Brightly blazed the watch-fires into the still night air, brightly from within the circle formed by them gleamed thousands of sparkling eyes, and fell on the ear a low, continuous sound, like the soft distant murmur of some summer sea on a shingly beach, as twelve thousand sheep peacefully chewed their cuds after the long day’s travel.
The weather was close and sultry. So, feeling indisposed to sleep, I had left my hot tent and was walking round the whitish, indistinct mass of recumbent figures, when I nearly stumbled against the watchman, who, as one of the fires flared up, I saw was the eccentric individual known in the camp by the nickname of ‘Sojur Jim’; and, in pursuance of an idea I had long borne in mind, first assuring myself that all was right with my fleecy charges, I lit my pipe, stretched myself out on the short, thick grass and sand, and said, whilst looking at my watch,—
‘Now, Jim, spin us a yarn that will help to pass away the time.’
But my companion is well-deserving of a more particular description. ‘Sojur Jim’ was the only name by which he was called, and this he had gained by an [124] extraordinary mania he possessed for destroying those small terrors of the Australian bush, familiar to all dwellers therein as ‘Soldier’ or ‘Bull-dog’ ants; insects fierce, intractable and venomous. These, then, seemed objects of especial aversion to Jim; and many a time, whilst travelling along, would one of the men sing out, ‘Jim, Jim, sojurs!’ The effect was electrical; Jim, leaving his flock, would bound away towards the nest, and, dexterously using the long stick, flattened at both ends in rude shovel shape, which was his constant companion, he would furiously, regardless of innumerable stings, uproot and turn over the ‘sojurs’’ stronghold, and, having exposed its inmost recesses, complete the work of destruction by lighting a great fire upon it, and all this he would do with a set stern expression on his grim face, as of one who avenges never-to-be-forgiven or forgotten injuries.
He was indeed a remarkable looking man, strong and athletic, and, in spite of his snow-white hair, probably not more than fifty years of age. Part of his nose, the lobes and cartilages of his ears, and one eye were wanting, whilst the rest of his face was scarred and seamed as if at one time a cross-cut saw had been roughly drawn to and fro over it. And as I watched him sitting there on a fallen log, the flickering blaze playing fitfully on the white hair and corrugated, mutilated features, I felt more than ever sure that the man had a story well worth the hearing could he but be induced to tell it.
Amongst his fellows in the camp he was taciturn and [125] morose, never smiling, speaking rarely, apparently always lost in his own gloomy reflections. My request, therefore, was made with but faint hopes of success; but, to my surprise, after a few minutes silence, he replied,—
‘Very well, I’ll tell you a story. I don’t often tell it; but I will to-night. If at times you feel disinclined to believe it you have only to look at my face. I’m going now to tell you how I got all these pretty lumps and scars and ridges, and how I partly paid the men who made me what I am. “Sojur Jim” they call me, and think I am mad. God knows, I fancy so myself sometimes. Well,’ he went on, in language at times rude and unpolished, at others showing signs of more than average education, ‘Did you ever hear of Captain Jakes?’
‘Of course,’ I answered, for the notoriously cruel bushranger had, after his own fashion, helped to make minor Australian history.
‘Yes,’ muttered Jim abstractedly, ‘he’s accounted for. So is his mate—the one who laughed the loudest of any. But there were three of them, and there’s still another left somewhere. Not dead yet!’ he suddenly exclaimed in a loud voice. ‘Surely not! My God, no! After all these years of ceaseless search! That would be too hard!’ And here he stood up and gazed excitedly into the outer darkness.
‘But the story, Jim,’ I ventured to remark, after a long pause.
‘Right you are,’ he replied, as he again sat down, and calmly resumed. ‘Well, it was the year of the big rush, [126] the first one, to the Ovens. I was a strapping young fellow then, with all my life hopeful and bright before me, as I left the old mother and the girl I loved to try my luck on the diggings. Three years went by before I thought of returning to the little Victorian township on the Avoca, where we had long been settled; but then I struck it pretty rich, and made up my mind to go back and marry, and settle down alongside the old farm; for a pair of loving hearts were, I knew, growing weary of waiting for the return of the wanderer.
‘Like a fool, however, instead of sending down my last lot of gold by the escort, I all of a sudden got impatient, and, packing it in my saddle-bags, along with a tidy parcel of notes and sovereigns, I set off alone. The third night out I camped on a good-sized creek, hobbled my horses, and after planting my saddle-bags in a hollow log, I started to boil the billy for supper. Presently, up rides three chaps, and, before I could get to my swag, I was covered by as many revolvers; while one of the men says, “Come along, now, hand over the metal. We know you’ve got it, and if you don’t give it quiet, why, we’ll take it rough.”
‘“You’ve got hold of the wrong party, this time, mates,” says I, as cool as I could. “I’m on the wallaby, looking for shearing, and, worse luck, hav’n’t got no gold.”
‘“Gammon,” says the first speaker. “Turn his swag over, mates.”
‘Well, they found nothing, of course. Then they searched all over the bush round about, and one fellow [127] actually puts his hand up the hollow of the log in which lay hid my treasure; and I thought it was all up with it, when he lets a yell out of him and starts cutting all sorts of capers, with half-a-dozen big sojurs hanging to his fingers.
‘Jakes (for he was the leader of the gang) now got real savage, and putting a pistol to my head, swore that he would blow my brains out unless I told where the gold was. Well, I wouldn’t let on, for I thought they were trying to bounce me, and that if I held out I might get clear off, so I still stuck to it that they’d mistaken their man.
‘Seeing I was pretty firm, they drew off for a while, and, after a short talk, they began to laugh like madmen; and one, taking a tomahawk, cut down a couple of saplings, whilst another gets ready some stout cord; and Jakes himself goes poking about in the saltbush as if looking for something he’d lost. Before this they had tied my arms and legs together with saddle-straps and greenhide thongs; and there I lay, quite helpless, wondering greatly what they were up to.
‘Presently the three came up, and tying me tightly to the saplings—one along my back, and one cross-ways—they carried me away a short distance to where I had noticed Jakes searching around, and then laid me down face uppermost, partly stripping me at the same time. I lay there quietly enough, puzzling my brains to try and guess what it was all about, and those three devils standing laughing fit to split their sides.
[128]
‘“Tell us now, will you,” said they, “where that gold’s
planted? How does your bed feel? Are you warm
enough?” and such like chaff, till I began to think they
must have gone suddenly cranky, for I felt nothing at
all. Perceiving that was the case, one of them took a
stick and thrust it under me into the ground; and then—oh,
God! it was awful!’
Here Sojur Jim paused suddenly, and a baleful light gleamed from that solitary bright eye of his, whilst a spasm shook his whole frame, and his scarred features were contorted as if once more undergoing the agonies of that terrible torture.
The wind sighed with an eerie sound through the tall forest trees around us; the cry of some night-bird came mournfully through the darkness, whilst black clouds flitted across the young moon, filling the sombre Australian glade with weird shadows—making the scene, all at once, dismally in unison with the story, as with a shiver I stirred the fire, and patiently waited for its narrator to go on.
‘Yes,’ he continued at length, ‘I dropped down to it quickly enough then. I was tied on to a sojur-ants’ nest, and they swarmed about me in thousands—into my nose, ears, eyes, mouth, everywhere—sting, sting, sting, and tear, tear, tear, till I shrieked and yelled for mercy.
‘“Tell us where the gold is planted,” said one of the laughing fiends—I heard him laugh again years afterward over the same story—“and we’ll let you go.”
[129]
‘“Yes!” I screamed, “I’ll tell you. But for God
Almighty’s sake take me out of this!” “Not much,”
replied he. “Tell us first, and then you can jump into
the creek and give your little friends a drink.” “Look
in the big log,” I groaned at last. Then, one of them,
remembering the sojurs, gets a stick and fossicks about
till he felt the bags, when he shoves his arm up and
drags them out.
‘“A square thing, by G—d!” says Jakes, and turning to me, he said, “Mate, you’ve given us a lot of trouble, and as you look as if you were comfortably turned in for the night, it would be a pity to disturb you. So long, and pleasant dreams!” And, with that, away the three of them rode, laughing loudly at my screams for mercy. As you may think,’ went on Jim, ‘I was by this time nearly raving mad with pain. Thousands of those devil-ants were eating into my flesh, and me lying there like a log. Hell! hell will never be as bad as that was!
‘Six months afterward I came to my senses again. It was a sunshiny spring morning, and I heard the magpies whistling outside the old humpy on the Ovens, as I tried to get up and go down to the claim, thinking that I’d had the nightmare terrible bad. But when I got off my bunk I fainted clean away on the floor, and there my mates found me when they came home to dinner. Good lads they were true men, who had nursed me and tended me through all the long months of fever and madness that had passed since the Escort, for which I should have waited, had by the merest [130] chance come across me and sent me back again to die, as everyone thought.
‘But,’ and here, for the first time, Jim’s voice faltered and shook, ‘there was another and a gentler nurse who—God bless her—helped me back to life; the little girl who loved me came up—my mother was dead—and would have kept her word to me, too, and taken my half-eaten carcase into her keeping wholly, had I been mean enough to let her do it. But that was more than I could stand the thought of. So one morning I slipped quietly away to begin my man-hunting; for I had vowed a merciless retribution upon my undoers if I had to track them the wide world over. That’s close on fifteen years ago. I can account for two, and live on in hopes of yet meeting with the third.
‘You’ve heard how Jakes pegged out?’ asked Jim abruptly.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘Sergeant O’Brien shot him in the Long Swamp.’
‘So most people think,’ was his reply. ‘But I know who was first in at the end; and when, crouching up to his neck in the mud and long reeds, with my fingers grasping his throat, I think, as he turned his bloodshot and protruding eyes on mine, I think, I say, that he knew me again, all changed as I was. He never spoke, though, and I let him die slowly, for I was sure that the sergeant was a long way behind. I held him there, I tell you, and watched him as he tried to blow the bubbles of blood and froth from out his pale lips, and at last I told him who I was, and how I had tracked him [131] down, and was now about to send his vile soul to perdition. Then, as I heard the galloping tramp of the trooper’s horse, I smothered him in the stagnant ooze of that foul swamp. Truly a dog’s death, but one too good for him! O’Brien, coming up soon afterward, found the body, put a couple of pistol bullets into it, and received the Government reward and promotion, whilst I set off in search of the others.
‘One I came across four years afterwards on the Adelaide side. I had taken a job of shepherding up Port Augusta way, when, one night, who should come to the hut but Number Two, the one who laughed the longest and loudest of the three, as I lay in agony on the sojurs’ nest. I knew him in a minute and heartily welcomed him to stop that night. “Just put those sheep in the yard, matey,” I says, “while I make some bread for our supper.”
‘Well, I makes two smallish johnnycakes, and we had our tea. Then we starts smoking and yarning, and at length I turned the talk on to ants, saying I couldn’t keep nothing there because of them. With that he falls to laughing, and, says he, “My word, mate, I could tell you a yarn if I liked ’bout ants—sojurs—that’d make you laugh for a week, only you see it ain’t always safe, even in the bush, to talk among strangers.”
‘All of a sudden he turned as white as a sheet, and drops off the stool, and twists and groans. Then he sings out, “I’m going to die.”
‘You see,’ remarked Jim, with the cold impassiveness which had, almost throughout, characterised his manner, [132] ‘the strychnine in the johnnycake that had fallen to his share was beginning to work him, and as I laughingly reminded him of old times, and asked him to go on with his story about the sojur ants, he also knew me, and shrieked and prayed for the mercy that I had once so unavailingly implored at his hands. He was very soon, however, too far gone to say much. A few more struggles and it was all over, and then I dragged the dead carrion out of my hut and buried it eight feet deep under the sheep-dung in the yard, where, likely enough, it is yet. So much for Number Two!’ exclaimed Jim, as I sat looking rather doubtfully at him. Not that I questioned the truthfulness of his story—that was stamped on every word he uttered—but that I began to think him rather a dangerous kind of monomaniac to have in a drover’s camp. ‘And now, sir,’ he went on presently, ‘you’ve had the story you asked me for, and if ever we meet again after this trip, maybe I’ll have something to tell you about Number Three; that business it is that brought me down about these parts, for I heard he was working at some of the stations on the river. And as God made me!’ he exclaimed, with a subdued sort of gloomy ferocity in his voice, ‘when we do meet, he shall feel the vengeance of the man whose life and love and fortune he helped to ruin so utterly. I could pick him out of a thousand, with his great nose all of a skew, and his one leg shorter than the other.’
. . . . . . . . . .
The watch-fires were glimmering dimly. The cool air [133] which heralds the Australian dawn was blowing, and the sheep were moving silently out of their camp in long strings as I rose to my feet. In the white tents all was silence. Thanks to Sojur Jim, their occupants had passed an undisturbed night. Absorbed in his gruesome story—that dark tale of torture and retribution, with just that one little trait of woman’s constancy and devotion shining out like some bright star from a murky sky—the time had slipped away unheeded. Sending him to call the cook, I put the sheep together, wondering mightily to myself, as the man, with his bent-down head and slouching gait, moved away, whether he really could be the same creature who through the silent watches of the night had unfolded to my view such a concentrated, tireless, and as yet unsatiated thirst for revenge, such a fixed and relentless purpose of retaliation, unweakened through the years, but burning freshly and fiercely to-day, as, when with the scarcely healed scars still smarting, disfigured, ruined, hopeless, forsaking all, he went forth alone into the world to hunt down his persecutors.
. . . . . . . . . .
A few days after Sojur Jim had related to me the story told above, one evening, at dusk, a swagman entered the camp and asked the cook for a piece of meat and some bread. Instead of eating it at once with the accompanying offered drink of tea, he turned away, and, a few minutes later, we saw his fire burning brightly a little further along the lagoon, the banks of which formed our resting-place for the night. Evidently, as [134] the men remarked amongst themselves, our visitor was a ‘hatter.’
Next morning, when Sojur Jim was called out to take his flock, he was missing. His blankets and few belongings still lay as he had arranged them in the tent the night before, ready for turning in; and I at once ordered a search to be made.
It was of very short duration. Just in front of the swagman’s fire, in the shallow water of the lagoon, we found the two bodies. The stranger’s throat was grasped by Jim’s fingers in a vice-like clutch, that, even in death, we long strove in vain to sunder. When parted at last, and we had washed the slimy mud from the features of the dead traveller, a truly villainous countenance was disclosed to view; the huge mouth, low, retreating forehead, and heavy, thick-set jaws, all betokened their owner to have belonged to the very lowest order of humanity. But what struck me at once was that the nose, which was of great size, had, at one time, been knocked completely over to the left side of the face, and as we straightened the body out, it could plainly be seen that one leg was much shorter than its fellow.
. . . . . . . . . .
Was this, then, indeed ‘Number Three,’ and had Sojur Jim’s vengeful quest, his vow of bitter retaliation, ended at last? I believed so. But, as I gazed down upon the poor, scarred dead clay of a wasted and ruined life lying there, now so calm and still, all its fierce desires and useless repinings, all its feverish passions [135] and longings for dread retribution at rest, forcibly came to my mind the words of the sacred and solemn injunction—‘Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.’
‘Frightfully dull, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor.
‘Dull’s no name for it,’ said the Clerk of Petty Sessions; ‘this is the awfullest hole I ever was in.’
‘Never knew it so bad,’ chimed in the Chemist and the Saddler, who were on this frosty night drinking whisky hot in the snug parlour of the Shamrock Inn in the little township of Crupperton.
‘I tell you what,’ said the C.P.S. presently; ‘I see by the paper they’ve started a football club at Cantleville. Why shouldn’t we do the same? It’ll help to pass away the time, anyhow.’
The Doctor pricked up his ears with interest. The Chemist seconded the motion enthusiastically.
‘A capital idea,’ said he, ‘and, although I never have played, I’ll go in for it. It’s simple enough, I should imagine.’
‘Simple!’ said the C.P.S., who had once seen a match in Sydney. ‘It’s as easy as tea-drinking. There’s no expense, except the first one of the ball. It’s not like cricket, you know, where you’re always putting your hands in your pockets for something or other.’
[137]
‘I’ll give ten shillings, Mr Brown,’ said the Doctor
softly.
‘Same here,’ said the Chemist.
‘How do you play it?’ asked the Saddler, and the Blacksmith, and the Constable, who had just dropped in for a warm and a yarn that chilly evening.
‘Well,’ explained the C.P.S., who had ideas, ‘first you get your ball. Then you put up a couple of sticks with a cross one on the top of ’em. Then you measure a distance, say one hundred yards by, say, fifty, on a level bit of ground, and put up another set of sticks. Then you get your men, and pick sides, and pop the ball down in the middle, and wade in. For instance,’ he continued, ‘s’pose we’re playing Saddlestrap. Well, then, d’ye see, we’ve got one goal—that’s what they call the sticks—and they’ve got the other. We’ve to try and block ’em from kicking the ball over our cross-bar, and do our best, meantime, to send it over theirs. It’s just a splendid game for this weather, and nothing could well be simpler.’
More men came in, the idea caught; a club was formed, and that very night the C.P.S. wrote to the capital for a ball ‘of the best make and the latest fashion.’
But it was a very long way to the capital. So, in the interval, the C.P.S., who was an enterprising young Native, procured and erected goal-posts and cross-bars of barked pine; and very business-like they looked with a little pink flag fluttering from the summit of each.
[138]
At last the new ball arrived. But, to the secret
astonishment of the C.P.S., in place of being round it
was oval. However, he was not going to expose his
ignorance and imperil the reputation already earned as
an exponent of the game, so he only said,—
‘I sent for the very best they had, and I can see we’ve got our money’s worth. I’ll take her home and blow her up ready for to-morrow.’
For a long time the ball seemed to go in any direction but the right one, kick they never so hardly; whilst, as a rule, the strongest and most terrific kickers produced the least effect.
They tried the aggravating thing in every position they could think of, and, for a considerable period, without much success.
It was a sight worth seeing to watch the Blacksmith, after scooping a little hollow in the ground and placing the ball perpendicularly therein, retire and prepare for action. Opening his shoulders and spitting on his hands, he would come heavily charging down, and putting the whole force of fifteen stone into his right foot, deliver a tremendous kick; then stand amazed to see the ball, after twirling meekly up for a few yards, drop on his head instead of soaring between the posts as it should have done.
‘I’m out of practice myself—haven’t played for years, in fact,’ said the C.P.S. when explanation as to this erratic behaviour was demanded. ‘It’s simply a matter of practice, you know, like everything else.’
But all the same for a long time, deep down in [139] his heart, there was a horrible misgiving that the thing was not a football at all—that it should have been round. At last, by dint of constant perseverance, some of the men began to kick fairly well—kick goals even from a good distance.
The first difficulty arose from a lack of side-boundaries. Hence, at times, a kicking, struggling, shouting mob might be seen half-a-mile away, at the far end of the main street, whereas it should have been in front of the post-office.
To remedy this state of affairs, the C.P.S. drove in pegs at what was voted ‘a fair thing’ to serve as guides. When the ball was sent beyond the pegs no one pursued, and little boys stationed there kicked it back again. Also, the cows, pigs and goats of Crupperton, who must have imagined that a lunatic asylum had taken possession of their feeding grounds, returned, and henceforth fed peacefully about the grass-grown streets and allotments at the lower end of the township. Presently, to vary the monotony, the Cruppertonians got up a match amongst themselves for drinks—East versus West was the title of it. But it never went beyond the first scrimmage, if that can be called a first where all was one big scrimmage, caused by two compact bodies of men fighting for the possession of a ball. Out of this quickly emerged the Chemist with, as he averred, a fractured wrist. Anyhow, he wore a bandage, and played no more.
Then the Blacksmith accused the Saddler of kicking him on the shins, wilfully and of malice prepense. For [140] some time past there had been bad blood between these two, and the fight that ensued was so gorgeous that the game was quite forgotten in the excitement of it.
Presently, the village of Saddlestrap, a little lower down the river, in emulation of its larger neighbour, started football also.
The Saddlestraps mostly got their living by tankmaking, were locally known as ‘Thicklegs,’ and were a pretty rough lot. So that, when a match was arranged between the two places, fun was foretold.
The rules of the Saddlestrap club were, like those of the Crupperton one, simplicity itself, consisting, as they did, of the solitary axiom—‘Kick whatever or wherever you can, only kick.’
Therefore, as remarked, fun was expected. The C.P.S. chose his team carefully, and with an eye to weight and size. Superior fleetness, he rightly imagined, would have but little to do with the result of the day’s sport.
With the exception of half-a-dozen of the townspeople, the Crupperton players consisted of young fellows from a couple of stations adjoining. Therefore, the Saddlestraps somewhat contemptuously dubbed their opponents ‘Pastorialites.’
The Doctor pleaded exemption on account of his age, and was, therefore, appointed ‘Referee.’
For a while the play was somewhat weak and desultory, and lacking in effect. The ball was continually being sent outside the pegs, and the urchins stationed [141] there were kept busy. But, at length, to the delight of the spectators, consisting of the entire population of the two townships, there was a hot scrimmage. ‘For all the world like a lot o’ dorgs a-worryin’ a ’possum!’ as one excited bystander yelled, whilst the crowd surged around the mixed-up heap of humanity, the outside ring of which was frantically kicking and shoving at the prostrate inner one, serving friend and foe alike.
‘A very manly and interesting game,’ remarked the Doctor, placidly ringing his bell for ‘Spell, oh!’ whilst the Chemist ran to his shop for plaster and bandage.
Presently, the undermost man of all was dragged out, torn and gory, and spitting teeth from a broken jaw.
Him the Doctor caused to be carried to the nearest house, and, after attending to his wounds, returned hurriedly to the field, where his coadjutor was looking to the minor casualties, and both teams were refreshing themselves with rum, and boasting of their prowess.
The Doctor rang his bell, and play was resumed. It was, he explained, unhealthy to dawdle about in such weather and after severe exertion.
As the C.P.S. pointed out very eloquently that night at the banquet, football was a game in which people must learn to give and take, and that, until this had been fully understood and practised, the game would never get beyond an initial stage.
This was probably the reason that on a Saddlestrap in full pursuit of the ball being deliberately tripped up by a ‘Pastorialite,’ and sent headlong to mother earth, which [142] was hard and knobby, in place of rising and going on with the game, he began to punch the tripper.
Five minutes afterwards might be seen the curious spectacle of a ball lying neglected in the centre of the ground, whilst outside raged a big fight of thirty.
For a time the trouble was strictly confined to the two teams. But when it was observed that Crupperton was getting the worst of it, partisans quickly peeled off and took sides; so that, directly, both townships were up to their eyes in fight, and the Doctor seriously contemplated sending for professional assistance to Cantleville.
For some time victory hovered in the balance. But men fight well on their own ground, and at last the Saddlestraps broke and fled for their horses and buggies. Those who stayed behind did so simply because there was no doctor in their native village.
A banquet for both teams had been prepared at the leading (and only) hotel. But there was only a remnant of one side that felt like banqueting, so the gaps were filled by residents who had been prominent in the fray.
The C.P.S., with a couple of beautifully blackened eyes, took the chair. At the other end of the table presided the Constable, whose features presented a curiously intricate study in diachylon, many of the Saddlestraps having seized a mean opportunity of wiping off old scores.
Speeches and toasts were made and drunk, and football enthusiastically voted the king of all games. [143] As the Blacksmith—whose arm was in a sling—observed, ‘It was a fair an’ square game. A man know’d what he’d got to do at it. There wasn’t no tiddleywinkin’ in the thing.’
The Doctor had been too busy to come early; but he dropped in for a minute or so during the evening, and with great fire, and amidst much applause, made a splendid speech. In its course he quoted Gordon’s well-known lines—‘A game’s not worth a rap for a rational man to play,’ etc.; and also adapted that saying of the ‘Iron Duke’s’ about the battle of Waterloo being won upon the British football grounds.
It was decidedly the ‘speech of the evening,’ and was greeted with hearty cheers as, concluding, he retired to look after his patients.
But Crupperton was very sore next morning; and for a whole week there was no more football. Then they looked about them for more victims to their prowess. But they found none at all near home.
At last, in despair, and in defiance of the advice of the C.P.S., the executive challenged Cantleville itself—agreeing to journey thither. In due course, and after the C.F.C. had recovered from its surprise, and consulted a ‘Gazetteer,’ it accepted.
Cantleville was a very long distance away. Moreover, it was the ‘City’ of those inland parts, and the headquarters of the Civil Service therein. Therefore the C.P.S. and the Constable discreetly refused to accompany their fellows. One of the pair, at least, had [144] doubts as to whether Cantleville played the Crupperton game.
So the Blacksmith was elected Captain. ‘You’d better stay at home,’ said the C.P.S., ‘the chaps over there are regular swells, up to all the latest dodges, and they wear uniforms. Besides they may not quite understand our rules.’
‘Then we’ll teach ’em,’ said the Blacksmith. But the question of a uniform troubled him. So he took counsel with his now fast friend the Saddler, and the result was that everyone packed a stiffly-starched white shirt and a pair of black trousers into his valise.
‘How about your uniforms now?’ said the Blacksmith, ‘nothin’ can’t be neater’n that.’
So they went forth to battle, accompanied by the good wishes of the populace; but neither by Doctor nor Chemist. There were plenty of both at Cantleville. Also they were wise in their generation, and had doubts.
Communication in these days was limited. Cantleville news arrived via Sydney, and the newspapers were a week old when delivered. So that the team brought its own tidings home. They had not had a good time. They had also been heavily fined, and they proposed to go afield no more. The Blacksmith and the Saddler, who had ‘taken it out,’ were the last to appear.
‘I suppose you play Rugby rules?’ had asked blandly the Secretary of the C.F.C., as he curiously surveyed the ‘Bushies’ on their arrival.
‘No, we don’t,’ said the Blacksmith. ‘We plays [145] Crupperton,’ and no more questions were asked. But when it was seen what Crupperton rules meant, backs, half-backs, forwards, and all the rest of it, struck and refused to continue. Instead, they took to chaffing the ‘black and white magpies.’
Whereupon, Crupperton, putting the question of football on one side, went at its opponents à la Saddlestrap. Their places, however, they presently found taken by policemen. These latter every man handled to the best of his ability, and had to pay for accordingly.
‘Shoo!’ said the Blacksmith, as he finished. ‘They’re nothin’ but a lot o’ tiddleywinkers up there. Let’s have another match with Saddlestrap.’
A Pioneer Sketch.
There was a lot of men from up-country staying at the Kamilaroi. One could easily tell them by their bronzed hands and faces, and creased or brand-new clothes, from the city members of the well-known Pastoralists’ Club.
‘Hello,’ suddenly exclaimed a fine-looking man, whose thick moustache lay snow-white against the deep tan of his cheek, ‘here’s Boorookoorora in the market! H’m, one hundred and sixty thousand sheep (so they’ve got the jumbucks on it at last).... Capital homestead ... stone-built house ... splendid garden and orchard. How things must have changed out there since Wal Neville and Jimmy Carstairs and myself took that country up, and lived for months at a time on damper, bullock and pigweed in a bark humpy. Stone house and orchard! Well, well,’ he concluded, laying down the newspaper with a sigh, ‘I hope they haven’t disturbed the boys. I left them there sleeping quietly enough side by side over five-and-twenty years ago.’
‘Shouldn’t have gone home and stayed away so long, [147] Standish,’ here remarked a friend. ’You’re out of touch altogether with our side now. That’s the worst of being rich. D’rectly a fellow gets a pot of money left him, off he must go “home.” But here’s Hatton.—Hatton, let me introduce Mr Hugh Standish to you. He’s interested in your place. First man to take it up; early pioneer, and all that sort of thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Hatton presently, ‘I was the first to put sheep on Boorookoorora, and they do well. Yes, the two graves are untouched at the old homestead still. Carstairs and Neville! I’ve heard the story, or a version of it. Poor fellows! I had their graves freshly fenced in a couple of years ago. And so you were the third partner. Will you tell us the story of your escape? I should much like to hear it at first hand.’
‘Do you know the Grand Stand?’ asked Standish, without replying directly.
The other shook his head.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Why, the big rock, close to the Black Waterhole, on your own run,’ replied Standish.
‘Oh,’ said his new acquaintance, ‘you mean Mount Lookout. That’s just at the bottom of the orchard now. You see, we’ve shifted the head station from where you and Warner and Adams and the rest had it.’
‘Well, well,’ replied the other, ‘Grand Stand, or Mount Lookout, or whatever you like to call it, I had a very rough time on its top.’
‘Ah,’ remarked the owner of Boorookoorora, ‘I’ve had the top levelled and an anemometer erected on it; [148] also a flight of steps cut. In fact, it is a sort of observatory on a small scale.’
‘The devil it is!’ exclaimed Standish. ‘Well, if you’ll listen, I’ll tell you what I observed once from its top.’
. . . . . . . . . .
‘There were three of us. We were all young and healthy, and each had a little money. Foregathering (the first time was in this very room), we determined to become partners, and take up country. We would go out in person—far out, beyond even, as poor Neville put it, the “furthest paling of civilisation.”
‘There we would acquire a territory, expressible not in poor, miserable acres, but in square miles—thousands of ’em.
‘There we would breed sheep and cattle, increasing yearly in multitude, so that the sands upon the sea-shore shouldn’t be a circumstance to them. We would plant in that far country our own vines and our own fig-trees, and sit under their shade in the good days to come—we and our children, and our children’s children after us—in that wide and pleasant heritage of our founding. Alas, the glamour of youth and confidence, and health and strength over a bottle or two of good wine! Five-and-twenty years ago, gentlemen, in this same old room!
‘So we went. And the days grew into weeks, and the weeks into months, as we rode, searching hither and thither, to the right hand or to the left, but always with our faces to the falling sun. Over stony ridges and over [149] rolling downs; over deserts of cruel spinifex and barren sand; through great scrubs, thick and gloomy; along rivers, tortuous and muddy. At times drenched with rain, at others suffering from heat and hunger and thirst, but ever westward. At length, after many disappointments, emerging from a broad stretch of sterile country and ascending a range of low hills, our eyes beheld something resembling the Canaan of our dreams. Track of horse or beast we had not seen for weeks; therefore we knew that the land was, if we so willed it, ours.
‘For a long time we gazed over the timber-clumped, wide expanse, emerald-swarded after some recent fire, and through which ran a creek whose waterholes shone like polished steel under the mid-day sun.
‘“Here we rest?” said one; and another,—“The Plains of Hope lie before us!”
‘So we rested from our wanderings; and one, journeying backwards, secured the country, defining its boundaries, not by marked trees, but by parallels of latitude.
‘Shortly a homestead arose, rude but sufficient. Mob after mob of cattle came up from stations to the south and east, and Boorookoorora became itself a station.
‘We got the name from a black fellow. We understood him to signify that the word meant “No place beyond.” This pleased us, for we were, so far, proud of being the “farthest out”—the Ultima Thule of settlement. We may have been altogether mistaken, for the fellow was wild as a hawk, and, at the first chance, gave us the slip. But I’m glad, all the same, that the old name still holds.
[150]
‘Of the blacks we had seen very little. They appeared
to decline all communication with us. Now and again
the stockmen would bring one in; but he came evidently
under strong protest, and refused both food and gifts of
any description. However, we cared nothing for that, so
long as our cattle remained unmolested. They were
doing splendidly; and we soon began to talk about
sending a mob to the southern markets, with which, in
those days, there was little or no communication. We
intended to pioneer that trade. There was plenty of
room as yet. Our nearest neighbour was a hundred
miles away; the nearest township, five hundred. One
Sunday morning I went for a ride, leaving Walter and
Jimmy alone. The two white stockmen and a couple of
black boys, who made up the head station staff, were
away on a round of the out-stations.
‘I had intended to be back for the dinner, which I had left the pair busily preparing. Unfortunately, when about five miles from the homestead on my return, my horse put his foot in a hole, stumbled badly, and directly afterwards went dead lame.
‘The day was a roaster for a tramp; but there seemed no help for it. So, planting the saddle and bridle, also, in a most unlucky moment, my heavy Enfield rifle, I set out through the long, dry grass, which reached at times over my head, and made walking hard and disagreeable work.
‘As often as I paused to rest and wipe my dripping face did I curse our remissness in not having “burnt off” before this, and vow to soon have a right royal [151] blaze amongst the thick reed-like grass-stalks that hampered my progress towards shade and dinner.
‘I had got about two miles along, and was just thinking of having a good drink at the Black Waterhole, which I knew to be close to me, when I suddenly came upon the dead body of a fine young heifer.
‘A couple of broken spears stuck out of the carcase—so freshly killed that even the crows had not yet found it. It was, indeed, still warm. By the tracks I could see that the niggers were in force. They had evidently run the beast up from the water, and slain it merely for sport, as it was untouched. My first impulse was to return for the rifle. Second thoughts determined me to make for home as quickly as possible.
‘I had kept my shoulder-belt, to which was attached a heavy metal powder-flask. Thinking that I should travel lighter without these things, I started to unbuckle, when a tomahawk hurtled past one side of my head, whilst a spear went sailing by the other. The grass was full of blacks coming at me sideways—that is, between me and the station.
‘Turning, I ran for the water, the whole pack, now in full cry, after me.
‘Close to the banks of the Black Waterhole stood a tall rock we had named (I don’t know why, for it was as much like one as this tumbler is) the Grand Stand. I daresay it must have been quite one hundred and fifty feet high, if not more—’
‘One hundred and seventy-five six,’ put in Mr Hatton, [152] who, in common with, by this time, a small crowd, was listening interestedly.
‘Thanks. You’ve evidently had more leisure than we could manage. Anyhow, it was sheer on three sides, only accessible, in one part, on the fourth.’ (‘Just where I had the stairway cut,’ murmured Mr Hatton. But no one took any notice).
‘Many a time I had climbed it to look for cattle across the plains on which it formed such a landmark. If I could do so now, very quickly, there might still be a chance.
‘I could tell by the sound of the spears that I was gaining. They didn’t come slipping quietly past, but whizzed and sung angrily, a sure sign that the throwing sticks were being used; at least I found it so. It was wonderful how they missed me. If the grass had been burnt I was a dead man fifty times over. Presently, I struck a cattle pad, and, at the same moment, caught sight of the Grand Stand. Now they saw what I was after, and put on a spurt, yelling harder than ever. As they arrived at the foot of the rock I was half-way up the narrow, almost perpendicular, track, going like a goat, whilst spears, tomahawks and nullahs hit all around me. One spear grazed my leg, sticking in the breeches, and a stone tomahawk knocked my hat off. I afterwards made use of that spear. It was hot work while it lasted, which, luckily, wasn’t long. The top of the Grand Stand measured about twenty feet each way, and sloped gently inwards, saucer-shape, to a depth of four. There had been rain lately, and a good pool of water was collected [153] in the basin, which was strewn with stones and big boulders, remains of a former top, which had broken off and lay around the base. Being in a hurry, I hadn’t time to pull myself up, so tumbled headlong into the water. However, the bath refreshed me much, and, everything below having all at once become silent as the grave, I peeped over.
‘Well it was I did so!
‘Four big fellows were climbing up, one behind the other.
‘Lifting a stone, just as much as I could manage, I rolled it to the edge, and, forgetting to sing out “Stand from under,” let go.
‘It caught the first fellow fair on the chest, and the lot went down like skittles.
‘Three picked themselves up and limped off howling. The fourth man—he who led—lay quite still, and had to be dragged away. I did not care about expending my ammunition or I could have scattered them also.
‘It was terribly hot up there under the sun, but, ripping out the lining of my coat, I covered my head with it. If there had been no water, though, I should have been done—roasted alive.
‘Now I had a spell, and took a good look at the niggers.
‘They were a wild lot—five-and-twenty of ’em—naked as the day they were born, tall and wiry, with woolly hair and long, black beards. One side of their faces was painted white, t’other red, ribs and legs to match. Half-a-dozen of ’em had some shining stone [154] like a lump of crystal either around their necks or tied upon their foreheads. These I took to be chiefs.
‘I had never seen any niggers quite like these, and, consequently, was rather impressed, not to say scared. They squatted under a shady tree, the only one for miles around, evidently holding a council of war, whilst I crouched and watched them, and slowly baked on top of my rock.
‘Suddenly, all springing to their feet, they ran backwards, then, wheeling together, threw their spears. But the height beat ’em. There was a strong breeze blowing, too, hot as from a furnace, right against them. Quite plainly that game wouldn’t answer, so they squatted again and started another consultation.
‘Meanwhile the day grew hotter. The rock was actually blistering my skin through the light clothes I wore.
‘Bathing my head and face brought relief.
‘Being quite a new chum with respect to blacks and their ways, I half expected that, now, seeing they couldn’t get me down, they would raise the siege and be off.
‘Nothing, it appeared, could be further from their intentions. The confab over, some lit a fire on a small, clear space close to the water, whilst others went off towards the dead heifer, shortly returning with great lumps of meat, which they roasted and devoured.
‘After this, they all got up, and coming quite close, one went a little apart from the rest and pointed at my [155] head, which was all he could see, with outstretched arm.
‘Then his fellows formed a circle and danced and yelled, patting their bellies, and going through the motions of eating and drinking. Presently the gaunt, black semaphore was altered, pointing towards the sun. The dancing and shouting ceased, and, sitting down, the party began to display symptoms of the utmost distress.
‘Once more the arm shifted, this time towards the water, whereupon the whole crowd stiffened themselves out as if dead.
‘Another dance round and a song, and the semaphore put himself in position again and pointed in the direction of the homestead.
‘Instantly all but two sneaked off into the tall grass. The pair left behind lay down beside each other, feigning sleep. Suddenly, with terrific yells, the rest sprung upon them and went very realistically through the motions of beating the sleepers’ brains out and thrusting spears into their bodies.
‘The first portion of the pantomime I took to mean that they were determined to stay and see how long I could withstand the combined effects of heat, hunger, and want of water.
‘The second was only too intelligible, and for the first time made me feel a sharp pang of anxiety for those at home, totally unwarned, and off their guard.
‘How, as I watched the brutes, did I wish and long [156] for that rifle, hidden away back there, or—best of all—that newly-imported breech-loader hanging over my stretcher at the station.
‘It was getting late in the afternoon. The rock was casting a long shadow, and my dripping body beginning to feel a little cooler as the sun lowered. Slight though the scratch upon my leg was, it smarted terribly. I was also very hungry, and altogether in anything but a happy frame of mind.
‘Foreseeing a night of it, I carried and rolled big stones to the edge, placing them so that at a touch they would go crashing down.
‘Darkness fell at last, and with it came the moon, nearly at her full.
‘Lying along the incline, I watched the niggers, and tried to work out some plan of giving them the slip.
‘Gorged to repletion, they were stretched about their fire: but two upright black forms, motionless as if cut from marble, watched steadfastly the pathway, on which the moonbeams fell full of light.
‘Although I had promised to return for dinner, I had no expectation, on account of my failure, that the others would come and look for me. We were all nothing if not irregular in our habits. Of the blacks we had almost ceased to think, so little had we seen of them. Indeed, though generally going armed, we carried rifles more for the purpose of shooting an odd bull or so than from any other motive. The place, you should remember, had been formed now over a couple of [157] years, during all which time nothing suspicious had occurred.
‘The two at home would merely think that I had extended my ride as far as one of the out-stations, and feel no surprise if I did not turn up till the next day.
‘As for them, I knew not what to think. That the blacks were nearly all inveterate liars I was aware; but this sudden, strange raid, together with their expressive pantomimes and determined attitude towards myself, made me fear the worst.
‘If there had been no moon I should certainly have made an effort to get away. But it was as bright as day—so bright that I fancied I could at times see the glitter in the eyes of the sentinels.
‘I must have been cat-napping, for I awoke with a start to the sound of an awful chorus of yells.
‘The moon was low, but still gave enough light to enable me to make out that more niggers had arrived.
‘After what appeared to be an enthusiastic greeting of the new-comers, the whole mob—about fifty—came up and began to dance at the foot of the rock. Presently, to my horror, I caught sight of objects that I recognised only too well.
‘One fellow had on a broad-brimmed straw hat belonging to Carstairs; another flourished a hunting-knife of my own; yet another waved a gaily-striped rug that I had last seen covering poor Neville’s stretcher.
‘Evidently the station had been sacked.
[158]
‘Neither hearing nor seeing anything, they perhaps
imagined me asleep, and, just as the dawn was breaking
redly, some of them began to ascend.
‘A leaping, rattling, boulder, however, soon undeceived and sent them to the right-about.
‘Knowing that another day would probably see the end, they were in no particular hurry now.
‘The sun rose hot and angry-looking. By its better light I made out a whole heap of our traps under the tree, jumbled up anyhow.
‘But, lest I should, by any means, fail to comprehend what had happened, they had recourse once more to dumb show.
‘A nigger came forward and arranged three spears, tripod fashion. To their apex he hung a nullah-nullah. All the weapons were red with blood. Then, pointing alternately to the homestead, myself, and the heap of plunder, he made a long speech, beginning quietly enough, but working himself into such a rage at the finish that his big black beard was speckled with foam.
‘Of course, I didn’t understand a word. There was little need that I should—everything was plain enough.
‘But worse was to come!
‘Seeing that I made no sign, and thinking, perhaps, that I was difficult to convince, the orator went off to the pile of stuff, and, in a minute, returned with some object in a net, which, amidst triumphant yells, he fastened to the trophy already erected.
[159]
‘For a moment I couldn’t make it out at all. Then,
as the sun shone fuller on the thing, I saw that it was
Neville’s head.
‘All gashed and disfigured though it was, I recognised it by the long golden beard which the poor old chap had been so proud of.
‘The sight turned me quite faint and sick. Then I got vicious. Slipping to the water, of which there was now very little left, to get one good, long, last drink, my eyes fell upon the powder-flask lying where I had thrown it off.
‘It was one of the old-fashioned kind, of solid copper, very large, and holding nearly a couple of pounds. It was quite full.
‘“Well,” I said to myself, taking the flask up as the idea struck me, “you’ve cornered me and killed my mates, but I’ll be hanged if I don’t try and scorch some of you before giving in.”
‘Now, sitting down, I tore a strip off my handkerchief, and, with moistened gunpowder, made a rough sort of fuse. Then unscrewing the measuring cylinder, and taking out the spring-valve, I inserted the fuse deeply into the powder, brought the twisted end well up, and replaced the long cylinder. Then, binding the flask firmly about five feet from the head of the spear that had come up with me, I shouted to the niggers, who were busily overhauling their booty.
‘They stared with surprise, and I waved my coat and beckoned to them to come nearer.
‘Chattering like anything, a couple of ’em advanced a few steps very doubtfully.
[160]
‘Stooping down and striking a match I fired the fuse,
which caught at once and began to burn quietly away
inside the cylinder.
‘At this moment I hove the spear well out towards them. To my delight it stuck fairly upright in the ground almost at their feet, the shock, so far as I could see, shifting nothing.
‘Starting back, they gazed inquisitively at the shining polished object it had brought with it.
‘For a minute or two they hesitated, and I despaired. But, seeing the rest moving up, curiosity or cupidity prevailed, and one running to it, seized the spear and made off back to the mob.
‘At once he was surrounded with an eager, excited, jabbering crowd, each man with his chin over his neighbour’s shoulder.
‘The seconds went by like ages. I had reckoned the fuse would last, perhaps, seven or eight minutes. They had untied the flask, and it was being passed from hand to hand.
‘Still no sound!
‘With a deep sigh of regret I gave the affair up as a failure—had even turned away—when an explosion like that of an eighteen pounder made me jump.
‘From out of a cloud of dense white smoke came shrieks and screams of agony. I could dimly see bodies—some quite still, and others rolling over and over.
‘By God! gentlemen,’ exclaimed the speaker, interrupting himself emphatically, and with a cruel gleam [161] in his eyes, ‘although afterwards I shot the wretches down in dozens, and always with joy in my heart, yet never with such a complete sense of satisfaction and pleasure as I felt at that moment.
‘As I looked a sharp blaze curled up, spreading broadly, and almost instantly, into a curtain of flame and smoke.
‘The grass was on fire!
‘Never a thought had I given to that. For miles and miles the country was covered with herbage, tall, and dry as tinder.
‘The top of the Grand Stand was about the only safe place now, bar the water, in all that neighbourhood. For a long time I couldn’t see a foot for smoke; but, as with the fire, it rolled away before the wind. I looked towards the Black Waterhole, thinking, of course, that the niggers would have taken to it. To my surprise not one was to be seen. There was the blackened ground, smoking yet, bare, and affording not the slightest cover.
‘The erstwhile shady and graceful tree was a gnarled and withered skeleton.
‘Underneath it, as the haze cleared, I made out four motionless bodies, blacker than the burnt black ashes on which they lay.
‘I waited a bit longer before coming down. But at last, pretty certain that the niggers had cleared out, or better still, been caught in the fire, I crept down the pathway, stiff, sore, and hungry, but with that feeling of vengeful joy in my heart trebly intensified as I passed [162] by the poor, scorched, singed head lying on the ground.
‘Poking about the heap of blankets, clothing, etc., still smouldering, I dropped across a tin of preserved meat—a four pounder.
‘This was luck, if you like. Taking it to the water I finished it to the last scrap, and made the most appreciated meal of a life.
‘I hadn’t gone near the bodies. They were charred, and I was certain they were dead.
‘But, as I finished eating, to my astonishment one fellow got up and staggered straight for me. Snatching up a heavy stick, which happened to be handy, I stood ready to receive him.
‘As he came nearer his face frightened me.
‘It wasn’t a face at all, properly speaking; nor, for the matter of that, a head even. It was simply a mass of grass-ashes and blood—every scrap of hair had been burnt off. From his open mouth protruded a blackened tongue. I dropped my stick, for I saw he was stone-blind—in fact, he was eyeless altogether.
‘Groping along, in a minute or two he felt the water at his feet, when, instead of splashing into it, as you’d naturally think a fellow in such an awful predicament would do, he gave a sort of screech, very bad to hear, and made out again at a great pace, tripped over a stone, and fell headlong.
‘When I got up to him he was as dead as Julius Cæsar, and a great lump of jagged copper was sticking out of the back of his skull.
[163]
‘Presently I started off towards the homestead, but
hadn’t got more than half-way before I met our two
white stockmen—the black boys had cleared on the
back track.
‘The buildings, such as they were, and all our things were gone. But we didn’t trouble much about that just then.
‘Taking Neville’s head to him, we buried him and Carstairs, who had been literally chopped to pieces, and then, getting the outside men together, we followed the niggers.
‘They had made for a patch of red ground six miles away. There we found ’em—fifty of ’em; and there we left ’em. How they must have travelled to have beaten the fire! Must have been touch and go, for some of ’em were pretty badly scorched.
‘Well, gentlemen, that’s the story of the Grand Stand, and the first settling of Boorookoorora. “Stone house and garden, and splendid orchard,” eh? Well, well, I suppose it’s only natural. Yet it sounds curiously to me. No; I won’t invest. Shouldn’t care about going back to live there now. That’s the dinner gong, isn’t it? Good old Kamilaroi! Come along.’