by Henry Lawson
He was full of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the English-Australian poet who shot himself, and so was I. I lost an old copy of Gordon’s poems on the route, and the Boss overheard me inquiring about it; later on he asked me if I liked Gordon. We got to it rather sheepishly at first, but by-and-by we’d quote Gordon freely in turn when we were alone in camp. “Those are grand lines about Burke and Wills, the explorers, aren’t they, Jack?” he’d say, after chewing his cud, or rather the stem of his briar, for a long while without a word. (He had his pipe in his mouth as often as any of us, but somehow I fancied he didn’t enjoy it: an empty pipe or a stick would have suited him just as well, it seemed to me.) “Those are great lines,” he’d say:
‘In Collins Street standeth a statue tall—A statue tall on a pillar of stone—Telling its story to great and small Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone. ‘Weary and wasted, worn and wan, Feeble and faint, and languid and low, He lay on the desert a dying man, Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go.’
“That’s a grand thing, Jack. How does it go?—
‘With a pistol clenched in his failing hand, And the film of death o’er his fading eyes, He saw the sun go down on the sand,’—”
The Boss would straighten up with a sigh that might have been half a yawn—
“‘And he slept and never saw it rise,’”
—speaking with a sort of quiet force all the time. Then maybe he’d stand with his back to the fire roasting his dusty leggings, with his hands behind his back and looking out over the dusky plain.
“‘What mattered the sand or the whit’ning chalk, The blighted herbage or blackened log, The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk, Or the hot red tongue of the native dog?’
“They don’t matter much, do they, Jack?” “Damned if I think they do, Boss!” I’d say.
“‘The couch was rugged, those sextons rude, But, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know, That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms’ food When once they have gone where we all must go.’”
Once he repeated the poem containing the lines:
“‘Love, when we wandered here together, Hand in hand through the sparkling weather—God surely loved us a little then.
“Beautiful lines those, Jack.
‘Then skies were fairer and shores were firmer, And the blue sea over the white sand rolled—Babble and prattle, and prattle and murmur’—
“How does it go, Jack?” He stood up and turned his face to the light, but not before I had a glimpse of it. I think that the saddest eyes on earth are mostly women’s eyes, but I’ve seen few so sad as the Boss’s were just then.
It seemed strange that he, a Bushman, preferred Gordon’s sea poems to his horsey and bushy rhymes; but so he did. I fancy his favourite poem was that one of Gordon’s with the lines:
I would that with sleepy soft embraces The sea would fold me, would find me rest In the luminous depths of its secret places, Where the wealth of God’s marvels is manifest!
He usually spoke quietly, in a tone as though death were in camp; but after we’d been on Gordon’s poetry for a while he’d end it abruptly with, “Well, it’s time to turn in,” or, “It’s time to turn out,” or he’d give me an order in connection with the cattle. He had been a well-to-do squatter on the Lachlan river-side, in New South Wales, and had been ruined by the drought, they said. One night in camp, and after smoking in silence for nearly an hour, he asked:
“Do you know Fisher, Jack—the man that owns these bullocks?”
“I’ve heard of him,” I said. Fisher was a big squatter, with stations both in New South Wales and in Queensland.
“Well, he came to my station on the Lachlan years ago without a penny in his pocket, or decent rag to his back, or a crust in his tucker-bag, and I gave him a job. He’s my boss now. Ah, well! it’s the way of Australia, you know, Jack.”
The Boss had one man who went on every droving trip with him; he was “bred” on the Boss’s station, they said, and had been with him practically all his life. His name was “Andy”. I forget his other name, if he really had one. Andy had charge of the “droving-plant” (a tilted two-horse waggonette, in which we carried the rations and horse-feed), and he did the cooking and kept accounts. The Boss had no head for figures. Andy might have been twenty-five or thirty-five, or anything in between. His hair stuck up like a well-made brush all round, and his big grey eyes also had an inquiring expression. His weakness was girls, or he theirs, I don’t know which (half-castes not barred). He was, I think, the most innocent, good-natured, and open-hearted scamp I ever met. Towards the middle of the trip Andy spoke to me one night alone in camp about the Boss.
“The Boss seems to have taken to you, Jack, all right.”
“Think so?” I said. I thought I smelt jealousy and detected a sneer.
“I’m sure of it. It’s very seldom he takes to anyone.”
I said nothing.
Then after a while Andy said suddenly:
“Look here, Jack, I’m glad of it. I’d like to see him make a chum of someone, if only for one trip. And don’t you make any mistake about the Boss. He’s a white man. There’s precious few that know him—precious few now; but I do, and it’ll do him a lot of good to have someone to yarn with.” And Andy said no more on the subject for that trip.
The long, hot, dusty miles dragged by across the blazing plains—big clearings rather—and through the sweltering hot scrubs, and we reached Bathurst at last; and then the hot dusty days and weeks and months that we’d left behind us to the Great North-West seemed as nothing—as I suppose life will seem when we come to the end of it.
The bullocks were going by rail from Bathurst to Sydney. We were all one long afternoon getting them into the trucks, and when we’d finished the Boss said to me:
“Look here, Jack, you’re going on to Sydney, aren’t you?”
“Yes; I’m going down to have a fly round.”
“Well, why not wait and go down with Andy in the morning? He’s going down in charge of the cattle. The cattle-train starts about daylight. It won’t be so comfortable as the passenger; but you’ll save your fare, and you can give Andy a hand with the cattle. You’ve only got to have a look at ’em every other station, and poke up any that fall down in the trucks. You and Andy are mates, aren’t you?”
I said it would just suit me. Somehow I fancied that the Boss seemed anxious to have my company for one more evening, and, to tell the truth, I felt really sorry to part with him. I’d had to work as hard as any of the other chaps; but I liked him, and I believed he liked me. He’d struck me as a man who’d been quietened down by some heavy trouble, and I felt sorry for him without knowing what the trouble was.
“Come and have a drink, Boss,” I said. The agent had paid us off during the day.
He turned into a hotel with me.
“I don’t drink, Jack,” he said; “but I’ll take a glass with you.”
“I didn’t know you were a teetotaller, Boss,” I said. I had not been surprised at his keeping so strictly from the drink on the trip; but now that it was over it was a different thing.
“I’m not a teetotaller, Jack,” he said. “I can take a glass or leave it.” And he called for a long beer, and we drank “Here’s luck!” to each other.
“Well,” I said, “I wish I could take a glass or leave it.” And I meant it.
Then, the Boss spoke as I’d never heard him speak before. I thought for the moment that the one drink had affected him; but I understood before the night was over. He laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip like a man who has suddenly made up his mind to lend you five pounds. “Jack!” he said, “there’s worse things than drinking, and there’s worse things than heavy smoking. When a man who smokes gets such a load of trouble on him that he can find no comfort in his pipe, then it’s a heavy load. And when a man who drinks gets so deep into trouble that he can find no comfort in liquor, then it’s deep trouble. Take my tip for it, Jack.”
He broke off, and half turned away with
a jerk of his head, as if impatient with himself; then presently he spoke in his usual quiet tone:
“But you’re only a boy yet, Jack. Never mind me. I won’t ask you to take the second drink. You don’t want it; and, besides, I know the signs.”
He paused, leaning with both hands on the edge of the counter, and looking down between his arms at the floor. He stood that way thinking for a while; then he suddenly straightened up, like a man who’d made up his mind to do something.
“I want you to come along home with me, Jack,” he said; “we’ll fix you a shake-down.”
I forgot to tell you that he was married and lived in Bathurst.
“But won’t it put Mrs Head about?”
“Not at all. She’s expecting you. Come along; there’s nothing to see in Bathurst, and you’ll have plenty of knocking round in Sydney. Come on; we’ll just be in time for tea.”
He lived in a brick cottage on the outskirts of the town—an old-fashioned cottage, with ivy and climbing roses, like you see in some of those old settled districts. There was, I remember, the stump of a tree in front, covered with ivy till it looked like a giant’s club with the thick end up.
When we got to the house the Boss paused a minute with his hand on the gate. He’d been home a couple of days, having ridden in ahead of the bullocks.
“Jack,” he said, “I must tell you that Mrs Head had a great trouble at one time. We—we lost our two children. It does her good to talk to a stranger now and again—she’s always better afterwards; but there’s very few I care to bring. You—you needn’t notice anything strange. And agree with her, Jack. You know, Jack.”
“That’s all right, Boss,” I said. I’d knocked about the Bush too long, and run against too many strange characters and things, to be surprised at anything much.
The door opened, and he took a little woman in his arms. I saw by the light of a lamp in the room behind that the woman’s hair was grey, and I reckoned that he had his mother living with him. And—we do have odd thoughts at odd times in a flash—and I wondered how Mrs Head and her mother-in-law got on together. But the next minute I was in the room, and introduced to “My wife, Mrs Head”, and staring at her with both eyes.
It was his wife. I don’t think I can describe her. For the first minute or two, coming in out of the dark and before my eyes got used to the lamp-light, I had an impression as of a little old woman—one of those fresh-faced, well-preserved, little old ladies—who dressed young, wore false teeth, and aped the giddy girl. But this was because of Mrs Head’s impulsive welcome of me, and her grey hair. The hair was not so grey as I thought at first, seeing it with the lamp-light behind it: it was like dull-brown hair lightly dusted with flour. She wore it short, and it became her that way. There was something aristocratic about her face—her nose and chin—I fancied, and something that you couldn’t describe. She had big dark eyes—dark-brown, I thought, though they might have been hazel: they were a bit too big and bright for me, and now and again, when she got excited, the white showed all round the pupils—just a little, but a little was enough.
She seemed extra glad to see me. I thought at first that she was a bit of a gusher.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr Ellis,” she said, giving my hand a grip. “Walter—Mr Head—has been speaking to me about you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit down by the fire, Mr Ellis; tea will be ready presently. Don’t you find it a bit chilly?” She shivered. It was a bit chilly now at night on the Bathurst plains. The table was set for tea, and set rather in swell style. The cottage was too well furnished even for a lucky boss drover’s home; the furniture looked as if it had belonged to a tony homestead at one time. I felt a bit strange at first, sitting down to tea, and almost wished that I was having a comfortable tuck-in at a restaurant or in a pub dining-room. But she knew a lot about the Bush, and chatted away, and asked questions about the trip, and soon put me at my ease. You see, for the last year or two I’d taken my tucker in my hands—hunk of damper and meat and a clasp-knife mostly—sitting on my heel in the dust, or on a log or a tucker-box.
There was a hard, brown, wrinkled old woman that the Heads called “Auntie”. She waited at the table; but Mrs Head kept bustling round herself most of the time, helping us. Andy came in to tea.
Mrs Head bustled round like a girl of twenty instead of a woman of thirty-seven, as Andy afterwards told me she was. She had the figure and movements of a girl, and the impulsiveness and expression too—a womanly girl; but sometimes I fancied there was something very childish about her face and talk. After tea she and the Boss sat on one side of the fire and Andy and I on the other—Andy a little behind me at the corner of the table.
“Walter—Mr Head—tells me you’ve been out on the Lachlan River, Mr Ellis?” she said as soon as she’d settled down, and she leaned forward, as if eager to hear that I’d been there.
“Yes, Mrs Head. I’ve knocked round all about out there.”
She sat up straight, and put the tips of her fingers to the side of her forehead and knitted her brows. This was a trick she had—she often did it during the evening. And when she did that she seemed to forget what she’d said last.
She smoothed her forehead, and clasped her hands in her lap.
“Oh, I’m so glad to meet somebody from the back country, Mr Ellis,” she said. “Walter so seldom brings a stranger here, and I get tired of talking to the same people about the same things, and seeing the same faces. You don’t know what a relief it is, Mr Ellis, to see a new face and talk to a stranger.”
“I can quite understand that, Mrs Head,” I said. And so I could. I never stayed more than three months in one place if I could help it.
She looked into the fire and seemed to try to think. The Boss straightened up and stroked her head with his big sun-browned hand, and then put his arm round her shoulders. This brought her back.
“You know we had a station out on the Lachlan, Mr Ellis. Did Walter ever tell you about the time we lived there?”
“No,” I said, glancing at the Boss. “I know you had a station there; but, you know, the Boss doesn’t talk much.”
“Tell Jack, Maggie,” said the Boss; “I don’t mind.”
She smiled. “You know Walter, Mr Ellis,” she said. “You won’t mind him. He doesn’t like me to talk about the children; he thinks it upsets me, but that’s foolish: it always relieves me to talk to a stranger.” She leaned forward, eagerly it seemed, and went on quickly: “I’ve been wanting to tell you about the children ever since Walter spoke to me about you. I knew you would understand directly I saw your face. These town people don’t understand. I like to talk to a Bushman. You know we lost our children out on the station. The fairies, took them. Did Walter ever tell you about the fairies taking the children away?”
This was a facer. “I—I beg pardon,” I commenced, when Andy gave me a dig in the back. Then I saw it all.
“No, Mrs Head. The Boss didn’t tell me about that.”
“You surely know about the Bush Fairies, Mr Ellis,” she said, her big eyes fixed on my face—“the Bush Fairies that look after the little ones that are lost in the Bush, and take them away from the Bush if they are not found? You’ve surely heard of them, Mr Ellis? Most Bushmen have that I’ve spoken to. Maybe you’ve seen them? Andy there has.” Andy gave me another dig.
“Of course I’ve heard of them, Mrs Head,” I said; “but I can’t swear that I’ve seen one.”
“Andy has. Haven’t you, Andy?”
“Of course I have, Mrs Head. Didn’t I tell you all about it the last time we were home?”
“And didn’t you ever tell Mr Ellis, Andy?”
“Of course he did!” I said, coming to Andy’s rescue; “I remember it now. You told me that night we camped on the Bogan River, Andy.”
“Of course!” said Andy.
“Did he tell you about finding a lost child and the fairy with it?”
“Yes” said Andy; “I told him all about that.”
“And the fairy was
just going to take the child away when Andy found it, and when the fairy saw Andy she flew away.”
“Yes,” I said; “that’s what Andy told me.”
“And what did you say the fairy was like, Andy?” asked Mrs Head, fixing her eyes on his face.
“Like? It was like one of them angels you see in Bible pictures, Mrs Head,” said Andy promptly, sitting bolt upright, and keeping his big innocent grey eyes fixed on hers lest she might think he was telling lies. “It was just like the angel in that Christ-in-the-stable picture we had at home on the station—the right-hand one in blue.”
She smiled. You couldn’t call it an idiotic smile, nor the foolish smile you see sometimes in melancholy mad people. It was more of a happy childish smile.
“I was so foolish at first, and gave poor Walter and the doctors a lot of trouble,” she said. “Of course it never struck me, until afterwards, that the fairies had taken the children.”
She pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands to her forehead, and sat so for a while; then she roused herself again——