Bush Studies

by Barbara Baynton

  He tilted his hat, till, bush fashion, it “’ung on one ’air”, and went inside the shanty. “Mag!” he shouted, thumping the bar (a plank supported by two casks).

  The woman in the buggy saw a slatternly girl with doughy hands come from the back, wiping the flour from her face with a kitchen towel. They made some reference to her she knew, as the girl came to the door and gave her close scrutiny. Then, shaking her head till her long brass earrings swung like pendulums, she laughed loudly.

  “Eh?” enquired the rouseabout.

  “My oath! Square dinkum!” she answered, going behind the bar.

  He took the silk handkerchief from his neck, and playfully tried to flick the corner into her eye. Mag was used to such delicate attentions and well able to defend herself. With the dirty kitchen towel she succeeded in knocking off his hat, and round and round the house she ran with it dexterously dodging the skin-pegs. He could neither overtake nor outwit her with any dodge. He gave in, and ransomed his hat with the “shouts” she demanded.

  From the back of the shanty, a bent old woman, almost on all fours, crept towards the man, again prostrate in the corner. She paused, with her ear turned to where the girl and the rouseabout were still at horse-play. With cat-like movements she stole on till within reach of Jerry’s empty pockets. She turned her terrible face to the woman in the buggy, as if in expectation of sympathy. Keeping wide of the front door, she came to the further side of the buggy.

  With the fascination of horror the woman looked at this creature, whose mouth and eyes seemed to dishonour her draggled grey hair. She was importuning for something, but the woman in the buggy could not understand till she pointed to her toothless mouth (the mission of which seemed to be, to fill its cavernous depths with the age-loosened skin above and below). A blue bag under each eye aggressively ticked like the gills of the fowls, and the sinews of the neck strained into basso-rilievo. Alternately she pointed to her mouth, or laid her knotted fingers on the blue bags in pretence of wiping tears. Entrenched behind the absorbed skin-terraces, a stump of purple tongue made efforts at speech. When she held out her claw, the woman understood and felt for her purse. Wolfishly the old hag snatched and put into her mouth the coin, and as the now merry driver, followed by Mag, came, she shook a warning claw at the giver, and flopped whining in the dust, her hands ostentatiously open and wiping dry eyes.

  “’Ello Biddy, on ther booze again!”

  The bottle bulging from his coat pocket made speech with him intelligible, despite the impeding coin.

  He placed the bottle in the boot of the buggy, and, turning to Mag, said “Give ther poor ole cow a dose!”

  “Yes, one in a billy; anything else might make her sick!” said Mag. “I caught ’er jus’ now swiggin’ away with ther tap in ’er mug!”

  He asked his companion would she like a wet. She asked for water, and so great was her need that, making a barricade of closed lips and teeth to the multitude of apparently wingless mosquitoes thriving in its green tepidity, she moistened her mouth and throat.

  “Oh, I say, Billy!” called Mag as he drove off. Her tones suggested her having forgotten an important matter, and he turned eagerly. “W’en’s it goin’ ter rain?” she shrieked, convulsed with merriment.

  “Go an’ crawl inter a ‘oller log!” he shouted angrily.

  “No, but truly, Billy?”

  Billy turned again. “Give my love to yaller Lizer; thet slues yer!”

  They had not gone far before he looked round again. “Gord!” he cried excitedly. “Look at Mag goin’ through ’er ole woman!”

  Mag had the old woman’s head between her knees, dentist-fashion, and seemed to concentrate upon her victim’s mouth, whose feeble impotence was soon demonstrated by the operator releasing her, and triumphantly raising her hand.

  What the finger and thumb held the woman knew and the other guessed.

  “By Gord. Eh! thet’s prime; ain’t it? No flies on Mag; not a fly!” he said, admiringly.

  “See me an’ ’er?” he asked, as he drove on.

  His tone suggested no need to reply, and his listener did not. A giddy unreality took the sting from everything, even from her desire to beseech him to turn back to the siding, and leave her there to wait for the train to take her back to civilization. She felt she had lost her mental balance. Little matters became distorted, and the greater shrivelled.

  He was now more communicative, and the oaths and adjectives so freely used were surely coined for such circumstances. “Damned” the wretched, starving, and starved sheep looked and were; “bloody” the beaks of the glutted crows; “blarsted” the whole of the plain they drove through!

  Gaping cracks suggested yawning graves, and the skeleton fingers of the drooping myalls seemingly pointed to them.

  “See me an’ Mag?” he asked again. “No flies on Mag; not a wink ’bout ’er!” He chuckled in tribute. “Ther wus thet damned flash fool, Jimmy Fernatty,” he continued “— ther blanky fool; ’e never ’ad no show with Mag. An’ yet ’e’d go down there! It wus two mile furder this way, yet damned if ther blanky fool wouldn’t come this way every time, ’less ther boss ’e wus with ’im, ’stead er goin’ ther short cut—ther way I come this mornin’. An’ every time Mag ud make ’im part ’arf a quid! I was on’y there jus’ ’bout five minits meself, an’ I stuck up nea’ly ’arf a quid! An’ there’s four gates” (he flogged the horse and painted them crimson when he remembered them) “this way, more’n on ther way I come this mornin’.”

  Presently he gave her the reins with instructions to drive through one. It seemed to take a long time to close it, and he had to fix the back of the buggy before he opened it, and after it was closed.

  After getting out several times in quick succession to fix the back of the buggy when there was no gate, he seemed to forget the extra distance. He kept his hand on hers when she gave him the reins, and bade her “keep up ’er pecker”. “Someone would soon buck up ter ’er if their boss wusn’t on.” But the boss it seemed was a “terrer for young uns. Jimmy Fernatty ’as took up with a yaller piece an’ is livin’ with ’er. But not me; thet’s not me! I’m like ther boss, thet’s me! No yeller satin for me!”

  He watched for the effect of this degree of taste on her.

  Though she had withdrawn her hand, he kept winking at her, and she had to move her feet to the edge of the buggy to prevent his pressing against them. He told her with sudden anger that any red black-gin was as good as a half chow any day, and it was no use gammoning for he knew what she was.

  “If Billy Skywonkie ’ad ter string onter yaller Lizer, more ’air on ’is chest fer doin’ so” (striking his own). “I ken get as many w’ite gins as I wanter, an’ I’d as soon tackle a gin as a chow anyways!”

  On his next visit to the back of the buggy she heard the crash of glass breaking against a tree. After a few snatches of song he lighted his pipe, and grew sorrowfully reminiscent.

  “Yes s’elp me, nea’ly ’arf a quid! An’ thet coloured ole ’og of a cow of a mother, soon’s she’s off ther booze, ’ll see thet she gets it!” Then he missed his silk handkerchief. “Ghost!” he said, breathing heavily, “Mag’s snavelled it! Lizer ’ll spot thet’s gone soon’s we get ’ithin coo-ee of ’er!”

  Against hope he turned and looked along the road; felt every pocket, lifted his feet, and looked under the mat. His companion, in reply, said she had not seen it since his visit to the shanty.

  “My Gord!” he said, “Mag’s a fair terror!” He was greatly troubled till the braggart in him gave an assertive flicker. “Know wot I’ll do ter Lizer soon’s she begins ter start naggin’ at me?” He intended this question as an insoluble conundrum, and waited for no surmises. “Fill ’er mug with this!” The shut fist he shook was more than a mugful. “’Twouldn’ be ther first time I done it, nor ther lars’.” But the anticipation seemed little comfort to him.

  The rest of the journey was done in silence, and without even a peep at the sky. When they came to the h
omestead gate he said his throat felt as though a “goanner” had crawled into it and died. He asked her for a pin and clumsily dropped it in his efforts to draw the collar up to his ears, but had better luck with a hair-pin.

  He appeared suddenly subdued and sober, and as he took his seat after closing the gate, he offered her his hand, and said, hurriedly, “No ’arm done, an’ no ’arm meant; an’ don’t let on ter my missus—thet’s ’er on the verander—thet we come be ther shanty.”

  It was dusk, but through it she saw that the woman was dusky too.

  “Boss in, Lizer?” There was contrition and propitiation in his voice.

  “You’ve bin a nice blanky time,” said his missus, “an’ lucky fer you, Billy Skywonkie, ’e ain’t.”

  With bowed head, his shoulders making kindly efforts to hide his ears, he sat silent and listening respectfully. The woman in the buggy thought that the volubility of the angry half-caste’s tongue was the nearest thing to perpetual motion. Under her orders both got down, and from a seat under the open window in the little room to which Lizer had motioned, she gave respectful attention to the still rapidly flowing tirade. The offence had been some terrible injustice to a respectable married woman, slavin’ an’ graftin’ an’ sweatin’ from mornin’ ter night, for a slungin’ idlin’ lazy blaggard.” In an indefinable way the woman felt that both of them were guilty, and to hide from her part of the reproof was mean and cowardly. The half-caste from time to time included her, and by degrees she understood that the wasted time of which Lizer complained was supposed to have been dissipated in flirtation. Neither the shanty nor Mag had mention.

  From a kitchen facing the yard a Chinaman came at intervals, and with that assumption of having mastered the situation in all its bearings through his thorough knowledge of the English tongue, he shook his head in calm, shocked surprise. His sympathies were unmistakably with Lizer, and he many times demonstrated his grip of the grievance by saying, “By Cli’ Billy, it’s a bloo’y shame!”

  Maybe it was a sense of what was in his mind that made the quivering woman hide her face when virtuous Ching Too came to look at her. She was trying to eat when a dog ran into the dining-room, and despite the violent beating of her heart, she heard the rouseabout tell the boss as he unsaddled his horse, “The on’y woman I see was a ’alf chow, an’ she ses she’s the one, an’ she’s in ther dinin’-room ’avin’ a tuck-in.”

  She was too giddy to stand when the boss entered, but she turned her mournful eyes on him, and, supporting herself by the table, stood and faced him.

  He kept on his hat, and she, watching, saw curiosity and surprise change into anger as he looked at her.

  “What an infernal cheek you had to come! Who sent you?” he asked stormily.

  She told him, and added that she had no intention of remaining.

  “How old?” She made no reply. His last thrust, as in disgust he strode out, had the effect of a galvanic battery on her dying body.

  Her bedroom was reeking with a green heavy scent. Empty powder-boxes and rouge-pots littered the dressing-table, and various other aids to nature evidenced her predecessor’s frailty. From a coign in its fastness a black spider eyed her malignantly, and as long as the light lasted she watched it.

  The ringing of a bell slung outside in the fork of a tree awoke her before dawn. It was mustering—bush stock-taking—and all the stationhands were astir. There was a noise of galloping horses being driven into the stockyard, and the clamour of the men as they caught and saddled them. Above the clatter of plates in the kitchen she could hear the affected drawl of the Chinaman talking to Lizer. She trod heavily along the passage, preparing the boss’s breakfast. This early meal was soon over, and with the dogs snapping playfully at the horses’ heels, all rode off.

  Spasmodic bars of “A Bicycle Built for Two” came from the kitchen, “Mayly, Mayly, give me answer do!” There was neither haste nor anxiety in the singer’s tones. Before the kitchen fire, oblivious to the heat, stood the Chinaman cook, inert from his morning’s opium. It was only nine, but this was well on in the day for Ching, whose morning began at four.

  He ceased his song as she entered. “You come Sydiney? Ah! You mally? Ah! Sydiney welly ni’ place. This placee welly dly—too muchee no lain—welly dly.”

  She was watching his dog. On a block lay a flitch of bacon, and across the freshly cut side the dog drew its tongue, then snapped at the flies. “That dog will eat the bacon,” she said.

  “No!” answered the cook. “’E no eat ’em—too saw.”

  It was salt; she had tried it for breakfast.

  He began energetically something about, “by an’ by me getty mally. By Cli’ no ’alf cas—too muchee longa jlaw.” He laughed and shook his head, reminiscent of “las’ a night”, and waited for applause. But, fascinated, she still watched the dog, who from time to time continued to take “saw” with his flies.

  “Go ou’ si’, Sir,” said the cook in a spirit of rivalry. The dog stood and snapped. “Go ou’ si’, I say!” No notice from the dog. “Go ou’ si’, I tella you!” stamping his slippered feet and taking a fire-stick. The dog leisurely sat down and looked at his master with mild reproof. “Go insi’ then, any bloo’y si’ you li’!” but pointing to their joint bedroom with the lighted stick. The dog went to the greasy door, saw that the hens sitting on the bed were quietly laying eggs to go with the bacon, and came back.

  She asked him where was the rouseabout who had driven her in yesterday.

  “Oh, Billy Skywonkie, ’e mally alri’! Lizer ’im missie!” He went on to hint that affection there was misplaced, but that he himself was unattached.

  She saw the rouseabout rattle into the yard in a spring cart. He let down the backboard and dumped three sheep under a light gallows. Their two front feet were strapped to one behind.

  He seemed breathless with haste. “Oh, I say!” he called out to her. “Ther boss ’e tole me this mornin’ thet I wus ter tell you, you wus ter sling yer ’ook. To do a get,” he explained. “So bundle yer duds tergether quick an’ lively! Lizer’s down at ther tank, washin’. Le’ss get away afore she sees us, or she’ll make yer swaller yer chewers.” Lowering his voice, he continued: “I wanter go ter ther shanty—on’y ter get me ’ankerchief.”

  He bent and strained back a sheep’s neck, drew the knife and steel from his belt, and skilfully danced an edge on the knife.

  She noticed that the sheep lay passive, with its head back till its neck curved in a bow, and that the glitter of the knife was reflected in its eye.

  * “Skywonkie”: a weather prophet.

  BUSH CHURCH

  I

  THE hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider. The parson bumping along on old Rosey, who had smelt the water of the “Circler Dam”, was powerless to keep the cunning experienced brute from diverting from the track. With the bit in her teeth, her pace kept him fully occupied to hold his seat. At the edge of the Dam, old Rosey, to avoid the treacherous mud, began, with humped back and hoofs close together, to walk along the plank that pier-wise extended to the deeper water. The parson’s protests ended in his slipping over the arched neck of the wilful brute, on to the few inches of plank that she considerately left for him. The old mare drank leisurely, then backed off with the same precaution, and stood switching the flies with her stunted tail. The parson followed her and thankfully grabbed the reins. After several attempts to get up on the wrong side, he led the exacting animal to a log. He removed the veil he wore as a protection from the sticky eye-eating flies, so that Rosey might recognize him as her erstwhile rider. It was at this stage that “flash” Ned Stennard, always with time to kill and a tongue specially designed for the purpose, rode up and gave him lurid instructions and a leg up.

  He had come to their remoteness, he told Ned, as they rode along, to hold a service at a grazier’s homestead some miles distant. Under Ned’s sympathetic guidance he pulled up at the sliprails of a cockey’s selection to
announce these tidings. It was Ned’s brother’s place, but Ned, who was not on speaking terms with his sister-in-law, rode on and waited.

  A group of half-naked children lay entangled among several kangaroo pups, in a make-believe of shade from a sickly gum-tree. A canvas bag, with a saddle strap defining its long neck, hung from a bough, and the pups were yelping mildly at its contents, and licking the few drops of blood that fell. The parson saw the children rub the swarming flies from their eyes and turn to look at him. An older girl, bare-footed and dressed in a petticoat and old hat, was standing near a fire before the wide opening that served as a doorway to the humpy. She had a long stick, and was employed in permitting an aged billy-goat to bring his nose within an inch of the simmering water in the bucket slung over the fire.

  “Are your parents in?” he asked.

  “You ain’t ole Keogh?” said the girl.

  When he admitted that he wasn’t, he saw her interest in his personality was gone.

  “Are your mother and father in?”

  The thirsty billy was sneaking up again to the water, and she let him advance the prescribed limit before she made the jab that she enjoyed so thoroughly. “Mum’s gorn ter Tilly Lumber’s ter see t’ ther kid, and ther rester them’s gorn ter ther Circler Dam.”

  He made known his mission to the girl, but she didn’t divide her attention. The water would soon be too hot for the billy to drink, and there was no fun to be got out of the pups. For when she took the salt pork out of the canvas bag and put it in the bucket, they wouldn’t try to get it out of boiling water.

  Doubtful of his success, the parson rejoined Ned, and along the dusty track they jogged. The parson’s part in the dialogue was chiefly remonstrative as to the necessity of Ned’s variegated adjectives. And he had frequently to assure the bushman that it would be useless for him to search in his clerical pockets for tobacco, as he didn’t smoke.

  At the Horse Shoe Bend they overtook hairy Paddy Woods of eighteen withering summers. Paddy was punching and blaspheming a nine-mile day out of his bullocks. These were straining their load along with heads bent close to the dust-padded track, silent, for all the whip-weals, but for a cough to free their mouths and nostrils from dust. Old Rosey, an inveterate yarner, pulled up abruptly; but Paddy, who had his day’s work cut out to a minute, gave a voiceless sidelong nod in recognition of the parson’s greeting, and went on driving his team. Probably his share of the conversation, mainly catechismal, would have been yea-and-nay nods, but for catching Ned’s eye when the parson asked if he were married. Paddy struck an attitude of aged responsibility, and, tipping Ned an intelligent wink, made a pretence of searching through a dusty past, and replied that he thought he was. The parson, giving him the benefit of the doubt, inquired if there were any children for baptism. Paddy, still with an eye on Ned, reckoned that the number of his offspring was uncertain, but promised that as soon as he delivered his load of wool he would have a day’s “musterin’ an’ draftin’ an’ countin’ an’ ear-markin’” and send him the returns. Ned’s loud laugh and “Good old Paddy” had not the effect on its young-old recipient’s well-filled tobacco pouch that he had hoped. The disgusted parson was trying to urge Rosey onward, but Rosey refused to leave her pleasant company till Ned brought his switch across her back.