angrily into the hot outside night, and would fain have risen and gone in search of the speaker, but that his friend, whose name was Park, a neighbouring squatter, pulled him back, saying,—
‘Never mind these youngsters, Mac. They’re getting a bit sprung, I fancy. It’s no use making a row. When’ll the “Duke” be up?’
‘He’s due here on Tuesday,’ replied the other, ‘an’, if ye’ll be in, ye can see him. He’s weel worth the lookin’ at. He’ll come by rail to Burrtown, an’ then by coach on.
Two bachelor brothers, the Blakes, who owned a run not far from Palkara, were close to the window at which the pair sat.
The younger brother it was who had fired the remark inside about losing the great ram for which M‘Pherson had just paid 700 guineas.
. . . . . . . . . .
‘Well, Jack, what passengers to-night?’ asked the overseer of Blake’s Tara Station, as Cobb & Co.’s coach drew slowly up in the pouring rain close to the homestead door.
‘Nary one, bar a cussed ole brute of a ram,’ replied the driver, as he stiffly dismounted, and handed out the mail. ‘I got him at the railway, and I’ve bin more cautious with him than if he’d bin a Lord Bishop [108] He’s for M‘Pherson up at Palkara. Hold the light please, Mr Brown, till I see if the beggar’s all serene.’
‘He’s right enough,’ said the overseer, after a glance at the aristocrat, resting luxuriously on pillows, half buried in hay, and with his legs tied by silk handkerchiefs. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘slip inside and have a snack and a drop of hot grog. I’ll stand by the horses.’
‘You’re a Christian, Mr Brown,’ remarked the driver gratefully, as he pulled off his gloves and blew on his numbed fingers. ‘It’s the coldest rain for this time o’ the year as ever I felt.’
Scarcely had his dripping figure entered the open kitchen door, when, from behind a clump of bushes, came two figures bearing something between them. Lifting the ‘Duke’ with scant ceremony out of his couch, they deposited their burden in his place, and after a few whispered words to Brown, still at the horses’ heads, disappeared. Presently the driver returned, and, with a cheery ‘Good-night,’ started the coach rolling once more through the forty miles of mud and water between Tara and Combington.
. . . . . . . . . .
‘Coach in, Edwards?’ asked M‘Pherson the next afternoon as he drove up to the ‘Woolpack,’ accompanied by his friend Park.
‘Yes, sir. It’s a bit late, though,’ replied the landlord. ‘Roads terrible heavy after the rain. I had the ram untied an’ put in the stable, an’ gave him some green stuff.’
[109]
‘That’s right, Edwards,’ said the squatter. ‘How does
he look after the trip—pretty well?’
The other hesitated before answering,—
‘Why, yes, sir; he seems hearty enough. But I’m no judge of sheep.’
‘S’pose ye wouldna care about givin’ 700 guineas for him, eh, Edwards?’ chuckled M‘Pherson.
‘No, sir,’ replied the landlord with emphasis, ‘I’m damned if I would.’
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the other, as he drove into the yard, ‘and yet, mon, I wouldna swap him for the auld “Woolpack.” Come,’ he added impatiently, ‘unlock the door an’ let us hae a look at His Grace.’
By this time there was quite a crowd on the scene. A couple of stock and station agents, a bank manager, the P.M., some drovers, everybody, in fact, who thought they knew a sheep from a goat, had assembled to have a look at ‘the big ram.’
‘Keep awa’ frae the door,’ quoth M‘Pherson. ‘Ye’ll all be able to hae a good sight o’ him presently. Let him come right out into the yaird, Edwards.’
As he finished, up the lane of spectators stalked a nondescript kind of animal, at which M‘Pherson just glanced, and then sang out to Edwards, appearing in the doorway,—
‘Ye never tauld me there was twa. Whaur’s the ither?’
‘There’s only the one, sir,’ answered the landlord. ‘That’s he.’
‘What!’ and M‘Pherson fairly gasped as he stared at [110] the brute, which—from the muleish head, down the sparsely ‘broken woolled’ back, and slab-sided flanks, to the bare, kangaroo-like legs—bore the impress all over of ‘rank cull.’
Then turning to the grinning landlord, and with accent intensified by excitement, he shouted, ‘What’s yon thing? Whaur’s my ram? D’ye think I ped my money for sic a brute as that? What ha’ ye done wi’ the “Duke”? If this is a wee bit joke o’ yer ain, Mister Edwards, time’s up, I do assure ye, sir.’ And he advanced threateningly towards the publican, who nimbly retreated into the crowd, whilst protesting,—
‘I can swear to you, sir, that’s the very same sheep Jack Burns brought in the coach this mornin’. I helped to take him out, an’ I sez to Jack, “Well, he ain’t much to look at, Jack;” and Jack, he sez, “No, that he ain’t. I think the trip must have haffected him; he seems to have felled away sence we put him in at the railway.”’
‘Tak’ me to the villain,’ groaned M‘Pherson, ‘till I get to the bottom of this de’il’s cantrip!’
Followed by quite a procession, they passed to a little room, where the driver lay sleeping off the fatigues of the previous night.
‘Hi!’ yelled the squatter, shaking him. ‘What ha’ ye done wi’ my ram, ye rascal?’
Jack, sitting up, half awake, replied sulkily,—
‘Damn your ram! He’s in the stable. What d’ye want, rousin’ people like this for?’
‘I’ll rouse ye, ye scamp!’ roared the other. ‘Whaur’s [111] my ram—my “Duke,” I say? D’ye think that I dinna ken a coo frae a cuddy; an’ that I’m to be imposed on wi’ a blasted auld cull in place o’ the “Duke o’ Silversheen” that I ped 700 guineas guid cash for? D’ye imagine I’m daft, ye coach-drivin’ fule, ye? If ye dinna confess wha’s led ye astray, I’ll give ye in chairge this vera meenit. I’ll let ye ken that I’m Jock M‘Pherson o’ Palkara; an’ I’m goin’ to mak’ it het for ye for this wee jobbie!’
This tirade effectually awakened the driver, and said he, with an earnestness there was no mistaking,—
‘By G—d, Mr M‘Pherson, I’m on the square. I never took much notice o’ the ram at the railway. It was dusk, too, when the agent put him in. I seen him two or three times along the road, an’ thought he looked fust class. Nobody could ha’ touched him without me knowin’ of it. But, at the best o’ times, I can’t tell one sheep from t’other, never havin’ had any truck with ’em. Anyhow, if there’s cross work ’bout this un, all I can say is, as I ain’t in it: An’ now you can send for the traps if you likes.’
The man’s manner carried conviction with it, and for a few minutes M‘Pherson was silent.
At last he said,—
‘Come awa’, some o’ ye, an’ catch the creature till I have a look at him.’
But when caught, nothing was ascertainable beyond the one patent fact that he was a broken-mouthed, miserable old cull, who ought to have gone to market as a wether years ago. Earmarks, out of their own district, [112] are of precious little use as a means of identification now-a-days.
It will be noticed that Jack forgot all about his twenty minutes’ stay and chat with the cook in Tara kitchen. The coach had been very much overdue.
‘Surely you’re not going to take the thing home, Mac?’ said his friend, as the former lugged the ‘Duke’s’ locum tenens towards the buggy. ‘He’s only fit to have his throat cut.’
‘Never mind,’ replied M‘Pherson moodily, ‘he’ll mebbe turn out o’ some use yet.’
Not that the old Scotchman was at all inclined to sit down quietly and suffer his loss. Very far from it. But he was no favourite, and public sympathy was absent. Unfeeling people averred that, at the time of the sale, he had been under the influence of hypnotism, etc., etc.; in fact, laughed at, and enjoyed the thing as a good joke. Therefore he was disinclined to blazon his misadventure throughout the Colonies. Also, he thought it would be bad policy to make too much noise.
Nevertheless, he quietly strained every nerve, and spent money freely in endeavours to discover the missing animal. Private detectives and the local police took the matter in hand, and with exactly the same amount of success.
. . . . . . . . . .
Meanwhile the ‘Duke’ was thriving. At Tara a big underground cellar, lit by skylights, had recently been excavated. This was his home. There, waited upon by the only three in the secret, the great merino lived on [113] the fat of the land. Some nights the Blakes would let him out into the garden for a pick, themselves or Brown securing him in his quarters again before they turned in.
It was a lot of bother, doubtless. But what of that, if they could only ‘bring old Mac to his bearings,’ and secure Palkara for their Association!
As for the risk of discovery, they laughed at it. From the minute the agent (who was ready to swear to the ‘Duke’s’ identity) put him in the coach at the Burrtown terminus, everything seemed vague and exceedingly doubtful respecting the spot at which the transfer could possibly have been effected.
The coach stopped at some half-dozen stations along the road, besides mail stages, and at none of these places could the slightest clue be obtained. In common with the rest, Tara was subjected to official visits.
‘Certainly, Sergeant, happy to show you through all the paddocks. Like to see the rams? Yes, of course. We’ve got some very fine Havilahs you’ll be pleased with, I’m sure. Yes; terrible affair about poor M‘Pherson’s “Duke”! Have another nip before we start?’
So, sheep galore did the unhappy police inspect, and carefully did they compare, stags, wethers, and ancient ‘horny’ ewes with photos of the ‘Duke’ until, at length, quite dazed with the apparently endless quest, to say nothing of the whisky, they audibly cursed the whole ovine race back to the days of the first breeders.
Only once did the brothers feel a doubt. Driving into town, they met M‘Pherson and a black-fellow following [114] the old cull, who was steadily tramping along the road Tara-ward.
‘What’s all this about, M‘Pherson?’ asked one, as they pulled up. ‘Have you taken a droving contract?’
‘Ay,’ replied the old fellow, glaring suspiciously at the pair. ‘Just thet. I’m wantin’ to see whaur Beelzebub, here, gangs. If he’s gotten a hame, which I muckle doot, mebbe he’ll mek back.’
But a couple of miles on, Beelzebub struck a patch of clover, and stuck to it.
The darkey watched him for three days, and, after he had finished every vestige, the old ram paused irresolutely, scratched his ear with his hind foot, and meandered calmly back to the township.
So M‘Pherson returned with him to Palkara. A bit of the garden was fenced off, and here he used to sit and smoke and stare for hours at Beelzebub, until his friends began to think his loss had affected his brain.
Like many of his countrymen, M‘Pherson was superstitious, and, deep down in his heart, was a lurking suspicion of diablerie that would not be exorcised.
‘It’s no earthly use watching that beast, Mac,’ said Park, riding up one day, and finding his neighbour at his usual occupation. ‘Look as hard as you like, and that won’t turn him into the Duke. Now, take my advice, and I think you stand a show of getting him back again. You remember you said that night at the Woolpack, that, if you lost him, you’d join the Association and trust it to recover him for you, or something to that effect. [115] Well, my notion is that some of the boys have had a finger in the pie. And I solemnly believe that, if you don’t soon make your mind up, you’ll never see the Duke any more. Come, now’s the time! Shearing will start presently. Besides, I know you want him badly for those Coonong stud ewes.’
Park, himself a prominent member, used all his powers of persuasion, and to such good purpose, that in the next issue of the local paper appeared the announcement,—
‘Palkara will start shearing on —— under Conference rules.’
. . . . . . . . . .
A morning or so afterwards, M‘Pherson going out for his before-breakfast smoke and usual look at Beelzebub, to his astonishment saw him not. He had gone. But in his stead stood a stately, almost perfect animal, the beau ideal of what a ‘Champion’ should be. Around his neck he bore a card, on which the old squatter presently read,—
‘I am a fully paid-up member of the Pastoralists’ Association of Australasia.
‘(Signed) Silversheen.’
[Footnote 7: Australian Shearers’.] Return to text
A Far Inland Sketch.
‘A rising township of some four hundred inhabitants, situated on the Trickle Trickle River. Distance from Sydney, north-west, six hundred and fifty miles.’
Thus the Australian Gazetteer, speaking of the far-inland village of Jillibeejee. For days you shall have ridden over bush roads, fetlock deep in dust, through monotonous open forest, or over still more monotonous plain, ere, far away on a dry brown ridge, you catch the glitter of something in the bright, hot sunshine. This proceeds from the first roof in Jillibeejee. Then, making your horse stride carefully over the Trickle Trickle, whose banks are apt to crumble, you breast the ridge and take a bird’s-eye view of the township as it lies frying in the sun.
This ridge must be fully fifty feet above the level of the surrounding country, and is probably the ‘rising’ referred to by the jocular Gazetteer.
The first building is deserted; so is the second. As you ride along you come to others, dilapidated but, from [117] sounds within, peopled. There are altogether forty houses in Jillibeejee, which, by the Gazetteer’s reckoning, gives us an average of ten inmates to each one.
I am afraid the Gazetteer has never been to Jillibeejee.
In fact, very few people ever do seem to go there. Those that do, either depart again very shortly, or stay until theirs makes one amongst a collection of rudely-fenced enclosures on the banks of the Trickle Trickle, inside which sleep the pioneers of the place.
Perhaps the first emotion that arises in the visitor’s mind is of wonder that any pioneer, no matter how hard up he may have been, should have thought it worth while to commence pioneering at Jillibeejee. The second, that any others should ever join him in such a speculation. Neither tree nor any other green thing meets the sight. All is brown, barren, desolate—apparently a ‘waste land where no one comes, or hath come since the making of the world,’ except that intrepid band in possession.
Why do people live here? How do they live? I must discover this, if possible, before leaving. Having no time to spare, I begin at once.
He is six feet in his stockings, broad, massive, hirsute, and tanned. The insignia of office in such a place would be an absurdity. Therefore his raiment is nondescript, and mostly slouch hat. This is the man who rules the official destinies of the settlement—the ‘Officer in Charge.’ To him I propound my conundrum.
‘Ah,’ replies he; ‘ye shud jist come aroun’ whin ut’s a wet saison, an’ thin ye’d see the differ av ut.’
[118]
‘Yes,’ I remark. ‘And when may that time be
due?’
‘God knows,’ says he piously, and with a sigh. ‘I’ve bin here four year, an’ I’ve seen ut wanst. Ye cudn’t see the counthry for a week bekase av the wather. Thin, afther, comes the grass an’ the clover six feet high. Ut’s a great counthry, them times, so it is, sorr.’
It is high noon as I and my friend stroll along the fiery, dusty track amongst the iron-roofed ovens large and small.
Everybody seems asleep, save that now and again we catch a glimpse of women, wan and prematurely old-looking.
In the sun’s eye a man lies in the brown dust. He is on his back, his hat off, and snoring stertorously up at a cloud of mosquitoes, sandflies, and other abominations hovering and buzzing about his face.
With a look of solicitude my guide exclaims,—
‘Sure, now, that’s Tim Healy, come in from Out Back, an’ his cheque gone already! Lend a hand, will ye, sorr, wid the other ind av him. The poor devil ’ll be sthruck intirely here, so he will.’
So, one at each ‘ind,’ we bear the man from Out Back into the comparative shade of a verandah, where the constable takes off his boots, loosens his shirt collar, and props his head up, saying,—
‘There, the cratur, mebbe he’ll waken wid nothin’ worse nor a sore head, an’ a limekiln in the throttle av him.’
[119]
A fit man and a proper, this one, I reflect, to be
Officer in Charge of this half-forgotten fragment of a
people.
So, presently, I am not surprised at hearing that, in addition to that title, he bears the important ones of Clerk of Petty Sessions, Registrar of Small Debts Court and Births, Land Bailiff, Inspector of Slaughterhouses, Curator’s Agent, and others equally pertinent to his surroundings, but which I have forgotten.
Entering the parlour of the one public-house, silent and deserted but for clouds of humming flies, a drowsy landlord, booted and spurred for riding, answers our knock.
‘I was goin’ over the river an hour ago,’ he explains, rubbing his bleary eyes, ‘to run a beast in; but two or three of the boys wos here larst night, an’ they kep’ it up; so I lays down on the sofy an’ drops right off. What’ll ye have, gents?’
I ask for beer. My companion smiles and ‘takes’ rum.
‘Lor bless yer!’ exclaims the landlord, ‘there ain’t bin no beer here this twelvemonth or more! I got some, somewheres, on the teams. But, the way things is, it’ll be another twelvemonth afore they show up. Dry time, ye see, sir.’
‘Well, then,’ I say, ‘have you any whisky?’
‘There was a bottle or two, but the boys—’ he commenced, when,—
‘What’s the use av batin’ about the bush that way?’ puts in my companion. ‘Why don’t ye tell the gint at [120] wanst that sorra a dhrop’ll he get in Jillibeejee, bar the rum utself. I’ve dhrunk worse in Port Mackay. Ut’s a wholesome dhrink, in moderation, an’ wid jist a suspicion o’ Trickle Trickle at the bottom av the tumbler.’
So rum it is. The Officer in Charge takes his, I notice, very nearly pure, and without winking. We help ourselves, and the price is one shilling each.
It is still terribly hot.
‘It must be a long way over one hundred degrees in the shade,’ I remark.
‘Come acrost to the station,’ says the Officer in Charge, ‘an’ we’ll see. There’s no shade whatever in Jillibeejee. But there’s the best that is. Sure, ut’s weatherboard an’ lined—the only wan in the town. There’s a thermomether there as tells how big a hate’s on.’
So we go over. The place is like a furnace, and the glass registers one hundred and twenty-seven degrees.
‘And you’ve been here some years!’ I gasp, sliding off my chair, a wet, limp heap, on to the floor, and staying there.
‘I have, indade, sorr,’ replies he. ‘The first summer I was minded to blow me head off wid me pistol. The second was near as bad; but I don’t fale ’em so much now. Whin the wet do come, ut’s almost as thryin’; for the san’-flies an’ miskitties bangs Banagher. Ay, ut’s dull an’ lonesome like, sure enough, till the b’ys comes in for a change; an’ thin, if ye’ll belave ut, Jillibeejee is as ructious a towneen as is on God’s earth.’
‘Come in from where? Where the deuce can anybody come in from? And who in the world would come [121] to such a hole as this ‘for a change?’ I ask irritably, whilst wringing my pocket handkerchief, as the heat proves too trying.
‘Whisht!’ replies my host placidly. ‘Ye’ll mebbe have noticed that there’s not many min in Jillibeejee, knockin’ aroun’ like?’
‘Only the fellow,’ I answer, ‘that we put in the verandah.’
‘Ay, he’s iver wan o’ the fust, is Tim Healy,’ says the Officer in Charge. ‘Whin the others are comin’ in, he’ll be afther going back, stone bruk, so he will, poor divil!’
‘In from where? Back to where?’ I cry impatiently.
‘To an’ fro the big stations on the border, over yander,’ replies he, with a wave of his hand westward. ‘To the back av beyant, where they digs dams, an’ sinks wells, an’ fences an’ fights wid the naygurs, an’ herds cattle, an’ gathers up a cheque, and thin comes back like pilicans to their women and children on the edge o’ the wiltherness here. Good b’ys, in the main,’ he continues; ‘just a little rough, perhaps, when the rum’s in. Ye see, sorr, ye can’t expeck much else from the craturs, for, iv this is bad, ut’s Hell utself out yander in the new counthry, where there’s no law, no polis, no nothin’. D’ye wander at the b’ys, now, wantin’ a change out av ut wanst an’ agin?’
‘Well, perhaps not. But what must that other life be like?’
So, in the gloaming, hot and close, with a hot-looking moon hanging in a hazy sky, I depart from Jillibeejee, [122] leaving its Officer in Charge—strong man, and a very fit—stroking a great black beard meditatively, and possessing his soul in patience for the stirring times which herald the advent of his charges from the ‘Back av Beyant.’