Selected Stories (17 page)

The song has little or nothing to do with the “squire”, except so far as “all friends and relations had given consent”, and—

The troo-soo was ordered—appointed the day, And a farmier were appointed for to give her away—

which last seemed a most unusual proceeding, considering the wedding was a toney affair; but perhaps there were personal interests—the nobleman might have been hard up, and the farmer backing him. But there was an extraordinary scene in the church, and things got mixed.

For as soon as this maiding this farmier espied: “Hoh, my heart! Hoh, my heart! Hoh, my heart!” then she cried.

Hysterics? Anyway, instead of being wed—

This maiding took sick and she went to her bed.

(N.B.—Pinter sticks to “virging”.)

Whereupon friends and relations and guests left the house in a body (a strange but perhaps a wise proceeding, after all—maybe they smelt a rat) and left her to recover alone, which she did promptly. And then:

Shirt, breeches, and waistcoat this maiding put on,

And a-hunting she went with her dog and her gun;

She hunted all round where this farmier did dwell, Because in her own heart she love-ed him well.

The cat’s out of the bag now:

And often she fired, but no game she killed—

which was not surprising—

Till at last the young farmier came into the field—

No wonder. She put it to him straight:

“Oh, why are you not at the wedding?” she cried. “For to wait on the squoire, and to give him his bride.”

He was as prompt and as delightfully unconventional in his reply as the young lady in Covent Gardings:

“Oh, no! and oh, no! For the truth I must sa-a-y, I love her too well for to give her a-w-a-a-y!”

which was satisfactory to the disguised “virging”.

“…and I’d take sword in hand, And by honour I’d win her if she would command.”

Which was still more satisfactory.

Now this virging being—

(Jimmy Nowlett: “Maiden, Pinter——” Jimmy is thrown on a stool and sat on by several diggers.)

Now this maiding, being please-ed to see him so bold, She gave him her glove that was flowered with gold,

and explained that she found it in his field while hunting around with her dog and her gun. It is understood that he promised to look up the owner. Then she went home and put an advertisement in the local
Herald
; and that ad. must have caused considerable sensation. She stated that she had lost her golden glove, and

The young man that finds it and brings it to me, Hoh! that very young man my husband shall be!

She had a saving clause in case the young farmer mislaid the glove before he saw the ad., and an
old
bloke got holt of it and fetched it along. But everything went all right. The young farmer turned up with the glove. He was a very respectable young farmer, and expressed his gratitude to her for having “honour-ed him with her love”. They were married, and the song ends with a picture of the young farmeress milking the cow, and the young farmer going whistling to plough. The fact that they lived and grafted on the selection proves that I hit the right nail on the head when I guessed, in the first place, that the old nobleman was “stony”.

In after years,

…she told him of the fun,

How she hunted him up with her dog and her gun.

But whether he was pleased or otherwise to hear it, after years of matrimonial experiences, the old song doesn’t say, for it ends there.

Flash Jack is more successful with “Saint Patrick’s Day”.

I come to the river, I jumped it quite clever!

Me wife tumbled in, and I lost her for ever,

St Patrick’s own day in the mornin’!

This is greatly appreciated by Jimmy Nowlett, who is suspected, especially by his wife, of being more cheerful when on the roads than when at home.

“Sam Holt” was a great favourite with Jimmy Nowlett in after years.

Oh, do you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt?

Black Alice so dirty and dark—

Who’d a nose on her face—I forget how it goes—

And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.

Sam Holt must have been very hard up for tucker as well as beauty then, for

Do you remember the ’possums and grub
s
She baked for you down by the creek
?

Sam Holt was, apparently, a hardened Flash Jack.

You were not quite the cleanly potato, Sam Holt.

Reference is made to his “manner of holding a flush”, and he is asked to remember several things which he, no doubt, would rather forget, including

…the hiding you got from the boys.

The song is decidedly personal.

But Sam Holt makes a pile and goes home, leaving many a better and worse man to pad the hoof out back. And—Jim Nowlett sang this with so much feeling as to make it appear a personal affair between him and the absent Holt—

And, don’t you remember the fiver, Sam Holt
,
You borrowed so careless and free
?
I reckon I’ll whistle a good many tune
s

(with increasing feeling)

Ere you think of that fiver and me.

For the chances will be that Sam Holt’s old mate

Will be humping his drum on the Hughenden Roa
d
To the end of the chapter of fate
.

An echo from “The Old Bark Hut”, sung in the opposition camp across the gully:

You may leave the door ajar, but if you keep it shut, There’s no need of suffocation in the Ould Barrk Hut. The tucker’s in the gin-case, but you’d better keep it shut
—

For the flies will canther round it in the Ould Barrk Hut.

However:

What’s out of sight is out of mind, in the Ould Barrk Hut.

We washed our greasy moleskins On the banks of the Condamine.—

Somebody tackling the “Old Bullock Dray”; it must be over fifty verses now. I saw a bushman at a country dance start to sing that song; he’d get up to ten or fifteen verses, break down, and start afresh. At last he sat down on his heel to it, in the centre of the clear floor, resting his wrist on his knee, and keeping time with an index finger. It was very funny, but the thing was taken seriously all through.

Irreverent echo from the old Lambing Flat trouble, from camp across the gully:

Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

No more Chinamen will enter Noo South Wales!

and

Yankee Doodle came to tow
n
Upon a little pony
—
Stick a feather in his cap
,
And call him Maccaroni
!

All the camps seem to be singing to-night:

Ring the bell, watchman! Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring, for the good news Is now on the wing!

Good lines, the introduction:

High on the belfry the old sexton stands
,
Grasping the rope with his thin bony hands!…Bon-fires are blazing throughout the land…Glorious and blessed tidings! Ring! Ring the bell
!

Granny Mathews fails to coax her niece into the kitchen, but persuades her to sing inside. She is the girl who learnt
sub rosa
from the bad girl who sang “Madeline”. Such as have them on instinctively take their hats off. Diggers, &c., strolling past, halt at the first notes of the girl’s voice, and stand like statues in the moonlight:

Shall we gather at the river
,
Where bright angel feet have trod
?

The beautiful—the beautiful rive
r
That flows by the throne of God
!

Diggers wanted to send that girl “Home”, but Granny Mathews had the old-fashioned horror of any of her children becoming “public”—

Gather with the saints at the river, That flows by the throne of God!

But it grows later, or rather, early. The “Eyetalians” go by in the frosty moonlight, from their last shift in the claim (for it is Saturday night), singing a litany.

“Get up on one end, Abe!—stand up all” Hands are clasped across the kitchen table. Redclay, one of the last of the alluvial fields, has petered out, and the Roaring Days are dying…The grand old song that is known all over the world; yet how many in ten thousand know more than one verse and the chorus! Let Peter McKenzie lead:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
,
And never brought to min’
?

And hearts echo from far back in the past and across wide, wide seas:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
,
And days o’ lang syne
?

Now boys! all together!

For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes
,
And pu’d the gowans fine
;
We’ve wandered mony a weary foot
,
Sin’ auld lang syne
.

The world was wide then.

We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn
,
Frae mornin’ sun till dine—
—

The log fire seems to grow watery, for, in wide, lonely Australia—

But seas between us braid hae roar’d
,
Sin’ auld lang syne
.

The kitchen grows dimmer, and the forms of the digger singers seemed suddenly vague and unsubstantial, fading back rapidly through a misty veil. But the words ring strong and defiant through hard years:

And here’s a hand, my trusty frien’
,

And gie’s a grup o’ thine
;

And we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet
,

For auld lang syne
.

And the nettles have been growing for over twenty years on the spot where Granny Mathews’ big bark kitchen stood.

I’D been humping my back, and crouching and groaning for an hour or so in the darkest corner of the travellers’ hut, tortured by the demon of sandy blight. It was too hot to travel, and there was no one there except ourselves and Mitchell’s cattle pup. We were waiting till after sundown, for I couldn’t have travelled in the daylight, anyway. Mitchell had tied a wet towel round my eyes, and led me for the last mile or two by another towel—one end fastened to his belt behind, and the other in my hand as I walked in his tracks. And oh! but this was a relief! It was out of the dust and glare, and the flies didn’t come into the dark hut, and I could hump and stick my knees in my eyes and groan in comfort. I didn’t want a thousand a year, or anything; I only wanted relief for my eyes—that was all I prayed for in this world. When the sun got down a bit, Mitchell started poking round, and presently he found amongst the rubbish a dirty-looking medicine bottle, corked tight; when he rubbed the dirt off a piece of notepaper that was pasted on, he saw “eye-water” written on it. He drew the cork with his teeth, smelt the water, stuck his little finger in, turned the bottle upside down, tasted the top of his finger, and reckoned the stuff was all right.

“Here! Wake up, Joe!” he shouted. “Here’s a bottle of tears.”

“Abottler wot?” I groaned.

“Eye-water,” said Mitchell.

“Are you sure it’s all right?” I didn’t want to be poisoned or have my eyes burnt out by mistake; perhaps some burning acid had got into that bottle, or the label had been put on, or left on, in mistake or carelessness.

“I dunno,” said Mitchell, “but there’s no harm in tryin’.”

I chanced it. I lay down on my back in a bunk, and Mitchell dragged my lids up and spilt half a bottle of eye-water over my eye-balls.

The relief was almost instantaneous. I never experienced such a quick cure in my life. I carried the bottle in my swag for a long
time afterwards, with an idea of getting it analysed, but left it behind at last in a camp.

Mitchell scratched his head thoughtfully, and watched me for a while.

“I think I’ll wait a bit longer,” he said at last, “and if it doesn’t blind you I’ll put some in my eyes. I’m getting a touch of blight myself now. That’s the fault of travelling with a mate who’s always catching something that’s no good to him.”

As it grew dark outside we talked of sandy blight and fly-bite, and sand-flies up north, and ordinary flies, and branched off to Barcoo rot, and struck the track again at bees and bee stings. When we got to bees, Mitchell sat smoking for a while and looking dreamily backwards along tracks and branch tracks, and round corners and circles he had travelled, right back to the short, narrow, innocent bit of track that ends in a vague, misty point—like the end of a long, straight, cleared road in the moonlight—as far back as we can remember.

“I had about fourteen hives,” said Mitchell—“we used to call them ‘swarms’, no matter whether they were flying or in the box—when I left home first time. I kept them behind the shed, in the shade, on tables of galvanised iron cases turned down on stakes; but I had to make legs later on, and stand them in pans of water, on account of the ants. When the bees swarmed—and some hives sent out the Lord knows how many swarms in a year, it seemed to me—we’d tinkettle ’em, and throw water on ’em, to make ’em believe the biggest thunderstorm was coming to drown the oldest inhabitant; and, if they didn’t get the start of us and rise, they’d settle on a branch—generally on one of the scraggy fruit trees. It was rough on the bees—come to think of it; their instinct told them it was going to be fine, and the noise and water told them it was raining. They must have thought that nature was mad, drunk, or gone ratty, or the end of the world had come. We’d rig up a table, with a box upside down, under the branch, cover our face with a piece of mosquito net, have rags burning
round, and then give the branch a sudden jerk, turn the box down, and run. If we got most of the bees in, the rest that were hanging to the bough or flying round would follow, and then we reckoned we’d shook the queen in. If the bees in the box came out and joined the others, we’d reckon we hadn’t shook the queen in, and go for them again. When a hive was full of honey we’d turn the box upside down, turn the empty box mouth down on top of it, and drum and hammer on the lower box with a stick till all the bees went up into the top box. I suppose it made their heads ache, and they went up on that account.

“I suppose things are done differently on proper bee-farms. I’ve heard that a bee farmer will part a hanging swarm with his fingers, take out the queen bee and arrange matters with her; but our ways suited us; and there was a lot of expectation and running and excitement in it, especially when a swarm took us by surprise. The yell of ‘Bees swarmin’!’ was as good to us as the yell of ‘Fight!’ is now, or ‘Bolt!’ in town, or ‘Fire’ or ‘Man overboard!’ at sea.

“There was tons of honey. The bees used to go to the vineyards at wine-making and get honey from the heaps of crushed grape-skins thrown out in the sun, and get so drunk sometimes that they wobbled in their bee-lines home. They’d fill all the boxes, and then build in between and under the bark, and board, and tin covers. They never seemed to get the idea out of their heads that this wasn’t an evergreen country, and it wasn’t going to snow all winter. My younger brother Joe used to put pieces of meat on the tables near the boxes, and in front of the holes where the bees went in and out, for the dogs to grab at. But one old dog, ‘Black Bill’, was a match for him; if it was worth Bill’s while, he’d camp there, and keep Joe and the other dogs from touching the meat—once it was put down—till the bees turned in for the night. And Joe would get the other kids round there, and when they weren’t looking or thinking, he’d brush, the bees with a stick and run. I’d lam him when I caught him at it. He was an awful young devil, was Joe, and he grew up steady, and respectable, and respected—and I went to the bad. I never trust a good boy now…Ah, well!

“I remember the first swarm we got. We’d been talking of getting a few swarms for a long time. That was what was the matter with us English and Irish and English-Irish Australian farmers: we used to talk so much about doing things while the Germans and Scotch did them. And we even talked in a lazy, easy-going sort of way.

“Well, one blazing hot day I saw father coming along the road, home to dinner (we had it in the middle of the day), with his axe over his shoulder. I noticed the axe particularly because father was bringing it home to grind, and Joe and I had to turn the stone; but, when I noticed Joe dragging along home in the dust about fifty yards behind father, I felt easier in my mind. Suddenly father dropped the axe and started to run back along the road towards Joe, who, as soon as he saw father coming, shied for the fence and got through. He thought he was going to catch it for something he’d done—or hadn’t done. Joe used to do so many things and leave so many things not done that he could never be sure of father. Besides, father had a way of starting to hammer us unexpectedly—when the idea struck him. But father pulled himself up in about thirty yards and started to grab up handfuls of dust and sand and throw them into the air. My idea, in the first flash, was to get hold of the axe, for I thought it was sun-stroke, and father might take it into his head to start chopping up the family before I could persuade him to put it (his head, I mean) in a bucket of water. But Joe came running like mad, yelling:

“ ‘Swarmer bees! Swawmmer—bee—ee—es! Bring—a—tin—dish—and—a—dippera—wa-a-ter!’

“I ran with a bucket of water and an old frying-pan, and pretty soon the rest of the family were on the spot, throwing dust and water, and banging everything, tin or iron, they could get hold of. The only bullock bell in the district (if it was in the district) was on the old poley cow, and she’d been lost for a fortnight. Mother brought up the rear—but soon worked to the front—with a baking-dish and a big spoon. The old lady—she wasn’t old then—had a deep-rooted prejudice that she could do everything better than anybody else, and that the selection and all on it
would go to the dogs if she wasn’t there to look after it. There was no jolting that idea out of her. She not only believed that she could do anything better than anybody, and hers was the only right or possible way; and that we’d do everything upside down if she wasn’t there to do it or show us how—but she’d try to do things herself or insist on making us do them her way, and that led to messes and rows. She was excited now, and took command at once. She wasn’t tongue-tied, and had no impediment in her speech.

“ ‘Don’t throw up dust! Stop throwing up dust!—Do you want to smother ’em?—Don’t throw up so much water!—Only throw up a pannikin at a time!—D’yer want to drown ’em? Bang! Keep on banging, Joe!—Look at that child!—Run, someone!—run! you, Jack!—D’yer want the child to be stung to death?—Take her inside!…D’y’ hear me?…Stop throwing up dust, Tom!’ [To father.] ‘You’re scaring ’em away! Can’t you see they want to settle?’ [Father was getting mad and yelping: ‘For Godsake shettup and go inside.’] ‘Throw up water, Jack! Throw up—Tom! Take that bucket from him and don’t make such a fool of yourself before the children! Throw up water! Throw—keep on banging, children! Keep on banging!’ [Mother put her faith in banging.] ‘There!—they’re off! You’ve lost ’em! I knew you would! I told yer—keep on bang——!’

“Abee struck her in the eye, and she grabbed at it!

“Mother went home—and inside.

“Father was good at bees—could manage them like sheep when he got to know their ideas. When the swarm settled, he sent us for the old washing stool, boxes, bags, and so on; and the whole time he was fixing the bees I noticed that whenever his back was turned to us his shoulders would jerk up as if he was cold, and he seemed to shudder from inside, and now and then I’d hear a grunting sort of whimper like a boy that was just starting to blubber. But father wasn’t weeping, and bees weren’t stinging him; it was the bee that stung mother that was tickling father. When he went into the house, mother’s other eye had bunged for sympathy. Father was always gentle and kind in sickness, and he bathed mother’s eyes and rubbed mud on, but
every now and then he’d catch inside, and jerk and shudder, and grunt and cough. Mother got wild, but presently the humour of it struck her, and she had to laugh, and a rum laugh it was, with both eyes bunged up. Then she got hysterical, and started to cry, and father put his arm round her shoulder and ordered us out of the house.

“They were very fond of each other, the old people were, under it all—right up to the end…Ah, well!”

Mitchell pulled the swags out of a bunk, and started to fasten the nose-bags on.