Читать книгу All That Swagger - Miles Franklin - Страница 13

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The time came when Delacy could put William and Harry to the work of adults.

A large field of wheat that had escaped smut or rust, was saved by vigilance from cockatoos by day and marsupials by night. Much hung on the selling of this grain to a mill at Albury for 17/6, or possibly more, per bushel, and all was not going well with the harvesting. Hannon, who was in charge, was beset by cantankerous old lags whose intention was to pick a quarrel and put the onus of dismissal on the employer. Delacy increased the ration of grog but this did not pacify them. Hannon trembled lest a firestick should be put to the garnered stooks.

The climax came when Delacy was rushing the reapers to beat a thunderstorm. It was as hot as a furnace in the narrow gorge. Flies and sandy blight increased irritation. Usually the meal was served in two shifts in the kitchen, but on this day the men were squeezed at one table, and the reek of dirty sweating bodies, rank tobacco, cabbage and rum was nauseating to all but the inured. One man was given a seat at a side table. He tried to start a disturbance by flinging his plate on the floor and shouting, "I'll not submit to the outrage of being set apart because of what is past in my life."

Delacy seized the gigantic tin teapot and made towards the man. "Pick up your good victuals, you vaygabond haythen, or I'll baptize you to me own taste."

The malcontent, with one glance towards his adversary, who was about half his weight, six inches shorter, and hopping on a peg leg, fled the premises for ever, amid the laughter of his fellows.

Johanna was still without her carriage, though Danny now had two drays, in which the boys were to transport the wheat. They held back on a rising market until the frosts had come, then Danny escorted them up from the homestead to the plateau commanding a view of the ranges southward, and left them to make a daylight start towards that part of the road to Port Phillip which served the upper reaches of the Riverina.

William Delacy, now nearly seventeen, was of staid dependable character, and his shoulder had long been pressed to the wheel of responsibility. He was already clever at training steers, horses and dogs. He worked with more patience than his father, but with equal noise, and could be heard admonishing his creatures a mile distant. He had his father's honesty but was more prosaic, "more practical" said his acquaintances, though Danny was ultra practical in acting as he preached. William's actions contained less of the flights of the wild geese of adventure. He thought more of the immediate return for his enterprises, less of their ultimate concern with destiny.

Harry, nearly two years younger, was an eager laddie, slender as a wand, with delicately chiselled features and Danny's blue eyes, with a drop of Johanna's to deepen them. Never were loins so slim nor backs more flat than the Delacys', but whereas Johanna and Danny were a doll-like pair, the men that sprang from them were all tall.

William was conscientious, and Harry squandered himself in the trust committed to him. William had the best leaders and polers with frisky characters between. Harry's team was steady throughout. Four or five mature spares, tame servitors, walked free, and disloyally (to their own race) horned any youngsters into keeping the pole-chain straight when timidity or rebellion slewed them from the line. William had been on a similar trip with Hannon two years earlier and would have been accounted wanting had he forgotten any turn of the way.

The boys woke to an icy dawn with a wind that would shave a gooseberry—Harry's words—sweeping full across the plateau from the high peaks down Monaro way. When they unrolled from their possum rugs beneath the dray, Harry saw a man taking the hell from his riding horse. A second man was trying to catch William's. These fillies were the reward of heroic labour. Danny abhorred the vice of "horsiness" and sold all his prime geldings, but youth will have its swagger, and these fillies were the apple of the boys' eyes.

Harry rushed towards the robber yelling language that his mother would have asserted was unknown to him. He kicked the man's shins wildly despite a couple of holsters in his belt. With similar recklessness, William ran to rescue his idol. Both lads had Danny's fearlessness.

"You fine young pup! You—-fool! I might have put a bullet in you." Harry was small for his years, he looked childish. The robber remained good-humoured because his Wellingtons had protected his shins.

"You can't have my filly," screeched Harry, who had not been taught to modulate his voice.

"How are you going to stop me?"

"I'll soon show you!" The lad seized his bridle and flung the reins over the filly's ears in such a pelter that the sudden up-jerk of her head sent him sprawling in the swamps. Whack! He was a comical spectacle, feet in air, the rearing filly above him. The bushranger guffawed. The boy was unarmed, his work-marred hands as delicate as a girl's. A kick would have thrown him into the middle of the coming week. He sprang up dripping, frozen, and foolish, but undaunted.

"Hold on," said the man. "If you had your paddy under control, you'd be gamer still, but you'll never make a pug."

Harry's sensitive features betrayed a struggle to hold back tears. William had reached his horse ahead of the other thief, and now cantered up to see what was happening to Harry.

"Are you unarmed, too?"

"Why should I be armed in a free country?" countered William. He recognized the men from descriptions, and was prepared for the loss of both horses.

"This —— young pup is as fresh as a gander," remarked the leader. "Are you going to enter the fillies for the gents' races at Bong Bong? Nullah-Mundoeys, ain't they?"

"Yes," replied Harry, to whom hope suddenly returned. "They're out of Cornet mares by Knobkerrie, and he was by Shillelagh out of Miss Nullah-Mundoey, and she was by Whipstick, and then came the original Nullah-Mundoey."

"Good iron! I don't rob little boys, not when they've been flung by old fearless Danny of the mountains. He parades about unarmed. Tell your old man he's flung a couple of pups as game as himself, and that it was Clark said it. You can keep your mokes. I'll pick up a couple of the same breed from them who don't deserve them."

The boys were elated by this encounter. It lent adventure to their passage as they camped in frost or rain and lived on damper and salt junk, cooked by themselves at night. They had no warm clothing. A poncho of sailcloth protected them from water or wind, as, unconscious of hardship, they thrashed their way in mud or dust, with bullocks that grew tender around the necks and sore-footed as they endured their share of the bovine torture which advanced Australian colonization. Harry survived whooping cough, his vocal convulsions having given more amusement than concern to his fellow travellers.

While the boys were toiling with the drays, Danny went to the Township to take a pack load of skins and to call at the post office During Robert's stay in Sydney, his mother insisted upon letters being collected at least once a month. A tutor was to be selected from Hennessy's hotel, where there were generally remittance men open for such a post. The clergyman who examined the boys' educational progress, reported that Harry was backward, so he was to renew his studies during the winter nights when he returned with the teams.

Danny chose a soft young fellow in the hotel yard, where he also became enamoured of a carriage. A queer shingle of military aristocracy who had come to inspect the country, had been vanquished by his cardinal enemy, and liquidated his carriage and four horses. The publican offered the vehicle to Danny, half in jest.

Here was the carriage which had been promised to Johanna in the coomb near her old home. She had given up riding, and complained of being a prisoner at Bewuck. Danny decided to take the vehicle home that day. All the talent of the Township, from masters to tag-rag and bobtail, collected to grin at the odd team which was yoked to it, two heavyish pack-horses on the pole and two blood saddle mares as leaders.

The pub groom put the horses in with unholy glee, and the new owner took charge. He was neither whip nor horse-trainer, but through inability to recognize impossibilities, frequently overrode them. The two ladies Nullah-Mundoey never before had been yoked to anything.

"Be careful! They may go mad when you start," warned a more kindly onlooker.

"Arran! Why should they? Child's play to what those mares have achieved and never showed the whites of their eyes."

"Wait till the collars begin to nip them."

"Fearless Danny only needed a carriage to be king of the Murrumbidgee."

There was admiration as well as baiting in the rude sallies.

"Sure he's as big a swell as the best, and honester than all the others put together, only he's never concerned with howldin' on to schnobbery," said the publican, one Hennessy, a big fat man of Danny's age. He owned the grand hotel and had lately risen to it from a sly grog shop, which, before hotels were licensed, he had kept under cover of the little general store, from which the Township had been hatched as from an egg.

The chorus increased. As the yapping of curs Delacy regarded it, to be dispersed by his horses' heels in the clatter of his enterprises. Never was being more indifferent to criticism, and he was as far above scandal-mongering as a lark's song above a snail's track.

Flowers of originality in eminent men are cherished by the mob as signs of greatness. Originality in the obscure makes him a butt for lesser wits. Danny in his loose slops, clumping on his peg, was a leprechaun figure. He settled his hat full of leaves, with the chin strap jostling his pipe.

"Taking any passengers?" someone called out.

"Too many jackasses for me to accommodate you all, and I never make invidious distinctions among me fellow men, but you can draw lots for the honour of riding with me, and be damned to you." He called for a chair, which Hennessy himself brought with goodwill. From this Delacy climbed over the wheel and took the reins. He looked around and saw the tutor. "Sure, make yourself a place among the saddles inside."

The young man obeyed, reddening like a cherry.

"Lead out the mares till they see what to do," Danny ordered a native lout, who grinned and remained where he was. He would not align himself with a butt. Danny caught him a flick with his stockwhip, and cackles against the lout brought volunteers. The mares, inured to much, found this too much. They reared into the collars with hysterical desire to leap over the traces. The men at the bit-rings had sufficient neighbourliness to act as a brake on Danny's recklessness. A hardy pair assumed the positions of postillions.

"Leave go now. A sound skelping is the way to dispose a horse to harness."

A second young man dived into the carriage on top of the tutor.

"Sure, iver since the owld man's daughter came home from boording school the young feller has been squinting at her," observed Hennessy.

"You owld spalpeens, with your experience to balk at a ladylike carriage," exclaimed Danny, who had his own way with bolting horses, proved by experience. With a yell to be heard for a mile in the clear autumn air, he laid the whip about the leaders. They sprang ahead from the flaying thong, but the polers' speed was not dangerous. All the loafers ran to the crest of an eminence. Those with horses rode farther; not every day was there such a lively clown.

Familiar and deafening advice soon assured Delacy's four-in-hand that nothing untoward was happening. The polers were winded through being dragged by the Nullah-Mundoeys. They bowed to domination and hung into the breeching. Danny's disregard of anything but his purpose had added another story to the records.

"It won't be a week till he uses the carriage to cart possum skins out of the mountains," remarked Hennessy.

"I've never seen the beat of him."

"Where did ye iver see his aquil? Whoi, Danny Delacy could tame a woild elephant, and him naught but a nullah-mundoey himself. Not a fear at all, anny more than if he was made of injy rubber."

Not at all timid was the young man pulled into the carriage by the tutor, and who had called to a mate, "Bring my horse when you come."

Gerald Butler, young native squatter, and Walter Dillingham, imported, had a rough passage among the gear until the mares were encrusted with sweat and dust and their shoulders were growing tender. One jibbed. Young Butler revealed himself.

"Wait a moment, Mr Delacy, I'll lead her."

"Did you spring conveniently out of a bush?"

"Out of the carriage. I was one of the jackasses who accepted your invitation."

"Not so much a jackass, I'm thinking, as the right man in the right place."

The gratified young man took the mare's bit-ring.

"He's in a more manly situation than his feyther was behind the trees waiting to see me cattle driven off," thought Delacy, and did not allow the father's character to prejudice him against the son. "Where's me other brave warrior?" he shouted. "Jump out, unless you're glued to the seat, and put a boulder to the wheel."

The man put a stone in front of the back wheel, on to which, however, the carriage backed and saved him from ridicule as a new chum.

The mare continued to jib. She had been trained to tow people up hills, so they tied her tail to the swingle-bar and she pulled thus with spirit to the end of the day, when they descended to the homestead. Danny hacked down a tree and lashed it to the back axle. With stirrup leathers, Butler and the pop-eyed tutor held on to the upper side to prevent capsize. The dogs brought out the family.

"A carriage," cried Jane Hannon.

"Father is driving," said Maeve.

"He's got himself killed again in some new way," moaned Johanna.

"How could he be killed and driving too?" demanded Della. "Gerry Butler and a strange young man," announced Maeve.

Della withdrew to re-arrange herself. Gerald Butler was the most comely of the Murrumbidgee callers.

"Where are you, me brave Johanna?" shouted Danny. "Come, see the carriage. Now you can drive around in comfort when you have the moind." He was at the foot of the descent across the cultivation paddock. Young Butler was detaching the drag, while the tutor was investigating the damage done to his hands.

"Wan of these days 'tis a circus in full cry ye'll be bringing me, and ye the clown all complete in it," Johanna called with mixed emotions. A real carriage was exciting when her circle had not yet achieved spring carts, but some little trap would have been more manageable. Danny had surpassed himself this time, so he took his pipe from its fastnesses to kiss his wife.

"Sure, ye're getting to smell like a hogshead as well as a tobacco kag," she complained.

"I've had no more than a taggeen, and it a day past. I've brought a young man—sure, I forgot to inquire your name. He can bring Harry on and lend a hand when necessary."

"The carriage certainly makes you the first lady in the district, Mrs Delacy," said Butler, giving her good evening.

The vehicle was placed behind the hen house and protected by a tarpaulin until a house of its own could be built.

Six weeks later Harry and William returned from the wheat expedition, William unkempt and aged for his years, Harry looking like an ill-treated orphan, but swaggering manfully and unaware that the task had been above his years and strength. Their exploit was soon dimmed by the home-coming of Robert, his education completed. Johanna's idea that her darling could ever be a student would have convulsed his teachers. Nevertheless, he had imbibed from his Sydney sojourn sufficient to gain the ascendancy in his family. Harry basked in his brother's glory.

Harry had his father's tendencies, and, according to William, was "the damnedest fool that ever drew breath". Notwithstanding this plain speech, Harry was fond of William for his underlying kindliness, and because they both had inherited Danny's principle, and lacked respect for any but honest men.

Robert's qualities were not defeated by gauche self-consciousness. At bottom he was perhaps the least generous of the brothers, the least affectionate, but he was a better politician than either, and there were perquisites in cultivating the affections of others—even brothers. He thought Harry a greater fool than did William, but instead of mentioning it so bluntly made capital of Harry's romantic attitude towards him and life. Robert was eighteen, the age at which his father had married. Only a suggestion of beard smutted his lip, but he shaved with ostentation. He could swagger with style, an art denied to William. He was lithe and a light-weight despite his seventy-two inches and well-squared shoulders. The Delacys were race horses rather than cobs, of lean and wiry staying powers through Danny's transmitted lung capacity and hardy rearing.

There Robert's resemblance to his father and brothers ended. He had more qualities than they for rising to eminence. He could enlist others. He had plausible reasons for riding the best horses and undertaking the pleasantest jobs. He remained the darling of his mother's heart. His manners were pleasing after what she had endured from rough employees and the casual Danny. She considered Robert fit to mate with the Governor's daughter.

The wheat money and Robert's homecoming helped Danny's determination to settle in the mountains. The deciding factor rankled. During the winter he had come home from the Township the worse for liquor. His babble had wearied Johanna. He was now forty-six and she forty-seven years old. Her urge for man-flesh had dulled. She craved peace. Years since, she had had to relinquish her day-dream of returning in affluence to the people of her girlhood. She saw Danny as an insignificant, ineffectual old man, hopping on one leg. His once gallant daring now seemed foolhardiness. Tippling made him insupportable. She had outgrown or outworn him and was as careless of his feelings as though oblivious to them.

"Ye'r a black-jack and tobacco kag combined, and I have no taste for sleeping with such. I'll make ye a bed in the ind room," she said.

For a moment Danny felt old and defeated. He became aware that he was a cripple. He looked in the glass for the first time in years and was not reassured by the unclassical features ambushed in beard, from which a pipe protruded like an obelisk. The pipe was rank, he decided, and threw it from him. He picked it up again helplessly. It had become part of him.

"I am an old tobacco kag and a rum jar," he murmured in the smallest voice he had ever employed, facing truth as was his wont. He could have reduced Johanna to obedience. The community was behind him, including the Church, and women themselves, but Daniel Brian Robert M. Delacy was gallant. He had been too active for introspection, but he thought now in swift impressionistic style. He decided that Johanna was a trifle "touched". She had been overstrained by what she had undergone at the time of the fire and the death of Kathleen Moyna. She would recover.

No parallel case was known to him. There were women who had cut the painter because they were "loose", or because the husbands were recognizedly unbearable. In either case the odium was crushing. There were milder cases in which the woman's health was a factor, but Danny could not cover his situation by muttering about Johanna's health while she was announcing that she had never been better in her life. She remained casual and assured in a practical piece of feminism, which, as pioneering, eclipsed her achievements in other fields.

Her dumbfounding attitude drove Danny to the Township to a tailor—an emancipist settled there. He ordered a suit "fit for a modest gentleman". He bought also a gentleman's hat, and had a boot made for his delicate foot. When the outfit was ready he rode home in it. The result was reducing. His head seemed to have shrunk in a hat of normal size without the gum leaves.

Johanna was convulsed. "Sure, ye've shrunk back to childhood ahead of time. What has come to ye? Ye look like Harry in a false beard."

Danny murmured concerning the need of a suit when he sat on the jury. A big brooch remained forgotten in the pocket of the waistcoat. He bawled an order to put the horses in over night in readiness for big doings, and bustled in and out of store and harness room until a late hour. A civilizable being in a race largely composed of anthropoids—that was his only demonstration.

Sophistry supervened to comfort him. Johanna herself would lose socially by her untoward conduct. His absence at Burrabinga would defeat the curious.