John Lawson

“ Mrs. Lawson was established on the hay wagon and Edith was perched on the top bar of the corral gate, hugging the post. Hank Lawson was standing in the corral holding a blue-roan mare by a lariat round her neck. John dismounted and tied Nelly to the hay-rack.
"You're just in time, John!" cried Mame Lawson. "She's thrown the hull of 'em. She just dumped Dick and they had to rope her to keep her from climbing the fence."
John lighted a cigaret and threw his long legs over the fence beside the other riders.
"She's sure a bird!" panted Lawson. "But ain't she a beauty? ”

“ This Day, we pass'd through several Swamps, and going not above a dozen Miles, came to a Cabin, the Master whereof us'd to trade amongst the English. He told us, If we would stay Two Nights, he would conduct us safe to them, himself designing, at that time, to go and fetch some Rum; so we resolved to tarry for his Company. During our Stay, there happen'd to be a Young Woman troubled with Fits. The Doctor who was sent for to assist her, laid her on her Belly, and made a small Incision with Rattle-Snake-Teeth ”

“ Lawson’s two sons are living in the next house to their father, and carry on a trade in all sorts of goods of British manufacture, which are exchanged for palm-oil and ivory. Their houses are good, and in every way arranged to imitate our English style. They also enjoy every luxury [Pg 100] which can be procured from European nations, as well as those of their own country. They are very kind and hospitable in their own houses to those with whom they are acquainted, but they are very deceitful and treacherous in their character. ”

“ If it be na the case—as I believe it isna hitherto—there was enough said last nicht to mak it necessary to hae the puir, persecuted saint informed o' his danger."
"An' that's as true," responded John; "an' I think you an' I canna do better than wear awa wast o'er whan [113] the sun gaes down, an' let honest Mr Lawson ken that his retreat is known. That Watson creature—didna ye tent?—went aff, wi' the curate, a wee afore the lave; they were heard busy talking together, in a low tone of voice, as they went hame to the manse. ”

“ We'll have a pack of hounds, too, and we can drive pig in the woods, and if we want big game there are the Mangwe flats at our feet. I tell you I'll make such a country-house as nobody ever dreamed of. A man will come plumb out of stark savagery into lawns and rose-gardens." Lawson flung himself into his chair again and smiled dreamily at the fire. ”

“ She rose gently and put the alarm on two hours. 'He can rest now,' she whispered to herself.
Presently Arvie sat bolt upright, and said quickly, 'Mother! I thought the alarm went off!' Then, without waiting for an answer, he lay down as suddenly and slept.
The rain had cleared away, and a bright, starry dome was over sea and city, over slum and villa alike; but little of it could be seen from the hovel in Jones's Alley, save a glimpse of the Southern Cross and a few stars round it. ”

“ If you do, you'll be a man all the sooner."
Suddenly the mother called out—
"Can't you be quiet? What do you mean by talking at this hour of the night? Am I never to get another wink of sleep? Shut those doors, Nils, for God's sake, if you don't want to drive me mad—and make that boy hold his tongue!"
The father closed the doors.
"Better try to go to sleep now, sonny," he whispered, as he lay down again.
The father waited for some time, then, moving very softly, he lit the candle at the kitchen fire, put it where it shouldn't light the boy's face, and watched him. ”

“ He shifted his hand to her head, which she dropped suddenly, with a life-weary sigh, against his side.
“Now then!” cried Johnny, wildly, “don't you faint or go into disterricks, Mary! It'll upset the boys; think of the boys! It's only the heat—you're only takin' queer.”
“It's not that; you ought to know me better than that. It was—I—Johnny, I was only thinking—we've been married twenty years to-night—an'—it's New Year's Night!”
“And I've never thought of it!” said Johnny (in the afterwards) . “Shows what a God-forgotten selection will make of a man. ”

“ There was nothing uncommon about his face, except, perhaps, that it hardened, as the face of a man might harden who had suffered a long succession of griefs and disappointments. He lived in little hut under a peppermint tree at the far edge of Pounding Flat. His wife had died there about six years before, and new rushes broke out and he was well able to go, he never left Golden Gully.
Mason was kneeling in front of the “face” digging away by the light of a tallow candle stuck in the side. The floor of the drive was very wet, and his trousers were heavy and cold with clay and water ”

“ She rode slowly down the steep siding from the main road to a track in the bed of the Long Gully, the old grey horse picking his way zig-zag fashion. She was about seventeen, slight in figure, and had a pretty freckled face with a pathetically drooping mouth, and big sad brown eyes. She wore a faded print dress, with an old black riding skirt drawn over it, and her head was hidden in one of those ugly, old-fashioned white hoods, which, seen from the rear, always suggest an old woman. She carried several parcels of groceries strapped to the front of the dilapidated side-saddle. ”

“ I've seen two.'
'Yes,' reflected Tom, ignoring Mitchell, 'there's something in that; but then again, you see, you might be Jack the Ripper. Better let it slide, mate; let the dead past bury its dead. Start fresh with a clean sheet.'
'But I don't even know my name, or whether I'm married or not,' whined the outcast. 'I might have a good wife and little ones.'
'Better keep on forgetting, mate,' Mitchell said, 'and as for a name, that's nothing. I don't know mine, and I've had eight. There's plenty good names knocking round. I knew a man named Jim Smith that died. ”

“ She had the figure and movements of a girl, and the impulsiveness and expression too—a womanly girl; but sometimes I fancied there was something very childish about her face and talk. After tea she and the Boss sat on one side of the fire and Andy and I on the other—Andy a little behind me at the corner of the table.
‘Walter—Mr Head—tells me you’ve been out on the Lachlan river, Mr Ellis?’ she said as soon as she’d settled down, and she leaned forward, as if eager to hear that I’d been there. ”

“ I’ll tell her that you got two years’ hard for horse-stealing. That ought to make her interested in you, if she isn’t already.’
We smoked a while.
‘And was that all she said?’ I asked.
‘Who?—Oh! ‘Possum,’ said Jack rousing himself. ‘Well—no; let me think—— We got chatting of other things—you know a married man’s privileged, and can say a lot more to a girl than a single man can. I got talking nonsense about sweethearts, and one thing led to another till at last she said, “I suppose Mr Wilson’s got a sweetheart, Mr Barnes?”’
‘And what did you say?’ I growled. ”

“ The bees fell stifled in the smoke Or perished in their hives, And with the stock the kangaroos Went flying for their lives. The sun had set on Christmas Eve, When, through the scrub-lands wide, Young Robert Black came riding home As only natives ride. He galloped to the homestead door And gave the first alarm: 'The fire is past the granite spur, 'And close to Ross's farm.' 'Now, father, send the men at once, They won't be wanted here; Poor Ross's wheat is all he has To pull him through the year.' 'Then let it burn,' the squatter said ”

“ I know Joe Wilson very well. He has been through deep trouble since the day he brought the double buggy to Lahey’s Creek. I met him in Sydney the other day. Tall and straight yet—rather straighter than he had been—dressed in a comfortable, serviceable sac suit of ‘saddle-tweed’, and wearing a new sugar-loaf, cabbage-tree hat, he looked over the hurrying street people calmly as though they were sheep of which he was not in charge, and which were not likely to get ‘boxed’ with his. Not the worst way in which to regard the world. ”

“ After tea I had a yarn with Mary, sitting on a log of the wood-heap. I don’t remember exactly how we both came to be there, or who sat down first. There was about two feet between us. We got very chummy and confidential. She told me about her childhood and her father.
He’d been an old mate of Black’s, a younger son of a well-to-do English family (with blue blood in it, I believe) , and sent out to Australia with a thousand pounds to make his way, as many younger sons are, with more or less. They think they’re hard done by ”

“ Then after a long bovine silence, which would have been painfully embarrassing in any other society, and a tilting of his cabbage-tree hat forward, which came of tickling and scratching the sun-blotched nape of his neck with his little finger, Andy would slowly say: “Ah, well. I must be gettin'. So-long, Mr. Porter. So-long, Mrs. Porter.” And, if SHE were in evidence—as she generally was on such occasions—“So-long, Lizzie.” And they'd shout: “So-long, Andy,” as he galloped off from the jump. Strange that those shy, quiet, gentle-voiced bushmen seem the hardest and most reckless riders. ”

“ You're worse than the old woman.”
“Father! the beast is branded! See!—— What does PB stand for?”
“Poor Beggar, like myself. Hold the candle, carn't you?—and hold your tongue.”
Mary was startled again by hearing the tread of a horse, but it was only the old grey munching round. Her father finished skinning, and drew the carcase up to a make-shift “gallows”. “Now you can go to bed,” he said, in a gentler tone.
She went to her bedroom—a small, low, slab skillion, built on to the end of the house—and fell on her knees by the bunk.
“God help me! God help us all!” she cried. ”

“ I suggested, for the want of something funnier to say.
'Bosh,' said Jack, 'and get woke up with a black eye. Bushies don't generally carry their swags out of pubs in their sleep, or walk neither; it's only city swells who do that. Where's the blessed matches?
'Well, Tom agreed to go, and presently I saw a shadow under the window, and lowered away.
'All right?' I asked in a whisper.
"All right!" whispered the shadow.
'I lowered the other swag.
'All right?'
"All right!" said the shadow, and just then the moon came out.
"All right !" says the shadow. ”

“ She came along the fence a piece with us, and Andy told her as much of the truth as he could.
‘I’ll hurry her off to Sydney,’ she said. ‘We can get away this week as well as next.’ Then she stood for a minute before us, breathing quickly, her hands behind her back and her eyes shining in the moonlight. She looked splendid.
‘I want to thank you for her sake,’ she said quickly. ‘You are good men! I like the Bushmen! They are grand men—they are noble! ”

“ The Indians, I was now speaking of, were not content with the common Enemies that lessen and destroy their Country-men, but invented an infallible Stratagem to purge their Tribe, and reduce their Multitude into far less Numbers. ”

“ I won’t have my missus disturbed for you or any other man! Just you shut up or get out, and take your blooming mate with you.”
We lost patience with the Pilgrim and sternly took him aside.
“Now, for God’s sake, hold your jaw,” we said. “Haven’t you got any consideration at all? Can’t you see the man’s wife is ill—dying perhaps—and he nearly worried off his head?” The Pilgrim and his mate were scraggy little bipeds of the city push variety, so they were suppressed.
“Well,” yawned the joker, “I’m not going to roost on a stump all night. I’m going to turn in.” ”

“ I’m a honest, respictable married woman, and so is me sister-in-law, Mary Donelly; and to think!—Git out of me door!” and she caught up the billy of coffee. “Git outside me door, or I’ll let ye have it in ye’r ugly face, ye low woolscourer—an’ it’s nearly bilin’.”
Old Jack stumbled dazedly out, and blind instinct got him on to the coach as the safest place. Harry Chatswood had stood with his long, gaunt figure hung by an elbow to the high mantelshelf, all the time, taking alternate gulps from his pint of coffee and puffs from his pipe, and very calmly and restfully regarding the scene. ”

“ Her mother wondered how much “father” had given for the steer, and supposed he had gone into town to sell the hide; the poor soul tried to believe that he had come by the steer honestly. Mary fried some meat, and tried to eat it for her mother’s sake, but could manage only a few mouthfuls. Mrs. Wylie also seemed to have lost her appetite. Jack and his brother, who had been out all night, made a hearty breakfast. Then Jimmy started to peg out the ‘possum skins, while Jack went to look for a missing pony. Mary was left to milk all the cows, and feed the calves and pigs. ”

“ He began to fling his heels convulsively against the sides of his horse, jerking his body backward and forward at the same time, as if to wind up and start some clockwork machinery inside the horse, that made it go, and seemed to need repairing or oiling.
‘We ain’t that sorter people, missus,’ he said. ‘We don’t sell meat to new people that come to settle here.’ Then, jerking his thumb contemptuously towards the ridges, ‘Go over ter Wall’s if yer wanter buy meat; they sell meat ter strangers.’ (Wall was the big squatter over the ridges.)
‘Oh!’ said Mary, ‘I’m SO sorry. ”

“ Charles Lawson was a young man having neither principle nor character. A connection with certain families in New York, added to a good address, polished manners, and an unblushing assurance, had given him access to society at certain points, and of this facility he had taken every advantage. Too idle and dissolute for useful effort in society, he looked with a cold, calculating baseness to marriage as the means whereby he was to gain the position at which he aspired. ”

“ Jack, the eldest son, was sulky, and his father muttered something about knocking the sulks out of him with an axe.
“What’s annoyed you, Jack?” asked his mother, humbly.
He scowled and made no answer.
The younger children—three boys and a girl—began quarrelling as soon as they sat down. Wylie yelled at them now and then, and grumbled at the cooking, and at his wife for not being able to keep the children quiet. It was: “Marther! you didn’t put no sugar in my tea.” “Mother, Jimmy’s got my place; make him move.” “Mawther! do speak to this Fred.” “Oh! ”