John Webb's End. Australian bush life, etc

Front matter

JOHN WEBB'S END BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Songs op the Army of the Night. 2s Gd. Vizetelly & Co., Vo Henrietta Street Covent Garden JOHN WEBB'S END |m_| %ift. BY FRANCIS ADAMS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. H, HUNT AND A. COLLI N G R I D GE. ' Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm ; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave.' EDEN, REMINGTON & CO., PUBLISHERS KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO MY DEAR FRIENDS, ERNEST AND GERTRUDE BLACKW ELL, OF SYDNEY. CONTENTS PACK Prologue — The Father and the Mother i ■1

Part I

i. Youthful Struggles, . . . -13 11. The World Without, .... 30 in. Self-Revelations, ..... 46 iv. Bitter Sweetness, . . . . 69 v. Breaking Away, ..... 99 vi. An Artist, . . . . . 116 vii. Girls' Hearts, . . . - . . -132

Part II

1. Toil and Trouble, .... 155 11. Afterglow, . . . . . . .180 j in. The Truth of It, . . . . . 200 iv. Reckoning Day, . . .222 v. A Bush Journalist, .... 245 vi. Socket Flickerings, ..... 263 Epilogue — 'Fate's Only Guerdon,' . .

Prologue

. THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER. It was one of those mild misty mornings which sometimes surprise London, like magical interludes and anticipations of the spring, in November, the sunless, wintry month of fogs. A detachment of the Horse Guards was slowly defiling into one of the streets by St James'. The steamy atmosphere seemed inly suffused with the sunlight which was struggling for the mastery. The steam rose up from the horses, from the mouths and nostrils of the soldiers and of the small and listless crowd that had gathered at the corners to see them defile. A gentleman, attracted by noticing that A the officer in command of the detachment was an acquaintance, stood on the outskirts, watching with a certain interest. Presently passers-by and street-loafers, coming up stragglingly, more or less surrounded him.

The detachment went bending round a corner a little way off, and then the last man disappeared. The gentleman turned to one side rather quickly with a smile and an exclamation to himself, and felt a tuoat his fob. He at once looked down, at the same time receiving from behind a shove that threw him up against a man who was standing in front of him. In a moment it flashed across the gentleman's mind that he had been robbed, and his one idea was to see and catch the robber. He recovered himself and turned round sharply. A few yards from him he saw moving quickly away out of the slowly dispersing crowd, a tall man with broad sloping shoulders and a slouch hat. ' Stop that man,' he cried aloud, springing forward, ' he has robbed me ! ' In a few moments the man was aware that he was attracting public attention, and turned, showing a fine reckless frowning. face.

The gentleman came up and caught hold of him, repeating his statement that he had been robbed. The man almost fiercely threw off the other's hold and would have made away, had not a policeman opportunely arrived and, with an instan taneous perception of the state of affairs, caught him by the wrist. The man, how ever, at once instinctively pressing it down against the weak place in a hand-grip, the junction of the thumb and fingers, liberated himself, and asked with an angry oath what they wanted with him ? The gentleman again repeated his statement. The man answered with another oath that it was a lie. The crowd gathered round again quickly. The gentleman with decision, having formally given the man into custody, turned about and asked if anyone had seen the theft committed? There was a pause, and then one who looked like a respectable workman said that he had seen ' him there take a silk handkerchief out of the gentle man's pocket and put it in his own.

At the same moment the policeman produced a silk handkerchief from the side-pocket of the man's coat, and the gentleman at once recognised it as his. A movement was per ceptible in the crowd as of someone trying to get to the front. It was a woman. Un able to advance, she cried out that he (the man) had riot robbed the gentle man. 'He is my husband,' she said simply, as if no further remark was necessary. There was a general laugh, even the gentleman and policeman smiling. ' Now,' said the gentleman, ' let us get on. I want the matter settled quickly.' The man was led away, silent and sullen. Once hearing his wife's voice, he glanced over his shoulder, and a strange doubtful look came into his face. Then he turned again and moved on as it were by himself, looking neither to right nor left.

The man was led away, silent and sullen. The Magistrate was sitting. He was a personal acquaintance of the gentleman who had been robbed. The case was clear and needed small discussion. The man was com mitted for trial. From that time forward he preserved a sullen and unbroken silence. He rejected all efforts at defence. He even refused to see his wife. It could only end one way. The Judge passed sentence of transportation for seven years — to New South Wales. ' Transportation ? ' said the man, looking up, ' . Hadn't you better hang me at once ? ' There was a momentary silence in the court. He is my husband,' said a voice It was his wife, up in the public gallery, standing gazing at him steadfastly, oblivious of all else but him. Her face was lit up with the wonderful light of love which of itself gives beauty. ; Dick, Dick,' she said, ' speak to me ! ' The hand of the attendant policeman was on the man's shoulder, pressing him gently from the dock.

In answer of his wife's appeal, he turned his head as he had done once before and with the same strange doubtful look. He had been a hot-headed generous country lad, misunderstood at home and at last cursed and driven thence by a stubborn, despotic, religious father. And she, who had always loved him, had, almost despite himself, married him, believing that it would 'come alright in the end.' And he had worked steadily and earnestly at his little farm, but all his work had failed, and he had begun to believe that his father's curse, the curse of God, was indeed upon him. And now, arraigned for an offence which he had not committed, proved guilty by (as it seemed to him) almost miraculous proof, the last blow had fallen and he was condemned for ever. He did not look at her. He had been considering all his past life, and had in a manner weighed it and found it wanting, and now he turned his head again and moved away by himself, looking neither to right nor left.

Later on he still refused to let his wife see him, nor would he give any explanation to her. The one sie.n that he g-ave from his prison was a short letter to his father, ac knowledging his faults and asking him to do what he could for his daughter-in-law, adding that they could rely on his own death within a few years, and that it was his hope and wish she should marry again, and a better man. Thus Richard Webb, having done all he could to free the woman he loved from the inevitable curse which he believed rested on him, went forth as a felon from his own country to ' dree his weird ' alone. But, if he had calculated rightlv on his love for her, and what it could help him to endure, he had calculated wrongly on her love for him. Her anguish of mind at his refusal to see her had been intense, but it had passed into something not unlike joy : she had divined its cause.

A few months after Webb's ship sailed, her child, a boy, was born. She was patient, and at times even happy. She would lie for hours looking at it, talking to it, crooning over it with smiles and tears, telling it the whole tale over and over again, and how, as soon as they were strong, they were going after daddy, they two, baby and she ! And at last they went, and at last her belief that it w*ould ' come alright in the end ' was verified— so far that she lived to see her husband a prosperous Riverina squatter, her children growing up full of strength and beauty, and herself a happy wife and mother. Then it seemed as if the life of this sweet delicate woman, intensified and gathered up within a decade, suddenly failed her. She died, or as it seemed to her husband, simply passed away. The curse had been lifted from him, he thought, but at the cost of her life.

She died early one autumn morning. That afternoon he locked himself up in the room with her. Outside was all the mellow brightness and heat of the fair April day. The breeze came in through the open window, bellying out the curtain and filling the room with the fresh faint smell of the surrounding flowery plains and scrub. They had folded her hands across her breast, holding a cross of flowers ; she had always liked the Aus tralian flowers with their intense colours. She had a taste, she said, for ' a bit o' colour.' He stood looking at her and thinking of her words. This man, full of love, had never been able to tell it, and now he could not tell his sorrow. He had never prayed in his life that he could remember ; his prayers at home as a boy had not come from deeper than the lips. He did not even know that he wished to pray now ; he did not know what he wished.

He was vaguely conscious that he and everyone were in the power of Someone — or Something; and that that was why his life and hers had been as they had been ; and he would have liked to have eased his heart by saying that he had loved her more than life, and that he loved her more than death. The sun sank, filling both west and east with innumerable rosy clouds. He had sat down on the floor, leaning his head against the bedside, almost touching her. Love had not loosened the tongue of this dumb soul, and neither had death.

PART I.

i. YOUTHFUL STRUGGLES. Webb had three children, two boys and a girl, the girl the second. He had a certain amount of affection for them all, but in no case did this affection deepen into love, except at moments in the case of the daughter Bessie when she reminded him of her mother. The purpose of his life, he felt, was fulfilled, and it almost seemed to him at times as if it would be better for him to be lying in the quiet earth with his wife. It was with an almost wild instinct of self preservation that he threw himself into the work of his sheep-station_ — Marragong. He grew more and more out of sympathy with his children. His work began to take to him the form of a renewed purpose, in com parison with which all other things were of secondary importance. The mother, following out the instinct of her early, Puritan yeoman breeding, had from the first at tempted to educate her children as far as she was able.

She taught them all to read and write, and both because of her convic tion and of the fact that books were so scarce as to be all but wanting, made them students of their Bibles. Webb now broke in upon all this. He took his eldest son John, and used him from morning till night on the station. At that time wire-fences were not frequent, and the labour of keeping in repair the fences of log and brushwood was great. Webb, too, was increasing his boundaries by leasing crown lands. John, who had small care for learning more than his mother had taught him, at first took readily to the un broken life of a boundary rider and station hand. He had a certain love of nature. The long morning rides round the fences were not lonely to him. He took a pleasure in the bright breezy sky and air, in the birds and beasts which it was his business to kill or let alone.

He wanted no other companion than these and his thoughts ; even his horse and sheep-dog and kangaroo-dog gained no fixed place in his life. Like his father before him, he grew silent without growing sullen ; but, under this silence, lurked also his father's subdued recklessness. Sometimes he would be careless and even cruel to his animals. Terrible fits of passion would come upon him, and seldom passed away without leaving their marks behind them. He had much pride, and found it hard to endure the im periousness which seemed to grow greater and greater in his father as the years passed on. To the son, too, the years brought their inevitable change. His life, acting on his temper, began slowly to brutalise him. His silence began to lose in sweetness and gain in sullenness. More than once the imperi ousness of the father was met by the son's resistance — resistance that was only dogged because old habits of obedience prevented it for the time from violence.

The home life, once so happy, was becoming more and more strained and suppressed. Bessie, the true child of her mother, vainly tried to better it. But now even Billy, her little brother, was taken from her to be made into a drudge, and all three, her father and her brothers, drew more and more away from her as her work and theirs kept them actually apart. Ill-health and disease came to make things worse. Webb was now in a chronic state of irritation, troubled at times with even morbid suspicions. Once, after an explosion of wrath at some slight piece of neglect on John's part, he threatened to drive them all out of the house. ' I say,' he exclaimed, ' that you are all agin me. You'd be glad if the drought broke me. But it shall not ! I'll baulk every one of you ! ' John, unable to control himself if he stayed longer, was moving away to the door, when Webb turned and, with an oath and lifted arm, strode up to him.

In an instant the lad had drawn his large clasp knife and held it presented. The two glared at one another for a few moments in silence, and then John, never removing his eyes from his father's, went out. This domestic storm cleared the air for a little, by forcing Webb to realise that he was not perhaps acting quite rightly towards his son, and indeed towards them all. John, too, having for the first time given way to his violent instincts with his father, felt a certain remorse which took the shape of a submissiveness that was almost tender. But Webb was now too much out of sympathy with his children to remain long in his present humour towards them. This abnormal gentleness, on the part of his son, soon began to seem to him an acknowledg ment of being in the wrong, and so, in a few weeks, the old state of affairs reas serted itself, and John was confirmed in his savage self-restraint.

He kept away from his father as much as possible. Every B morning after breakfast, when the two went round to the stables together, and Webb gave particular directions as to what he wished him to do, John found it difficult to meet his father's imperiousness with any thing but dogged silence. Man after man, coining to the station as boundary-rider and second hand had found it impossible to endure ' the boss,' and had left. Webb cared nothing for it. They were all treated in the same way. If they did not like the place, he said, then they might go. It was the same with any men whom he employed on the station — shepherds, splitters, the very knock-about boys. It had been with much reluctance that he had increased the number of his employees, but his ever-growing land and stock rendered it absolutely necessary.

He satisfied his parsimonious instincts by taking as few as possible, and making up the deficiency by working them all as hard as he could. This almost ruthless way of working was a sort of relief to him, and he could not or would not see that it affected others differentl}*. Occasionally there would be incidents which roused every one against him. One of his shepherds, the only man who had found it possible to endure more than a year with him (he had endured fifteen), watching the sheep at night, caught a severe cold which developed into rheumatic fever, and he never properly recovered from it. He was old, and had done Webb good service. Among other O __) things he had been the only man who had stopped on the station at the time when the first ' gold-rushes ' left the stations empty of all save the squatters and their families.

He had not even asked for an increase of wages ; and, if Mrs Webb had not impor tuned her husband on the subject, would not have had any. Webb now paid the man up to the day he had fallen ill, and turned him away. Some of the people of the neigh bouring township of Warana clamoured among themselves about the matter, and at last one was bold enough to openly tax Webb with it. He had been into Warana for the night on business, and was just going to get up onto his horse, which was standing at a bridle-post in the road, opposite the door of the Royal, the mail or leading hotel, round which were gathered several of the Warana people and a small group of nonde script idlers. For a moment he stared at the man in silence, then turned away, making a quick stride towards his horse ; then turned back again, and, with his face dark and swollen with passion, said — ' It's d d good for you I — ' Further than that he could not get in speech, but, wheeling round fiercely, went to his horse, caught up the reins, leaped on to his back and, catching the stirrups, spurred him up and away.

At home the incident was still unfinished. When he returned, he found John walking up and down the room before Bessie and Billy, struggling to suppress his resentment at the shepherd's expulsion, which he had just seen carried into effect. It was indeed a mere chance that Webb had not met the -In access of wrath seized ut>on Webb. He leaped up, and threatened to strike h. r disconsolate family coming with their miser able bits of furniture in a spring-cart into Warana. On his entry John went straight out. Webb knew quite well what it all meant. He turned fiercely on Billy, and asked him what the he was doing there? The excited boy crept out, frightened bat rebellious. Bessie brought her father something to eat and drink, and then, when he seemed to have settled down a little, ventured to speak gently of the shepherd and his family.

An access of wrath seized upon Webb. He leaped up and threatened to strike her; then, with an effort overcoming himself, said, turning away — ' If ever I hear his name again, I'll knock yer down ! ' And so at last the incident finished, but it left its permanent effects behind it. John was now convinced that his father cared nothing for anyone, or for anything save making money and having his own high handed way; or, as John put it, ' bossing it.' Once he said so to Bessie, and her hesitating defence showed that she almost agreed with him. This somewhat simplified affairs to the lad. He resolved that he would not allow himself to suffer all year long this perpetual ' nigger-driving,' and that in the department of the station work which was consigned to him, he would no longer brook petty interference.

And, after a series of struggles with his father, one or two of which bordered dangerously on personal violence, he was successful. He had an intelligence above the average, and had for some time interested himself in everything connected with both sheep and cattle farming. He never lost an opportunity either by reading or talking with people, to widen his knowledge. And, as he became more and more convinced that his father was incompetent to teach him anything, he became more and more determined to have his own way in, at any rate, small matters. If he thought his father was doing wrong in any large matter, he would now sa}* so, not, as might have been expected, sulkily or even bluntly, "but with a certain amount of tact, backing up what he said with his reasons. And thus after a time Webb began to see that his son's opinion was worth having, and, without openly admitting the fact, to be ready to consider, and even sometimes to follow it.

This presently brought about, to Bessie's great joy, an improved state of affairs in the home life. The improvement, however, was merely relative. The home life was indeed so miserable that John, conscious of his growing power, began to turn his eyes towards Warana and wish to mix a little in the society which it afforded. To do this required leisure, and leisure he had none.. From six or seven o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night, he was engaged in his work of overseeing, boundary riding, and what not. He had now two men permanentl}* under him, and the work to be done required at least three. He determined to broach the subject. It was met by a furious explosion of wrath, and rejected. The summer, happening to be a very hot and dry one, the kangaroos and emus crowded in to the central portion of the run, where the grass was more plentiful, owing to this portion being the base of a rather extensive watershed and so the tanks still keeping pretty full.

A fierce war was waged with them, but it seemed to have little effect on their actual numbers. Webb's irritability was frightful. Night after night he and John sat up at the tanks, to which the kangaroos, alarmed, but driven by the irresistible cravings of thirst, came down, and shot them by dozens. One or two of the paddocks had just been enclosed with wire fences, and these were now constantly being broken by the 'mobs' of flying kangaroos or emus. Added to this, the birds, following out their mischievous instincts, kept chasing the sheep which, in their present weak condition, were quite unable to bear this racing up and down. The drought con tinued on into the winter, and at last things culminated in one of the brush-wood fences inexplicably catching fire and the whole run being with difficulty saved from the flames.

Such a drought as this had not occurred since that which followed on Mrs Webb's death, six years ago. One spring morning Webb and John had just started out together when they put up some emu. It was impossible with their weak animals to ride the birds down, but Webb, perceiving that a long wire - fence directly faced them, told John to ride to the right and thus drive the emu onto him. John did so, and the birds, as soon as they reached the fence, turned off and bore down at full speed onto Webb, who was wrathfully awaiting them. He fired the first barrel of his gun, and two dropped ; then, trying to get more into the line of them, fired the second, striking one in the neck and John in the left side. It was with difficulty that the lad kept his saddle as he quieted and walked his horse up to his father and told him that he was hit.

Webb came up to him and looked at his clothes which were rent where the shot had entered. ' Pooh,' he said, ' it's nothing John turned away and rode silently home. As his sister was examining his side, and seeing if there were any shot that could be picked out, he said : ' I don't believe, Bess, he'd have cared a d — - if he'd killed me.' ' Hush, John ! ' she said. ' Don't talk like that ! ' ' But it's true,' he answered, ' and, if I serve him another day without wages, then I'm damned ! ' Hush,' said Bessie again, ' don't ! ' He shall pay me wages,' he proceeded, calmly, not wincing as his sister picked out a shot with the point of his knife, ' like any one else on the station, and, if we don't suit one another, we can part. That's all.' The next morning, accordingly, after breakfast, at the stable, John quietly stated his intentions.

To his surprise his father without demur accepted them. The occasion, it is true, was propitious. There had been a sudden heavy downfall of rain during the night, and the cloudful sky and north easterly wind signified more to come. But John had no intention of letting the matter rest here. He returned at once to his original idea of an extra man on the station. Webb again accepted, and John came back to the house exceedingly pleased. ' Well,' said Bessie, lifting up her sweet, quiet face with its brown, intelligent eyes as he entered, ' what does he say, John ? ' ' He agrees,' answered John, throwing his hat down into a chair and himself into another. * And now I intend going into Warana a bit after the shearing.' Bessie was silent. It seemed to her that, after all, all men were alike. They seemed only to care to resist oppression when it weighed upon themselves.

How much effort would John make to help poor little Billy whose life was so dull and cheerless ? And, she might have added, herself, whose life was certainly not overburdened with joy. THE WORLD WITHOUT. John had reached what he looked upon as an epoch in his life. Silent as he had always been, sullen as he had now become for several years, he had at bottom a fund of social feeling which was strong enough to make him think it stronger than it really was. Even Webb, despotic master though he appeared in his own household, would occa sionally, meeting a stranger, have humours of bright pleasantness which recalled his early youth. Then the thought occurring to him, he would suddenly fall silent, and astonish the stranger by an abrupt departure. John, in his lonely rides and work, had un consciously turned his meagre fund of social feeling into something of an ideal.

He believed that if he could go into Warana and mix with the people there, it would make him happy. Visions of talks with intelligent men and pretty girls rose before him. On one of the few occasions on which he had ridden into the township, he had been to see a Mrs Allen, an old friend of his mother's, and had had afternoon tea with her. There had been present Mrs Allen, one of her daughters, and a young girl, a friend, the daughter of one of the neighbours. This tea had remained to John a charming memory. The very names of those who had taken part in it — Mrs Allen, Alice, Beatrice (Mrs Allen indeed took shape to him as ' mania,' the name by which he had heard her frequently addressed by Alice) — had in them something of the pleasure of a delightful dream. It was a glimpse of a sort of home-life which powerfully affected him.

From the first to the last, Webb's sole interest in his home had been his wife. The few hours that he had to spare each day were devoted ex clusively to her. To him the children were all more or less accidents, which he, of course, accepted, but for which he had no direct personal feeling. The mother had felt this and striven vainly against it ; for the children, instinctively recognising something antipathetic in their father, drew back from him and refused to accept the clumsy ad vances which his wife persuaded him to make. To her too her wifehood was the great fact of her life, but it did not for all that exclude the fact of her motherhood. She had a heart and spirit large enough for both. Of her children, John had loved her with a love that resembled his father's ; Bessie with a love that resembled her own, and Billy as a child loves a dear nourisher and protector.

She had always been to them all 'mother.' When, therefore, John saw a bright, pretty woman like Mrs Allen, who seemed indeed nothing but an elder sister of her daughter, she and the life she repre sented struck him as a new type — she was a •mama.' It was the same to a certain extent with Alice. She was so different, he thought, to Bessie — Bessie, of whom indeed circumstances had made a mother before she was a woman. And this other girl, this Beatrice (What a beautiful name, Beatrice ! — Beatrice, all in full, so unlike Kitty, or Polly or Minnie — or Bessie !) — she was only a child, but how different, and in a way how much rarer than (he did not like to think superior to) himself! He had felt beside her as one of the great black satiny crows might feel, flying for a moment by a lovely, melodious top-knot pigeon — the crows that swoop perpetually around the house to steal the hen's eggs or kill the young ducks, sitting cawing ravingly in the trees as the hunter cuts off the dead kangaroo's ears and hacks a steak for the dogs.