Towards the end of May 1886—against professional advice, to which we opposed our private opinion that the best way to get well was to get rid of the homesick cravings that were beyond doctor's reach—I was transferred from my hospital bed to one in the house of a dear Melbourne friend, where I lay in all the luxury that love and money could provide, and with portions of family around me, for a few more weeks; until at last it was considered that I might make the long journey to my home in safety. I had a bed in the railway carriage, and reached the goal of my desires at midnight, when the long-motherless bairns were asleep. Thereafter, although weighed down at times with the thought of my supposed impending doom—never really out of my mind, and constantly spurring me to extreme efforts to turn the available time to the best account, in the interests of my prospective orphans—I persisted in getting well and in enjoying myself accordingly. Indeed, the charm of life at this period—only to be understood by those in like case, who have been so near to losing it—is a bloom upon the retrospect that is likely to misrepresent it in these pages. Beauty is in the eye and heart of the beholder more than in the thing beheld. However, Ican only paint as I have seen, and the reader will make allowances.
Certainly Home No. 7, which was in the near neighbourhood of Homes 1, 2, and 3, was a trifle dilapidated. G.'s successor there, when he first saw it, called it a "shanty"—he came from the modern suburban villa which we now occupy, and was used to high ceilings and electric bells—and he thought (until the rain ceased and the sun came out) that it would be impossible to bring his family to quarters so mean by comparison with what they were accustomed to. But they were good enough for us. The most we asked of the vestry was to keep roofs weather-tight; for the rest, we felt ourselves equal to making a satisfactory abode out of a far worse shanty than that. Indeed, we had done so more than once.
All the paint was off it, and the soft grey of the dissolving wood-work was in perfect harmony with every other detail of the composition; I used to dread to turn my back on the place, lest the parish should take a notion to smarten up while I was away, although I knew that the time was near when something would have to be done. They could only have put staring patches on their old garment, which would have made it hideous. It was so beautifully, mellowly "all of a piece" now, that I begged G., who rather hankered after painters and carpenters, to keep their hands off, if he loved me. "It will last our time," I said, as he drove the amateur nail, and I saw to it that old age did not mean dirt; and we made it do that—barely. The back of the house was level with the ground, but the front was in the air, so that its verandah was a balcony and you descended from it to the garden by a flight of twelvesteps; before we left we had abandoned the front entrance because it had become impossible by our unaided efforts to keep those steps in place. Also the verandah floor in places was dangerous to walk upon; the constant watering of flower-pots and palm-tubs had rotted it through. And the ivy, cut into a hood round one of the drawing-room windows, rioted out of bounds. On the whole, I was glad to go when the time came—to our sunny, airy, far-too-public villa with the high ceilings and the electric bells, which will never suit me as well. We had grown too dilapidated to keep tidy, too picturesque for health.
After our time—and soon after—an opportune legacy to the parish was devoted to the work of restoration, and enabled the restorers to make what they called a good job of it. I saw the place the other day, and it is now almost like a common house. The ivy is all cleared away; so are some of the trees which, while I knew they were too many, I could not bear to have touched; the verandahs are sound and painted, the rooms light. My æsthetic soul grieved over some details of the change, but my hygienic conscience admitted that the whole change was a good one.
Many things were gone from the garden, which in our time had sheltered us from every prying eye. The thinning of the trees and bushes had left spaces bare but for pine-needles and cones, and exposed the house to the gaze of the passer-by. Great screens of laurel used to stand this way and that, and some had been taken down; a magnificent lemon-tree had disappeared—but I think that was our fault. We sunk a kerosene tin, with small holes in the bottom, in the earth beside it, and filled the cavity with waterwhenever we thought of it, so that moisture was always percolating to the roots; and the result of this treatment was such splendid growth that the tree doubled and trebled its size in two or three seasons. The fruit was enormous and weighed it down. I used to break off a branch bearing a cluster of half a dozen or more, and by the time I had carried it to a friend in the town my arm would feel as if I had been carrying a pail of milk; and I was ready to teach anybody the true art or lemon-growing. But after a few splendid years the tree suddenly got tired: I suppose it had worked itself out; and then it dwindled steadily, despite our care, and we left it ragged and sick. It must have died of that illness. Another lemon-tree, treated in the same way, lives still, in a sticky, threadbare fashion, but this bears a small, half-sweet fruit, whereas its neighbour was Lisbon of the finest quality. Evidently lemons do not object to that vigorous climate, where it snows in winter, for our doctor up there, whose recreation is fruit-farming, has a fine grove of young trees, the produce of which has already gained top prices in the market; but oranges will not climb so high. Within a few miles, however—at W——, near Home No. 1—they grow to perfection.
The two things in the parsonage garden which make it unique are there still—the avenue and the slabbed pathways. The avenue, from the front door to the front gate, is of some kind of pine that runs up in a straight mast to a great height and then branches like an umbrella; here it makes a roof to the descending aisle. And the aisle is paved with shallow steps of the silvery granite which is the very substance of the hills. No one step matches another; all are rough-hewn and of about the same width, butthey are long or short, thick or thin, just as it happens, dropping down and down in a manner as informal as the architecture of Nature herself; and the same arrangement obtains where it has been necessary to make footholds round steep corners. Those original alley-and-stairways were an inspiration of the designer, who probably had no design but to face his tracks with something that the rain would not wash away; but how often has the amiable Philistine urged us to get the vestry to "make proper paths!" They will do it some day, and then I hope no reader of these pages, touring in the locality, will look for Home No. 7 in the expectation of finding it. But, all the same, that garden was a trap to the stranger on a dark night.
I remember on one occasion being awakened from my first sleep—my hours are early at both ends of the day—by terrifying bumpings and crashes amongst the thick bushes and down the treacherous paths. G. was at a meeting in the town; maid and lady-help had both followed the children to bed; it was nine o'clock or thereabouts, when any other house would have been still alive. My fears of burglars or stray cattle were dispelled by the voices of lost and floundering men calling to each other. Supposing the servant about, I left her to attend to them, but it was a long time before they brought up at the dining-room verandah. There she argued with them at length, and presently tapped at my door.
"It's two gentlemen from Melbourne, ma'am." Like Maria, she was most particular in giving me that title so rare in this country.
"Didn't you tell them Mr C. was out?" I called.
"I did, ma'am. And they want to see you."
"Didn't you tell them I had gone to bed?"
"I did, ma'am. But—"
"Well, go and tell them again that I have gone to bed." The idea of that statement, once made, not being sufficient! I was indignant.
She went, and talked to them again; she returned with a pair of visiting-cards, and protested, as she lit my candle, that the gentlemen would not go. I read the names, and knew them, although the owners were strangers to me. One was a University Professor. (N.B.—Since this was written he has joined the majority, one of the greatest losses to the country, outside the University as well as in, that it has sustained for many a day.) I decided to get up.
"Put the lamps in the drawing-room, and tell them I will be there in a minute." And I whisked up my hair, tossed on a tea-gown, and went forth to receive them. "We were determined to have you out," said the Professor to me years afterwards, and dwelt upon the extraordinary difficulties that he and his friend had had to overcome to compass that end. Glad enough was I, and still am, that they succeeded. No talk that I ever had is more refreshing to remember than that which I enjoyed until past midnight—especially after G. came back from his meeting to divide us into pairs. There are books and ideas that can never suggest themselves without bringing it all to mind. The garden is haunted by the figures of those groping and resolute men.
There, too, walks the ghost of that dear vice-regal lady whom we all remember with such love. I see her slowly mount the rugged path under the pines, glancing from side to side upon the half-wild growthwith pleasure in her artistic eye; coming for that quiet talk which municipal dignity would have baulked us of, and the memory of which is precious now that I am never likely to have another. I read somewhere not long ago, in gossip of old Holland House and the charming society that once gathered there—by one who was of it—that she was lovely as a budding girl, and remarkable for her air of high distinction; immediately I thought of her as she looked that day, coming towards me under the trees. Like the rest of us, she is growing old now, but she will always have that beauty and that air, the blend of a gentle nature with gentle blood.
An account of this visit from our then Governor's wife may be worth giving, if only to illustrate municipal dignity—Government authority—as it is conceived of in these parts.
She had honoured me with a private friendship—unsought by me—for some time when, in the ordinary routine of state functions, arrangements were made for the Governor to visit our town, she accompanying him. It was an exceptional compliment, conferred for the first time, and the excitement throughout the district was intense.
When the time approached she wrote to ask me to meet her on her arrival, and I was duly at the station when the decorated train arrived, but far, far away on the edge of the crowd, which built a solid rampart between us—official representatives of the town, their families, and the processions they had organised to receive and escort the vice-regal party—and by no means could I get nearer. In normal times I had every reason to feel myself a respected member of the community, but I was now to be taught my place municipally as it were. Myrepresentations were simply not listened to; I am sure they were not believed. That vice-royalty could harbour a thought outside the official demonstration was inconceivable to them. I could see my friend's tall head turning from side to side as she sought for me over the bowing heads of people presenting bouquets and reading addresses of welcome, but I was not tall enough for her to see me; so I gave up the struggle for that day, and went home and had a bath—it was ragingly hot—intending to send her a note of explanation later. As I was putting myself into an old, cool gown, word was brought to me that she was coming up the garden. I went out to her as I was, and she spent an hour or two, of happy memory, with me—the only resting time she had throughout her visit—leaving me to my customary quiet evening and early bed, while she returned to the hotel to the state banquet and reception that filled the first day's programme.
That of the next day (December 30, 1885, and a burning north wind) was packed with engagements in a fashion that took no account of a woman's strength—and a delicate woman at that. There was first a monster picnic to the show view of the neighbourhood, twelve steep miles up into the hills; it was to start as early as nine or thereabouts, feast sumptuously and make speeches when it got there, and return in time for two more afternoon functions, at two separate public institutions, and a concert in the evening. It was arranged overnight that I should accompany my friend to the picnic, and after she left my house she notified to the proper authorities her wish that I should be allotted to the carriage selected for her. Next day she told me the result. The answer of the town was that it was very sorry, butit could not be done.The order of precedence had to be observed.
I was at the hotel at the appointed hour, and she was already in her seat—she had chosen it, under the circumstances, on the box, between the Governor and the driver—and the body of the vehicle, a large open brake, was packed with municipal ladies, every bit as "good" as I was, of course, but all strangers to her. Behind the vice-regal carriage stood a long line of other brakes, rapidly filling up. I sat down on a bench under the hotel verandah to watch the process and await my turn. My dear lady in the distance made a gesture which signified "Where are you going to be put?" I shook my head to indicate that I had not the least idea. Then the cavalcade started, and soon all the splendid four-in-hands had vanished in a cloud of dust—and I was still sitting under the verandah, I and a friend staying with me, a daughter of that house where I encountered the midnight opossum. It was discovered then that there was still a remnant left behind, and a buggy was brought out, a scratch pair harnessed to it, and we and a few more odds and ends, as it were, cleaned up.
Of course we were hours late at the rendezvous. When we arrived the banquet was in progress, the Governor's wife sitting amid her court, which occupied every chair, and looking almost as difficult to get at as she had been at the railway station. I made no attempt to get at her. My companion and I sat in our own buggy, and a nice man brought us plates of turkey and trifle, and tumblers of champagne, and we enjoyed our lunch and our liberty and the whole proceedings. By-and-by the Governor came to tell me that he expected me to accompany his party backto town the next morning. I had that to look forward to.
On our return from the picnic, and when near the gates of the first institution that was to be inspected, the cavalcade halted and word was passed back to me that my lady in the leading carriage wished to speak to me. I went to her. She was dusty and sunburnt, and very tired. "Go home," she said, "and rest. You can rest—I can't."
I went to Melbourne with her next day—the very hottest day, I think, that I was ever out in. She had been unable to sleep, she said, and was almost prostrated by the weather and her fatigues. In the state carriage we could lie down on blue satin sofas, in the lightest indoor clothes, and a maid in a little ante-room had cool drinks and sponges and such things in readiness. The Governor held a cloth continually soaked in water over an open window against the fierce north wind, to try if by evaporation he could freshen the air; but it remained oven-like for all his efforts.
At last, when we were halting at a wayside station for a train to pass, a minister was sent for from the compartment where he was travelling with the suite, in some kind of official charge of the expedition.
"Do," said his liege lady, "do please go and ask them if they will hose the carriage." She was fainting with the heat, and this seemed to her the best way to get relief—as it would have been. He hurried off, much concerned at her distress, to, as he said, see what he could do. Presently he returned, and said—my own ears heard him—that he was very sorry, but it could not be done. "It would blister the paint."
She was idolised throughout the colony as noGovernor's wife ever was before or since, and with good reason; and the people who, as in this case, were supposed to be entertaining her, were neither mean nor selfish, nor intentionally rude. I am sure the idea that they were not treating her with the highest consideration never crossed their minds.
Other friends, departed or no more, are indissolubly one with that old house and the old garden in which it stood. How many phantom faces flit amongst those shades? Every block of stone, every step of the verandah stairs, has a figure or a group. They sit in twilight, in moonlight, musing alone or talking together—the deep, intimate talk of those resting hours. There is a bishop amongst them with his pipe—he, too, now on the other side of the world, but with a green memory here that will not wither yet awhile. And still other friends, that never talked, except in a language that few trouble to learn.
For originally the garden was a "Zoo" on a small scale. The first parson was a rabid naturalist, who experimented with new breeds of birds and collected snakes for the study of their habits and customs. We were warned that one of their habits was to escape frequently, and that we should probably find house and grounds alive with their descendants, but we did not; only two put in an appearance upon the premises in nine years. Two large aviaries remained of the birds' village that once was when we took possession; we kept flower-pots and tools in one, and for a while I had turtledoves in another—not for long, since cages are an abomination to me, however big. Both are cleared away now, with their leafy screens. But the wild birds love the place—or did love it. It was mainlyfor their sakes that the axe was not laid at the root of any tree while we were there, and they came to it from far and near—far, I should say, since one rarely heard a bird-note, not even that of the once ubiquitous magpie, on the surrounding hills—and set up housekeeping in peace and privacy, and in larger and larger numbers every year.
How soon they know where they are welcome! And it is the same with all dumb things. I am convinced that there is scarcely a creature living which does not prove itself possessed of quite human intelligence as soon as one begins to make a friend of it. They walk under our feet and scatter from our path in fear and trembling; their minds are cramped and starved by their hunted, down-trodden, tragical lives; they are shut up within themselves. But show them a little kindness and understanding and comradeship, and the results are astonishing. I have tried it often enough to know. I have had such things as toads and hedgehogs scrambling after me about garden paths, preferring to burst themselves rather than lose the chance of my company. Some white rats presented to my children were let out of their cage to enjoy themselves in an enemy-proof room, and had not been thus indulged for a week before their endearments became overpowering. A widowed dove was my companion for several years, and fell sick and refused food if parted from me, which was only when I went out of the house; and then it would follow if not guarded carefully, and was killed at last in a tangle of street traffic through which it was hunting me. In this very house at B—— I was silly enough to make friends with a mouse that had a hole in the hearth by which I used to sit alone at work. All I did was to put a crumb or a spoonful ofmilk between me and it. Soon it took to sitting in its porch—we could just see its little snout twiddling—to watch until the family were all gone from the room, and to running out to me fearlessly the instant the door was closed behind them.
This was in the dining-room. Opposite its glass doors, across the verandah and a path, there was an arrangement of granite blocks to shore up the ground where the hill had been cut away to make a level for the house, and in the interstices of this rough wall more mice lived. We were quite unaware of the fact until I had begun petting the hearth-dweller, when they suddenly popped out from their burrows as bold as brass. I could not resist giving them a crumb or two, and their subsequent behaviour convinced me that their indoor neighbour had communicated to them the fact that there was a friend at court. As I sat at meals, in broad daylight and sunshine, the French window open between us, I could see them sitting on their thresholds, staring across the gap with all their eyes. "You will rue this," said the person in authority, and I soon did. We became all at once inundated with mice. Alas for the eternal tragedy of life! A cat was introduced. One morning I was writing at the dining-table, with my back to the hearth, when a tremendous clatter of fire-irons made me jump out of my chair. I flew after that young tigress, and I got her prey from her, but too late. My pet died in my hand—and I am never going to take any notice of a mouse again.
Of all my dumb companions here—those humble fellow-creatures of ours, the possibilities in the way of social intercourse with whom (I will not say "which") are amongst the happy surprises reservedfor an enlightened future—Toby was the bosom friend.
Toby, although he was only a dog, shall have a chapter to himself. The reader who is not a dog-lover, being hereby forewarned, can skip it.
All I know of his breeding is that he had none. His mother, a drawing-room pet and the only acknowledged parent, was a little long-bodied, dainty bundle of silver-grey silk that swept the ground; he, fully twice her size and height, with a compact, sinewy frame and a close, wire-haired, rusty-black coat, was more in the style of the useful out-door terrier that loves a scrimmage in the street and is rough on rats—mere dog, in short, and a despicable animal from the fancier's point of view. But when I saw him first—he was brought to my bedside during illness, as a present more likely to cheer me than anything else—I thought I had never seen a sweeter pup; and I do not hope to meet again, still less to own, a brighter, smarter, dearer creature than he afterwards became.
There was nothing of the trick dog about him, and with respect to striking exploits he was less distinguished than several of his predecessors in my regard. One of these, for instance, was part-proprietor of a town and a country house, both of which were kept open and habitable (caretakers in one while the family occupied the other), and there was a considerable railway journey between the two. My canine friend preferred, of course, to live with thefamily, but if they happened to hurt his feelings he quietly trotted to the station, picked out the right train, and thereby conveyed himself to his alternate home, where he remained until the trouble had blown over. The railway officials at both ends knew him well, and he them, but they declared that, even at the crowded station of the large town, he was capable of finding his own train without their assistance. This same dog knew when it was Sunday simply by count of days—at least, he would seem to know before anything in the house could have told him—and took his measures accordingly. He was always missing between breakfast and church time, and always known to be in hiding under a seat of the family pew during divine service, although an order prohibiting his attendance had never been repealed. Another dog friend used to wait for his mistress on doorsteps when she did errands or paid calls, and one day she left a house by a different door from that by which she had gone in, forgetting that he was there. Missing him during the day, finding that he was not at home all night nor all next day, she became frantic with fears that something dreadful had happened to him, sending messages of inquiry in all directions. After a hunt in more likely places, he was discovered on the doorstep where she had left him. It had been snowing and blowing, and he was starved with cold and hunger, but he had not budged. I knew a dog that nearly died at his post in the same way, and quite lately the current dog of this establishment spent a cold night at the local cemetery gates, waiting for a master who had gone home unbeknown in a mourning coach the day before. Dozens of incidents equally remarkable occur to me, but not in connection with Toby; who, however, if he did not do anyvery wonderful things, was capable of doing them. As with inglorious Miltons amongst ourselves, he simply lacked opportunity.
What entitled him to be remembered as I remember him was his splendid force of character and his absolutely faithful heart. He was, indeed, energetic to a fault in nearly all directions. No dog walked that he was not game to tackle, and no cat, except his own cat, whose successive kittens he nursed as if engaged for the purpose, was safe for a moment within range of his alert eye; while to see him careering round the paddock after frenzied poultry, or throwing the garden bodily over his back when burying his bones and digging them up again, was to understand in some degree why he was not exactly popular with the powers of his world. But the ardour of his affection for, and devotion to, his particular owner was a thing to shame human friendship at its best. I can never think of it without thinking what life would be if men and women loved each other like that.
Full of business as he always was, I think he never lost the run of his mistress for an hour when she was at home, unless he were tied up for misdemeanours or otherwise forcibly restrained. A thing of whalebone and quicksilver, of tireless energy and vivacity, he schooled himself to the conditions of indoor companionship, and would lie all day at my side, eyes watching for the merest glance from mine, tail poised for a joyous thump the moment he received it. When I sat out of doors, and he thought I was quite safe not to go away, he would amuse himself in the vicinity in all sorts of cheerful ways. He always took a deep interest in fowls, and a favourite game of his was to draw an imaginarycircle round a selected hen, and by working along that line to keep her from breaking out of it. He did it so neatly and at such a distance from her that she was not seriously alarmed; but when, every time she started for a new point, she found him there ahead of her, her disconcerted cluck and bewildered aspect were extremely funny. The current kittens were also toys that he delighted in; he and the mother cat would spend endless time and ingenuity in carrying them away from one another and fetching them back again, all in the most friendly fashion. Of course, he accompanied me everywhere in my walks abroad. Some readers of these pages will recall his wit and his persistence in following me into houses where I was paying calls after doors and gates had been closed against him. How he did it we sometimes could not tell, since he was neither a professional burglar nor a kangaroo; and, of course, I ought to have brought him up not to do it, as not to do a few other things that I weakly allowed for the sake of the love that prompted them.
At night, when not on that chain which we both disliked so much, he preferred to sleep on my doorstep—I had an outside doorstep, where a French window opened upon the raised verandah—deserting the kennel in which he could have been dry and warm. When I was alone—he always knew when that was—the worst weather would not keep him away; but when the rain, which occasionally was sleet and snow, beat on him, he would scratch and whine to be let in; and then I would be inclined to wish that one or other of us had never been born. It was a torment to hear him and refuse his plea, but the most doggy person must draw the line somewhere; besides, if I had admitted him once, he would havesuffered for my indiscretion many times, as also should I. So I used to shout, "Go to bed, sir!" with a make-believe severity that had no more effect than to send him dejectedly flopping down the verandah steps, to creep up again before he had reached the bottom. But generally he was good and quiet. I used to wake sometimes to hear a subdued sniff under the door, or the thud of a soft body flinging itself ostentatiously upon hard boards. These were his ways of reminding me, in case I doubted it, that he was there.
Unfortunately, as before remarked, he was not popular with the household. I daresay it was my fault. There are such differences of opinion about dogs in our family that we never do have one without quarrelling over it, more or less. Poor Toby was the domestic scapegoat. If a chicken got roup or a stray cow walked over the flower-beds, he was the suspected culprit; every muddy boot-print, every unmentionable insect that came into the house, was laid at his door; and to smell an unpleasant odour was at once to connect it with his coat, and not with cabbage water in the kitchen or a neglected drain.
I went out a-visiting for a week or two, and when I returned found that he had been given away. He was still on the premises to welcome me in his vociferous manner, and the news was not broken too abruptly: but I had to hear it before the following afternoon, which was the time fixed for his departure. It appeared that in my absence he had taken up with some friends of ours whom he had often called upon with me, particularly attaching himself to the eldest schoolboy son, and had virtually been living with them nearly all the time. They were but temporary dwellers in the town, and aboutto leave it; and as he had greatly endeared himself to the numerous children, and was rightly supposed to be unappreciated in his own house, they had asked to keep him and take him with them. Evidently the request had been hailed as delightfully opportune, and unhesitatingly granted by those who had no authority to dispose of him.
"Now, you know," it was said to me, when, after something of a scene, I was considered in a fit state to be reasoned with, "that Toby only makes discord and dissension in an otherwise united family. He will interfere with the fowls, and dig holes in the garden, and bring dirt and fleas into the house; and then, when he is put on the chain, you don't like it and make a fuss. Here's a splendid home for him, where he'll be as happy as the day is long. The T.'s, who have just as much as they can do to feed their own children and pay their own travelling expenses, would not add him to the party if they were not really fond of him; and you can see, by the way he has been haunting their place, how fond he is of them. It is for the dog's own benefit as well as ours, and we shall never get such another chance."
Well, I saw that. When you love a creature, dumb or otherwise, its own happiness is what you consider first, and every proof had been given that his new proprietors would be good to him. In this case, as in so many cases, the benevolent heart went with the slender purse; Toby himself was well aware of it. And so I consented to let the bargain stand. I had promised to see my friends off at the railway station, but now cancelled that engagement, sending them a message to say that, though they might take Toby, I could not see him go. They told me afterwards that he went quietly; I daresay he did, notknowing what was happening and how we should feel about it at our next meeting.
I had no expectation, at the time, of any next meeting. But a year or two later, while having a little travel for my health, I found myself in the large town whither he had been taken when torn from me: and, of course, I made it my business to find him there, if possible. I did not know where his people lived, the streets were strange to me, and I have no bump of locality whatever, so I started soon after breakfast and gave the morning to it. By about lunch-time, after many inquiries and misdirections, and much fatigue and exasperation, I discovered the house in a very far-out suburb. But, before I discovered the house, Toby discovered me. He had not seen me, I am convinced—had either scented me in the distance or recognised my (to human ears inaudible) step—when he uttered his first ecstatic yell and hurled himself over the gate; I was still half a street's length off when I beheld him tearing towards me as if discharged from a giant catapult. Literally, I could hardly see him for dust. We fell into each other's arms forthwith, and I must have looked, to the casual spectator, as if engaged in a death grapple with a wild beast.
His young master appeared, and I managed to shake his hand and ask if he lived there, and how his mother was. He took me in to her, and she was delighted to see me; his father and the family joined us, and said how good it was of me to look them up, and of course I must stay to dinner, and how were all at home, and so on; but it was dumb show—we could not hear ourselves speak. Toby nearly lifted the roof with his uproar of welcome, and seemed to have lost the power to stop himself;every breath was a shriek, so full of the fury and passion of joy that it seemed like to choke him. This sounds like exaggeration, but really is not, as those present with me will testify, supposing they read this tale. Since they never can have seen a dog so conduct himself before or since, I am sure they will remember the circumstance. He clawed me frantically, hugged my knees with his strong forelegs, grovelled at my feet, licked them, rolled over them, rubbed his dear snout, his ears, his shoulders, upon every part of me that he could get at, contorting his body in the most grotesque and violent fashion, as if in the throes of some mysterious convulsive fit. In short, no hatter or March hare was ever so entirely mad and off his head and beside himself.
I confess I was almost as great a fool; seeing which, the kind household bore with the deafening racket as long as we chose to make it—ten minutes, perhaps, which must have had the wearing power of ten hours in that small room. Then, out of pity for my hostess, who was invalided at the time, and to give human friendship a chance, and because really a continuation of that Bedlam hubbub would have been too much for anybody's nerves, I consented to a suggestion that Toby should be removed for an interval. His young master took him as far away as the limits of the premises allowed, and shut as many doors upon him as there were to shut. "Now we can talk," said my hostess, with a sigh and smile of utter relief.
So we talked; and as friends who had not met for a long time, as mothers whose respective children were the most important objects in the universe, we had a great deal to talk about. We could have gossiped about our families and affairs for a wholeday quite contentedly, and should have made excellent use of the two or three hours actually available—had Toby permitted. But he wailed and howled in his shed in the backyard, and no doors could smother the distracting sound. We pretended for some time that we did not hear it, while I answered questions at random, incapable of fixing my thoughts on anything but him. Finally the strain became unbearable, and the prisoner was released upon my giving an undertaking that he should reasonably behave himself.
He returned like a whirlwind, but, after a brief struggle with himself, submitted to what he perceived was necessary, and stood under my hand, trembling, whimpering, thrilling in every fibre, his nose on my knee, his liquid eyes fixed on my face with such an intensity of adoring love as I never saw in any other pair. If the pressure was relaxed for a moment, he leaped like a steel spring in an india-rubber ball, because he could not help himself, and if I ventured to look at him he yelped with delight; but he quieted down by degrees, lay on my skirt, leaning against it in a way to drag the gathers out, licked my fingers, and was quite happy.
To please us both he was allowed to stay to dinner, and by this time he was so far restored to his sober senses that he went to others beside me to ask for food; and the confidence with which he begged from each in turn showed that parents and children were all his trusted friends—that this home, unlike the last, was an ideal home for a being of his persuasion, the unattainable paradise of the average dog. This is my one comfort when I think of Toby now.
Having other engagements, I was obliged to saygood-bye to my entertainers immediately after the mid-day meal. But it was generally felt that, in spite of his calmer demeanour, there must be no good-byes to him. Stratagem was resorted to, together with tit-bits of roast beef to lure him to a part of the house whence he could not see me go; and as soon as the coast was clear I made off with all speed, taking care that no door should creak, no gate click, no tip-toe footstep leave an echo behind me.
Alas! he heard. No, he did not hear—heknew. I was not fairly into the roadway before he began to shriek with all his might, and now the shrieks were as full of anguish as they had previously been full of joy. I never heard anything so heart-thrilling, so heart-breaking in my life. He was again shut up, and even his strength was not equal to tearing down the walls that held him, though I am sure he did his best. I wonder sometimes whether he hurt himself in that paroxysm of despairing fury, how long it lasted, and what he thought when he was let out and found that I had not answered his cry, but left him without a word.
All the way down the street, and down the next street, and into the third, as far as the air-waves carried, I heard his voice at the same pitch. I stood still again and again, agonised by the sound, andnowI cannot imagine how I resisted it. I was hundreds of miles from home; I was staying in the sort of house that one cannot easily take liberties with; and, at the end of a holiday, my purse was almost empty; besides, Toby was no longer my dog, whatever might have been his views to the contrary, and I knew that his reappearance with me on my return to my family would be objected to in the strongest manner. These trivial circumstancesovercame the impulse of my heart, and I passed on.
It is years and years ago, but I have never forgiven myself, and never shall. Whenever I think of it—only I cannot bear to think of it—I suffer pangs of regret and remorse acute enough to bring tears to my eyes and make me miserable for a whole day. It sounds silly, I know, but the fact remains. Oh, what things we would do—and not do—if we could have our time over again! I am not so rich that I can afford to throw money away, but I would give many hard-earned pounds to reverse that deed. How readily he would have been given back to me, and suffered to re-establish himself in his old home, had I properly represented, and myself properly realised at the right moment, that our two hearts were set on it; but I let the chance slip, and—his people leaving soon afterwards for parts unknown—never had another.
This is another chapter that some readers may like to skip. If talk about a dog is too trivial for those who do not care for dogs, talk about strikes and such politico-industrial matters—especially by one unlearned in the subject—is calculated to bore intolerably the person who merely seeks in these humble pages a little amusement for an idle hour. But our great strike, which in point of time belongs to this portion of my narrative, was part and parcel of my Australian life, and no picture of that life can be made clear unless I sketch in a line or two to indicate surrounding social circumstances of the larger kind.
When our vice-regal lady, already spoken of, was about to leave us, it was inevitably desired to make her a parting gift. Subscriptions were invited, and I gladly accepted the privilege of contributing thereto. That is to say, I calculated what I could afford and prepared my cheque. Then I was stopped by a move on the part of the official promoters; they notified that the names of all subscribers would be published, obviously with the intention of stimulating them to generosity, which it did in many instances. It had the opposite effect on me. Since it was under the eyes of the receiver that this parade of the giverswas to be made, and since there were certain to be sneers—though it was small-minded to care about them—at the self-advertiser with social ambitions, I had not the courage to enroll myself. And the money I had set aside I sent to the funds of the great Dock Strike in England, which was going on at that time.
I mention this fact so that the poor working man and his friends may not gather from any remarks I may make on the subject of Australian labour conditions the mistaken idea that I am out of sympathy with his cause. The contrary has ever been the case, and I hope always will be; as a worker myself, I feel beyond measure for those who are unfairly hampered in what is so stern a struggle at the best. It has been the religion of my youth—poorly practised, I confess—to stand by the down-trodden as against those who in their prosperity walk over them; but whereas I was once fanatical in the matter, I am cooler-headed now. Increasingly ignorant as I know myself to be, I understand many things better than I did in 1889. And such enlightenment as I have grown to in respect of the case of the working man has been given me by himself.
One thing that I have learned is to pay no regard to popular definitions. The working man at the London Docks is so entirely unlike in his circumstances to the whole body of working men here that it seems an absurdity to use the same name for both. The one is possibly the poorest of his class; the other, I should think, is beyond question the richest. And half our working men, so-called, are not only misnamed but grotesquely named; they are no more working men than Paul Kruger's republic was a republic.
A few facts may be adduced to show this. But indeed the one bare fact that this great, rich continent is in possession of less than four million people, who say they are not able to make a living in it, is proof enough.
The "starving unemployed" are never out of our streets. Yet, to quote newspaper comments on this chronic situation—words continually repeated, consistently unheeded, although no one can contradict them—"the country is languishing for the labour congested in the Metropolis. Private enterprise is dying, being slowly killed by Government competition. Dairymen are turning their farms into sheep-runs because they cannot get labour; fruit in the orchards is rotting on the trees or on the ground from the same cause. The selectors in Gippsland especially are crippled; they find it impossible to get their land cleared. But everywhere through the state there is the same complaint of scarcity of labour.... The Government has raised the rate of wages to seven shillings a day ... the labourer naturally prefers the Government stroke, and can be tempted away from that easy and pleasant way of passing his time only by an increased rate of wages. That increased rate very few industries can afford to pay; thus all enterprise is crushed." So that one sees where the main responsibility lies. It is not all the fault of the spoiled children when they turn out badly.
This one of several political Frankensteins now has its creator by the throat. The "Organised Unemployed of the City" do their best to make the life of the Government a burden to it. They will not leave the city even for the Government stroke (synonym for work scamped and shirked, the pretenceof work) elsewhere—on account of their families, they say, whom they cannot expose to the rigours of Bush life. "What," cried a shocked deputationist to a courageous Minister of Railways who had ventured to suggest that course as better for the families than having their husbands doing nothing in town, "you don't mean to say that a man should take his wife into the Mallee with him? Well, any man who wishes a woman to live there in a tent with her husband has no respect for humanity." The Mallee was "a hell upon earth," and—on account of the ants that crawled upon the sleepers—"the sleeping accommodation beastly."
An independent inquiry amongst a crowd of "starving unemployed" outside the Government Labour Bureau had some curious results. One "young fellow" who had been railway cutting, "finding, after a fortnight's trial, that he could not earn more than thirty shillings a week, left the job and came back to join" these mendicants. The reporter of this instance added that "fifty others left at the same time and for the same reason." Another had thrown up a job of eight shillings a day on the familiar plea that his wife and family were in Melbourne. Asked by the inquirer whether he could not have taken them with him to Camperdown—one of the finest settled districts in the state—he answered "Yes," but "he could not carry along a quarter-acre allotment." Another "did not care where he worked, but he must have twelve shillings a day."
The same issue of the paper which enlightened us in this way as to what starving means to some folks, published the following:—
"The contractor for the supply of road metal tothe Coburg Shire Council has informed the Shire Engineer that he cannot obtain sufficient stone-breakers for the necessary work under his contract. At the meeting of the Council last evening the recommendation of the engineer that the matter be brought under the notice of the local parliamentary representatives was adopted." The only comment to make upon this paragraph is that Coburg is not even country like Camperdown, but a part of Melbourne. Stone-breaking, it is to be inferred, is too much like hard work.
This also is public and uncontradicted testimony:—
"It has been represented that many of the men who are clamouring for employment are unfitted for heavy navvying labour but are eager for light work. Mr Andrew Rowan, proprietor of St Hubert's Vineyard, put this desire to the test yesterday. He wanted twenty men to assist in gathering grapes ... and he went to the Labour Bureau to obtain them. They were offered a fortnight's work at nine shillings per week, with good quarters and food, and free passes to the vineyard. Out of 150 men who were outside the Bureau, only eight promised to go, but actually only four proceeded to St Hubert's by the appointed train."
Exactly the same result of a Government effort to make acceptable work for a large body of the unemployed occurred a few days previous to this present date of writing.
But I must hasten to say that these State-made drones—these spurious workers, deliberately manufactured by Government out of material from which the genuine article might have been made—are not all the family of labour in this house of ours.They are not even all the unemployed, worse luck!
What, I wonder, are the numbers of those who starve—really starve—in secret because the law forbids them to work for less than seven shillings a day, which they cannot earn with service not worth the half of it—all the old and slow and weak, but yet self-respecting and self-reliant, whose honest bread the Minimum Wage Act has taken out of their mouths? One is sick of the continual begging of these victims to inexorable inspectors and Boards to be allowed to work for thirty shillings a week—for twenty-five—one poor tailoress, who had supported herself with her needle for fifteen years, stood up in court and begged with tears to be allowed to work for twelve shillings and sixpence, which she said would "keep" her—and seeing the invariable brutal verdict given against them. I cannot bear to talk about it.
And there are all those outside what may be called the official working class, to which even these compulsorily-idle unfortunates belong—salt amid the rottenness that wastes our young nation almost before it has begun to live. How many of the fine young fellows who went soldiering to South Africa have looked to that country for home and work when soldiering was done? I could name a round dozen amongst my own acquaintances. As a fact, they and their civilian comrades are pouring thither as fast as they can get passage money and a hundred pounds together; every ship that sails that way is packed with them. "There is no opening for them here," say the fathers and mothers who, when they were young, fared so differently; and they scrape and screw to give their boys a chance. Well will they prove the quality of their manhood if theyget it, as the "contingenters" amongst them have already done. But imagine going from a country like Australia to a country like South Africa (as it is now) for a chance!
Take again the youths of our cricket-fields—who, however, are one and the same. Hard, quick-witted, thorough, "playing the game" in every sense of the term, there is no evidence about them of deterioration from British standards; rather the contrary, indeed, for the generous climate and comparative brightness of life have added buoyancy to the hereditary temperament, the good that happy circumstances always bring to the originally wholesome nature. And those young men are the diluted second generation of the race I knew in the old days—the pioneers, who feared blacks and bushrangers far less than the "starving unemployed" fear ants.
See also the gallant Bushmen who go out into the wilds to "take up" land, and who stay there, fighting with bare hands not only against the forces of virgin Nature, but under fiscal burdens heavier than are borne by any other class; who scorn to ask alms of the State which they serve so well, and who bring up hardy children to the same fine traditions of manly self-respect. Think of these men having to "turn their farms into sheep-runs because they cannot get labour"—working themselves so hard, early and late, as they do (for at least that is allowed in their case)—while unworthy loafers are cockered up with "Government works," often devised on purpose for them, and fancy wages that they do not pretend to earn!
Above all, there are the women. In the old times the Bush wives, from the highest to the lowest, made their homes, so to speak, with their ownhands. The squatter's wife, who later came to her town house and her carriage, did "all her own work" cheerfully "when she had to do it," and is rarely ashamed to acknowledge the fact—refers to it, indeed, with a wistful tenderness of voice and heart that plainly tells how she compares the hard times with the easy ones. And after that cataclysm already described—the Bursting of the Boom—when the revels of riches were so rudely interrupted, as if somebody had turned the gas off suddenly, what did we see? The girls who had never had to work, who had seemed to live entirely for pleasure, who appeared to us eaten up with the frivolity of their luxurious lives, as soon as their great houses fell, instead of sitting down to mourn and weep, overwhelmed with the shame of such a tremendous social "come-down," turned to, like Britons indeed, to help their ruined fathers and to support themselves. In no faddy, fine-lady fashion either. They took the work that they could do, with no false pride about its being trade or otherwise, and at this day you may see them still at it, calm and business-like, never wanting favour on the score of having "seen better days," never so much as reminding one that they have seen them. They run many tea-rooms, or wait in them, or make cakes for them; they keep various little shops, are milliners and dressmakers, typewriters, dentists, all sorts of things.
It was significant that our great Labour War developed with the Boom, and that the defeat of the insurgents coincided with the downfall of the rotten edifice that had towered so high. They were correlating forces, the Boomsters and the Strikers, and worked together to pull our house about ourears, as effectually as if it had been their conscious purpose to do so. When the fight began the aggressors had no wrongs to right, no worthy cause to fight for; on the contrary, they were in a position to make them the envy of their class throughout the world. They had but eight hours' toil for a day's wage of eight shillings to ten shillings and more; universal suffrage; payment of members in a Parliament where the labour vote was paramount; and behind them that immense trades-union organisation which embraced the whole continent, and as a governing power had but a handful of troops and a few hundreds of police against it. What was left for the working man to claim? I have searched the records for a justifiable cause of the effects that made our strike unique in the industrial history of those times, and I cannot find any. The only ostensible grievance on the pastoral side was that a few squatters proposed to reduce wages when wool was "up" and cheated their men by selling them poor food at high prices; on the maritime side that ships' officers found themselves, not ill-paid, except as all sailors are ill-paid, but paid less than the unionist (and therefore more privileged) seamen under them. If there was any other ground for hostilities it nowhere appears, and as a fact hostilities were in progress long before the two grievances mentioned took shape.
We laughed at a funny little incident that occurred at the beginning of the year, not realising all it signified. A baker in a poor suburb had a faithful servant who did not belong to the Operative Bakers' Society. Discovering this, the O.B.S. demanded his dismissal. The baker refused to dismiss him. The O.B.S. then detailed twodelegates in a buggy to follow the baker's cart on its rounds, and to prevent the delivery of his bread at every door. Upon which the baker armed himself with a gun, and in another buggy followed the delegates, threatening to shoot them at each attempt to interfere with his business. The little procession was the delight of the streets for some hours, I believe, when the delegates retired from the contest to take out a summons. The baker was haled before justices and fined—but only ten shillings, in consideration of his gun having been empty, and of the "considerable provocation" that he had received. What became of the baker's man I do not know, but I can guess.
Another case, with nothing laughable about it, was that of a poor, small farmer, who did all his own work. To him came the secretary of the Slaughtermen's Union, demanding to be informed who killed his pigs for market. When the farmer admitted doing it himself, he was told that unless he joined the Union, and paid up all back fees, his pork would not be allowed to be sold in the Melbourne markets. He wanted to know whether the S.U. had leased the markets, or how else they proposed to bar his pork. Simply, he was informed, by "calling out the slaughtermen from the sheds of any salesman who dared to sell for him." Thus this poor man had to join the Union, at a cost beyond his means, to make himself liable for strikes and other things that he disapproved of, or starve. And thus did Unionism, designed to frustrate tyranny, play the licentious tyrant in its turn—not in thoughtless passion but methodically and on principle, wresting the liberty of the individual from him by brute force.
Instances of this kind multiplied daily, andslowly roused us—long-suffering people as we are—to a perception of our case as Britons who never would be slaves. This was slave-driving pure and simple; a bit of the Middle Ages back again, when men were denied their elementary rights and had no redress. The reign of ignorant tyranny passed, as it was bound to pass, but it has left its mark on the national character. The habit of the high hand comes out in all sorts of ways—in our treatment of our Chinese fellow-citizens, in the despotic attitude of our Federal Government, which regards foreign nations as pirates and our coloured brothers as vermin unfit to live. And how the habit of being bullied has demoralised us is shown by our acquiescence in a state of political bondage that hardly leaves us free to blow our own noses in our own way.
There was no limit to the extravagance of Unionist demands, most of them ultimatums couched in Kruger-like terms. As, for instance, this letter addressed to a ship captain who had dispensed with the services of a misbehaving member of the crew who happened also to be a delegate of the Seamen's Union:—"Dear Sir,—I am instructed by the members of the above Society to state that we intend to have our delegate, —— ——, reinstated on board the ——. If he is not reinstated by the return of the ship to Sydney, the crew will be given their twenty-four hours' notice." The agents of the Company replied on behalf of the captain that the man had been discharged "because a change was considered advisable in the Company's interests," but that there was "no objection to his joining one of the other vessels of the Company." This mild and generous answer was of no avail. The Union called out the crew, and forbade its members ever to ship under the offendingcaptain in any vessel whatever. It was the tone of voice in which the "other side" was habitually addressed. The Mill Employés, who would have all their managers—gentlemen with salaries of £300 and £400 a year, not one of whom could have been replaced from their ranks—forced to join their Union with them; the Stewards and Cooks, who would have their members on ships exempted from the punitive regulations attached to losses of plate, and so on; the Tinsmiths and Ironworkers, who would abolish piecework—always hateful to the political working man; the Implement-makers, who would make ten shillings a day the minimum wage and required other privileges—all formulated their demands in the terms of the Seamen's letter. Indeed, the most painful part of the business was the callous rudeness of the methods pursued, which openly made the redressing of wrongs of less importance than the humiliating of the adversary on whom, as it were, the tables had been turned. Of course, it is here that one must admit the two sides to the question, and make allowances for the one that is not one's own. Still—even if we would have done the same under the same circumstances—the element of personal insult was deplorable. That indignity put upon the captain who was not allowed to know his own business, or do it, was repeated with others as often as occasion offered. There was a member of the Engine-drivers' and Firemen's Association who, being appointed a delegate to some meeting or other, left his work and went off to attend it without troubling himself to ask leave of absence. He returned after five days, and was dismissed for his act of insubordination. Upon which his Union notified his employers that if they did not reinstatehim the workers at his trade would be called out. No just-minded person, whatever his sympathies, can condone such unfair and un-British tactics of war.
These, however, were but the sporadic skirmishes of the campaign. The great engagements were two—they went on together and intermingled—the Shearers' Strike and the Maritime Strike. I think the records establish clearly that the Shearers began the trouble. Coincidently the Marine Officers (not all the captains—at anyrate, not those of my acquaintance—who do not desert their posts under any circumstances) put themselves, which practically meant the ships as well, under the "protection" of the Trades Hall—put themselves really under the domination of the men they were supposed to govern, that they might force the hands of their masters as the latter had done; but it was the Shearers' announcement, already made, of their monstrous intentions that showed the ship-owners what they were in for, and the necessity for putting the foot down at this point. Having, as they expressed it, "made concession after concession, for the sake of peace, until they found that the ever-increasing requirements of the labour bodies threatened to take the control of their business entirely from them," they now refused to treat with their officers as unionists, taking all the consequences of so defiant an act. It was a fight for existence that had come upon them and the Pastoralists, who between them represented the staple interests of the country; and they combined their forces and stood up to continue the argument with the weapons of the other side. They too formed Unions.
But it was the Shearers who began it. Longbefore the shearing season, the squatters had been commanded to employ none but Union men, and had continued to employ non-unionists, although sparely, just to show their independence. The squatters, with the farmers, and indeed all the country dwellers who have settled homes, are the steady-going Conservatives of the community, some good reasons for which will be obvious to the thoughtful reader. Country interests seem always—which is a great pity—opposed to town interests. There is a "country party" in every parliament, and in the navigation of public affairs it generally makes bad weather of it; but this is not due to the quality of its representatives so much as to their deficient quantity, to the fact that it is too busy at home to take such part in politics as would qualify it to meet the other side on equal terms. But it is a tough-fibred, stout-hearted breed of men, that has not accustomed itself to being bullied. And it said—and stuck to it with truly splendid gallantry—that no men or body of men could be allowed to abrogate "the right of all to work peaceably under the laws of their country." Very well, said the Shearers' Union in the inevitable manifesto, then "not an ounce of non-union wool shall go unfought from Australasia." "All right," rejoined the Pastoralists, in effect, "do your worst."
Consider for a moment the Pastoralists' case. They too were men working for their living—we have no leisured class here—and few of them but had suffered from droughts and bad times, and depended on their clip to ease financial embarrassments. "A ring of capitalists conspiring to crush labour" was how they were constantly described by the strike leaders, but nothing was further from their intentions than to ruin themselves if they couldhelp it—the patent result of hostile action at this time. They only accepted that risk because there was a higher thing than money at stake. The Shearers, on the other hand, were exceedingly well off. Good men could get £30 for a few weeks' work, and then have the bulk of the year for other avocations, or go on earning at that rate for months together. And the shearing was not only the sheep farmer's harvest, it was the country's as well, and all the interests of the country were bound up with it.
But the strike leaders said that every ounce of wool that came from a station on which so much as one non-unionist (a Chinese gardener was sufficient in one case) was employed, was to be boycotted by the whole strength of the federated labour organisations, and they light-heartedly set out to do it. Very soon after the commencement of active hostilities they claimed "the aid of the labour unions of England, whom in their hour of need Australia aided so well"—as to which it may be said that of the £20,887 sent to the London dockers up to 20th November 1889, only £5817 was contributed by the trade societies; the rest was the gift of soft-hearted non-unionists like myself, who did not bestow it to ask it back again.
The great shipping companies—I think the British India was the first—were ordered to refuse non-union wool as cargo. When they protested that they were mere public carriers for the world, and that such a local matter was no concern of theirs, the Wharf Labourers were called upon to refuse to load it or "come out" in a body. Bakers, butchers, and other trades were not to supply those vessels which touched the forbidden thing. When clerks and other non-professional persons took up theabandoned work, the usual picketing and persecution ensued—the conventional routine of strikes in all countries. The odds just here seemed hopelessly against the defenders, the sheer force of numbers overwhelming. The Seamen's Unions, with which the Marine Officers had cast in their lot, had cast in theirs with the Shearers and others, or, rather, their leaders had done so for them; and the crews came out, officers and all, at a few hours' notice, as they were "called" one after another, although the passengers might be on board and perishable cargoes doomed. "Wharves deserted" was a flaring headline in our morning papers, and the number of vessels named as compulsorily "laid up" rose daily. The campaign, from the unionist point of view, progressed without a hitch.
Until the gas-works went on strike. "All the men at the works come out," was announced to us one morning, and night brought an uncertain dimness to the streets and a realisation of what was happening—the plunging of our great city into darkness, while flooded with this dangerous element of mob rule.
This did seem a little too much, and the worm turned. There were meetings of the Cabinet, and a wholesale creation of special constables. It was announced by Authority that "order must be maintained at all hazards," and that it was resolved "to bring 100 members of the Mounted Rifles, with their horses, and 100 members of the Rangers from the country districts into Melbourne without delay." It was ordered that these troops "be kept on duty at the Military Barracks, St. Kilda Road, and not brought into the city unless occasion should demand it." But the Governor issued a proclamation whichwarned all concerned that a state of legal "riot" had arrived, which called for legal measures.
The strikers were nonplussed. First, they did not believe in it; then they felt furiously insulted; then they "went for" revenge headlong. That is to say, the strike leaders did so, not only because such was the natural course for them to take, as enemies of society who had had soldiers set at them, but because it would have been as much as their places were worth to admit that they had over-reached themselves. Powerful they must remain at any cost, or, as far as they were personally concerned, the game was up; and for the remainder of the fight, as we saw it, they used all that splendid loyalty and confidence which was, as it were, trust-money in their hands, to this one end. If the gas-works could not be taken by assault, they could by mining. The order went forth that "no more coal ships owned by the Victorian steamship owners be loaded." The ship-owners being to a large extent the coal-owners, the wide-reaching effects of this move can be imagined; every poor family felt them. With a stroke of the pen the Labour Congress in Sydney called out not only "all the miners from the Western mines," but "all shearers, rouseabouts, carriers and othersin any way connected with the wool industry"—plain wool now, and never mind who took it from the sheeps' backs. This was the last card of those desperate gamblers—to destroy the wool industry bodily, £20,000,000 of the "living" of 4,000,000 people—and it finished the game they had already thrown away, so far, at anyrate, as Victoria was concerned. During the following year, 1891, there was a tough struggle in Queensland, where shearing began with the first month. TheAmalgamated Shearers had hoped that Pastoralists (now amalgamated too) would "yet see their foolhardiness, and come to some satisfactory arrangement in favour of the portion of their new rules, which are obnoxious to the Shearers;" but the Pastoralists did not. Freedom! Freedom! was still their cry, and they had more strength to back it now. And when the disappointed ones took to riding about the immense colony in armed bands, firing grass and wool-sheds, turning (at anyrate, threatening to turn) out rabbits, and laying obstructions on the railway lines that carried non-union workmen, then troops and guns were sent to all the endangered places as far as they would go round, so that at last the defence was passed on to the Queensland Government itself, which had to end the duel. But it was in November 1890 that the Trades of our colony, in meeting assembled, were informed by their leaders that the strike was at an end, and they must make the best terms they could with the employers. And our soldiers had not to be sent anywhere. The moral effect of their known proximity and purpose, the disgrace of it, was enough to calm the disorder of the town. Strike leaders took care to give them a wide berth, and the men, who were not cowards, showed by their attitude of insulted dignity how this strong measure on the part of Government brought home to them the lengths to which they had gone. The captain of a mail steamer once sketched for me the comical picture of his big ship lying off a certain hostile shore, under the protection of a British gun-boat that he could have "put into his pocket"; so this handful of uniforms—militia at that—sufficed to check that mighty organisation of tens of thousandswhich so far had stuck at nothing. They did it by merely "keeping on duty at the Military Barracks," without showing a nose outside the barrack gates.
I do not know whether they were disappointed that no more was required of them, but I think they were, for it was their first chance of service in the field—as much as they would ever get, it appeared at the time. Certainly they responded with alacrity to the call for them, and "stood by" for action with the air of men enjoying themselves. Tents were pitched in the Barrack Square, and the little camp seethed with the excitement of its sudden importance. This feature of the great strike was one of much personal interest to me, because the barracks were a haunt of mine at this period. A beloved friend, now in her grave, was there, the wife of the colonel who created the Mounted Rifles, who commanded the Second Victorian Contingent in South Africa, a fine soldier of a race of soldiers, and now a C.B. in Imperial recognition of the fact. Since the breaking-up of my town home at Toorak, on the death of its head, whose daughter she was, her official quarters had been its substitute; and many indeed are the happy memories that flood back upon my mind when now I ride past the massive granite pile without stopping as I used to do. As a family residence it was not considered a success. The Barrack Square, seemingly walled off, was not walled off enough for officers' little boys; the tall rectangular rooms were gloomy, the stone stairs cold and prison-like, the back-yard a mere well in the masonry—although the colonel kept his shooting dogs there, and tried to keep a cow; the basement a haunt of rats that ate our boots and shoes while they were down to be cleaned, and one of those public stenches thatMelbourne still keeps amongst her institutions (though this particular one has been eliminated) so close under the windows that it was necessary to shut them when the wind blew a certain way. But it was an interesting place to visit at, apart from the friendship that has hallowed it to me. The bugle of a morning sent thrills through my waking senses, with its associations of the past. The stately bustle of military business, trampings and clankings, and the omnipotent word of command—the pleasant officers dropping in so often, the reviews, the tattoos—all had their charm for me, because then I knew only the picturesque features of soldiering, the romantic side, which I think now it will never wear again for anybody.