The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  And well I know it, for when I was at home with her in London, she used to tire me with running to meetings every night in the week.

  Parental roles reversed, this was Sarah’s own experience in childhood. She smiled.

  But to tell you truth, at that time I was too young to know much of God.

  And this, too – her smile quite disappeared.

  But I tell you, every time I went with her to meeting the old woman gave me a ha’penny. So you see, I used to go after her for the sake of the ha’penny. And praise be for it! For through the drunkenness of my father, she could not pay for schooling, so I could neither read nor write. But she used to tell me that if I minded what them good men said, it would be better than all the reading and writing on Earth. So it’s true, for many a man that can read and write, when you come to discourse with him, you will find he knows nothing of Christ Jesus.

  ‘Amen!’ said Sarah.

  She looked a little startled with herself. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, before continuing.

  It was almost night, and we were nigh the road that leads to the River Oxbury, and those poor wretches so closely pursued our lives, that if they were on the road they would hear us. Then we all three should have lost our lives.

  – O Farr, said I, I was born to live and not to die, so night and day I to God for mercy cry.

  At those words we entered the road, where we travelled all that night in silence. About the hour of ten o’clock the next morning we arrived at the Oxbury amongst the settlers. When Farr discovered two men with whom he was well acquainted, we all three went into their barn loft for a short time, when Mark Dammers came to us and told us that we could not stay there, for that he expected the police officers and soldiers, who was seeking our lives night and day. This man was one of Farr’s friends. Robert Hobbes was the other. While Dammers was talking to us, Hobbes came and called Farr and Meredith.

  They went into the dwelling house of Hobbes and held council how they should leave me.

  In a few minutes after, Dammers came and called me in a violent hurry. Farr and Meredith were with him. He told us we had not a moment to stop, for that the enemy was on the adjacent farm. But he only said this to frighten me. He told us to follow him, and he show us a place where we should be safe from our enemies. We all left the house and went into the woods. Farr had with him a large cake and a piece of meat, which Hobbes his friend had given him. He gave me the bread and meat to carry, because he knew he was going to leave me.

  Sarah thought she heard Brippoki utter a curious little noise, but, purposeful, she pressed on.

  As soon as we had left sight of the house, Farr and Meredith stopped behind, as I thought to ease themselves. Dammers went with me to the side of a large lagoon, where we sat down. But after a time Dammers went back, to see, he said, what was become of them.

  I now was left by myself.

  Here grief swayed me down to excess. Nay, as I thought, my very soul was melting. But the floods of tears that flowed from my eyes soon gave ease to my grief, and I, after a solemn praying, rose.

  Necessarily, Sarah took a breath.

  My prayer was as follows:

  – Merciful God, look down from Heaven, and have mercy and compassion on me, a poor wretched sinner, and conduct me what either I shall go or what I shall do. For behold, I have now fulfilled my mother’s saying to me in her wrath – that I should wander night and day like a pilgrim in the wilderness, seeking refuge and should find none.

  Sarah marked Brippoki’s own sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘his mother’s curse has become his truth.’

  – But O, grant me the later prayer of my mother in her calm, for well I remember both that prayer in the wrath, and that prayer in her calm. Behold her later prayer, most merciful God:

  – O most merciful Redeemer of all the world, I pray and beseech thee that all of my family who are shut up in darkness by sin may by the light of Thy blessed spirit find their relief. I also am informed by the planet of my dear son Joseph that he is to live and suffer for all the sins of this family.

  There.

  Sarah glanced up. Brippoki had been rocking back and forth, as if in contemplation of the prayers; he did not especially react to the different name.

  She persevered.

  – Come Blessed Jesus, come and take this child of mine into Thy charge, and convert him for Thy Heavenly use, O Lord, that his soul may become in Thy sight like a spark that flieth from a fire and kindleth the whole house.

  – I further implore You, tell me what is this that I see in the countenance of my dear child. Is it persecution or Glory? O Holy Jesus, permit me to say the latter.

  – Goodbye, my dear Joseph.

  Sarah stopped to deliver what she hoped was a significant look.

  – I shall not come to you any more, but may God send His messenger to you to abide with you forever, and help you through all your troubles of this life that is before you. For you have got a most wonderful high mountain to climb. And if ever you are cast away in the wilderness, do my dear Joseph call on the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, and put all your faith and hope in Him. And now you see, my dear, I can’t stop any longer with you, so goodbye. But may the Grace of Christ, and the blessing of God Almighty, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you for ever and ever, amen.

  ‘Amen,’ Brippoki said again.

  ‘Amen, indeed!’ Sarah snapped. ‘Don’t you hear what has happened?’

  She stared into his patient face, before casting her head down a moment to cool off.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she murmured. Without her intending it, Sarah’s voice had been raised with all of the fervent preaching, and with it her temper. She looked up, and carefully measured her words.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘to his name. George, George Bruce. In her prayers his mother is calling him Joseph!’

  Stumbling across the discrepancy in the library that afternoon, she had at first been unsure who spoke: who, and about what to whom. But then came the second and third repetition of the same name.

  ‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph,’ she said. ‘Three times, in his mother’s prayer.’

  It had never occurred to her that he might have changed his name, but of course, in light of his criminal record, it made every sense that he should.

  ‘You don’t think it odd?’ she said.

  Brippoki appeared to think about it, yet still said nothing.

  Sarah tried and failed to mask her disappointment: this was not the reaction she had hoped for.

  ‘I find it odd,’ she declared. She shuffled her papers. Did she want for his attention? She had made a deliberate effort to cut the most repetitive ‘pritching’, without losing entirely its delirious aspect. Had it been too heavy going, even so?

  ‘You believe in God,’ she said.

  Brippoki considered. Patiently she waited him out.

  ‘The Truth,’ he said at last, ‘is the Way. It is life.’

  As good a way of putting it as any she had heard – but not enough.

  ‘You speak of truth, when I asked you about God,’ she said. ‘The Christian God.’

  Brippoki took up the challenge. ‘Me believe…’ he said. ‘Me believe in the land of your God. Here, God hold the most power.’

  The gift, certainly, was not refused, but was not necessarily accepted.

  ‘And you pray…’ she said.

  ‘Lawrence often say this to us. “Boys,” him say, “we must pray to God to forgive us.” We must pray to God to forgive us all them wicked things and mischief that we done.’

  ‘Lawrence?’

  ‘Our captain.’

  She recalled him. ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘All day…’ continued Brippoki, ‘all day I try to think about good things. We must not do those things that are wicked. They are wicked. We must pray to the Almighty Father, try to please ’im.’

  Sarah approved.

  ‘Almighty God, if it please him,’ Brippoki said, ‘then he will
be good to me.’ Raising his hand a moment, he corrected his previous remark. ‘Whatever him do to me, it must be good.’

  Sarah found no fault in him at all.

  ‘I shall continue,’ she said. ‘Bruce returns to his story…’

  I have not repeated this prayer with ambitious thoughts, but by bearing those prayers in my heart to this day, I am in hope to obtain Thy powerful pardon from death and Hell. If I lay down in these woods I shall be dispersed from this stage of life by snakes or adders. And if I go forward, man-tigers will devour my flesh and drink my blood. O sweet Jesus Christ, have mercy on my never dying soul. O come my blessed Saviour, and lead me through these woods, for without your assistance this day, I perish.

  Brippoki stirred in his seat, excited by mention of man-tigers. Sarah settled back.

  Saying those words, I looked up to Heaven, and saw one of the most beautifullest sights that ever mortal eyes beheld. It was an enormous body of geese. The number of them was six or seven thousand. It is a most wonderful thing, for such a sight was never before that day seen in all the great South Seas, nor has it been seen since.

  I stood confounded, with my eyes fixed on the object. The flock descended so low that I perfectly beheld them in their elegance. They were perfectly white as snow. They entered the east side of the lagoon where I stood. The circumference of this body of water was about three miles, out of which these beautiful creatures covered one. Without moving a feather on wing they went their circuit three times round the lagoon, distant from the water about 90 feet. Yea, my dear brothers and sisters, this sight appeared to me as if Jehovah had made a string fast to each of those beautiful creatures and was playing with them out of the window of Heaven. The powerful sun was in his full lustre of the day, and pressed with all its might on the down of those beautiful creatures. The reflection of them dazzled my sight. I could no longer look up.

  But with my face towards the ground, swift as lightning my wondering thoughts run round. My heart with grief was arkless bound, and my wretched soul with fear was almost drowned.

  Brippoki whimpered quietly to himself.

  But while I confounded stood, a whispering voice to me did say:

  – O wicked sinner do not despair, lift up thy head and behold the road thou art to take this day, for the Great Redeemer has heard thy cry, and sent thee word thou shall not die.

  With those thoughts of inexpressible joy, I again looked towards the amenable birds, when with astonishment I see them all of a cluster, and as straight as a line they followed one another so that before the last took his station I positively lost sight of the first.

  I set out through the woods in the same direction as nigh as I possibly could steer. For I said in my heart that God had surely sent them on purpose, to show me what road I should go. So it was true, for by going after them I saved my life.

  Sarah closed her notebook.

  ‘“Mine eyes have seen the glory!”’ she exclaimed, a trifle ironic. ‘Who would have thought.’

  She drained her cup, and then looked at Brippoki.

  ‘Revelation,’ she said, ‘upon revelation.’

  He did not respond. Sarah elected to be more explicit.

  ‘George Bruce is, in all probability, an alias,’ she said. ‘Not his real name.’

  Who, then, was he really? Joseph…? Joseph who?

  Sarah found it hard to credit: that Brippoki could appear so blithe and accepting of this latest turn of events.

  He should be dying to know.

  Brippoki, who was Bripumyarrimin, who was King Cole.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  Saturday the 6th of June, 1868

  GETTING AND SPENDING

  ‘A living body is of necessity an organised one – and what is organisation, but the connection of parts to a whole, so that each part is at once end and means.’

  ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Literary Remains

  ‘…spirit and body together, one single flower in bloom.’

  ~ Johann Herder

  Sarah parted the curtains. Another warm and bright start to the day; sunlight filled the room. The sudden contrast was too much. She tugged on the drapes, closing the breach a little.

  ‘I heard you,’ croaked Lambert, ‘in the night. Saying your prayers?’

  Sarah took a moment to find her answer.

  ‘Father,’ she said, ‘you know I always say my prayers.’

  Rather than depart immediately for the Reading-room, she had decided to spend her morning at home, with Lambert. She had neglected him overmuch the last few days, and companionship must form a certain portion of his care.

  Turning to where he lay in the bed, Sarah squinted. A streak of sunlight fell across the pages of a book, open on his bedside table; dazzled, she frowned, and closed it up.

  She made him a present of The Illustrated London News, ‘hot off the press’.

  ‘Is it Saturday?’ he said. ‘I had thought it would never come!’

  Lambert struggled to sit higher on the bank of pillows. These Sarah rearranged and freshened until he arrived at a more comfortable posture.

  He did not take up the newspaper.

  He said, ‘Would you read to me, my darling? The print has become too small for these ancient eyes of mine.’

  ‘It is the same size as it ever was,’ she said. ‘You wear out your eyes by reading through the middle of the night!’

  ‘My mind must be occupied somehow,’ sulked Lambert. ‘My sleep is often disturbed. I am too restless.’ Sudden antagonism made him raise his voice, distorting it unduly. ‘I lie in this damned bed all day long!’ he gargled. ‘Is it any wonder that I cannot sleep at night?’

  ‘Hush,’ said Sarah. ‘Let us not argue. I will read to you. There was never any doubt that I would.’

  She hoped her voice, more well used this last week than it had ever been, would hold out.

  ‘The National Sports if you please,’ said Lambert. ‘The noblest of all pursuits.’

  He meant the cricket.

  ‘If you please,’ said Sarah. ‘…I have it.’

  ‘Well, then!’

  She chose a report on the Australian Eleven.

  ‘“Mullagh”,’ she read, ‘“seems to be the ‘all round’ strength of the Aboriginal cricket team, as Cuzens, the bowler, did not take a wicket in the first innings with the gentlemen of Kent. None of them seem to like the Surrey slows; but, with the exception of a little lack of dash, Mullagh is a rare batsman. ‘They catch,’ so an able critic observes, ‘a ball at long field by a snatch as it passes them, throw in and long stop well, and keep wicket by making one man into very near short slip and wicket-keeper as well.’”

  ‘Hm,’ she joked, ‘how’s that?’

  Despite the many hours Lambert had spent impressing on her the finer points of the gentlemanly game, it was all Greek. All the same, Sarah felt gratified to learn something of the progress of Brippoki’s team. She pondered the logistics of his recent appearances, and their frequent matches; surely even a man of his talents couldn’t be in two places at once.

  Lambert sucked at his teeth. ‘This weekend’s match is at Deer Park, versus Richmond, is it not?’ he said. ‘I dare say their quality will be decided.’

  The morning light, combined with his enthusing, smoothed the creases from his habitually stormy features. He looked almost a boy again; that same boy clasping bat and ball alongside his sisters Emily and Fanny in their formal portrait, sketched so long ago – sepia over charcoal, with red chalk on their faces.

  Sarah suddenly wished to divulge her secret.

  Her great fear, however, was for Lambert to decree that she should never see Brippoki again. Awareness of his expressed views regarding Abyssinians and such overtook her inchoate impetuousness; the same black contempt would surely be extendable to an Aboriginal native, or anyone who chose to associate with them.

  ‘…Grace…’

  A stirring from Lambert saved her nausea from curdling.

  ‘You said “grace”?’ she asked.
Was he still thinking of the cricket?

  ‘Those,’ he said, ‘blessed with a natural gift must use it well.’

  ‘By that you mean…?’

  Lambert turned his head to stare at her, owl-like.

  ‘By that I mean the Black Cricketers, yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  He gave the concept some further thought.

  ‘But not exclusively,’ he said. ‘As grace is Nature’s gift, so is a natural gift a Grace…God-given.’

  The milky veil previously cloaking his gaze had been abruptly yanked aside. He regarded her, unblinking, with alarming clarity.

  ‘I speak of physical Grace,’ he said. ‘There is but one true Temple in the World, and that is the Body of Man.’

  Lambert gathered his energies, raising himself higher in the bed.

  ‘The Soul – ungh – placed in the Body,’ he said, ‘is like a black diamond…the edges need sharpening in order to shine. It is the duty of every good Christian to make best use of the faculties, both mental and physical, that God has given him. Put them…to good purpose, and improve on them, if he can. Spiritus Sanctus, corpus Christi, mind and body in perfect harmony. Good health…to the greater glory of God.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Sarah.

  She didn’t entirely agree, but found agreement generally easiest.

  ‘Men glorify God with their body, as in their spirit,’ he continued, ‘for matter and spirit are one…natural reflections of each other. This is as clear to me…as to one who gazes into a rock-pool, and sees the heavens, opened.’

  His wonderful voice had begun to break apart. Lambert inclined his head a little, and looked away.

  ‘Or is it,’ he said, sounding bitter, ‘that your soul makes the body, as the snail its shell?’