Читать книгу The Race of Life - Guy Boothby - Страница 6

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IT would take too long to follow my career in detail for the next four and a half years. Indeed, it would necessitate some effort of memory on my part to recall all that befell me during that eventful period of my life. Let it suffice, therefore, that after the memorable scene recorded in the last chapter, which heralded, or perhaps I should say preceded, my engagement with Septimus Dorkin, I left for Queensland with that worthy, but, if the truth must be confessed, somewhat headstrong gentleman. We made our way up to Bourke, crossed by way of Hungerford and the Paroo River, thence to the Barcoo, and so on by easy stages to our destination. This proved to be a station of some importance on the Diamintina, that sometime mighty river which, augmented by the Western, the Wokingham, and the Mayne, to say nothing of numerous other smaller streams, runs half across the Continent to find at length an ignominious end in the Great Stoney Desert of South Australia.

That journey taught me more of the Bush, its charms and its vicissitudes, than I have ever learnt since. I was young, my brain was receptive, I had a natural liking for the calling I had chosen, and what was perhaps better than all else, I had inherited a considerable proportion of my poor father's intuitive knowledge of live stock. With my employer and mates I think I may say without boasting that I got on well, though of course there was trouble at times, as there always must be when several men are compelled to put up with each other's society for several months at a time. On the whole, however, we contrived to hit it off together, and I, for my part, have nothing but pleasant memories of that, my first experience of over landing. After a couple of brief holidays I made two more trips with Dorkin, one almost up into Cape Yorke Peninsula, and a hard time we had of it, for it was a bad season; the other from a station near Cobar, in New South Wales, to another on the Lower Murray in South Australia. During the latter journey we passed through Warraboona, my birth-place and early home. As we were camped there for two days, I managed to make time enough to ride over and have a look at the old place. It was no longer the house I remembered; the homestead had been added to, and what had been the sitting-room in my father's time was now the back portion of the edifice. The shearing shed, which in our time was nothing more pretentious than a bough-shade, was now superseded by a costly iron erection, with yards and drafting pens ad libitum. They had introduced machine shears, scoured their own wool, and dumped by means of the latest improved hydraulic press. An American windmill raised water from the river for irrigating purposes, while the overseer's and men's quarters were equal to anything I had ever seen in either of the four Colonies. On my way back to camp I rode down the river bank to have a look at my father's grave. To the credit of the present manager be it said, it was well taken care of. A neat but strong fence had been erected round it to protect it from the cattle, and what more could I expect? How the memory of the day on which we had laid him there came back to me as I sat on my horse looking down at it! I could seem to see the pale, sweet face of my mother as she watched them lowering into its last resting—place all that was mortal of the man she had loved so tenderly and whom she had followed so willingly into the exile of the Bush. I could see old Dick, with his honest, sunburnt face, reading the Burial Service over the man who had been his friend and master for more than twenty years. What was more, I could remember a little boy, scarcely up to his mother's elbow, with a round and chubby face and curly hair, who only half realised the importance to him of what was then taking place. How different was he to the long, gawky, sunburnt youth now seated on the horse beside the selfsame grave! It seemed difficult to believe that they could be one and the same person.

As things turned out, that proved to be my last journey with Dorkin, not because we had any fault to find with each other, but because he had discovered that he had amassed a competency sufficient for his modest wants, and felt an inclination to settle down. This he did, marrying at the same time a buxom widow in the public—house line of business in the town of Bourke, where, as may be supposed, he had many opportunities of renewing acquaintance with old friends, and now and again of showing that he had not altogether laid aside his business capabilities when he exchanged the pig-skin for a seat in his own bar-parlour. I have heard since that his wife led him a pretty life, and that they would doubtless have been compelled to part company had he not made a mistake one dark night and walked off the wharf into the river instead of into his own front door. He had many faults, doubtless; which of us has not? But I never heard of his having done an unjust action (horse dealing always excepted), nor do I think he ever went back on a man whom he had once admitted to his friendship. It's a pity more of us can't say as much.

When I parted company with the man whose virtues I have just described and whose vices are no concern of mine, I was in Melbourne. It was my intention to spend a month with my mother, and then to take up a job I had heard of on the Bogan in the vicinity of Nyngan. It was to be my first experience of an overseer's billet, and I was eagerly looking forward to the experience, having some idea of starting for myself in a few years, if all went well. I had managed already to save a fair sum, and hoped to have a nice little amount at my back by the time I felt equal to launching out as an owner on a small scale. A thousand-acre block would do very well for a start, and with the usual confidence of youth, I felt that I could make it pay. As of old, I told my mother of my ambition, prophesying that before very long I should want her to venture into the wilds once more in order to keep house for me. But she only shook her head, a trifle sorrowfully I thought, and declared that she could never go into the Bush again. Of late her spirits had not been of the brightest description, and the knowledge had distressed me more than I could say. That there was nothing radically wrong with her she constantly assured me, and yet she was by no means her old bright self. Among other things I noticed that she left more of the management of her small household to the girl who had acted as her companion since I had left home, which in itself was by no means a reassuring sign. In the old days she would as soon have thought of turning me out of house and home as of doing that. I suggested a change of air, a voyage to Tasmania and New Zealand, but she would not hear of it. She was perfectly content to remain where she was, she said, provided she could see me at not too long intervals. I then endeavoured to enlist the doctor on my side and to induce him to order her away, but much to my chagrin he declared that he could not discover any adequate reason for so doing. Thus foiled in every direction, nothing remained for me but to submit with the best grace I could put upon it. It did not tend, however, to send me off to my new duties in any too happy a frame of mind. Despite everyone's endeavour to convince me that I was frightening myself about her unnecessarily, I knew her too well to be easy in my mind about her. You will presently be able to see for yourself which of us was right and which was wrong.

At the expiration of my holiday, I left for Sydney, and journeyed thence by rail to Nyngan, by way of Bathurst and Dubbo. Mount Gondobon, as the station was called, is a fine property on the Macquarrie River, and at that time was up-to-date in every respect. Its area, number of sheep carried, description of grass, and other details, would in all probability not interest you. I will, therefore, content myself with saying that I should have remained there longer than I did had I not received alarming news of my mother's condition, and been compelled to hasten back to Melbourne in the middle of my second year, and just as we were beginning shearing. My return being uncertain, the owner could not, of course, wait, so there was nothing for it but for me to take my cheque and sever my connection with one of the most pleasant stations it has ever been my good luck to work upon. The manager and I parted with mutual regret, and two and a half days later found me once more at Caulfield.

To my sorrow I discovered that the report I had received as to my mother's condition had been by no means exaggerated, indeed I could only feel that they had not made me realise sufficiently how ill she was. I sought the doctor as soon as possible, and implored him to tell me exactly what the position was. I had had enough of uncertainty and was anxious to know the worst.

"Well, Mr. Tregaskis," he said, stabbing his blotting pad with his pen as he spoke, "since you wish it so much I will be explicit with you. Mrs. Tregaskis has for some time past been suffering from a malignant growth, which should have received treatment long ere this. Like most of her sex, she bore it until she could do so no longer, but only to find that to all intents and purposes she had left it until it was too late for an operation to be performed with any degree of certainty. Every effort has been made to relieve her of pain, but the trouble is increasing daily, while the drugs we are compelled to employ are slowly but surely losing their effect."

I had no idea it was as serious as this, and it shocked me more than I can express.

"But is it impossible that anything can be done?" I asked, half afraid to put the question to him.

"If you mean in the way of an operation, I am reluctantly compelled to admit that it is," he replied. "There is the chance that it might be successful, but I think it only fair to you to state it as my honest opinion, and I have taken the precaution of consulting one of our most eminent surgeons on the point, that the risk would be too great. In all probability it could only have the effect of hastening the end. I am more than sorry to have to tell you this, but, as you have yourself asked me to do so, I think it better to let you know the plain, unvarnished truth, so that you may be prepared for the worst. Your mother is a noble woman, and I would do anything in my power for her, but beyond relieving her of acute suffering, I fear I am powerless."

"Poor mother!" I groaned. "And how long do you think it will be—before—before the end is likely to come?"

He shook his head. "It is impossible for me to say," he replied. "In cases like this they not unfrequently linger for a long time. It may be only a question of weeks, it may even be of months. I regret for your sake that I cannot be more explicit. You will remain with her for the present at least, I presume?"

"You may be sure of that," was my reply. "I shall stay with her and comfort her until the end. It is the least I can do for her, and my conscience tells me I have neglected her too long. I am more obliged to you than I can say for having told me everything. The uncertainty was more than I could bear. Now I can see the track clear ahead of me, I know what I have to do."

I bade him good-bye and set off on my homeward walk. What my feelings were like you will doubtless be able to imagine, particularly if you have ever been called upon to face such an ordeal as lay before me then. God knows I would willingly have taken her place had such a thing been possible. But that, alas, was denied me. It was to be my portion, and perhaps a part of my punishment for having been selfish enough to quit my home, to have to watch her day by day suffering intolerable agony, and to know that I was powerless to afford her relief. Yet never once, even in her direst moments, did I hear her complain. For my sake she made heroic efforts to be cheerful, and I am not sure that this did not hurt me even more than the knowledge of the actual suffering she was undergoing. Between the paroxysms of pain she would talk to me of my Bush life and of the old days when she and my father were so happy together and so full of pride in me, their only child.

"Well, I ought to be thankful," she said once to me as I sat beside her, holding her dear thin hand that even now bore traces of the hard and loving life of toil she had once known, "I have had my days of happiness; I have known a good husband and a good son, so I have been blessed beyond most women. Now my time has come to join him, and, if God wills, we shall be permitted to watch our boy together making his way bravely in the world as his father did before him."

This was the first time she had spoken to me concerning her end, and as I listened, I felt as if life could never have any happiness for me again. I bent over her, and kissed her tenderly upon her forehead, such a kiss as I had never given her before. Now that I was about to lose her I was beginning to realise what a queen among women she was; an earthly saint if ever there was one. Read my story, and learn how I profited by the lesson I might and should have learnt from her. She may forgive me in her infinite compassion, but God knows I can never forgive myself. Mine was the cruelty, and mine will be the eternity of repentance.

Nearly two months elapsed before the end came, and her suffering during that terrible time I could not make you understand, even if I tried to do so. At last her bodily and mental strength began to wane, and the doctor gave me his assurance that the end was very near. Heaven knows I could not, dearly as I loved her, and lonely as I should be without her, find it in my heart to wish that it might be delayed. It would not have been human to desire such a thing. It came in the night. I had been with her until ten o'clock, and had then allowed myself to be persuaded by the doctor and nurse to go to my room and lie down, but I did so only on the express condition that they should rouse me should any change occur. That change came towards midnight, and they immediately fulfilled their promise.

"She cannot last many minutes," said the doctor in a whisper; "I fear she will not regain consciousness." He was right, for she passed quietly away a few minutes after twelve o'clock, and when I rose from my knees and stooped over her to kiss her, I knew that I was alone in the world—she who had loved me so fondly, who had watched over me so tenderly, who had borne with my many faults and weaknesses, was gone to her long rest, where who knows whether I shall be permitted to follow her?

This was the first time I had ever been brought face to face with Death since I was old enough to be able to understand what it meant. Strange to say, I was not so awed by it as I had imagined I should be. Possibly the long period of waiting, knowing all the time that the end was slowly but surely approaching, may have been responsible for this; be that as it may, however, the fact remains that it was as I have said. When I had bade the doctor good-night, I went to my own room and to bed. Worn out by watching I fell asleep almost immediately, and did not wake until nearly nine o'clock.

Not to dwell too long on what is to me even now a painful subject, I might say that my mother was laid to rest next to her father and mother in Ballarat Cemetery, and that when all the legal formalities had been complied with, the house and furniture sold, and all the other necessary legal arrangements made, I found myself my own master, without a relation that I could lay claim to, and the respectable sum of fifteen thousand pounds standing to the credit of my name at the bank. I can well remember what a large sum it seemed to me, but though it opened up a vista of such dazzling possibilities, I would only too thankfully have exchanged it to have had my mother back with me once more.

No one knows better than I do now, that the most profound grief does not last for ever, that there comes a time when the first violent shock of the loss sustained becomes less severe, when the acute agony becomes a half-numbed pain. Then as the weeks and months go by the spirits revive, hope and ambition return, and the dead, dear as their memory may be, become part and portion of the past, and henceforth are looked upon only as such.

Now, for the second time in my life, it became necessary for me to decide what I was going to do in the future. I detested a town life, and I loved the Bush: the latter was the only one that suited me, so much was certain. My capital was more than I had expected to have; at the same time it was not sufficient to warrant my going in for anything on a large scale. In other words, while it was ample to enable me to work a thousand-acre block, it would not go far towards running anything on a more ambitious scale. After my mother's death, Melbourne became so distasteful to me that I determined to leave it as soon as possible. I therefore packed my traps and departed to Sydney, where I hoped to be able to solve the problem that was of such vital importance to me. I made enquiries in every direction, sought advice from the men who were most competent to give it, and at the end of a fortnight found myself as far off a decision as I had been at the beginning. The most attractive offers were made me. Some folk wanted me to fit out trading schooners for the South Seas, and were not polite when they found that I declined to invest my money in concerns of which I had not the very slightest knowledge. Others again had gold mines they wished me to exploit, pearl beds in the neighbourhood of the Arifura Sea, that could be profitably worked with the help of bribery and Dutch corruption. There were men with patents to sell, company promoters, dealers in land, shares, and varieties of business, and, indeed, every sort of commodity under the sun, each of which was guaranteed to make my fortune quicker than any other I could adopt. But though I listened to them I gave them no cause for hope, whereupon they left me, cursing me, I have no doubt, in their hearts, though invariably outwardly polite. So far I was as much advanced as I was at the beginning. At last I determined to bank my money and go back into the Bush, and trust to time and my luck to show me what to do. I accordingly settled my hotel bill, and took the train on the day following to my old station near Nyngan, where I remained as the manager's guest for nearly a fortnight. Then, having purchased a couple of serviceable horses, one for pack work and one for riding, I set off up the Macquarrie, and thence across the Tableland, until I struck my familiar and much esteemed acquaintance, Bourke town. For upwards of a week I remained with Dorkin, fighting our battles o'er again, and both of us devoutly wishing we could be on the road together once more. More than once I had told him of my wish to find a suitable place and settle down as my own master, but though he was always prodigal of his advice, he brought me no nearer the accomplishment of my desire. But my luck was destined to triumph in the end, and as is so often the way in such cases, quite by chance. I had been down to the post—office to despatch some letters, and was returning to Dorkin's abode when I nearly stumbled over a man who was lying senseless in the gutter. At first I thought he was drunk, but when I bent over him I discovered that I was mistaken. He was unconscious, as the result of a blow on the head, evidently inflicted by some blunt instrument, and was lying in a pool of blood. I carried him into the circle of light from the oil lamp at the corner, and then set to work as well as I could to restore him to consciousness.

At first glance he appeared to be a Bushman of the ordinary type, but on closer inspection he proved to be somewhat superior to the general run of men with whom I had been brought in contact. His age could not have been more than forty-five or forty-six at the highest computation, possibly it was not so much. His face, despite its pallor, was by no means unhandsome, while his features, though thin, were regular, and had what I suppose would be called an aristocratic air about them. His dress was that of the ordinary dweller in the Bush, that is to say, it consisted of a pair of white moleskin trousers, kept in position by a leather belt, a Crimean shirt, a white cotton coat, and a soft felt hat. His hands were small, and it did not look to me as if they had done very much rough work. At any rate, they were not like mine, scored all over with cuts and the markings of old sores. Taken altogether, I was decidedly prepossessed in his favour.

I had just arrived at this conclusion and was wondering what I should do with him, when he opened his eyes and looked about him.

"Hullo," he said, very faintly, "what's the matter?" Then before I could answer, he continued, "I feel as if my head is coming off; what on earth has happened, and who are you?"

I satisfied his curiosity as well as I was able, and then asked him if he felt well enough to get on to his feet. He replied by making the attempt, and eventually, with my assistance, he managed to scramble up. I thereupon propped him against a verandah post and endeavoured to discover the extent of the injury he had received. The light, however, was so bad that beyond convincing myself that he had lost a lot of blood, there was little more to be ascertained.

"How did you get into this plight?" I enquired at last. "It looks as if you've had a bad time of it."

"I don't remember very much about it," he answered. "I believe a man came up to me and asked me the time, then something hit me on the back of my head, and I can recall no more." He slipped his right hand into the breast pocket of his coat. "The brutes," he said a moment later, "they've taken my cheque for a hundred pounds. What on earth shall I do?"

"We'll soon settle that," was my rejoinder. "What you've got to do is to get to bed as quick as you can and have that head attended to. If you feel equal to walking, come along with me to my place, and I'll put you up for the night. In the morning we can talk matters over and see what can be done to find the beasts who robbed you. Do you think you can manage the walk; it is not more than a hundred yards or so down the street? Put your right arm round my neck and hold on to me."

I placed my left arm round his waist, and in this apparently affectionate style we proceeded in the direction of Dorkin's hostelry. My companion was certainly as weak as a kitten, which, after all, was scarcely to be wondered at considering the blow he had received and the amount of blood he had lost. However, he bore up bravely, and in due course we reached my abode. I took him in by the side door, for I had no desire that the folk in the bar should see him. It was within the bounds of possibility that the very men who had assaulted and robbed him might be in there drinking their ill-gotten gains. It would be time enough to look for them when I had got him to bed.

Leading him quietly along the passage, I at last reached my room. A candle was soon lighted, and in something less than five minutes I had him safely in bed and was on my way to the bar in search of Dorkin, who had had more experience in the matter of wounds than I had had. Getting him out of the bar into his little snuggery behind I told him my tale. He listened attentively. Then an idea seemed to strike him, and he returned to the bar for his pipe, which he had left upon the shelf. There were about half a dozen customers present, three of them residents in the town, one a drover well-known to Sep., and two extremely unprepossessing strangers, one of whom, a muscular fellow enough, carried a formidable looking stick in his hand. It was evident that both had had as much whisky as was good for them; in point of fact, one who stood at the end of the counter was compelled to support himself by its edge in order to remain upright. His companion, the man with the stick, was stolidly smoking with his elbows on the counter. If ever the word "lag" was written on a human countenance, it was on his. I have met some tough customers in my time, but I don't remember in my experience to have come across a more repulsive face; it was more like that of an animal, a bulldog for instance, than that of a man. Here was just the scoundrel to commit an assault such as the occupant of my bed had suffered from that evening.

"Well, matey, have you done that for me?" he asked of the barman, as Dorkin joined me in the parlour once more. "Look sharp about it, lad, for I want to get along to camp, and it's close on closing time. You're as slow as my old skewbald mare, that's what you are. Hurry up and ask the guv'nor to oblige a good customer what'll spend the money in 'is 'ouse."

"Hand it over then, and I'll see him about it," replied the other, "but I don't know that he's got enough in the house. It's a good 'un, I suppose, 'cause we don't want any fly-paper here."

"It's as good as any you ever set eyes on, my bloke," answered the fellow with an oath. "But I only show it to the boss. If Richard James Wilberforce's name to a cheque ain't worth something, I don't know whose is, and so you may take it from me. Cut your lucky now, and bring me back the cash. Look sharp."

"I thought as much," said Dorkin in an undertone to me. "If I'm not very much out in my reckoning, we've got the men who played the game on your pal in yonder. Hurry along to the room and ask him his name, and whether it was a cheque he lost, and, if so, whose signature was at the foot of it. Then slip back here. If he says Wilberforce, walk into the bar as if you didn't suspect anything. Sing out that it looks like rain, and leave the rest to me. We'll have a bit of fun out of this, or my name's not Dorkin."

I did as I was ordered, and learnt that my protége's name was Flaxman, and that he had worked for Mr. Wilberforce of Carrandara Station, one of the largest properties on the New South Wales side of the Queensland border, for upwards of three years as storekeeper, and that four days previous he had taken his cheque for close on a hundred pounds, and had come south with the idea of having a holiday. Primed with this information I returned to the bar.