Priestley had never been taught to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters; yet there was deeper pathos in the rude dignity of his reply than could have attended servility.
"It s this way, Mr. Magomery—I don't deny I got here in a sneakin' way. I feel it, Mr. Magomery; by (sheol) I do. Still, I'm here now. Well, if I tackle this track out to the main road, there's three o' them bullocks'll drop in yoke before I fetch the station. Would you like to see the bones layin' aside this track, every time you drive past? I bet you what you like, you'd be sorry when your temper is over. Then we'll say I'm out on the main road—how 'm I goin' to fetch Nalrooka? Not possible, the way I'm fixed. I would n't do it to you, Mr. Magomery."
I had ridden to the side of the buggy. "Mr. Montgomery," said I; "I wish to heaven that you were under one-tenth of the obligation to me that I am under to you, so that I might venture to speak in this case. But the remembrance of so much consideration at your hands m the past, encourages me. There's a great deal in what Priestley says; my own experience in bullock driving brings it home to me; and I sympathise with him, rather than with you. Of course the matter rests entirely in your hands; but to me it appears in the light of a responsibility. It is noble to have a squatter's strength, but tyrannous to use it like a squatter."
Something like a smile struggled to Montgomery's sunburnt face; and I could see that the battle was over.
But another was impending. It was now half-an-hour since I had met the buggy. Folkestone had calmly ignored me from the first. When the trouble supervened, his haughty immobility had still sustained him at such an altitude as to render Priestley, as well as myself, invisible even to bird's eye view. But the small soul, rattling about loose in the large, well-fed body, could n't let it pass at that. On my interposing, he placed a gold-mounted glass in his eye, and, with a degress of rudeness which I have never seen equalled in a navvies' camp, stared straight in my face till I had done speaking. Then the lens dropped from his eye, and he turned to his companion.
"Who is this person, Montgomery?" he asked.
The squatter looked plainly displeased. He was as proud as his guest, but in a different way. Folkestone, being a gentleman per se, was distinguished from the ordinary image of God by caste and culture; and to these he added a fatal self-consciousness. Don't take me as saying that caste and culture could possibly have made him a boor; take me as saying that these had been powerless to avert the misfortune. He was a gentleman by the grace of God and the flunkeyism of man. Montgomery was also a gentleman, but only by virtue of his position. So that, for instance, Priestley's personal fac-simile, appearing as a well-to-do squatter, would have been received on equal terms by Montgomery; whereas, Folkestone's disdain would have been scarcely lessened. The relative manliness of the two types of 'gentleman' is a question which each student will judge according to his own fallen nature.
"Pardon me for saying that you Australians have queer ways of maintaining authority," continued the European, lazily raising his eyebrows, and speaking with the accent—or rather, absence of accent—which, in an Englishman, denotes first-class education. "A vagrant, by appearance, and probably not overburdened with honesty, is found trespassing on your property; then this individual—by Gad, I feel curious to know who our learned brother for the defence is—bandies words with you on the other fellow's behalf. I confess I rather like his style. I expected to hear him address you as 'old boy,' or 'my dear fellow,' or by some such affectionate title. Pardon my warmth, I say, Montgomery! but this phase of colonial life is new to me. Placed in your position (if my opinion, as a landlord, be worth anything), I should make an example of the trespassing scoundrel; partly as a tonic to himself, and partly as a lesson to this cad. If I rightly understand, you have the power to punish, by fine or imprisonment, any trespass on your sheep-walks. You don't exercise your prerogative, you say? By Gad, you'll have to exercise it, or, let me assure you, you will be sowing thorns for your children to reap. Here, I should imagine, is an excellent opportunity for vindication of your rights as a land owner."
This reasoning would n't have affected Montgomery's foregone decision to suspend his own rights in the current case, had not Priestley been too industrious to notice the opening avenue of escape. But to the bullock driver's troubled mind it appeared that he had managed to wander inside the wings of the stockyard of Fate, and that Folkestone was lending a willing hand to hurroo him into the crush. Moreover, the rough magnanimity of the man's nature was outraged by some supposed insult sustained by me on his behalf.
Just three words of comment here. Built into the moral structure of each earthly probationer is a thermometer, graduated independently; and it is never safe to heat the individual to the boiling-point of his register. You never know how far up the scale this point is, unless you are very familiar with the particular thermometer under experiment. Romeo, for instance, pacific by nature, and self-schooled to forbearance by the second-strongest of inspirations, meets deadly public insult by the softest of answers—'calm, dishonourable, vile submission,' his friend calls it. But the slaying of that friend touches Romeo's 212°Fahrenheit—then! 'Away to heaven, respective lenity, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!' Whereupon, Tybalt, the tamperer, is scalded to death. In Ida, as we have seen, the insinuated aspersion of unchastity touched 100°Centigrade; and the experimentalist was glad to retreat, with damaged dignity, from the escaping steam. So, in Priestley, the wanton hostility of Folkestone touched 80°Reaumur; and the billy boiled over, wasting the water, and smothering the owner with ashes.