The Profilist

by Adrian Mitchell

  The singer holds the floor, just under the chandelier, this time a makeshift chandelier, a pair of boards at right angles hanging from the ceiling, and with candles at the four ends. He tries to avoid catching the eye of any of his audience, for they are all too ready with a clever sally, and their game is to break his concentration. Yet among the men are those touched by old memories that his songs awaken; others are too far into their own drinking to notice he is there. A cat under the piano is frozen—it dare not take its eye off a miner’s dog, which in turn is poised to leap if the cat so much as moves a whisker.

  And on the wall, immediately above the piano, that universal and curiously apt reminder, almost a motto for the times: No Trust.

  Sometimes the entertainers become quite well known. One young man, Charles Thatcher, has made quite a hit, not for his rendering of old favourites but for his witty ballads about topical matters. The diggers roar with approval at every arch reference to the Governor and the commissioners. In this respect he reminds me a little of Billy Barlow, though his is a much lighter voice. Pleasant, but not strong and ringing, such as might be advantageous in these premises. That comes as a surprise, for he is a big man, with a huge barrel chest and a drooping moustache, like a strongman at the circus.

  So many of the memorable people I have encountered have been tall. More precisely, I notice that the people who get noticed are, as often as not, tall. It is much the same as being a Nob, really—an unearned benefit from the lottery of birth. Good luck to them. There is no point in resenting their advantage; they did not ask for it. My complaint is with the way of the world, over-impressed as it is by the incidental. For myself, I both do and do not want notice; a few extra inches would not necessarily resolve my quirkiness, but they would have been welcome.

  Thatcher is admired for his pointed thrusts and ready rhymes, not for his commanding presence. He is witty where Billy is droll. Thatcher performs as the height of elegance, and it charms the rumbustious diggers that even so he is joining forces with them. Barlow parades low life in front of his audience, he is one of them, if satirically so; he is careful to keep a sufficient distance from gentility and elegance, and so does not embarrass them with imitations of themselves.

  What passes for entertainment comes down a notch on other evenings, when the piano makes way for a boxing ring for example. Once again, there are as many men leaning at the bar as sitting on the benches, watching the adversaries taking wild swipes at each other, rather less elegant than Thatcher’s effortless hits. As is my wont, I like to sit to one side and watch the faces of the spectators as much as the bout. The patrons are keenly absorbed in the spectacle, swaying about and shuffling their feet as though they are in the ring too, clenching their fists or biting on the stems of their pipes. It is left to the non-smokers to lead the applause—or rather, because everyone smokes a pipe at the diggings, it is left to those not actually smoking at the time.

  The boxers give of their best, but they are rarely skilful. They are novices more often than not, learning the manly art. Their feet are liable to slip from under them, for they wear their boots; the hobnails make a clunking sound on the boards. This is another occasion when it proves advisable to have scraped the mud off your boots. As the combatants wear big padded gloves, they are unlikely to do each other a mischief. They lead with their fists up, and lean back from their opponent to give themselves extra time and distance to see an oncoming punch, but that in turn means that when they want to swing one of their own they have to perform a little hop and a skip, which of course their adversary can see and so takes evasive action of his own. Which does not make for much of a spectacle, and is why the crowd tenders encouragement to get into ’im, whack ’im young-un, and the like. On the odd occasion you might see an ambitious smooth-cheeked young fellow taking on an old grizzled bullock driver, but you would have to be quick, for that would be no contest and all over far too quickly for the young cub to remember much about it.

  These fights are comfortable exhibitions mainly, under the soft candlelight of the wooden chandelier, with the spectators sitting around and growing more and more mellow as the evening wears on. Much more furious are the fights that take place outside, usually in the vicinity of a contested claim, or when one digger has challenged his mate for not being meticulous in sharing out the gold that has been found deep down in the shaft or in the sluicing tub. Then matters get serious, and it is bare knuckles fighting, and no referee.

  Whatever is at issue gets resolved when one of the two is unable to continue; but that does not necessarily mean the matter is settled, for bad feeling follows bad blood, and it is not unknown for supplementary fights to break out among the spectators, and in no time at all there can be a wild free-for-all. If there are Irish about it might turn into a donnybrook, with sticks and axe handles and anything else ready to hand being swung around with more vigour than finesse. It does not pay to get mixed up in those encounters. And it has to be confessed that the interest in fair play is not entirely honourable. The onlookers bet nuggets of gold against each other on the outcome, and have their own best interest at heart. Not possessing a pouch of such nuggets, I am constrained to more modest wagers, in coin of the realm.

  I noticed that as the constables became increasingly officious, and obnoxious too, so the diggers were beginning to take out some of their anger on each other. Some as I have said started massing together to rant and rave, and there were troublemakers as well as men of strong convictions all shaking their fists at what they felt to be oppression. Once the new governor, Governor Hotham, insisted on strict application of the law, and appointed more constables to ensure it, the men reacted as might be expected. There was a strong atmosphere of general unpleasantness abroad. The diggers especially disliked the martinet, the man who applied the regulations and paid no attention to individual circumstance. That was the Governor, and his minions followed his lead. He couldn’t have made himself more unpopular if he had tried.

  By the year’s end, everything had come to an appalling head-on confrontation, at a particular field at Ballaarat called Eureka. As I heard the story, a publican had scuffled with a pair of late-night drinkers and kicked one of them to death. He was not well liked in any case, and was widely suspected of underhand arrangements with the police. An inquiry exonerated the publican, and the diggers, enraged and deeply suspicious of complicity, took matters into their own hands. The hotel was burned to the ground. The Governor would not tolerate such unlawful riotous behaviour, announced further measures to be undertaken and arrested the ringleaders.

  And so it went on, back and forth, with more public meetings and mass demonstrations, and a mass burning of the repugnant licences, the diggers exciting themselves and declaring for a republic, the Governor bent upon establishing law and order; and all ended almost as quickly as it had begun, with a band of diggers behind a rough and ready stockade and with the Governor uncertain just how many of those rifles that could be heard most evenings all over the goldfields were now in the hands of the would-be revolutionaries.

  He reckoned to take no chances, and ordered up a military detachment which, as one might expect, made short work of its ill-assorted opponents. It was something like one of those unequal boxing matches, where the defeat was too quick and too decisive to find anything but the tatters of glory in it.

  It was nothing like those boxing matches. Men were killed. By the preservers of the peace.

  I went up to Ballaarat to see for myself, and it seemed to me very curious that whereas the hotel in question had been burned to its stumps, neither the bowling salon on the one side of it, nor the premises on the other side, had been even scorched by what must have been a fierce conflagration. Which made me think the fire had been well tended, and that would have required more than just two or three ne’er-do-wells. Those charred timbers spoke most eloquently of what the diggers would not tolerate. So did the unharmed boards of the neighbouring buildings. They would take care of their own, and in quite another sense
take care of those who connived with the law; and by extension, they would take the law into their own hands if and when the law failed them. No wonder the Governor recognised the danger in that threat. On the whole the diggers are, for all their occasional unruliness, a reasonable set of men. Live and let live is their motto, and if there is occasion to settle a difference then it is carried out man to man, with bare fists. And with enough of a ring of spectators to act as both witness and jury.

  The other hotels all survived intact. Not that fires are unknown, for they rely on insecure stoves for heating in the chill evenings. They are the common meeting place for the diggers after their long day down a muddy hole, or standing in a flowing creek sluicing the tailings, concentrated and isolating work. The hotel is where you would meet chance acquaintances, that is, where old friends would most likely encounter each other again. As happened to me.

  I was seated at a table to one side of a saloon, with my glass and bottle at my elbow and my sketch pad in front of me as was my custom, when a big heavy hand clapped me on the shoulder, and a great voice boomed out.

  Corky me old mate, hor hor hor. Well I’ll be blowed, old Corky.

  That started quizzical glances, as it was not a name I ever went by. This here’s Corky, Trumble announced to the world at large, him and me was shipmates. He drores pictures, does Corky, used ter drore pictures of us down below, hor hor hor, in the fo’c’sle. All hands below decks, hey Corky? Hor hor hor.

  Vile insinuation! But that was always Trumble’s way, to nudge and wink to the world. This does not sound well, I thought to myself. I should have stayed the course at John Aloo’s. Trumble, more grizzled than before with ten or more years of sailing since I last saw him, still has a carrying voice, designed for announcing imminent disasters in the teeth of the howling gale; and his laugh is unpleasantly suggestive.

  Yairs, says Trumble, drew pictures of each one of us, hor hor hor.

  Hints of the questionable Paris-trained Englishman began to stir in the minds of the drinkers present. I could sense it. Oh and oh and oh again. I was fortunate that Trumble had a swag of associates he was drinking with, and it was not too difficult to extricate myself with much handshaking and promises of catching up very soon, and me promising myself not to frequent that particular hotel in the near future. That was not a connection I wished to renew.

  And the reason for that was that I have been hoping to impress a certain young lady I had met recently, and who has become the real reason for my continuing visits to Ballaarat.

  The way this came about was exactly one of those chance encounters I have just alluded to. At a rather more superior establishment, a young woman was playing sentimental numbers on a piano, in a small withdrawing room off the main bar. I was observing the busy throng as I do, out of the way and nursing my nobbler, altogether forgetful of myself and watching individual characters and the unfolding of little incidents. Tableaux you might call them; or given the loud hum of many conversations, dumb shows. I had also noticed the piano player of course, and as she was absorbed at her instrument I sketched her in profile too, and from time to time looked back to see if she had changed her pose. Her dark hair was bundled back on to her head, her chin held high and a velvet ribbon around her throat, her eyelids lowered I imagine to avoid impertinent glances. I did not think mine were impertinent.

  As I was laying in the shadows, and putting in the stronger touches—the fine arch of her eyebrows, the line of her chin—I was startled by a voice close to my ear.

  And what do you see, she was asking.

  No, it wasn’t a question, it was a challenge.

  You’re Ethan Dibble, aren’t you, the artist.

  Another challenge.

  This was possibly very promising. But you can see why I would not want to revert to the character of Trumble’s Corky. She took up my sketch and looked at it critically, at arm’s length—a very shapely arm too, and long hands and fingers. And after what seemed a long interval, she nodded, not at the image of herself, but in recognition of my skill in capturing it. In full face she was as attractive as her profile promised. She has a fair complexion, wide-set eyes, and a broad smooth forehead and a small determined mouth; her natural look is serene, more than thoughtful. Certainly not demure. An unusual young woman for these parts.

  We began to talk of my art, and of my disappointment in not having made a success of portrait painting, for it turned out she knew of my pictures of the goldfields from those that had appeared in the papers. I suppose it was a change for her that I did not talk of claim jumpers and shicers and whatever else passed for interesting conversation with the diggers. Once started, it was easy to keep on with an exchange of pleasantries; and I was further heartened that, when she returned to the piano to resume her duties, she made a point of sending me a smile from time to time. One thing leading on to another, we bettered our acquaintance over the weeks, and indeed she it was who had accompanied me to the riotous performance of Hamlet, which had amused her heartily.

  Over this time, she encouraged me to take up again my ambition to paint portraits, and once I had shown her some sketches of her that I had worked up in my studio, she agreed to sit for me. That was a challenge; for I am very rusty. I have done few serious portraits since my first arrival in Adelaide. It posed a problem too, so to speak, for it would have been improper for her to sit unattended—different of course when you hire a model. But that was not the arrangement here. In Portsmouth we had always arranged for a female shop attendant or a maid to hover discreetly in the background, to safeguard the proprieties.

  I suggested that perhaps her landlady could attend the sittings, and she thanked me for being considerate of her reputation; and so we proceeded, and by the end of the year, that is to say at approximately the same time that all Ballaarat was at sixes and sevens after the Eureka Stockade affair, I was able to present the young lady with her portrait, her name—Elizabeth—neatly worked on to a folder of music she is holding. It was clear to me that she was very pleased with my gift to her, for such it was. And she could see that I had studied her face as carefully as she had herself, though I do not pretend to have read its secrets.

  But dearest Ethan, says she, you haven’t signed it.

  That was readily set to rights.

  Sketch 11

  In which I am out on the town

  NOW I HAD a new resolve. I arranged a meeting with my publishers, we agreed to terms, and they announced not only that I am their acknowledged lithographic artist, but that another set of my topical sketches of the diggings was shortly to be published. As it turned out, most of these were of Ballaarat. I had my own reasons for visiting there, of course, but that field also happened to be what the public was most interested in, so that the selection worked out very well in all respects. I had achieved a more or less regular income, if modest; and the benefit of sales of the originals of my published sketches, as well as the albums.

  I had the publishers’ studio to work in, with good light and a bright mirror by which to reverse the image when I drew it on to the stone, for the lithographs; and space to work up those sketches for which I had only the barest outlines in my notebooks. I could safely leave all this for a brief sketching tour, not only to the diggings but to the farming country further to the west of the colony, and the little coastal ports, and wherever else took my fancy. I could afford to travel at my own pace and in my own way, on a horse and camping out as I wished; or, if the weather were adverse, I could travel by coach, as I sometimes did.

  I am more comfortably off than I have been, and no longer feel quite so keenly the humiliation of having had to leave Adelaide a bankrupt. I am once more respectable. I was invited by an acquaintance to join the newly formed Garrick Club, and I was honoured to allow my name to be put forward. With its premises also in Collins Street, I am making this my end of the town. I fancy I shall be expected to sing for my supper, so to speak, and to help design if not prepare the stage scenery for some of their intended productions. Imag
ine me, a member of a club. I have no doubt that far exceeds any expectations my father would have had of me. Though possibly it would have confirmed his disapproval. He remained trade—he spent his last years working as an agent for a tea importer. I heard from relatives that he had passed away. We had not maintained contact with each other after his second marriage.

  My father’s last flurry, canvassing orders for tea, is an oddity. That happened to be the case with Coppin too, his father giving up the stage as mine the pulpit, both abandoning the platform you might say, and looking to find their fortune in tea leaves. Coppin is back in town. Coppin is amazing the town. He had been in England for a year, and returned with a tin theatre all in pieces, which had to be puzzled together at a convenient site. It is called the Olympic Theatre, though it is more commonly known as the Iron Pot. Intolerable in the summer heat, and impossible whenever there is rain, yet given the crowds who attend it is undoubtedly meeting his expectations. He has the happy knack of hitting payable dirt in everything but the diggings; he invariably strikes it lucky.

  The question for me is how he affords this kind of investment in the first place. He too left Adelaide in financial difficulties, but apparently he returned to pay all his debts in full (and, let it be said cautiously, encouraged reports of that settlement to be widely circulated). Honourable indeed; but how on earth was it managed so quickly?

  Coppin of course is a clubbable man, a would-be Panjandrum like Dr Johnson. He would not miss out on the connections to be made through the Garrick Club. He has likewise carried over to Melbourne his old connections with the Freemasons. And he is much in evidence at the expensive end of all the best bars. A Snob in the making, laying out his credentials. He has hailed me out loud and shaken my hand—Ethan, dear boy—and then turned back to his new acquaintances, for he has larger fish to fry than me, a mere tiddler. The old benefit is still there however. He knows all the latest gossip and relays it in the drollest way; and in turn, other interesting snippets are fed back to him, and to anyone else near enough to hear what is hardly kept subdued. Indeed, the tight circle around Coppin is constantly in an uproar of laughter.