Читать книгу In Bad Company, and other stories - Rolf Boldrewood - Страница 8

'Harry Bower, the Celebrated Bushranger.'

Cut to the heart, not so much by the heartless publicity of the affair as by the disgraceful attempt to brand him as a dirty disreputable-looking individual, he glared angrily at his simulacrum. 'And me that was always so tasty in my dress,' he muttered. So saying, he seized the hapless figure by the arm, and dragging it along with wrathful vehemence, made for the door.

'Oh, Mr. Bower, Mr. Bower!' cried the proprietress, 'ye'll ruin him—I mane yerself. Sure ye wouldn't go to injure a poor widdy woman, and all the people sayin' it's your dead imidge.'

'Imidge of me, is it?' shouted Bower, the furious, ungovernable temper of the 'long sentence convict' breaking out. 'I'll tache ye to make a laughing-stock of Harry Bower, this day. Ye might have dressed me dacent, while ye wor about it.'

So saying, he dragged the inanimate malefactor through the door, and casting him down upon the Bourke Street pavement, commenced to kick him to pieces, to the great astonishment of the crowd which speedily gathered around him. A rumour had started that 'Bower the bushranger was killing a man outside the Wax-works,' and before many minutes the street was blocked with men, women, and children, lured to the spot by the expectation of seeing a real live bushranger in the exercise of his bloodthirsty vocation.

A few minutes later—having dissevered several vital portions of the 'Frankenstein' individual, and, like Artemus Ward's enthusiastic Bible Christian, who 'caved Judassis' head in,' more or less demolished the victim—Mr. Bower, desisting, stalked moodily up the street, his peculiar reputation not leading any one to volunteer pursuit. There was no constable in sight, so the Mrs. Jarley of the establishment was left to her lamentations, and the dubious satisfaction of a remedy by civil process.

Next day, below startling headlines, similar paragraphs appeared in the leading journals.

'An Ex-Bushranger.

'Assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

'About three o'clock yesterday afternoon, such denizens of Bourke Street as were passing Mrs. Dooley's interesting collection of Wax-works were alarmed by the spectacle of an aged man of athletic proportions, who had assaulted an individual of similar age and appearance; had thrown him down on the pavement, and was savagely kicking him about the head and the body; indeed it was feared—such was the fury of his gestures—that he was actually trampling the unfortunate victim of his rage to death. None dared to interfere, every one appeared paralysed; but after one or two public-spirited individuals had started for the Swanston Street police station, an adventurous bystander called out, 'Why, it's a wax figure.' Though a shout of laughter greeted the announcement, no one cared to remonstrate with the hero of so many legends—the man who, long outlawed, and captured after a desperate resistance, had barely escaped the gallows for the manslaughter of the warders of the hulk President in a frustrated plot for escape—the dreaded bushranger, Henry Bower. We have since learned that this attempt at felo de se (in wax)—for the injured individual turned out to be a fairly correct likeness of himself—can only be proceeded for as a debt, which Bower in his cooler moments will not be averse to liquidating, he having returned from the bush with a reasonably large cheque, earned in the service of an old employer, who gave him a berth at a couple of pounds a week as night-watchman of his woolshed. In these times of disturbance and incendiary troubles, most of our readers will concur with our opinion, that old Harry Bower, with his double-barrel, not swayed by frivolous objection to bloodshed, was, in such a position of trust, "the right man in the right place."'

When the shearers took their cash or cheques as each elected, and departed, splitting into small parties, on different routes, division of opinion took place likewise. Bill Hardwick openly declared his intention, as did several others, to 'cut the Shearers' Union' and go 'on their own' for the future. 'I've had enough of this Union racket,' said he, as, lighting his pipe, and jogging off with his two fat horses, saddled and packed, he prepared to take the 'down river' road. 'I don't see no points in being bossed by chaps like this Stead, and callin' theirselves chairmen and presidents, and what not—fellers as have done dashed little but blather this years and years. They've turned dog on the squatters as trusted 'em and "went Union," and deuced near done us out of six weeks' hard graft at this very shed. We've got our cash, boys; that'll carry us on for a bit. But suppose we'd turned out when that galoot at Wagga wanted us to, where should we be now? Travellin' the country without a shillin' in our pockets, our shearin' money forfeited by the next police magistrate (and serve us right, too, for bein' such bally fools), and summonses and warrants out against every man on the board. I'm full of Mr. Head Centre at Wagga, with his top hat, and gold chain, and his billiards, as our money goes to pay for. But he won't get none of mine to monkey with, nor you either, Janus Stoate, and so you may tell him next time you wire.'

'I'll report your language to the Union secretary, William Hardwick, never fear,' replied Stoate, fixing his snaky eye upon him. 'You'll soon know which is the strongest—you or the Association, as protects the workers' interests. So I warn you, and all others as is fools enough to stand by you.'

'That'll do, Mr. Delegate,' said Bill; 'don't you go to bully me. Say another word, and I'll give you a smack or two, that'll make a better yarn when you're touching up the tell-tale business for the Head Centre. I'm off to Moorara, where there's 300,000 sheep to shear, and a board only half full. Who's comin' my way?'

There had been a hum of approbation when Bill finished his humble oratorical effort, after which a dozen of the best and fastest shearers announced their intention to go with him, to the wrath and despair of Mr. Stoate.

'I'll be even with you, Bill Hardwick,' he yelled, 'and you too, Johnny Jones—see if I don't. You'll get no stands from us this year, nor next either.'

A hundred and fifty miles below Tandara. A red-walled promontory overlooking the Darling, in this year a broad, majestic stream, with anabranches of equal breadth and volume running out for many a mile, where the river steamers took their course, cutting off corners, and, because of the depth of water in this most bountiful season, almost indifferent to obstacles. Here stood the great Head Station of Moorara. Miles of fencing of substantial character surrounded it on all sides. There was none of the ordinary carelessness as to finish, popularly supposed to be characteristic of back-block stations 'a thousand miles from everywhere,' as had been said descriptively by an imaginative tourist. On the contrary, every hut, paling, fence, gate, wall, and roof in that immense holding was in what old-fashioned English country people called 'apple-pie order.'

Everything was mended and kept right, up to date. Six carpenters and three blacksmiths lived on the premises all the year round. There was no waiting until that pastoral millennium 'after shearing' arrived. Everything was done at once, and done well. The 'stitch in time' was an article of the faith at Moorara, and, as such, religiously observed. If any superficial judging tourist, observing these things, ventured to remark that such improvements must have cost a mint of money, or to hint a doubt whether such a place 'paid,' he was frowned down at once and haughtily reminded that this was Moorara, the property of the Hon. Mr. M'Cormack, whose sheep shorn last year (this was one of his long list of stations) would total up to over a million!

Just calculate what so many fleeces come to, the average weight being eight or nine pounds, and the value per head rarely under as many shillings. Then, of course, there are the other stations, carrying six hundred thousand high-class merino sheep!

Now the woolshed to which Bill and his ten or twelve companions were bound was one of which the owner had 'stood out' from the first against the tyranny of the Shearers' Union.

As Bill and his companions journeyed down the river, rumour reached them of serious developments of the Great Strike. This protest against the alleged dictation of Capital had reached its culminating stage. The o'er-vaulting ambition of the State-school educated Mr. Stead, the originator and prime mover of the Civil War, which was now fully recognised, had struck a blow at the State itself—that State under which he had been bred and nurtured, fed, protected, and presented with a 'free, compulsory, and secular education.' He had justified the forebodings of old-fashioned Conservatives, who had always doubted the wisdom of educating the labouring classes at the expense of the ratepayers, of breeding up an army of enemies to Capital and to the settled order of the Government.

And now the long-threatened result had come to pass—a revolt against order and good government, a deliberate attempt to subvert the Constitution under the specious guise of federated labour. It had commenced with a quarrel between the cook's mate of a coasting steamer and the so-called 'delegate' of the crew, spreading with portentous rapidity, like the bush-fires of the land, until it enveloped the stock-riders of the Paroo and the teamsters of 'the Gulf.' It menaced life and property. It attempted to plunge cities into darkness by 'calling out' the gas-stokers. It essayed to paralyse commerce by intimidating the carriers, whom it forbade to convey the wool—the staple Australian export—to the wharves, by restraining the wharf labourers from loading the vessels.

But, in these two instances, the common-sense of the city populations came to the rescue. The young men of the learned professions, of the upper classes—in the true sense of the word—came out to play a man's part in the interests of law and order. They manned the gas-works, and, amid furnace-heat and grime, provided the necessary labour, all unused as they were to toil under such conditions. The cities were not wrapped in darkness, and the streets were not made ready for the spoil by the burglar, the garrotter, and the thief. A line of wool teams was driven down the principal street of Sydney by barristers and bankers, by clerks and merchants, chiefly young men, high-couraged and athletic. But on the foremost waggon, high-seated behind his four-horse team, which he tooled with practised ease, might be recognised the leonine visage and abundant beard of Winston Darling, the Explorer, the Pioneer Squatter, the well-known Pastoral Leader and Ruler of the Waste.

The streets were crowded with yelling, blaspheming, riotous Unionists, with difficulty kept within bounds by a strong body of police.

Stones were thrown, and foul epithets freely used. But though one youthful driver had his head cut open, no further damage was done. And the wool was safely conveyed to the wharves and shipped in spite of the threatening demeanour of the assembled thousands.

These amateurs, native-born Australian gentlefolk, worked for weeks, from six to six, in many instances galling the hands, which were wholly unused to such rude treatment. But they kept at it till the stubborn conflict subsided, and not till then did they fall out of the ranks of the 'muscle-workers,' who in this and other instances have arrogated to themselves the title of the only workers in this complex and many-sided body politic.

This demonstration was chiefly confined to the seaports. When, however, the Ministry was sufficiently strong to call out the Volunteer regiments, their disciplined action gained control of the disorderly mobs, and order was regained, without discouraging delay.

But in the bush, far from help, police or military protection, matters were far otherwise. Lonely stations were terrorised. Large camps of armed and apparently desperate men were formed, who intimidated those non-Union shearers and bush labourers who neither conformed to their rules nor submitted to their dictation.

They were in many cases captured, so to speak, assaulted, maltreated, and illegally restrained from following their lawful occupation. The carriers' horses or bullocks were driven away or slaughtered, their waggons, in some instances, burned.

These outrages were directed against men and their employers who had dared to be independent, to exercise the right of free Britons to manage their own affairs and their own property.

It may easily be imagined how bodies of two or three hundred men, well armed and mounted, could terrorise a thinly-populated country. Specific acts of incendiarism and other offences against property were frequent. Woolsheds were burned with their contents, sometimes to the value of thousands of pounds; fences were cut and demolished; bridges and telegraph lines destroyed; in short, no lawless action which could result in expense and loss to the pastoralist, or those of the labourers who defied the New Tyranny, was omitted.