by Tom Collins
“Horrite.”
“You want to be as lively as God’ll let you,” said the excellent woman, accompanying me to my horse. “I won’t be satisfied till I see you off.”
Very well, thought I; on your own head be it. So I took off the linen coat, and handed it to her.
“You should ’a’ kep’ on a inside shirt,” she remarked kindly. “Them shoulders o’ yours’ll give you particular hell to-morrow. Why, you’re like a boiled crawfish now. Hides like that o’ yours,” she added, testing with her finger and thumb the integument on my near flank, as I hastily placed my bare foot in the stirrup, “ain’t worth a tinker’s dam for standin’ the sun.” (For the information of people whose education may unhappily have been neglected, it will be right to mention that the little morsel of chewed bread which a tin-smith of the old school places on his seam to check the inconvenient flow of the solder, is technically and appropriately termed a ‘tinker’s dam.’ It is the conceivable minimum of commercial value.)
The sun was still above the trees when I unsaddled Cleopatra at my camp, and resumed my clothes. The bullock-bells were ringing among the lignum, as the animals exerted themselves to make up for lost time.
“And how are we now?” said I, assuming a cheerful professional air, as I swung myself on the platform of the wagon. “I’ve secured a drop of one of our most valuable antiphlogistics, which is precisely what you require, as the trouble is distinctly arthrodynic. You’ll be right in a couple of days.”
“No, Collins,” replied Alf gently; “I’ll never be right—in the sense you mean. I won’t take any medicine. I’ve done with everything. Help me to turn over again, please, and give me another drink of water. I want to tell you something.”
After giving him a turn over, I took the billy and replenished it at the river. Before getting into the wagon again, I emptied the contents of Mrs. Vivian’s bottle into half a pannikin-full of the oxide of hydrogen, and stirred the potion thoroughly with a stick. Then returning to my patient, I raised his head, and held the pannikin to his lips. He finished the draught, unconscious of its medicinal virtues; and I refolded the old overcoat which served as a pillow, and laid him down as gently as possible.
“The water seems to have a peculiar taste,” he murmured. “I don’t notice my sight failing yet, but my hearing is all deranged. I hear your voice through a ringing of bells, and a sound like a distant waterfall. I’m just on the border-land, Collins. I’ve very little more to suffer; and why should I come back, to begin it all again? How long is it since you left me?”
“From four to five hours, I think. I put your bullocks together; they’re close by.”
“Well, now, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea whether it was one hour or twelve. I’ve been in the spirit-world since then, or a spirit has visited me here. I heard, plain and clear, the voice of a woman singing old familiar songs; and that voice has been silent in death for ten years—silent to me for three years before that. Thirteen years! That may not seem much to you; but what an age it seems to me! It was no dream, Collins; I saw everything as I see now, but I heard her glorious voice as I used to hear it in our happy days; and I felt that her spirit was bringing forgiveness at last. I’m not a religious man, Collins; I don’t know what will become of me after death; but God does, and that’s sufficient for me. I never believed on Him so devoutly as I do now that He has vindicated His justice upon me. I praise him for avenging an act of the blindest folly and heartlessness; and I thank Him that my punishment is over at last. There! Listen! No, it’s nothing. But it was a favourite song of hers; and while you were away I heard her sing it, with new meaning in every syllable. My poor love!”
“Alf, Alf,” I remonstrated; “compose yourself, and go to sleep if you can.” The tears of feebleness had accumulated in the hollows of his sunken eyes, and, not having the use of his hands, he was throwing his head from side to side to clear them away.
“Did you ever make a terrible mistake in life, Collins?” he asked, at length. Before I could reply, he resumed absently, “When I was a boy, away on the Queensland border, I knew a squatter—as fine a fellow as ever lived—and this man married some young lady in Sydney, and brought her to live on the station. A few months afterward, he came home unexpectedly at about two o’clock one morning, and found his place occupied by an intimate friend of his own—a young barrister, who was staying at the station as a guest. He managed to conceal his discovery; and, within the next few days, he got his friend to draw out a new will, by which he left everything, without reservation, to his wife. A day or two after completing the will, he took his gun and went out alone, turkey-shooting. He didn’t come home that night; and next day one of the station hands found him at a wire fence, shot straight through the heart. Accidentally, of course. But we knew better.”
“It might have been accidental, Alf,” I suggested. “There’s a lot of supposition in the story.”
“None, Collins. Before going out with his gun, he wrote a letter to my father, and sent it by a trustworthy blackfellow. My father got the letter about ten o’clock at night; and he had a horse run-in at once, and started off for the station through a raging thunderstorm, arriving next day only in time to see his friend’s body before it was moved to the house. My father was terribly cut-up about it. He was manager of an adjoining station at the time.
“Now let me tell you another true story,” pursued Alf dreamily. “Five years ago, I knew a man on the Maroo, a tank-sinker, with a wife and two children. The wife got soft on a young fellow at the camp; and everybody, except the husband, saw how things stood. Presently the husband began to circulate the report that he was going to New Zealand. In the meantime, he sent the two children to a boarding-school in Wagga. He was in no hurry. Afterward, he sold his plant to the station, and bade good-bye, in the most friendly way, to all hands, including the Don Juan. Then he started across the country to Wagga, alone with his wife, in a wagonette. Are you listening?”
“Attentively, Alf. But suppose I boil your billy, and”—
“Two years afterward, a flock was sold off the station I was speaking of, for Western Queensland; and one of the station men went with the drover’s party, to see the sheep delivered. Curious coincidence: he met on the new station his old acquaintance, the tank-sinker, with his two children and a second wife. The tank-sinker told him that his first wife had died soon after leaving the Maroo, and that he had changed his mind about going to New Zealand. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes; so far. You know the man you’re speaking of?”
“Slightly. I delivered goods to him once on the Maroo, and casually heard the scandal that was in the air. Well, the shearing came round on the Maroo just as the station man got back from Queensland; and while the adjoining station was mustering for the shed, a boundary man found, in the centre of one of the paddocks—in the loneliest, barrenest hole of a place in New South Wales—he found where a big fire had been made, and some bones burnt into white cinders and smashed small with a stick. He kicked the ashes over, and found the steel part of a woman’s stays, and the charred heel of a woman’s boot, and even a thimble and a few shillings that had probably been in her pocket. I was on the station at the time, waiting for wool, and saw the relics when the boundary man brought them in. There are queer things done when every man is a law unto himself.”
“Supposition, Alf; and strained supposition at that. But why should you trouble your mind about these things?”
“There was no supposition on the station where the things were found, nor on the station the tank-sinker had left, when they compared notes. The things were found three or four miles off a bit of a track that led to Wagga; and there was a pine of a year and a half old growing in the ashes. But we’ll pass that story. I want you to listen to another.”
“Some other time, Alf. I’ll make you a drink of tea, and”—
“When I was young,” continued Alf doggedly, “I was very intimate with an American, a man of high principle and fine educati
on. Best-informed man I ever knew. This poor fellow was a drunkard, occasional, but incorrigible. Misfortune had driven him to it. His wife was dead; his children had died in infancy; and at forty-five he was a hopeless wreck. He worked at my father’s farm on the Hawkesbury for two or three years, and died at our place when I was about twenty-five, immediately before I left home”—
“I don’t like to correct you, Alf,” I interposed; “but I understood you to say that your father was a station-manager, on the Queensland border.”
“Up to the time I was twenty-one or twenty-two. Then he bought a place on the Hawkesbury, intending, poor man! to spend the evening of his life indulging his hobby of chemistry, while I took the care of the place off his hands—for though I have two sisters, I was his only son. His great ambition was to bequeath some chemical discovery to future generations. But I demolished his castles in the air along with my own. It’s no odds about myself; but my poor father deserved better, after all his work and worry. Ah, my God! we parted in anger; and now I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead!” The prodigal paused, and sighed bitterly.
“And your mother?” I suggested experimentally.
“She was an invalid for several years before I left home,” replied Alf, his tone fulfilling my anticipation.
(Have you ever noticed that the prodigal son of real life, in nineteen cases out of twenty, speaks spontaneously and feelingly of his father, with, perhaps, a dash of reverent humour; whereas, to quote Menenius, he no more remembers his mother than an eight-year-old horse? This is cruel beyond measure, and unjust beyond comment; but, sad to say, it is true; and the platitudinous tract-liar, for the sake of verisimilitude, as well as of novelty, should make a memo, of it. Amongst all the hard-cases of my acquaintance, I can only think of one whose mother’s unseen presence is a power, and her memory a holy beacon, shining, by-the-way, with a decidedly intermittent light. Unfortunately, a glance along the three 9ths yet to come shows me that this nobly spurious type of prodigal—Jack the Shellback, vassal of Runnymede Station—will not come within the scope of these memoirs.)
Alf dreamily resumed his inconsequent story: “However, this Charley Cross, or Yankee Charley, was an old Victorian digger. About twelve years before his death, he was working on Inglewood, with a mate that he would have trusted, and did trust, to any extent, and in any way. But it was the old, old story. He got a friendly hint, and watched, and watched, for weeks, without betraying any suspicion. At last he was satisfied. Then he carefully laid down his line of action, and followed it to the end. One day, his mate, sitting on the edge of the shaft, ready to put his foot in the rope, suddenly overbalanced, and went down head-foremost. Of course, Cross was close beside him at the time, and no one else was in sight. Cross gave the alarm, and, in the meantime, went hand-under-hand down the rope, intending, like Bruce, to ‘mak sicker’; for the shaft was only about forty feet deep. But it happened that the man’s neck was broken in the fall. Cross forgave his wife, and never breathed a word of his discovery or his vengeance; but in spite of this, the woman seemed to live in fear and horror. During the next couple of years, luck favoured him, and he made an independence. He invested his money judiciously; but there’s no guarantee for domestic happiness—in fact, there’s no guarantee for anything. First, his two surviving children died of diphtheria; then his wife followed, dying, Cross assured me, of a broken heart. He sorrowed for her more deeply, perhaps, because she had cost him so dear; and this, no doubt, was what drove him to drink.”
“Very probably,” I replied. “But, Alf, this taxing of your mind is about as good for you just now as footballing or boxing. Are you a smoker?”
“No.”
“That’s what I feared. Now, take my advice, and give yourself absolute rest, while I boil”—
“One more story, Collins, as well authenticated as any of the three I have told. I knew a young fellow of between twenty-five and thirty”—
“This won’t do,” I interposed firmly, for he had become restless and excited. “Why should you allow your mind to dwell so exclusively on the manifestations of one particular phase of moral aberration, and, to do bare justice to womanhood, an exceedingly rare one—except among the very highest and the very lowest classes? Unless you handle such questions in a scientific spirit, you’ll find them—or unfortunately, you won’t find them—envelop your reasoning faculties in a most unwholesome atmosphere. The perpetual brooding over any one evil, however fatal that evil may be, naturally side-blinds the mind into a narrow fanaticism which is apt to condone ten times as much wrong as it condemns; and you drift into the position of the man who strains at the moderate drinker, and swallows the usurer. We see this in the Good Templar, the Social Purity person, the Trades Unionist, and the moral faddist generally. Musonius Rufus sternly reminded Epictetus that there were other crimes besides setting the Capitol on fire.”
“Have you done?” asked Alf, coldly but gently. “Let me tell you one more story while I’m able. I’ll soon be silent enough.— The man I’m thinking of was a saw-mill owner. He had been married a couple of years, and had one child. I couldn’t say that he actually loved his wife; in fact, she wasn’t a woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking. At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant, and vain, and utterly unprincipled—no, not exactly unprincipled, but non-principled. She was essentially low—if you understand my meaning—low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes, low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have been what is called a bad woman, but—that miserable want of self-reverence—I can’t understand how—Would you give me another drink, please?”
He drank very little this time. He had been speaking with an effort, and a haggard, hopeless look was intensifying in his face. I began to suspect a temporary delirium. The presentiment of impending death was unreasonable, though not ominous; so also with the determination to narrate irrelevant stories; but the incongruity of the two associated notions set me speculating in a sympathetic way.
“Alf,” said I gravely; “it’s foolish to tax your memory for anecdotes now. Try if you can settle yourself to sleep. I’m sure I’ll have great pleasure in exchanging yarns with you at some future time, when you’re more fit.”
“Listen, Collins,” he replied sullenly. “Our saw-mill owner got the inevitable glimpse of the truth. He was blind before; now he was incredulous. He condescended to play the spy, and he was soon satisfied. This time it was a Government official—clerk of the local Court—a blackleg vagabond, with interest at head-quarters—about the vilest rat, and certainly the vilest-looking rat, that ever breathed the breath of life. Our hero took no further notice of him than to terrify him into confession, and drive him into laying the blame on his paramour. And the amusing feature of the case was, that she, finding herself fairly run to earth, thought she had nothing to do but to turn from the evil of her ways, and take her husband’s part against the other fellow. But no, no. Our hero, after thinking the matter over, took her into his confidence, without giving her any voice in the new arrangement. He sold-out to the best advantage, and divided the proceeds with her; reserving to himself enough to start him in a line of life that he could follow without the annoyance of being associated with anyone. All that he earned afterward, beyond bare expenses, he forwarded to her, to save or squander as she pleased; the only condition being that she should acknowledge each remittance, and answer, as briefly as possible, such questions as he chose to ask. She humbly assented to all this, evidently looking forward to forgiveness and reconciliation, somewhere in time or eternity. But, by God! she mistook her mark!” He laughed harshly, paused half-a-minute, and resumed,
“One restraint upon our hero was the thought of his little boy, only old enough to creep about, and incredibly fond of him; though this never softened him towards the worthless, cursed mother. Anyway, after about three years, the little boy died; and his heart was turned to stone. Still, through mere bitterness and
obstinacy he followed the course he had adopted; meeting with a run of success that surprised himself. The very curse that was on him seemed to protect him from the mishaps that befell other men in his line of work; and he found life worth living for the sake of hating and despising the whole human race, including himself. There’s no pleasure like the pleasure of being a devil, when you feel yourself master of the situation, and—Now I’ve done, Collins.”
“That’s right. I’ve been thinking how to fix things for you till you’re able to”—
“First, I have one question to ask you,” persisted Alf. “You notice that all these men acted differently. Which of them acted right?—or did any of them? You know, there are two other courses open: to appeal to the law, or to pass the matter over quietly, for fear of scandal. Is either of these right? One course must be right, and all the others must be wrong.”
By this time, I had made up my mind to humour him. “Well,” I replied; “it happens that I have given the subject some thought, as I intend, if I can find time, to write a few words on the varied manifestations of jealousy in the so-called Shakespear Plays. You’re familiar with the plays, of course?”
“I’ve read bits of them.”
“Possibly you remember, then, that Posthumus, in Cymbeline, on receiving proofs of his wife’s infidelity (we know her to be loyal, but that doesn’t affect his proofs) harbours not one thought of revenge toward the man who has supplanted him. Indeed, as an artistic illustration of Iachimo’s immunity from retribution, Posthumus is afterward represented as disarming and sparing him in battle—a concession he wouldn’t have made to an ordinary enemy. He looks to Imogen alone. Nothing but the sacrifice of her life will satisfy him. On the eve of the same battle, we find him, though seeking for death himself, still gloating over the handkerchief supposed to be stained with her life-blood. Very well. Now Troilus, in Troilus and Cressida, is a man very much resembling Posthumus in temperament—brave, resolute, truthful, unsuspicious, and more liberally endowed with muscle than brains”—