“There’s a bright moon, gentlemen. Let’s go out and have a bit o’ sparrin’,” said Paddy swimmingly, from the head of the table.
That pleased Jack a lot. He was beginning to feel shut in.
He rose, and the girl — he had never really looked at her — followed him out. Why did she follow him? She ought to stay and clear away dishes.
The yard, it seemed to Jack, was clear as daylight: or clearer, with a big, flat white moon. Someone was sizing up to a little square man with long thick arms, and the little man was probing them off expertly. Hello! Here was a master, in his way.
The girl was leaning up against Jack, with her hand on his shoulder. This was a bore, but he supposed it was also a kind of tribute. He had still never looked at her.
“That’s Jake,” she said. “He’s champion of these parts. Oh my, if he sees me leanin’ on y’ arm like this, he’ll be after ye!”
“Well, don’t lean on me then,” said Jack complacently.
“Go on, he won’t see me. We’re in the dark right here.”
“I don’t care if he sees you,” said Jack.
“You do contradict yourself,” said the girl.
“Oh no, I don’t!” said Jack.
And he watched the long-armed man, and never once looked at the girl. So she leaned heavier on him. He disapproved, really, but felt rather manly under the burden.
The little, square, long-armed man was oldish, with a grey beard. Jack saw this as he danced round, like a queer old satyr, half gorilla, half satyr, roaring, booing, fencing with a big yahoo of a young bushman, holding him off with his unnatural long arms. Over went the big young fellow sprawling on the ground, causing such a splother that everyone shifted a bit out of his way. They all roared delightedly.
The long-armed man, looking round for his girl, saw her in the shadow, leaning heavily and laughingly on Jack’s young shoulder. Up he sprang, snarling like a gorilla, his long hairy arms in front of him. The girl retreated, and Jack, in a state of semi-intoxicated readiness, opened his arms and locked them round the little gorilla of a man. Locked together, they rolled and twirled round the yard under the moon, scattering the delighted onlookers like a wild cow. Jack was laughing to himself, because he had got the grip of the powerful long-armed old man. And there was no real anger in the tussle. The gorilla was an old sport.
Jack was sitting in a chair under the vine, with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees, getting his wind. Paddy was fanning him with a bunch of gum-leaves, and congratulating him heartily.
“First chap as ever laid out Long-armed Jake.”
“What’d he jump on me for?” said Jack. “I said nothing to him.”
“What y’ sayin’?” ejaculated Paddy coaxingly. “Didn’t ye take his girl, now?”
“Take his girl? I? No! She leaned on me, I didn’t take her.”
“Arrah! Look at that now! The brazenness of it! Well, be it on ye! Take another drink. Will ye come an’ show the boys some o’ ye tricks, belike?”
Jack was in the yard again, shaking hands with Long-armed Jake.
“Good on y’! Good on y’!” cried old Jake. “Ye’re a cock-bird in fine feather! What’s a wench between two gentlemen! Shake, my lad, shake! I’m Long-armed Jake, I am, an’ I set a cock-bird before any whure of a hen.”
They rounded up, sparred, staved off, showed off like two amiable fighting-cocks, before the admiring cockeys. Then they had good-natured turns with the young farmers, and mild wrestling bouts with the old veterans. Having another drink, playing, gassing, swaggering . . .
Tom came bawling as if he were deaf:
“What about them ‘osses?”
“What about ‘em?” said Jack.
“See to ‘m!” said Tom. And he went back to where he came from.
“All right, Mister, we’ll see to ‘m!” yelled the admiring youngsters. “We’ll water ‘m an’ feed ‘m.”
“Water?” said Jack.
“Yes. — Show us how to double up, Mister, will y’?”
“A’ right!” said Jack, who was considerably tipsy. “When — when I’ve — fed — th ‘osses.”
He set off to the stables. The admiring youngsters ran yelling ahead. They brought out the horses and led them down to the trough. Jack followed, feeling the moon-lit earth sway a little.
He shoved his head in between the noses of the horses, into the cool trough of water. When he lifted and wrung out the shower from his hair, which curled when it was wet, he saw the girl standing near him.
“Y’ need a towel, Mister,” she said.
“I could do with one,” said he.
“Come an’ I’ll get ye one,” she said.
He followed meekly. She led him to an outside room, somewhere near the stable. He stood in the doorway.
“Here y’ are!” she said, from the darkness inside.
“Bring it me,” he said from the moon outside.
“Come in an’ I’ll dry your hair for yer.” Her voice sounded like the voice of a wild creature in a black cave. He ventured, unseeing, uncertain, into the den, half reluctant. But there was a certain coaxing imperiousness in her wild-animal voice, out of the black darkness.
He walked straight into her arms. He started and stiffened as if attacked. But her full, soft body was moulded against him. Still he drew fiercely back. Then feeling her yield to draw away and leave him, the old flame flew over him, and he drew her close again.
“Dearie!” she murmured. “Dearie!” and her hand went stroking the back of his wet head.
“Come!” she said. “And let me dry your hair.”
She led him and sat him on a pallet bed. Then she closed the door, through which the moonlight was streaming. The room had no window. It was pitch dark, and he was trapped. So he felt as he sat there on the hard pallet. But she came instantly and sat by him and began softly, caressingly to rub his hair with a towel. Softly, slowly, caressingly she rubbed his hair with a towel. And in spite of himself, his arms, alive with a power of their own, went out and clasped her, drew her to him.
“I’m supposed to be in love with a girl,” he said, really not speaking to her.
“Are you, dearie?” she said softly. And she left off rubbing his hair and softly put her mouth to his.
Later — he had no idea what time of the night it was — he went round looking for Tom. The place was mostly dark. The inn was half dark . . Nobody seemed alive. But there was music somewhere. There was music.
As he went looking for it, he came face to face with Dr. Rackett.
“Where’s Tom?” he asked.
“Best look in the barn.”
The dim-lighted barn was a cloud of half-illuminated dust, in which figures moved. But the music was still martial and British. Jack, always tipsy, for he had drunk a good deal and it took effect slowly, deeply, felt something in him stir to this music. They were dancing a jig or a horn-pipe. The air was all old and dusty in the barn. There were four crosses of wooden swords on the floor. Young Patrick, in his shirt and trousers, had already left off dancing for Ireland, but the Scotchman, in a red flannel shirt and a reddish kilt, was still lustily springing and knocking his heels in a haze of dust. The Welshman was a little poor fellow in old shirt and trousers. But the Englishman, in costermonger outfit, black bell-bottom trousers and lots of pearl buttons, was going well. He was thin and wiry and very neat about the feet. Then he left off dancing, and stood to watch the last two.
Everybody was drunk, everybody was arguing, according to his nationality, as to who danced best. The Englishman in the bell-bottom trousers knew he danced best, but spent his last efforts deciding between Sandy and Taffy. The music jigged on. But whether it was British Grenadiers or Campbells Are Coming Jack didn’t know. Only he suddenly felt intensely patriotic.
“I am an Englishman,” he thought, with savage pride. “I am an Englishman. That is the best on earth. Australian is English, English, English, she’d collapse like a balloon but for the English in her. Briti
sh means English first. I’m a Britisher, but I am an Englishman! God! I could crumple the universe in my fist, I could . . I’m an Englishman, and I could crush everything in my hand. And the women are left behind. I’m an Englishman.”
Voices had begun to snarl and roar, fists were lifted.
“Mussen quarrel! — my weddin’! Mussen quarrel!” Pat was drunkenly saying, sitting on a box shaking his head.
Then suddenly he sprang to his feet, and quick and sharp as a stag, rushed to the wooden swords and stood with arms uplifted, smartly showing the steps. The fellow had spirit, a queer, staccato spirit.
Somebody laughed and cheered, and then they all began to laugh and cheer, and Pat pranced faster, in a cloud of dust, and the quarrel was forgotten.
Jack went to look for Tom. “I’m an Englishman,” he thought. “I’d better look after him.”
He wasn’t in the barn. Jack looked and looked.
He found Tom in the kitchen, sitting in a corner, a glass at his side, quite drunk.
“It’s time to go to bed, Tom.”
“G’on, ol’ duck. I’m waitin’ for me girl.”
“You won’t get any girl tonight. Let’s go to bed.”
“Shan’t I get — ? Yes shal! Yes shal!”
“Where shall I find a bed?”
“Plenty ‘r flore space.”
And he staggered to his feet as a short, stout, red-faced, black-eyed, untidy girl slipped across the kitchen and out of the door, casting a black-eyed, meaningful look at the red-faced Tom, over her shoulder as she disappeared. Tom swayed to his feet and sloped after her with amazing quickness. Jack stood staring out of the open door, dazed. They both seemed to have melted.
Himself, he wanted to sleep — only to sleep. “Plenty of floor space,” Tom had said. He looked at the floor. Cockroaches running by the dozen, in all directions: those brown, barge-like cockroaches of the south, that trail their huge bellies, and sheer off in automatic straight lines and make a faint creaking noise, if you listen. Jack looked at the table: an old man already lay on it. He opened a cupboard: babies sleeping there.
He swayed, drunk with sleep and alcohol, out of the kitchen in some direction: pushed a swing door: the powerful smell of beer and sawdust made him know it was the bar. He could sleep on the seat. He could sleep in peace.
He lurched forward and touched cloth. Something snored, started, and reared up.
“What y’ at?”
Jack stood back breathless — the figure subsided — he could beat a retreat.
Hopeless he looked in on the remains of the breakfast. Table and every bench occupied. He boldly opened another door. A small lamp burning, and what looked like dozens of dishevelled elderly women’s awful figures, heaped crosswise on the hugest double bed he had ever seen.
He escaped into the open air. The moon was low. Someone was singing.
CHAPTER XV
UNCLE JOHN GRANT
It was day. The lie was hard. He didn’t want to wake. He turned over and was sleep again, though the lie was very hard.
Someone pushing him. Tom, with a red, blank face was saying:
“Wake up! Let’s go before Rackett starts.”
And the rough hands pushing him crudely. He hated it.
He sat up. He had been lying on the bottom of the buggy, with a sack over him. No idea how he got there. It was full day.
“Old woman’s got some tea made. If y’ want t’ change y’ bags, hop over ‘n take a dip in the pool. Down th’ paddock there. Here’s th’ bag. I’ve left soap n’ comb on th’ splash board, an’ I’ve seen to th’ ‘osses. I’m goin’ f’r a drink while you get ready.”
Tom had got a false dawn on him. He had wakened with that false energy which sometimes follows a “drunk,” and which fades all too quickly. For he had hardly slept at all.
So when Jack was ready, Tom was not. His stupor was overcoming him. He was cross — and half way through his second pewter mug of beer.
“I’m not coming,” said Tom.
“You are,” said Jack. For the first time he felt that old call of the blood which made him master of Tom. Somewhere, in the night, the old spirit of a master had aroused in him.
Tom finished his mug of beer slowly, sullenly. He put down the empty pot.
“Get up!” said Jack. And Tom got slowly to his feet.
They set off, Jack leading the pack-horse. But the beer and the “night before” had got Tom down. He rode like a sack in the saddle, sometimes semi-conscious, sometimes really asleep. Jack followed just behind, with the beast of a packhorse dragging his arm out. And Tom ahead, like a sot, with no life in him.
Jack himself felt hot inside, and dreary, and riding was a cruel effort, and the pack-horse, dragging his arm from its socket, was hell. He wished he had enough saddle-tree to turn the rope round: but he was in his English saddle.
Nevertheless, he had decided something, in that jamboree. He belonged to the blood of masters, not servants. He belonged to the class of those that are sought, not those that seek. He was no seeker. He was not desirous. He would never be desirous. Desire should not lead him humbly by the nose. Not desire for anything. He was of the few that are masters. He was to be desired. He was master. He was a real Englishman.
So he jogged along, in the hot, muggy day of early winter. Heavy clouds hung over the sky, lightning flashed beyond the purple hills. His body was a burden and a weariness to him, riding was a burden and a weariness, the pack-horse was hell. And Tom, asleep on his nag, like a dead thing, was hateful to have ahead. The road seemed endless.
Yet he had in him his new, half savage pride to keep him up, and an isolate sort of resoluteness.
At mid-day they got down, drank water, camped, and slept without eating. Thank God the rain hadn’t come. Jack slept like the dead till four o’clock.
He woke sharp, wondering where he was. The clouds looked threatening. He got up. Yes, the horses were there. He still felt bruised, and hot and dry inside, from the jamboree. Why in heaven did men want jamborees?
He made a fire, boiled the billy, prepared tea, and set out some food, though he didn’t want any.
“Get up there!” he shouted to Tom, who lay like a beast. “Get up!” he shouted. But the beast slept.
“Get up, you beast!” he said, viciously kicking him. And he was horrified because Tom got up, without any show of retaliation at all, and obediently drank his tea.
They ate a little food, in silence. Saddled in silence, each finding the thought of speech repulsive. Watched one another to see if they were ready. Mounted, and rode in repulsive silence away. But Jack had left the pack-horse to Tom this time. And it began to rain, softly, seepily.
And Tom was cheering up. The rain seemed to revive him wonderfully. He was one who was soon bowled over by a drink. Consequently he didn’t absorb much, and he recovered sooner. Jack absorbed more, and it acted more slowly, deeply, and lastingly on him. On they went, in the rain. Tom began to show signs of new life. He swore at the pack-horse. He kicked his nag to a little trot, and the packs flap-flapped like shut wings, on the rear pony. Presently he reined up, and sat quite still for a minute. Then he broke into a laugh, lifting his face to the rain.
“Seems to me we’re off the road,” he said. “We haven’t passed a fence all day, have we?”
“No,” said Jack. “But you were asleep all morning.”
“We’re off the road. Listen!”
The rain was seeping down on the bush; in the grey evening, the warm horses smelt of their own steam. Jack could hear nothing except the wind and the increasing rain.
“This track must lead somewhere. Let’s get to shelter for the night,” said Jack.
“Agreed!” replied Tom magnanimously. “We’ll follow on, and see what we shall see.”
They walked slowly, pulling at the pack-horse, which was dragging at the rope, tired with the burden that grew every minute heavier with the rain.
Tom reined in suddenly.
“There is someb
ody behind,” he said. “It’s not the wind.”
They sat there on their horses in the rain, and waited. Twilight was falling. Then Jack could distinguish the sound of a cart behind. It was Rackett in the old shay rolling along in the lonely dusk and rain, through the trees, approaching. Black Sam grinned mightily as he pulled up.
“Thought I’d follow, though you are on the wrong road,” said Rackett from beneath his black waterproof. “Sam showed me the turning two miles back. You missed it. Anyhow we’d better camp in on these people ahead here.”
“Is there a place ahead?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” replied Rackett. “Even a sort of relation of yours, that I promised Gran I would come and see. Hence my following on your heels.”
“Didn’t know I’d any relation hereabouts,” said Tom sulkily. He couldn’t bear Rackett’s interfering in the family in any way.
“You haven’t. I meant Jack. But we’ll get along, shall we?”
“We’re a big flood,” remarked Tom. “But if they’ll give us the barn, well manage. It’s getting wet to sleep out.”
They pressed ahead, the pack-horse trotting, but lifting up his head like a venomous snake, in unwillingness. They had come into the open fields. At last in the falling dark they saw a house and buildings. A man hove in sight, but lurked away from them. Rackett hailed him. The man seemed to oppose their coming further. He was a hairy, queer figure, with his untrimmed beard.
“Master never takes no strangers,” he said.
Rackett slipped a shilling in his hand, and would he ask his master if they might camp in the barn, out of the rain.
“Y’ ain’t the police, now, by any manner of means?” asked the man.
“God love you, no,” said Rackett.
“We’re no police,” said Tom. “I’m Tom Ellis, from Wandoo, over York way.”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 407