Colonial Born: A Tale of the Queensland bush

by G. Firth Scott

Palmer Billy, never very averse to free comment on passing events, was the personification of eloquence on the day that the robbery of the digger's gold was discovered. Restrained by Tony and Peters from joining in the senseless hue and cry after the robbers, he had, as he expressed it, been sitting on dynamite up to the time when there was a chance of letting off superfluous energy in the form of speech on the verandah of Marmot's store. Tony had wanted him and Peters to ride out to the Flat and stay there until the New Year, but they (and especially Palmer Billy) would have none of it. A holiday spoiled was no holiday at all, Palmer Billy averred. He had urged that to work right through Christmas was a tempting of Providence, but, as he explained, that was before Providence played it low down on them in permitting them to be robbed of their gold. As it was, there was only one course to pursue. They would get as much stores as their credit would permit, and they would be off again to the creek they had worked out, to test a little theory he had formed about a possible lode which, if found, would make a millionaire of each of them. The next day, at the latest, they were to start, and Tony rode away by himself to the Flat to explain the situation to Taylor and his wife.

With the characteristic freedom of bush-life, which gives to every unit the right to come and go as he pleases, and the typical independence of the Australian spirit, home-ties, as understood in more closely populated or more conventional countries, are not conspicuous. As soon as the fledgling finds his wings, the parent-nest ceases to be the centre of his universe; the forbears are no longer the dictators of his actions. He is an individual, free and self-reliant; a member of the race which has subdued the vast territories of the island continent—territories which in Europe would hold a dozen states and kingdoms—and as he has the birthright of freedom to empower him, so has he also the birthright of territory to enable him to live his own life, expanding as his instincts dictate, broadening as experience teaches, deepening as his sympathies are touched. He may lose somewhat of the softer sensibilities which gather round the home memories of older generations; the clinging affection which lingers through life for the places where the earliest years of childhood and youth were passed, can scarcely have existence amongst a people to whom the word "home" only suggests the motherland, the parent country, or, as often as not, the country of the parents. But instead he becomes the possessor of an open, self-reliant independence; quick to see and understand; cringing to no man; satisfied with the right and the chance to work for his wants; and with the part of his nature which would otherwise be absorbed in the gentle bonds of home-ties, free to act in accordance with the dictates of humanity, with the world for his home and all mankind for his relatives. Hence Tony, in returning for a visit to the Flat, was merely paying a visit, and by no means yielding to the demands of home or family affection.

His point of view in that respect was the point of view of the remainder of the Taylor offspring, but it was the only trait which they had in common with him. As had been said on Marmot's verandah, Tony was alone among them; not one of them had the black hair and dark eyes nor the quick, alert spirit which characterized Tony. They rather followed the example of Taylor, and were stolid, hard-working fellows, content with enough of eating, working, and sleeping, and neither needing nor heeding aught else. The only one at the Flat with whom he had any close sympathy was Mrs. Taylor, and even with her he felt a restraint occasionally which perplexed him, for she gave him of her matronly love to a greater degree than she gave to the others. She had never lost the influence of her old-country up-bringing, and to Tony, her own and yet not her own, she was bound by more than the ties of maternity.

His return at the present juncture was fraught with keen interest to her, for she, in her remnant of old-world romance, had watched with kindly sympathy the growing companionship of Tony and Ailleen from the time when they were school-children together; and in between the busy but withal prosaic hours of her life, she had stolen enough time to weave daydreams round the union, some day, of her handsome, dark-eyed, daring boy, and the fair-haired Saxon Ailleen. She had watched the companionship ripen into something more—into something which the two did not even realize themselves, but which was only too evident to her jealously sharpened eyes; for she was jealous of the boy, although far from spitefully.

Most of his daring escapades had been performed under the influence, unrecognized by him, of Ailleen's passing disregard, and the elder woman had often inveighed in her mind against the waywardness of the younger, who, having such a treasure within her grasp, ignored it, and ran the risk, however slight, of losing it. Unfortunately, both Tony and Ailleen possessed the free-born Australian spirit to a degree which made it more than difficult to guide or counsel them—only could one stand idly by and, apparently without noticing anything, chafe and worry lest the break away should come.

And the break away had come. The starting away with the gold-diggers was an unmistakable token of Tony's revolt; the moving out to Barellan immediately after her father's death was the unquestionable reply of Ailleen. But it did not necessarily follow that the result was foregone, and Mrs. Taylor, in her efforts to grasp the movements of the modern development of youth, had argued with herself that perhaps, after all, this double split might only be the later form of the old-fashioned lover's quarrel. The return of Tony, on the first occasion, was an evidence that she was right, and she watched him as he hastened away to Barellan. But he came back and never mentioned Ailleen's name, and set out again for the gold-fields still without mentioning her name; and then, while he was away, there came to her brief shreds and echoes of gossip, all circling round Ailleen, and all tending to prove that she was striving to wed young Dickson—and Barellan, as Mrs. Taylor added with scorn—and to forget the comrade of her childhood.

Tony had now come back again, and Mrs. Taylor wondered, as she saw him, whether he had heard any of the stories she had heard about Ailleen's change. He told her all about the rich patch of gold-bearing gravel they had struck in the creek, and the way they had worked it out so as to be able to get to Birralong for Christmas, but only to find themselves stranded almost before their holidays began, and with all the work to do over again, to say nothing of the finding of a new claim.

"And you are starting out again to-morrow?" she said.

"Yes; and we shall stay out till we find another patch. Palmer Billy swears he can trace out the mother-reef of the alluvial, and that it will be rich enough to make us all station-owners and able to run horses for the Melbourne Cup."

"And if you don't find it?" she asked.