The Butcher Shop

by Jean Devanny

  Messenger met him bringing them in with the aid of two cowboys. The beasts, two hundred huge steers with terribly sharp long horns, were at the time of meeting being herded through a gate from one paddock to another—a difficult task, as the animals were wild ordinarily, and then very much excited by the drive. They careered madly up and down the fences, anywhere and everywhere except through the gate. The drovers’ whips cracked unceasingly, the dogs raced and leapt, their incessant barking sometimes changing to yelps of pain or fear as a steer kicked out or charged one with lowered head and snorting breath. The scene was really brilliant. The gay colours of the beasts painted the still green early summer grasses vividly, and Messenger halted a while on the summit of a small hill to admire.

  The element of danger was never lacking in these drives. The steers, never approached by man except on these occasions, were more dangerous by far than bulls. They were more alert, more swift and more persistent in attack when aroused.

  Messenger cantered down after a while to lend a hand. There was neither time nor inclination for more than a shouted perfunctory greeting. For half an hour the four men worked to get the steers through the gate, and then Messenger rode up to his manager and shook hands. “Fat stock,” he remarked. “Who wants them?”

  Glengarry mentioned the name of a well-known buyer. “He will be in early to-morrow with his men.”

  Messenger nodded. “Good. Fine lot, ay? Good pasture out there. I expect to have a hundred ‘stores’ arrive any day. Plenty of room out there for them?”

  “Yes.”

  They talked whenever possible all the way in, and when they had the cattle safely in the pens they went to the men’s bathroom together.

  Stripped, they were strikingly alike, though the Scotsman was built on a much bigger scale than the other. Each noted the resemblance, but without remark.

  Despite himself, Glengarry liked the other. The first chilly restraint began to wear off, and he responded in kind to Barry’s quiet geniality. “Funny beggar, right enough,” thought the latter, “but decent.”

  As they bathed they could hear the swift whack! whack! of an axe in the vicinity. They knew that Jimmy was taking his usual Sunday morning practice in the wood-yard, and hurried to get out. For Jimmy’s practice, always interesting, had become much more so lately on account of a rival in the camp. Of course the Maori was not now the axeman he had been. He had had perforce to relinquish the local championship some years before, but he was still good, and the rivalry between him and a professional bushman recently engaged by Messenger to clear off one of his large copses was provocative of much interest.

  All the station hands were assembled around the blocks of white pine Tutaki always kept in the yard for practice when Messenger and Glengarry walked out. Tutaki and the other man, named Billings, were stripped in readiness for a competitive cut through a two-foot log, and interest was running high, as each was considered to have an even-money chance. The Maori was an ex-champion, and Billings, only a youngster as yet, was regarded as a coming man in the district. The two looked fit as fiddles. The brown man’s body skin shone like burnished bronze, being several shades lighter than his face and arms, and Billings was the typical bushman, brawny, with the inevitable stooped shoulders.

  Messenger stood by smilingly. “What do you think, Glengarry?” he asked. “Will you take a bet?”

  “I’ll put a quid on Billings,” Glengarry answered shortly.

  Tutaki heard him and compressed his lips.

  “Done,” said Messenger.

  The competitors took their places beside their respective blocks. The Maori held the axe Barry had given him; Billings carried his ordinary bush axe; both were like razors at the edge. “Ready?” asked the timekeeper. Billings lifted his axe and swung it; Tutaki planted his feet in the right position.

  “Go!” came the command, and the first two impacts sounded as one. The axe heads were almost buried in the pine. Another blow and the first two great chips flew out. Tutaki chopped quickly; Billings slower, but with more weight. Excitement grew in leaps and bounds. The shouts of the partisans brought Margaret, the children, and the housemaids running from the house. An amazing yell arose when Jimmy turned on his block a second before Billings. A few blows more and the tops of both blocks trembled. Only the bushman’s country knows the delicious excitement of those last two blows. The trembling top piece, the two slanting, accurate scarps divided by only one blow. Both axes flashed in the sunlight together, each man straining every nerve to make the blow the last, and then up rose a glorious shout as both tops flew off simultaneously.

  The laughter, the congratulations, the satisfaction all round because no one had lost anything, anyhow! Food for conversation the whole ensuing week. Nothing else would be talked of. The result next Sunday might be anything, as both choppers would be on their mettle. On the whole Billings would be favoured as he was a “coming” man. Tutaki was an “old-timer.”

  The latter put on his singlet and went off to dress properly for dinner. Margaret walked inside with Barry and Glengarry. The sport had excited her. “What do you think, Barry? Will Billings defeat Jimmy?”

  “Probably. Most probably. Jimmy can’t last for ever.”

  “What a shame! But Jimmy won’t mind. He’s a good sport.” She chattered on, entirely at her ease with the two men.

  Not so Glengarry. As soon as she had appeared gloom had settled upon him. His thoughts became sombre and jealousy-ridden. Self-accusation did no good. All very well to tell himself that he was a fool, unreasonable, that her manifest affection for Messenger was right and natural, that the situation would have been impossible otherwise than with such a woman; all very well, but— Her charming demeanour in conversation with her husband, her evident interest in his remarks, roused a fury in him. The same attitude displayed by her towards Tutaki had made him inarticulately furious at times, but towards her husband it was worse. He knew Jimmy’s niche in her regard; such times were the closest intimacies Jimmy enjoyed with her, but the husband— Such attention and deference given to him in public made Glengarry think of the closer intimacies of privacy. Her sweetness before others would not turn to sourness in privacy. He knew her honesty too well. Her attitude towards Messenger was her attitude; it was no pretence.

  Seeing straight in one direction, though, he saw crooked in another. At least, he saw narrowly, through the eyes of his jealousy, instead of broadly through the eyes of his common sense. For Margaret’s manner towards Barry was her usual manner towards all she liked; it was the same towards him and his mother and the children and Jimmy. The real trouble lay, not in her manner, but in his inferiority to Messenger. It was not the kind of attention she paid to Messenger, but the amount of attention.

  She, Barry and Tutaki were intellectuals, bound together not only by affection and long-standing comradeship, but also by the ties of intellectual affinity.

  Messenger, it will be remembered, had not been a wide or very devoted reader at the time of his marriage, but his love for Margaret had induced him to enter as far as possible into every cranny of her life and interests, and he had cultivated the reading habit. Margaret had been astounded by the keenness of mind he had developed; her frills and furbelows of shallow, flashy intellectuality were shoddy and paltry, she was big enough to realise and acknowledge, beside his substantial, clean-cut, analytical reason. She had never ceased to argue the point with him. Usually it was she and Tutaki against Barry, but almost invariably the latter’s reason triumphed. Consequently Margaret, the soul of honour and fairness, had formed an opinion of her husband’s faculties which amounted almost to a belief in their infallibility. For almost a decade the dinner-table had been the field of their intellectual battles. During Messenger’s previous absences from home Margaret had missed him inexpressibly from the dinner-table. This last time her love had supplied the want, but when he was again seated opposite her at the Sunday dinner-table, with the Maori’s happy face and eager tongue waiting to commence hostilities, she f
ell instinctively, without a thought, into the old custom.

  She was witty. She scintillated, showing off before Glengarry, not dreaming of the nature of his reaction to her efforts, not dreaming, in her simplicity, that she was at the same time showing up her lover’s inferiority to her husband.

  Glengarry was not intellectual; he was not well read; he did not like books or bookish people as a rule; he had recognised Margaret’s superiority and taken her unconscious thrusting of it upon him as something in the nature of queenly prerogative; but to find his rival on her level, to sit by inarticulate and watch and listen to their equality made manifest, it was vastly different. He could with difficulty maintain the appearance the situation demanded. He was furious with her. He hated her. He wanted to make her suffer as she was making him. He became the sport of his jealousy to the extent of thinking that she was deliberately playing him out. She was trying to make him jealous.

  Immediately the meal was over he excused himself and went on to the lawn to smoke. Margaret felt a slight twinge of compunction. His face looked so cold and hard. She had been enjoying herself with the intellectual give and take; she had been “showing off,” she knew; her wits had been stimulated by her lover’s presence; but he— She gathered the truth with a thrill of real horror. She had been selfish, worse than selfish—cruel. He had been excluded from the circle. But then, how otherwise? How unfortunate that Glen was not at all intellectual. (With more reason she might have considered their love the regrettable circumstance.) What was she to do? Cut out the meal-time argumentation—their mental pabulum for so long? That would not be fair to Barry and Jimmy. No, the household habits could not be upset or forsaken in that way. She would not be able to give sufficient reason. Both Barry and Jimmy knew perfectly well how she enjoyed the discussions. Glen would have to learn toleration of the situation, that was all, or else educate himself in the way Barry had done. If he loved her, he should be prepared to raise himself to her standard as Barry had done. He was capable of it; he was intelligent; he possessed no mean ability. She would have to talk about the matter to him. First opportunity she got she would do so.

  The opportunity came sooner than she expected. Soon after dinner Barry said to his friend: “Well, Jimmy, we’ll run over to the Chief’s for a while, if you don’t mind. I want to settle up over the shearing.”

  “All right. Better take Glengarry, ay?”

  Margaret felt a little annoyance. Jimmy was really getting a little officious.

  “Oh, no. We needn’t bother him.” He stood reflecting for a while and then added: “I discussed that new grade of wool with him this morning, and his opinion was rather pertinent. I want to discuss it with the Chief alone.” Another reflective pause, then he turned more to his wife: “Glengarry advises me to get rid of all my pure Romneys; says the country is too poor for the heavy breed. I’ll see what the Chief says about that. I must say I have thought so myself. It is a pity the Southdown-Romney cross is so light of wool. If we could get the weight with the quality of the cross—” He sat on the edge of the now cleared table and fell into a brown study.

  “What does Glengarry think about that?” asked Margaret, much interested.

  “Don’t know. Never had time to discuss it; but we’ll get along. Would you like to come?”

  “No, dear. I promised Harry to spend the afternoon with him. I’ll take him for a ride later, I think. Glengarry said the bay foal was quiet enough for me to ride, so I would like to give him a trial. He is a beauty, Barry. Have you seen him about yet?”

  “No; but I shall be back in an hour and go riding with you if you’ll wait.”

  “All right. I’ll certainly wait. Good-bye.” She stepped out of the windows and watched the two go off. Glengarry was walking up and down upon the lawn smoking. His mother sat in a big arm-chair upon the verandah knitting. She was almost hidden in the chair.

  Margaret watched the Scotsman for a minute, deliberating. He knew that she was there too, but made no sign. His air was dour; when at last she walked slowly towards him his reception of her was stonily cold; his eyes swept over and past her like ice. He did not stop.

  She flushed and bit her lip. Then, thinking how hurt the man must be to offer her that sort of thing, she ranged herself beside him and said: “There is something the matter, Glen. What is it?”

  He laughed, horribly, gratingly, a laugh of torment. “What should be the matter? Aren’t we all a happy family?”

  “Oh, don’t! That is horrible!” She looked round quickly. The old lady was placidly knitting. “Come out into the paddock where the bay foal is. I must talk to you, and I can’t do it here. We can be looking at the foal.”

  He stood irresolutely, and she added impatiently: “Come, Glen, don’t be stupid.”

  He followed her slowly. His wrath against her was subsiding now that he was alone with her again. He told himself he did not want to go with her, but he could not stay behind. What would she say to him? What could he answer? Only that he was jealous—no argument to counter her reason. She would torture him again with that cruel reason of hers. How he wished she was just an ordinary type of woman, devoid of reason, so that she could not “put it over him” the way she did! An ordinary woman like— A picture of his wife came to him again; she had been devoid of reasoning power, and again he flung the thing from him in horror. Oh, God, no! He was mad, surely, to want this glorious creature beside him anything but her own unique self. She was speaking now in that deep, soft voice of hers, the full tones of which were so soothing and satisfying to the ear. “Tell me what upset you so, Glen, at the table. You have got to be honest and frank as I am with you.”

  His anger fell away completely. He was ashamed. “What can I tell you?” He began to tremble. There came a strange quality into his voice that caused the woman to look at him in wonder and fear. He was going to cry. She felt it. That great strong man, rugged and immovable-looking, was going to cry. A vast awe overcame her, and a compassion and sympathy so complete that it seemed to emanate from her and succour him in his need.

  “Margaret!” he whispered entreatingly. Two great tears welled up and overflowed. He put up a hand, wonderingly, and lifted one off with a finger. He stared at it, then at her. “You have done that to me, girl.”

  She was white as milk. Perhaps a premonition of impending, unutterable woe assailed her, or perhaps it was just chance that brought the words to her lips, insignificantly. However it was, she clasped her hands upon her breast and said prayerfully: “God be merciful to you and to me!”

  They were conscious of the immensity of those moments. The life force seemed to billow around them, impregnable, imperishable, the eyes, the ears, the brains of the world. Travail and happiness, sin and innocence, were disclosed to them as the husk enclosing the kernel of life which was the reproductive instinct.

  For a little wisp of time the man saw through the woman’s eyes, for a wisp of time his spirit renounced its condition of Man as separate from Woman and flew back to the godhead which was sexless, which was instinctive condition only, and that condition will to propagate. In those moments he was hers entirely, one with her in her instinctive reason and action, for the first and last time.

  Such moments cannot last, nor do they leave a workable impression. Glengarry’s befogged finite mind gained nothing tangible from that momentary revelation of the infinite. Just for one blinding flash of understanding he was linked in spirit to the woman in whom the will to propagate had persisted as the paramount condition through all the phases of the evolution of the soul and of society.

  The frontiers of civilisation fell away and showed him male and female, first one, then sundered, peopling the fields of history in spite of famine, flood, and fear. She saw Man, the forager, loosing the stranglehold of primal instincts, evolving above instinctive condition through the nature of his activities, which developed in him the faculty of reflection; whilst Woman, the passive, the vessel which bore the principle of life during all its seasons of growth from seed
to fruition, continued to lie close to the beginnings of the world, close to nature and natural conditions, unreflective because her manner of life did not stimulate brain activity, endowed by the male chiefly with whatever meed of reason she possessed.

  He saw this mixed condition, this relation of Man to Woman, down through the stream of ages, cramping progress; but the passing of the moment of vision left him no solace, no girded loins for the future. It might never have been. Woman disappeared from his ken, and the object of his love, another man’s wife, stood beside him in the paddock as before.

  But he was very soft and humble. “Let us move on, Margaret,” he said. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

  She drew a deep breath and dropped her hands. “Yes, let us walk on.”

  They walked farther from the house towards the bay foal which browsed some hundred yards away. The lovely creature lifted its head and watched them mildly as they neared it. Not wild now—no sign of fear about it. It allowed Margaret to pat it, and nosed into Glengarry’s hand. “No sugar now, old boy,” he said; and then to the woman: “We might as well take him over to the house now, ay? Sure you don’t mind riding him?”

  “Of course. I’m not a baby, please. I can ride as well as you.”

  He smiled at her. “Oh, all right. He is safe enough, anyhow. He is a bit shy of automobiles yet, though; needs a bit of petting to get him past them. Come on, old boy.” He caught the horse by the forelock and pulled at it.

  Margaret walked with one hand twisted in the long flowing mane. Shortly she said (hurridly, for she now found the subject difficult): “You know, Glen, you must really get used to my—my friendliness and affectionate manner with Barry. If I altered he would wonder, and ask questions.”

  He smiled back at her sympathetically. “Yes, of course. Never mind. Don’t worry.”

  “You know, Glen, one must like Barry. He is so good.” She loosed her hand from the horse’s mane and moved up beside him. “I have lived with him a long time, and no one knows him as I do. He is pure gold, right through. I should be a bad woman, unfit for any man’s love, unfit for motherhood, if I did not appreciate and love him.”