Such Is Life Part 22

Well, I think I'll be pus.h.i.+n' on. I on'y got a sort o' rough idear where this mill is; an' there ain't many people this side o' the river to inquire off of; an' my eyes is none o' the best. I'll be biddin'

you good day."

"Are you a smoker?" I asked, replenis.h.i.+ng my own sagacious meerschaum.

"Because you might try a plug of this tobacco."

Now that man's deafness was genuine, and I spoke in my ordinary tone, yet the magic word vibrated accurately and unmistakably on the paralysed tympanum. Let your so-called scientists account for that.

"If you can spare it," replied the swagman, with animation. "Smokin's about the on'y pleasure a man's got in this world; an' I jist used up the dust out o' my pockets this mornin'; so this'll go high. My word! Well, good day.

I might be able to do the same for you some time."

"Thou speakest wiser than thou art 'ware of," I soliloquised as I watched his retreating figure, whilst lighting my pipe. "As the other philosopher, Tycho Brahe, found inspiration in the gibberish of his idiot companion, so do I find food for reflection in thy casual courtesy, my friend.

Possibly I have reached the highest point of all my greatness, and from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting. From a Deputy-a.s.sistant-Sub-Inspector--with the mortuary reversion of the a.s.sistant-Sub-Inspectors.h.i.+p itself--to a swagman, bluey on shoulder and billy in hand, is as easy as falling off a playful moke. Such is life."

The longer I smoked, the more charmed I was with the rounded symmetry and steady l.u.s.tre of that pearl of truth which the swagman had brought forth out of his treasury. For philosophy is no warrant against dest.i.tution, as biography amply vouches. Neither is tireless industry, nor mechanical skill, nor artistic culture--if unaccompanied by that business apt.i.tude which tends to the survival of the shrewdest; and not even then, if a person's mana is off. Neither is the saintliest piety any safeguard. If the author of the Thirty-seventh Psalm lived at the present time, he would see the righteous well represented among the unemployed, and his seed in the Industrial Schools. For correction of the Psalmist's misleading experience, one need go no further down the very restricted stream of Sacred History than the date of the typical Lazarus. Continually impending calamities menace with utter dest.i.tution any given man, though he may bury his foolish head in the sand, and think himself safe. There lives no one on earth to day who holds even the flimsiest gossamer of security against a pauper's death, and a pauper's grave. If he be as rich as Croesus, let him remember Solon's warning, with its fulfilment--and the change since 550 B.C. has by no means been in the direction of fixity of tenure.

Where are one-half of the fortunes of twenty years ago?--and where will the other half be in twenty years more? Though I am, like Sir John, old only in judgment and understanding, I have again and again seen the wealthy emir of yesterday sitting on the ash-heap to-day, sc.r.a.ping himself with a bit of crockery, but happily too broken to find an inhuman sneer for the vagrants whom, in former days, he would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock. I could write you a column of these emirs' names.

And if there is one impudent interpolation in the Bible, it is to be found in the last chapter of that ancient Book of Job. The original writer conceived a tragedy, antic.i.p.ating the grandeur of the Oedipus at Colonos, or Lear--and here eight supplementary verses have anti-climaxed this masterpiece to the level of a boys' novel. "Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before," &c., &c. Tut-tut! Job's human nature had sustained a laceration that nothing but death could heal.

Is there any rich man who cannot imagine a combination of circ.u.mstances that would have given him lodgings under the bridge?--that may still do so, say, within twelve months? Setting my knighthood and my soldiers.h.i.+p aside, I can imagine a combination that would have quartered me in that airy colonnade--nay, that may do so before this day week; and my view of the matter is, that if I become not the bridge as well as another, a plague of my bringing up! We are all walking along the shelving edge of a precipice; any one of us may go at any moment, or be dragged down by another.

And this is as it ought to be. Justice is done, and the sky does not fall.

For, from a higher point of view, the Sabians and Chaldeans of the present day don't dislocate society; they only alter the incidence of existing dislocation; and all this works steadily towards a restoration--if not of some old Saturnian or Jahvistic Paradise-idyll, at least of a Divine intention and human ideal.

Vicissitude of fortune is the very hand of "the Eternal, not ourselves, that maketh for righteousness," the manifestation of the Power behind moral evolution; and we may safely trust the harmony of Universal legislation for this antidote to a grievous disease; we may rest confident that whilst this best of all possible worlds remains under the worst of all possible managements, the solemn threat of thirty-three centuries ago shall not lack fulfilment--the poor shall never cease out of the land. And no man knows when his own turn may come. But all this is strictly conditional.

Collective humanity holds the key to that kingdom of G.o.d on earth, which clear-sighted prophets of all ages have pictured in colours that never fade. The kingdom of G.o.d is within us; our all-embracing duty is to give it form and effect, a local habitation and a name. In the meantime, our reluctance to submit to the terms of citizens.h.i.+p has no more effect on the iron law of citizen reciprocity than our disapproval has on the process of the seasons; for see how, in the great human family, the innocent suffer for the guilty; and not only are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children, but my sins are visited upon your children, and your sins upon some one else's children; so that, if we decline a brotherhood of mutual blessing and honour, we alternatively accept one of mutual injury and ignominy. Eternal justice is in no hurry for recognition, but flesh and blood will a.s.suredly tire before that principle tires.

It is precisely in relation to the palingenesis of Humanity that, to the unseen Will, one day is said to be as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. A Divine Idea points the way, clearly apparent to any vision not warped by interest or prejudice, nor darkened by ignorance; but the work is man's alone, and its period rests with man.

My reason for indulging in this reverie was merely to banish the thought of my late guest. (Of course, my object in recording it here is simply to kill time; for, to speak like a true man, I linger s.h.i.+vering on the brink of the disclosures to which I am pledged. I feel something like the doomed Nero, when he stood holding the dagger near his throat, trying meanwhile to screw his courage to the sticking-place by the recitation of heroic poetry. Trust me to go on with the narrative as soon as I choose.)

I did n't want to think of Andy personally. Intuition whispered to me that the swagman, who would have parted his last sprat to a former mate, hadn't that humble coin in his pocket; whilst purse-pride hinted that I had four sovereigns and some loose silver in mine--not to speak of 8 6s. 8d.

waiting for me in Hay. If I had allowed my mind to dwell on these two intrusive intimations, they would have seemed to fit each other like tenon and mortice; though when the opportunity of making the joint had existed, a sort of moral laziness, together with our artificial, yet not unpraiseworthy, repugnance to offering a money gift, had brought me out rather a Levite than a Samaritan. In mere self-defence, I would have been constrained to keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality--say, five or six hours--but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river.

Idly turning my gla.s.s on the two occupants of the vehicle, I recognised one of them as a familiar and valued friend--a farmer, residing five or six miles down the river, on the Victorian side. I rose and walked to the brink as the buggy came opposite.

"h.e.l.lo! Mr. B----," I shouted.

"h.e.l.lo! Collins. I thought you were way back. When did you come down?

Why did n't you give us a call?"

"Could n't get across the river without sacrifice of dignity and comfort."

"Yes, you can; easy enough. You can start off now. I'm going across here with Mr. G----, to see some sheep, but I'll be back toward sundown.

I'll tell you how you'll manage: Follow straight down the road till you come to the old horse-paddock, nearly opposite our place; then turn to your left, down along the fence----"

"No use, Mr. B----. I want to get away to-morrow; and you know when we get together----"

"Yes; I know all about that. But you must come, Collins.

There's a dozen things I want your opinion about."

"Indeed I appreciate your sensible valuation of me as a referee, Mr. B----, but I must still decline. I wish I had gone this morning; it's too late now."

"Well, I'll feel disappointed. So will d.i.c.k. By-the-by, d.i.c.k L---- has turned up again. He's at our place now. He's off next week--to Fiji, I suspect."

"Where has he been this last time?"

"You would n't guess. He's been in the Holy Land. Poked about there for over six months."

"At Jerusalem?"

"Yes; he's been a good deal in Jerusalem. He lived in Jericho for a month; but he spent most of his time at different places up and down the Jordan."

"Did he meet many Scotchmen wandering along that river?"

"I suppose he would meet a good many anywhere--but why there particularly?"

"Well, Byron tells us that on Jordan's banks the arab Campbells stray."

"I don't take."

"Neither do I, Mr. B----."

"But I'm perfectly serious, Tom; I am, indeed. I thought you would like to have a yarn with d.i.c.k. His descriptions of the Holy Land are worth listening to."

"Say 'Honour bright'."

"Honour bright, then. I say, Collins--did you ever have reason to doubt my word?"

"No; but I always get demoralised out back. Where were you saying I could get across the river?"

"I thought that would fetch the beggar," I heard B---- remark to his companion. And he was right. It would fetch the beggar across any river on this continent.

d.i.c.k L----, Mrs. B----'s brother, was a mine of rare information and queer experiences. Educated for the law, his innate honesty had shrunk from the practice of his profession, and he had taken to rambling as people take to drink, turning up at irregular intervals to claim whatever might be available of the l2 10s. per quarter bequeathed to him by his father.

His strong point was finding his way into outlandish places, and getting insulted and sat on by the public, and run in by the police. Apart from this speciality, he was one of the most useless beings I ever knew (which is saying a lot). Some men, by their very aspect, seem to invite confidence; others, insult; others, imposition; but d.i.c.k seemed only to invite arrest. When well-groomed, he used to be arrested in mistake for some bank defaulter; when ragged, he was sure to be copped for shoplifting, pocket-picking, lack of lawful visible, or for having in his possession property reasonably supposed to have been stolen. Therefore, honest as he was, he had been, like Paul, in prisons frequent. But, thanks to his forensic training, these interviews with the majesty of the law seemed homely and grateful to him. He could converse with a Bench in such terms of respectful camaraderie, yet with such suggestiveness of an Old Guard in reserve, that his innocence became a supererogatory merit. Besides which, he had been, in a general way, a servant of servants in every quarter of the globe, and had been run out of every billet for utter incompetency; often having to content himself with a poor half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. So he enjoyed (or otherwise) opportunities of seeing things that the literary tourist never sees; and, being a good talker, and, withal, a singularly truthful man, he was excellent and profitable company after having been on the extended wallaby.

"Where were you saying I could get across the river, Mr. B----?"

"You know the old horse-paddock fence? Well, follow that down to the river, and just at the end of it you'll find a bark canoe tied to the bank.

Bark by name, and bark by nature. And you'll see a fencing wire lying in the river, with the end fastened to a tree. When you haul the wire up out of the water, you'll find the other end tied to a tree on this bank.

Very complete rig. And, I say, Collins; mind you slacken the wire down from this end after you get across, on account of steamers, and snags, and so forth, The canoe's dead certain to be on your side of the river.

It belongs to a couple of splitters, living in the horse-paddock hut; and they only use it to come across for rations, or the like of that. Well, we'll be off, Mr. G----. I'll see you again this evening, then, Collins."

The buggy rattled away through the red-gums. I packed my things in a convenient hollow tree, and started off down the river, followed by the slate-coloured animal that constantly loved me although I was poor.

About half-way to the horse-paddock, I was overtaken and pa.s.sed by Arthur H----, one of the two brothers reported to be starting the sawmill; and I afterward remembered that, though we saluted each other, and exchanged impotent criticisms on the weather, I had by this time obtained such ascendency over the meddlesome and querulous part of my nature that I had never once thought of asking him if he had met Andy.

It must have been near six in the afternoon when I made my way down the steep bank to where the aptly-named bark was tied up. I soon pulled the slack of the wire out of the bed of the river, and made all fast.

Then it occurred to me that I might have a smoke whilst pulling across.

My next thought was that I could economise time by deferring this duty till I should resume my journey, with both hands at liberty. Forthwith, I squatted in the canoe, and got under way, leaving Pup to follow at his own convenience.

In a former chapter I had occasion to notice a great fact, namely, that the course of each person's life is directed by his ever-recurring option, or election. Now let me glance at two of my own alternatives, each of which has immediate bearing on the incident I am about to relate:

Three weeks ago (from the present writing) I had open choice of all the dates in twenty-two diaries. I actually dallied with that choice, and inadvertently switched my loco. on to the line I am now faithfully, though reluctantly, following. The doom-laden point of time was that which marked the penning of my determination; for a perfectly-balanced engine is more likely to go wandering off a straight line than I am to fail in fulfilment of a promise.