Such is Life

J >> Joseph Furphy >> Such is Life

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Stewart, it must be admitted, was no gentleman. Starting with a generous
handicap, as the younger son of a wealthy and aristocratic Scottish laird,
he had, during a Colonial race of forty years, daily committed himself
by actions which shut him out from the fine old title. He was in the gall
of altruism, and in the bond of democracy. Amiable demeanour,
unmeasured magnanimity, and spotless integrity, could never carry off
the unpardonable sin in which this lost sheep-owner wallowed--the taint,
namely, of isocratic principle. When a member of the classes takes
to his bosom that unclean thing, in its naked reality, he thereby forfeits
the title of 'gentleman,' and becomes a mere man. For there is no such thing
as a democratic gentleman; the adjective and noun are hyphenated
by a drawn sword. If the said unclean thing eats into its victim
to the same extent that the wolf did into Baron Munchausen's sleigh-horse,
the metamorphosed subject comes perilously near being what the Orientals call
a dog of a Christian. For there is no such thing as a Christian gentleman,
except as loosely distinguished from the Buddhist, Parsee, or Mahometan
gentleman. Try the transposition: gentleman-Christian. And why not,
since you have the gentleman-this-or-that? Taking the shifty,
insidious title in its go-to-meeting sense, every Christian is prima facie
a gentleman; taking it in its every-day sense, no 'gentleman'
can be a Christian; for Christianity postulates initial equality,
and recognises no gradation except in usefulness.

So Stewart was never, even by inadvertence, spoken of as a gentleman--always
as a Christian. Three-score years of wise choice in the perpetually-recurring
alternatives of life, had made the Golden Rule his spontaneous impulse;
and now, though according to the shapen-in-iniquity theory, he must have had
faults, no one in Riverina, below the degree of squatter, had proved
sharp enough to detect them. It was considered bad form to express approval
of anything he did. 'Stewart! Oh, he's a (adj.) Christian!' That was all.
He had reached a certain standard, and was expected to live up to it.
Such is life.

By a notable coincidence, Stewart was rich. Not owing to his Christianity,
bear in mind; but partly to a faculty for knowing by the look of a sheep,
as it raced past, whether the animal was worth six-and-tenpence
or seven shillings; partly to his being able to tell, by what was happening
in some other quarter of the globe, how the wool-market was going to move;
partly to his being connected with a thing that paid; partly to his knowing
when he was well off, and leaving the reflected meat to the inverted dog
in the water; partly to a stubborn crotchet which made him hold the giver
of usury, as well as the taker, to be beyond the pale of mercy; partly
to a fine administrative ability; partly to the avoidance of expensive
habits--partly to all these combined, but chiefly to the fact that
his mana never failed.

Anyway, he could afford to impart, in judicious assistance to deserving
and undeserving people, more than the average squatter spends in usury
and extravagance put together, and be better off all the while.
An illustration may not be amiss here. I'll tell you what I saw
in the Miamia Paddock, on Kooltopa, during the autumn and winter
of '83--that is, from six to nine months before the date of this discursive,
yet faithful, record.

'83 was a bad year. The scanty growth of the '82 spring had been eaten off
nearly as fast as it grew, and afterward the millions of stock had
to live--like the Melbourne unemployed of later times--on the glorious
sunshine. Then when the winter came, it brought nothing but frost;
and the last state of the country was worse than the first. The mile-wide
stockroute from Wilcannia to Hay was strewn with carcases of travelling sheep
along the whole two hundred and fifty miles. On one part of the route,
some frivolous person had stooked the dried mummies (they were lying so thick)
in order that drovers and boundary men might have the pleasure
of cantering on ahead to run the little mobs out of the way.
And as human nature, thus sold, never grudges to others participation
in the sell, the stooks improved in size and life-likeness for weeks
and months. I remember noticing once, in passing along the fifty-mile stretch
of that route which bisects the One Tree Plain, that, taking no account
of sheep, I never was out of sight of dying cattle and horses--let alone
the dead ones. The famine was sore in the land. To use the expression
of men deeply interested in the matter, you could flog a flea
from the Murrumbidgee to the Darling. Or, to put it in another way:
the life of stock in Riverina was as cheap as the life of the common person
in the novels of R. L. Stevenson, Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling,
and some other modern classics.

Kooltopa, being the best of land, and lightly stocked, was an exception;
and thither flocked nearly all the uncircumcised of Riverina,
with their homeless bullocks and horses. Stewart was n't the man
to order them off, while ordering would have been of any use; and in affairs
of this nature, the squatter who hesitates is lost. The time comes
when grass-loafers will stand a lot of ordering off; in extreme cases,
such as the one under review, they are about equal in tenacity
to the Scythians or the Cimbri of olden times.

There was no end to them. Week after week, month after month,
they came stringing-in from seven-syllabled localities on all points
of the compass; some with sunburnt wives, and graduated sets of supple-jointed
keen-sighted children--the latter, I grieve to admit, distinctly affirming
that disquieting theory which assumes evolution of immigrating races
toward the aboriginal type.

There was plenty of rough feed in the Mia-mia Paddock, and there the tribes
congregated to hold their protracted Feast of Tabernacles, their vast
camp-meeting, which they by no means conducted on religious lines.
For the easy profanity, unconscious obscenity, and august slang
of the back country scented the air like myall; whilst the aggregate repertory
of bonâ fide anecdote and reminiscence was something worth while.
No young fellow in that great rendezvous dared to embellish his narrative
in the slightest degree, on pain of being posted as a double-adjective
blatherskite; for his audience was sure to include a couple of critical,
cynical, iron-grey cyclopedias of everything Australian--everything, at least,
untainted by the spurious and blue-moulded civilisation of the littoral.

An evangelist, collecting money for the support of an Aboriginal mission,
went fifty miles out of his way to give these unregenerate brethren
a word of exhortation. This good man--he probably never had a sovereign
which he regarded as his own; and, rest his soul! he needs no money now--
this good man afterward told me, with tears of gratitude and sorrow
in his eyes, that he got a fine collection in the Mia-mia, but no souls;
and both clauses of his statement seemed to have the ring of truth.

Stewart sullenly avoided this gathering of the clans. He knew he was n't
wanted there; and, as the paddock consisted chiefly of purchased land,
he felt that the conventionalities were, in a sense, violated. But what
could the people do? It was a miserable business altogether.

At last, moved by the report of the Mia-mia boundary rider, he drove slowly
along the river frontage, and saw five miles of wagons, wagonettes,
spring-carts, buggies, tents, women, children, dogs, cooking-utensils,
and masculine laundry. He saw fellows patching tarpaulins, mending
harness making yokes, platting whips, fishing, pig-hunting, reading Ouida,
yarning round fires, or trying to invent some new form of gambling;
but he only saw their backs, and they did n't see him at all. He took a tour
round the paddock, and found a racecourse duly laid out in a suitable place,
with a few fellows training their bits of stuff for a coming event.
Others were duck-shooting in the swamps, and others after turkeys
on the plains, whilst a few diverted themselves by coursing rabbits
on the sand-hills. And as for bullocks and horses--why, they were
as grasshoppers for multitude.

A closer examination brought to light his own sheep. Wild and shy,
as paddocked merinos always are, these had withdrawn to the quietest places
they could find, and were there making the best of a bad job. Stewart lost
his temper, for once; and he that is without similar sin among the readers
of this simple memoir is hereby authorised to cast the first stone.

He allowed the sun to go down upon his wrath. Next morning, he rallied up
all his station hands; mustered the Mia-mia Paddock; distributed the sheep
elsewhere over the run; and thus washed his hands of all responsibility
touching the welfare of his guests.

Toward spring, he drove round the camps again, pausing here and there
to give the trespassers a bit of his mind: 'Now, boys; I must get you
to shift. Lots of perishing teams not able to get down out of the back
country till now, and all making for this paddock. Must leave a bit of grass
for them when they come.' And more to the same effect. So the settlement
gradually broke-up, and things returned to their normal monotony.

But not altogether so. Some of the nomads wanted land, and had means
to back their desire. Rambling leisurely over the station paddocks,
with the county map for reference, these people saw where the most eligible
allotments were, and presently picked the eyes out of the run; in some cases,
shifting straight from their camps to their selections. Such is life.

Saint Peter, I should imagine, had narrowly watched the squatter's attitude
when the Assyrian came down like a person flying from perdition. Afterward,
he had noted with approval that the new selectors were treated with the same
forbearance and benevolence they had formerly experienced as refugees.
But not until he saw Stewart pounce on the incident of the mammoth
surprise-party as a clinching argument against land-monopoly, did that
austere janitor hang his keys on his thumb, to hunt-up, far back in his book,
the page reserved in case of rich men. And still the metaphor of the camel
and the needle's eye stands unimpaired. The difficulties vanish only
when you attain some conception of what the Kingdom of God is--how much more
to the purpose than pearly gates or jasper seas; how accordant
with the Ormuzd in man; how premeditated in design; how indomitable
in patience; and how needfully and inexorably guarded by the diminutive
portal above referred to.

"Good morning, Collins."

"Good morning, Mr. Stewart. An early stirrer, by the rood."

"Yes; I have a (sheol) of a long stage before me to-day. Been travelling
all night?"

"Only since about twelve. I camped yesterday in the Dead Man's Bend,
on Mondunbarra. I've been kept on the move since dinner-time, or so.
Tell you how it came. I was lying in the shade of a tree, having a smoke,
and thinking about one thing or another, when I heard some one calling from
the other side of the river. It was Mosey Price; and he told me" &c., &c.

Stewart sighed, glanced toward the south-east, produced a cigar-case,
took thence three cigars, handed one to me and another to Mungo Park
lit the third himself, then smoked listlessly and mechanically.

"Good," he remarked, throwing away the inch-long stump of his cigar, and
gathering his reins. "What's your name?" he continued, turning to the swagman.

"Bob Stirling," replied the African explorer. "I worked on Kooltopa,
many years ago, but I don't suppose you remember me."

"I'm not sure. However, I'll find a nice comfortable week's work for you,
at all events. Collins, I give you credit. You should have gone
into politics. You'd have made a d----d good diplomatist."

"I'm glad you think so, Mr. Stewart. But the main body of the story
has to come. You see, I was, in a sense, no farther forward than at first.
Alf's bullocks were only respited, and briefly at that. So, as I was
telling you, I left them against the boundary fence, and walked across
to interview this Terrible Tommy. He was my last resource. I just met him
carrying home a couple of buckets of water from the lagoon. 'Evening, sir,'
says I, as sweet as sugar" &c., &c.

Stewart glanced at the blazing orb, now slowly climbing the coppery sky,
sighed again, lit another cigar, and smoked impassively.

"D----d if I approve of your action in that instance, Collins,"
he remarked gravely, throwing away his second stump, and groping for something
under the buggy-seat.

"Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I don't defend the action. I only endeavour to palliate
it on the plea of necessity. And, if Adam fell in the days of innocency,
what should poor Tom Collins do in the days of villainy?"

"Shakespear," observed the squatter approvingly, as he drew a bottle and glass
from a candle-box under the seat. "Misquoted, though, unless my memory
betrays me. But I look at the thing in this way----The Poondoo people put
a couple of bottles of Albury into the buggy; and I think we can do
one of them now, early as it is. When shall we three meet again? Eh?
How is that for aptness? A Roland for your (adj.) Oliver.--I look at
the thing in this way, Collins--But you mustn't take anything on an empty
stomach. I have some sandwiches here." He handed a couple to me,
a couple to Bob, and reserved a couple for himself.--"I look at the thing
in this way. I put myself in Tommy's place. Now, if any man presumed
to play such a trick on me--why, d--n me, I should take it very ill.
Now, Collins"----

"O, stop, please! don't fill that glass for me! I'm very sensible
of your disapproval, Mr. Stewart. I'm more sorry than I can express--not in
the way of penitence, certainly, but that I should be unfortunate enough
to have incurred your displeasure. I wish you could put yourself in my place,
instead of Tommy's.--Well, long life to you, Mr. Stewart, both for your
own sake and the sake of the public."

"Thanks for the good wish, Collins, and to (sheol) with the flattery.
I may tell you that I do put myself in your place, as well as in Tommy's.
But, d----n it, you don't seem to be alive to the principle of the thing.----
You're not a blue-ribboner, I suppose?" And he tendered the replenished
glass to Bob. "Bad hand you've got, poor fellow. Severe accident apparently?"

"Sepoy bullet at Lucknow, sir. I was a lad of nineteen then; just joined."

"You've been a soldier?"

"Yes, sir; I was an ensign in the Queen's 64th. We formed part of
Havelock's column of relief." The placid, unassertive, incapable face
told the rest of the poor fellow's story.

"You don't seem to be alive to the principle of the thing," repeated Stewart,
turning again to me. "Your cosmopolitanism is a d----d big mistake.
Every man has a nationality, remember; and though you'll find many
most excellent fellows of all races, yet, if you want the real thing,
you must look"----

"May God bless you, Mr. Stewart!" murmured Stirling of Ours, raising
the glass to his lips.

"Thank you, my friend.----You must look to Scotland for it. And, d----n it,
man, this is the very nationality you have been fleering at. Of course,
I don't dwell on the subject because I happen to be a Scotsman myself; only,
I must say I should never have expected--But what do you think
is the matter with Alf Morris?"

"Difficult to say. Some sort of arthrodynic complaint, I fancy; at all events,
he's badly gone in most of his joints."

"Poor devil!" soliloquised the squatter, filling the glass for himself.
"He's a bad lot--a d----n bad lot--a d---nation bad lot. Bitter,
vindictive sort of man. You're familiar, like myself, with Shakespear;
now, Morris reminds me of Titus Andronicus.--Better luck, boys."

"Thank you, Mr. Stewart."

"Thank you, Mr. Stewart."

"This Titus, as you may remember, was expelled from Athens by the people,
after they had elected him consul. They could n't stand his d----d pride.
He took up his abode in a cave, and, for the rest of his life, met
every overture of friendship with taunts and insults. Even in his epitaph,
written by himself:--

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth----

"Now, d---n it, I committed those lines to memory--ay, forty-five years ago.
I wish I could recall them."

"I think I can repeat the passage, Mr. Stewart," said I modestly:--

Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;
Seek not his name. A plague consume you wicked catiffs left.
Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate.
Pass on, and curse thy fill, but pass, and stay not here thy gait.

"Good," replied the squatter--all his hurry forgotten in the fascination
of profitless gossip. "Now there you have Morris to the very life.
Hopeless d----d case!"

"But the misanthropy of the Shakespearean hero was not without cause,
Mr. Stewart," I urged. "Given certain rigorous circumstances, acting on
a given temperament, and you have a practically inevitable sequence--perhaps
a pious faith; perhaps a philosophic calm; perhaps an intensified selfishness;
perhaps a sullen despair--in fact, the variety of possible results
corresponds exactly with the variety of possible circumstances
and temperaments. In the case of the Greek misanthrope, the factor
of temperament is first carefully stated; then the factor of circumstances
is brought into operation; then the genius of the dramatist supplies
the resultant revolution of moral being, in such a manner as to excite
sympathy rather than reprobation. Reasoning from cause to effect,
we see the inevitableness of the issue. But in Morris's case, we must reason
from effect to cause. We see a certain outcome"----

"D----d unmistakably," muttered the squatter.

----"And it rests with us to account for this from prior conditions
of temperament and circumstances. Then we shall have, so to speak,
the second and third terms; and from these it won't be difficult, I think,
to calculate the term which should antecede them, namely, temperament.
Morris is a widower. His wife was a magnificent singer, and, in a general way,
one of those tawny-haired tigresses who leave their mark on a man's life,
and are much better left alone"----

"Has he any children?" asked Stewart.

"Well, no; these tawny-haired tigresses don't have children. Anyway,
she died some ten years ago; but at the time of her death they had been
separated for about three years."

"They could n't have been living long together; or else he married young,"
suggested Stewart.

"No, they were n't long together: but Alf is a man of peculiar moral
constitution; he frets a lot over her memory; loves and hates her
at the same time. Secondary to this, is a misunderstanding with his father,
which caused Alf to clear off, leaving the old man to mind everything himself.
Of course, I'm only giving you the heads; and my information is derived
from no random hearsay, but is obtained by an intransmissible power
of induction, rare in our times."

"Thought as much!" muttered Stewart.

"It remains, then," I continued, "to determine the temperament which,
acted upon by these circumstances, has given the result which is already
before us. Now, I think that that temperament, though, perhaps, tending
to the volcanic, must have been a sensitive and an amiable one; however
it may have soured and hardened into misanthropy and avarice. We can't all
be philosophers, Mr. Stewart."

"If there's one thing I hate like (sheol)" replied the squatter gravely,
"it is the quoting of Scripture as against my fellow-creature; but, d--n it,
we are told that 'when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness,
and committeth iniquity all the days of his vanity which God giveth him
under the sun, he shall be likened unto a foolish man that built his house
upon the sand.' You know the rest. If we take upon us to judge Morris at all,
we must judge him as he is. Your judgment is generous, but nonsensical;
mine is rational, but churlish--d-----d churlish." He paused,
in evident discomfort, flicked a roley-poley with his whip, and continued.
"You know, I had him on Kooltopa for a couple of months, bringing in
pine logs, when Barker's sawing-plant was there. Well, without going
into details----Capable fellow, too; fine combination of a cultivated man
and an experienced rough-and-ready bushman. Strictly honest, also,
I think--only for his d--nable disposition."

"Doctor Johnson liked a good hater," I suggested sadly, for it was evident
that my unfortunate protégé had already, in his own peculiar way,
recommended himself to Stewart.

You can imagine, by that circumstance alone, what a strong tincture of venom
was held in solution by this feeble tenant of an hour. Indeed,
if the matter had rested with the squatters, they would have starved him
out of Riverina by industrial boycott. But the in-transport of wool,
and the out-transport of goods, are cares that, as a rule, fall to the lot
of the forwarding firms; and these resemble George IV., in having
no predilections (though, let us hope, the similarity ceases here).
Hence, the jolly good soul of a carrier, with lots of spring in him--the man
who seldom buys any groceries, whose breath often smells like
broached grog-cargo, and who makes a joke of camping for a few weeks
with a load on his wagon--is very naturally passed over in favour
of the misanthrope who neither asks nor gives quarter. And the personal
popularity of the latter with his own guild is not enhanced by this preference.

"Doctor Johnson be d----d!" replied the squatter warmly. "What is his dictum
worth? What the (sheol) entitled him, for instance, to sneer at
the very element of population that has made Britain a nation? You know what
I allude to? Now, speaking with strict impartiality, it strikes me
d-----d forcibly that the finest prospect England ever saw is the road
that leads from Scotland." He checked himself, and continued in a gentler tone.
"That just reminds me of a very able article I read some time ago--I think
it was in Blackwood's. The writer proves that your Shakespear must have
imbibed his genius, to a great extent, in Scotland. He grounds his argument
partly--and I think, justly--on the fact that the best play in the collection
is a purely Scottish one. He makes a d-----d strong point, I remember,
of the expression, 'blasted heath.' 'Say from whence, upon this blasted heath
you stop our way, making night hideous?'----and so forth."

"Yes," I replied mechanically. And then, avoiding the eye of the grand
old saint, and hating myself as a buffoon, I continued, "My own conjecture
is that something must have occurred to irritate the dramatist whilst
he was writing that passage, and the expression slipped from his pen unawares."

"Never!" replied Stewart. "No man under the influence of petty irritation
ever wrote anything like the passage where that expression occurs.
Criticism is not your forte, Collins. The writer I'm speaking of sees
a landscape photographed in those two words. Pardon me for saying that
your talent seems to run more in the line of low-comedy acting. I don't like
referring to it again, but d--n it all, my interest in you personally
makes me feel very strongly over your interview with this Tom Armstrong."

"Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I can't tell you how sorry I am to have fallen
in your estimation. But you were speaking of Alf Morris when I unfortunately
drew you from the subject."

"Ay. To return to Morris. Do you know how he came to leave the Bland country,
some five or six years ago?"

"Well, yes," I replied reluctantly; "rates are a lot higher here than there."

"Did you ever hear that he shot anyone? A boundary rider, for instance?"

"The kernel of truth in that report, Mr. Stewart, is that he spoke
of a certain boundary rider as a man that deserved shooting."

"How do you know?"

"Well, in the first place, I'm only allowing for fair average growth
in the report; and in the second place, when a person shoots a boundary man,
he's not allowed to just change his district, and go his way in peace."

"Sometimes he is. I'll tell you how it happened with Morris." And the man
who had a profanely long stage before him settled into an easy position,
his heels on top of the splash-board, and his arms behind the back of the seat,
whilst Bob held the reins. "It was on Mirrabooka. O'Grady Brothers
had owned the place for a few years; but they were careless and intemperate,
great lovers of racehorses, and d--d extravagant all round"----

"Familiar faults with people named O'Grady," I remarked.

"You're perfectly right. They got involved, and had to sell the place.
Prescott bought it; and it was about a month after he had taken possession
that the thing occurred. During the O'Grady's time, the bullock drivers
had made a d----d thoroughfare of the run, zigzagging from one tank
to another, and passing close to the home station. Prescott determined
to put a stop to this. He locked all the gates on the track, and secured
the tanks with cattle-proof fences, and kept his men foxing the teams
day and night; and along with all this, he prosecuted right and left.
D----d hard on the bullockies, of course, and far from generous on Prescott's
part; but it acted as a check; and in a couple of months the track was closed
for good. However, just in the thick of the trouble, Morris crossed the run,
and, of course, fared neither better nor worse than the rest. One evening
he was seen taking down a fence and camping at a new tank, a couple of miles
from the homestead; and at nine or ten o'clock that night he rode up to
the station, and asked to see Mr. Prescott. When Prescott appeared,
Morris drew him aside and told him, as cool as a d-----d cucumber,
that he wanted to make a deposition before him, as a magistrate,
to the effect that he had just shot a man for attempting to remove
his bullocks. Prescott refused to take the deposition just then;
but he had a pair of horses put in a wagonette, and took the storekeeper
with him, to accompany Morris to where the thing had happened.
When they got there, d--n the sign of a body could they find; but Morris
showed them the spot, and strictly charged them to note it well.
Then he refused to have anything more to do with the d--d business,
and went after his bells, while Prescott and the other fellow returned
to the station, cooeeing and listening as they went. They overtook the man
on the way, with a revolver bullet-hole through his arm, and the bullet lodged
in his side. Of course, he was one of the station men--I forget his name
at the present moment, but it's no matter. When they got the chap home,
and found there was nothing dangerous, Prescott had his horse saddled at once,
and followed the track till he came to Morris's wagon; from there he went
to the bells, and found Morris minding his bullocks. They had a long
conference, and Prescott went home. Next morning, Morris continued
his journey; and when he unloaded--about sixty miles this side
of Mirrabooka--he came right on to Riverina. Now, Collins; you put
a d----d big value on your acumen, and your sagacity, and your penetration,
and all the rest of it--What do you make of that story? Mind,
I vouch for the truth of it."

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