Well, to cut it short, my comrade went off to Melbourne to some relatives and handed me over the whole show. This turn of affairs renewed my old trust in the business, and though I was sorry to lose my friend I bucked up and kept on with the business. Indeed, it was my only hope; my best clothes were in pawn, also my violin. I went next morning to the office and filled up hundreds of bags with seed which I thought corresponded with the flowers illustrated upon them and off I went, taking a book with me full of the names of customers, and very soon I ingratiated myself into their favour and they all promised to deal with me as they had done with my comrade.
How it all happened I don’t know, but I had made a mistake and placed a hundredweight of turnip and cabbage seed into the choice flower packets, and when I went off to Paramatta, my best district, a week or so after, I was met at the doors by irate men and women who swore that I had deliberately played a trick upon them, and when I arrived at the house of a nursery garden manager who had bought a whole year’s stock from me and found that the whole of the specially laid flower beds were producing nothing else but cabbages and turnips, I had to fly for my life. One old woman raced after me down the Paramatta main road swearing that she would do for me; by Jove, I did run as she waddled shouting far behind! And that was the end of the flower seed business. All of those people knew my business address, as it was on the packets in large crimson lettering, so I crept into the office early next morning, packed the scales up, locked the door and bolted off. The scales were the only things in the office that I could raise money on and I sold them for fifteen shillings and that same day I took a berth on a coaster for Brisbane.
I think it took three days to get round. I was delighted to see the old place again. I had taken my violin out of pawn and the day after I arrived I went away up country and got a job on a ranch about fifty miles from Cooktown, and there I blossomed into a real “boundary rider,” as they call them out there. My boss was an Irishman, his wife was English, and a dear creature she was too. There was an old Chinaman working for them and he got fearfully jealous of me as soon as I became a favourite with the girls, for Kelly, that was my boss’s name, had three daughters and one son. I did not like the son, he was a grumpy ignorant chap, and I had as little to do with him as possible.
Ethel, the eldest daughter, and I became good friends and I taught her to play the violin; she was not what the world would call good-looking, but I saw something in her face that put good looks in the shade. She had fine grey eyes, and one evening when we were sitting by the homestead in the bush, and the parrots were settling to roost in the gums and orange-trees around us, I leaned over her to show her how to hold the violin bow in professional style, and she gazed up at me with an earnest look, and before I could help myself I held her closely to me and kissed her. She blushed and we forgot all about the violin practice and many were the nights that she and I went out into the beautiful bushlands together and I made her happy. I knew that she loved me; her mother was in the secret and gave me every encouragement, and though I got to hate the monotony of bush life I put up with it all gladly so as to keep near that simple bush girl. I thank God that I did too, for the first great sorrow of my life came out of my affection for her. Suddenly she became sick; to our horror she developed typhoid fever and I was the last to kiss her dead face. I cannot tell you any more about it even after all these years; a part of my heart is in that lonely bush grave away across the world in Queensland.
I was terribly cut up over that sorrow, and though that homestead of the bush became more lonesome to me than ever, I stayed on for nearly two months for the sake of the stockman’s wife whom I became very fond of as she knew my feelings and I knew hers. I am not ashamed to tell you that when at last I wished her good-bye I broke down and kissed her as a boy would his mother. I often wrote to her afterwards and I have some of her letters now, and beautiful letters they are too.
I did not care much where I went at that time. On an old Australian hack I rode away intending to go to Cooktown so that I could get round to Brisbane, but the spirit of adventure was in my blood and I altered my course and left the track and travelled north-west. I had a good swag of provisions made up for me by the stockman’s wife, and so I felt secure as far as food was concerned as I rode over the scrub-covered rolling hills of that lonely country. That night I made a fire just to keep me company and camping there alone with the birds and trees around me I slept with my heart in that bush grave.
Homestead Scene, Queensland
Next morning I rose early and started off again and before sunset I came across a shanty wherein lived an old bushman. He was very kind to me and asked me to stay the night, which I did. I slept on a trestle bed by him in the one dingy small room. He was an old man, and as the moonlight crept through the small window-pane and revealed his sleeping face I noticed that he had lost all his teeth, and every time he breathed his lips would puff out and then go inwards, making a ghostly chanting noise at regular intervals throughout the whole night. I got quite nervous and never slept a wink till daylight crept across the tree-tops outside and a kind of sweet reality stole over the hut-bedroom as I closed my weary eyes and slumbered, but only for about ten minutes, for he had slept well and waking up with the light he started to make a deuce of a row, chopping wood. I left early that morning and from that day to this I have never slept with toothless old men.
He was a real Australian bushman, I could tell that by his conversation, which consisted of about twelve words during my stay, the longest sentence of all was the first at our meeting by his hut door when he looked at me for a minute and then said, “Want some tucker?” meaning food. “Yes, thanks,” I answered, and when I had eaten up ravenously all he put before me he sat and smoked by the door, and after an hour’s silence said, “Turn in?” Again I answered “Yes,” and when I left in the morning he simply said, “Good luck, chum,” and closed the door on me. This sounds a bit far-fetched, but it’s true enough! Through living in the bush they all get taken that way and almost forget their own language and look upon you as a nuisance if you ask more than one question a day.