Such Is Life (54 page)

By the bright lamp-light, I soon relieved him of what proved to be a small ant; then he went out to the washing-bench, and I heard the dabbling of water.

“I got a grass-seed in my eye the New Year's Day before last,” he remarked, in a sort of sullen self-commiseration, after we had sat in silence for a minute. “I couldn't see to catch a horse; and it took me about six hours to grope my way along the fences to Dick Templeton's hut. I thought I'd have gone mad.”

“Ah!” said I sympathetically, “that reminds me of an incident that came under my own notice on the very day you speak of. I'll tell you how it happened.” By this time, Alf had lit a meek and lowly meerschaum, whilst a large grey cat had jumped on his knees, and settled itself for repose. “You asked me awhile ago whether I knew anyone of your name in this part of the country. I forgot at the moment that one of my most profitable studies is a namesake of yours—Warrigal Alf, a carrier on these roads.”

“What's his other name?” asked the boundary man, in a suppressed voice.

“Morris.”

“Why don't you call him so, then? I hate nicknames.”

Poor fellow, thought I, and I continued, “I was coming down from Cobar, with a single horse; and on the New Year's Day before last, I reached the Yellow Tank—about forty miles from here, isn't it? I left my saddle and things at the tank, and was taking my horse out to a place where there's always a bit of grass, when I noticed a wagon in the scrub, and identified it as Alf's”—

“Did you know him before?” murmured the boundary man.

“Certainly.”

“Is he a married man?”

“Widower.”

“Widower?” repeated Alf, almost in a whisper. “Did you know his wife?”

“Personally, no; inductively, yes. She was one of those indefinably dangerous women who sing men to destruction—one of those tawny-haired tigresses, with slumbrous dark eyes—name, Iolanthe.”

“What?”

“Iolanthe de Vavasour,” I replied good-humouredly. “More appropriate than Molly—isn't it?”

The boundary man, after picking up his pipe, which had fallen on the slumbering cat, fixed his Zitska eye on my face with a puzzled, shrinking, defiant look, whilst drawing his seat a little further away. Ah! years of solitary life, with the haunting consciousness of frightful disfigurement, had told on his mind. Moriarty was right. And I remembered that the moon was approaching the full.

“Alf was sitting under a hop-bush,” I continued, “with his hand across his eyes.

“‘What's the matter, Alf?' says I.

“‘Is that you, Collins?' says he, trying to look up. ‘You're just in time to do more for me than I would care about doing for you. I've met with an accident. I was lying on my back under the wagon this morning, tightening some nuts, when a bit of rust, or something, fell straight into my eye. Frightful pain; and it's affecting the other eye already; giving me a foretaste of hell. No doubt it's a good thing; but I don't want a monopoly of it; I wish I could pass it round.' This was Alf's style of philosophy. Our friend, Iolanthe, is largely, though perhaps indirectly, responsible for it.”

“Yes—go on,” said the boundary man nervously.

“Well, as I was telling you, it was after sunset, and there was no time to lose, so I whittled a bit of wood to a point, and essayed the task in which I claim a certain eminence, namely, the extraction of a mote from my brother's eye.

“‘You're right, Alf,' says I; ‘it's a flake of rust, about the size of a fish's scale, lodged on the coloured part, which we term the iris—or, strictly speaking, on that part of the cornea which covers the iris. But I can't shift it with this appliance. Must get something sharper.'

“So I took a pin out of my coat, and grubbed the mote as well as I could by the deficient light. I don't know what Alf thought of it at the time, but I considered it a lovely operation. When it was over, Alf signified to me that I wasn't wanted any longer, so I went about my business.

“Next, morning, as I was going toward my horse-bell, I gave my patient a purely professional call, and found his eye worse than ever. I subjected him to another examination; and, this time having the advantage of full daylight, I discovered that the cause of his trouble wasn't a flake of rust, after all; but a small, barbed speck of clean iron, embedded in the white of the eye. I discovered something else. Alf's eyes are as blue as those of Zola's
Nana;
and in
the iris of the affected one there is, or rather, was, a brown spot. I had often noticed this before; but, in the defective light, and the hurry of the operation, I had never thought of the thing, and had wasted time and skill on it, as I tell you. I have often laughed to remember”—

“You were badly off for something to laugh at!” Again I recalled Moriarty's remark; for the boundary man's voice trembled as he spoke, and his splendid eye blazed with sudden resentment. But the fit passed away instantly, and he asked, in his usual subdued tone, “When did you see this—this Alf Morris last?”

“About two months ago,” I replied. “He was camped at that time in the Dead Man's Bend, at the junction of Avondale and Mondunbarra.”

“When are you likely to see him again?” asked the boundary man. “But, of course, you can't tell. It's a foolish question. I don't know what's come over me to-night.”

Ignorance is bliss, in that instance, poor fellow! thought I, glancing out at the weirdly beautiful moonlight; and I replied, “Most likely I'll never see him again. These wool-tracks, that knew him so well, will know him no more again for ever. He's gone to a warmer climate.”

“That decides it!” muttered the lunatic, swaying on his seat, whilst he clutched the edge of the table.

“Alf! Alf!” I remonstrated, laying my hand on his shoulder. He shrank from the touch, and immediately recovered himself. “Let me explain,” I continued soothingly. “He has gone four or five months' journey due north, in charge of three teams loaded with lares and penates, and tools, and cooking utensils, and rations, and other things too numerous to particularise, belonging once to Kooltopa, but now to a new station in South-western Queensland. Hence I say he's gone to a warmer climate. Not much of a joke, I admit.”

“And what's—what's become of Kooltopa?” asked the boundary man, panting under his effort at self-control.

“Old times are changed, old manners gone; a stranger fills the Stewart's throne,” I replied, with real sadness. “Kooltopa's sold to a Melbourne company, and is going to be worked for all it's worth. And I'm thinking of the carrier, coming down with the survivors of a severe trip, and the penniless pedestrian, striking the station at the eleventh hour. These people will miss Stewart badly.

For the guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour,

Since his turban was cleft by the infidel's sabre.”

“Whose turban?” asked Alf, with a puzzled look.

“Stewart's. I spake but by a metaphor. As with Antony, 'tis one of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind.”

There was a few minutes' silence. I was thinking of the Christian squatter, and so, no doubt, was many another wanderer at the same moment.

“But he'll come back to Riverina when he delivers the loading?” suggested the boundary man.

“Who?”

“This—Alf Morris.”

“I don't think so. I know he doesn't intend it.”

Another pause. Glancing at my companion, as he sat with his elbows on the table, and one hand, as usual, across the middle of his face, I noticed his chest heaving unnaturally, and his shapely lips losing their deep colour.

“Are you sick, Alf?”

“Yes—a little,” he whispered.

I filled a cup at the water-bag, and set it before him. He drank part of it.

“Quakers' meeting!” he remarked at length, with a slight laugh. “Why don't you say something? I'm not much of a talker myself, but I'm a good listener. Tell us some yarn to pass the time. Anything you like. Tell us all about that camp on the Lachlan, and what passed between you and your friend, Morris.”

Upon this hint I spake. I recounted consecutively the incidents which form the subject of an earlier chapter, whilst an occasional inquiry, or an appreciative nod, proved my eccentric auditor in touch with me from first to last.

“Three or four weeks afterward,” I continued, “I met this Bob Stirling in Mossgiel. He had a bit of a head on him at the time, having just got through five notes—three from Stewart, and two from Alf. I got a bob's worth of brandy to straighten him up; and we had a drink of tea together, while my horses went through a small feed of bad chaff at sixpence a pound.

“His account was, that Stewart, after parting from me, drove straight to Alf's camp, and deposited him there to look after things. Stewart himself only stayed a few minutes, and then drove to Avondale, to see Mr. Wentworth St. John Ffrench, Terrible Tommy's boss. Next morning, a wagonette came from Avondale, with a few parcels of eatables, and a few bottles of drinkables, and other sinful lusts of the flesh. Four days after that, again, Stewart drove round on his way back to Kooltopa. By this time, Alf was able to
crawl about, trying his best to be civil to Bob, and succeeding fairly well for a non-smoker.

“However, when Stewart called, he got into a yarn with Alf, and had a drink of tea while Bob held the horses. Presently, according to Bob's account, the conversation grew closer; and, after an hour or so, Stewart told Bob to unharness the horses, and hobble them out where they could get a bite of grass. Altogether, Stewart stayed about half a day. In a few days more, Alf was able to yoke and unyoke a few quiet bullocks; then he and Bob started for Kooltopa together. Arrived at their destination, Stewart and Alf each paid Bob, as already hinted; and Bob, having urgent business in Mossgiel, hurried away to transact it. He had just completed the deal when I met him.”

Here I paused to light my pipe.

“And what makes you think he has left Riverina for good?” asked the boundary man absently.

“Catch him leaving Riverina. He knows he has a good character as a quiet, decent, inoffensive sundowner—nobody's enemy but his own—and experience has taught him that any kind of tolerable! reputation is better than no reputation at all.”

“I don't mean him,” said the boundary man constrainedly.

“Of course not. I beg your pardon. Well, I heard it from himself. I met him about three weeks ago—that would be about three weeks after my interview with Bob Stirling. He's fairly in love with what he saw of Queensland, before last shearing; and, between bad seasons and selectors—not to mention his own presentiment of a rabbit-plague—he's full-up of Riverina. But that reminds me that I haven't brought Alf Morris's story to a proper conclusion. I heard the rest of it from Stewart, on the occasion I speak of. Stewart has bought his plant, and engaged him permanently. His first business is to take Stewart's teams to their destination—no easy matter at this time of the year, and such a year as this; but if any man can do it, that man is Alf. He started some weeks ago, a little shaky after his sickness, but recovering fast. Entirely changed in disposition, Stewart tells me; and those who know him will agree that a change wouldn't be out of place. But Stewart speaks of him as one of the noblest-minded men he ever knew. He says he just wants a man like Alf, and he doesn't intend to part with him. I fancy our love of paradox makes us prone to associate noble-mindedness with cantankerousness—at all events, nobody ever called me noble-minded. But such is life.”

“Then this new situation is a permanent thing for him?” suggested the boundary man.

“For Alf? No; I'm sorry to say, it's not.”

“Why?”

“Because Stewart's about sixty, and Alf's somewhere in the neighbourhood of thirty-seven. The Carlisle-tables would give Stewart an actuarial expectation of ten or fifteen years, and Alf one of twenty-five or thirty. And there will be old-man changes in the personnel of the station staff when the grand old Christian sleeps with his fathers, and his dirty-flash son reigns in his stead. Such, again, is life. But this won't affect Alf's interests to any ruinous extent. He has a stockingful of his own. It's a well-known fact that few carriers of Riverina cleared as much money as he did, and probably not one spent less. Stewart gave him £200 for his plant, and he never broke the cheque; posted it whole; Stewart himself took charge of it, as he told me in his gossiping way. Let Alf alone. He knows how to come in out of the wet; in fact, the rainy day is his strong point. Such, for the third and last time, is life.”

Whilst I spoke, my unfortunate companion was persistently trying to light his empty pipe, his hands trembling, and his breath quickening. The Maroo fly was at him again. I tried to divert his attention.

“By the way,” said I; “didn't you blame Thompson and Cunningham for duffing in your horse-paddock, ten or twelve months ago?”

“I didn't make any song about it,” replied the boundary rider half-resentfully.

“Of course not. Still you owe them an apology—which I shall be happy to convey, if you wish it. Alf Morris was the depredator. He was hovering about your hut that night like a guardian angel, while his twenty bullocks had their knife-bars going double-speed on your grass, and you slept the sleep of the unsuspecting. Ask old Jack; he'll give you chapter and verse, without much pressing. He told me about it this afternoon.”

But the fit came on, after all. The boundary man stared at me with a wild, shrinking look, and the same paling of the lips I had noticed before; then he drank the remaining water out of the cup, and, rising from his seat, walked slowly to his bed, and lay down with his face toward the wall.

Far gone, i' faith, thought I. Presently I went to the door, and,
shoring up one of the posts with my shoulder, looked out upon the cool, white moonlight, flooding the level landscape.