Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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Going away was easy enough, in a manner of speaking; but we'd been a month
in Melbourne, and when you mind that we were not bad-looking chaps,
fairishly dressed, and with our pockets full of money,
it was only what might be looked for if we had made another friend or two
besides Mrs. Morrison, the landlady of our inn, and Gippsland drovers.
When we had time to turn round a bit in Melbourne of course we began
to make a few friends. Wherever a man goes, unless he keeps himself
that close that he won't talk to any one or let any one talk to him,
he's sure to find some one he likes to be with better than another.
If he's old and done with most of his fancies, except smokin' and drinkin'
it's a man. If he's young and got his life before him it's a woman.
So Jim and I hadn't been a week in Melbourne before we fell across
a couple of -- well, friends -- that we were hard set to leave.
It was a way of mine to walk down to the beach every evening and have a look
at the boats in the bay and the fishermen, if there were any --
anything that might be going on. Sometimes a big steamer would be coming in,
churning the water under her paddles and tearing up the bay
like a hundred bunyips. The first screw-boat Jim and I saw
we couldn't make out for the life of us what she moved by.
We thought all steamers had paddles. Then the sailing boats,
flying before the breeze like seagulls, and the waves,
if it was a rough day, rolling and beating and thundering on the beach.
I generally stayed till the stars came out before I went back to the hotel.
Everything was so strange and new to a man who'd seen so little else
except green trees that I was never tired of watching, and wondering,
and thinking what a little bit of a shabby world chaps like us lived in
that never seen anything but a slab hut, maybe, all the year round,
and a bush public on high days and holidays.

Sometimes I used to feel as if we hadn't done such a bad stroke
in cutting loose from all this. But then the horrible feeling would come back
of never being safe, even for a day, of being dragged off and put in the dock,
and maybe shut up for years and years. Sometimes I used to throw myself
down upon the sand and curse the day when I ever did anything
that I had any call to be ashamed of and put myself in the power
of everything bad and evil in all my life through.

Well, one day I was strolling along, thinking about these things,
and wondering whether there was any other country where a man could go
and feel himself safe from being hounded down for the rest of his life,
when I saw a woman walking on the beach ahead of me. I came up with her
before long, and as I passed her she turned her head and I saw
she was one of two girls that we had seen in the landlady's parlour
one afternoon. The landlady was a good, decent Scotch woman,
and had taken a fancy to both of us (particularly to Jim -- as usual).
She thought -- she was that simple -- that we were up-country squatters
from some far-back place, or overseers. Something in the sheep or cattle line
everybody could see that we were. There was no hiding that.
But we didn't talk about ourselves overmuch, for very good reasons.
The less people say the more others will wonder and guess about you.
So we began to be looked upon as bosses of some sort, and to be treated
with a lot of respect that we hadn't been used to much before.
So we began to talk a bit -- natural enough -- this girl and I.
She was a good-looking girl, with a wonderful fresh clear skin,
full of life and spirits, and pretty well taught. She and her sister
had not been a long time in the country; their father was dead,
and they had to live by keeping a very small shop and by dressmaking.
They were some kind of cousins of the landlady and the same name,
so they used to come and see her of evenings and Sundays.
Her name was Kate Morrison and her sister's was Jeanie. This and a lot more
she told me before we got back to the hotel, where she said she was going
to stay that night and keep Mrs. Morrison company.

After this we began to be a deal better acquainted. It all came easy enough.
The landlady thought she was doing the girls a good turn by putting them
in the way of a couple of hard-working well-to-do fellows like us;
and as Jim and the younger one, Jeanie, seemed to take a fancy to each other,
Mrs. Morrison used to make up boating parties, and we soon got
to know each other well enough to be joked about falling in love
and all the rest of it.

After a bit we got quite into the way of calling for Kate and Jeanie
after their day's work was done, and taking them out for a walk.
I don't know that I cared so much for Kate in those days anyhow,
but by degrees we got to think that we were what people call
in love with each other. It went deeper with her than me, I think.
It mostly does with women. I never really cared for any woman in the world
except Gracey Storefield, but she was far away, and I didn't see
much likelihood of my being able to live in that part of the world,
much less to settle down and marry there. So, though we'd broken
a six-pence together and I had my half, I looked upon her as ever so much
beyond me and out of my reach, and didn't see any harm in amusing myself
with any woman that I might happen to fall across.

So, partly from idleness, partly from liking, and partly seeing that the girl
had made up her mind to throw in her lot with me for good and all,
I just took it as it came; but it meant a deal more than that,
if I could have foreseen the end.

I hadn't seen a great many women, and had made up my mind that,
except a few bad ones, they was mostly of one sort -- good to lead,
not hard to drive, and, above all, easy to see through and understand.

I often wonder what there was about this Kate Morrison to make her
so different from other women; but she was born unlike them, I expect.
Anyway, I never met another woman like her. She wasn't out-and-out handsome,
but there was something very taking about her. Her figure was pretty near
as good as a woman's could be; her step was light and active;
her feet and hands were small, and she took a pride in showing them.
I never thought she had any temper different from other women;
but if I'd noticed her eyes, surely I'd have seen it there.
There was something very strange and out of the way about them.
They hardly seemed so bright when you looked at them first; but by degrees,
if she got roused and set up about anything, they'd begin to burn
with a steady sort of glitter that got fiercer and brighter
till you'd think they'd burn everything they looked at.
The light in them didn't go out again in a hurry, either.
It seemed as if those wonderful eyes would keep on shining,
whether their owner wished it or not.

I didn't find out all about her nature at once -- trust a woman for that.
Vain and fond of pleasure I could see she was; and from having been
always poor, in a worrying, miserable, ill-contented way,
she had got to be hungry for money and jewels and fine clothes;
just like a person that's been starved and shivering with cold
longs for a fire and a full meal and a warm bed. Some people
like these things when they can get them; but others never seem to think
about anything else, and would sell their souls or do anything
in the whole world to get what their hearts are set on.
When men are like this they're dangerous, but they hardly hurt anybody,
only themselves. When women are born with hearts of this sort
it's a bad look-out for everybody they come near. Kate Morrison could see
that I had money. She thought I was rich, and she made up her mind
to attract me, and go shares in my property, whatever it might be.
She won over her younger sister, Jeanie, to her plans, and our acquaintance
was part of a regular put-up scheme. Jeanie was a soft, good-tempered,
good-hearted girl, with beautiful fair hair, blue eyes,
and the prettiest mouth in the world. She was as good as she was pretty,
and would have worked away without grumbling in that dismal little shop
from that day to this, if she'd been let alone. She was only just
turned seventeen. She soon got to like Jim a deal too well for her own good,
and used to listen to his talk about the country across the border,
and such simple yarns as he could tell her, poor old Jim! until she said
she'd go and live with him under a salt-bush if he'd come back and marry her
after Christmas. And of course he did promise. He didn't see
any harm in that. He intended to come back if he could,
and so did I for that matter. Well, the long and short of it was
that we were both regularly engaged and had made all kinds of plans
to be married at Christmas and go over to Tasmania or New Zealand,
when this terrible blow fell upon us like a shell. I did see one explode
at a review in Melbourne -- and, my word! what a scatteration it made.

Well, we had to let Kate and Jeanie know the best way we could
that our business required us to leave Melbourne at once,
and that we shouldn't be back till after Christmas, if then.

It was terrible hard work to make out any kind of a story that would do.
Kate questioned and cross-questioned me about the particular kind of business
that called us away like a lawyer (I've seen plenty of that since)
until at last I was obliged to get a bit cross and refuse to answer
any more questions.

Jeanie took it easier, and was that down-hearted and miserable
at parting with Jim that she hadn't the heart to ask any questions of any one,
and Jim looked about as dismal as she did. They sat with their hands
in each other's till it was nearly twelve o'clock, when the old mother came
and carried the girls off to bed. We had to start at daylight next morning;
but we made up our minds to leave them a hundred pounds apiece to keep for us
until we came back, and promised if we were alive to be at St. Kilda
next January, which they had to be contented with.

Jeanie did not want to take the money; but Jim said he'd very likely lose it,
and so persuaded her.

We were miserable and low-spirited enough ourselves at the idea of going away
all in a hurry. We had come to like Melbourne, and had bit by bit
cheated ourselves into thinking that we might live comfortably
and settle down in Victoria, out of reach of our enemies,
and perhaps live and die unsuspected.

From this dream we were roused up by the confounded advertisement.
Detectives and constables would be seen to be pretty thick
in all the colonies, and we could not reasonably expect not to be taken
some time or other, most likely before another week.

We thought it over and over again, in every way. The more we thought over it
the more dangerous it seemed to stop in Melbourne. There was only one thing
for it, that was to go straight out of the country. The Gippsland men
were the only bushmen we knew at all well, and perhaps that door
might shut soon.

So we paid our bill. They thought us a pair of quiet, respectable chaps
at that hotel, and never would believe otherwise. People may say
what they like, but it's a great thing to have some friends
that can say of you --

`Well, I never knew no harm of him; a better tempered chap couldn't be;
and all the time we knowed him he was that particular about
his bills and money matters that a banker couldn't have been more regular.
He may have had his faults, but we never seen 'em. I believe
a deal that was said of him wasn't true, and nothing won't ever make me
believe it.'

These kind of people will stand up for you all the days of your life,
and stick to you till the very last moment, no matter what you turn out to be.
Well, there's something pleasant in it; and it makes you think human nature
ain't quite such a low and paltry thing as some people tries to make out.
Anyhow, when we went away our good little landlady and her sister
was that sorry to lose us, as you'd have thought they was our blood relations.
As for Jim, every one in the house was fit to cry when he went off,
from the dogs and cats upwards. Jim never was in no house where everybody
didn't seem to take naturally to him. Poor old Jim!

We bought a couple of horses, and rode away down to Sale with these chaps
that had sold their cattle in Melbourne and was going home.
It rained all the way, and it was the worst road by chalks
we'd ever seen in our lives; but the soil was wonderful,
and the grass was something to talk about; we'd hardly ever seen
anything like it. A few thousand acres there would keep more stock
than half the country we'd been used to.

We didn't stay more than a day or so in Sale. Every morning at breakfast
some one was sure to turn up the paper and begin jabbering about
the same old infernal business, Hood's cattle, and what a lot were taken,
and whether they'll catch Starlight and the other men, and so on.

We heard of a job at Omeo while we were in Sale, which we thought
would just about suit us. All the cattle on a run there were to be
mustered and delivered to a firm of stock agents that had bought them;
they wanted people to do it by contract at so much a head.
Anybody who took it must have money enough to buy stock horses.
The price per head was pretty fair, what would pay well,
and we made up our minds to go in for it.

So we made a bargain; bought two more horses each, and started away for Omeo.
It was near 200 miles from where we were. We got up there all right,
and found a great rich country with a big lake, I don't know how many feet
above the sea. The cattle were as wild as hares, but the country
was pretty good to ride over. We were able to keep our horses
in good condition in the paddocks, and when we had mustered the whole lot
we found we had a handsome cheque to get.

It was a little bit strange buckling to after the easy life we'd led
for the last few months; but after a day or two we found ourselves
as good men as ever, and could spin over the limestone boulders
and through the thick mountain timber as well as ever we did.
A man soon gets right again in the fresh air of the bush;
and as it used to snow there every now and then the air was pretty fresh,
you bet, particularly in the mornings and evenings.

After we'd settled up we made up our minds to get as far as Monaro,
and wait there for a month or two. After that we might go in for the shearing
till Christmas, and then whatever happened we would both make a strike
back for home, and have one happy week, at any rate, with mother and Aileen.

We tried as well as we could to keep away from the large towns
and the regular mail coach road. We worked on runs where the snow came down
every now and then in such a way as to make us think that we might be
snowed up alive some fine morning. It was very slow and tedious work,
but the newspapers seldom came there, and we were not worried
day after day with telegrams about our Adelaide stroke,
and descriptions of Starlight's own look and way of speaking.
We got into the old way of working hard all day and sleeping well at night.
We could eat and drink well; the corned beef and the damper were good,
and Jim, like when we were at the back of Boree when Warrigal came,
wished that we could stick to this kind of thing always, and never have
any fret or crooked dealings again as long as we lived.

But it couldn't be done. We had to leave and go shearing
when the spring came on. We did go, and went from one big station
to the other when the spring was regularly on and shearers were scarce.
By and by the weather gets warmer, and we had cut our last shed
before the first week in December.

Then we couldn't stand it any longer.

`I don't care,' says Jim, `if there's a policeman standing
at every corner of the street, I must make a start for home.
They may catch us, but our chance is a pretty good one; and I'd just as soon
be lagged outright as have to hide and keep dark and moulder away life
in some of these God-forsaken spots.'

So we made up to start for home and chance it. We worked our way by degrees
up the Snowy River, by Buchan and Galantapee, and gradually made
towards Balooka and Buckley's Crossing. On the way we crossed
some of the roughest country we had ever seen or ridden over.

`My word, Dick,' said Jim one day, as we were walking along
and leading our horses, `we could find a place here if we were hard pushed
near as good for hiding in as the Hollow. Look at that bit of tableland
that runs up towards Black Mountain, any man that could find a track up to it
might live there for a year and all the police of the country be after him.'

`What would he get to eat if he was there?'

`That long chap we stayed with at Wargulmerang told us
that there were wild cattle on all those tablelands.
Often they get snowed up in winter and die, making a circle in the snow.
Then fish in all the creeks, besides the old Snowy, and there are places
on the south side of him that people didn't see once in five years.
I believe I shall make a camp for myself on the way, and live in it
till they've forgot all about these cursed cattle. Rot their hides,
I wish we'd never have set eyes on one of them.'

`So do I; but like many things in the world it's too late -- too late, Jim!'

Chapter 14

One blazing hot day in the Christmas week Jim and I rode up the `gap' that led
from the Southern road towards Rocky Creek and the little flat near the water
where our hut stood. The horses were tired, for we'd ridden a long way,
and not very slow either, to get to the old place. How small and queer
the old homestead looked, and everything about it after all we had seen.
The trees in the garden were in full leaf, and we could see
that it was not let go to waste. Mother was sitting in the verandah sewing,
pretty near the same as we went away, and a girl was walking slowly
up from the creek carrying a bucket of water. It was Aileen.
We knew her at once. She was always as straight as a rush,
and held her head high, as she used to do; but she walked very slow,
and looked as if she was dull and weary of everything.
All of a sudden Jim jumped off, dropped his horse's bridle on the ground,
and started to run towards her. She didn't see him till he was pretty close;
then she looked up astonished-like, and put her bucket down.
She gave a sudden cry and rushed over to him; the next minute
she was in his arms, sobbing as if her heart would break.

I came along quiet. I knew she'd be glad to see me --
but, bless you, she and mother cared more for Jim's little finger
than for my whole body. Some people have a way of gettin'
the biggest share of nearly everybody's liking that comes next or anigh 'em.
I don't know how it's done, or what works it. But so it is;
and Jim could always count on every man, woman, and child, wherever he lived,
wearing his colours and backing him right out, through thick and thin.

When I came up Aileen was saying --

`Oh, Jim, my dear old Jim! now I'll die happy; mother and I were only
talking of you to-day, and wondering whether we should see you at Christmas --
and now you have come. Oh, Dick! and you too. But we shall be frightened
every time we hear a horse's tread or dog's bark.'

`Well, we're here now, Aileen, and that's something.
I had a great notion of clearing out for San Francisco and turning Yankee.
What would you have done then?'

We walked up to the house, leading our horses, Jim and Aileen hand in hand.
Mother looked up and gave a scream; she nearly fell down;
when we got in her face was as white as a sheet.

`Mother of Mercy! I vowed to you for this,' she said;
`sure she hears our prayers. I wanted to see ye both before I died,
and I didn't think you'd come. I was afraid ye'd be dreadin' the police,
and maybe stay away for good and all. The Lord be thanked
for all His mercies!'

We went in and enjoyed our tea. We had had nothing to eat that day
since breakfast; but better than all was Aileen's pleasant, clever tongue,
though she said it was getting stiff for want of exercise. She wanted to know
all about our travels, and was never tired of listening to Jim's stories
of the wonders we had seen in the great cities and the strange places
we had been to.

`Oh! how happy you must have been!' she would say, `while we have been
pining and wearying here, all through last spring and summer,
and then winter again -- cold and miserable it was last year;
and now Christmas has come again. Don't go away again for a good while,
or mother and I'll die straight out.'

Well, what could we say? Tell her we'd never go away at all if we
could help it -- only she must be a good girl and make the best of things,
for mother's sake? When had she seen father last?

`Oh! he was away a good while once; that time you and Jim
were at Mr. Falkland's back country. You must have had a long job then;
no wonder you've got such good clothes and look so smartened up like.
He comes every now and then, just like he used. We never know
what's become of him.'

`When was he here last?'

`Oh! about a month ago. He said he might be here about Christmas;
but he wasn't sure. And so you saved Miss Falkland from being killed
off her horse, Jim? Tell me all about it, like a good boy,
and what sort of a looking young lady is she?'

`All right,' said Jim. `I'll unload the story bag before we get through;
there's a lot in there yet; but I want to look at you and hear you talk
just now. How's George Storefield?'

`Oh! he's just the same good, kind, steady-going fellow he always was,'
says she. `I don't know what we should do without him when you're away.
He comes and helps with the cows now and then. Two of the horses
got into Bargo pound, and he went and released them for us.
Then a storm blew off best part of the roof of the barn,
and the bit of wheat would have been spoiled only for him.
He's the best friend we have.'

`You'd better make sure of him for good and all,' I said.
`I suppose he's pretty well-to-do now with that new farm he bought
the other day.'

`Oh! you saw that,' she said. `Yes; he bought out the Cumberers.
They never did any good with Honeysuckle Flat, though the land was so good.
He's going to lay it all down in lucerne, he says.'

`And then he'll smarten up the cottage, and sister Aileen 'll go over,
and live in it,' says Jim; `and a better thing she couldn't do.'

`I don't know,' she said. `Poor George, I wish I was fonder of him.
There never was a better man, I believe; but I cannot leave mother yet,
so it's no use talking.' Then she got up and went in.

`That's the way of the world,' says Jim. `George worships the ground
she treads on, and she can't make herself care two straws about him.
Perhaps she will in time. She'll have the best home and the best chap
in the whole district if she does.'

`There's a deal of "if" in this world,' I said; `and "if" we're "copped"
on account of that last job, I'd like to think she and mother had some one
to look after them, good weather and bad.'

`We might have done that, and not killed ourselves with work either,'
said Jim, rather sulkily for him; and he lit his pipe and walked off
into the bush without saying another word.

I thought, too, how we might have been ten times, twenty times, as happy
if we'd only kept on steady ding-dong work, like George Storefield,
having patience and seeing ourselves get better off -- even a little --
year by year. What had he come to? And what lay before us?
And though we were that fond of poor mother and Aileen that we would have done
anything in the world for them -- that is, we would have given
our lives for them any day -- yet we had left them -- father, Jim, and I --
to lead this miserable, lonesome life, looked down upon by a lot of people
not half good enough to tie their shoes, and obliged to a neighbour for help
in every little distress.

Jim and I thought we'd chance a few days at home, no matter what risk we ran;
but still we knew that if warrants were out the old home would be
well watched, and that it was the first place the police would come to.
So we made up our minds not to sleep at home, but to go away every night
to an old deserted shepherd's hut, a couple of miles up the gully,
that we used to play in when we were boys. It had been strongly built
at first; time was not much matter then, and there were no wages to speak of,
so that it was a good shelter. The weather was that hot, too,
it was just as pleasant sleeping under a tree as anywhere else.
So we didn't show at home more than one at a time, and took care
to be ready for a bolt at any time, day or night, when the police
might show themselves. Our place was middling clear all round now,
and it was hard for any one on horseback to get near it without warning;
and if we could once reach the gully we knew we could run
faster than any man could ride.

One night, latish, just as we were walking off to our hut
there was a scratching at the door; when we opened it there was old Crib!
He ran up to both of us and smelt round our legs for a minute
to satisfy himself; then jumped up once to each of us as if he thought
he ought to do the civil thing, wagged his stump of a tail,
and laid himself down. He was tired, and had come a long way.
We could see that, and that he was footsore too. We knew that father
wasn't so very far off, and would soon be in. If there'd been
anybody strange there Crib would have run back fast enough;
then father'd have dropped there was something up and not shown.
No fear of the dog not knowing who was right and who wasn't.
He could tell every sort of a man a mile off, I believe.
He knew the very walk of the police troopers' horses, and would growl,
father said, if he heard their hoofs rattle on the stones of the road.