Such Is Life (37 page)

A closer examination brought to light his own sheep. Wild and shy, as paddocked merinos always are, these had withdrawn to the quietest places they could find, and were there making the best of a bad job. Stewart lost his temper, for once; and he that is without similar sin among the readers of this simple memoir is hereby authorised to cast the first stone.

He allowed the sun to go down upon his wrath. Next morning, he rallied up all his station hands; mustered the Mia-mia Paddock; distributed the sheep elsewhere over the run; and thus washed his hands of all responsibility touching the welfare of his guests.

Toward spring, he drove round the camps again, pausing here and there to give the trespassers a bit of his mind: “Now, boys; I must get you to shift. Lots of perishing teams not able to get down out of the back country till now, and all making for this paddock. Must leave a bit of grass for them when they come.” And more to the same effect. So the settlement gradually broke-up, and things returned to their normal monotony.

But not altogether so. Some of the nomads wanted land, and had means to back their desire. Rambling leisurely over the station paddocks, with the county map for reference, these people saw where the most eligible allotments were, and presently picked the
eyes out of the run; in some cases, shifting straight from their camps to their selections. Such is life.

Saint Peter, I should imagine, had narrowly watched the squatter's attitude when the Assyrian came down like a person flying from perdition. Afterward, he had noted with approval that the new selectors were treated with the same forbearance and benevolence they had formerly experienced as refugees. But not until he saw Stewart pounce on the incident of the mammoth surprise-party as a clinching argument against land-monopoly, did that austere janitor hang his keys on his thumb, to hunt-up, far back in his book, the page reserved in case of rich men. And still the metaphor of the camel and the needle's eye stands unimpaired. The difficulties vanish only when you attain some conception of what the Kingdom of God is—how much more to the purpose than pearly gates or jasper seas; how accordant with the Ormuzd in man; how premeditated in design; how indomitable in patience; and how needfully and inexorably guarded by the diminutive portal above referred to.

“Good morning, Collins.”

“Good morning, Mr. Stewart. An early stirrer, by the rood.”

“Yes; I have a (sheol) of a long stage before me to-day. Been travelling all night?”

“Only since about twelve. I camped yesterday in the Dead Man's Bend, on Mondunbarra. I've been kept on the move since dinnertime, or so. Tell you how it came. I was lying in the shade of a tree, having a smoke, and thinking about one thing or another, when I heard some one calling from the other side of the river. It was Mosey Price; and he told me” &c., &c.

Stewart sighed, glanced toward the south-east, produced a cigar-case, took thence three cigars, handed one to me and another to Mungo Park, lit the third himself, then smoked listlessly and mechanically.

“Good,” he remarked, throwing away the inch-long stump of his cigar, and gathering his reins. “What's your name?” he continued, turning to the swagman.

“Bob Stirling,” replied the African explorer. “I worked on Kooltopa, many years ago, but I don't suppose you remember me.”

“I'm not sure. However, I'll find a nice comfortable week's work for you, at all events. Collins, I give you credit. You should have gone into politics. You'd have made a d—d good diplomatist.”

“I'm glad you think so, Mr. Stewart. But the main body of the story has to come. You see, I was, in a sense, no farther forward
than at first. Alf's bullocks were only respited, and briefly at that. So, as I was telling you, I left them against the boundary fence, and walked across to interview this Terrible Tommy. He was my last resource. I just met him carrying home a couple of buckets of water from the lagoon. ‘Evening, sir,' says I, as sweet as sugar” &c., &c.

Stewart glanced at the blazing orb, now slowly climbing the coppery sky, sighed again, lit another cigar, and smoked impassively.

“D—d if I approve of your action in that instance, Collins,” he remarked gravely, throwing away his second stump, and groping for something under the buggy-seat.

“Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I don't defend the action. I only endeavour to palliate it on the plea of necessity. And, if Adam fell in the days of innocency, what should poor Tom Collins do in the days of villainy?”

“Shakespear,” observed the squatter approvingly, as he drew a bottle and glass from a candle-box under the seat. “Misquoted, though, unless my memory betrays me. But I look at the thing in this way—The Poondoo people put a couple of bottles of Albury into the buggy; and I think we can do one of them now, early as it is. When shall we three meet again? Eh? How is that for aptness? A Roland for your (adj.) Oliver.—I look at the thing inthing way, Collins—But you mustn't take anything on an empty stomach. I have some sandwiches here.” He handed a couple to me, a couple to Bob, and reserved a couple for himself.—“I look at the thing in this way. I put myself in Tommy's place. Now, if any man presumed to play such a trick on me—why, d—n me, I should take it very ill. Now, Collins”—

“O, stop, please! don't fill that glass for me! I'm very sensible of your disapproval, Mr. Stewart. I'm more sorry than I can express—not in the way of penitence, certainly, but that I should be unfortunate enough to have incurred your displeasure. I wish you could put yourself in my place, instead of Tommy's.—Well, long life to you, Mr. Stewart, both for your own sake and the sake of the public.”

“Thanks for the good wish, Collins, and to (sheol) with the flattery. I may tell you that I do put myself in your place, as well as in Tommy's. But, d—n it, you don't seem to be alive to the principle of the thing.—
You're
not a blue-ribboner, I suppose?” And he tendered the replenished glass to Bob. “Bad hand you've got, poor fellow. Severe accident apparently?”

“Sepoy bullet at Lucknow, sir. I was a lad of nineteen then; just joined.”

“You've been a soldier?”

“Yes, sir; I was an ensign in the Queen's 64th. We formed part of Havelock's column of relief.” The placid, unassertive, incapable face told the rest of the poor fellow's story.

“You don't seem to be alive to the principle of the thing,” repeated Stewart, turning again to me. “Your cosmopolitanism is a d—d big mistake. Every man has a nationality, remember; and though you'll find many most excellent fellows of all races, yet, if you want the real thing, you must look”—

“May God bless you, Mr. Stewart!” murmured Stirling of Ours, raising the glass to his lips.

“Thank you, my friend.—You must look to Scotland for it. And, d—n it, man, this is the very nationality you have been fleering at. Of course, I don't dwell on the subject because I happen to be a Scotsman myself; only, I must say I should never have expected—But what do you think is the matter with Alf Morris?”

“Difficult to say. Some sort of arthrodynic complaint, I fancy; at all events, he's badly gone in most of his joints.”

“Poor devil!” soliloquised the squatter, filling the glass for himself. “He's a bad lot—a d—n bad lot—a d—nation bad lot. Bitter, vindictive sort of man. You're familiar, like myself, with Shakespear; now, Morris reminds me of Titus Andronicus.—Better luck, boys.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stewart.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stewart.”

“This Titus, as you may remember, was expelled from Athens by the people, after they had elected him consul. They couldn't stand his d—d pride. He, took up his abode in a cave, and, for the rest of his life, met every overture of friendship with taunts and insults. Even in his epitaph, written by himself:—

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth—

Now, d—n it, I committed those lines to memory—ay, forty-five years ago. I wish I could recall them.”

“I think I can repeat the passage, Mr. Stewart,” said I modestly:—

Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;

Seek not his name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left.

Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate.

Pass on, and curse thy fill, but pass, and stay not here thy gait.

“Good,” replied the squatter—all his hurry forgotten in the fascination of profitless gossip. “Now there you have Morris to the very life. Hopeless d—d case!”

“But the misanthropy of the Shakespearean hero was not without cause, Mr. Stewart,” I urged. “Given certain rigorous circumstances, acting on a given temperament, and you have a practically inevitable sequence—perhaps a pious faith; perhaps a philosophic calm; perhaps an intensified selfishness; perhaps a sullen despair—in fact, the variety of possible results corresponds exactly with the variety of possible circumstances and temperaments. In the case of the Greek misanthrope, the factor of temperament is first carefully stated; then the factor of circumstances is brought into operation; then the genius of the dramatist supplies the resultant revolution of moral being, in such a manner as to excite sympathy rather than reprobation. Reasoning from cause to effect, we see the inevitableness of the issue, But in Morris's case, we must reason from effect to cause. We see a certain outcome”—

“D—d unmistakably,” muttered the squatter.

—“And it rests with us to account for this from prior conditions of temperament and circumstances. Then we shall have, so to speak, the second and third terms; and from these it won't be difficult, I think, to calculate the term which should antecede them, namely, temperament. Morris is a widower. His wife was a magnificent singer, and, in a general way, one of those tawny-haired tigresses who leave their mark on a man's life, arid are much better left alone”—

“Has he any children?” asked Stewart.

“Well, no; these tawny-haired tigresses don't have children. Anyway, she died some ten years ago; but at the time of her death they had been separated for about three years.”

“They couldn't have been living long together; or else he married young,” suggested Stewart.

“No, they weren't long together; but Alf is a man of peculiar moral constitution; he frets a lot over her memory; loves and hates her at the same time. Secondary to this, is a misunderstanding with his father, which caused Alf to clear off, leaving the old man to mind everything himself. Of course, I'm only giving you the heads; and my information is derived from no random hearsay, but is obtained by an intransmissible power of induction, rare in our times.”

“Thought as much!” muttered Stewart.

“It remains, then,” I continued, “to determine the temperament
which, acted upon by these circumstances, has given the result which is already before us. Now, I think that that temperament, though, perhaps, tending to the volcanic, must have been a sensitive and an amiable one; however it may have soured and hardened into misanthropy and avarice. We can't all be philosophers, Mr. Stewart.”

“If there's one thing I hate like (sheol),” replied the squatter gravely, “it is the quoting of Scripture as against my fellow-creature; but, d—n it, we are told that ‘when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity all the days of his vanity which God giveth him under the sun, he shall be likened unto a foolish man that built his house upon the sand.' You know the rest. If we take upon us to judge Morris at all, we must judge him as he is. Your judgment is generous, but nonsensical; mine is rational, but churlish—d—d churlish.'” He paused, in evident discomfort, flicked a roley-poley with his whip, and continued. “You know, I had him on Kooltopa for a couple of months, bringing in pine logs, when Barker's sawing-plant was there. Well, without going into details—Capable fellow, too; fine combination of a cultivated man and an experienced rough-and-ready bushman. Strictly honest, also, I think—only for his d—nable disposition.”

“Doctor Johnson liked a good hater,” I suggested sadly, for it was evident that my unfortunate protégé had already, in his own peculiar way, recommended himself to Stewart.

You can imagine, by that circumstance alone, what a strong tincture of venom was held in solution by this feeble tenant of an hour. Indeed, if the matter had rested with the squatters, they would have starved him out of Riverina by industrial boycott But the in-transport of wool, and the out-transport of goods, are cares that, as a rule, fall to the lot of the forwarding firms; and these resemble George IV, in having no predilections (though, let us hope, the similarity ceases here). Hence, the jolly good soul of a carrier, with lots of spring in him—the man who seldom buys any groceries, whose breath often smells like broached grog-cargo, and who makes a joke of camping for a few weeks with a load on his wagon—is very naturally passed over in favour of the misanthrope who neither asks nor gives quarter. And the personal popularity of the latter with his own guild is not enhanced by this preference.

“Doctor Johnson be d—d!” replied the squatter warmly. “What is his dictum worth? What the (sheol) entitled him, for instance, to sneer at the very element of population that has made Britain a
nation? You know what I allude to? Now, speaking with strict impartiality, it strikes me d—d forcibly that the finest prospect England ever saw is the road that leads from Scotland.” He checked himself, and continued in a gentler tone. “That just reminds me of a very able article I read some time ago—I think it was in
Blackwood's
. The writer proves that your Shakespear must have imbibed his genius, to a great extent, in Scotland. He grounds his argument partly—and I think, justly—on the fact that the best play in the collection is a purely Scottish one. He makes a d—d strong point, I remember, of the expression, ‘blasted heath.' ‘Say from whence, upon this blasted heath you stop our way, making night hideous?'—and so forth.”