Kings In Grass Castles

by Mary Durack

  He had given his family release from hunger and cold in a warm land where the poorest hardly knew the meaning of poverty as the Irish had known it. He had given them the benefits of education for which generations of Irish had yearned and risked their very lives—and yet he had failed them. By his foolishness he had deprived them of what he had reared them to expect of life, but to what after all did it amount? Money to squander on enjoyment, a fine home in the city, a life of ease? Was it not perhaps, as his wife had said, the goodness of Providence that had divested him of his fortune while there was still time to save their souls?

  A yokel seeing him as he wandered on Slieve Aughty Mountain, picking little sprigs of heather and bog cotton, might well have wondered at this strange old man who spoke and dressed like a foreigner but who, with his flowing white beard and silver hair, was like enough to the picture of St Patrick in the village church.

  Mr Healy had welcomed him to the ruined portals of his ancestral seat in Kilkenny. The old man had forgotten being informed by letter of Grandmother’s death and peered about expecting that she had playfully hidden herself behind her husband.

  ‘Come my dear, you do not need to hide from me, for I am blind enough as it is.’

  Grandfather took the old tutor’s hands.

  ‘She is gone now three years back. Michael wrote you of it but you could not have realised. I am hardly yet able to realise it myself.’

  Weeping, the old man led his visitor into the house.

  ‘So she was never to see the land of her forefathers, but her heart was here. She was a true daughter of Ireland—a saintly woman, a woman of prayer…And you, my dear old friend, I knew you would come. You were always a man of your word—a great one for getting about the country—a thousand miles—two thousand miles—nothing at all! But they laugh at me here you know. They are a people of most terrible ignorance: Australia, I tell them—God’s chosen country, the loveliest country in the whole world, I have relations there, I tell them, wonderful people rich and with a grand mansion, carriages, horses, servants—and they laugh at me…’

  ‘And well they might,’ Grandfather smiled, but it was clear that the old man’s mind was fixed on the past. Why distress him with the story of his ruin? There had been no need to break the news to him at the time for on his departure from Brisbane Grandfather had paid a sum of money into his bank account from which he continued to derive a small income.

  ‘Ah, the rascals they were, attending to nothing but to watch for the shadow at the door and forever interrupting my prayers. And how is that poor fellow now, that idiot Lutheran who came for to convert the blacks?’

  The increasing tempo of business in Kimberley had prevented any of the boys, except young Jerry, from meeting their father on his return to Sydney. The two spent a few days together in close companionship before Grandfather left for Fremantle from where, soon after his arrival, he wrote back to his youngest son.

  Fremantle.

  April ’97.

  My dear son,

  I am to leave here for home in two days with the bulls which are doing well.

  When I got your telegram I was pleased to hear that ye got on so well with your exams. Let me know how long from now until ye expect your B.A. degree…

  Now concerning this malgimation I cannot say anything but from what they tell me it is all trumps according to their view and opinion of the affair. I have explained to Johnnie who is with me here everything I know which would be likely to crop up hereafter. I wired up to Michael, Pat and Johnnie that I would not give Argyle for all the places Connor and Doherty has got and every wire I sent them and since Johnnie came down I had no reply to. Since Johnnie came down it has taken them all their time arranging about the Wyndham Store buildings. I am of the same opinion as you that by working on along steady as they are would be the better way of it and then they would always be their own masters, but their opinion of the affair is not mine.

  I have made on request to Johnnie today to have an agreament for Mary and Birdie for 500 head of cattle each or the money if they would prefer it. It is not much to ask as they would brand that many from Argyle in three months and it would add years to my life to see yere dear sisters comfortable as well as yeselves.

  Another thing I want to say is that the property of Durack Bros, in east Kimberley is equal between the four of ye and make no change concerning your interest in the same. Surely to God what is made yearly by the sale of bullocks should be more than what is paid for yere schooling. I had to pay for them and I never kept any a/c against them. Please God I shall go to Goulburn in August next and shall see ye then and yere Grandmother Costello. I should go now but that I want to see them all at home first and it is cool weather in Kimberley now and gets warm in October.

  Concerning Birdie’s marriage, by what Johnnie tells me it is broken off on account of some scandal rumour they heard concerning the man and if the rumour was true I hope in God they have done it all for her welfare…

  I am sending to ye by Steve Brogan a prayerbook and some of the Water of Leward I have brought with me for ye all. Of the handkerchiefs I am sending ye one of them is worth over five pounds.1

  Tell Scanlan he should not join the police I would have none of them. Let me know how is yere cousin Will Durack doing with his medical studies so I can let his brothers know at Lissadell…

  This letter indicates that Grandfather was not returning to Kimberley much less ‘cantankerous’ than he had gone away, and the resolution of his sons, at this stage of their careers, to put even family affairs on a purely business basis obviously irritated him. When told that they could not yet afford to be as generous with all and sundry as he urged, Grandfather would remind them of the battling days in western Queensland when they had never failed to proffer a helping hand to friend, relative or wayfarer.

  ‘If ye must wait till the time is convenient then ye shall find yereselves waiting at the gates of paradise.’

  Grandfather’s reference to Aunt Birdie’s broken engagement uncovers a story seldom mentioned in the family. Everything had been ready for the wedding at Argyle and Father Kelly present to officiate when the scandal that had caused the bridegroom to seek refuge in the colonies somehow caught up with him in Kimberley. What exactly the scandal was we can only surmise from the fact that the young man had been an associate of Oscar Wilde, then still languishing in Reading gaol, and of the young Lord Alfred Douglas who had also left England to seek adventure around the Kalgoorlie goldfields. Ambrose Durack galloped all night to get the bad news through from Wyndham in time to stop the ceremony and Father Kelly was left the unenviable task of endeavouring to explain ‘the unspeakable’ to the heart-broken and bewildered girl. Aunt Birdie, quite at a loss to understand, turned from one to another to be met on all sides by an implacable blank wall.

  ‘But I promised. I said that whatever I might come to hear of him, provided he was not married, would make no difference. The past is over and done with and I love him.’

  ‘My dear girl,’ Father said, ‘it is quite impossible. I have sent him away and you must never mention his name again.’

  It was Mrs Doherty who made the practical suggestion that the frustrated girl should accompany herself and her family on a trip to Ireland. For Aunt Birdie, the most tender-hearted and generous of women, this was only the beginning of a series of unfortunate romances. She was never to marry and never to set foot in Kimberley again after her departure, of which Father writes at the end of May:

  The SS Albany leaves this morning and poor little Bird takes passage on it for Fremantle thence with Mrs Doherty to Newry in Ireland. The dear girl kept up her spirits very well knowing that her tour is to extend over twelve months. Father Kelly also a passenger…

  The Hall’s Creek police files record the end of the story for the unhappy young warden who, evidently realising the impossibility of making a fresh start in even so remote a wilderness, shortly afterwards put an end to his own life, and Aunt Birdie, an old woman weary of living, r
eading again the cherished letters from her beloved nuns, bemourned ‘the narrow way’ she had forsaken in the frustrated innocence of her youth.

  36

  END OFAN ERA

  The years 1897 to 1898. Amalgamation of Durack Bros, with Connor and Doherty. Problems—Aborigines and cattle tick. M. P. Durack overlands store cattle to Camooweal. Reunion with John Costello at Lake Nash. Death of Patsy Durack in Fremantle.

  After his father’s departure Uncle John remained in Fremantle to finalise the new company, of which he wrote his brother Jerry early in May:

  …Well, we put in our property Argyle and the Stud and my one third interest in the Wyndham business against C. and D.’s third in same and their Newry and Auvergne stations, Wyndham paddocks and Fremantle business…

  We form on these properties a limited liability company of £80,000 capital…

  We four brothers mutually agree to give Mary and Bird £1500 cash each as soon as we can…You must confirm this assent and power of attorney to us until you are 21 years of age.

  This is the night previous to the General Election. Doherty is putting up for East Fremantle and I think he must get in. Connor is member for our district E. Kimberley. He was unopposed.

  Sir John Forrest Premier goes home to join in Jubilee festivities.

  Connor and I were invited to the opening of Harbour Work—a great day. I have enjoyed myself well and regret my short stay. All business so far adjusted satisfactorily.

  Bird’s marriage is broken off and she goes to England with Mrs Doherty and children. There is a great scare on about ticks in cattle but it is all bosh we think.

  Your fond frere,

  J.W.D.

  From this time on Father and his brothers John and Pat entered upon a new phase. Under the terms of their partnership all business in Kimberley was to be under their direct control. Father was to be general manager of the four stations and all business involving the purchase, sale and movements of cattle. Pat, with his headquarters at Argyle, was to manage station stockwork and John the Wyndham merchant business. Connor and Doherty were to direct affairs from Fremantle, to arrange stock contracts, control shipments and deliveries of cattle, attend their political careers and generally seek to secure the best end of the stick for East Kimberley pastoralists. And so the players, for better or worse, in seeking to strengthen their positions were now bound in complicated association as precarious as any situation they sought to avoid.

  The tick question loomed large in the first years of the new company and prospects that had seemed so rosy at the outset took on something of the depressed hue of earlier years. Despite a deal of lobbying and many deputations on the part of Connor and Doherty, the entry of all livestock from Queensland and the Northern Territory was prohibited until these areas were declared ‘clean’. Protests against this limitation of the Wyndham export market were in vain and Connor, Doherty and Durack were fined for ignoring the regulation and shipping to Fremantle a mob which, although tick free, had originated in the Territory. Connor threatened a motion of non-confidence in the government if the regulations were not removed and openly accused ‘certain parties’ of deliberately urging the restrictions in their own interests. A deal of malicious cross-correspondence enlivened the daily papers for some time to follow. Father wrote of

  …southern pastoralists, unscrupulous of the truth, and studying only their own personal aggrandisement at a loss to the country and starvation to the miner.

  A mob of Wave Hill bullocks was held on the border until the Premier, Sir John Forrest, threatened with the removal of east Kimberley support, sanctioned their entry on condition of a certificate of cleanliness. Father rode round the cattle with the stock inspector, pointing out the splendid condition and health of the mob:

  …and whilst not asking Mr Alston to depart from his duty I do ask him to facilitate entry of this mob in the name of justice and common sense.

  The inspector complied and that mob went through, but general restrictions were maintained. Later in the year Connor and Doherty wrote from Fremantle of good prospects for the lifting of the Territory barrier that they had earlier sought to impose. Now, with the possibility of a South African market opening up, they were anxious, as stock agents, to encourage a steady supply of cattle to Wyndham from all directions. Father, therefore, accompanied by Pumpkin and another boy, set out for the Territory to enquire into the possibilities of buying cattle if the market was confirmed.

  There is a persistent strain of sadness through his record of this journey:

  Riding today with a certain heaviness of spirit and sinking of heart transferred by the master pen of Byron through medium of his Prisoner of Chillon. My thoughts keep turning back to the days I first travelled this track with Tom Kilfoyle. Our situation has certainly improved financially, despite our present problems, but many associates have in so short a time gone to their bourne beyond, and of those the majority in a somewhat violent or untimely manner. Good old Pumpkin however, appears to have aged little and carries on his duties with the same quietness and efficiency as ever…

  What a wearisome track where few are encountered but our sable brethren with their unpredictable habits and where lonely graves by the way tell of murder by the blacks, suicide under the influence of drink or the delirium of fever…

  What a picture is contained in these brief jottings of this land of lost men and buried hopes, crude, rich and violent beyond the capacity of the toughest men to tame. On his weary 800-mile trek via Daly Waters to the border town of Camooweal he speaks of lonely stations and a variety of managers, the garrulous and entertaining, the ‘carping pessimists’, generous and hospitable or mean and misanthropic, venting their ill-humour on fellow beings and dumb animals. Quaint encounters on the track in a land of apt nicknames were the fiery old teamster known as ‘Roaring Anger’, a downright itinerant carpenter called ‘Hammer and Gad’ and a querulous old gasbag well-named ‘The Squeaking Gimlet’. The diarist speaks of wild buffalo herds, of ‘festal boards prepared by ebony hands’, of camps so infested with tick that the flanks of his horses were heavily studded with the parasites as they moved along. The blacks no longer hindered drovers as in earlier years, in fact on one stage Father remarked upon a party of ‘myall nigger footmen’ assisting in bringing along the tail-end of a mob they encountered on their way. But oddly incongruous with so crude a country practically every wayfarer had books in his swag—many no doubt ‘borrowed’ from the Carnegie bequest of classical literature some philanthropist had seen fit to bestow on the dead-end Territory town of Borroloola. Father was much touched by one traveller who could not read himself carrying a volume of Shakespeare always in hope of meeting someone who would read to him. His own current reading included Cardinal Newman, Mark Twain and Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm, reflections upon all of which mingle with observations on the habits of tick, the state of local cattle and the distance covered each day.

  At a lonely station on the Limmen River ‘where everything betokened ruin and want of care’ he met an old Queensland friend, Jack Farrar, whom John Costello had left in charge of what remained of his vast Gulf properties—Lake Ellen, Wickham Park, Wangalara, Valley of Springs. Farrar told the story of their fruitless struggle against all the forces imaginable with which nature could frustrate the pioneer. Not only black marauders but crocodiles that abounded in the gulf streams took a daily toll of horses and cattle, dingo packs destroyed the new-born calves and cattle tick became thicker every year. Add to this the virulence of fever and beriberi that accounted for any graves on the river bank not attributable to native spears and you had the reason why Costello from his headquarters at Lake Nash, some seventy miles south of Camooweal, had at last decided to remove what stock remained on his Territory properties and thereafter abandon them to the wilds.

  The only cheering thing about the place [Father remarks in conclusion] are the two bright, healthy little Farrar boys, Johnny and Billy, who for all the bitter story of fruitless struggle info
rm me they want to be stockmen when they grow up—and own a station in the Territory! So much for the unfailing optimism of youth, while others I have met prophesy that in a few years the Territory will be more or less abandoned to the blacks and the white ants, as has indeed already happened in the case of many properties.

  Hoping daily for news of the lifting of the border restrictions, Father made contracts for the purchase of cattle from Creswell and Brunette Downs, and left Pumpkin to hold the mob at Anthony’s Lagoon and rode on to interview the stock inspector at Camooweal.

  Somewhere on the track he had picked up a native stockman who accompanied him with his packs into the dusty, sweltering little town:

  …surely unique in its appearance of utter desolation, and yet boasting about seventy women and prolific at that, with twins a common occurrence I am told, as indeed I can well believe from the appearance of the vast majority—a character study in themselves, bantering as freely with the men about their ‘delicate condition’ as though among themselves!

  The stock inspector raised his spirits by propounding the theory of tick immunity based on the fact that of 9,000 head travelling through from the heavily infested Gulf country in the past year none had died. In these times everyone talked tick and carried ‘specimens’ of different varieties in their pockets and every bushman had learned to recognise Ixodes, the true villain of the piece, by his little straight white legs.

  Since no further word had come through from his partners, Father rode south from Camooweal to visit John Costello and family at Lake Nash. His uncle, whom he had not seen for twenty years, met him as a stranger on the verandah of his quaint two-storey homestead.

  ‘Good-day sir! Where do you hail from?’