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Australia Felix

H >> Henry Handel Richardson (1870 1946) >> Australia Felix




But Mahony's designs of a friendly interference came too late. The
troops had got away, creeping stealthily through the morning dusk; and
he was still panting up Specimen Hill when he heard the crack of a
rifle. Confused shouts and cries followed. Then a bugle blared, and the
next instant the rattle and bang of musketry split the air.

Together with a knot of others, who like himself had run forth half
dressed, Mahony stopped and waited, in extreme anxiety; and, while he
stood, the stars went out, one by one, as though a finger-tip touched
them. The diggers' response to the volley of the attacking party was
easily distinguished: it was a dropping fire, and sounded like a thin
hail-shower after a peal of thunder. Within half an hour all was over:
the barricade had fallen, to cheers and laughter from the military; the
rebel flag was torn down; huts and tents inside the enclosure were going
up in flames.

Towards six o'clock, just as the December sun, huge and fiery, thrust
the edge of its globe above the horizon, a number of onlookers ran up
the slope to all that was left of the ill-fated stockade. On the dust,
bloodstains, now set hard as scabs, traced the route by which a wretched
procession of prisoners had been marched to the Camp gaol. Behind the
demolished barrier huts smouldered as heaps of blackened embers; and the
ground was strewn with stark forms, which lay about--some twenty or
thirty of them--in grotesque attitudes. Some sprawled with outstretched
arms, their sightless eyes seeming to fix the pale azure of the sky;
others were hunched and huddled in a last convulsion. And in the course
of his fruitless search for friend and brother, an old instinct
reasserted itself in Mahony: kneeling down he began swiftly and
dexterously to examine the prostrate bodies. Two or three still heaved,
the blood gurgling from throat and breast like water from the neck of a
bottle. Here, one had a mouth plugged with shot, and a beard as stiff as
though it were made of rope. Another that he turned over was a German he
had once heard speak at a diggers' meeting--a windy braggart of a man,
with a quaint impediment in his speech. Well, poor soul! he would never
mouth invectives or tickle the ribs of an audience again. His body was a
very colander of wounds. Some had not bled either. It looked as though
the soldiers had viciously gone on prodding and stabbing the fallen.

Stripping a corpse of its shirt, he tore off a piece of stuff to make a
bandage for a shattered leg. While he was binding the limb to a board,
young Tom ran up to say that the military, returning with carts, were
arresting every one they met in the vicinity. With others who had been
covering up and carrying away their friends, Mahony hastened down the
back of the hill towards the bush. Here was plain evidence of a
stampede. More bloodstains pointed the track, and a number of odd and
clumsy weapons had been dropped or thrown away by the diggers in their
flight.

He went home with the relatively good tidings that neither Ned nor Purdy
was to be found. Polly was up and dressed. She had also lighted the fire
and set water on to boil, "just in case." "Was there ever such a
sensible little woman?" said her husband with a kiss.

The day dragged by, flat and stale after the excitement of the morning.
No one ventured far from cover; for the military remained under arms,
and detachments of mounted troopers patrolled the streets. At the Camp
the hundred odd prisoners were being sorted out, and the maimed and
wounded doctored in the rude little temporary hospital. Down in Main
Street the noise of hammering went on hour after hour. The dead could
not be kept, in the summer heat, must be got underground before dark.

Mahony had just secured his premises for the night, when there came a
rapping at the back door. In the yard stood a stranger who, when the dog
Pompey had been chidden and soothed, made mysterious signs to Mahony and
murmured a well-known name. Admitted to the sitting-room he fished a
scrap of dirty paper from his boot. Mahony put the candle on the table
and straightened out the missive. Sure enough, it was in Purdy's hand--
though sadly scrawled.

HAVE BEEN HIT IN THE PIN. COME IF POSSIBLE AND BRING YOUR TOOLS. THE
BEARER IS SQUARE.

Polly could hear the two of them talking in low, urgent tones. But her
relief that the visitor brought no bad news of her brother was dashed
when she learned that Richard had to ride out into the bush, to visit a
sick man. However she buttoned her bodice, and with her hair hanging
down her back went into the sitting-room to help her husband; for he was
turning the place upside down. He had a pair of probe-scissors
somewhere, he felt sure, if he could only lay hands on them. And while
he ransacked drawers and cupboards for one or other of the few poor
instruments left him, his thoughts went back, inopportunely enough, to
the time when he had been surgeon's dresser in the Edinburgh Royal
Infirmary. O TEMPORA, O MORES! He wondered what old Syme, that prince of
surgeons, would say, could he see his whilom student raking out a probe
from among the ladles and kitchen spoons, a roll of lint from behind the
saucepans.

Bag in hand, he followed his guide to where the latter had left a horse
in safe-keeping; and having lengthened the stirrups and received
instructions about the road, he set off for the hut in the ranges which
Purdy had contrived to reach. He had an awkward cross-country ride of
some four miles before him; but this did not trouble him. The chance-
touched spring had opened the gates to a flood of memories; and, as he
jogged along, he re-lived in thought the happy days spent as a student
under the shadow of Arthur's Seat, round the College, the Infirmary and
old Surgeons' Square. Once more he sat in the theatre, the breathless
spectator of famous surgical operations; or as house-surgeon to the
Lying-in Hospital himself assisted in daring attempts to lessen
suffering and save life. It was, of course, too late now to bemoan the
fact that he had broken with his profession. Yet only that very day envy
had beset him. The rest of the fraternity had run to and from the tents
where the wounded were housed, while he, behung with his shopman's
apron, pottered about among barrels and crates. No one thought of
enlisting his services; another, not he, would set (or bungle) the
fracture he had temporarily splinted.

The hut--it had four slab walls and an earthen floor--was in darkness
on his arrival, for Purdy had not dared to make a light. He lay tossing
restlessly on a dirty old straw palliasse, and was in great pain; but
greeted his friend with a dash of the old brio.

Hanging his coat over the chinks in the door, and turning back his
sleeves, Mahony took up the lantern and stooped to examine the injured
leg. A bullet had struck the right ankle, causing an ugly wound. He
washed it out, dressed and bandaged it. He also bathed the patient's
sweat-soaked head and shoulders; then sat down to await the owner of the
hut's return.

As soon as the latter appeared he took his leave, promising to ride out
again the night after next. In spite of the circumstances under which
they met, he and Purdy parted with a slight coolness. Mahony had loudly
voiced his surprise at the nature of the wound caused by the bullet: it
was incredible that any of the military could have borne a weapon of
this calibre. Pressed, Purdy admitted that his hurt was a piece of gross
ill-luck: he had been accidentally shot by a clumsy fool of a digger,
from an ancient holster-pistol.

To Mahony this seemed to cap the climax; and he did not mask his
sentiments. The pitiful little forcible-feeble rebellion, all along but
a futile attempt to cast straws against the wind, was now completely
over and done with, and would never be heard of again. Or such at least,
he added, was the earnest hope of the law-abiding community. This
irritated Purdy, who was spumy with the self-importance of one who has
stood in the thick of the fray. He answered hotly, and ended by rapping
out with a contemptuous click of the tongue: "Upon my word, Dick, you
look at the whole thing like the tradesman you are!"

These words rankled in Mahony all the way home.--Trust Purdy for not,
in anger, being able to resist giving him a flick on the raw. It made
him feel thankful he was no longer so dependent on this friendship as of
old. Since then he had tasted better things. Now, a woman's heart beat
in sympathetic understanding; there met his, two lips which had never
said an unkind word. He pushed on with a new zest, reaching home about
dawn. And over his young wife's joy at his safe return, he forgot the
shifting moods of his night-journey.

It had, however, this result. Next day Polly found him with his head in
one of the great old shabby black books which, to her mind, spoilt the
neat appearance of the bookshelves. He stood to read, the volume lying
open before him on the top of the cold stove, and was so deeply
engrossed that the store-bell rang twice without his hearing it. When,
reminded that Hempel was absent, he whipped out to answer it, he carried
the volume with him.




Chapter II

But his first treatment of Purdy's wound was also his last. Two nights
later he found the hut deserted; and diligently as he prowled round it
in the moonlight, he could discover no clue to the fate of its
occupants. There was nothing to be done but to head his horse for home
again. Polly was more fortunate. Within three days of the fight Ned
turned up, sound as a bell. He was sporting a new hat, a flashy silk
neckerchief and a silver watch and chain. At sight of these kickshaws a
dismal suspicion entered Mahony's mind, and refused to be dislodged. But
he did not breathe his doubts--for Polly's sake. Polly was rapturously
content to see her brother again. She threw her arms round his neck, and
listened, with her big, black, innocent eyes--except for their
fleckless candour, the counterpart of Ned's own--to the tale of his
miraculous escape, and of the rich gutter he had had the good luck to
strike.

Meanwhile public feeling, exasperated beyond measure by the tragedy of
that summer dawn, slowly subsided. Hesitation, timidity, and a very
human waiting on success had held many diggers back from joining in the
final coup; but the sympathy of the community was with the rebels, and
at the funerals of the fallen, hundreds of mourners, in such black coats
as they could muster, marched side by side to the wild little unfenced
bush cemetery. When, too, the relief-party arrived from Melbourne and
martial law was proclaimed, the residents handed over their firearms as
ordered; but an attempt to swear in special constables failed, not a
soul stepping forward in support of the government.

There was literally nothing doing during the month the military occupied
Ballarat. Mahony seized the opportunity to give his back premises a coat
of paint; he also began to catalogue his collection of Lepidoptera.
Hence, as far as business was concerned, it was a timely moment for the
arrival of a letter from Henry Ocock, to the effect that, "subject of
course to any part-heard case," "our case" was first on the list for a
date early in January.

None the less, the announcement threw Mahony into the fidgets. He had
almost clean forgotten the plaguey affair: it had its roots in the dark
days before his marriage. He wished now he had thought twice before
letting himself be entangled in a lawsuit. Now, he had a wife dependent
on him, and to lose the case, and be held responsible for costs, would
cripple him. And such a verdict was not at all unlikely; for Purdy, his
chief witness, could not be got at: the Lord alone knew where Purdy lay
hid. He at once sat down and wrote the bad news to his solicitor.

At six o'clock in the morning some few days later, he took his seat in
the coach for Melbourne. By his side sat Johnny Ocock, the elder of the
two brothers. Johnny had by chance been within earshot during the
negotiations with the rascally carrier, and on learning this, Henry had
straightway subpoenaed him. Mahony was none too well pleased: the boy
threatened to be a handful. His old father, on delivering him up at the
coach-office, had drawn Mahony aside to whisper: "Don't let the young
limb out o' yer sight, doc., or get nip or sip o' liquor. If 'e so much
as wets 'is tongue, there's no 'olding 'im." Johnny was a lean,
pimply-faced youth, with cold, flabby hands.

Little Polly had to stay behind. Mahony would have liked to give her the
trip and show her the sights of the capital; but the law-courts were no
place for a woman; neither could he leave her sitting alone in a hotel.
And a tentative letter to her brother John had not called forth an
invitation: Mrs. Emma was in delicate health at present, and had no mind
for visitors. So he committed Polly to the care of Hempel and Long Jim,
both of whom were her faithful henchmen. She herself, in proper wifely
fashion, proposed to give her little house a good red-up in its master's
absence.

Mahony and Johnny dismounted from the coach in the early afternoon,
sore, stiff and hungry: they had broken their fast merely on half-a-dozen
sandwiches, keeping their seats the while that the young toper
might be spared the sight of intoxicating liquors. Now, stopping only to
brush off the top layer of dust and snatch a bite of solid food, Mahony
hastened away, his witness at heel, to Chancery Lane.

It was a relief to find that Ocock was not greatly put out at Purdy
having failed them. "Leave it to us, sir. We'll make that all right." As
on the previous visit he dry-washed his hands while he spoke, and his
little eyes shot flashes from one to the other, like electric sparks. He
proposed just to run through the morrow's evidence with "our young
friend there"; and in the course of this rehearsal said more than once:
"Good . . . good! Why, sonny, you're quite smart." This when Johnny
succeeded in grasping his drift. But at the least hint of unreadiness or
hesitation, he tut-tutted and drew his brows together. And as it went
on, it seemed to Mahony that Ocock was putting words into the boy's
mouth; while Johnny, intimidated, said yes and amen to things he could
not possibly know. Presently he interfered to this effect. Ocock brushed
his remark aside. But after a second interruption from Mahony: "I think,
sir, with your permission we will ask John not to depart from what he
actually heard," the lawyer shuffled his papers into a heap and said
that would do for to-day: they would meet at the court in the morning.
Prior to shaking hands, however, he threw out a hint that he would like
a word with his brother on family matters. And for half an hour Mahony
paced the street below.

The remainder of the day was spent in keeping Johnny out of temptation's
way, in trying to interest him in the life of the city, its monuments
and curiosities. But the lad was too apathetic to look about him, and
never opened his mouth. Once only in the course of the afternoon did he
offer a kind of handle. In their peregrinations they passed a Book
Arcade, where Mahony stopped to turn the leaves of a volume. Johnny also
took up a book, and began to read.

"What is it?" asked Mahony. "Would you like to have it, my boy?"

Johnny stonily accepted the gift--it was a tale of Red Indians, the
pages smudged with gaudy illustrations--and put it under his arm.

At the good supper that was set before him he picked with a meagre zest;
then fell asleep. Mahony took the opportunity to write a line to Polly
to tell of their safe arrival; and having sealed the letter, ran out to
post it. He was not away for more than three minutes, but when he came
back Johnny was gone. He hunted high and low for him, ransacked the
place without success: the boy had spoken to no one, nor had he been
seen to leave the coffee-room; and as the clock-hands were nearing
twelve, Mahony was obliged to give up the search and go back to the
hotel. It was impossible at that hour to let Ocock know of this fresh
piece of ill-luck. Besides, there was just a chance the young scamp
would turn up in the morning. Morning came, however, and no Johnny with
it. Outwitted and chagrined, Mahony set off for the court alone.

Day had broken dim and misty, and by the time breakfast was over a north
wind was raging--a furnace-like blast that bore off the sandy deserts
of the interior. The sun was a yellow blotch in a copper sky; the
thermometer had leapt to a hundred and ten in the shade. Blinding clouds
of coarse, gritty dust swept house-high through the streets:
half-suffocated, Mahony fought his way along, his veil lowered, his
handkerchief at his mouth. Outside those public-houses that advertised
ice, crowds stood waiting their turn of entry; while half-naked barmen,
their linen trousers drenched with sweat, worked like niggers to mix
drinks which should quench these bottomless thirsts. Mahony believed he
was the only perfectly sober person in the lobby of the court. Even
Ocock himself would seem to have been indulging.

This suspicion was confirmed by the lawyer's behaviour. No sooner did
Ocock espy him than up he rushed, brandishing the note that had been got
to him early that morning--and now his eyes looked like little dabs of
pitch in his chalk-white face, and his manner, stripped of its veneer,
let the real man show through.

"Curse it, sir, and what's the meaning of this, I'd like to know?" he
cried, and struck at the sheet of notepaper with his free hand. "A
pretty fix to put us in at the last minute, upon my word! It was your
business, sir, to nurse your witness . . . after all the trouble I'd
been to with him! What the devil do you expect us to do now?"

Mahony's face paled under its top-dressing of dust and moisture. To
Ocock's gross: "Well, it's your own look-out, confound you!--entirely
your own look-out," he returned a cool: "Certainly," then moved to one
side and took up his stand in a corner of the hall, out of the way of
the jostle and bustle, the constant going and coming that gave the
hinges of the door no rest.

When after a weary wait the time came to enter court, he continued to
give Ocock, who had been deep in consultation with his clerk, a wide
berth, and moved forward among a number of other people. A dark,
ladder-like stair led to the upper storey. While he was mounting this,
some words exchanged in a low tone behind him arrested his attention.

"Are you O.K., old man?"

"We are, if our client doesn't give us away. But he has to be handled
like a hot--" Here the sentence snapped, for Mahony, bitten by a sudden
doubt, faced sharply round. But it was a stranger who uncivilly accused
him of treading on his toe.

The court--it was not much more than twenty feet square--was like an
ill-smelling oven. Every chink and crack had been stopped against the
searing wind; and the atmosphere was a brew of all the sour odours, the
offensive breaths, given off by the two-score odd people crushed within
its walls. In spite of precautions the dust had got in: it lay thick on
sills, desks and papers, gritted between the teeth, made the throat
raspy as a file.

Mahony had given up all hope of winning his case, and looked forward to
the sorry pleasure of assisting at a miscarriage of justice. During the
speech for the plaintiff, however, he began to see the matter in another
light. Not so much thanks to the speaker, as in spite of him.
Plaintiff's counsel was a common little fellow of ungainly appearance: a
double toll of fat bulged over the neck of his gown, and his wig,
hastily re-donned after a breathing-space, sat askew. Nor was he
anything of an orator: he stumbled over his sentences, and once or twice
lost his place altogether. To his dry presentment of the case nobody
seemed to pay heed. The judge, tired of wiping his spectacles dry, leant
back and closed his eyes. Mahony believed he slept, as did also some of
the jurors, deaf to the Citation of Dawes V. Peck and Dunlop V. Lambert;
to the assertion that the carrier was the agent, the goods were
accepted, the property had "passed." This "passing" of the property was
evidently a strong point; the plaintiff's name itself was not much
oftener on the speaker's lips. "The absconding driver, me Lud, was a
personal friend of the defendant's. Mr. Bolliver never knew him; hence
could not engage him. Had this person not been thrust upon him, Mr.
Bolliver would have employed the same carrier as on a previous
occasion." And so on and on.

Mahony listened hand at ear, that organ not being keyed up to the
mutterings and mumblings of justice. And for all the dullness of the
subject-matter and counsel's lack of eloquence his interest did not
flag. It was the first time he heard the case for the other side stated
plainly; and he was dismayed to find how convincing it was. Put thus, it
must surely gain over every honest, straight-thinking man. In
comparison, the points Ocock was going to advance shrank to mere legal
quibbles and hair-splitting evasions.

Then the plaintiff himself went into the witness-box--and Mahony's
feelings became involved as well. This his adversary!--this poor old
mangy greybeard, who stood blinking a pair of rheumy eyes and weakly
smiling. One did not pit oneself against such human flotsam. Drunkard
was stamped on every inch of the man, but this morning, in odd exception
to the well-primed crew around him, he was sober--bewilderedly sober--
and his shabby clothing was brushed, his frayed collar clean.
Recognising the pitiful bid for sympathy, Mahony caught himself
thinking: "Good Lord! I could have supplied him with a coat he'd have
cut a better figure than that in."

Bolliver clutched the edge of the box with his two hands. His unusual
condition was a hindrance rather than a help to him; without a peg or
two his woolly thoughts were not to be disentangled. He stammered forth
his evidence, halting either to piece together what he was going to say,
or to recollect what he had just said--it was clear he went in mortal
fear of contradicting himself. The scene was painful enough while he
faced his own counsel, but, when counsel for the defence rose, a half-hour
followed in which Mahony wished himself far from the court.

Bolliver could not come to the point. Counsel was merciless and coarsely
jocose, and brought off several laughs. His victim wound his knotty
hands in and out, and swallowed oftener than he had saliva for, in a
forlorn endeavour to evade the pitfalls artfully dug for him. More than
once he threw a covert glance, that was like an appeal for help, at all
the indifferent faces. Mahony drooped his head, that their eyes should
not meet.

In high feather at the effect he was producing, counsel inserted his
left arm under his gown, and held the stuff out from his back with the
tips of all five fingers.

"And now you'll p'raps have the goodness to tell us whether you've ever
had occasion to send goods by a carrier before, in the course of your
young life?"

"Yes." It was a humble monosyllable, returned without spirit.

"Then of course you've heard of this Murphy?"

"N . . . no, I haven't," answered Bolliver, and let his vacillating eyes
wander to the judge and back.

"You tell that to the marines!" And after half a dozen other tricky
questions: "I put it to you, it's a well-known fact that he's been a
carrier hereabouts for the last couple o' years or more?"

"I don't know--I sup . . . sup-pose so." Bolliver's tongue grew heavy
and tripped up his words.

"And yet you've the cheek, you old rogue you, to insinuate that this was
a put-up job?"

"I . . . I only say what I heard."

"I don't care a button what you heard or didn't hear. What I ask, my
pretty, is do you yourself say so?"

"The . . . the defendant recommended him."

"I put it to you, this man Murphy was one of the best known carriers in
Melbourne, and THAT was why the defendant recommended him--are you out
to deny it?"

"N . . . n . . . no."

"Then you can stand down!" and leaning over to Grindle, who was below
him, counsel whispered with a pleased spread of the hand: "There you
are! that's our case."

There was a painful moment just before Bolliver left the witness-box. As
if become suddenly alive to the sorry figure he had cut, he turned to
the judge with hands clasped, exclaimed: "My Lord, if the case goes
against me, I'm done . . . stony-broke! And the defendant's got a down
on me, my Lord--'e's made up his mind to ruin me. Look at him a-setting
there--a hard man, a mean man, if ever you saw one! What would the bit
of money 'ave meant to 'im? But . . ."

He was rudely silenced and hustled away, to a sharp rebuke from the
judge, who woke up to give it. All eyes were turned on Mahony. Under the
fire of observation--they were comparing him, he knew, with the poor
old Jeremy Diddler yonder, to the latter's disadvantage--his spine
stiffened and he held himself nervously erect. But, the quizzing at an
end, he fumbled with his finger at his neck--his collar seemed to have
grown too tight. While, without, the hot blast, dark with dust, flung
itself against the corners of the house, and howled like a soul in pain.

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