Such Is Life Part 57

But just as the turkey reached its place, he had dropped his head with a movement of pain; and, after securing the rope, he groped his way into the hut, holding his hand over his right eye.

"Bit of bark, or something, dropped nght into my eye," he muttered.

"It does n't suit me to have anything wrong with the one I have left."

By the bright lamp-light, I soon relieved him of what proved to be a small ant; then he went out to the was.h.i.+ng-bench, and I heard the dabbling of water.

"I got a gra.s.s-seed in my eye the New Year's Day before last," he remarked, in a sort of sullen self-commiseration, after we had sat in silence for a minute. "I could n't see to catch a horse; and it took me about six hours to grope my way along the fences to d.i.c.k Templeton's hut. I thought I'd have gone mad."

"Ah!" said I sympathetically, "that reminds me of an incident that came under my own notice on the very day you speak of. I'll tell you how it happened."

By this time, Alf had lit a meek and lowly meerschaum, whilst a large grey cat had jumped on his knees, and settled itself for repose. "You asked me awhile ago whether I knew anyone of your name in this part of the country. I forgot at the moment that one of my most profitable studies is a namesake of yours-- Warrigal Alf, a carrier on these roads."

"What's his other name?" asked the boundary man, in a suppressed voice.

"Morris."

"Why don't you call him so, then? I hate nicknames."

Poor fellow, thought I, and I continued, "I was coming down from Cobar, with a single horse; and on the New Year's Day before last, I reached the Yellow Tank--about forty miles from here, isn't it? I left my saddle and things at the tank, and was taking my horse out to a place where there's always a bit of gra.s.s, when I noticed a wagon in the scrub, and identified it as Alf's"----

"Did you know him before?" murmured the boundary man.

"Certainly."

"Is he a married man?"

"Widower."

"Widower?" repeated Alf, almost in a whisper. "Did you know his wife""

"Personally, no; inductively, yes. She was one of those indefinably dangerous women who sing men to destruction--one of those tawny-haired tigresses, with slumbrous dark eyes--name, Iolanthe."

"What?"

"Iolanthe de Vavasour," I replied good-humouredly. "More appropriate than Molly--isn't it?"

The boundary man, after picking up his pipe, which had fallen on the slumbering cat, fixed his Zitska eye on my face with a puzzled, shrinking, defiant look, whilst drawing his seat a little further away. Ah! years of solitary life, with the haunting consciousness of frightful disfigurement, had told on his mind. Moriarty was right. And I remembered that the moon was approaching the full.

"Alf was sitting under a hop-bush," I continued, "with his hand across his eyes.

"'What's the matter, Alf?' says I.

"'Is that you, Collins?' says he, trying to look up. 'You're just in time to do more for me than I would care about doing for you. I've met with an accident. I was lying on my back under the wagon this morning, tightening some nuts, when a bit of rust, or something, fell straight into my eye. Frightful pain; and it's affecting the other eye already; giving me a foretaste of h.e.l.l. No doubt it's a good thing; but I don't want a monopoly of it; I wish I could pa.s.s it round.' This was Alf's style of philosophy. Our friend, Iolanthe, is largely, though perhaps indirectly, responsible for it."

"Yes--go on," said the boundary man nervously.

"Well, as I was telling you, it was after sunset, and there was no time to lose, so I whittled a bit of wood to a point, and essayed the task in which I claim a certain eminence, namely, the extraction of a mote from my brother's eye.

"'You're right, Alf,' says I; 'it's a flake of rust, about the size of a fish's scale, lodged on the coloured part, which we term the iris--or, strictly speaking, on that part of the cornea which covers the iris.

But I can't s.h.i.+ft it with this appliance. Must get something sharper.'

"So I took a pin out of my coat, and grubbed the mote as well as I could by the deficient light. I don't know what Alf thought of it at the time, but I considered it a lovely operation. When it was over, Alf signified to me that I wasn't wanted any longer, so I went about my business.

"Next morning, as I was going toward my horse-bell, I gave my patient a purely professional call, and found his eye worse than ever. I subjected him to another examination; and, this time having the advantage of full daylight, I discovered that the cause of his trouble wasn't a flake of rust, after all; but a small, barbed speck of clean iron, embedded in the white of the eye.

I discovered something else. Alf's eyes are as blue as those of Zola's Nana; and in the iris of the affected one there is, or rather was, a brown spot.

I had often noticed this before; but, in the defective light, and the hurry of the operation, I had never thought of the thing and had wasted time and skill on it, as I tell you. I have often laughed to remember

"You were badly off for something to laugh at!" Again I recalled Monarty's remark; for the boundary man's voice trembled as he spoke, and his splendid eye blazed with sudden resentment. But the fit pa.s.sed away instantly, and he asked, in his usual subdued tone, "When did you see this--this Alf Morris last?"

"About two months ago," I replied. "He was camped at that time in the Dead Man's Bend, at the junction of Avondale and Mondunbarra."

"When are you likely to see him again?" asked the boundary man. "But, of course, you can't tell. It's a foolish question. I don't know what's come over me to-night."

Ignorance is bliss, in that instance, poor fellow! thought I, glancing out at the weirdly beautiful moonlight; and I replied, "Most likely I'll never see him again. These wool-tracks, that knew him so well, will know him no more again for ever. He's gone to a warmer climate."

"That decides it!" muttered the lunatic, swaying on his seat, whilst he clutched the edge of the table.

"Alf! Alf!" I remonstrated; laying my hand on his shoulder. He shrank from the touch, and immediately recovered himself. "Let me explain, I continued soothingly. "He has gone four or five months' journey due north, in charge of three teams loaded with lares and penates and tools, and cooking utensils, and rations, and other things too numerous to particularise, belonging once to Kooltopa, but now to a new station in South-western Queensland. Hence I say he's gone to a warmer climate. Not much of a joke, I admit."

"And what's--what's become of Kooltopa?" asked the boundary man, panting under his effort at self-control.

"Old times are changed, old manners gone; a stranger fills the Stewart's throne," I replied, with real sadness. "Kooltopa's sold to a Melbourne company, and is going to be worked for all it's worth. And I'm thinking of the carrier, coming down with the survivors of a severe trip, and the penniless pedestrian, striking the station at the eleventh hour.

These people will miss Stewart badly.

For the guest flies the hall, and the va.s.sal from labour, Since his turban was cleft by the infidel's sabre."

"Whose turban?" asked Alf, with a puzzled look.

"Stewart's. I spake but by a metaphor. As with Antony, 'tis one of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind."

There was a few minutes' silence. I was thinking of the Christian squatter, and so, no doubt, was many another wanderer at the same moment.

"But he'll come back to Riverina when he delivers the loading?"

suggested the boundary man.

"Who?"

"This--Alf Morris."

"I don't think so. I know he does n't intend it."

Another pause. Glancing at my companion, as he sat with his elbows on the table, and one hand, as usual, across the middle of his face, I noticed his chest heaving unnaturally, and his shapely lips losing their deep colour.

"Are you sick, Alf?"

"Yes--a little," he whispered.

I filled a cup at the water-bag, and set it before him. He drank part of it.

"Quakers' meeting!" he remarked at length, with a slight laugh. "Why don't you say something? I'm not much of a talker myself, but I'm a good listener.