The Workingman's Paradise Part 29

"That's strange, isn't it? How you meet people!" he remarked.

"I've never been there, you know," explained Ned. "Fact is I don't think it would be well for me to go. If all my old dad used to say is true I'd soon get s.h.i.+pped out."

"How's that?"

"Why, they transport a man for shooting a rabbit or a hare, don't they?

My dad told me a friend of his was sent out for catching salmon and that his mother was frightened nearly to death when she knew he'd been off fis.h.i.+ng one night. Of course, they don't transport to here any more. We wouldn't have it. But they do it to somewhere still, I suppose."

"I don't know, I'm sure," answered the lad. "I never heard much about that. I came out when I was fourteen."

"How was that?"

"Well, there was nothing to do in England that had anything in it and everybody was saying what a grand country Australia was and how everybody could get on and so I came out."

"Your folks come?"

"My father was dead. I only had a stepfather."

"And he wanted to get rid of you, eh?" enquired Ned, getting interested.

"I suppose he did, a little," said the lad, colouring.

"You came out to Sydney?"

"No. To Brisbane. That didn't cost anything."

"You hadn't any friends?"

"No. I got into a billet near Stanthorpe, but when I wanted a raise they sacked me and got another boy. Then I came across to New South Wales. It wasn't any use staying in Queensland. I wish I'd stayed in England," he added.

"How's that?"

"I can't get work. I wouldn't mind if I could get a job but it's pretty hard when you can't."

"Can't you get work?"

"I haven't done a stroke for ten weeks."

"Well, are you hard up?" enquired Ned, to whose bush experience ten weeks out-of-work meant nothing.

"Look here," returned the lad, touching the front of his white s.h.i.+rt and the cuffs. Ned saw that what he had taken for white flannel in the dim candle-light was white linen, guileless of starch, evidently washed in a hand-basin at night and left to dry over a chair till morning. "A man's pretty hard up--ain't he?--when he can't get his s.h.i.+rt laundried."

"That's bad," said Ned, sympathetically, determining to sympathise a pound-note. Starched s.h.i.+rts did not count to him personally but he understood that the town and the bush were very different.

"I've offered three times to-day to work for my board," said the lad, not tremulously but in the matter-of-fact voice of one who had looked after himself for years.

"Where was that?" asked Ned, wide-awake at last, alarmed for the bushmen rapidly turning over in his mind the effect of strong young men being ready to work for their board.

"One place was down near the foot of Market Street, a produce merchant.

He told me he couldn't, that it was as much as he could do to provide for his own family. Another place was at a wood and coal yard and the boss said I'd leave in a week at that price so it wasn't any good talking. The other was a drayman who has a couple of drays and he said he'd never pay under the going wage to anybody and gave me sixpence. He said it was all he could afford because times were so bad."

"Are you stumped then?" asked Ned.

"I haven't a copper."

Just then the broken-down swell woke up from his doze and demanded his flask. After some search it was found underneath him. Then, heedless of his interruptions, Ned continued the conversation.

"Do they take you here on tick?" he enquired.

"Tick! There's no tick here. That old man downstairs is as hard as nails.

Why, if it hadn't been for this gentleman I'd have had to walk about all night or sleep in the Domain."

"Fair dues, my boy, fair dues?" put in the broken-down swell, "Never refer to private matters like that. You make me feel ashamed, my boy. I should never have mentioned that little accommodation. You understand me?"

"I understand you," replied the lad. "I understand you perfectly."

"That's all right," said Ned, suddenly feeling a respect for this grizzled drunkard. "We must all help one another. How was it?"

"Well," said the lad. "I met a friend of mine and he gave me sixpence and this box of cigarettes. It was all he had. I've often slept here and so I came and asked the old man to trust me the other half. He wouldn't listen to it. I was going away when this gentleman came along. He only had threepence more than his own bed-money but he persuaded the old man to knock off threepence and he'd pay threepence. I thought I'd have had to go to the Domain."

"But that's nothing," said Ned. "I'd just as soon sleep out as sleep in."

"I've never come down to sleeping out yet," returned the lad, simply.

"Perhaps your being a native makes a difference." Ned was confronted again with the fact that the bushman and the townsman view the same thing from opposite sides. To this lad, struggling to keep his head up, to lie down nightly in the Domain meant the surrender of all self-respecting decency.

"I shouldn't have brought up the subject. You understand me?" said the drunkard. "But now it's mentioned I'll ask if you noticed how I talked over that old scoundrel downstairs. You understand me? Where's that flask? My G.o.d! I am feeling bad," he continued, sitting up on the bed.

"You're drinking too much," remarked Ned.

The man did not reply, but, with a groan, pushed the lad aside, sprang from the bed, and began to retch prodigiously into the wash basin, after which he announced himself better, lay down and took another drink.

Meanwhile the man in the far corner tossed and groaned as if he were dying.

"You're friend's still worse," said the lad.

"He's just out of the hospital. I told him he shouldn't mix his drinks so soon but he would have his own way. He'll be all right when he's slept it off. A man's a fool who gets drunk. You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the lad. "I never want to get drunk. All I want is work."

"Why don't you go up to Queensland?" asked the man, to Ned's hardly suppressed indignation. "The pastoralists would be glad to get a smart-looking lad like you. Good pay, all expenses paid, and a six months' agreement! I believe that's the terms. You understand me?"

"I understand you," said the English lad. "I understand you perfectly.

But that's blacklegging and I'd sooner starve than blackleg. I ain't so hard up yet that I'll do either."

"Put it there, mate," cried Ned, stretching his hand out. "You're a square little chap." His heart rose again at this proof that the union spirit was spreading.

"You're a good boy," said the drunkard, slapping his shoulder. "I'm not a unionist and I'm against the unions. You understand me? I am a gentleman --poor drunken broken-down swell-and a gentleman must stick to his own Order just as you stick to your Order. I'd like to see the working cla.s.ses kept in their places, but I despise a traitor, my boy. You understand me?"

"I understand you perfectly," said the lad.