The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories

by Henry Lawson

  ‘And could Tom fight?’

  ‘Yes. Tom could fight.’

  ‘Did you travel long with him after that!’

  ‘Ten years.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘Dead. – Give us the matches.’

  OUR PIPES

  THE moon rose away out on the edge of a smoky plain, seen through a sort of tunnel or arch in the fringe of mulga behind which we were camped – Jack Mitchell and I. The ‘timber’ proper was just behind us, very thick and very dark. The moon looked like a big new copper boiler set on edge on the horizon of the plain, with the top turned towards us and a lot of old rags and straw burning inside.

  We had tramped twenty-five miles on a dry stretch on a hot day – swagmen know what that means. We reached the water about two hours ‘after dark’ – swagmen know what that means. We didn’t sit down at once and rest – we hadn’t rested for the last ten miles. We knew that if we sat down we wouldn’t want to get up again in a hurry – that, if we did, our leg-sinews, especially those of our calves, would ‘draw’ like redhot wires. You see, we hadn’t been long on the track this time – it was only our third day out. Swagmen will understand.

  We got the billy boiled first, and some leaves laid down for our beds and the swags rolled out. We thanked the Lord that we had some cooked meat and a few johnny-cakes left, for we didn’t feel equal to cooking. We put the billy of tea and our tucker-bags between the heads of our beds, and the pipes and tobacco in the crown of an old hat, where we could reach them without having to get up. Then we lay down on our stomachs and had a feed. We didn’t eat much – we were too tired for that – but we drank a lot of tea. We gave our calves time to tone down a bit; then we lit up and began to answer each other. It got to be pretty comfortable, so long as we kept those unfortunate legs of ours straight, and didn’t move round much.

  We cursed society because we weren’t rich men, and then we felt better and conversation drifted lazily round various subjects and ended in that of smoking.

  ‘How I came to start smoking?’ said Mitchell. ‘Let’s see.’ He reflected. ‘I started smoking first when I was about fourteen or fifteen. I smoked some sort of weed – I forget the name of it – but it wasn’t tobacco; and then I smoked cigarettes – not the ones we get now, for those cost a penny each. Then I reckoned that, if I could smoke those, I could smoke a pipe.’

  He reflected.

  ‘We lived in Sydney then – Surry Hills. Those were different times; the place was nearly all sand. The old folks were alive then, and we were all at home, except Tom.’

  He reflected.

  ‘Ah, well!… Well, one evening I was playing marbles out in front of our house when a chap we knew gave me his pipe to mind while he went into a church-meeting. The little church was opposite – a ‘chapel’ they called it.’

  He reflected.

  ‘The pipe was alight. It was a clay pipe and nigger-head tobacco. Mother was at work out in the kitchen at the back, washing up the tea-things, and, when I went in, she said; ‘You’ve been smoking!’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t deny it – I was too sick to do so, or care much, anyway.’

  ‘ “Give me that pipe!” she said.

  ‘I said I hadn’t got it.

  ‘ “Give – me – that – pipe!” she said.

  ‘I said I hadn’t got it.

  ‘ “Where is it?” she said.

  ‘ “Jim Brown’s got it,” I said, “it’s his.”

  ‘ “Then I’ll give it to Jim Brown,” she said; and she did; though it wasn’t Jim’s fault, for he only gave it to me to mind. I didn’t smoke the pipe so much because I wanted to smoke a pipe just then, as because I had such a great admiration for Jim.’

  Mitchell reflected, and took a look at the moon. It had risen clear and had got small and cold and pure-looking, and had floated away back out amongst the stars.

  ‘I felt better towards morning, but it didn’t cure me – being sick and nearly dead all night, I mean. I got a clay pipe and tobacco, and the old lady found it and put it in the stove. Then I got another pipe and tobacco, and she laid for it, and found it out at last; but she didn’t put the tobacco in the stove this time – she’d got experience. I don’t know what she did with it. I tried to find it, but couldn’t. I fancy the old man got hold of it, for I saw him with a plug that looked very much like mine.’

  He reflected.

  ‘But I wouldn’t be done. I got a cherry pipe. I thought it wouldn’t be so easy to break if she found it. I used to plant the bowl in one place and the stem in another because I reckoned that if she found one she mightn’t find the other. It doesn’t look much of an idea now, but it seemed like an inspiration then. Kids get rum ideas.’

  He reflected.

  ‘Well, one day I was having a smoke out at the back, when I heard her coming, and I pulled out the stem in a hurry and put the bowl behind the water-butt and the stem under the house. Mother was coming round for a dipper of water. I got out of her way quick, for I hadn’t time to look innocent; but the bowl of the pipe was hot and she got a whiff of it. She went sniffing round, first on one side of the cask and then on the other, until she got on the scent and followed it up and found the bowl. Then I had only the stem left. She looked for that, but she couldn’t scent it. But I couldn’t get much comfort out of that. Have you got the matches?

  ‘Then I gave it best for a time and smoked cigars. They were the safest and most satisfactory under the circumstances, but they cost me two shillings a week, and I couldn’t stand it, so I started a pipe again and then mother gave in at last. God bless her, and God forgive me, and us all – we deserve it. She’s been at rest these seventeen long years.’

  Mitchell reflected.

  ‘And what did your old man do when he found out that you were smoking?’ I asked.

  ‘The old man?’

  He reflected.

  ‘Well, he seemed to brighten up at first. You see, he was sort of pensioned off by mother and she kept him pretty well inside his income … Well, he seemed to sort of brighten up – liven up – when he found out that I was smoking.’

  ‘Did he? So did my old man, and he livened me up, too. But what did your old man do – what did he say?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mitchell, very slowly, ‘about the first thing he did was to ask me for a fill.’

  He reflected.

  ‘Ah! many a solemn, thoughtful old smoke we had together on the quiet – the old man and me.’

  He reflected.

  ‘Is your old man dead, Mitchell?’ I asked softly.

  ‘Long ago – these twelve years,’ said Mitchell.

  BILL, THE VENTRILOQUIAL ROOSTER

  ‘WHEN we were up-country on the selection, we had a rooster at our place, named Bill,’ said Mitchell; ‘a big mongrel of no particular breed, though the old lady said he was a “brammer” – and many an argument she had with the old man about it too; she was just as stubborn and obstinate in her opinion as the governor was in his. But, anyway, we called him Bill, and didn’t take any particular notice of him till a cousin of some of us came from Sydney on a visit to the country, and stayed at our place because it was cheaper than stopping at a pub. Well, somehow this chap got interested in Bill, and studied him for two or three days, and at last he says:

  ‘ “Why, that rooster’s a ventriloquist!”

  ‘ “A what?”

  ‘ “A ventriloquist!”

  ‘ “Go along with yer!”

  ‘ “But he is. I’ve heard of cases like this before; but this is the first I’ve come across. Bill’s a ventriloquist right enough.”

  ‘Then we remembered that there wasn’t another rooster within five miles – our only neighbour, an Irishman named Page, didn’t have one at the time – and we’d often heard another cock crow, but didn’t think to take any notice of it. We watched Bill, and sure enough he was a ventriloquist. The “ka-cocka” would come all right, but the “co-ka-koo-oi-oo” seemed to come from a distance. And sometimes the
whole crow would go wrong, and come back like an echo that had been lost for a year. Bill would stand on tiptoe, and hold his elbows out, and curve his neck, and go two or three times as if he was swallowing nest-eggs, and nearly break his neck and burst his gizzard; and then there’d be no sound at all where he was – only a cock crowing in the distance.

  ‘And pretty soon we could see that Bill was in great trouble about it himself. You see, he didn’t know it was himself – thought it was another rooster challenging him, and he wanted badly to find that other bird. He would get up on the wood-heap, and crow and listen – crow and listen again – crow and listen, and then he’d go up to the top of the paddock, and get up on the stack, and crow and listen there. Then down to the other end of the paddock, and get up on a mullock-heap, and crow and listen there. Then across to the other side and up on a log among the saplings, and crow ’n’ listen some more. He searched all over the place for that other rooster, but of course, couldn’t find him. Sometimes he’d be out all day crowing and listening all over the country, and then come home dead tired, and rest and cool off in a hole that the hens had scratched for him in a damp place under the water-cask sledge.

  ‘Well, one day Page brought home a big white rooster, and when he let it go it climbed up on Page’s stack and crowed, to see if there was any more roosters round there. Bill had come home tired; it was a hot day, and he’d rooted out the hens, and was having a spell-oh under the cask when the white rooster crowed. Bill didn’t lose any time getting out and on to the wood-heap, and then he waited till he heard the crow again; then he crowed, and the other rooster crowed again, and they crowed at each other for three days, and called each other all the wretches they could lay their tongues to, and after that they implored each other to come out and be made into chicken soup and feather pillows. But neither’d come. You see, there were three crows – there was Bill’s crow, and the ventriloquist crow, and the white rooster’s crow – and each rooster thought that there was two roosters in the opposition camp, and that he mightn’t get fair play, and, consequently, both were afraid to put up their hands.

  ‘But at last Bill couldn’t stand it any longer. He made up his mind to go and have it out, even if there was a whole agricultural show of prize and honourable-mention fighting-cocks in Page’s yard. He got down from the wood-heap and started off across the ploughed field, his head down, his elbows out, and his thick awkward legs prodding away at the furrows behind for all they were worth.

  ‘I wanted to go down badly and see the fight, and barrack for Bill. But I daren’t, because I’d been coming up the road late the night before with my brother Joe, and there was about three panels of turkeys roosting along on the top rail of Page’s front fence; and we brushed ’em with a bough, and they got up such a blessed gobbling fuss about it that Page came out in his shirt and saw us running away; and I knew he was laying for us with a bullock-whip. Besides, there was friction between the two families on account of a thorough-bred bull that Page borrowed and wouldn’t lend to us, and that got into our paddock on account of me mending a panel in the party fence, and carelessly leaving the top rail down after sundown while our cows was moving round there in the saplings.

  ‘So there was too much friction for me to go down, but I climbed a tree as near the fence as I could and watched. Bill reckoned he’d found that rooster at last. The white rooster wouldn’t come down from the stack, so Bill went up to him, and they fought there till they tumbled down the other side, and I couldn’t see any more. Wasn’t I wild? I’d have given my dog to have seen the rest of the fight. I went down to the far side of Page’s fence and climbed a tree there, but, of course I couldn’t see anything, so I came home the back way. Just as I got home Page came round to the front and sung out, “Insoid there!” And me and Jim went under the house like snakes and looked out round a pile. But Page was all right – he had a broad grin on his face, and Bill safe under his arm. He put Bill down on the ground very carefully, and says he to the old folks:

  ‘ “Yer rooster knocked the stuffin’ out of my rooster, but I bear no malice. ’Twas a grand foight.”

  ‘And then the old man and Page had a yarn, and got pretty friendly after that. And Bill didn’t seem to bother about any more ventriloquism; but the white rooster spent a lot of time looking for that other rooster. Perhaps he thought he’d have better luck with him. But Page was on the look-out all the time to get a rooster that would lick ours. He did nothing else for a month but ride round and inquire about roosters; and at last he borrowed a game-bird in town, left five pounds deposit on him, and brought him home. And Page and the old man agreed to have a match – about the only thing they’d agreed about for five years. And they fixed it up for a Sunday when the old lady and the girls and kids were going on a visit to some relations, about fifteen miles away – to stop all night. The guv’nor made me go with them on horseback; but I knew what was up, and so my pony went lame about a mile along the road, and I had to come back and turn him out in the top paddock, and hide the saddle and bridle in a hollow log, and sneak home and climb up on the roof of the shed. It was an awful hot day, and I had to keep climbing backward and forward over the ridge-pole all the morning to keep out of sight of the old man, for he was moving about a good deal.

  ‘Well, after dinner, the fellows from round about began to ride in and hang up their horses round the place till it looked as if there was going to be a funeral. Some of the chaps saw me, of course, but I tipped them the wink, and they gave me the office whenever the old man happened around.

  ‘Well, Page came along with his game-rooster. Its name was Jim. It wasn’t much to look at, and it seemed a good deal smaller and weaker than Bill. Some of the chaps were disgusted, and said it wasn’t a game-rooster at all; Bill’d settle it in one lick, and they wouldn’t have any fun.

  ‘Well, they brought the game one out and put him down near the wood-heap, and routed Bill out from under his cask. He got interested at once. He looked at Jim, and got up on the wood-heap and crowed and looked at Jim again. He reckoned this at last was the fowl that had been humbugging him all along. Presently his trouble caught him, and then he’d crow and take a squint at the game ’un, and crow again, and have another squint at gamey, and try to crow and keep his eye on the game-rooster at the same time. But Jim never committed himself, until at last he happened to gape just after Bill’s whole crow went wrong, and Bill spotted him. He reckoned he’d caught him this time, and he got down off that wood-heap and went for the foe. But Jim ran away – and Bill ran after him.

  ‘Round and round the wood-heap they went, and round the shed, and round the house and under it, and back again, and round the wood-heap and over it and round the other way, and kept it up for close on an hour. Bill’s bill was just within an inch or so of the game-rooster’s tail feathers most of the time, but he couldn’t get any nearer, do how he liked. And all the time the fellers kep chyackin’ Page and singing out, “What price yer game un, Page! Go it, Bill! Go it, old cock!” and all that sort of thing. Well, the game-rooster went as if it was a go-as-you-please, and he didn’t care if it lasted a year. He didn’t seem to take any interest in the business, but Bill got excited, and by and by he got mad. He held his head lower and lower and his wings further and further out from his sides, and prodded away harder and harder at the ground behind, but it wasn’t any use. Jim seemed to keep ahead without trying. They stuck to the wood-heap towards the last. They went round first one way for a while, and then the other for a change, and now and then they’d go over the top to break the monotony; and the chaps got more interested in the race than they would have been in the fight – and bet on it, too. But Bill was handicapped with his weight. He was done up at last; he slowed down till he couldn’t waddle, and then, when he was thoroughly knocked up, that game-rooster turned on him, and gave him the father of a hiding.

  ‘And my father caught me when I’d got down in the excitement, and wasn’t thinking, and he gave me the step-father of a hiding. But he had a lively t
ime with the old lady afterwards, over the cock-fight.

  ‘Bill was so disgusted with himself that he went under the cask and died.’

  IV

  THE GEOLOGICAL SPIELER

  THE IRON-BARK CHIP

  THE LOADED DOG

  The Geological Spieler

  THERE’S nothing so interesting as Geology, even to common and ignorant people, especially when you have a bank or the side of a cutting, studded with fossil fish and things and oysters that were stale when Adam was fresh to illustrate by. (Remark made by Steelman, professional wanderer, to his pal and pupil, Smith.)

  THE first man that Steelman and Smith came up to on the last embankment, where they struck the new railway line, was a heavy, gloomy, labouring man with bow-yangs on and straps round his wrists. Steelman bade him the time of day and had a few words with him over the weather. The man of mullick gave it as his opinion that the fine weather wouldn’t last, and seemed to take a gloomy kind of pleasure in that reflection; he said there was more rain down yonder, pointing to the south-east, than the moon could swallow up – the moon was in its first quarter, during which time it is popularly believed in some parts of Maoriland that the south-easter is most likely to be out on the wallaby and the weather bad. Steelman regarded that quarter of the sky with an expression of gentle remonstrance mingled as it were with a sort of fatherly indulgence, agreed mildly with the labouring man, and seemed lost for a moment in a reverie from which he roused himself to inquire cautiously after the boss. There was no boss, it was a co-operative party. That chap standing over there by the dray in the end of the cutting was their spokesman – their representative: they called him Boss, but that was only his nickname in camp. Steelman expressed his thanks and moved on towards the cutting, followed respectfully by Smith.

  Steelman wore a snuff-coloured sac suit, a wide-awake hat, a pair of professional-looking spectacles, and a scientific expression; there was a clerical atmosphere about him, strengthened however by an air as of unconscious dignity and superiority, born of intellect and knowledge. He carried a black bag, which was an indispensable article in his profession in more senses than one. Smith was decently dressed in sober tweed and looked like a man of no account, who was mechanically devoted to his employer’s interests, pleasures, or whims, whatever they may have been.