Joe Wilson and His Mates [78]
to me than to any other of the droving party.
There was a something of sympathy between us -- I can't explain what it was.
It seemed as though it were an understood thing between us
that we understood each other. He sometimes said things to me
which would have needed a deal of explanation -- so I thought --
had he said them to any other of the party. He'd often, after brooding
a long while, start a sentence, and break off with `You know, Jack.'
And somehow I understood, without being able to explain why.
We had never met before I engaged with him for this trip.
His men respected him, but he was not a popular boss: he was too gloomy,
and never drank a glass nor `shouted' on the trip: he was reckoned
a `mean boss', and rather a nigger-driver.
He was full of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the English-Australian poet
who shot himself, and so was I. I lost an old copy of Gordon's poems
on the route, and the Boss overheard me inquiring about it; later on
he asked me if I liked Gordon. We got to it rather sheepishly at first,
but by-and-by we'd quote Gordon freely in turn when we were alone in camp.
`Those are grand lines about Burke and Wills, the explorers,
aren't they, Jack?' he'd say, after chewing his cud, or rather
the stem of his briar, for a long while without a word.
(He had his pipe in his mouth as often as any of us, but somehow I fancied
he didn't enjoy it: an empty pipe or a stick would have suited him
just as well, it seemed to me.) `Those are great lines,' he'd say --
`"In Collins Street standeth a statue tall --
A statue tall on a pillar of stone --
Telling its story to great and small
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone.
. . . . .
Weary and wasted, worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man,
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go."
That's a grand thing, Jack. How does it go? --
"With a pistol clenched in his failing hand,
And the film of death o'er his fading eyes,
He saw the sun go down on the sand,"' --
The Boss would straighten up with a sigh that might have been half a yawn --
`"And he slept and never saw it rise,"'
-- speaking with a sort of quiet force all the time. Then maybe
he'd stand with his back to the fire roasting his dusty leggings,
with his hands behind his back and looking out over the dusky plain.
`"What mattered the sand or the whit'ning chalk,
The blighted herbage or blackened log,
The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk,
Or the hot red tongue of the native dog?"
They don't matter much, do they, Jack?'
`Damned if I think they do, Boss!' I'd say.
`"The couch was rugged, those sextons rude,
But, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know
That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms' food
Where once they have gone where we all must go."'
Once he repeated the poem containing the lines --
`"Love, when we wandered here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather --
God surely loved us a little then."
Beautiful lines those, Jack.
"Then skies were fairer and shores were firmer,
And the blue sea over the white sand rolled --
Babble and prattle, and prattle and murmur' --
How does it go, Jack?' He stood up and turned his face to the light,
but not before I had a glimpse of it. I think that the saddest eyes on earth
are mostly women's eyes, but I've seen few so sad as the Boss's were
just then.
It seemed strange that he, a Bushman, preferred Gordon's sea poems
to his horsey and bushy rhymes; but so he did. I fancy his favourite poem
was that one of Gordon's with the lines --
`I would that with sleepy soft embraces
The sea would fold me, would find me rest
In the luminous depths of its secret places,
Where the wealth of God's marvels is manifest!'
He usually spoke quietly, in a tone as though death were in camp;
but after
There was a something of sympathy between us -- I can't explain what it was.
It seemed as though it were an understood thing between us
that we understood each other. He sometimes said things to me
which would have needed a deal of explanation -- so I thought --
had he said them to any other of the party. He'd often, after brooding
a long while, start a sentence, and break off with `You know, Jack.'
And somehow I understood, without being able to explain why.
We had never met before I engaged with him for this trip.
His men respected him, but he was not a popular boss: he was too gloomy,
and never drank a glass nor `shouted' on the trip: he was reckoned
a `mean boss', and rather a nigger-driver.
He was full of Adam Lindsay Gordon, the English-Australian poet
who shot himself, and so was I. I lost an old copy of Gordon's poems
on the route, and the Boss overheard me inquiring about it; later on
he asked me if I liked Gordon. We got to it rather sheepishly at first,
but by-and-by we'd quote Gordon freely in turn when we were alone in camp.
`Those are grand lines about Burke and Wills, the explorers,
aren't they, Jack?' he'd say, after chewing his cud, or rather
the stem of his briar, for a long while without a word.
(He had his pipe in his mouth as often as any of us, but somehow I fancied
he didn't enjoy it: an empty pipe or a stick would have suited him
just as well, it seemed to me.) `Those are great lines,' he'd say --
`"In Collins Street standeth a statue tall --
A statue tall on a pillar of stone --
Telling its story to great and small
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste lone.
. . . . .
Weary and wasted, worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man,
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go."
That's a grand thing, Jack. How does it go? --
"With a pistol clenched in his failing hand,
And the film of death o'er his fading eyes,
He saw the sun go down on the sand,"' --
The Boss would straighten up with a sigh that might have been half a yawn --
`"And he slept and never saw it rise,"'
-- speaking with a sort of quiet force all the time. Then maybe
he'd stand with his back to the fire roasting his dusty leggings,
with his hands behind his back and looking out over the dusky plain.
`"What mattered the sand or the whit'ning chalk,
The blighted herbage or blackened log,
The crooked beak of the eagle-hawk,
Or the hot red tongue of the native dog?"
They don't matter much, do they, Jack?'
`Damned if I think they do, Boss!' I'd say.
`"The couch was rugged, those sextons rude,
But, in spite of a leaden shroud, we know
That the bravest and fairest are earth-worms' food
Where once they have gone where we all must go."'
Once he repeated the poem containing the lines --
`"Love, when we wandered here together,
Hand in hand through the sparkling weather --
God surely loved us a little then."
Beautiful lines those, Jack.
"Then skies were fairer and shores were firmer,
And the blue sea over the white sand rolled --
Babble and prattle, and prattle and murmur' --
How does it go, Jack?' He stood up and turned his face to the light,
but not before I had a glimpse of it. I think that the saddest eyes on earth
are mostly women's eyes, but I've seen few so sad as the Boss's were
just then.
It seemed strange that he, a Bushman, preferred Gordon's sea poems
to his horsey and bushy rhymes; but so he did. I fancy his favourite poem
was that one of Gordon's with the lines --
`I would that with sleepy soft embraces
The sea would fold me, would find me rest
In the luminous depths of its secret places,
Where the wealth of God's marvels is manifest!'
He usually spoke quietly, in a tone as though death were in camp;
but after