Such Is Life (43 page)

“His troubles is over too,” murmured Baxter.

“Well, as I was tellin' you, I begun to fancy I could hear the whimper of a kid, far away. 'Magination, thinks I. Lis'ns fit to break my (adj.) neck. Hears it agen. Seemed to come from the bank o' the river. Away I goes; hunts roun'; lis'ns; calls ‘Hen-ree!'; lis'ns agen. Not a sound. Couple o' the station hands happened to come roun', an' I told 'em. Well, after an hour o' searchin' an' lis'nin', the three of us went back to where I heard the sound. I hitches myself up on-to the log agen, an' says I:

“‘This is the very spot I was,' says I, ‘when I heard it.' An' before the word was out o' my mouth, (verb) me if I didn't hear it agen!

“‘There you are!' says I.

“‘What the (sheol) are you blatherin' about?' says they.

‘“Don't you hear the (adj.) kid?' says I.

“‘Oh, that ain't the kid, you (adj.) fool!' says they, lookin' as wise as Solomon, an' not lettin'-on they couldn't hear it But for
an' all, they parted, an' rode roun' an' roun', as slow as they could crawl, stoppin' every now an' agen, an' listenin' for all they was worth; an' me settin' on the log, puzzlin' my brains. At last I hears another whimper.

“‘There you are again!' says I.

“An' one cove, he was stopped close in front o' the butt end o' the log at the time; an' he jumps off his horse, an' sticks his head in the holler o' the log, an' lets a oath out of him. Fearful feller to swear, he was. I disremember his name jis' now; but he'd bin on Grundle ever since he bolted from his ole man's place, in Bullarook Forest, on account of a lickin' he got; an' it was hard to best him among sheep; an' now I rec'lect his name was Dick—Dick—it's jist on the tip o' my (adj.) tongue”—

“No matter hees name,” interposed Helsmok; “he have yoined der graat mayority too.”

“Well, as I was savin',” continued the patient Saunders, “we lis'ned at the mouth o' the holler, an' heard the kid whinin' inside; an' when we sung-out to him, he was as quiet as a mouse. An' we struck matches, an' tried to see him, but he was too fur along, an' the log was a bit crooked; an' when you got in a couple o' yards, the hole was so small you'd wonder how he done it. Anyhow, the two station blokes rode out to pass the word; an' the most o' the crowd was there in half-an-hour. The kid was a good thirty foot up the log; an' there was no satisfaction to be got out of him. He wouldn't shift; an' by-'n'-by we come to the impression that he couldn't shift; an' at long an' at last we had to chop him out, like a bees' nest. Turned out after, that the little (stray) had foun' himself out of his latitude when night come on; an' he'd got gumption enough to set down where he was, an' wait for mornin'. He 'd always bin told to do that, if he got lost. But by-'n'-by he heard ‘Hen-ree! Hen-ree! boomin' an' bellerin' back an' forrid across the bend in the dark; an' he thought the boody-man, an' the bunyip, an' the banshee, an' (sheol) knows what all, was after him. So he foun' this holler log, an' he thought he couldn't git fur enough into it. He was about seven year old then; an' that was in '71—the year after the big flood—an' the shearin' was jist about over. How old would that make him now? Nineteen or twenty. He left his ole man three year ago, to travel with a sheep-drover, name o' Sep Halliday, an' he's bin with the same bloke ever since. Mos' likely some o' you chaps knows this Sep? Stout butt of a feller, with a red baird. Used to mostly take flocks for truckin' at Deniliquin; but that got too many at it—like everything else—an' he
Went out back, Cooper's Creek way, with three thousand Gunbar yowes, the beginnin' o' las' winter, an' I ain't heard of him since he crossed at Wileanniar”—

“No wonder,” I observed; “he's gone aloft, like the rest.”

There was a pause, broken by Stevenson, in a voice that brought constraint on us all:

“Bad enough to lose a youngster for a day or two, and find him alive and well; worse, beyond comparison, when he's found dead; but the most fearful thing of all is for a youngster to be lost in the bush, and never found, alive or dead. That's what happened to my brother Eddie, when he was about eight year old. You must remember it, Thompson?”

“Wasn't my father out on the search?” replied Thompson. “Tom's father, too. You were living on the Upper Campaspe.”

“Yes,” continued Stevenson, clearing his throat; “I've been thinking over it every night for these five-and-twenty years, and it seems to me the most likely thing that could have happened to him was to get jammed in a log, like that other little chap. Then after five years, or ten years, or twenty years, the log gets burned, and nobody notices a few little bones, crumbled among the ashes.

“I was three or four years older than Eddie,” he resumed hoarsely; “and he just worshipped me. I had been staying with my uncle in Kyneton for three months, going to school; and Eddie was lost the day after I came home. We were out, gathering gum-four of us altogether—about a mile and a half from home; and I got cross with the poor little fellow, and gave him two or three hits; and he started home by himself, crying. He turned round and looked at me, just before he got out of sight among the trees; and that was the last that was ever seen of him, alive or dead. My God! When I think of that look, it makes me thankful to remember that every day brings me nearer to the end. The spot where he turned round is in the middle of a cultivation-paddock now, but I could walk straight to it in the middle of the darkest night.

“Yes; he started off home, crying. We all went the same way so soon afterward that I expected every minute to see him on ahead. At last we thought we must have passed him on the way. No alarm yet, of course; but I was choking with grief, to think how I'd treated the little chap; so I gave Maggie and Billy the slip, and went back to meet him. I knew from experience how glad he would be.

“Ah well! the time that followed is like some horrible dream. He was lost at about four in the afternoon; and there would be
about a dozen people looking for him, and calling his name, all night Next day, I daresay there would be about thirty. Next morning, my father offered £100 reward for him, dead or alive; and five other men guaranteed £10 each. Next day, my father's reward was doubled; and five other men put down their names for another £50. Next day, Government offered £200. So between genuine sympathy and the chance of making £500, the bush was fairly alive with people; and everyone within thirty miles was keeping a look-out.

“No use. The search was gradually dropped, till no one was left but my father. Month after month, he was out every day, wet or dry; and my mother waiting at home, with a look on her face that frightened us—waiting for the news he might bring. And, time after time, he took stray bones to the doctor; but they always turned out to belong to sheep, or kangaroos, or some other animal. Of course, he neglected the place altogether, and it went to wreck; and our cattle got lost; and he was always meeting with people that sympathised with him, and asked him to have a drink—and you can hardly call him responsible for the rest.

“However, on the anniversary of the day that Eddie got lost, my mother took a dose of laudanum; and that brought things to a head. My father had borrowed every shilling that the place would carry, to keep up the search; and there was neither interest nor principal forthcoming, so the mortgagee—Wesleyan minister, I'm sorry to say—had to sell us off to get his money. We had three uncles; each of them took one of us youngsters; but they could do nothing for my father. He hung about the public-houses, getting lower and lower, till he was found dead in a stable, one cold winter morning. That was about four years after Eddie was lost.”

Stevenson paused, and restlessly changed his position, then muttered, in evident torture of mind:

“Think of it! While he was going away, crying, he looked back over his shoulder at me, without a word of anger; and he walked up against a sapling, and staggered—and I laughed!—Great God!—I laughed!”

That was the end of the tank-sinker's story; and silence fell on our camp. Doubtless each one of us recalled actions of petty tyranny toward leal, loving, helpless dependents, or inferiors in strength—actions which now seemed to rise from the irrevocable past, proclaiming their exemption from that moral statute of limitations which brings self-forgiveness in course of time. For an innate Jehovah sets His mark upon the Cain guilty merely of bullying or
terrifying any brother whose keeper he is by virtue of superior strength; and that brand will burn while life endures. (Conversely—does such remorse ever follow disdain of authority, or defiance of power? I, for one, have never experienced it.)

Soon a disquietude from another source set my mind at work in troubled calculation of probabilities. At last I said:

“Would you suppose, Steve, that the finding of George Murdoch's body was a necessary incitement among the causes that led to the little girl's getting lost?”

“Domson's ascleep,” murmured Helsmok. “I tink dey all ascleep. I wass yoos dropp'n off mineself.”

And in two minutes, his relaxed pose and regular breathing affirmed a kind of fellowship with the rest, in spite of his alien birth and objectionable name. But I couldn't sleep. Dear innocent, angel-faced Mary! perishing alone in the bush! Nature's precious link between a squalid Past and a nobler Future, broken, snatched away from her allotted place in the long chain of the ages! Heiress of infinite hope, and dowered with latent fitness to fulfil her part, now so suddenly fallen by the wayside! That quaint dialect silent so soon! and for ever vanished from this earth that keen, eager perception, that fathomless love and devotion! But such is life.

Yet it is well with her. And it is well with her father, since he, throughout her transitory life, spoke no word to hurt or grieve her. Poor old Rory! Reaching Goolumbulla, after his sorrowful journey, his soft heart would be stabbed afresh by the sight of two picture-books, which I had posted a fortnight before. And how many memories and associations would confront him when he returned to his daily round of life! How many reminders that the irremediable loss is a reality, from which there can be no awakening! How many relics to be contemplated with that morbid fascination for the re-quickening of a slumbering and intolerable sense of bereavement! But the saddest and most precious of memorials will be those little copper-toed boots that she left along the way. Deepest pathos lies only in homely things, since the frailness of mortality is the pathetic centre, and mortality is nothing but homely.

Hence, no relic is so affecting as the half-worn boots of the dead. Thus in the funeral of that gold-escort trooper, when I was but little older than poor Mary. The armed procession—the Dead March—the cap and sword on the coffin—seemed so imposing that I forthwith resolved to be a trooper myself. That ambition passed away;
but the pathos of the empty boots, reversed in the stirrups of the led horse, has remained with me ever since.

From sad reflections, I seemed to be thus drifting into philosophic musing, when Helsmok shook me gently by the shoulder. A glance at the setting moon showed that I had been asleep, and that it was long past midnight. Here, therefore, ends the record of December the 9th; and you might imagine this chapter of life fitly concluded.

But sometimes an under-current of plot, running parallel with the main action, emerges from its murky depths, and causes a transient eddy in the interminable stream of events. Something of this kind occurred on the morning of the 10th.

“Collince,” said the Dutchman softly. “Don' wake op der odder vellers—do no goot yoos now. I gone 'way roun' der liknum, und der bullock und der horse not dere. Notteen cronk, I hope, Mi's well com anodder trip?”

I left my lair, and we walked out across the plain, followed by the faithful Pup. When we had ranged for an hour, in half-mile zig-zags, day began to break; and nothing had turned-up, except four of Stevenson's horses. But we heard, through the stillness of the dawn, a faint, far-away trampling of hoofs. We headed for the sound, and presently found ourselves meeting three or four dozen of mixed bullocks and horses, convoyed by five mounted Chinamen. We stood aside to let them pass. By this time, an advancing daylight enabled me to recognise the roan horse of Sam Young (also called Paul) with a rider who was more likely to be that proselyte than anyone else. At all events, he turned upon me the light of a countenance, broad, yellow, and effulgent as the harvest moon of pastoral poetry; and, like a silver clarion, rung the accents of that unknown tongue:

“Ah-pang-sen-lo! Missa Collin! sen-lo! Tlee-po' week, me plurry liah, all li; nek time, you plully Hah, all li! Missa Smyte talkee you bimeby! Hak-i-long-see-ho! You lescue Walligal Alp bullock—eh? You killee me, by cli! Whe' you holse? Ling-tang-hon-me! My wuld, Tlinidad plully goo' glass, no feah! Hi-lung-sing-i-lo-i-lo!”

“Goo' molnin', Missa Heismok!” chanted another yellow agony. “Nicee molnin', Missa Heismok! Whaffoh you tellee me lah wintel you sclew my plully neck? Lak-no-ha-long-lee! Missa Smyte wakee you up—tyillin'-a-head you holse! Man-di-sling-lo-he!”

“Donder und blitzen!” retorted the Dutchman, striding toward the escort, which scattered at his approach. “Yomp off dem olt crocks, every man yack of you, und swelp mine Gott! I weel ponch
der het of der vive of you altogedder mit, ef so moch der yudge seegs mons pot me into der yail bot!”

“Helsmok,” said I, restraining him; “upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. Let us accept the situation with dignity. Let us pit the honest frankness of the played-out Caucasian against the cunning of the successful Mongol.” Then, addressing the Turanian horde, and adapting my speech to the understanding of our lowest types: “My word!” I exclaimed admiringly, “you take-um budgeree rise out-a whitepeller, John! Merri-jig you! Borak you shift-um that peller bullock; borak you shift-urn that peller yarraman. Whitepeller gib-it you fi' bob, buy-it opium. You savvy? Bale whitepeller tell-um boss. Bimeby whitepeller yabber like-it, ‘Chinaman berry good'—yabber like-it, ‘Comenavadrink, John'—yabber like-it, ‘Chinaman brother b'long-a whitepeller.' You savvy, John?”