by James Doig
Eventually the matter was hushed up, and old Lanty laid to rest in a grave not far from the hut he had occupied so long. But he would not rest, at least so report said.
The next occupant of the hut only remained there one night, turning up at the station in the morning with a fearsome tale of how Lanty’s ghost came and stood over his bed at midnight, brandishing a spectral knife in his shadowy hand, and using language which left no doubt in the rudely awakened listener’s mind as to the identity of his unearthly visitor. The man’s story was received with derision, and another sent to take his place; but he, too, was back at the homestead before dawn in a state of semi-collapse from fright, and scarcely able to stammer forth an entire corroboration of his predecessor’s assertions. Then the manager himself, with a fortitude born of superior education and incredulity, braved the terrors of the lonely hut. What he saw or heard there no one ever knew, but certain it is that nothing short of actual force could induce him to cross its threshold again. There it had stood ever since, untenanted save by birds and creeping things, its sturdy slab walls and bark roof showing but few traces of the ravages of time.
Twice or thrice, when passing that way, I had peeped in at the half-open door and conjured up a vision of that sanguinary struggle, until I almost fancied I could see the massive figure lying prone upon the earthen floor, with shattered skull and grey, blood-bedraggled locks, while over it stooped the murderer, leaning on his bar, gazing with stony calmness on his awful handiwork. Although I had laughed to scorn the idea of Lanty’s shade threatening to slit men’s weasands with a diaphonous whittle, and, as a matter of fact, did not believe it possible for a disembodied spirit to revisit the scene of its former joys and sorrows, still I would not have dreamed of camping in a place which boasted such an evil reputation had it not been for the doubt as to my courage implied in the manager’s suggestion. Now, however, it was necessary to act up to my boast of scepticism, or else back down and acknowledge myself as credulous as others; rather would I ace a thousand ghosts.
Having come to this heroic determination, I shook up my horse and cantered steadily on towards the Box Flat, across which the bull was said to have passed. On reaching the Flat, I picked up his tracks without much difficulty, and ran them for three or four miles, until they led into the rough, broken country spoken of by Dalrymple. To follow them here required slow, patient work, so, as they headed steadily northward, I resolved to leave them, push on to the hut, and make an early start in the morning.
* * * *
The sun was barely half an hour high when I rode into the clearing in which the deserted humpy stood. As my gaze rested on its dark, weather-stained walls, and then travelled round the bolt of dull, greyish-green scrub which put out the last level rays of sunlight, my heart grew chill, and a shiver, such as is said to pass over one when a stranger treads upon the spot destined to be one’s grave, shook me from head to foot. For an instant a sensation of actual bodily terror took possession of me. Then, with a laugh—somewhat forced, I am afraid—at my momentary weakness, I sprang from my horse, and unbuckled the swag which I had carried before me on the saddle. In five minutes I had transferred all my traps to the shelter of the hut, scaring a colony of paddymelons, which had taken possession of it, into fits by my sudden entrance, hobbled out my horse with one ring, and gathered an armful of dry wool for my fire. Then, taking my quart-pot and the billy, which I had brought at the cook’s suggestion, I descended the sloping bank and filled them out of the river, which ran, dark and sluggish, around the bend. My horse had already made his way to the water, and was now climbing slowly up the bank, cropping the green river grass as he went. He whinnied as I passed him, and I paused to pat his firm, glossy neck, feeling, as even I had never felt before, the bond of sympathy and companionship which so closely unites the bushman and his faithful slave. The man of cities and civilisation can never really know his horse. It is only in the mysterious solitude of the bush that biped and quadruped are so drawn together that each unconsciously assimilates certain of the other’s nobler qualities, and thus they come to understand each other perfectly.
In a very short time I had such a fire going on the wide hearth as had not been seen there for many a year; in fact, it was so fierce that I could scarcely get near it to lift off my quart-pot. It made the old shanty hot and close too, being mid-summer, but it looked cheerful, and, besides, I wanted to clear out any stray snake or centipede which might be planted in the chimney. While the blaze leaped high I took advantage of its light to sweep the dust off a rude bunk which ran along the wall facing the door. I had half a mind to take my blankets outside when I saw the accumulation of dirt and cobwebs on which I had to lie. It would have been much pleasanter in the open air, with a good, leafy tree to keep the dew off; but then I thought of the ridicule which awaited me on my return to the station if I showed the white feather. There was nothing for it but to go through with the job I had set myself, so I made my bed on the unsavoury bunk, with my saddle for pillow. As I unrolled my blankets out dropped the bottle of whisky, which, up ’til that moment, I had entirely forgotten. Good old Andrew Usher! Never did the sight of your familiar name bring more satisfaction to the most inveterate “swiper” than it brought to me that Christmas Eve. I had a corkscrew in my pocket-knife, and in less time than it takes to tell I was reviving my drooping spirits with a “first mate’s nip”—four fingers, and “damn the water!”
“Aha!” I exclaimed, rubbing my epigastric region with one hand, while I held aloft my pannikin in the other, ‘Come one, come all’ as one of those poet Johnnies says; “come the whole population of shadowland, they shall not see me flinch; no, not so much as an eyelash! Gee-whiz! What’s that?” as a rattle of chains, followed by a long-drawn sigh, came from just outside the door, filling me—despite my bravado—with that indescribable sensation which thrills through the sleeper who awakes suddenly in the dead of night with the firm conviction that something is in the room.
Next instant my horse poked his head through the doorway, and I felt inclined to kick myself for my momentary “funk.” The poor brute, doubtless feeling lonely, had crept up to the hut unheard while I was lighting the fire, and it was the rattle of his hobbles, as he moved a step nearer, which had given me such a start. I stroked his velvety muzzle, and gave him a piece of damper, after which he turned away contented and began feeding.
After I had eaten some bread and meat, I tackled the plum pudding, which I had warmed up in the billy. Whether the “doctor” had made a mess of it in the first instance, or I turned it into a “sod” by boiling it a second time, I know not. Anyhow, I narrowly escaped losing two or three of my front teeth in the first mouthful. Oh! But it was solid! Still, I finished it. When one is young and a bushman to boot, one’s digestive powers approximate to those of the ostrich, and, as I had in my time wrestled with even tougher triumphs of the culinary art, I did not anticipate any evil results from my “set to” with this masterpiece. Another jorum of hot whisky—just to assist in the disintegration of that awful duff; a fresh armful of wood on the fire; a fragrant cloud rising like incense from my old briar. I began to feel quite festive, and, as I stretched myself on old Lanty’s bunk, and watched the flames leaping up the wide chimney, I was as jolly and comfortable as a possum in a hollow log.
I am usually a splendid sleeper, but on this occasion I wooed the drowsy god in vain. First I tried lying on one side, then on the other, then on my back; but it was no use. After two hours’ turning and tossing I was as broad awake as when I lay down.
“It must be that infernal duff,” I soliloquised, sitting up and beginning to fill my pipe anew. “Perhaps I didn’t take enough whisky to soften it? I’ll have another nip!”
I had another, and yet another, but sleep seemed as far off as ever. Finally, I gave it up as a bad job, and, having made up the fire, lay down again with my hands behind my head, and, like another wanderer of old, “wished for the
day.” All this time I was smoking, and as smoking begets thirst, I naturally moistened my throat occasionally, taking care, as I thought, to leave a decent nip for the morning. Picture my astonishment, therefore, when, on putting the bottle to my lips about midnight, to drink a merry Christmas to myself, I discovered that it was empty! Not a drop left! Surely I must have had a visitor! Perhaps the ghost? I laughed loud and long as the idea struck me. Then my mood changed.
“’Pon my soul it’s a bit strong,” I muttered, addressing the heap of embers on the hearth. “If old Lanty wanted a drink he might have asked for it like a man instead of sneaking it in this fashion. If the villain would only show himself, I’d quick tell him what I think of him.”
As I ceased speaking a shape arose between me and the fire, misty and indistinct at first, then taking form and substance, ’til its outlines showed up clearly against the flaming background. My eyes travelled slowly up the patched moleskins and blue shirt—worn, as all “old hands” wore it, outside the trousers—’til they rested on the face. My blood froze, my flesh crept, when I would have spoken my tongue refused its office and clove to the roof of my mouth. The thing glared at me in silence, its deep-set eyes glowing in their cavernous sockets like halls of fire. Then it raised a shadowy hand, and, pointing to its skull all bruised and battered and covered with clots of blood, from which a constant drip, drip fell to the earthen floor, a sepulchral voice issued from its pallid lips, which lent a new terror to its fearsome presence.
“Ye see the track o’ yer bar, slim Jim,” said the voice. “Ye waited a long time for the chance o’ settlin’ me, ye crawling white-livered cross between a Jew lizard an’ a black snake; but dash, dash ye to blank! I’ve waited longer for you. I’d have ye to know that I’m turnspit in the devil’s kitchen, where I’ll have the pleasure of roastin’ ye an’ bastin’ ye with vitriol for ever an’ ever, ye blasted cur! My master’s given me leave of absence to come an’ fetch ye. Ha! Ha! Ha! I was beginnin’ to think I’d never get the chance to scour my knife on yer brisket, but it’s come at last!”
The thing—Lanty’s astral shape as its language eloquently proved—advanced towards me, a long, glittering blade poised high above its head. I tried to scream, but no sound came; to lift my hand, but every muscle was paralysed. Nearer and nearer it came; I could feel its burning gaze eating into my very brain. Beside my bed it paused, the up-raised arm swung still higher; one last flourish of the shining steel, and then—
Crash! I rolled off the bunk on to the floor with a yell that might have been heard at the station, and lay there half stunned, gibbering like a maniac and shaking like a dog in a wet sack. Every moment I expected to feel that horrible knife between my ribs, but the blow never fell. Presently I took heart of grace, and glanced fearfully around. I was alone! Of my ghostly visitor not a trace remained, save the empty bottle and a strong smell of sulphur!
Certain scoffers to whom I have told this “ower true tale” have received it with many nods and winks and would-be witty innuendoes concerning the effects of too much whisky and plum-duff mixed, but these be Philistines to whom aught savouring of the supernatural is caricre.
I am, and always will be positive, that old Lanty’s ghost paid me a visit. I could never imagine a light supper of plum pudding and good Scotch whisky capable of conjuring up such a hideous vision; and if I did find a hole burned in my blankets by the pipe which dropped from my panic-loosened jaws, it does not account satisfactorily—to me—for the odour of brimstone so suggestive of the culinary establishment in which the apparition claimed to be chef.
THE SPECTRE OF THE BLACK SWAMP: AN OVERLANDER’S STORY, by Edwin M. Merrall
The Australian Journal, 1 November 1875
Edwin Merrall’s only other known work is a paper presented to the Victorian Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia in 1887 titled “An Unknown Portion of Victoria”.
It’s many years ago—commenced the overlander—since I became acquainted with the Box Forest station. This station was owned by a Sydney firm, and was worked by a manager, being a cattle station, but very few hands were employed on it, and they, for the most part, had been in the service for many years. Indeed such a length of time has elapsed since the period to which I refer, that I have now but a faint remembrance of any of the employees with the exception of two. These two, however, are all that are requisite for the understanding of this story, and I shall briefly describe them.
John Warfield was what we cattle-men call a “super”—that is, an overseer acting under the manager. He was a dashing young fellow, of about seven or eight-and-twenty, and very popular. Good-natured to a fault, and courageous to recklessness, he always took upon himself the carrying out of any enterprise which presented more than the usual share of danger. The life of an overlander is not altogether one of cakes and ale, and he consequently had plenty of opportunities for the indulgence of his fancy. I remember once being blocked with a small mob of cattle with Warfield, on the banks of the Hunter. The river was flooded, and as the rain came down unceasingly, there was no possibility of the floodwaters running off. So we paddocked the cattle, and took up our quarters in an adjacent town.
But the flood came down upon the town that same night, and, before morning, one-half of the buildings had been swept away. That was a dreadful night, and is but too well remembered by many a desolate hearth. Many lives were lost, and more would have been sacrificed to the insatiable waters but for John Warfield, whose reckless courage found a legitimate and noble sphere of action on that occasion. Amongst other acts, he swam out with a line to a submerged house, on the roof of which some half score of naked and frozen individuals were clinging. They were all safely rescued by means of the communication he established at such a great risk, and the building fell almost immediately afterwards. For his disinterested conduct on this occasion he received the gold medal of the Humane Society; and of this badge he was very proud, and always wore it suspended by a ribbon round his neck, but, of course, out of sight.
This, then, was the kind of man the super Warfield was. The other man whom I have very good reason to remember, was called “Mike.” But I do not think that was his real name, indeed he himself admitted that he had at various times been known by so very many different cognomens that he could not now state with any degree of certainty what his real name actually was.
He was a low-browed, brutish-looking animal, and an out-and-out bad character, no matter how viewed. Very ignorant, very brutal, and very passionate; in short, a man who was completely the slave of his feelings, which were purely animal. He was merely a stockman on the station and had been there a long time. Of course, he was generally disliked, but his skill in his craft was admirable, and his knowledge of the surrounding country, which was very rough, was invaluable, and well worth the wage he drew.
I had only been a few days on the Box Forest run, when Mike drew a twelve months’ cheque and started on a trip for Sydney, it being an understood thing between the manager and himself that his billet of stockman should be kept open for him.
Mike was back again in a fortnight but he didn’t come alone. He brought with him a wife. This young woman he had picked up at some low public-house, I believe, and her general character was much on a par with his own, and she soon became notorious on the Box Forest station. I suppose, however, that Mike cherished for her a strong animal attachment as he soon became bitterly jealous, and the object on whom his jealous suspicious settled was no other than John Warfield.
As the affair in question had no interest for me, I paid but little heed to it, and am not therefore in a position to say, from personal observation, how far Mike’s suspicions were justified. But he could not very well make any disturbance about it, and affairs went on as usual, although all the station hands ware well aware of the thorn in Mike’s side.
It was at this time when the manager despatched Warfield a small mob of choice
cattle for a Victorian station and ordered Mike to accompany him. The cattle in question consisted of just a few quiet beasts which two men could manage easily enough.
In addition to a spare horse which Warfield took with him, he was mounted upon his favourite bald-faced cob, as nice a little bit of blood as one could wish to see.
After they had effected a start we heard nothing more of them for about a month, when some returning overlanders called at the station and informed us that it was feared an accident of some kind had befallen John Warfield, as he had most unaccountably disappeared, and that Mike was travelling down with the cattle alone, and instituting such inquiries as he could for his lost companion.
The manager instantly despatched me to ascertain the meaning of this extraordinary intelligence, and I managed by dint of hard riding to overtake Mike just as he arrived at his destination with the cattle. He had been fortunate in securing the services of a chance traveller, and he explained to me that before he had done so he had been nearly worn out with day droving and night watching, a fact which his haggard and careworn appearance fully testified.
Mike was very much surprised that no tidings had been heard of Warfield, who left him, as he said, at the Black Swamp for the purpose of selecting the route ahead, and also to notify to the squatters that travelling stock were about to pass over their runs.
I forthwith instituted a systematic course of inquiry all along the route travelled, but could not glean the slightest information respecting the missing Warfield. In this search I was assisted by several neighbouring squatters, who were personally acquainted with the lost super, but our efforts were all in vain and we were reluctantly compelled to receive the conjecture, which some of his friends put forward, that he had, in all probability, been drowned whilst attempting to ford one of the numerous creeks or rivers which intersected the route. And this hypothesis was rendered the more plausible from the known recklessness of his character. And so, after some weeks of anxious and untiring search we gave it up, and left the fate of John Warfield and his cob shrouded in mystery.