From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

Archie went on. There was the noise of singing farther down the street, a merry band of youths who had been to a race meeting that clay, and were up to mischief.

The tall man hid under the shadow of a wall.

“They’re larrikins,” he said to himself, and “he’s a greenhorn.” He spat in his fist, and kept his eye on the advancing figures.

Archie met them. They were arm-in-arm, five in all, and instead of making way for him, rushed him, and down he went, his head catching the kerb with frightful force. They at once proceeded to rifle him. But perhaps “larrikins” had never gone to ground so quickly and so unexpectedly before. It was the bearded man who was “having his fling” among them, and he ended by grabbing one in each hand till a policeman came up.

Archie remembered nothing more then.

When he became sensible he was in bed with a bandaged head, and feeling as weak all over as a kitten. Sarah was in the room with the landlady.

“Hush, my dear,” said the latter; “you’ve been very ill for more than a week. You’re not to get up, nor even to speak.”

Archie certainly did not feel inclined to do either. He just closed his eyes and dozed off again, and his soul flew right away back to Burley.

“Oh, yes; he’s out of danger!” It was the doctor’s voice. “He’ll do first-rate with careful nursing.”

“He won’t want for that, sir. Sarah here has been like a little mother to him.”

Archie dozed for days. Only, whenever he was sensible, he could notice that Sarah was far better dressed, and far older-looking and nicer-looking than ever she had been. And now and then the big-bearded man came and sat by his bed, looking sometimes at him, some times at Sarah.

One day Archie was able to sit up; he felt quite well almost, though of course he was not really so.

“I have you to thank for helping me that night,” he said.

“Ay, ay, Master Archie; but don’t you know me?”

“No – no. I don’t think so.”

The big-bearded man took out a little case from his pocket, and pulled therefrom a pair of horn-bound spectacles.

“Why!” cried Archie, “you’re not – ”

“I am, really.”

“Oh, Bob Cooper, I’m pleased to see you! Tell me all your story.”

“Not yet, chummie; it is too long, or rather you’re too weak. Why, you’re crying!”

“It’s tears of joy!”

“Well, well; I would join you, lad, but tears ain’t in my line. But somebody else will want to see you to-morrow.”

“Who?”

“Just wait and see.”

Archie did wait. Indeed he had to; for the doctor left express orders that he was not to be disturbed.

The evening sun was streaming over the hills when Sarah entered next day and gave a look towards the bed.

“I’m awake, Sarah.”

“It’s Bob,” said Sarah, “and t’other little gent. They be both a-comin’ upstairs athout their boots.”

Archie was just wondering what right Sarah had to call Bob Cooper by his christian name, when Bob himself came quietly in.

“Ah!” he said, as he approached the bed, “you’re beginning to look your old self already. Now who is this, think you?”

Archie extended a feeble white hand.

“Why, Whitechapel!” he exclaimed joyfully. “Wonders will never cease!”

“Well, Johnnie, and how are ye? I told ye, ye know, that ‘the king, might come in the cadger’s way.’”

“Not much king about me now, Harry; but sit down. Why I’ve come through such a lot since I saw you, that I begin to feel quite aged. Well, it is just like old times seeing you. But you’re not a bit altered. No beard, or moustache, or anything, and just as cheeky-looking as when you gave me that thrashing in the wood at Burley. But you don’t talk so Cockneyfied.”

“No, Johnnie; ye see I’ve roughed it a bit, and learned better English in the bush and scrub. But I say, Johnnie, I wouldn’t mind being back for a day or two at Burley. I think I could ride your buck-jumping ‘Eider Duck’ now. Ah, I won’t forget that first ride, though; I’ve got to rub myself yet whenever I think of it.”

“But how on earth did you get here at all, the pair of you?”

“Well,” said Harry, “that ain’t my story ’alf so much as it is Bob’s. I reckon he better tell it.”

“Oh, but I haven’t the gift of the gab like you, Harry! I’m a slow coach. I am a duffer at a story.”

“Stop telling both,” cried Archie. “I don’t want any story about the matter. Just a little conversational yarn; you can help each other out, and what I don’t understand, why I’ll ask, that’s all.”

“But wait a bit,” he continued. “Touch that bell, Harry. Pull hard; it doesn’t ring else. My diggins are not much account. Here comes Sarah, singing. Bless her old soul! I’d been dead many a day if it hadn’t been for Sarah.”

“Look here, Sarah.”

“I’m looking nowheres else, Mister Broadbent; but mind you this, if there’s too much talking, I’m to show both these gents downstairs. Them’s the doctor’s orders, and they’ve got to be obeyed. Now, what’s your will, sir?”

“Tea, Sarah.”

“That’s right. One or two words at a time and all goes easy. Tea you shall have in the twinkling of a bedpost. Tea and etceteras.”

Sarah was as good as her word. In ten minutes she had laid a little table and spread it with good things; a big teapot, cups and saucers, and a steaming urn.

Then off she went singing again.

Archie wondered what made her so happy, and meant to ask her when his guests were gone.

“Now, young Squire,” said Harry, “I’ll be the lady; and if your tea isn’t to your taste, why just holler.”

“But don’t call me Squire, Harry; I left that title at home. We’re all equal here. No kings and no cadgers.”

“Well, Bob, when last I saw you in old England, there was a sorrowful face above your shoulders, and I’ll never forget the way you turned round and asked me to look after your mother’s cat.”

“Ah, poor mother! I wish I’d been better to her when I had her. However, I reckon we’ll meet some day up-bye yonder.”

“Yes, Bob, and you jumped the fence and disappeared in the wood! Where did you go?”

Chapter Fifteen

Bob’s Story: Wild Life at the Diggings

“Well, it all came about like this, Archie: ‘England,’ I said to myself, says I, ‘ain’t no place for a poor man.’ Your gentry people, most o’ them anyhow, are just like dogs in the manger. The dog couldn’t eat the straw, but he wouldn’t let the poor hungry cow have a bite. Your landed proprietors are just the same; they got their land as the dog got his manger. They took it, and though they can’t live on it all, they won’t let anybody else do it.”

“You’re rather hard on the gentry, Bob.”

“Well, maybe, Archie; but they ain’t many o’ them like Squire Broadbent. Never mind, there didn’t seem to be room for me in England, and I couldn’t help noticing that all the best people, and the freest, and kindest, were men like your Uncle Ramsay, who had been away abroad, and had gotten all their dirty little meannesses squeezed out of them. So when I left you, after cutting that bit o’ stick, I made tracks for London. I hadn’t much money, so I tramped all the way to York, and then took train. When I got to London, why I felt worse off than ever. Not a soul to speak to; not a face I knew; even the bobbies looking sour when I asked them a civil question; and starvation staring me in the face.”

“Starvation, Bob?”

“Ay, Archie, and money in my pocket. Plenty o’ shilling dinners; but, lo! what was one London shilling dinner to the like o’ me? Why, I could have bolted three! Then I thought of Harry here, and made tracks for whitechapel. I found the youngster – I’d known him at Burley – and he was glad to see me again. His granny was dead, or somebody; anyhow, he was all alone in the world. But he made me welcome – downright happy and welcome. I’ll tell you what it is, Archie lad, Harry is a little gentleman, Cockney here or Cockney there; and deep down below that white, thin face o’ his, which three years and over of Australian sunshine hasn’t made much browner, Harry carries a heart, look, see! that wouldn’t disgrace an English Squire.”

“Bravo, Bob! I like to hear you speak in that way about our friend.”

“Well, that night I said to Harry, ‘Isn’t it hard, Harry.’ I says, ‘that in this free and enlightened land a man is put into gaol if he snares a rabbit?’

“‘Free and enlightened fiddlestick!’ that was Harry’s words. ‘I tell ye what it is, Bob,’ says he, ‘this country is played out. But I knows where there are lots o’ rabbits for the catching.’

“‘Where’s that?’ I says.

“‘Australia O!’ says Harry.

“‘Harry,’ says I, ‘let us pool up, and set sail for the land of rabbits – for Australia O!’

“‘Right you are,’ says Harry; and we pooled up on the spot; and from that day we haven’t had more’n one purse between the two of us, have we, Harry?”

“Only one,” said Harry; “and one’s enough between such old, old chums.”

“He may well say old, old chums, Archie; he may well put the two olds to it; for it isn’t so much the time we’ve been together, it’s what we’ve come through together; and shoulder to shoulder has always been our motto. We’ve shared our bed, we’ve shared our blanket, our damper and our water also, when there wasn’t much between the two of us.

“We got helped out by the emigration folks, and we’ve paid them since, and a bit of interest thrown in for luck like; but when we stood together in Port Jackson for the first time, the contents of our purse wouldn’t have kept us living long, I can assure you.

“‘Cities aren’t for the like of us, Harry,’ says I.

“‘Not now,’ says Harry.

“So we joined a gang going west. There was a rush away to some place where somebody had found gold, and Harry and I thought we might do as well as any o’ them.

“Ay, Archie, that was a rush. ‘Tinklers, tailors, sodjers, sailors.’ I declare we thought ourselves the best o’ the whole gang, and I think so still.

“We were lucky enough to meet an old digger, and he told us just exactly what to take and what to leave. One thing we did take was steamboat and train, as far as they would go, and this helped us to leave the mob a bit in the rear.

“Well, we got high up country at long last – ”

“Hold!” cried Harry. “He’s missing the best of it. Is that fair, Johnnie?”

“No, it isn’t fair.”

“Why, Johnnie, we hadn’t got fifty miles beyond civilisation when, what with the heat and the rough food and bad water, Johnnie, my London legs and my London heart failed me, and down I must lie. We were near a bit of a cockatoo farmer’s shanty.”

“Does it pay to breed cockatoos?” said Archie innocently.

“Don’t be the death o’ me, Johnnie. A cockatoo farmer is just a crofter. Well, in there Bob helped me, and I could go no farther. How long was I ill, Bob?”

“The best part o’ two mouths, Harry.”

“Ay, Johnnie, and all that time Bob there helped the farmer – dug for him, trenched and fenced, and all for my sake, and to keep the life in my Cockney skin.”

“Well, Harry,” said Bob, “you proved your worth after we got up. You hardened down fine after that fever.”

Harry turned towards Archie.

“You mustn’t believe all Bob says, Johnnie, when he speaks about me. Bob is a good-natured, silly sort of a chap; and though he has a beard now, he ain’t got more ’n ’alf the lime-juice squeezed out of him yet.”

“Never mind, Bob,” said Archie, “even limes and lemons should not be squeezed dry. You and I are country lads, and we would rather retain a shade of greenness than otherwise; but go on, Bob.”

“Well, now,” continued Bob, “I don’t know that Harry’s fever didn’t do us both good in the long run; for when we started at last for the interior, we met a good lot of the rush coming back. There was no fear of losing the tracks. That was one good thing that came o’ Harry’s fever. Another was, that it kind o’ tightened his constitution. La! he could come through anything after that – get wet to the skin and dry again; lie out under a tree or under the dews o’ heaven, and never complain of stiffness; and eat corn beef and damper as much as you’d like to put before him; and he never seemed to tire. As for me, you know, Archie, I’m an old bush bird. I was brought up in the woods and wilds; and, faith, I’m never so much at home as I am in the forests. Not but what we found the march inland wearisome enough. Worst of it was, we had no horses, and we had to do a lot of what you might call good honest begging; but if the squatters did give us food going up, we were willing to work for it.”

“If they’d let us, Bob.”

“Which they didn’t. Hospitality and religion go hand in hand with the squatter. When I and Harry here set out on that terribly long march, I confess to both of ye now I didn’t feel at all certain as to how anything at all would turn out. I was just as bad as the young bear when its mother put it down and told it to walk. The bear said, ‘All right, mother; but how is it done?’ And as the mother only answered by a grunt, the young bear had to do the best it could; and so did we.

“‘How is it going to end?’ I often said to Harry.

“‘We can’t lose anything, Bob,’ Harry would say, laughing, ‘except our lives, and they ain’t worth much to anybody but ourselves; so I’m thinkin’ we’re safe.’”

Here Bob paused a moment to stir his tea, and look thoughtfully into the cup, as if there might be some kind of inspiration to be had from that.

He laughed lightly as he proceeded:

“I’m a bad hand at a yarn; better wi’ the gun and the ‘girn,’ Harry. But I’m laughing now because I remember what droll notions I had about what the Bush, as they call it, would be like when we got there.”

“But, Johnnie,” Harry put in, “the curious thing is, that we never did get there, according to the settlers.”

“No?”

“No; because they would always say to us, ‘You’re going Bush way, aren’t ye, boys?’ And we would answer, ‘Why, ain’t we there now?’ And they would laugh.”

“That’s true,” said Bob. “The country never seemed to be Bush enough for anybody. Soon’s they settled down in a place the Bush’d be farther west.”

“Then the Bush, when one is going west,” said Archie, “must be like to-morrow, always one day ahead.”

“That’s it; and always keeping one day ahead. But it was Bush enough for us almost anywhere. And though I feel ashamed like to own it now, there was more than once that I wished I hadn’t gone there at all. But I had taken the jump, you see, and there was no going back. Well, I used to think at first that the heat would kill us, but it didn’t. Then I made sure the want of water would. That didn’t either, because, one way or another, we always came across some. But I’ll tell you what nearly killed us, and that was the lonesomeness of those forests. Talk of trees! La! Archie, you’d think of Jack and the beanstalk if you saw some we saw. And why didn’t the birds sing sometimes? But no, only the constant bicker, bicker of something in the grass. There were sounds though that did alarm us. We know now that they were made by birds and harmless beasts, but we were all in the dark then.

“Often and often, when we were just dropping, and thought it would be a comfort to lie down and die, we would come out of a forest all at once, and feel in a kind of heaven because we saw smoke, or maybe heard the bleating o’ sheep. Heaven? Indeed, Archie, it seemed to be; for we had many a kindly welcome from the roughest-looking chaps you could possibly imagine. And the luxury of bathing our poor feet, with the certainty of a pair of dry, clean socks in the mornin’, made us as happy as a couple of kings. A lump of salt junk, a dab of damper, and a bed in a corner made us feel so jolly we could hardly go to sleep for laughing.

“But the poor beggars we met, how they did carry on to be sure about their bad luck, and about being sold, and this, that, and t’other. Ay, and they didn’t all go back. We saw dead bodies under trees that nobody had stopped to bury; and it was sad enough to notice that a good many of these were women, and such pinched and ragged corpses! It isn’t nice to think back about it.

“Had anybody found gold in this rush? Yes, a few got good working claims, but most of the others stopped till they couldn’t stop any longer, and had to get away east again, crawling, and cursing their fate and folly.

“But I’ll tell you, Archie, what ruined most o’ them. Just drink. It is funny that drink will find its way farther into the bush at times than bread will.

“Well, coming in at the tail o’ the day, like, as Harry and I did, we could spot how matters stood at a glance, and we determined to keep clear of bush hotels. Ah! they call them all hotels. Well, I’m a rough un, Archie, but the scenes I’ve witnessed in some of those drinking houffs has turned my stomach. Maudlin, drunken miners, singing, and blethering, and boasting; fighting and rioting worse than poachers, Archie, and among them – heaven help us! – poor women folks that would melt your heart to look on.

“‘Can we settle down here a bit?’ I said to Harry, when we got to the diggings.

“‘We’ll try our little best, old chum,’ was Harry’s reply.

“And we did try. It was hard even to live at first. The food, such as it was in the new stores, was at famine price, and there was not much to be got from the rivers and woods. But after a few months things mended; our station grew into a kind o’ working town. We had even a graveyard, and all the worst of us got weeded out, and found a place there.

“Harry and I got a claim after no end of prospecting that we weren’t up to. We bought our claim, and bought it cheap; and the chap we got it from died in a week. Drink? Ay, Archie, drink. I’ll never forget, and Harry I don’t think will, the last time we saw him. We had left him in a neighbour’s hut down the gully dying to all appearance, too weak hardly to speak. We bade him ‘good-bye’ for the last time as we thought, and were just sitting and talking like in our slab hut before turning in, and late it must have been, when the door opened, and in came Glutz, that was his name. La! what a sight! His face looked like the face of a skeleton with some parchment drawn tight over it, his hollow eyes glittered like wildfire, his lips were dry and drawn, his voice husky.

“He pointed at us with his shining fingers, and uttered a low cry like some beast in pain; then, in a horrid whisper, he got out these words:

“‘Give me drink, drink, I’m burning.’

“I’ve seen many a sight, but never such a one as that, Archie. We carried him back. Yes, we did let him have a mouthful. What mattered it. Next day he was in a shallow grave. I suppose the dingoes had him. They had most of those that died.

“Well, by-and-by things got better with Harry and me; our claim began to yield, we got dust and nuggets. We said nothing to anybody. We built a better sort of shanty, and laid out a morsel of garden, we fished and hunted, and soon learned to live better than we’d done before, and as we were making a bit of money we were as happy as sandboys.

“No, we didn’t keep away from the hotel – they soon got one up – it wouldn’t have done not to be free and easy. But we knew exactly what to do when we did go there. We could spin our bits o’ yarns, and smoke our pipes, without losing our heads. Sometimes shindies got up though, and revolvers were used freely enough, but as a rule it was pretty quiet.”

“Only once, when that little fellow told you to ‘bail up.’”

“What was that, Harry?” asked Archie.

“Nothing much,” said Bob shyly.

“He caught him short round the waist, Johnnie, and smashed everything on the counter with him, then flung him straight and clear through the doorway. When he had finished he quietly asked what was to pay, and Bob was a favourite after that. I reckon no one ever thought of challenging him again.”

“Where did you keep your gold?”

“We hid it in the earth in the tent. There was a black fellow came to look after us every day. We kept him well in his place, for we never could trust him; and it was a good thing we did, as I’m going to tell you.

“We had been, maybe, a year and a half in the gully, and had got together a gay bit o’ swag, when our claim gave out all at once as ’twere – some shift o’ the ground or lode. Had we had machinery we might have made a round fortune, but there was no use crying about it. We quietly determined to make tracks. We had sent some away to Brisbane already – that we knew was safe, but we had a good bit more to take about us. However, we wouldn’t have to walk all the way back, for though the place was half-deserted, there were horses to be had, and farther along we’d manage to get drags.

“Two of the worst hats about the place were a man called Vance, and a kind of broken-down surgeon of the name of Williams. They lived by their wits, and the wonder is they hadn’t been hanged long ago.

“It was about three nights before we started, and we were coming home up the gully. The moon was shining as bright as ever I’d seen it. The dew was falling too, and we weren’t sorry when we got inside. Our tame dingo came to meet us. He had been a pup that we found in the bush and brought up by hand, and a more faithful fellow never lived. We lit our fat-lamp and sat down to talk, and a good hour, or maybe more, went by. Then we lay down, for there was lots to be done in the morning.

“There was a little hole in the hut at one end where Wango, as we called the wild dog, could crawl through; and just as we were dozing off I heard a slight noise, and opened my eyes enough to see poor Wango creeping out. We felt sure he wouldn’t go far, and would rush in and alarm us if there were the slightest danger. So in a minute more I was sleeping as soundly as only a miner can sleep, Archie. How long I may have slept, or how late or early it was, I couldn’t say, but I awoke all at once with a start. There was a man in the hut. Next minute a shot was fired. I fell back, and don’t remember any more. Harry there will tell you the rest.”

“It was the shot that wakened me, Archie, but I felt stupid. I groped round for my revolver, and couldn’t find it. Then, Johnnie, I just let them have it Tom Sayers’s fashion – like I did you in the wood, if you remember.”

“There were two of them?”

“Ay, Vance and the doctor. I could see their faces by the light of their firing. They didn’t aim well the first time, Johnnie, so I settled them. I threw the doctor over my head. His nut must have come against something hard, because it stilled him. I got the door opened and had my other man out. Ha! ha! It strikes me, Johnnie, that I must have wanted some exercise, for I never punished a bloke before as I punished that Vance. He had no more strength in him than a bandicoot by the time I was quite done with him, and looked as limp all over and just as lively as ’alf a pound of London tripe.

“I just went to the bluff-top after that, and coo-eed for help, and three or four right good friends were with us in as many minutes, Johnnie.

“We thought Bob was dead, but he soon spoke up and told us he wasn’t, and didn’t mean to die.

“Our chums would have lynched the ruffians that night. The black fellow was foremost among those that wanted to. But I didn’t like that, no more did Bob. They were put in a tent, tied hand and foot, and our black fellow made sentry over them. Next day they were all gone. Then we knew it was a put-up job. Poor old Wango was found with his throat cut. The black fellow had enticed him out and taken him off, then the others had gone for us.”

“But our swag was safe,” said Bob, “though I lay ill for months after. And now it was Harry’s turn to nurse; and I can tell you, Archie, that my dear, old dead-and-gone mother couldn’t have been kinder to me than he was. A whole party of us took the road back east, and many is the pleasant evening we spent around our camp fire.

“We got safe to Brisbane, and we got safe here; but somehow we’re a kind o’ sick of mining.”

“Ever hear more of your assailants?” asked Archie.

“What, the chaps who tried to bail us up? Yes. We did hear they’d taken to bush-ranging, and are likely to come to grief at that.”

“Well, Bob Cooper, I think you’ve told your story pretty tidily, with Harry’s assistance; and I don’t wonder now that you’ve only got one purse between you.”

“Ah!” said Bob, “it would take weeks to tell you one half of our adventures. We may tell you some more when we’re all together in the Bush doing a bit of farming.”

“All together?”

“To be sure! D’ye reckon we’ll leave you here, now we’ve found you? We’ll have one purse between three.”