Such Is Life (18 page)

“You have a lot to be thankful for,” I remarked.

“Blessed be His Name!” thought Rory aloud; and I continued,

“You must make up your mind to send her away to school in another four or five years.”

“Iv coorse,” replied Rory sadly.

“A convent school, mind. None of your common boarding schools for a child like Mary.”

Rory's only reply was a glance of gratitude. My stern admonition would be a moral support to him in the coming controversy.

“You mentioned some other literary work that you have on hand?” I remarked inquiringly.

“Yis; A've jotted down a few idays. Now, Tammas—where was the Garden of Aden supposed to be?”

“My word, Rory, if a man could only disclose that to the world, he would command attention. However, one theory is that it was on the lost continent of Atlantis; another, that it was in the Valley of Cashmere. There are many other localities suggested, but I think the one which meets most favour is the Isle of Kishm, in the Straits of Ormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.”

“Will ye repate that, Tammas, iv ye plaze.”

I briefly rehearsed such relevant information as I possessed, whilst Rory kidnapped the geographical names and imprisoned them in his note-book, trusting to his memory for the rest.

“Oul' Father Finnegan, at Derryadd, useteh argie that the Garden iv Aden hed been furnent the Lake o' Killarney; an' no one dar' conthradict him,” he remarked, with a smile. “But people larns till think fur theirselves when they're out theyre lone. An' afther consitherin' the matter over, A take this iday fur a foundation: The furst Adam was created in a sartin place; then he sinned in a sartin place. An' when the Saviour (blessed be His Name!) come fur till clane the wurrld o' the furst Adam's sin, He hed till be born where the furst Adam was created; an' He hed till die where the furbidden fruit was ait. An' A've gethered up proofs, an' proofs, an' proofs—How far is it fram Jerusalem till Bethlehem, Tammas?”

“Nearly six miles.”

“A knowed the places must be convanient. Now ye mind where the Saviour (blessed be His Name!) says, ‘all the blood shed on earth, fram the blood iv righteous Abel'—and so on? Well, ‘earth' manes ‘land': an' it's all as wan as if He said, ‘shed on the land.' An' what land? Why, the Holy Land. An' the praphets lived there when the Fall was quite racent; an' hear what they say:—”

(Here he gave me some texts of Scripture, which I afterward verified—and I would certainly advise you to do the same, if you
can find a Bible. They are, Isaiah li, 3; Ezekiel xxviii, 13—xxxi, 9-18—xxxvi, 35; Joel ii, 3.)

“Rory, you're a marvel,” I remarked with sincerity. “And, by the way, if there's anything in the inspiration of Art—if the Artist soars to truth by the path which no fowl knoweth—your theory may find some support in the fact that it was a usage of the Renaissance to represent the skull of Adam at the foot of the cross.”

“Ay—that!” And Rory's note-book was out again. “Which artists, Tammas?”

“Martin Schoen—end of 15th century, for one. Jean Limousin—17th century—for another. Albert Dürer—beginning of 16th century—in more than one of his engravings. However, you can just hold this species of proof in reserve till I look up the subject. I won't forget.”

“God bless ye, Tammas! Would it be faysible at all at all fur ye till stap to the morrow mornin', an' ride out wi' me the day?”

“Well—yes.”

“Blessin's on ye, Tammas! Becos A've got four more idays that ye could help me with. Wan iday is about divils. A take this fur a foundation: There's sins fur till be done in the wurrld that men 'on't do; an' divils is marcifully put in the flesh an' blood fur till do them sins. ‘Wan iv you is a divil,' says the Saviour (blessed be His Name!) ‘He went to his own place,' says Acts—both manin' Judas. An' there's a wheen o' places where Iago spakes iv himself as a divil. An' A've got other proofs furbye, that we'll go over wan be wan. It's a mysthery, Tammas.”

“It is indeed.” Whilst replying, I was constrained to glance round at the weather; and my eye happened to fall on the creeper-laden pine, a quarter of a mile away. Suddenly a strange misgiving seized me, and I asked involuntarily, “Do you have many swagmen calling round here?”

“Nat six in the coorse o' the year,” replied Rory, too amiable to heed the impolite change of subject. “Las' time A seen Ward,” he continued, after a moment's pause, “he toul' me there was a man come to the station wan mornin' airly, near blin' wi' sandy blight; an' he stapped all day in a dark skillion, an' started again at night. He was makin' fur Ivanhoe, fur till ketch the coach; but it's a sore ondhertakin' fur a blin' man till thravel the counthry his lone, at this saison o' the year. An' it's quare where sthrangers gits till. A foun' a swag on the fence a week or ten days ago, an' a man's thracks at the tank a couple o' days afther; an' the swag's there
yit; an' A would think the swag an' the thracks belonged till the man wi' the sandy blight, barr'n this is nat the road till Ivanhoe.”

“My word, Rory, I wish either you or I had spoken of this when you came home last night. Never mind the horses now. Give me your bridle, and take Mary on your back.”

As we went on, I related how I had seen the man reclining under the tree; and Rory nodded forgivingly when I explained the scruple which had withheld me from making my presence known.

“He must 'a' come there afther ten o'clock yisterday,” observed Rory; “or it would be mighty quare fur me till nat see him, consitherin' me eyes is iverywhere when A 'm ridin' the boundhry.”

“But he wasn't near the boundary. I had turned off from the fence to see that dead pine with the big creeper on it.”

“Which pine, Tammas?”

“There it is, straight ahead—the biggest of the three that you see above the scrub. You notice it's a different colour?”

“'Deed ay, so it is. A wouldn't be onaisy, Tammas; it's har'ly likely there's much wrong—but it's good to make sartin about it.”

No effort could shake off the apprehension which grew upon me as we neared the fence. But on reaching it I said briskly:

“Stay where you are, Rory; I'll be back in half a minute.” Then I crushed myself through the wires.

Fifteen or twenty paces brought me to the spot. The man had changed his position, and was now lying at full length on his back, with arms extended along his sides. His face was fully exposed—the face of a worker, in the prime of manhood, with a heavy moustache and three or four weeks' growth of beard. So much only had I noted at first glance, whilst stooping under the heavy curtain of foliage. A few steps more, and, looking down on the waxen skin of that inert figure, I instinctively uncovered my head.

The dull eyes, half-open to a light no longer intolerable, showed by their death-darkened tracery of inflamed veins how much the lone wanderer had suffered. The hands, with their strong bronze now paled to tarnished ochre, were heavily calloused by manual labour, and sharply attenuated by recent hardship. The skin was cold, but the rigidity of death was yet scarcely apparent. Evidently he had not died of thirst alone, but of mere physical exhaustion, sealed by the final collapse of hope. And it seemed so strange to hear the low voices of Rory and Mary close by; to see through occasional spaces in the scrub the clear expanse of the horse-paddock, with even a glimpse of the house, all homely and peaceful in the silent sunshine. But such is life, and such is death.

Rory looked earnestly in my face as I rejoined him, and breathed one of his customary devotional ejaculations.

“Under the big wilga, just beyond that hop-bush,” said I, in an indifferent tone. “Stay with me, Mary dear,” I continued, taking out my note-book. “I'll make you a picture of a horse.”

“But A 'm aiger fur till see the pine wi' the big santipede on it,” objected the terrible infant.

“Nat now, darlin',” replied Rory. “Sure we'll come an' see the pine when we've lavin's o' time; but we're in a hurry now. Stap here an' kape Misther Collins company. Daddy'll be back at wanst.”

He kissed the child, and disappeared round the hop-bush. Then she turned her unfathomable eyes reproachfully on my face, as I sat on the ground.

“A love you, Tammas, becos ye spake aisy till my Daddy. But O!”—and the little, brown fingers wreathed themselves together in the distress of her soul—“A don't want till go to school, an' lave my Daddy his lone! An' A don't want till see that pitcher iv a horse; an' A 'on't lave me Daddy.”

I weakly explained that it was a matter of no great importance whether she went to school or not; and that, at worst, her Daddy could accompany her as a schoolmate. Presently Rory returned.

“Mary, jewel, jist pelt aff, lek a good chile, an' see if the wee gate's shut.” Mary shot off at full speed; and he continued gravely, “Dhrapped aff at the dead hour o' the night, seemin'ly. God rest his sowl! O, Tammas! iv we 'd only knowed!”

“Ay, or if I had only spoken to him! He must have got there yesterday morning. Likely he had heard the cocks crowing at your place before daylight, and was making for the sound, only that the light beat him, and he gave it best five minutes too soon.”

“Ah! we're poor, helpless craythurs, Tammas! But A s'pose A betther see Misther Spanker at wanst?”

“No,” I replied; “you stay and do what you can. I'll ride back, and see Mr. Spanker. How far is it to where that swag is on the fence?”

“About—well, about seven mile, as the crow flies.”

“Better have it here. Now we'll catch the horses. Come on, Mary! Take her on your back, Rory; we must hurry up now.”

I have already exceeded the legitimate exactions of my diary-record; but the rest of the story is soon told. Mr. Spanker, as a Justice of Peace, took the sworn depositions of Ward, Andrews,
Rory, and myself. In the man's pockets were found half-a-dozen letters, addressed to George Murdoch, Mooltunya Station, from Malmsbury, Victoria; and all were signed by his loving wife, Eliza H. Murdoch. Two of the letters acknowledged receipt of cheques; and there was another cheque (for £12 15s., if I remember rightly) in his pocket-book, with about £3 in cash. He was buried in the station cemetery, between Val English, late station storekeeper, who had poisoned himself, and Jack Drummond, shearer, who had died—presumably of heart failure—after breaking the record of the district. Such is life.

W
HAT
fatality impelled me to fix on the 9th, above all other days in the month? Why didn't I glance over the record of each 9th, before committing myself by a promise to review and annotate the entries of that date? For, few and evil as the days of the years of my pilgrimage have undeniably been, the 9th of November, '83, is one of those which I feel least satisfaction in recalling. Moreover, I incur a certain risk in thus unbosoming myself, as will become apparent to the perfidious reader who hungrily shadows me through this compromising story. But it may be graven with a pen of iron, that, at my age, no man shirks a promise, or tells a fib, for the first time; and so, ‘Sad, but Strong'—the family motto of the Colonnas, that offshoot of our tribe which settled in Italy in the year One—I answer to my bail.

One reservation I must make, however. For reasons which will too soon become manifest, it is expedient to conceal the exact locality of the unhappy experience now about to be disclosed; but I think I shall be on the safe side in setting forth that it was somewhere between Echuca and Albury.

Any person who happens to have preserved the files of the —
Express
may find, on the second page of the issue of Nov. 12th, the following local intelligence:—

LUNATIC AT LARGE!

On the night of Friday last the inhabitants of — were thrown into a state of excitement which may better be imagened than described by the appearance of a lunatic
in puris naturalibus
whose mania was evidently homicidal. During the earlier portion of the night the unfortunate man was seen from time to time by quite a number of people in places many miles apart. Some of the pleasure-seekers returning from the picnic held by the Sunday School Teachers' Re-union (noticed elsewhere in our columns) saw him scuttling along the three-chain road at a breakneck pace, others saw him dodging behind trees or endeavouring to conceal himself in scrub. At about 9 o'clock in the evening one of the picnic party, an athlete of some repute, made a plucky and determined attempt to capture the madman, and succeeded in overpowering him. This accomplished
secundem artem
, an impulse of humanity prompted Mr. K—
(for as some of our readers have already guessed, the gentleman referred to was Mr. K—, of the firm of D— and S—, Drapers, —) to divest himself of part of his own clothing for the benefit of his prisoner. The latter, when Mr. K— attempted to force the clothing upon him, rent the air with horrible shrieks heard by many others of the party, and by exertion of the unnatural strength which insanity confers, broke from his captor and escaped. Mr. K— humorously comments on the difficulty of hoiding a nude antagonist. If we were inclined to be facetious on the subject we might suggest that
mens sana in corpore sano
is not an infallible rule. Late in the evening the maniac
horresco referrens
made a furious attack on the residence of Mr. G— who was unfortunately absent at the time. Mrs. G— with the splendid courage which distinguishes the farmer's wife, kept him at bay till some wild impulse drove him to seek “fresh fields and pastures new.” The black trackers (who were brought on the scene on Saturday afternoon) have found his tracks in Mr. A—'s flower garden close to the parlour window, and also around Mr. H—'s homestead. The trackers aver that he is accompanied by a large kangaroo dog. It is a matter of congratulation that he has so far failed in effecting an entrance to any habitation. The police are scouring the neighbourhood and though the thunderstorm of Saturday night has unfortunately placed the trackers at fault, we trust soon to chronicle a clever capture, “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Various surmises are afloat regarding the identity of the lunatic but to our mind the suggestion of Inspector Collins, of the N.S.W. Civil Service appears most tenable: On Saturday afternoon when the excitement was at its height this gentleman called at our office, and in course of conversation on the all-absorbing topic pronounced his opinion that the lunatic is no other than the late escapee from Beechworth Asylum! Anent his mysterious disappearance at some time late on Friday night Mr. Collins supposes that he must have drowned himself in the river, and advances many ingenious and apparently conclusive arguments in support of both his hypotheses.