"Rum," said I.
"Right you are. I almost thought you were a teetotaler."
I watched him closely, and saw he picked out a particular glass, and before I let him fill it I took my handkerchief up and wiped it carefully all around the inside. I looked at him and he at me while I did it. I also noticed that he tapped the compound from the ordinary cask, and I was therefore not afraid to swallow it, nor did it do me any harm. The reason I was so careful to wipe the glass was that I knew it to be a common trick of dishonest publicans, when they see a man coming along the road whom they wish to catch, to take a dirty pipe and blow some of the thick, foul-smelling stuff that it contains into an empty glass, and then have it ready for the customer. A very little dose will make the strongest man intoxicated for the whole day, and if it is not nicely adjusted, but just a speck too much, it will knock a man down in a dead swoon for many hours. I had been told this on the gold diggings by more than one person at the time I kept shanty there myself, and I knew that there were people who travelled about the country selling to publicans the secrets of tricking and falsifying spirits. I, therefore, knew pretty well where to look for danger, and where I might take the risk; but now dinner was announced, and we all went into the dining-room. On the floor of the room I saw a man who was lying there smeared all over with blood and filth. Still I recognized him at once as my friend the shearer. I went up and shook him until I got a little life into him, and he sat up and recognized me. "Hullo," bawled he, "is that you? Ain't I a fool? Publican, give me my horses, I want to go with this young fellow. I am going away this afternoon. Don't go away without me."
"All right," said the publican; "I will see to get the black boy to find your horses for you, but he says one has got out of the paddock."
Then we had dinner—that is, I had a good meal; but the drunken shearer could not touch food, and presented a terrible picture of sickness and misery. By this time I was not on good terms with the publican; but I did not care. I only studied how I could get the other poor fellow away, and I could not as yet see any way. As soon as we came from the table he staggered into the bar and called for drinks for all hands. The publican then called his wife, four or five children, a seamstress, the servant-girl, myself, the man in the yard, the black boy, the bushman I had seen, the traveller on the verandah, who had had no dinner, and himself, and they all had their drinks! It was a shilling a glass. Then the shearer asked him to be kind and let him have the balance of his cheque, which, it appeared, he had given the publican to change for him when he came; but that good Samaritan simply told him that he would not do such a thing, as he was too drunk to take care of money. When he went away he should have it. The shearer, who was getting more intoxicated again after this last glass, hung over the counter, and, in a plaintive sort of way, cried, "I am a —— fool! Never mind, let's have another. Here, fill 'em up again."
I could do no good, so I went away without paying for my dinner. I met the shearer two years after, when he told me all about it. It appeared that he had tried to pass the place in the same manner as I, and that the publican had persuaded him to come in. He had not liked to take his dinner for nothing, and had given the publican the cheque he had for changing. He had been promised the money in half an hour, but was shortly after intoxicated, and had never been able to get either the horses or the money again. After having been in the state I saw him for about three weeks, the publican presented him with a bill, from which it appeared that he owed him for "refreshments" more than the amount of the cheque added to the value of horses, saddles, and bridles. The publican had, therefore, kept the horses, but had kindly given him a bottle of grog to take with him on the road when he went away! This process is called in bush parlance, "lambing down," and is going on every day, year after year!
I had not gone far from the hotel before I saw a man coming after me. He called me to stop, which I did, and when he came closer I perceived that it was the man who had been sitting on his swag in the verandah at the hotel. He said he had come after me because he had neither rations nor money, and did not know how to get along the road unless I would be good enough to let him travel with me. He wanted to go to —— station, and try to get some shearing to do. It happened that I intended to turn off the road about half a mile further on, and that according to the place to which he said he was going we should travel in almost opposite directions, and I told him so. I said also that if he was pushed I would help him with a few rations, but that I had not time to accommodate the pace of the horses to his walk, as I had already been travelling for a much longer time than I liked. Of course he said he would be glad of anything, and so I got off the horse and had a fire lighted, by which we made some tea, and he had his dinner out of my provisions. After the meal he suddenly made up his mind that he might as well go the same road as I, and try to get a job at a station which we should pass some forty miles from where we then stood. I did not like this much, because he seemed to me a man whose company I should not appreciate, but, as the loneliness of the bush always appeared to me to engender a sort of fellowship towards whoever is there, I did not find it easy nor did I deem it right to say I would have nothing to do with him. On the contrary, I said that we would push on together then for the day, and that I would walk while he put his swag on my saddle-horse. In this way we now went several miles, and my travelling companion had very little to say. He seemed to know the road to perfection, and about four o'clock in the afternoon he suggested that we should camp at a certain spot at which we had arrived, but about a hundred yards off the road. I objected. I said he was free himself to camp or not as he chose, but if he wanted to travel with me he would have to walk a good deal further, as I had by no means come as far yet as I considered a day's journey required. After that we started again, but my new friend seemed frightfully morose, and had not a word to say. As the horse he held was a better leader than mine he gradually forged ahead of me, and try as I would I could not keep up with him. I was just wishing myself well rid of him when I saw him suddenly turn off the road, leading the horse after him, and although I called again and again, he neither turned round nor answered me until he came to a deep water-hole about a mile off the road. Here he took the load off the horse, and hobbled it out. I was not only angry, but I was also to a certain extent afraid. I had already agreed with myself that I could not lie down to sleep alongside of him; but what, of all things, did he mean by leading me to this place? As soon as I came up I asked him what he meant, and how he dared to take my horse off the road. I had taken the bridle belonging to the saddle-horse to go and catch it again, for I intended now at all hazards to get rid of him. At this juncture he came towards me.
"Here is grass, and here is water," cried he, "and out of this spot shall neither I nor any —— German or —— Dutchman come to-night. Let go that bridle!"
Then he grasped the bridle. You know the old proverb that "There is a time when patience ceases to be a virtue," and in my opinion that time had now arrived. I had not been so long in Queensland without learning to defend myself, so I closed with him. What a fearful struggle we had! As far as I was concerned, I felt as if it was a struggle for life, and I fought accordingly. Now we were up, now down. Sometimes I was on the top of him and sometimes I was under, but whatever happened I must not give in, because I felt sure I should receive small mercy if I did. At last I had him. My hands were round his throat, and my knees on his chest, while I felt his hands slide powerless off me. It was not victory yet. If I let him go he might renew the attack, so I pressed his throat until he was nearly black in the face, and I sat on him as heavily as I could, because I was angry, and when at last I let him go, it was not before I thought I had taken all his fighting humour out of him. While I loaded my horse again I called him all the names I thought it probable would insult him most, in case he might have any honour and shame in him, and at last I threw his swag at his head and cried, "There, you old loafer!"
Then I got on the horse and rode away; nor did I stop that night before I had put fully twenty miles between him and me.