III. The Ghost of Mary's Sacrifice.
When I got to Gudgeegong I stopped at Galletly's coach-shop to leave thecart. The Galletlys were good fellows: there were two brothers--one wasa saddler and harness-maker. Big brown-bearded men--the biggest men inthe district, 'twas said.
Their old man had died lately and left them some money; they had men,and only worked in their shops when they felt inclined, or there was aspecial work to do; they were both first-class tradesmen. I went intothe painter's shop to have a look at a double buggy that Galletly hadbuilt for a man who couldn't pay cash for it when it was finished--andGalletly wouldn't trust him.
There it stood, behind a calico screen that the coach-painters used tokeep out the dust when they were varnishing. It was a first-class pieceof work--pole, shafts, cushions, whip, lamps, and all complete. If youonly wanted to drive one horse you could take out the pole and put inthe shafts, and there you were. There was a tilt over the front seat;if you only wanted the buggy to carry two, you could fold down the backseat, and there you had a handsome, roomy, single buggy. It would gonear fifty pounds.
While I was looking at it, Bill Galletly came in, and slapped me on theback.
'Now, there's a chance for you, Joe!' he said. 'I saw you rubbing yourhead round that buggy the last time you were in. You wouldn't get abetter one in the colonies, and you won't see another like it in thedistrict again in a hurry--for it doesn't pay to build 'em. Now you're afull-blown squatter, and it's time you took little Mary for a fly roundin her own buggy now and then, instead of having her stuck out there inthe scrub, or jolting through the dust in a cart like some old MotherFlourbag.'
He called her 'little Mary' because the Galletly family had known herwhen she was a girl.
I rubbed my head and looked at the buggy again. It was a greattemptation.
'Look here, Joe,' said Bill Galletly in a quieter tone. 'I'll tell youwhat I'll do. I'll let YOU have the buggy. You can take it out and sendalong a bit of a cheque when you feel you can manage it, and the restlater on,--a year will do, or even two years. You've had a hard pull,and I'm not likely to be hard up for money in a hurry.'
They were good fellows the Galletlys, but they knew their men. Ihappened to know that Bill Galletly wouldn't let the man he built thebuggy for take it out of the shop without cash down, though he was abig-bug round there. But that didn't make it easier for me.
Just then Robert Galletly came into the shop. He was rather quieter thanhis brother, but the two were very much alike.
'Look here, Bob,' said Bill; 'here's a chance for you to get rid of yourharness. Joe Wilson's going to take that buggy off my hands.'
Bob Galletly put his foot up on a saw-stool, took one hand out of hispockets, rested his elbow on his knee and his chin on the palm of hishand, and bunched up his big beard with his fingers, as he always didwhen he was thinking. Presently he took his foot down, put his handback in his pocket, and said to me, 'Well, Joe, I've got a double set ofharness made for the man who ordered that damned buggy, and if you likeI'll let you have it. I suppose when Bill there has squeezed all hecan out of you I'll stand a show of getting something. He's a regularShylock, he is.'
I pushed my hat forward and rubbed the back of my head and stared at thebuggy.
'Come across to the Royal, Joe,' said Bob.
But I knew that a beer would settle the business, so I said I'd get thewool up to the station first and think it over, and have a drink when Icame back.
I thought it over on the way to the station, but it didn't seem goodenough. I wanted to get some more sheep, and there was the new run tobe fenced in, and the instalments on the selections. I wanted lots ofthings that I couldn't well do without. Then, again, the farther I gotaway from debt and hard-upedness the greater the horror I had of it. Ihad two horses that would do; but I'd have to get another later on, andaltogether the buggy would run me nearer a hundred than fifty pounds.Supposing a dry season threw me back with that buggy on my hands.Besides, I wanted a spell. If I got the buggy it would only mean anextra turn of hard graft for me. No, I'd take Mary for a trip to Sydney,and she'd have to be satisfied with that.
I'd got it settled, and was just turning in through the big whitegates to the goods-shed when young Black, the squatter, dashed past thestation in his big new waggonette, with his wife and a driver and a lotof portmanteaus and rugs and things. They were going to do the grandin Sydney over Christmas. Now it was young Black who was so shook afterMary when she was in service with the Blacks before the old man died,and if I hadn't come along--and if girls never cared for vagabonds--Marywould have been mistress of Haviland homestead, with servants to wait onher; and she was far better fitted for it than the one that was there.She would have been going to Sydney every holiday and putting up at theold Royal, with every comfort that a woman could ask for, and seeinga play every night. And I'd have been knocking around amongst the bigstations Out-Back, or maybe drinking myself to death at the shanties.
The Blacks didn't see me as I went by, ragged and dusty, and with anold, nearly black, cabbage-tree hat drawn over my eyes. I didn't carea damn for them, or any one else, at most times, but I had moods when Ifelt things.
One of Black's big wool teams was just coming away from the shed, andthe driver, a big, dark, rough fellow, with some foreign blood in him,didn't seem inclined to wheel his team an inch out of the middle of theroad. I stopped my horses and waited. He looked at me and I looked athim--hard. Then he wheeled off, scowling, and swearing at his horses.I'd given him a hiding, six or seven years before, and he hadn'tforgotten it. And I felt then as if I wouldn't mind trying to give someone a hiding.
The goods clerk must have thought that Joe Wilson was pretty grumpy thatday. I was thinking of Mary, out there in the lonely hut on a barrencreek in the Bush--for it was little better--with no one to speak toexcept a haggard, worn-out Bushwoman or two, that came to see heron Sunday. I thought of the hardships she went through in the firstyear--that I haven't told you about yet; of the time she was ill, and Iaway, and no one to understand; of the time she was alone with James andJim sick; and of the loneliness she fought through out there. I thoughtof Mary, outside in the blazing heat, with an old print dress and afelt hat, and a pair of 'lastic-siders of mine on, doing the work ofa station manager as well as that of a housewife and mother. And hercheeks were getting thin, and her colour was going: I thought of thegaunt, brick-brown, saw-file voiced, hopeless and spiritless Bushwomen Iknew--and some of them not much older than Mary.
When I went back down into the town, I had a drink with Bill Galletly atthe Royal, and that settled the buggy; then Bob shouted,* and I took theharness. Then I shouted, to wet the bargain. When I was going, Bob said,'Send in that young scamp of a brother of Mary's with the horses: ifthe collars don't fit I'll fix up a pair of makeshifts, and alter theothers.' I thought they both gripped my hand harder than usual, but thatmight have been the beer.
* 'Shout', to buy a round of drinks.--A. L., 1997.