Such is Life

J >> Joseph Furphy >> Such is Life

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"No."

"That's what I feared. Now, take my advice, and give yourself absolute rest,
while I boil"----

"One more story, Collins, as well authenticated as any of the three
I have told. I knew a young fellow of between twenty-five and thirty"----

"This won't do," I interposed firmly, for he had become restless and excited.
"Why should you allow your mind to dwell so exclusively on the manifestations
of one particular phase of moral aberration, and, to do bare justice
to womanhood, an exceedingly rare one--except among the very highest
and the very lowest classes? Unless you handle such questions in a scientific
spirit, you'll find them--or unfortunately, you won't find them--envelop
your reasoning faculties in a most unwholesome atmosphere. The perpetual
brooding over any one evil, however fatal that evil may be, naturally
side-blinds the mind into a narrow fanaticism which is apt to condone
ten times as much wrong as it condemns; and you drift into the position
of the man who strains at the moderate drinker, and swallows the usurer.
We see this in the Good Templar, the Social Purity person, the Trades Unionist,
and the moral faddist generally. Musonius Rufus sternly reminded Epictetus
that there were other crimes besides setting the Capitol on fire."

"Have you done? " asked Alf, coldly but gently. "Let me tell you one more
story while I'm able. I'll soon be silent enough.----The man I'm thinking of
was a saw-mill owner. He had been married a couple of years, and had
one child. I could n't say that he actually loved his wife; in fact,
she was n't a woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking.
At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant,
and vain, and utterly unprincipled--no, not exactly unprincipled,
but non-principled. She was essentially low--if you understand my meaning--
low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes,
low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have
been what is called a bad woman, but--that miserable want of self-reverence--
I can't understand how----Would you give me another drink, please?"

He drank very little this time. He had been speaking with an effort,
and a haggard, hopeless look was intensifying in his face. I began to suspect
a temporary delirium. The presentiment of impending death was unreasonable,
though not ominous; so also with the determination to narrate irrelevant
stories; but the incongruity of the two associated notions set me speculating
in a sympathetic way.

"Alf," said I gravely; "it's foolish to tax your memory for anecdotes now.
Try if you can settle yourself to sleep. I'm sure I'll have great pleasure
in exchanging yarns with you at some future time, when you're more fit."

"Listen, Collins," he replied sullenly. "Our saw-mill owner got the
inevitable glimpse of the truth. He was blind before; now he was incredulous.
He condescended to play the spy, and he was soon satisfied. This time
it was a Government official-clerk of the local Court--a blackleg vagabond,
with interest at head-quarters--about the vilest rat, and certainly
the vilest-looking rat, that ever breathed the breath of life. Our hero
took no further notice of him than to terrify him into confession,
and drive him into laying the blame on his paramour. And the amusing feature
of the case was, that she, finding herself fairly run to earth,
thought she had nothing to do but to turn from the evil of her ways,
and take her husband's part against the other fellow. But no, no. Our hero,
after thinking the matter over, took her into his confidence, without giving
her any voice in the new arrangement. He sold-out to the best advantage,
and divided the proceeds with her; reserving to himself enough to start him
in a line of life that he could follow without the annoyance of being
associated with anyone. All that he earned afterward, beyond bare expenses,
he forwarded to her, to save or squander as she pleased; the only condition
being that she should acknowledge each remittance, and answer, as briefly
as possible, such questions as he chose to ask. She humbly assented
to all this, evidently looking forward to forgiveness and reconciliation,
somewhere in-time or eternity. But, by God! she mistook her mark!"
He laughed harshly, paused half-a-minute, and resumed,

"One restraint upon our hero was the thought of his little boy,
only old enough to creep about, and incredibly fond of him; though this never
softened him towards the worthless, cursed mother. Anyway, after about
three years, the little boy died; and his heart was turned to stone.
Still, through mere bitterness and obstinacy he followed the course
he had adopted; meeting with a run of success that surprised himself.
The very curse that was on him seemed to protect him from the mishaps
that befell other men in his line of work; and he found life worth living
for the sake of hating and despising the whole human race, including himself.
There's no pleasure like the pleasure of being a devil, when you feel yourself
master of the situation, and--Now I've done, Collins."

"That's right. I've been thinking how to fix things for you
till you're able to"----

"First, I have one question to ask you," persisted Alf. "You notice
that all these men acted differently. Which of them acted right?--or did any
of them? You know, there are two other courses open: to appeal to the law,
or to pass the matter over quietly, for fear of scandal. Is either of these
right? One course must be right, and all the others must be wrong."

By this time, I had made up my mind to humour him. "Well," I replied;
"it happens that I have given the subject some thought, as I intend,
if I can find time, to write a few words on the varied manifestations
of jealousy in the so-called Shakespear Plays. You're familiar with
the plays, of course?"

"I've read bits of them."

"Possibly you remember, then, that Posthumus, in Cymbeline, on receiving proofs
of his wife's infidelity (we know her to be loyal, but that does n't affect
his proofs) harbours not one thought of revenge toward the man who
has supplanted him. Indeed, as an artistic illustration of Iachimo's immunity
from retribution, Posthumus is afterward represented as disarming and sparing
him in battle--a concession he would n't have made to an ordinary enemy.
He looks to Imogen alone. Nothing but the sacrifice of her life
will satisfy him. On the eve of the same battle, we find him, though seeking
for death himself, still gloating over the handkerchief supposed to be stained
with her life-blood. Very well. Now Troilus in Troilus and Cressida,
is a man very much resembling Posthumus in temperament--brave, resolute,
truthful, unsuspicious, and more liberally endowed with muscle than brains"----

"But this has nothing to do with it," interrupted Alf. "I was asking
your opinion as to which of the four acted rightly?--or did any of them?"

"Yes, Alf; I'm coming to that. I was going to remark that, though
the temperamental conditions of Posthumus and Troilus are apparently
so similar--apparently, mind--and their position as betrayed husbands
so identical, we find them acting in directly opposite ways. Troilus
entertains no thought of revenge upon his faithless wife; he gives
his whole attention to the co-respondent. Now let us glance at Othello.
Here is a man who, allowing for his maturer age, is much like the Briton
and the Trojan in temperament, even to the extent of being more liberally
endowed with muscle than"----

"But you're not answering my question," moaned Alf. "Which of the four
acted right?"

"Well," I replied; "I'm afraid my conclusions won't have the rounded
completeness we value so much in moral inferences unless I'm allowed
to empanel Leontes, in the Winter's Tale, as well as Othello, and thus work
from a solid foundation. But we'll see. I'll put my answer in this way:
A casual thinker might pronounce it impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast
rule of conduct here, on account of necessary diversity in conditions.
He would, perhaps, argue that, though abstract Right is absolute
and unchangeable, the alternative Wrong, though never shading down into Right,
varies immeasurably in degree of turpitude; so that the action which is
intrinsically wrong may be more excusable in one man than in another,
or under certain conditions than under others. Now, I'm not going to deny
that it lies within our province, as rational beings, to classify wrongs,
provided we do so from a purely objective stand-point. I shall endeavour
to deal with that issue by-and-by. I merely notice"----

"Stop! stop!" interrupted Alf, rolling his head from side to side.
"Answer my question!"

"Well, if you must have it like a half-raw potato, I give my vote in favour
of Potiphar the Fourth, the saw-mill man. I don't see what better
he could have done. It was n't the most romantic course, perhaps;
but I'm not a romantic person--rather the reverse--and it meets my approval."

"And your deliberate conviction is that he acted rightly--rightly, mind?"

"Assuredly he did. That is what I was driving at; but now you have to take
my conclusion as an ipse dixit, rather than as a theorem. The misanthropy
of the gentleman's after-life is another question, and one which would lead us
into a different, and much wider, region of philosophy. But I think
we'll find it interesting to trace, step by step, from its genesis
to its culmination, the involuntary process of thought which led each
of your Potiphars, separately, to his independent action. We can't embark
on this inquiry just now, Alf, for we shall have to grapple with
the most minute and subtle shades of psychical distinction, and we shall have
to deal largely in postulates; for though"----

"I want to tell you something, Collins," interrupted Alf, in a tone now free
from all trace of the distraction and constraint which made it painful
to listen to him. "Like poor Cross, I feel impelled to place my tragedy
on record, but in one man's memory only. I trust entirely to your discretion.
Did you know I was a married man?"

"No; I certainly did n't," I replied, recalling myself; for I had been
half-listening to a sound in the lignum. But as he spoke there flashed
across my mental vision the picture of his wife--a tawny-haired tigress,
with slumbrous dark eyes; a Circe, whose glorious voice had been silent
in death for ten years, and lost to him for three years longer. Hence,
by some sequence worth tracing, the voluntary exile, the Ishmaelite
occupation; the morbid, malevolent interest in the Messalinas at large;
and the generally pervading smell of husks. This, let me tell you,
is what comes of meddling with tawny-haired tigresses, who harass a man
out of individuality, and then die or abscond, leaving him like
the last cactus of summer.

"No young fellow could have started in life with a fairer prospect
than I had," continued Alf, in a grave, composed tone. "But I was guilty
of one deliberately fiendish and heartless action, and following upon
that action, I made a mistake that nothing but death can absolve. I married
a woman, who, I believe, was divinely assigned to me as a punishment.
I'll tell you the whole story"----

"Wait, Alf," said I hastily. "I must leave you for a few minutes.
Do you want anything before I go?"

"Nothing, thank you. Don't stay long."

"You may be sure I won't. Try if you can go to sleep."

I jumped off the wagon. There was no time to lose. During the last
few minutes, a peculiar cadence in the sound of Alf's bells had told me,
just as surely as words could have done, that the bullocks were mustered,
and travelling away. My horses were not far off; and, to save time,
I took Alf's saddle and bridle from under his wagon. As I did so,
I heard his voice, low and monotonous. I paused involuntarily.----

"O Molly! Molly, my girl!--my poor love!--my darling!"----

I hurried away, and put the saddle and bridle on Bunyip. Body o' me!
I thought--can a tawny-haired tigress be called Molly? This must be
seen into when I have time.

In a couple of minutes Bunyip had settled down to that flying trot
which would have been an independence to anyone except myself.
After clearing the lignum, I got a back elevation of the bullocks,
half-a-mile out on the plain; and, rapidly overhauling them, I perceived that
I should have to pit myself against the Chinese boundary rider this time.
Consequently I felt, like Cassius, fresh of spirit and resolved to meet
all perils very constantly.

"Out of my way, you Manchurian leper, or I'll run over you!" I shouted gaily,
as I swung round the cattle, turning them back.

"Muck-a-hi-lo! sen-ling, ay-ya; ilo-ilo!" remonstrated the unbeliever,
drawing his horse aside to let them pass.

"You savvy, John," said I, suiting my language to his comprehension,
while from my eye the Gladiator broke--"bale you snavel-um that peller bullock.
Me fetch-um you ole-man lick under butt of um lug; me gib-it you big one
dressum down. Compranny pah, John?" The Chinaman had turned back with me,
and, as if he had been hired for the work, was stolidly assisting to return
the cattle to the spot whence he had taken them.

"Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" I asked, thanklessly quoting from
the familiar hexameter, and lighting my pipe as I spoke.

"Eulopean dam logue," responded the heathen in his blindness.

"In contradistinction to the Asiatic and the Australian, who are
scrupulously honest," I observed pleasantly. "You savvy who own-um
that peller bullock, John?"

"Walligal Alp," replied the pagan promptly. "Me collal him bullock
two-tlee time to-molla, all li; two-tlee time nex day, all li."

"All li, John--you collar-um that peller bullock one more time,
me manhandle you; pull-um off you dud; tie-um you on ant-bed, allee same
spread-eagle; cut-um off you eye-lid; likee do long-a China; bimeby sun
jump up, roast-um you eye two-tlee day; bull-dog ant comballee,
eat-um you meat, pick-um you bone; bimeby you tumble-down-die; go like-it
dibil-dibil; budgeree fire long-a that peller. You savvy, John?"

"Me tellee Missa Smyte you lescue," replied John doggedly. "All li;
you name Collin; you b'long-a Gullamen Clown; all li; you killee me bimeby;
all li." With this the discomfited Mongol turned his horse in the direction
of Mondunbarra homestead, and, like a driver starting an engine when there is
danger of the belt flying off, gradually worked up his pace to a canter,
leaving me in possession of the field.

But in cases of this kind, there is only one thing worse than victory.
I was fairly in a fix with Alf's bullocks. You must understand that
these beasts had no legal right to be anywhere except travelling along
the track, or floating down the river. If they scattered off the track--not
being attended by some capable person--their owner would, there and then,
and as often as this occurred, be liable for trespass; twenty times a day,
if you like, and a shilling per head each time. If I wished to remove them
across a five or ten-mile paddock, the only way I could legally do so
would be by means of a balloon. The thousands of homeless bullocks
and horses which carry on the land-transport trade had to live and work,
or starve and work, on squatters' grass, year after year. So the right
to live, being in the nature of a boon or benefaction, went largely
by favour--like the slobbery salute imagined by poets--and poor Alf
was no favourite with anyone.

The managers of all these three stations were out of reach; and besides,
there was no great hope in appealing to any of them.

Yoongoolee homestead, across the river, was about sixteen miles distant;
and Hungry M'Intyre, from what I knew of him, was little likely to make
concessions to any member of the guild whose representatives had selected
within sight of his wool-shed. Yoongoolee was avoided by all the floating
population of the country, and particularly by those who could n't afford
to be independent, forasmuch as there was nothing there but Highland pride,
and Highland eczema and hunger. Most squatters have titles; M'Intyre had two,
which were used indifferently; one of these was derived from the hunger,
the other from the eczema.

And, of all Alf's enemies, perhaps the most inveterate was the Chinaman's boss,
Mr. Smythe, managing partner of Mondunbarra. This gentleman, whose
exclusiveness took the very usual form of excluding all considerations
not tending to his own profit, and whose refinement manifested itself
to the vulgar eye chiefly in cutting things fine about the station, had,
a couple of years previously, taken Alf in the very act of running
one of his own bullocks out of the station cattle. An altercation had ensued,
followed by a summons; and Alf had been mulcted in five shillings trespass,
with six guineas costs, besides having to travel seventy or eighty miles
to Court, and the same distance back to his wagon. This was trying enough
to a man of Alf's avaricious and irascible bent. It had caused him to speak
a word in private to Mr. Smythe; and, from that time forward, the squatter
hated the bullock driver considerably more than he hated sin, and feared him
more than he feared his reputed Maker.

Poor Smythe! the remembrance of him wrings my soul with pity, even now.
He was parsimonious, cunning, pusillanimous, fastidious, and hysterically
excitable. He was cruelly sat-on by his inexorable partner, M'Gregor;
contemned by his social equals; hated by his inferiors, and popularly known
as the Marquis of Canton. His only friend was his brother Bert, a quiet youth,
who attended him with Montholon-fidelity; and his appreciation of the cheap
and reliable Asiatic was passively recognised by a station staff
of Joss-devotees.

There was no use in my appealing to this gentleman, for, though most men
in his place would have accepted the opportunity of laying Alf under
an obligation, I knew his unhappy moral organisation well enough
to be certain that neither policy nor magnanimity could intervene on behalf of
a prostrate enemy. And to make matters more hopeless, Confucius would
be just ahead of me, with his story of forcible rescue, coupled with
personal threats of the gravest character.

Avondale remained. This station belonged to that grand old colonist,
Captain Royce, who governed the seigneury from his Toorak mansion,
like Von Moltke commanding an army from his telegraph-office.
The large-hearted patriarchal traditions of early days were still current
on the station; but that property had to pay, and pay well,
at the manager's peril. To illustrate this: Captain Royce, in responding
to 'Our Pastoral Interests,' never failed to remark that no working beast
had ever been impounded from Avondale. This, of course, conveyed
the impression that it was a run flowing with grass and water
for distressed teams; but the unhappy manager, watched and reported always
by at least one narangy, and ground, as you see, between the upper mill-stone
of Royce the munificent and the nether and much harder one of Royce
the businessman, had to transmute every blade of grass, or twig of cotton-bush,
into a filament of wool, or let somebody else have a try. Consequently,
the boundary riders of Avondale had strict orders to hunt all strays
and trespassers across the frontiers of stations that did impound;
so the fine old squatter-king got there just the same--also the carriers' teams
and the drovers' horses.

One characteristic of Avondale was that the rank and file of the station
were always treated with fatherly benevolence, and were never discharged. They
gradually got useless by reason of mere antiquity, and, without actually dying,
slowly mummified, and were duly interred in the cemetery at the homestead.

In view of the rigorous usages specified, it was no marvel that a deficiency
in the Avondale clip of '83 had led to the resignation of Mr. Angus Cameron,
and the installation of a new manager, a few weeks before the date
of these incidents. But the appointment of a strange boundary rider
to the paddock adjoining Alf's camp--an event which had taken place three
or four months before the same date--seemed like a sudden angle and break
in the corridor of Time.

Avondale home-station was nine miles distant. I had never met the new manager;
but his name was Wentworth St. John Ffrench; and, by all accounts,
he acted up to it. Popular rumour likened him to the man with the whole pound
of tobacco, who had sworn against borrowing or lending. Mr. Ffrench
could afford to be independent of such men as Alf, but couldn't afford
to establish a precedent for invalided carriers loafing on the run.
Of course, you would n't look at the thing in that light; but then,
your name is not Wentworth St. John Ffrench, and you would n't do
for a manager of Avondale. You would have the run swarming with
a most tenacious type of trespassers before you knew what you were doing.
Moreover, the moral responsibility (if any) of the matter rested
on Mondunbarra, not on Avondale.

Neither had I ever seen the new Avondale boundary man; but I was prejudiced
against him also. It required no deep dive into the mysteries of Nomenology
to augur ill from the nickname of 'Terrible Tommy.' The title was, of course,
satirical; the man an imbecile and fickle windbag. Still, this name
was better than the manager's.

Evidently, my only chance was to deal directly with some one of
the boundary men. I had already failed to melt the musing Briton's eyes;
and though I had, in a sense, prevailed over the Mongol, I could make no use
of him; so I found myself hanging, as you might say, by one strand,
that strand being Terrible Tommy.

I must enlist this man, I mentally concluded, as a willing accomplice;
and, by my faith, I'll do so before I leave him. I care not an he be
the devil; give me faith, say I.

By this time, the sun was just setting. I left the bullocks near
the boundary fence, turned Bunyip adrift, and placed the saddle and bridle
where I could find them again. Then crossing into Avondale, I picked my way
through a belt of tall lignum, sloppy with warm water, and alive
with mosquitos; then on through scattered timber until, a mile from the fence,
appeared the one-roomed abode of the man I wanted. I knew where to find
the place, having stayed there one night when Bendigo Bill was in charge
of the paddock. But now, nearing the house, how I wished I had that frank,
good-hearted old Eureka rebel to deal with instead of the hard-featured,
sandy-complexioned man whom I saw carrying home a couple of buckets of water
on a wooden hoop. Our old friends, the Irresistible and the Immovable
were about to encounter once more.

"Evening, sir," I cooed, with an urbanity born of the conditions
already set down.

"Gude evenin' (Squire Western's expression!) Ye maun gang fairther,
ye ken; fir fient haet o' sipper ye'se hae frae me the nicht. De'il tak' ye,
ye lang-leggit, lazy loun, flichterin' roun' wi' yir 'Gude evenin' sir!'
an' a' sic' clishmaclaver. Awa' wi ye! dinna come fleechin' tae me!
The kintra's I-sy wi' sic' haverils, comin' sundoonin' on puir folk 'at henna
mickle mair nir eneugh fir thir ain sel's. Tak' aff yir coat an' wark,
ye glaikit-De'il tak' ye; wha' fir ye girnin' at?"

"Gude save's!" I snarled; "wha'gar ye mak' sic' a splore? Hoo daur ye tak'
on ye till misca' a body sae sair's ye dae, ye bletherin' coof?
Hae ye gat oot the wrang side yir bed the morn?-ir d'ye tak' me fir
a rief-randy?--ir wha' the de'il fashes ye the noo? Ye ken, A was compit doon
ayont the boondary, an' A thocht A wad dauner owre an' hae a wee bit crack
wi' ye the nicht. A wantit tae ken wha' like mon yir new maunager micht be,
an' tae speer twa-three ither things firbye; bit sin' yir sae skrunty,
ye maun tak' yir domd sipper till yir ain bethankit ava, an' A'll gang
awa' bock till ma ain comp. Heh!" And I turned away with unconcealed
resentment and contempt.

"Haud a wee," said the boundary rider, setting down his buckets,
and slapping the back of his neck. "Ye ken, A'm sae owrecam wi' thir awfu'
mustikies that whiles A canna-Bit cam awa' tae the biggin; cam awa'
tae the biggin, an' rest yirsel'." The Irresistible had scored this time.
Such is life.

I helped Tommy out of his embarrassment by an occasional 'Ay, mun,'
interjected into his apologetic and cordial monologue; and so we reached
the hut, where, after directing me to a seat, he filled a billy with some
of the water he had brought, and hung it on the crook.

"An' wha' dae they ca' ye?" he asked, turning his back to the fire,
and surveying me with a kindly interest which made me feel as uneasy
as if I had been sleeping in a fowl-house.

"Tam Collins," I replied readily, though interrupted by a fit of coughing
as I pronounced my surname.

"Ye'll no be yin o' the M'Callums o' Auchtermauchtie?" he inquired eagerly.
"A kent them weel."

I shook my head. "An' wha' dae they ca' yirsel'?" I asked.

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