Читать книгу: «Landlopers»

John Le Gay Brereton

Landlopers

Published by Good Press, 2022

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4066338071682

Table of Contents

Cover

Titlepage

A Foreword.

LANDLOPERS.

A Foreword.

Table of Contents

If it be fair to take one's impressions from English books and papers, I am surely justified in supposing that the average British "tramp" is a despicable loafer or an abandoned ruffian. The Australian "trav'ler" is on a different footing. Ragged prowlers do not hide behind Australian barns and watch for unprotected females to insult or blue-eyed babes to kidnap. Our girls can usually look after themselves, and our infants are saleable only at starvation prices. And yet the country is full of moneyless men who "pad the hoof" from place to place, and drift backward and forward, always begging, occasionally stealing, seldom finding rest, and in some cases quite undesirous of a more settled fortune or a less precarious mode of existence. These men belong to the vast army of The Unemployed. When a poor tradesman or labourer is out of work, he must move on or starve on the spot. He therefore rolls up his "bluey" and starts off, billy in hand, "on the wallaby track" in search of a job. But countless others are engaged in the same quest, and jobs are scarce. Some wanderers are eventually enthralled by the irresistible charm of nomadic idleness, and are unable to return to a definite and cabined way of life.

In the beginning of the shearing season, the main current sets westward, and the wayfarers wander from shed to shed on the inland stations. When shearing-time is over, the tide sets back towards the cities. Travelling in the "out back" country is full of hardship—"and there is no health in it," as a vagabond rouseabout once told me. In the dry season, hardly a drop of water is to be had: in the wet season, the whole country is a puddle of mud of various consistency. Travelling in the coastal districts is distinctly pleasant, if the weather be moderately fine. Personally, I have never tramped on the western side of the Blue Mountains.

The trav'ler usually gets his food by the system which he honours with the title of "bummin'"—in other words, he begs it. He levies his tax upon every homestead, and everywhere he meets with helping hands. Of course, many graceless scamps take advantage of this state of affairs and roam about the country for a living. They are professional trav'lers. They refuse to work, because for them labour is an unnecessary trouble. They camp on the outskirts of a township until they have thoroughly bummed it, and then they set out for pastures new.

When I am out of employment in the summer time, I become a trav'ler. My tactics depend upon the condition of my finances. Sometimes I pay my way; sometimes I am a bummer. Why I love the rough and ready life of comparative hardship, and what comfort I find in the manifold discomfort of "the track," are questions which the reader may answer for himself when he has come to the end of Knight Wilford's narrative.

It must be obvious to the most casual reader—even to the counter-lunch man, who takes his literature in snacks at the bookstalls—that much of the story is founded upon the author's own experiences. Therefore I think well to explain that "The Boy" is not a portrait of any of my friends, though in depicting him I have found it convenient to borrow a few accidental details (of costume, employment and so forth) from one who travelled with me a few years ago. But essentially "The Boy" is himself alone.

J. LE GAY BRERETON

LANDLOPERS.

Table of Contents

Thursday, 12th March.

Still at home: still at work. From the window where I sit, I can see some of the roofs and spires of the city, above which hangs the dark morning-cloud of smoke. By road, it is seven miles to Sydney—seven dreary, dusty miles. Half a mile to the southward of this house is the village of Gladesville on the hills above that portion of the Harbour which is mis-named the Parramatta River. And here I sit, pent in by four walls and faced by an irregular array of books and manuscripts. The hideous sameness of things! The misery of clock-work regularity! This limited existence galls me; and the enforced study of Old English poetry increases my dissatisfaction. Freedom and action nerve every line of Anglo-Saxon verse. To start reading the ancient songs is to plunge into the swirl of foaming sea-waves and to feel the battle frenzy. If I am to stay here, I must read something soothing and enervating—conservative and Tennysonian. But only one thing can bring me peace now. The old longing is upon me—the longing for the open road and its lazy labour. I want to burst these prison-walls of home and custom; to meet my mates of former days on the proper footing, and to mingle with them unrestrained and unrebuked. My fellow-thanes await me. I hear their voices and I must go. I must lie close to the living earth, encompassed by the stars. My eyes are dim with longing for the dear blue of hills and sea and sky. I am eager for a thousand natural pleasures; to dive down into cool water and gaze up through spaces of dim green or grey, or mark in clear depths the blending of tints in wave-worn pebbles and aquatic weeds; to let the branches of trees sweep across my face and body, causing indescribable thrills of love; to lie with my back against a hill and watch slow melting clouds, and see birds gliding down the wind; to sink my face in sweet-scented grass, and spread my fingers that I may feel the caress of the elastic blades; to rejoice in the smooth flow of the breeze; to stand upon the shore and feel the ceaseless pulsing of the Pacific. I am hungry for communion with these mates of mine. And then the freedom from restraint, the fetterless uncertainty of vagrant life! And the darling children by the wayside!—children who laugh shyly at the incomprehensible tramp who asks such foolish questions. He asks them merely for the sake of hearing childish tones and looking into childish eyes. The confidence of these younglings is not won until they have done the poor trav'ler a favour—filled his billy with water, perhaps. It is one of the earliest-developed traits of our nature that we love better those whom we freely serve than those from whom we receive service. These things need not be curiously enquired into. Enough for us that they are good. And the tramp can appreciate everything, and can find enjoyment even in misfortune. He is not stifled by conventional obligations. He wanders at large in a perfect atmosphere of love. He is on the common level; no social lies raise him to a pedestal or depress him in a cess-pit. He feels his fellowship with Nature. An individual, he is yet merged in the universe. He recognises his union with the Divine. He is a god. And the people whom he passes on the road see only a tramp with fringed breeches and a hat full of holes. They wonder at his half-curbed bursts of laughter, and possibly suppose he may be mad. But he is so brimming with exultant joy that he would like to clasp the hand of every man he meets, and kiss the lips of every girl...

And Marjorie? Is the breach permanent this time; or will she forgive me for the gusty violence of my love? To what end does the Life-Spirit set the blood of a man boiling on the flame of passion? I am a law-abiding subject of a Sovran who crumbles your manufactured rules as Time brings to naught the parchment they are written on. I am called a rebel, because I resist all senseless and unnatural tyranny. And Marjorie? The longest way round, as some Scriptural writer says, is the shortest way home. I shall start for your door, my own, by turning my back on it.

The bell! Gods, how I hate this deadly regularity! Curse their punctual habits! But dinner is dinner.

Friday, 13th March.

The Boy crossed my track to-day. He is eighteen years of age, but looks several years younger. By trade he is a house-painter. I asked him whether he would swear mateship and shoulder swags with me. He will.

So it is all settled, and we are to start as soon as The Boy has finished his current job. I must borrow some money. Farewell to conventionality and Anglo-Saxon!

Busted be Beowulf, blasted the aetheling. Blooming well blowed be the bloke under helm!

But whose ear can I bite for a few bob?

Sunday, 15th March.

Marjorie is still on the snow-clad heights of displeasure. She was at church this morning. I sat in the next pew. She was supernaturally decorous, and concentrated her attention upon the sermon with a Sabbath solemnity unusual in her. For my part, I tried to look like a despairing penitent. With an expression of sorrow and humiliation, I watched the flies dancing a saraband under the chandelier. But she did not once look in my direction. A holiday will do me no harm, but I'll make up lost time when I come home, for she loves me and I know it.

After lunch, I went across to chat with Arthur Seaton. We sat on the edge of the verandah and smoked.

"Seen Marjorie Traill lately?" I said, blowing rings.

"No," he grinned; "but I expect you have."

"No I haven't," I said. "I'm going away for a while, in a day or two—and you know how a fellow's time all gets taken up."

"Where the dickens are you going now?"

"Don't know. But I wish you'd write to me when I'm away."

"But if I don't know—? "

"Write to Jenolan, and if I don't go there I'll have it forwarded. Let me know about the things you think I take an interest in."

"When will you be back?"

"Don't know. But write in about a week."

"Well, by the Lord, Knight," he said with rather disrespectful admiration, "it's no wonder people say you're mad."

Half an hour later I turned at the gate after saying good-bye, and called: "Arthur By the way, if you happen to see Marjorie before you write, you may as well let me know how she's getting on."

And he nodded and winked. The nod was for me, the wink was for himself.

Monday, 16th March.

This morning I met The Boy about ten o'clock. He said he had finished the job on Saturday.

"Very well," I said, "we start to-day."

We gathered together our traps and equipped ourselves for the journey, and by eleven o'clock we were on the road. A trav'ler does not carry more weight than he can help. Bill asked whether he should bring a watch.

"To what end?"

"I don't know."

"Then leave it at home."

I am dressed in clothes which are remarkable only for their antiquity. My brown trousers have an important blue patch, and my shaggy hair protrudes through two holes in my soft felt hat. Into my pocket, along with a tooth brush and other trifles, is thrust a "Canterbury Poets" copy of Leaves of Grass. A large cotton kerchief takes the place of collar and necktie. In my swag I carry two extra flannel shirts and a few pairs of socks, with a piece of American oil-cloth measuring about six feet by four. In the "nose-bag" are small "tucker-bags" of tea, sugar, oatmeal, rice, and lentils, and a tin of mixed pepper and salt. The swag is made by rolling your pair of blankets into cylindrical shape with your extra clothes inside. This bundle is strapped at each end, and the end fastenings are connected by a "shoulder-strap," which in my case is represented by a rolled towel. The swag is slung from the right shoulder. The nose-bag containing food is bound to the upper end of the swag, and hangs in front of the body over the left shoulder. The whole load when properly adjusted is perfectly balanced and easy to carry. The Boy's get-up is similar to mine, the main difference being that his blanket is gaudy with red and blue, whereas mine is an uniform sober grey.

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road," I quoted. And Bill, knowing not The Answerer, nodded and said: "So do I."

We took the main road, and after having lunch in a ferny hollow near the village of Ermington, trudged in dusty content into Parramatta. For about an hour we strolled about the old town which Bill had never before visited, and examined various objects of interest, including the house where a murder had been committed, a dead dog, and the oak-tree against which the wife of an Australian Governor was once thrown from a buggy. A commemorative obelisk stood near the tree, and just beyond the obelisk was a standpipe. We filled our billies—for I was uncertain of the water-supply beyond—and proceeded through the Park in the general direction pursued by the railway line, which we here sighted for the first time. A mile or two beyond the town we pitched our camp in the scrub. Bill was anxious to make a gunyah, though there was absolutely no need for it, and has actually erected a rude and inadequate shelter of gum-suckers. But his energy will abate when the novelty of sleeping in the bush has worn off. A gunyah, by the way, is a lean-to, constructed of boughs or bark, after architectural designs supplied by the blacks. We lit our fire, spread the oilcloth on the ground, and arranged our blankets.

As we sat before the fire and smoked our pipes, after a simple but by no means scanty meal, I remarked to The Boy:—"Bear this in mind, Bill: we have left our forks and serviettes behind us, and we are not to be overshadowed by them. We are free, for a while."

The Boy smoked and grinned, wondering what serviettes might be.

"We are now in the bush, and partners of the wild things. We merely add hypocrisy to their list of virtues."

"Ryebuck!" said The Boy.

"Morality and immorality," I continued in my most pompously sententious manner, "are the twin children of bondage, and we have left them at home with their mother. We are the masters of all wealth. Whatever is good is ours. If birds are caught in an orchard, taking their fill of fruit, they are shot: if we're caught too obviously enjoying our liberty, we shall be immured. There's no difference."

"You're a regular savage," interposed The Boy placidly.

"No," I replied, "unhappily most irregular. God bless all pagan rebels!"

And with that we silently lay back on our blankets and watched through the branches the star-flecked sky.

I write in the midst of a clear silence, shot through with the alternate chirping of frogs and the click and chink of myriads of nocturnal insects. Dear sea of life, I plunge into your warm waves, electrified with the subtle flow of love. I am happy. I am free.

NOTHING TO DRINK Nothing to drink but water going bad In hollows where rank grasses rot and stink Nothing but this foul puddle to be had Nothing to drink. The surface of the stuff is green and pink With iridescent changes; yet I'm glad To lie out here upon my back and think For here no longer custom drives me mad; And in the town, too, I have had to slink Dry-throated home, and gasp the story sad— "Nothing to drink!"

Tuesday, 17th March.

Soon after daybreak, I took the billies down to the creek. The water there was thick and red with mud from the road, eminently suitable for cocoa, but impossible to disguise with tea. However, I followed the stream up, and found a shallow weedy pool, which was not too greatly discoloured. The Boy said it was filthy, but he is not accustomed to the naturally-collected water of districts more than half civilised. On previous tramps I have drunk raw mud which was like thick black cream, and I have made tea which left hard terraces of manure round the interior of my pannikin. I told The Boy so, and he did not believe me. Before he returns home he will learn to style all translucent water clean.

After breakfast we followed the railroad, most of the way through scanty bush, but emerging occasionally upon a road. Near Seven Hills we bought a loaf from a passing baker, and lunched with our feet in the gutter. I was drowsily filling my pipe and watching the intricate dance of a mob of midgets, when a trav'ler swung along the road. He stopped and asked for a match, which I gave him after I had lighted my own pipe with it. Then he dropped his swag, sat on it, puffed awhile, and finally asked:

"From Richmond?"

"No—Parramatta. No regular course."

"Dunno what sorter road this is?"

"No. How is it the way you've come?"

"Goin' to Penrith?"

I blew a ring of smoke and nodded at it.

"Good road," says the tramp, "all the way. You won't run short o' tucker."

"Have a drop o' tea?"

He swigged from the billy, spat out a couple of tea-leaves, and looked at me with meditation in his eye. I yawned a chest-full of smoke at the sky and returned his look, languidly and without interest. He concluded from my appearance that I was sufficiently dishonest to be trustworthy; so he took me into his confidence.

"There's good peaches, a bit back." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I wuz thinkin' at first, there wuz a dog. All right, though. I eat 'em all quick—them I'd got—for fear they'd be found on me."

"Peaches!" The Boy exclaimed, and gulped.

"How far?" I asked; and the good fellow generously gave me full directions. I thanked him, and he heaved his swag to his shoulder, nodded "Good luck!" and went.

It is a remarkable fact that always, when I am on the track, I am the recipient of abundant kindness and hearty hospitality. Most Australians are warm-hearted and open-handed, almost to a fault. Circumstances may obscure their goodness of nature for a time, but in the end the light of their inborn virtue breaks through the clouds, and they live in memory, clad with unselfishness and haloed with loving-kindness. I once camped the night with a shearer, and so far misjudged him that I fell asleep with the idea that he was the stingiest blasphemer on the continent. But in the morning he showed me how to catch stray ducks with a noose of string suspended from a stick.

Dessert is an infrequent luxury to the trav'ler, and we partook of the heaven-sent gift with thankful hearts. We got further supplies of fruit later on, for the orchards abut on the line, and we could not have avoided them without making detours of inconvenient compass.

Our camp to-night is in a coppice of oak saplings, on the flat above a fair-sized creek. I do not know certainly, but I believe the last station we passed was Doonside—a platform with a paddock full of mushrooms beside it. The frogs are chirping and tap-tapping to each other across the creek, and our fire of driftwood is blazing and crackling. The water here is moderately clean, but rather unpleasant in flavour. The Boy insists that there must be a piggery on the bank higher up; but the taste is merely that of rotting foliage. There is a waterhole within a stone's-throw of our bed. In the morning I shall swim.

What a delicious thing the warmth of a fire is! How it soothes the body, and sweeps in soft waves across the skin with every breath of wind! But I protest against stuffy rooms and onion-casings of clothing. Why should our skin be so sensitive to no purpose? Every square inch of body-surface gives foothold to a pleasure. The only way to enjoy a fire thoroughly is to pose before it as a nudity. Perfect pleasure is inconsistent with cerements. Wind, water, sunshine—is it possible for mummy-swathed wretches to realise the ideas represented by these words? If we would understand Nature—sweet naked living Nature; if we would meet her and know her, seeking her not as a blind-worm scientist, but as a lover; if we would be uplifted with the joy of her kisses; then we must strip off these artificial hindrances and become as nude as she. And what is the value of these wrappings, after all? Are they worn as a protection from the cold? But I have noticed that those who lap themselves in the thickest clothing are the first to complain of chilled bones. It is largely a matter of habit. Do clothes add beauty to the human form? Answer, the Art of Greece! But, says a sickly apologist, many of us have bodies which are not joys for ever. And will it improve them, I ask, to smother them in dank and poisonous darkness? Will you attempt to give them beauty by denying them light and air? Ah, but the doctors say—. They have said it was good to swallow doves' dung and powdered unicorn's horn. They say it is beneficial to inject certain excretions of disease. They are always certain. For truth's sake, never heed the doctors. Listen to the voice of Nature, the voice of the Soul, the voice of God. Listen to my voice.

FIAT LUX The light of Love about me glows, And wheresoe'er it fall, An inmost core of good it shows, A golden seed in all. In mantling shadow did I say "My heart's a clot of sin," Now humbled by the Prince of Day, I turn my glance within.

Wednesday, 18th March.

The morning was very cold, and The Boy declined to have a bath. He said he was afraid of snags. There was a great tree-trunk lying across the hole, and from it I took a dive. When I came out I was cold; so I went out into the open paddock and danced with my shadow on the grass. While I was leaping about, a train rushed past. Somebody waved a handkerchief to me from a carriage window and I responded with my towel. A wagtail swooped about me and chattered of friendship. That was a good time. But The Boy called me from the other side of the creek and cut it short.

"Wilford!"

"Bill Smith."

"Put on your togs, and start."

"Why?"

"Because the people on that train 'll know you're a lunatic, and the police'll be after you from the next station they stop at."

"Oh, air divine and breezes swift of wing! I never thought of that. I'll be ready in a sparkle!"

I went back to the camp, and thrust myself into my scanty raiment in a few minutes. "Ready" I said, and lit up. "Shall we go across the paddocks, or along the line?"

"Along the line. The grass is too wet."

"All right. Quick march!"

"How far is it to Penrith?"

"I don't know, and I don't mean to. I'm content. Why should I worry myself with mathematics?"

"When are we going to have breakfast?"

"I'd forgotten. Next water."

So we halted and boiled oatmeal, and threw water over each other with the billies, and smoked. A meal is always a long ceremony with us. But the police failed to overtake the lunatic.

By the time we reached Penrith, dusk was close upon us, and The Boy was tired. We trudged down the street, in which the electric light had just been turned on, until we met a labourer with a child clinging to each hand. I nodded to him, and he sang out cheerily: "Good ev'n, mate!" We enquired the locality of the usual "camp," and were told it was a dirty old ruin about a quarter of a mile down the road.

"You'd better hurry up, or you won't find room," said the blue-eyed father, "'cause there's about thirty fellers there already, waiting for the Show to-morrow."

"Thanks, mate. Much obliged."

"No trouble. Good night."

We sat on a vacant block of land to consider our course. We got on rather slowly, for I am not used to practical thinking; so I gave Bill threepence and told him to buy a water-melon at the shop opposite. While we ate, a sturdy young tramp came to us from the west. He accepted a laconic invitation by flinging himself upon the grass and hacking a large slice from the melon. He was looking for a camp, and we mentioned the ruin. Incidentally, I remarked that we were going to camp on the other side of the river.

He said: "You'd best look sharp, or it'll be dark first."

I acknowledged the fact. He was kind enough to be interested in our movements, and I followed his lead. It is easy to take the cue from a man like this, and he feels all the better for his exhibition of insight and kindness.

"Goin' out west?"

"Yes."

"Lookin' for work in the sheds?"

"Um."

"D'you know how to shear, then?"

"No."

"Goin' rousin'?"

A nod.

"Bin out before?"

"No."

"My oath! It's yer maiden trip, eh? Well, I'll tell yer where y'oughter go first."

"Wish you would."

"Well, you go ter ——," and he mentioned a gibberish name which I have had no occasion to remember.

"What name?"

"He repeated it, and told me exactly where the station was, and how much I was likely to make. The information was valueless to me, but I was grateful. I set down the incident merely as another example of the readiness of people to help us on our way. In return, I could only tell him that the road before him was a good one; especially on the stage between Parramatta and Sydney. The country within a radius of twenty miles from Sydney is the bummer's happy hunting-ground. More than once, old Murrumbidgee whalers have told me that the Sydney folk are the kindest and most liberal in Australia.

We crossed the Nepean River, after lingering a few minutes to gloat over the long stretch of calm water, beautiful in the evening light with grey and green and rose and yellow and silver. Before us, like a rampart thrown up by giant revolutionists, stood the Blue Mountains, and above them moved a mass of deep purple clouds.

We sleep to-night on the foothills. I had to descend far into a rocky gully for water—sweet, sparkling water—and fell about grotesquely in the dark, to the annoyance of a squealing bandicoot. Meanwhile The Boy lit a fire. When I reappeared, scratched but triumphant, he proposed a gunyah.

"Looks like rain, you know."

"No matter. I hate building gunyahs."

"It means labour, eh?"

"It involves tearing down a lot of young trees."

"That's what I mean."

"Be blowed!"

REST Rest, for the purple haze the bush bedims, And, flushed with toil, flung loose along the west, Day, sighing, feels within his languid limbs Rest. His brow by gentle breezes is caressed, In weary sight the quiet landskip swims, And silence of all blessings is the best. With shadow now the gully overbrims; And Night breathes to his peace-bedrenched breast —The while her many-twinkling lights she trims— "Rest."

Thursday, 19th March.

At daybreak rain began to drizzle, but we heaped logs on the fire. As I threw a slab with shaped ends across the blaze, I instinctively looked towards the nearest fence. Then I turned my eyes on Bill, but he whistled to himself softly and busied himself with the tucker-bags. It was a matter of no consequence, for we were not on the road usually taken by trav'lers. We were on the first coach-track, an over-grown disused route. It was not likely that other tramps would suffer for what we did in that wilderness. I asked no questions.

We made a damper and some porridge. When it was too late, we discovered we were camped within two or three hundred yards of a patch of pie-melons. It was a pity but we neither of us cared to take a melon as an outside passenger, and our vulgar verdict was: Full inside." So we made a start. Before we regained the main road at Wascoe, we were drenched, through having to push our way through rain-laden oaks; and every now and then the grey sky darkened and a sharp shower drifted across. But we took no heed of discomforts. Why should we?

We met many trav'lers. Most of them were hurrying towards the Plains, for they wished to try their luck at the Penrith Agricultural Show. They all told us, in one phrase or another, that it was rainy weather, and a good many asked whether it was wet enough for us. The question is humorous in a mysterious way—must be, for each man smiled as he put it.

As we moved on, the showers became more frequent, until rain was the ground material of the weather and dry spells the patches. The roads consisted partly of sticky mud and partly of slush. When we felt hungry, we turned aside for dinner into a gully near Springwood, hoping to find a cave. But there was no cave. We started a fire with some bark and leaves which we found under a log, and then we cooked our dinner. I took off my clothes and spread them near the blaze, where they steamed like a mixen. Meanwhile, every drop of rain touched my bare skin with a tiny ice-cold finger. There is something strangely pleasant in that touch; but my clothes were as wet as ever when I donned them—heavy and clammy—and I was inclined to favour an early camp. The afternoon was well-worn already.

While we were passing a cottage a little further on—a doctor's house, as I saw by the brass plate—we noticed two children, a girl and a boy, on the verandah. Suddenly the little lass hailed me: "Hallo, man!"

"Hallo, sweetheart!" I cried back; and meant it. God bless her soul of sunshine!

"How are you getting on? "I asked, assuming old friendship.

"Quite well, thank you," she replied gravely; "how are you?"

"Wet," I said. "Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, man!"

And we saw each other no more.

Is such an incident a trifle? Well, it may be, but the best of life is made of such trifles. I rejoice, and thank the Spirit of Love for them. I have been feeding for hours on the memory of that child's face and voice, and words cannot tell one who does not sympathise how glad I am that the little light-bringer is getting on "quite well."