Christmas Eve in a Bush Shanty. (Specially Written for the "Free Lance" Christmas Number.)

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 181, 19 December 1903, Page 32 (Supplement)

Christmas Eve in a Bush Shanty. (Specially Written for the "Free Lance" Christmas Number.)

IN the lonely little bush "pub" there wore half-a-dozen men — drifters, strays from the monotonous tracks of respectability — and they were in from, the flax gully, the timber ridge, or the mill, to drown a few pounds and a lot of cares in drink. What else was there to do? Billy Hart was the leading spuit, and he had decided to haive "a ship-shape Christmas." To thait end ho had decorated the cranky little shanty with the nikau palm and the trailing clematis until, as Dirty Beard said, it "looked like a bloomin' candle-box in a, fern gully." The moi ning of Christmcus Eva sw ept in full and red and clear — such a morning a& you who are condemned to the cities know nothing of. The sun threw its softness over bush-covered hill and grass and scrub-dotted flat, and held them with the warmth of a woman. Little winds that had hidden themselves through the black night and the ashengrey dawn ran hurriedly through the trees and the reeds along the creek, bidding them wako and give their salutations to the sun, who is the great God. All the morning the men were busy laying out a course for a horse-race that was to take place in the afternoon in the paddock next the pub. There were only two "prads" m the place, and their pedigree isn't going to be stated here. After dinner they were led out one with a yellow ribbon on its forelock and the other with a red handkerchief dangling from its taxi. Dirty Beard was to ride the latter, but somehow the animal didn't take kindly to the course. The first time he was cantered round he objected to the home turn, and flew straight ahead for a wire fence. Arriving there, he stopped as suddenly as if he had had a Westrnghouse brake applied to him. Dirty Beard dug his nose into the ground ten yards away, and his cursing was a noem. Twice the same thing happened. "By the crimson blazes," yelled Duty Beard, "I'll ride him round, or break his neck'" He poured spluttering oaths into the air. "Catch the swine," he said; "I'll ride round the moon. But the horse had had enough , he galloped across the paddock, through a slip-rail opening, and away towards the timber, with the red handkerchief floating behind him like a flag of defiance. That night all hands) gathered in the tap-room, drank alleged whisky, and listened to a quiet-looking man, who was olaying the bush piano. Suddenly he commenc d to sing, in a low, wailing voice — " For each man kills the thing he lo\es, By each let this be heard. Rome do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattenng woid. The eowjiid does it with a kiss. The biave man with a swoid " He hummed the air again, singing the last tw o lines — " For eacn man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die " Rising from the piano, he walked out of the door without a word. "Snakes?" asked Dirty Beard. "No," replied Billy, "woman." "Same thing, accordin' to you, ain't it p " asked Dirty Beard. Theie was silence for a moment, while blue wreaths of tobacoo smoke curled reflectively to the dirty ceiling. A tired-looking dog crawled towards the door, and a m~n, who had been unable to find anything to say for over an hour snatched an opportunity that might not occur for another hour. "Clear out of this," he said, and kicked the animal into the passage. "The whole thing's a rum go," said Billy, who had been studying the smoke-wreaths as they curled away from his lips. "Man is the proud slave of w oman , w oman is the brainless captor of man. the drives him like a lunatic, upsets the whole cabdoodle m the mud, and calls the man an ass'" "So he is" asserted DvH-" Beard "Woman " continued Billy, tapping the table with the stem of his pipe, "claims equality with man , says she has as many brains — doesn't show thorn, but she could. Well, as she couldn't have less, and won't show more, she ought to be suppressed." "Mv oath'" said Dirty Beard "I'll tell you a story about a woman," said Billy. He laughed a queer sharp laugh. "What yer laughm' at p " asked the dirty-bearded one. "Laughter," said Billy, "is crvmg made easy. Come t' think of it — " "What do you want to start gassin' about women fer ? " snarled a you ng man in the corner "You lemmd me of an old geyser that hanps round Hogans, and whines all clay that everything's cone to Sheol now-a-days, and that blokes can't do nothin' properly. Coves can't fall bush, can't ride— nag, nag, nag—"

"Well," chipped in Billy, 'there's something in that, too. Coves out back seem to be gettm' too blinded respectable. Take the bullockies, fer instance, they're quite different from the old hands. I mind a blanker on the Patea-Konmi road that was a credit to the bloonwn' colony in his time. There wasn't amj bullock jnside a hide that he couldn't shift with his tongue, aaid when he was going at full blast the tears would trickle down the faces of his team, and they'd pull like old Jencho. They pulled the blessed pole out once, and went two miles befoie the> could be stopped. I promise yer, w hen ole Bill Antkein addressed his constituents something had to go. He could curse the bark off of a tree, could William'" The dirty bearded man said it reminded him of a curious cove that. — " "The strange thing about it," continued. Billy, heedless of the interruption "was that ole Bill went 'queer' light in his piime. He got dull, w ent off his tucker. Ke told a -am about his off leader rebuking him same as the jackass did to one of them coves that used ter knock about Jeiusalem m early times, and he said he would ha.ye to pilgrim to the Holy Land. One day he sold up his stags, and that was the last I saw of him for a couple of years." "Ever hear of him again?" asked the man who had kicked the dog. "He skedaddled to Palestine, onght," said Billy, "but he came back. He told mo after w ai ds that when he got there he was disappointed, an' he didn't

speak too respectful of the Scripture. The place, he said, was full of greasy Arab coves and Dutchmen ; his cash petered out, and he had to take to graft. He was a reflective man, was BjIJ, and he reckons he would have made money if he could have got a team of asses and a contract ter haul firewood from Mount Lebanon to Lake Galilee, raft it across, an' then on to Jerusalem, but he had to give the idea up." "Why?" asked the young man. "Well, y' see, he couldn't get the timber down, fer them Jew coves don't know much about bushwhacking. He n ishes he had had old Totara Joe with him — Joed make short work of them cedars " "They tell me them cedars is terrible tough!" said the young man. "Totara Joe would a' cut 'em down with a bloomin' scythe," answered Billy. "Give 'im an American axe, and he'd chop up an earthquake." "How did <}ld Bill get homo?" asked Duty Beard. "Blamed if I know," replied Billy; 'I ain't an inquisitive cove, and I never axt him." The men, heavy with the drink and the fumes, had gradually and crookedly taken themselves to bed. until only Billy Hart, the dirty bearded man and tho young man m the corner were left. The lastnamed nas asleep, with his head pillowed on the table. The little, old-fashioned clock on the mantlepiece struck midnight — each stroke so slowly dragged out that one felt the little clock had a personal giudge against Time. "It's Chus'mas Day'" said Dirty Beard ; "let's have another swipe." "Here's to me an' you'" said Billy, hftinq his glass. "An' the cove in the corner," said Dirty Beard.