Читать книгу The Outlaw - John David Hennessy - Страница 3

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One summer morning, late in the Australian Forties, an assigned servant named John Salathiel had angered his master, one Major Hastings; and the Major was in a towering rage, although it was not really Salathiel's fault. It was hard luck, for in a few weeks the man would have been due for a good conduct ticket.

Sitting upon his big grey mare, stockwhip in hand, the Major, with a flushed face and ugly oath, ordered him to take a six-months-old bull-calf to the butcher's at Maitland, and be back by sundown; or, failing to do so, he would get fifty lashes at the triangles. There and back, the distance was twenty-four miles, and he had to go on foot.

The man listened with his usual deference to the owner of Eurimbla Station; he was taken by surprise; but he flushed crimson when he realized the full meaning of the threat. He knew that the thing couldn't be done. Major Hastings knew it too, even better than Salathiel, and the convict's blood boiled with indignation and dismay. But he was not easily cowed, and Salathiel touched his cap as he turned and walked over to the store, where Bob Brady, the station bookkeeper, stood waiting for him.

It was with some surprise that Brady heard Salathiel, as he drew nearer, cursing the Major bitterly.

"What did the boss want you for, Jack?" he asked sharply

"I have to drive the bull-calf that's bellowing down in the yards to Maitland, and be back by sundown," replied Jack sullenly.

The bookkeeper looked at Salathiel for a moment, with an amused twinkle in his eye, and then burst into a laugh. The idea of the tall, handsome, steady-going Government man (a convict) who helped him with the station accounts, and for twelve months had scarcely soiled his hands, having a bull-calf in tow on the Maitland road! He liked Salathiel well; but this was too much for his gravity.

"I'll bet you half a crown, Jack," he exclaimed, laughing heartily, "you won't get the brute outside the home-paddock slip-panels inside two hours; those bull-calves, out of the run, are perfect devils to handle alone."

"He says "—and the man's face flushed again with shame—"that if I am not back with the butcher's receipt by sundown, he'll see that I get fifty lashes. Curse him!" he ejaculated, "it's over twelve miles there, isn't it?"

The bookkeeper stopped laughing, for he liked Salathiel. He knew him to be an educated man, altogether different from the common run of convicts; he knew how hardly he had struggled with his lot, and how assiduously he had tried to please the Major; if possible, in some measure to retrieve his lost position. And so this reserved, kindly, self-contained young fellow was to be broken and degraded at the triangles on the whim of a military despot! Brady was rough and hard himself, but his whole soul was moved with indignation at the injustice and brutality of the thing. "Jack," he suddenly exclaimed, "if I were a Government man and had a job given me like that, with such an alternative, I'm hanged if I wouldn't clear out and turn bushranger!"

* * * * * * * *

It was an unhandled, newly-branded calf, fresh from the run, that Salathiel had to take to Maitland. A stout rope was knotted around its thick neck, so that, whatever tricks it might play, it could not well choke. Struggling and bellowing, it took two men to get it out of the yard, and they grinned at each other as they passed the rope over to Jack. It was breakfast time; the boss was not about, so they climbed to the top rail of the stock-yard fence, and pulling out their pipes, sat down to see the performance.

They had not long to wait. The sting of the hot branding iron was fresh on the youngster's tender skin, and bellowing wildly, it leaped upon its hind legs, and then started furiously down the hill.

Salathiel knew something about station life; but this was his first experience with a bull-calf. He held on to the brute, however, pulling hard back upon the rope, and ran as fast as possible. By good luck, the animal headed for the Maitland road slip-panels; but Jack's satisfaction was shortlived, for he tripped over a stump hidden in the long grass and, amid roars of laughter from the stockmen, was thrown flat on his back. Clutching savagely at the rope, he was towed over the grass behind the frightened animal, which, with tail erect and foaming at the mouth, made for a distant fence. It was a ludicrous sight, and the bookkeeper and station hands roared with laughter.

"The fence'll stop 'm," said one of the laughing stockmen, "but he'll never get the devil to Maitland unless he carries him."

"The Boss must have a down on Jack to set him such a job," said another. "I wouldn't undertake it for a tenner."

Salathiel would have given it up then and there but for the threatened flogging, for he was badly cut and bruised and hatless; but he held on, hoping that the frightened animal would soon come to a standstill. When at last it stopped, he got up half-dazed, to find the calf with its head and leg thrust between the panels of the fence, so, hitching the rope round a post, he secured his hat and ran to let down the slip-panels. Fortunately, they were not far distant. Taking them down, he stood for a moment to pull himself together. He had been dragged nearly half a mile and was panting, with the sweat pouring off him. Returning, he found that the calf had backed out of the fence, bellowing, if possible, more loudly than before, and, with protruding tongue, was pulling back upon the rope with the strength of a young horse.

It was a big-boned, vicious scrubber, and Jack knew that kindness would only be thrown away. The brute must be mastered and cowed.

"I haven't been flogged for two years," said Jack aloud, "and I'll get you to Maitland somehow, you devil, or choke you." He shuddered at the recollection of the last flogging, of which he still carried the scars. He, by birth and education a gentleman, who, in his youth, had been full of youthful ambition!

"My God!" he exclaimed, "it were better to die!"

But the sun was fast rising in the heavens, so he set himself to undo the strained rope. Then, by main force, he pulled the stubborn brute upon the road, and tied him to the fence while he put up the slip-panels. Salathiel stood six feet in his socks and was broad in the shoulders; he was on his mettle; somehow he would do it in the time. He might be able to get a lift in a cart or dray with the animal, so he unfastened the rope from the fence, and cutting a stout stick, prepared to make a fresh start.

The calf, however, had no intention of starting, and in answer to Jack's "Get up," only bellowed and backed closer to the fence, but a smart blow moved him, when he swerved round to horn Salathiel, and in doing so, got the rope entangled in his legs and fell. On Jack approaching to get him up, he suddenly sprang forward, and with a jerk wrenched the rope out of the man's hands.

"You wretch!" ejaculated Jack, as he rushed after him; but the calf was too quick, and raced off into the bush. It was another hour ere, sweating at every pore, he caught the animal. Twice he had lost sight of him completely. It was marvellous that he caught him at all, on foot; but the rope had got fast in the crooked roots of a fallen tree.

They were both winded by this time, and after once more being started in the right direction, the calf moved quietly along for a while. Suddenly, however, it slewed sharply around, and describing a circle, got the rope round Jack's legs and then made a desperate rush back for the station. The man fell, and was dragged a short distance; but his grip of the rope never relaxed.

Now, as every stockman knows, a six-months bull-calf is a terror to drive alone, under any circumstances; but this one seemed possessed of the strength and viciousness of a dozen of its kind, and at last, after four hours had passed, without having covered as many miles, Salathiel, hungry and wellnigh exhausted with the struggle, tied the animal to a tree and sat down on a fallen log to rest himself and think.

He got his pipe out, for, although he had forgotten to bring food, he had his pipe and tobacco with him. Smoking, he remembered the bookkeeper's hasty words.

"Brady was right," he said to himself, "there's nothing else for it; I'll not go back to be flogged. But it is a brutal shame; I was due for a ticket in less than three months."

The man looked despairingly up at the sun; it was past noon—he could never do it. Then followed further gloomy thoughts, and even tears and broken prayers as he struggled hard with himself, until at last he decided to leave the calf to choke to death, if need be, and make for an outlaw's life in the Liverpool Ranges.

And yet he waited for another hour, hoping that a dray or cart might come along and help him out of his desperate dilemma. He had three long-hoarded one pound notes about him. How willingly would he have given them all to see that calf safely at Maitland!

Presently a gig passed along the road. The driver was a neighbouring squatter, but he only glanced at Jack and the calf suspiciously; he was in a hurry, or he might have pulled up to ask whose calf it was.

Still Jack waited, looking anxiously now up the road, now down. Then he would turn around and glare at the calf, which stood watching for the man's next move, until the whole thing seemed to him like some hideous dream—he could see himself tied again to the triangles, broken and degraded under the brutal lash.

How quiet and inviting, and odorous with the warm smell of gum trees, the great bush was—and yonder were the ranges!

Leaving the calf tied to the tree, Salathiel, sick at heart, went out into the road, and looked carefully up and down for the last time. He could not see or hear any one. Then, like a felon, he slunk off and disappeared.

The inevitable followed, John Joseph Salathiel was gazetted an escaped convict. A month or so afterwards, he, with some others, 'stuck up' the Maitland coach; a constable, who had wounded several bushrangers, was shot dead, and in due course Jack was proclaimed an outlaw.

The story of Jack Salathiel and the bull-calf became a by-word for men to laugh at. It was the last straw, which made a bushranger of a would-be honest man.