Some Everyday Folk and Dawn Part 4

"It ain't his name. He's called it for a lark because he was after a girl up in town named Dora Cowper. She serves in a hay and corn store at the corner. Things were gettin' on pretty strong, and he used to be taking her out all hours of the night and day. Some reckon she's better-lookin' than Dawn, and her mother put it around that Eweword would make a brilliant match for her, and that shooed him off at once.

I reckon if I was a girl and wanted to ketch a man I'd hold me mag about it, as I know two or three now has been turned off the same way."

"Perhaps Dora Cowper didn't lose much."

"Well, he has a bosker farm, you see. He keeps a power of pigs and fattens 'em. Then he went after one or two more girls, and now he comes here. Buying these pumpkins is only a dodge to get a chip in with Dawn. He has plenty lucerne for his pigs, but we have so many pumpkins rotting we are glad to get rid of them at two bob a load, and I suppose that is cheap to get a yarn with Dawn. He ain't preposed to Dawn yet, but I'm sure he's goin' to, because I asked him if he was goin' to marry Dora Cowper, an' he said no. Dawn is only pullin' his leg for him--she's got all the blokes on a string. You should see her with those that comes up in the summer. It's worth bein' alive in the summer. We had melons here in millions. We used to open a big Dixie or Cuban Queen and just only claw out the middle. We used to fill the water-cask with 'em to cool, an' every time Dawn came out to dive in her dipper, wouldn't she rouse! Me an' Uncle Jake used to race to see who could eat the most, but he beat. He's a sollicker to stuff when he gets anything he likes. It's a wonder we didn't bust. The oranges will soon be ripe, that's good luck: I can eat eighty a-day easy. Here comes old Bolliver!"

A huge figure as described by Dawn came out of the house in company with Miss Flipp, and I recognised Mr p.o.r.nsch, the heavy swell who had travelled in the 'bus with me on the day of my first arrival in Noonoon.

With repulsive clumsiness he climbed into the vehicle, and then said roughly, almost brutally, to his niece--

"Get in! get in!" and scarcely gave her time to be seated ere he hit the pony and nearly screwed its jaw off getting out of the yard.

"c.o.c.k-a-doodle-do! Ain't it nice to have a sweet temper," loudly remarked Andrew, as he stood aside. "He just is a purple plum. He's the kind of old cove I'd like to get real narked and then scoot.

Wouldn't he splutter and think himself Lord Muck, and that every one oughter be licking his boots!"

Dawn and "Dora" Eweword were still hanging over a garden fence as Andrew went after his cows and I betook myself to the house. Uncle Jake was in conference with his sister, and gave evidence of fearing I should pursue him, so I mercifully betook myself to my own apartment.

Miss Flipp presently returned, and saying she had had tea up town with her uncle and would not want any more, shut herself in her room, from whence I soon detected the sound of impa.s.sioned sobbing. My first impulse was to ask her what was the matter, but my second, born of a wide experience of grief, led me to hold my tongue and tell no one what I had heard; but to escape from the sound of that pitiable weeping I went out in the garden, where I was joined by Mrs Clay.

"Did you see that young feller out there this afternoon? Fine stamp of a young man, don't you think?" remarked she.

"He should be able for a good day's work."

"Yes; he's none of your tobacco-spitting, wizened-up little runts like you'll see hangin' on to the corner-posts in Noonoon."

"Seems to admire your granddaughter?"

"An' he's not the first by a long way that has done that, though she was only nineteen this month."

"I can quite believe it. She is a lovely girl."

"An' more than that, a good one. I've never had one moment's uneasiness with Dawn; she took after me that way. I could let her go out in the world anywhere with no fear of her goin' astray. She's got a fine way with men, friendly and full of life, but let 'em attempt to come an inch farther than she wants, and then see! Sometimes I'm inclined to wish she's be a little more genteeler; but then I look around an' see some of them sleek things, an' it's always them as are no good, an' I'm glad then she's what she is. There's some girls here in town,"--the old lady grew choleric,--"you'd think b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in their mouths, an' they try to sit on Dawn. It's because they're jealous of her, that's what it is. I wouldn't own 'em! They'd run a man into debt and be a curse to him; but there's Dawn, the man that gets her, he'll have a woman that will be of use to him and not just a ornament."

"He'll have an ornament too."

"Perhaps so. I've spent a lot of money on her education. She's been taught painting and dancing. I had her down at the Ladies' College in Sydney for two years finis.h.i.+ng, an' she's had more chances of being a lady than most. Some of these things in town here turn up their noses at her an' say, 'She's only old Mrs Clay's granddaughter, who keeps a accommodation house,' but I pay me bills and ain't ashamed to walk up town an' look 'em all in the face."

"But it's generally those who owe the most who have the most lordly mien."

"You're right. I could point you out some of them up town as hasn't a s.h.i.+rt to their back, an' they look as they owned everythink--the brazenest things!" The old dame's indignation waxed startling in its intensity.

"But I was going to tell you about young Eweword. I've set me heart on him for Dawn. He's somethink worth lookin' at an' worth havin' too. He knows how to farm and make it pay, an' owns one of the best pieces of land about Noonoon--all his own. Dawn don't seem to take to him as she ought. He was after a girl here in town, a Dora Cowper, an' so she says she ain't goin' to take any leavin's; but he ain't any leavin's, she can be sure of that, for if he'd wanted Dora Cowper they'd have snapped him up, an' I think as long as a young feller don't go making too much of a fool of a girl, a little flirtation's only natural. This has been the mischief with Dawn. There's a lot of people here in the summer from the city, and they're all taken with her, and for everlasting telling her she's wasting her talents here, that she ought to be on the stage. It's a wonder people can't mind their own concerns!" (The old dame grew choleric again.) "It makes her think what I can give her ain't good enough. It's all very fine in a good comfortable home of her own, with love and protection around her, to think people mean that sort of thing, an' that w'en she walked out in the world they would be anxious to wors.h.i.+p her. Just let her go out an' try, an' she'd find it all moons.h.i.+ne; but w'en I tell her, she only thinks I'm a old pig, an' only she's that stubborn I know she'd never come back. (I would be the same myself w'en young, so can't blame her.) I'd let her have a taste of hards.h.i.+p to bring her to her bearin's. But while I'm alive she'll never have my consent to be a actress. W'en I was young they was looked upon as the lowest hussies.

I'd like to hear what my mother would say if I had wanted to be one--paintin' meself up an' kickin' up me heels and showin' meself before men in the loudest manner!"

I concluded not to divulge my profession while at Clay's, and to boot, I held much the same point of view.

"She thinks she'd like to marry some fine feller and be a toff; an'

she's got this danger that's always the drawback of a girl bein'

pretty, so many fellers come after them at the start they get finnicky an' think they can marry any one, an' leave it too late, an' in the end they marry some rubbis.h.i.+ng feller an' don't came out half so well as the plain ones that was content with a fair thing w'en they had the chance of it. Just the same with a boy; it's a bad thing for them to be able to do everythink, they are so terribly smart they end up by doin' nothink, an' the ploddin' feller they grinned at for bein' a b.o.o.by, because he stuck to the one thing, comes out on top."

"Just so; want of concentration plucks one every time."

"That's wot I want to save Dawn from. It's all right while I live, an'

I don't want her to be chuckin' herself at the head of any Tom or d.i.c.k, but I won't live for ever, an' marriage is like everythink else, you want to have your eye on a good thing an' not humbug too much.

W'en I'm gone"--the austere old face softened--"I wouldn't like to think of her I've spent so much money on, an' rared with me own hand, as I did her an' her mother before her, growin' old an' sour an'

lonely, or bein' a slave to some worthless crawler." The old voice grew perilously soft, and saved itself from a break by a swift crescendo.

"As I say, I suppose she's waitin' for some great impossible feller to come along, like we do w'en we're young; but these upper ten is the worst matches a girl can make, an' besides there's too many trying to ketch them in their own rank. I've had lots of 'em here, an' to see these swell girls the way they try to ketch some one would make you ill. Don't you think so?"

"Well, my sympathies are always with the swell girl in the matrimonial market," I replied. "She has a far harder time than those of the working cla.s.ses. You see, so many of the well-to-do eligibles prefer working girls--actresses, chorus-singers, and barmaids, which, in addition to marriage in their own cla.s.s, gives these girls a chance of stepping up; whereas the swell girls cannot marry grooms and footmen and raise them to their rank as their brothers can their housemaids and ballet-girls. To be a success the society girl must marry a man of sufficient means to keep her as an expensive toy, and this description of bachelor being scarce in any case, little wonder she has to hunt hard and tries to protect her preserves from poachers. Think of it that way."

"There is a lot in that, and that's why I like to see Dawn have young Eweword, who's a man I'd be happy to leave her to; but I daren't say a word, she's mighty touchy an' would flash up that she'd leave if I want to get rid of her. But while I've got breath in me body there's one thing I will set me foot on, an' that's these good-for-nothing skunks like bankers' sons an' them sort of high an' mighty pauper n.o.bodies; they're fearful matches for any one. I know too much about the swells an' the old families of the colony, I'm thankful I ain't one of them. My father came out here a long time ago, an' I was born out here. He was a sergeant in the police. I am near seventy-six, an'

can remember plain for seventy years back in the days w'en there was plenty convicts, an' me father, seein' his position, was put to see the floggin' of them. Me and another little girl that's dead now used to climb up a tree an' look over the wall like children would. We was stationed in Goulburn then, an' I'll never forget the scenes to me dyin' day. The men used to be stripped to the waist and tied on a triangle and walloped till they was cut to pieces, till they screamed like little children for mercy, and poor old wretches that had roamed the world for sixty years used to screech Mother! Mother! like little children. It was heart-renderin'! An' what used they be flogged for, do you think?--for the piggishness of the swells mostly. I'll tell you. There was a old feller lived out at Kaligiwa--that's more than twenty miles the other side of Goulburn, an' there's Parry's Lagoon there called after him till this day. He was a old Lord Muck if ever there was one, an' by reason of that got a land grant an' men a.s.signed, an' he ought to have been give to them to kick--would have been the right thing; an' then he had a lot of skunks of sons,--took after their father, of course, an' hadn't much chance of bein'

anythink else,--an' w'en they used to ride to town they used to have a man tied to the stirrup just to hold it."

"What was that for?"

"What was it for?" she raged. "It was because they was those skunks of swells that think other people is only made as floor wipes for 'em!

An' this feller used to have to run all the way to town, and if he hadn't strength to run all the way he'd be dragged, an' if he give any lip the Parrys 'u'd report 'em; an' me father says he's often seen 'em flogged till their backs were like ploughed, an' then have to run the twenty miles home. Me father used to come in every day and fling hisself down an' cry and sob as if his heart would break, an' say he'd rather starve than stay in the police. Now, the Parrys got up an' one of them had a 'Sir' sent out to his name, and you'll see 'em writ about as one of the few _old_ families; and I hold that Dawn come from better stock than them, and has more to be proud of in her grandfather--he had some heart in him. An' Lord! there's Miss Flipp's uncle, one look at him ought to be sufficient warnin' to any girl.

The likes of him is common among the swells--too much stuffin' an'

drinkin' an' debochary. Nice thing if Dawn married a swell an' he developed into a old pig like that. I can tell you another great family of swells, the Goburnes--entertained the Royalties w'en they was out here, an' are such bugs one of 'em married the Governor's daughter. They got up about the same way. In the old days w'en things were carelesser an' land wasn't much, the old c.o.c.k of all had the surveyor that was gone on his daughter measurin' the land, an' got him to slice in great pieces by false measurement, an' worked the lives out of convicts--as big a brute as the Parrys. That's the breed of the swells, an' I have a horror of them. The people as I consider ought to be the swells in this country is them that came out first, the free emigrants, and honestly worked up the colony with their own hands, an'

their children done the same for four or five generations--them's the only proper Australian aristocracy we've got. That's why I have sich a contempt for this Rooney-Molyneux, Mrs Bray was tellin' of; only times is different he'd be the same, he's got the sort of pride that thinks his wife is a black gin because she was only a milliner."

Out past the placard advertising Mrs Clay's boats gleamed the highroad, and from where we walked could be seen a now unused old stone milepeg, carved in Roman lettering, its legend differing somewhat from that in modern figures painted on the miniature wooden post by which it had been deposed. It was one of many relics of the dead and gone convicts who had done giant pioneer labour in this broad bright land in the days when Grandma Clay's mother had been young.

Fine old grandma, daughter of a fine old dad who had wept for the cruelty endured by the men who had worked in chain-gangs and were flogged under his superintendence, and thinking thus I turned to the old dame who had ceased talking and said--

"And what of your father, did he get away from seeing the convicts flogged?"

"Yes; me mother thought he was goin' mad. He used to sob in his sleep an' call out and squirm that he couldn't bear to see them flogged, an'

leap up in bed in a sweat. So he gave up the police an' we went a long way farther back to Gool-Gool on the Yarrangung, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee. The train in them days was only a little way out of Sydney, an' me father got a job of drivin' Cobb & Co.'s coaches from Gool-Gool to Yarrandogi, an' me an' me mother an' sisters an' Jake there used to live in a little tent at the first stage out of Gool-Gool, an' take care of the horses. I was fond of them horses, and used to sneak out to harness them on to the swingle-bar w'en I was no higher than the table. It's a wonder I didn't get me brains knocked out. I was lots smarter than Jake there with the horses, though it ain't supposed to be girl's work. But it came nacheral to me, an' I think in that case it's right. That's why I never was one to narrer girls down an' say you mustn't do this and that because you're a girl.

I've always found, in spite of their talk, the best and gamest mothers is the ones that grew out of the tomboy girls. Well, it come that me father, being a steady man an' very kind and well liked, he got on surprisin', an' soon the tent give place to a bark hut. That's the way people worked up in my days, an' what they had was their own. They didn't want to start in mansions an' eat off of silver at the expense of others like in these times! After that we moved a long way down an'

took up a position on the Murra-Murra run beside the Sydney road, where the coaches pa.s.sed in the night; an' me mother made hot coffee for the pa.s.sengers, an' we drove a roarin' trade, had to git girls in to help, an' put up a large accommodation house, and respectable people always made to us" (the old head went high and the eyes flashed) "because we was clean, temperance people, there never was no D.T.'s or sly grog where we had the rule. An' that's why I always like to have a few people in the house to this day. I'm used to their company like, an' feel there's nothing goin' on or doing without them.

Well, I grew up in time. I can't say it meself, but them as knew me then could tell you I wasn't disfigured in any way or a cripple, an'

had no lack of admirers. Me an' me two sisters had 'em by the score waitin' till we grew old enough to be married. I can tell you there was some smart fellers among 'em. Those were the times! Me sisters made what is called swell matches, an' not bein' used to bein' cooped up, their lives was failures. I was the only one married in me own circle, and my life was a pattern to the others. I was the oldest an'

waited last, an' me mother was that disappointed in me that I had to run away, an' I have me reasons for fearin' Dawn is on for a swell. I seen me sisters' lives. I call them unwholesome marriages when girls marries these fellers, an' their narrer-minded people sits on her an'

is that depraved they turn him agen her!" Mrs Clay was vehement.

"When Dawn's mother grew up she was Dawn's image, an' we was keepin' a accommodation house too, that is Jim Clay an' me, and Dawn's mother was reckoned the prettiest and best girl in them parts, an' had lovers from far and near; but there came a feller up from Sydney to stay, nothin' to blow about neither, but he was dreadfully gone on me daughter. He seemed all right, but I was agen him--being a swell,--till me daughter threatened she'd run away with him if I didn't let her have him peaceful, an' rememberin' me own youth, I let her have him in spite of me misgivin's. She went home with him, an' it appears he was like these crawlin' fellers--couldn't do nothink, only what their parents give them; an' w'en they found he'd married a fine, good, wholesome girl, instead of one of their own style--one of the Parrys for instance--they cut him off with a s.h.i.+lling, an' poor thing she nearly starved, an' took to work to keep him, an' he always growlin' at her like the coward he was, that only for her he'd have been well off. A mess-alliance his people called it, but the mess wasn't from poor Mary's side. Well, w'en it come that she was to be a mother, his people took her in and told her, if you please, that if it was a boy they'd take it theirselves and educate it fit for their family, but if it was a girl they wouldn't. The poor thing, not bein'

able for anythink an' too proud to come home, stood their insults as long as she could, an' at last she sneaked out at night and set off to walk to me. It is pitiable to think of."

The poor old voice trembled.

"She had more'n a hundred miles to travel an' it took her days, but some folk was good, an' one cold night about three hours before daylight she startled me by comin' into my room. I remember it like yesterday. 'Mother,' she says, 'I'm ill; I'm goin' to die; you won't let them take my child, will you?' I thought her wanderin', an' she was so gentle it frightened me; for we was always saucy ladies, I can tell you--every one of us, an' you can see Dawn is the same now. But that's only a way; w'en I'm ill she's as tender as anythink. It's grandma wouldn't this do you good, and that do you good? An' her little hands is very clever an' nice about my old bones w'en they ache. Well, her mother was took bad an' me an' her father done our best, an' her baby came into the world--a poor miserable little winjin' thing, an' its mother turnin' over said, 'What's that light, mother, comin' in, is it the Dawn?' an' lookin' up I see it was the Dawn; an' she never spoke again, but went off simple an' sudden just then, an' that's how Dawn come to get her name. I never thought she'd live to be called by it though. Little winjin' thing! I had to feed her on the bottle an' everythink disagreed with her. We had to keep a old cow especial. I remember her as clear as yesterday--a big old cow with a dew-lap an' a crumpled horn; we called her Ladybird because she was spots all over. As for _them_ getting Dawn! They had the cheek to write an' say if it was a boy they'd take it. They had the cheek after what happened--that's swells for you again! I writ them one letter in return that I reckon ought to last them to their dying day. I told them it wasn't any matter to them what _my_ child was; that they had _murdered_ one already, let that be sufficient for them; that they'd get no more unless over my dead body; an' that all I regretted was that the child had any of their cowardly blood in it, that it almost discouraged me about its rarin'. An' Dawn don't know her name, an'

won't unless she's married. Her father married again, an' I'm glad to say never had another child, an' I believe hankers for Dawn, an' he will hanker for my part; an' I've got Dawn tootered up agen him too.

Now you can see the blow it would be to me if she took up with a swell--there's no happiness marryin' out of yer own religion or cla.s.s.

Mine was what I'd call a love match now. Jim Clay _was_ a lover! I've seen him come in with a team of five all buckin', an' it snowin' an'

never anythink but a laugh out of him. He'd ride miles an' miles to see me. The crawlers about these parts nowadays toddle about on bikes or sit like great-grandfathers in sulkies, an' if it was to sprinkle they'd think half a mile too far to go to see their sweetheart. I think the heart of the world must be dyin' out."

"You'll tell me about Jim Clay, won't you?" I said; "for I am an Australian--one of those you consider ent.i.tled to be termed a real aristocrat. My people for several generations have practically worked in the building of the State, though I must admit they belonged to the leisured cla.s.s at home."