Читать книгу All That Swagger - Miles Franklin - Страница 10

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The voice of the aboriginal Dryopes held the welcome of old acquaintance for Johanna as she descended the gorge. The cause of their lamentation had retreated beyond the conjecture of mythology, but its melody was now consonant with Johanna's mood. Like Queen Pomare—lately dethroned—she would never permit one of her casuarinas to be cut down, and, in later years, when she rarely left home, she missed the lullaby of river and trees. Having survived searing ordeals, she was relieved by comparative peace, and revived among her prized household possessions, though there was now in her emotions a chamber sealed and silent, sacred to Kathleen Moyna. Contentment gradually grew out of acceptance. The exiled daughter of Erin graduated as a citizen of New South Wales.

She had renounced the mountains for ever.

Not so Danny. Unconquerable longing assailed him each time he came up from the chasm through which the Murrumbidgee elbows its way to the great plains. As he would rein-in to pick out the notch in the ramparts that led to Burrabinga, he would fall into worshipful contemplation of the ranges, thrown one upon another like storm waves petrified when the world had cooled. Their foreverness soothed and inspired. The dignity of permanence lay on a view superb as that from Edessa in Old Greece down the valley of the Vardar towards Olympus. But the view towards Salonika is bearded with legend reaching back to the dawn of human history. The spoliation and squalor, the desecration and degradation of which human history is compounded equally with glory, had been cleansed from Delacy's province since eras lost in time. There for the dreamers, the path-finders, the road-makers with the forcefulness to project their personality upon their environment, lay a world inviting light-hearted effort and glamorous deeds.

"Oh, moi, oh, moi!" Delacy would ejaculate out of that emotion which suffuses the receptive soul when refreshed at the well of beauty or nobility. He would flap his horse with his big hat, scattering the contents like moths about him, and go on his way with a tag from the classics or a verse from the song books, whose contents were deciphered by the light of camp or hut fire and put to a tune by the musical, or bellowed with tuneless satisfaction by the less gifted.

Bewitched anew by the ranges, Danny would be restless. "A man is a fool to leave that territory, after all the preliminaries, till it is jumped on him."

"Better it be jumped by another fool next time. You a cripple. Bunratty Castle, a prison of stone, crags fit only for the blacks to pick grubs, and the native dogs to howl in."

"When me artificial limb is attached, 'twill make a power of difference."

"Little difference! Ye'd better learn reason in time."

Danny was ambitious for an apparatus made by a renowned artisan in Sydney, who had learned his craft after the Napoleonic campaigns, but the tragedy of Kathleen Moyna was too fresh for him to disregard Johanna's views. He occupied himself by clearing more cow paddocks on the river banks. In the mortal combat with the trees—a combat waged by every settler—there was enough to engage his depleted energy and impeded activity for a year or two. He dreamed of having his holding as clear as the plains of County Clare, with mayhap a ladylike imported tree or two for ornament, and an orchard about the house.

Where Danny extirpated so ardently, the curious can find to-day a well-grown forest. A gnarled stick or two of quince trees withstand the sheep amid native shrubs just below the bunyip hole. Where Johanna set her garden, still live the flag lilies—royal emblems of republican France. Those educated to explore pioneer homestead sites may discern amid the lusty yellow-box and wattle trees the ridges of Danny's first cultivation. There are the "lands" where earth, purified by a thousand years, nay, aeons of fallowhood, first gave up its grannie grubs to the magpies who warbled liquid notes of thanksgiving, and to the kookaburras, who filled the valley with grotesque mirth, so disturbing to Johanna. A century has mellowed that laughter to enchantment for the children of Australia, has rendered her exiles nostalgic for the morning and evening fanfare of glee.

The indigenous standing army, which made and held the earth on the hillsides, has vanquished a thousand Dannies since then, anti obliterated their works. Not yet is there understanding of this continent, so sensitive and gently fierce. Neither conquered nor despoiled, and only in parts defaced, it challenges the grandsons and great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of all the half-articulate Dannies to hold or to lose their incalculable heritage.

Johanna reared turkeys and set up a dairy. She had so much butter that she stored it in "kags".

Delacy hoped with butter, tallow, hides and other skins to obtain cash to renew squatting licences for Burrabinga, and to buy an artificial leg. He groaned to think of his stock being lost in the mountains.

"Yell never be able to get round there again," said Johanna.

"With a new leg, I'd lepp over the moon."

He commissioned the wheelwright at the township to build a dray, and when he announced that he was going to Sydney, Johanna said that she too would go. Her nerve had not recovered sufficiently to let him stray alone again. Danny welcomed her company. Hannon and his wife had a hut beyond the cultivation paddock, and with Maeve and Doogoolook could take care of the children. There were now five: Della and Robert; William and Honoria, the twins born at Keebah; Harry, the youngest, a few months of age. Three years had gone since Delacy lost his leg.

So the Delacys retraced their early journey along the Great Southern Road, convict-built from Port Jackson to Port Phillip, which they met at the Township. Two of Mr Moore's drays travelled with them for mutual protection. Her Majesty's mails had long run regularly to many points. Mails by private subscription went quite far out. The contingent of human beings advancing against the arboreal army of occupation was beginning to scrimshaw a history at the furthest extremity of the globe, where record of human achievements had been relegated to recesses of time beyond the research of ethnologists or archaeologists.

Mrs Delacy and the baby were perched among the malodorous merchandise. Mounted on Mrs Evans's mare, Danny drove or led his bullocks. The teams doubled in steep or boggy places. Danny was no bullocky, except thereby. Not his the patience to become a craftsman in any of his various activities. He triumphed by force of mind over body. With an "Arrah, by damn!" he dismissed obstacles. "The moind! The moind! It's all in the moind!" was the phrase by which his associates best remember him.

A journey of some weeks brought them to the turnpike at the end of George Street, and they wound downwards to the Quay, impressed by the progress made in the thirteen years since they had arrived. Many of the wooden skillings had been replaced by brick houses overlaid with cement to look like freestone. Some of them were as good as the houses in the better parts of Limerick. Even the lower orders had verandaed cottages and garden plots in Pitt Street that were more comfortable than Quebarra, Glenties or Bewuck. Hyde Park was being reformed from a racecourse.

They went again to the select boarding establishment on Church Hill, with its patrons of the 'first respectability. Johanna was captivated by the Markets, which were opened on Tuesdays and Fridays by ringing a bell at 7 a.m., and which were cleansed by water from a pump in the centre. Everybody was agreed that these premises were so elegant that they were an amphitheatre rather than a market.

Mrs Delacy loved Sydney and would that her lot had been there. This could never be with Danny. Neighbours within sight had a stifling effect on him. He thrilled to wide horizons. His spirit had been endowed by the seas that belaboured Erin's shores with an impetus unimpeded from the Pole, or rolled away to America without obstruction. His descent upon Sydney was a rare spree, an excrescence upon Life. Johanna had rather that Sydney were Life and the bush a removable excrescence. She was delighted by a play called Blackeyed Susan, preceded by "God Save the Queen", and followed by Monsieur Tonson, a farce.

Danny laughed and clapped with abandon, but more nourishing to him were the conversations with gentlemen at the boarding house, and anywhere he encountered them—in hotel bars, in banks and business houses and shops.

While Johanna was disrobing for the night he would serve up a résumé of the day's pabulum. The Colony was still in the throes of the 'forties, which had closed the Bank of Australia, and were driving mechanics to replace labourers at £12 and £15 per annum.

"Sure, the tonnage in the harbour is only fifty per cent of what it has been. 'Tis a mortal curious state of affairs in a new country when all we can do is bile down prime beef cattle for tallow, and suffer the stink of the plants from Yass on the Port Phillip Road to Bungarrabee on the Western Highway.

"The Colony is wallowing in a general financial stringency which is to be attributed to the premature and abrupt termination of transportation and assignment, and the extravagant over-speculation during several years. Sure, Johanna, I've been talking to a man at the hide store, and there is a great importation of grain and salted meats and other commodities, which has sucked the cash from us. I was talking to the manager of the bank about the high rate of interest on money, together with the monopoly of bank discounts. Says he, 'Mr Delacy, banks are not philanthropical institutions. 'Bedad, no,' says I to that, 'they resimble more a bushranging gang."

"And now whoi would ye be so vulgar to a gintleman like a bank manager?"

"The depreciation of wool in the English market is resulting in the Colony being in such debt for English goods that the English merchants have refused further credit," continued Danny in unbroken flow.

Even as it was to be generations after Danny's day!

The wiseacres of his generation were assured that the Colony would prosper on stringent economy, especially if labour could be procured for the veriest subsistence wage.

"'Tis a situation to give the old corruptionists a fit of the cholera, if the presint posture of affairs was permanint; but me moind remains undaunted as I look ahead. In a young and springing community with lashings of opportunity, there is no distress in a little stagnation. 'Tis but an opening skirmish to enterprises the extint of which cannot be dreamt—no, not even by a man who had enough drink to stiffen a tinker, and him not to be stiffened...Though I can't help but be thinking they haven't much rayson who want us to be brought to the knees by economy. Doesn't it stand to rayson that what we want is more consumption of commodities, not less; and the way to further that would be to double all the workers' wages instead of halving them."

"It's well that ye came out of ye'r own accord, Danny Delacy, or I'm thinking, with some of ye'r notions, ye'd have been sint out as a seditionist."

"By damn! What I say is irrefutable! Couldn't wan with no more intellect than an eft observe throughout history that we always starve when commodities are cheap, and when we economize. We thrive when they are dear. Wouldn't you think, it's so obvious by now, that instid of economy to right things, they'd experiment on what extravagance and distributing things to the needy would do?"

"Och, there's no rayson at ye!" said Johanna. "Aren't all the wise ones at the head of things saying in the paper that it's the expensiveness of the Government, coupled together with private extravagance, that has brought us to this pitch of ruin. Didn't I bear that foine gintleman at dinner say that we have got ahead of German wool growers in the quality of merino wool, and that it is setting us on our feet again?"

"Sure, did you note he also said that there was ruin in Germany therefore? There is poor satisfaction to my moind in progress that is made at the expinse of trouble elsewhere. There can be no stability in cut-throat capers."

"Sure, I read in the paper with me own eyes that without cheap and abundant labour the community cannot expect to prosper."

"That's what I'm saying—at the expinse of slaves. I'm free meself and would wish every man-jack, black and white, to be the sameaquil before his Maker. If men are beaten down so that they work for rations and slops, who'll buy our commodities? Answer me that!"

"Och, Danny-boy, if what ye say was true, if it was ye who had the wisdom at ye, wouldn't they be putting ye at the head of things instead of to be ignoring ye among the native dogs and the precipices?"

"Wait till I get me new limb. As sure as there is a cross on the ass, there can't help being abundance for all. Think of the progress! The time between here and the old country has been cut in half since we came out. We can now get the Melbourne papers in a few days after they are printed. Me moind is on the grand future when all these little difficulties of disorganization will be dissolved."

It was beneath his vision that the human race—most inefficient of mammals—three or four generations ahead would still be unable to feed and clothe and care for its members with adequacy though in possession of a world teeming with every commodity raw and manufactured, and with inconceivable discoveries and inventions at its disposal.

Delacy attended some of the Usury Debates and met the representative of his territory in the Legislative Council. "To-morrow I must go see him again and give him some advice and information."

"'Tis a pity ye couldn't moind ye'r own business and leave a man like that to his own. Too many can put their hand in ye'r bag. By ye'r tendency to be always helping others, and a scatteration in ye'r projects, ye will arroive nowhere in the ind. Let others look after themselves. They never consider ye."

"Sure, where would I be to-day if Mrs Evans had not made me her business, but had gone on moinding her own?"

"Och, ye'r waking the baby with ye'r blather."

"Put out the candle, me brave Johanna. I'll be as quiet as a mouse."

Danny disposed of his "kags", and hides and horsehair with fair profit, considering the financial stringency. In their place he procured axes and tomahawks, a saw, a tarpaulin, two-and-a-half and three-bushel bags, some suits of slops, a keg of hurdle and horseshoe nails, a saddle and bridle bits, percussion caps; striped shirts with linen collars for township wear; a roll of China matting, and another "kag" of paint as a concession to Johanna's elegancies. He also purchased American flour and lemon syrup as delicacies; and Seidlitz powders and castor oil, and bluestone and tobacco; and Day and Martin's blacking because he got a damaged case cheaply; and an inspiring pipe to replace the treasure lost these three years, as well as many another article indispensable to him.

Johanna found a companion at the select boarding establishment and had an enlivening holiday. Amusements, paved walks under her feet, to have vegetables, animal and other produce purchasable in the shops—this was life. It had been her ambition at Cooley Hall, but Danny had carried her off to a State where everything had to be grown or manufactured. She revelled as far as the capacity of purse and dray allowed.

She could not resist softest cashmeres and organdies. There were coloured handkerchiefs, and gimp and bugles for trimming. A pongee handkerchief and gay print were for Maeve, and a gaudy bundle handkerchief for Doogoolook. There were slippers and hose, and a leghorn bonnet "richly trimmed"; and ribbons and perfume and lace; and a gingham umbrella for 4/-. There were green baize and steel busks, a worsted table cover, an Indian shawl, satin brocade; and a dainty pair of black lace gloves at 1/3. Johanna had an ineradicable joy in elegancies for their own sake. She had a longing for a set of horsehair furniture, but limitation in means and transportation postponed these. She compromised on currants and preserved ginger, a tea set of Staffordshire, and a little music box that played three tinkling tunes.

Delacy informed himself of the growth of the horse trade with India, and plumed himself upon the three mares that had travelled with their noses on the tail of the dray. Cornet of Parramatta, a blood horse of Arab strain, was to add his lineage to the walers of Burrabinga.

The return journey began as soon as the new leg was ready. When approaching the Gib they were stuck-up by one of the intermittent bands of bushrangers that had arisen to attack the mail coaches. All teams and other travellers were mustered in the hollow awaiting the mail from Goulburn. The contents of the drays were ransacked. Tea, currants and flour were emptied on the earth and the teamsters left to salvage what they could from flies, ants and grit.

Mrs Delacy had a triumph remembered by her descendants. She was still bright-eyed and handsome and plied a fearless tongue against the robbers. She was set to cook a meal while the men were bailed-up until disarmed and relieved of valuables. Danny was for chastising his jailer with his crutch, to which he still clung. Johanna reassured him, "Sure, they'll do no harm to an old woman hurrying home to four childre as well as the wan that's crying for her now."

"The dam of five, and that for a sire! Were men so scarce?" guffawed the leader of the gang. "Does he put that forty gallon hat on to make him important?"

"No, to contain his brains," said Johanna.

"And he, the preposterous vaygabond," shouted Danny, "by the same token would need nothing but a paynut shell."

The man let Johanna keep her trinkets. "Begob, we can afford that to the only lady with us." Another had been ordered to halt but had whipped her horse into a gallop. She was a bride, and her husband was forced to gallop with her. "Let them burst," the man had decreed with a coarse imprecation concerning newly-weds.

Johanna tried to silence Danny. The leader set her at ease. "We'll not hurt your tom-tit, missus. He has a voice and a beard, and a pipe in the middle of it like a real man; and by tripes, what there is of him is worth a dozen of the pot bellies—swelled with importance and ordering the lash for their betters. He has no weapon with him but his crutch."

When the coach came and the mailbags were rifled, the travellers were released without further molestation, but Johanna's taste for journeys was ruined. After that she talked of trips to Sydney, but never took them. The growing city as well as the mountains dropped out of bounds for her.