Best Australian Short Stories (17 page)

Jacob got to the creek at the bottom of the orchard. Here the creek was shallow, gurgling between big stepping-stones. He crossed, and followed a slanting, deep cattle-track up the high bank on the other side. And now the world stretched before him, as wide and trackless as the night. There was only one spot in the immensity that he really knew—the prison he was leaving. He looked back. Through the she-oaks he could see the house clear in the moonlight. Home! He couldn’t leave without feeling the wrench. But she shouldn’t have spoken like that in front of the pig-buyer. She’d be sorry now—now that it was too late. That was a comforting thought. Still, Jacob wasn’t too sure that she would be sorry.

He turned towards the thin forest of grey-gum and yellow-box. A mile away was Herman’s place. Herman was his brother-in-law, and owned the big vineyard and cellar. Best of good fellows was Herman. He would go to Herman’s first of all for advice and consolation and money. Herman would give all these and would know what was best to do. In any case, one couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Herman.

There was a light in the big kitchen at Herman’s. Jacob was not so confident now. What about Katherine, Herman’s wife? She was Elizabeth’s sister, and almost as much to be feared. He stepped as lightly as he could on to the wide, flagged veranda, and listened. There was not a sound. He knocked on the door, and Herman, after a short interval, opened it. Herman was delighted to see Jacob. “Just thinking of you, Jacob, just thinking of you.” Herman was always just thinking of anyone who called unexpectedly. The late hour, the knapsack, and Jacob’s agitation all told their story. In his simplicity, Herman read the right conclusion. He said questioningly, “Elizabeth?”

Jacob felt just a little resentful that Herman should understand so readily, but it was a momentary feeling. He looked round in timid inquiry. Herman understood again.

“Gone!” he said very cheerfully. “Gone for a couple of days to Rocky Crossing—out to Phil’s place.”

That was good news. Herman was alone. His younger boys were not likely to be about when Katherine was away.

There was a bright fire of box-logs in the wide fireplace and an air of homely comfort in the big room. The very cheer of it undid Jacob. He broke down rather helplessly. He had not meant to do that. His shoulders shook badly. “Herman, I wanted to tell…I am going to…” Herman was a true philosopher—he could bear the misfortunes of others with commendable fortitude.

“Things
could
be much worse,” he declared, and, “certainly, something would have to be done. But—wait!” He hurried out, and returned with a very smudgy-looking bottle of his special sherry — dry and full-bodied. He set two tumblers on the table—this wasn’t a time for thin-stemmed genteel glasses. Then he brought in a box-log, part of a fair-sized tree, and heaved it with a grunt onto the fire. Streams of sparks flew up the chimney in happy helter-skelter.

Herman nearly filled the tumblers, and they drank. It was great wine. The uncertain flames of the fire danced through it, and the light and cheer of other days, and hazily remembered summers, came to life again in its generous warmth.

They drank again.

Jacob commenced his tale. The edge of grievance had dulled somewhat, but he started with the pig-buyer. No doubt that was the wrong end to start, but Herman understood perfectly that a story of this kind could start anywhere. Jacob finished with the declaration that he was not going back.

Herman prodded the fire with an old auger, and got another smudgy bottle.

On the natural desire to escape from Elizabeth he said he desired to make no comment. “She is my Katherine’s sister. Yes, she is my Katherine’s sister.” There could be no dispute on this score, but Herman had a trick of deliberating in such repetition. “They are sisters, Jacob.” Herman kicked a glowing log severely to put it in its place.

But there was the scandal! Herman considered that this would be enormous. Yes, simply enormous. It would be wife-desertion. Herman did not distinguish too clearly between desertion and escape. And then there was the question of where to go.

“Where
can
you go, Jacob? Nowhere! And what
can
you do when you get there? Nothing at all!”

Herman went over this half a dozen times, and Jacob, confounded by the logic of it, just kept silent.

“Then, Jacob, there is the money. What money have you?” Jacob shook his head, and his shoulders lifted ever so slightly. Herman saw the gesture and was deeply touched. He filled the glasses.

He would lend the money—if he could. But he couldn’t. Katherine was a very careful woman. Very careful. He’d have nothing at all now if it weren’t for her. They had a joint account but it was difficult to operate on it. Very. Katherine was careful all right. Herman prodded the fire with unnecessary vigour. Yes Katherine was careful. A great manager…

They drank again. But Katherine was a wonderful little woman just the same. True, she had “her ways”, and she had “her mind.” But she was wonderful. By easy stages, all wives were “wonderful little women”. That is, if you knew how to manage them. Herman knew; yes, he knew. By the end of the second bottle Katherine was superlatively wonderful. Herman drifted back—right back to courtship days when Katherine was a maid at McLeod’s big station house. Elizabeth was “in service” there, too. Did Jacob remember his first shy meeting with Elizabeth on the bank of the creek ? Just below the woolshed?

Jacob remembered. It was yesterday. No, it was today. Now. Herman got a third smudgy bottle.

Then it was further back still—an adventurous world before “wonderful little women” came to bless it. McNiven’s big cattle run on the Lachlan! Cattle, cattle, cattle! Herman and Jacob were stockmen together again on McNiven’s. Such stockmen! Such horsemen! They mustered every big wild mob over again. They mastered every outlaw. They built every strong stockyard. It was a great life.

The third bottle was empty. The fire had died down to dull blinkings through the ashes. The night was late, but the world had grown young again. Jacob looked out into the clear, frosty night, and said it was time he was going. The moon was slanting down towards the western ridges. Herman put on his overcoat and said he would see Jacob to the creek. He carried Jacob’s knapsack.

Not too steadily, and arm in arm, they threaded a way through the big vineyard and on to the forest of grey-gum and yellow-box. They sang, softly though, again and again, the haunting strains of “Strasburg”. Something earlier still than McNiven’s big run. Much earlier than “wonderful little women”.

Herman led Jacob right back to the creek. Jacob was glad to be home again. He sneaked blunderingly through the orchard, and Sailor came down and gave him silent and noncommittal inspection. Then Sailor went back to his corn-sack. Jacob went to his little room on the veranda end and got into bed. His bid for freedom left no ripple on the surface.

A month later Herman seemed to have lost his power to manage careful and wonderful little women. He made his escape, and came to Jacob for advice and consolation and money. And Jacob, in his gentle way, led Herman home.

A FEW hundred acres! We’d have sheep and a windmill—especially a windmill: it stamps a place. Father got a sheet of drawing paper and measured off our acres with a footrule, then with strokes of the pen fenced it. Next he inspected the paper for a spot to build on Choosing a site on which to build a house requires much forethought. “Must have the right outlook.” When we’d strolled over the paper and finally chosen the exact location, he got a set-square, pencil and rule, and erected the house. It had a wide veranda round three sides of it like a squatter’s, so that he could sit and watch his burgeoning property; sheep turning out wool and mutton, the grass putting on condition, and the sun or the rain hard at it, according to which shift they were on.

Afterwards I got the pen and, with a family of fat, prosperous- looking dots, stocked the place with sheep. It was a great feeling to jump suddenly from our very small roadside cottage to a squatter-like home with acres. I was proud of the new home with the long row of big pine-trees that my father had planted with a row of crosses. People would say, “See those big pines; that’s where they live.” He next made a road from the front fence to the house, and then with a few deft strokes of the pen fiut up a most impressive front gate so that people could say, “Go in by the big front gate, and drive on until you come to the homestead.”

My father addressed most of his remarks concerning our new place to me and not to my mother. We would sit of a night going into details, my mother saying nothing, while she patched the children’s clothes or fought valiantly with a darning needle to conquer the holes in Father’s worn-out socks. From sixteen to hundreds of acres was a big rise in life, and we soon forgot our old home. I could almost hear the windmill clanking. Now that Father was a station-owner, he, of course; looked down on gold-mining. He’d be a miner no more, he said; he’d finance the venture some other way. With this backsliding on his old self the two big red books on metallurgy (six instalments behind) that had dominated our mantelpiece were evacuated to a little shelf in a corner. In their place was a new volume on sheep-raising, the book, standing up, title showing, proclaiming to the world that Father was a sheep-man.

Then one night Father shoved the lambing season on and our flock increased. The fat, round dots on the paper lambed in the comfort of our room, without loss. No crows perched on the rafters overhead; there were no prowling foxes under the table, or wild dogs skulking behind the sofa. Next night we sheared, too, without having the expense of feeding our champion shearers like fighting cocks.

We were getting on well when Father came across an article in a paper in which it said that sheep up north were dying for want of feed, and that squatters were facing ruin. “Most discouraging,” he said. “A most depressing article.” Then he leaned back and looked into space. “You know, this sheep business has its drawbacks; it’s not all beer and skittles. In fact, I think it might be a good idea if I went in for something not quite so risky.”

That was the end of the station. I rolled it up and shoved it away on the back shelf—deserted. Mother said it was too bad Father having to walk off the property like that; and just as we were all getting settled, too. But he took no notice. He’d go in for something smaller; an orchard—just enough land to keep us comfortably, without ostentation. This time we’d have cows, poultry, and pigs as well, and, as if to buck us up after our recent loss, he promised us poultry on the table, tons of fresh eggs and cream and gallons of milk for the children. “Just think how they’ll thrive! And we’ll have a regular income—the orchard itself will see to that.” When my mother asked him how he was going to find such a haven of milk and honey he said (making a note of bees, too, and their output) that there were lots of small properties, places with a good house, orchard planted, land fenced and cleared —no untamed selection in fiercely-timbered bush—waiting to be worked scientifically. And it would be easier to finance the smaller concern. The loss of the big pines was a blow to me, but Father’s picture of an orchard exploding with blossom and then fruit softened the loss.

As an orchardist he was an even greater success than he had been as a sheep-man; for that same night—when he gave up the station—he pruned, sprayed, admired the blossom, and picked the fruit. You could almost eat the luscious fruit off our table and see the rosy glow of health coming to our cheeks. And, with Father’s promised glut of good things for the table, the children must have been putting on weight in anticipation. Before going to bed that night he had disposed of his crop and got his cheque, and all without one ha’p’orth of worry.

Then one day, having to go to the town about a small, welcome job (putting up some shelves for a shopkeeper), Father said as we drew flush with a land-agent’s office, “Shakespeare’s right. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” And letting himself go with his tide he flowed in the agent’s door, saying as he went, “No harm in making a few inquiries, is there—even if we haven’t the money yet—so long as I don’t sign anything?”

I hung around the entrance door listening, and when I heard him tell them that he was looking for a property to buy, and— out to make a good impression, as usual—that it was to be a “cash transaction”, I thought he was certainly taking things at the flood. I saw him instantly swirled away from the counter like a twig in a swollen stream and carried ruthlessly on and into the inner sanctum, where the door slammed behind him.

After I’d waited a long time outside he ebbed out looking swamped, with a big man pumping him up and down in a parting, very friendly handshake.

“Forceful fellow,” he said, joining me. “A gentleman, though; and he treated me as one, too. Wanted me to inspect a place today, but I told him I had some important business to do at the bank.”

“Bank!” I said.

“Yes,” he said, seeing my look. “Might as well put a bold front on it—you never know what might turn up.” Then he looked helplessly at me. “He made me promise to call back and see him on Monday, though, at twelve sharp, to—er—view a place. But I can’t very well go as far as that, can I? Unless—”, and he looked up longingly at the heavens. Nearing home he said, “I had to give him my address, of course, and when I—er—don’t turn up on Monday, and he writes to me, give me the letter on the quiet; I don’t want Mother to know—not yet.”