Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

  ‘It’s a grand life under the southern stars,’ said William. ‘I can’t imagine a better life. I keep thinking I should go home to old Ireland and see my family and my dear parents, except . . .’ He trailed off, not knowing why he should not go back, except something in him did not want to.

  ‘Except,’ said Danny, ‘the life there might catch and trap you. And once you’ve known life here, you wouldn’t exchange it for life there; even though the money might buy you security and comfort, the freedom of it here would be wanting.’

  The sound of voices and the knowledge of their party’s luck attracted friends and acquaintances from the surrounding tents, like cats coming in to the warmth. The first was Jimmy O’Brian, from a neighbouring tent.

  ‘The freedom of it? The freedom of it!’ Jimmy O’Brian said scornfully, rubbing his hands near the blaze. ‘The freedom of it, with them troopers out after us, with their rifles and their bayonets, in their fancy uniforms, and their poncy white gloves. The freedom of it, when half the damn police force is drunken scoundrels who would take a bribe and line their pockets and have less respect for the law than a digger has. Which is little enough considering the poor respect we get from the law.’

  ‘Aye,’ said a little Scot, similarly conjured up from the darkness. Like many Scots he was a dour sort of a man, but more cheerful with a drink in him, whereas often the Irish tended the other way round. ‘It’s fine now, we’re living our lives in this outdoor way, but in the end it’s the squatters what’s got the land, same as the lairds back in Scotland. Blessed are the poor in spirit, they say, and while I’m a religious man meself, I says there’s little else for the poor to be blessed in – in this life leastways.’

  ‘It feels somewhat different, having dug out nuggets today,’ said William. ‘I add them to my savings and I have an opportunity to rise in the world.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the Scottie. ‘To rise, to rise. ’Tis a wonderful thing to rise above others, to hold sway over others. And you say, William Irwin, that it won’t happen to you, but say you become rich enough to be a great merchant, or rich enough to be a great squatter . . .’ And here, everyone laughed, for the squatters were not only rich, but powerful, sitting on the council which advised Governor La Trobe. None of them could see young William Irwin having the gravitas of a councillor.

  ‘Aye, said the Scottie, ‘let’s make William Irwin a squatter. And imagine he’s rich, so rich that he has time to sit in council and frame the laws. And all his friends are squatters. And when it comes to taxing people, he’ll be thinking, it’s the working people should be taxed, as with the licence fee. That’s how you’d be thinking, young William.’

  William looked at his boots, which were drying close to the fire. He thought there was something in what the Scottie was saying. But here, at least, they could talk of things in a way they did not talk in Knockaleery.

  ‘The English Queen wants a slice of our wealth here,’ said Danny, ‘same as in Ireland, which was never an English nation at all.’

  William did not say anything, although the Protestants in Ireland were generally inclined to regard Ireland as belonging to the English Crown. This was a large difference between the mass path and the path to the Kildress church across Tattykeel. It was about allegiance, and about the respectability of the Protestants in Ulster, as opposed to the Catholics who felt their wrongs could only be remedied by the rough justice of burning fields and maiming cattle. At home, those things had seemed straightforward wrongs, but here he understood more of the Catholic side.

  ‘We need more liberty in Ireland,’ he said, ‘a great deal of it, but not at the expense of loyalty.’

  ‘Loyalty?’ said Danny Phelan. ‘I’m loyal enough to the dear young Queen, but the Crown oppresses us.’

  ‘We need democracy,’ said a young Hanoverian recently arrived in the colony and arrested on his first day for lack of a licence. ‘I thought that Britain was the freest nation in the world till I come to this country. Then I find the same petty tyranny under English law as any place in Hanover.’ They all agreed on that, for all the diggers felt ill used by the licence system.

  Jimmy O’Brian had some more fiery words about the oppression of the Irish by the English and there might have been arguments, except for the comfortable knowledge of the wealth they had come across that day. The argument was buried in drink and song, Jimmy O’Brian and Paddy Madden competing with each other on their fiddles, so the communality of the Irish was restored, with Danny Phelan hanging off William’s neck, swearing to their brotherhood in gold and all other matters, and ignoring questions of religion and allegiance.

  Very late, William set off to the Abbott’s tea room, where he now slept each night. He had invested some of his money with Abbott, for whom he organised supplies brought on the drays from Geelong, and also sometimes worked at the tea house. He made a fair profit, although he was casting round for a more substantial business into which he might sink his money.

  Tonight he had to go carefully across the field, it being a dark night, with some shafts badly marked. As he picked his way home, his mind wrestled with the natural rights of the diggers, one of which seemed to be dignity, which was not at present granted by the law. Another right would seem to be the right of a man to representation were he taxed, as the American colonists had fought for. But here in Victoria, the squatters had the seats in the Legislative Council and the ear of the governor. Such wealthy, established men despised the diggers and looked to the time when Jack would again be subservient to his master.

  William thought of his own father, and nearly missed his footing and went down a shaft in so doing. But his mind was burning with the question of the governance of this new land of which he felt himself part. His own father, Scotch in origin, although many generations past, like many Ulstermen, had a sense of the equality of men and the rights of man, and the Scots’ passionate belief in education. But there were many men to whom his good father had to defer. There was the minister at Kildress, Reverend Stewart, who felt himself to be a superior man. He demanded his parishioners take this view; otherwise, his discontent was passed along and its effects felt. Reverend Stewart spoke severely from the pulpit to his parishioners, many of whom had a degree of poverty which they nevertheless refused to accept as God’s will.

  William’s father had struggled for the money to educate his children, to send James to America and William to this country, and to pay their rent in lean years. It was not a lot of money, except for a poor man with eight children. To do this, his daddy had to keep on good terms with men such as McCrea, who lent money and could not imaginably be regarded as superior to the ordinary run of men. But he extracted his superiority along with the repayments of the loan.

  William arrived at the store, still pleasantly sozzled. ‘Oi! ’ennery!’ he called out to let Abbott know he was back. Henry Abbott and his wife had their dwelling tent pitched on one side of the store, while he slept in a small alcove on the other. This gave them some security, for the police did not care about robbers, since thieving from diggers and storemen was what they did themselves one way or another. William went into his alcove and lit his small oil lamp. His mind still racing, he poured himself a whisky from a small bottle he kept under the mattress and lay back on his bed.

  Images of his father and his deference and obedience to those unworthy men pained him. He understood how it happened in Ireland – because there was no defence against it. But he felt strongly that he did not want it here and now, or ever again in his own life. Status and rank did not matter here as at home. He knew this was no light thing, as the difference between himself and Michael in religion had been no light thing, but he wanted passionately never to be separated from others by matters of superiority and inferiority of that artificial nature.

  Impulsively, he got out his paper, his bottle of ink and his quill and thought he would try to write to his father and explain his thoughts, and maybe suggest that they might all join him in this new place. But after he had
written ‘To my dear Father and Mother and family all, I sends kind love and blessings . . .’ he was back so far into the old way of thinking that he saw that there would only be pain in this for his father. It was impossible for William to describe to his father the independence gold digging gave him without casting a slur on his father’s lack of it. He crossed out the beginning of the letter and then wrote the word ‘independence’.

  It was a fine word and he saw two ways of it. One was a simple material way, the making of money, so he would never be beholden to others. This involved making a sufficient sum to insure against want, not for ostentation or display, which he despised, but for standing and equality with others. He knew on the goldfield it was as easy to lose a fortune as to make one. He himself might lose one – only last week he’d lost on some goods that had tipped off a dray into the mud on the way from Geelong. But he always believed in his ability to recover and make another fortune, small or large. That was his security.

  He wrote that word – ‘security’ – and it looked to be another fine word. That, he realised, would require all his wit – the clever working of his claims, the understanding of deep shaft mining, the predicting of the leads, knowing or at least having some skill in guessing when to give up and when to go on with a shaft, or whether fifty or a hundred feet was bottom. In the long run, enterprise outside the diggings was essential. The agreement with Abbott was one thing, but it was learning what sold and what didn’t and knowing how to sell, for it was clear to him that he could even sell a mug of tea better than Abbott, who had a way of making others a little uncomfortable.

  This brought up another matter, which was his equality with his fellows. It came from the way he sold a mug of tea, his intimacy with his fellows, without those divisions that existed back in Ireland. He sang, he danced, he joked, he drank, and he listened to others. This listening had given him more understanding of the bitterness of the Catholic Irish against the English.

  He wrote ‘equality’ on his paper, for that was what he passionately felt, and then, under it, the word ‘democracy’, which was a political matter. It was a word often used on the field, but subject to much debate. He himself took it to mean that men had the right to live free lives, and not be oppressed by arbitrary laws as happened under the licence system.

  He finished his whisky and looked at his paper. ‘Independence, security, equality, democracy’. Those four words took care of all the turmoil in his head. The wick on the lamp was nearly burnt down, he had a shaft that was paying well and the next day was Sunday, which was the day that Bridget Byrne sometimes allowed him to walk her out after church.

  This had happened sometime after Michael’s death, when he had realised he must stop merely dreaming of Bridget. He had confided to Danny how he felt about her.

  ‘Everyone knows how you feel about Bridget Byrne,’ Danny said, ‘including Miss Bridget Byrne herself. But you must speak direct to the girl if you want her.’

  ‘Oh I want her,’ said William fervently.

  ‘I’d counsel you about wanting too much,’ said Danny. ‘You don’t want to be thinking of getting spliced. Better the happy life of an Irish bachelor. But I’ll make you a wager for an ounce of gold to go up there tomorrow and ask her out walking, instead of skulking round like a randy cur.’

  He had taken the wager and spoke to Bridget that day. ‘I was wondering . . . perhaps . . . if you would maybe walk out with me . . . on Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘Young Billy Irwin, fancy you asking me, you have some cheek,’ said Bridget. ‘You finally got your courage up? I need more wooing than your offer of a walk in the woods. I don’t think it an excellent offer at all. I can go walking in the woods with my sister any day of the week, especially a Sunday. And in truth, what could we see but a kangaroo or a sad native? You’ll need to entice me with something more exotic than woodland.’ She gave him his currant bun and dismissed him.

  But he persisted and discovered that Bridget did indeed like a walk in the woods. And tonight, as he did most nights, he fell asleep dreaming of the tight dark curls on her cheek and her sideways glances that nearly drove him out of his mind.

  * * *

  November 28th 1853

  Dear Son, I have none to depend on only John and Elisey and Mother. I am sorry to inform you Robert made a muck of his own choosing. He went and married Jane Cander in the poor house and let no-one know it but Joseph and Ellen. So My Dear Son, you may know the state that your dear Mother and I was in when we heard of it. I was much trubled but Mother was 10 times more trubled than me. Mother wood be fully satisfied to lay his body in Kildress graveyard as to do what he has done. So at the present date he is living on sufferance.

  Robert went all astray for 12 months before he made this unfortnut marriage. Mother and I blames Joseph and Elin for it. So Dear Son, just look at the greef that Robert has left your dear Mother and Elisey and I in at this date. Mother was not half as greaved when Ann Jane and Mary left us as to hear of Robert’s bad conduck, for 12 months before this unfortnute marriage took place. He wood be out to 12 or one a clock, one or 2 nights in the week.

  When the anger went off me, I told Robert he was welcom to stay with me and work as he formerley done. He was welcome, but as for her, she never wood be acknowledged by Mother or me or Elisey. As for John, he says nothing. Mother and I never had better helth than we had this season, but Robert’s transgreason sunk heavey on Mothers spiret, but 7 times more on my Spirets. To say he wood marry a poor sickley dying gerl.

  Robert done what Oncle Archy done and I have said in my heart for Robert to go and accompany Oncle Irwin forever in this woorld. Dear Son Willam, how can I forgive Robert’s transgresion? In the middle of our greivences your letter came and it much reveived Mother and I and Elisey and John.

  I will say no more about poor onfortunat Robert. I have wrote this letter with salt teares

  But I hope we will get over these thing yet. Well then Dear Son, your Mother bees minding us of your promise to her and that gives her great consolation.

  May the Sovreign of heaven and earth guide and gard you forever in this world.

  Joseph Irwin to his dear Son Willam Irwin

  * * *

  Eliza had never seen her parents so downcast. When Robert had come home and told them of his marriage to Jane Cander, there had been a terrible argument, with much shouting, which frightened Eliza, and John also. Father had never been an angry man, although he was a man of fixed opinions. He liked his family to share those opinions, but he had little ill temper about him.

  ‘Marriage is a very serious thing,’ Mother told Eliza at milking. ‘Father’s angry that Robert entered into marriage without thought for the family. Your father don’t have the money to give him a farm, which is how it should be when a man marries.’

  ‘I thought William sent an amount.’

  ‘I think Jane Cander knowed William sent an amount. Oh dear, I would have thought better of Jane Cander. She’s Eleanor’s cousin. Eleanor probably thought it would be a fine thing to have her in this family. Eleanor and Joseph, they should have told us what he was up to.’

  ‘But who would have stopped him?’

  ‘Jane Cander should have stopped him. She should have gone into the poor house and stayed there. Oh! The disgrace of it!’

  Father came in and stood at the door of the milking shed. ‘Oh Mother, oh Lizey. It feels terrible still.’

  ‘Did you talk to Mr Miller?’ asked Mother. ‘About buying that lease for his farm?’

  ‘I did,’ said Father, ‘and I got the farm. Your cousin Joseph Baxter, he was much huffed at me for taking it. And Catherine Baxter, she was double huffed, but I care not.’

  ‘Will you give it to Robert?’ asked Mother.

  Father stood silent for a while. ‘It would reward his bad conduct. In time I may let him have it, although it’s too small for a living. But as for her, I do not want her in my house.’ He said it fiercely and left them to the milking. Eliza thought it was clear that Fa
ther could give Robert a farm but he would not do so because he was angry. She finished milking, and walked down to the bog with Hercules.

  She loved the bog and the way it changed day to day, season to season, but now she wished she had somewhere else to go. For although it changed, it was still the same place, and that made it hard to think new things. Surely, Eliza thought, even though Jane Cander had been very wicked, she could not have been left in the poor house. It was a terrible place and a great disgrace. But it was Robert’s disgrace too. Jane’s mother would have told everyone it was Robert’s child she was carrying, and even if Robert had denied it, it would stick.

  And, she wondered, should it not stick? Was it not him too that was wicked to use a girl so, especially a girl with no father? And she wondered if Robert loved Jane and Jane loved Robert, for then it did not seem such a sin.

  Eliza herself wished Robert to be happy. She wished her sisters were here, and brothers James and William too, for in a large family more things happened, so that each one of them was not so great a thing, although there was no denying this was most shocking. With so many gone away, Knockaleery Farm was a poorer, harder place.

  William was less and less of a digger, often paying others five shillings a day to work his claim. He took great interest in the working of the shaft and where to shepherd the next claim and how deep to dig, but he could no longer devote himself to it solely. He did more business in his partnership with Abbott. He brought ice and strawberries to Ballarat, which were the fashion and made him a handsome profit – at least, those that did not spoil. He became a partner in various other shafts, providing cash for those that dug, and paying for the timber shoring, pumps and equipment, with all sharing the profit. Many men worked this way, so much that shares in the various shafts began to be bought and sold. But none of these activities were like the partnership with Michael. They had friendship in them, but in the first place they were about money. William wished very much that Father would send Robert to him, which he asked in every letter. He was not ready to go home – indeed, he felt very distant from home – although the six years he had promised his mother were almost up. But he missed all the family, especially Eliza and Robert. Eliza he could not ask to come, since he had no dwelling suitable for her, but he thought the life would suit Robert, and that he and Robert could work together as he and Michael had.