The ant-lion had seized the meat-ant by one leg. Those relentless tool-jaws hung on, like the jaws of a dingo harassing a sheep. The ant, caught at last, was putting out a desperate effort; his free legs thrashed wildly, he made a little headway, but the weight of the grub-like creature braced against him was too much, and he could find nothing to grip.
“I ought to save him,” Morvenna thought. “I oughtn’t to let...Mother would call it cruelty to animals.” But she no longer wanted to put down her twig, even if Max would let her. Shamed, enraptured, she clung to the tree-root with one hand and stared down.
The ant grew weaker, slower, his struggles more spasmodic. The lion saw his chance now; he released the leg and made for the ant’s body, seizing him by the abdomen. There was a wild scurry in the pit now, the ant rearing in the fountaining sand. They could see those shovel-jaws working.
The silence was the strangest thing, Morvenna thought. Round them the afternoon continued; a wagtail hopped on the fence, other ants ran placidly about their business, the creek below made its endless liquid noise over the rocks; but to the two children all had shrunk to the dimensions of the pit, and the creatures in it, engaged in their soundless struggle, plunged and reared enormous. The golden air should have been full of their shrieks and groanings.
Now the ant fell. All was over; his waist almost severed, his legs quivering in the air, he lay helpless. How quickly, how ruthlessly, the ant-lion pulled him down, avoiding the last kicks of those thin useless legs, touching him, severing abdomen from body, hiding him in the sand to serve for larder, where the other ants lay. The creature seemed like a little machine, a tool for some energy that possessed him; hideous, swift, he sent a shudder through Morvenna as she watched him.
Slowly, slowly the lion and his victim sank into the sand. Now they were only humps, sand-covered; now they had vanished. There lay the pit, still and innocent, its contours unchanged.
Max sat up slowly. His eyes looked large and dark.
“Are you going to put in another ?” Morvenna asked. She half- hoped, half-feared it.
“No,” Max said. He stood up, not looking at the pit or at Morvenna. “Enough’s enough.”
“Are you going to bring Harry down and show it to him?” Morvenna persisted.
“Oh, shut up,” said Max. He stood uncertainly for a moment, detaching himself from the scene, from the afternoon, from Morvenna. Then he set off down the creek-bank, running faster and faster. Morvenna stood hesitating; then she too began to run. At last they stopped, far from the pit, exhausted and panting.
“What shall we do now ?” Morvenna said.
INDEX OF AUTHORS
ANDERSON, Ethel (1883–1958). Born of Australian parents at Leamington, England; educated at the Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School. Spent most of her childhood at Rangamatty, near Picton in New South Wales. Married Brigadier-General A. T. Anderson, and lived for some years on the Indian frontier. Publications include three books of verse, two collections of essays, and three books of stories—Indian Tales (1948), At Parramatta (1956), and Little Ghosts (1959).
ASTLEY, William (“Price Warung”), 1855–1911. Born at Liverpool, England. His parents brought him to Melbourne when he was four years old. Journalist in Victoria, Tasmania (where he married), and Sydney, where he edited the Australian Workman. In his later years he lived in Sydney, sometimes penuriously, writing his stories of the convict days for which he became famous. He said that his interest in the convicts was first aroused by meeting, in his boyhood, a convict absconder, and he wrote several books on the theme, arousing some historical controversy by his accounts of the secret society of convicts which he called “The Ring”.
BARNARD, Marjorie. Born at Ashfield, New South Wales, in 1897; educated at Sydney Girls’ High School and at the University of Sydney. Was Librarian at Sydney Teachers’ College and later at the C.S.I.R.O. Co-author, with Flora Eldershaw, under the pen-name “M. Barnard Eldershaw”, of two novels, A House is Built (1929) and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1947). Under her own name she has published a collection of stories, The Persimmon Tree (1943); and works of history, including Macquarie’s World (1941), Australian Outline (1943), and A History of Australia (1962).
BAYLEBRIDGE, William. See Blocksidge.
BLOCKSIDGE, William (“William Baylebridge”), 1883–1942. Born in Brisbane, the son of an estate agent, and educated at Brisbane Grammar School. He travelled in Europe and the Middle East for some years, eventually returning to settle in Sydney. He is best known for his poetry, especially the sonnet sequence Love Redeemed, and This Vital Flesh, difficult, awkward work embodying Nietzschean and Hegelian ideas.
BROTHERS, Robert. No biographical details available. Believed to have been born in New Zealand and, after living for some time in Sydney in the early 1900s, to have gone to South Africa.
CAMPBELL, David. Born at Ellerslie, Adelong, New South Wales, in 1915; educated at The King’s School, Parramatta, and at Cambridge, where he graduated in Arts and played football for England against Ireland and Wales. During World War II he was a pilot in the RAAF and was awarded the D.F.C. and bar. Married, with three children, he runs a property near Bungendore, N.S.W. Has published five volumes of verse and a collection of short stories, Evening Under Lamplight (1950).
CASEY, Gavin (1907–1964). Born at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, educated at State schools and the Kalgoorlie School of Mines. Worked on the Daily News, Perth, and for the Department of Information during and after World War II. Publications include two collections of stories, It’s Harder for Girls (1942), and Birds of a Feather (1943); and the novels, Downhill is Easier (1946), The Wits Are Out (1948), City of Men (1950), Snowball (1958), and Amid the Plenty (1962).
CHARLWOOD, D. E. Born in Melbourne in 1915; educated at Frankston High School. Served as a navigator with the RAAF in Europe during World War H, then joined the Department of Civil Aviation, working on air traffic control. Married, with three daughters. Has published an account of his wartime experiences with Bomber Command, No Moon Tonight (1956); a novel, All the Green Year (1965); and a collection of short stories, An Afternoon of Time (1966).
COWAN, Peter. Born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1914, where he received his early education. After working at various jobs in city and country, took an Arts degree at the University of Western Australia. Served with the RAAF during World War H. Is now senior lecturer in English at Scots College, Perth, and a tutor at the University. Has published three collections of stories, Drift (1944), The Unploughed Land (1959), and The Empty Street (1965); and two novels, Summer (1964) and Seed (1966).
DAVISON, Frank Dalby, 1893–1970. Born in Melbourne, worked on the land in Victoria until 1908 when the family moved to the United States. In 1914, when World War I broke out, he was working as a ship’s printer on a vessel sailing between New York and the Caribbean; he took ship to England and enlisted, serving first as a cavalryman, then in the infantry. Soldier settler in Queensland after the war; printed his first books, Forever Morning and Man-Shy, in a magazine, the Australian, started by his father. For some years he was a literary critic for the Bulletin.
DYSON, Edward, 1865–1931. Born near Ballarat, Victoria; his father was a mining engineer. After a variety of jobs in the bush, in mining, and in a factory in Melbourne, he became a freelance writer, publishing bush ballads in Rhymes from the Mines, lively books of city stories in Fact’ry ’Ands and Benno and Some of the Push, and several novels.
EDMOND, James, 1859–1933. Born at Glasgow. He came to Australia in 1882 and joined the staff of the Bulletin in 1886, becoming associate editor with J. F. Archibald in 1890, and, from 1903 to 1915, editor. Chiefly a political writer, he also wrote verse, essays, and short stories, mostly humorous.
GYE, Hal (“James Hackston”), 1888–1967. Born in Ryde, N.S.W., educated at Black Range (now Lavington) N.S.W. Was the illustrator of C. J. Dennis’s The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915). He made a separate career for himself as a short story writer in the Bulletin in
the 1930s and 19405, publishing his first story in 1937.
HACKSTON, James. See Gye, Hal.
JAMES, BRIAN. See Tierney, John.
LAWSON, Henry, 1867–1922. Born on the Grenfell (N.S.W.) gold-diggings, the son of a Norwegian master mariner who turned digger, carpenter and settler. His mother was a feminist and journalist, Louisa Lawson. Henry Lawson was educated at Eurunderee Public School, and worked at various jobs including farming, coach-painting, house-painting, journalism and schoolteaching. In 1888 his first published story, “His Father’s Mate”, appeared in the Bulletin. Except for brief intervals, he lived in Sydney from 1902 till his death. His bush ballads are highly regarded but his greatest work was in his short stories, of which the most comprehensive collection is in the three volumes edited by Cecil Mann.
LINDSAY, Norman, 1879–1969. Born in Creswick, Victoria, the son of a doctor. Worked as a freelance black-and-white artist in Melbourne, then in 1901 was invited by J. F. Archibald to come to Sydney and draw for the Bulletin. Lived in Sydney, and in later years the nearby Blue Mountains, except for travels in Europe and America. Best known as an artist in many media, including etchings, pen-drawings, water-colours, and oils, but also well known as a novelist.
MANN, Cecil (1896–1967). Born at Cudgen, New South Wales; educated in State schools. Was with the A.I.F. on Gallipoli and in France during World War I. Later worked as a reporter on country newspapers in New South Wales and on the Sydney Morning Herald. Was on the literary staff of the Bulletin from 1925 until his retirement in 196o. Published a collection of short stories, The River (1945), and a novel, Light in the Valley (1946); edited the three-volume Stories of Henry Lawson (1964), Henry Lawson’s Best Stories (1966), and Henry Lawson’s Humorous Stories (1967).
MARSHALL, Alan. Born at Noorat, Victoria, in 1902; educated at Terang, Victoria. Was a freelance journalist, and worked for the Army Education Service during World War II. Was a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellow in 1954. Publications include two collections of stories, These Are My People (1944) and Tell Us About the Turkey, Jo (1946); a novel, How Beautiful Are Thy Feet (1949); a collection of Aboriginal myths, People of the Dreamtime (1952): and three volumes of autobiography.
McCRAE, Hugh, 1876–1958. Born in Melbourne, the son of the poet George Gordon McCrae. Educated at Hawthorn Grammar School, and worked in Melbourne and Sydney as freelance writer and illustrator. After acting in plays in New York and in a film in Australia, he lived at Camden, N.S.W., and afterwards in Sydney. Best known as a lyric poet. His fantastic short stories were printed in book form, along with other examples of his prose, in Story-book Only.
MORRISON, John. Born at Sunderland, England, in 1904; came to Australia in 1923. Has worked as gardener, station-hand, and wharf-labourer. Was a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellow in 1947 and 1949. Has published two novels, The Creeping City (1949) and Port of Call (1950); and three collections of stories, Sailors Belong Ships (1947), Black Cargo (1955), and Twenty-Three (1962).
PATERSON, A. B. (“Banjo”), 1864–1941. Born near Orange, N.S.W., brought up on a sheep station near Yass, educated at Sydney Gratrimar School. Became a lawyer, then journalist; war correspondent in South Africa in 1899; editor Sydney Evening News 1904 and Town and Country Journal 1907. Attained the rank of major in World War I, as Remount Officer to the A.I.F. in Egypt. Best known for his excellent bush ballads.
PENN-SMITH, Frank, 1863–1935. Born in England and came to Tasmania in 1880. Prospected in mining ventures in Tasmania and New South Wales; left Australia for South Africa in 1905, returning to Tasmania for some years in 1922, when he went back to England. His adventurous life is told in a vivid autobiography, The Unexpected (1933).
PRICHARD, Katharine Susannah, 1884–1969. Born at Levuka, Fiji, the daughter of T. H. Prichard, journalist and writer. She was brought to Australia in her infancy and lived at Launceston, Tasmania, afterwards in Melbourne, where she was educated at South Melbourne College. Lived in London for six years as a freelance writer and in I9I9 married Captain Hugo Throssell, V.C. Author of many novels, including Coonardoo, Working Bullocks, and a trilogy on the W.A. goldfields.
ROBINSON, Les, 1885—Born in Paddington, Sydney, “and have never been more than 100 miles away from it. I was born with the artistic temperament. My mother was a musician. My boyhood’s days were as happy as could be. We lived at the seaside. When it was time (high time) I thought about helping to do the work of the world, I tried a number of different occupations. I worked in warehouses and offices. I had begun to try to teach myself to write and used to contribute pars (nature-notes mostly), short sketches, etc., in lighter vein to Lilley’s and the Bulletin.”
ROWBOTHAM, David. Born at Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1925; educated at Toowoomba Grammar School, the State Teachers’ College, and at the universities of Queensland and Sydney. Served with the RAAF in the South-west Pacific and, after World War II, entered journalism. After travelling in Europe, worked on the Brisbane Courier-Mail, of which he was Arts Editor. Has published six books of verse; a collection of stories and sketches, Town and City (1956); and a novel, The Man in the Jungle (1964).
ROWLANDS, Lesley. Born at Carcoar, New South Wales, in 1925; educated at Sydney schools and at Sydney University, where she graduated in Arts in 1950. Spent four years abroad; now works for the Commonwealth Office of Education. Publications include two books about her experiences abroad, Why Can’t the English? (1959) and On Top of the World (1961), and a novel, A Bird in the Hand (1965), Her short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies.
SCHLUNKE, E. 0., 1906–1960. Born near Temora, N.S.W., descended from German Lutheran immigrants, about whom he wrote in many of his stories and novels. He farmed his own property in the Riverina district. Stories of the Riverina, a memorial collection of his short stories with an introduction by Clement Semmler, was published in 1966.
STEWART, Douglas. Born at Eltham, New Zealand, in 1913; educated at New Plymouth Boys’ High School and Victoria University College. From 1939 to 1961, when he joined the editorial staff of Angus and Robertson, was editor of the Red Page of the Bulletin. Married to artist Margaret Coen. Best known as a poet and dramatist, he has published several books of verse; the verse plays Ned Kelly (1943), Fire on the Snow (1944) The Golden Lover (1944), and Shipwreck (1947) a collection of short stories, A Girl with Red Hair (1944); and a book of essays about trout-fishing, The Seven Rivers (1966).
STIVENS, Dal. Born at Blayney, New South Wales, in 1911; educated at Barker College, Sydney. Worked on the Sydney Daily Telegraph from 1939 to 1942, in the Army Education Service and the Department of Information during World War’ II, and later as Press Officer at Australia House in London. Publications include three novels, Jimmy Brockett (1951), The Wide Arch (1958) and A Horse of Air (1970); and several story collections, The Tramp and Gambling Ghost and Other Tales (1953), lronbark Bill (1955), The Scholarly Mouse and Other Tales (1957) and Selected Stories 1936-1968 (1969).
TIERNEY, John (“Brian James”), 1892, Born at Eurunderee, N.S.W., the son of the schoolteacher who taught Henry Lawson. Took his M.A. at the University of Sydney, gained a Diploma of Education at Oxford and became a schoolteacher, at various periods teaching English at Fort Street and Hornebush High Schools, Sydney. Also, at one period, lived on the land as an orchardist. He is the author of the novels The Advancement of Spencer Button and Hopeton High, and of four books of short stories, including The Big Burn (1966), a selection with an introduction by Norman Lindsay.
WRIGHT, Judith (Mrs J. P. McKinney). Born at Thalgarrah, near Armidale, New South Wales, in 1915; educated at New England Girls’ School and the University of Sydney. After a year abroad, worked at various secretarial jobs, and later as a statistician at the University of Queensland. One of Australia’s best known poets, she has published several volumes of verse; a biography, Generations of Men (1959); Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (1965); a book of short stories, The Nature of Love (1966); and a number of books for children.
ACKNOWLE
DGMENTS
PARTICULAR acknowledgment is due to the Bulletin, in which many of the stories were first published, and to the Mitchell Library, Sydney.
“The Drover’s Wife” and “The Bush Undertaker” reprinted from The Stories of Henry Lawson, edited by Cecil Mann (Angus and Robertson, 1964).
“A Golden Shanty” and “A Visit to Scrubby Gully” reprinted from Below and on Top, by Edward Dyson (Geo. Robertson, 1898).
“The Deeply Poetic Account of a Midsummer Night’s Idyll” reprinted from A Journalist and Two Bears, by James Edmond (Platypus Press, 1913).
“Piety’s Monument” reprinted from Hang!, by Frank Penn-Smith (Chatto and Windus, 1925).
“The Cast-iron Canvasser” reprinted from Three Elephant Power and Other Stories, by A. B. Paterson (Angus and Robertson, 19,7).
“Wharf Labourers”, by Robert Brothers, was originally published in the Bulletin, 1914.
“The Outcasts” reprinted from Saturdee, by Norman Lindsay (Ure Smith Pty. Ltd., 1961).
“Adventure” reprinted from Story-book Only, by Hugh McCrae (Angus and Robertson, 1948).
“The Duel” reprinted from An Anzac Muster, by William Baylebridge, privately printed in 1921, by permission of The Perpetual Trustee Co. Ltd., Sydney.
“The Cooboo” reprinted from Kiss on the Lips, by Katharine Susannah Prichard (Cape, 1932).
“The Vine-dweller”, by Les Robinson, reprinted from Coast to Coast 1957–58 (Angus and Robertson, 1958). “Song of the Flea” is reprinted from The Giraffe’s Uncle, by Les Robinson (Macquarie Head Press, 1933).
“The Enthusiastic Prisoner” reprinted from The Man in the Silo, by E.O. Schlunke (Angus and Robertson, 1955).
“Jacob’s Escape” reprinted from First Furrow, by Brian James (Clarendon Publishing Co., 1944).
“Our New Properties” and “Father Clears Out” reprinted from Father Clears Out, by James Hackston (Angus and Robertson, 1966).
Best Australian Short Stories Page 31
