While the Billy Boils by Henry Lawson (best value ebook reader .txt) 📕

Native industry was represented at one place along the line by three tiles, a chimney-pot, and a length of piping on a slab.

Somebody said to me, “Yer wanter go out back, young man, if yer wanter see the country. Yer wanter get away from the line.” I don’t wanter; I’ve been there.

You could go to the brink of eternity so far as Australia is concerned and yet meet an animated mummy of a swagman who will talk of going “out back.” Out upon the outback fiend!

About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed like⁠—like a bush larrikin. His name was Jim. He had been to a ball where some blank had “touched” his blanky overcoat. The overcoat had a cheque for ten “quid” in the pocket. He didn’t seem to feel the loss much. “Wot’s ten quid?” He’d been everywhere, including the Gulf country. He still had three or four sheds to go to. He had telegrams in his pocket from half a dozen squatters and supers offering him pens on any terms. He didn’t give a blank whether he took them or no. He thought at first he had the telegrams on him but found that he had left them in the pocket of the overcoat aforesaid. He had learned butchering in a day. He was a bit of a scrapper himself and talked a lot about the ring. At the last station where he shore he gave the super the father of a hiding. The super was a big chap, about six-foot-three, and had knocked out Paddy Somebody in one round. He worked with a man who shore four hundred sheep in nine hours.

Here a quiet-looking bushman in a corner of the carriage grew restless, and presently he opened his mouth and took the liar down in about three minutes.

At 5:30 we saw a long line of camels moving out across the sunset. There’s something snaky about camels. They remind me of turtles and goannas.

Somebody said, “Here’s Bourke.”

The yarn was all lies, I suppose; but it wasn’t bad. A city bushman told it, of course, and he told it in the travellers’ hut.

“As true’s God hears me I never meant to desert her in cold blood,” he said. “We’d only been married about two years, and we’d got along grand together; but times was hard, and I had to jump at the first chance of a job, and leave her with her people, an’ go upcountry.”

He paused and fumbled with his pipe until all ears were brought to bear on him.

“She was a beauty, and no mistake; she was far too good for me⁠—I often wondered how she came to have a chap like me.”

He paused again, and the others thought over it⁠—and wondered too, perhaps.

The joker opened his lips to speak, but altered his mind about it.

“Well, I travelled up into Queensland, and worked back into Victoria ’n’ South Australia, an’ I wrote home pretty reg’lar and sent what money I could. Last I got down on to the southwestern coast of South Australia⁠—an’ there I got mixed up with another woman⁠—you know what that means, boys?”

Sympathetic silence.

“Well, this went on for two years, and then the other woman drove me to drink. You know what a woman can do when the devil’s in her?”

Sound between a sigh and a groan from Lally Thompson. “My oath,” he said, sadly.

“You should have made it three years, Jack,” interposed the joker; “you said two years before.” But he was suppressed.

“Well, I got free of them both, at last⁠—drink and the woman, I mean; but it took another⁠—it took a couple of years to pull myself straight⁠—”

Here the joker opened his mouth again, but was warmly requested to shut it.

“Then, chaps, I got thinking. My conscience began to hurt me, and⁠—and hurt worse every day. It nearly drove me to drink again. Ah, boys, a man⁠—if he is a man⁠—can’t expect to wrong a woman and escape scot-free in the end.” (Sigh from Lally Thompson.) “It’s the one thing that always comes home to a man, sooner or later⁠—you know what that means, boys.”

Lally Thompson: “My oath!”

The joker: “Dry up yer crimson oath! What do you know about women?”

Cries of “Order!”

“Well,” continued the storyteller, “I got thinking. I heard that my wife had broken her heart when I left her, and that made matters worse. I began to feel very bad about it. I felt mean. I felt disgusted with myself. I pictured my poor, ill-treated, little wife and children in misery and poverty, and my conscience wouldn’t let me rest night or day”⁠—(Lally Thompson seemed greatly moved)⁠—“so at last I made up my mind to be a man, and make⁠—what’s the word?”

“Reparation,” suggested the joker.

“Yes, so I slaved like a nigger for a year or so, got a few pounds together and went to find my wife. I found out that she was living in a cottage in Burwood, Sydney, and struggling through the winter on what she’d saved from the money her father left her.

“I got a shave and dressed up quiet and decent. I was older-looking and more subdued like, and I’d got pretty grey in those few years that I’d been making a fool of myself; and, some how, I felt rather glad about it, because I reckoned she’d notice it first thing⁠—she was always quick at noticing things⁠—and forgive me all the quicker. Well, I waylaid the school kids that evening, and found out mine⁠—a little boy and a girl⁠—and fine youngsters they were. The girl took after her mother, and the youngster was the dead spit o’ me. I gave ’em half a crows each and told them to tell their mother that someone would come when the sun went down.”

Bogan Bill nodded approvingly.

“So at sundown I went and knocked at the door. It opened and there stood my