“Brummy Usen”

We caught up with an old swagman crossing the plain, and tramped along with him till we came to good shade to have a smoke in. We had got yarning about men getting lost in the bush or going away and being reported dead.

“Yes,” said the old whaler, as he dropped his swag in the shade, sat down on it, and felt for his smoking tackle, “there’s scarcely an old bushman alive⁠—or dead, for the matter of that⁠—who hasn’t been dead a few times in his life⁠—or reported dead, which amounts to the same thing for a while. In my time there was as many live men in the bush who was supposed to be dead as there was dead men who was supposed to be alive⁠—though it’s the other way about now⁠—what with so many jackaroos tramping about out back and getting lost in the dry country that they don’t know anything about, and dying within a few yards of water sometimes. But even now, whenever I hear that an old bush mate of mine is dead, I don’t fret about it or put a black band round my hat, because I know he’ll be pretty sure to turn up sometimes, pretty bad with the booze, and want to borrow half a crown.

“I’ve been dead a few times myself, and found out afterwards that my friends was so sorry about it, and that I was such a good sort of a chap after all, when I was dead that⁠—that I was sorry I didn’t stop dead. You see, I was one of them chaps that’s better treated by their friends and better thought of when⁠—when they’re dead.

“Ah, well! Never mind.⁠ ⁠… Talking of killing bushmen before their time reminds me of some cases I knew. They mostly happened among the western spurs of the ranges. There was a bullock-driver named Billy Nowlett. He had a small selection, where he kept his family, and used to carry from the railway terminus to the stations upcountry. One time he went up with a load and was not heard of for such a long time that his missus got mighty uneasy; and then she got a letter from a publican up Coonamble way to say that Billy was dead. Someone wrote, for the widow, to ask about the wagon and the bullocks, but the shanty-keeper wrote that Billy had drunk them before he died, and that he’d also to say that he’d drunk the money he got for the carrying; and the publican enclosed a five-pound note for the widow⁠—which was considered very kind of him.

“Well, the widow struggled along and managed without her husband just the same as she had always struggled along and managed with him⁠—a little better, perhaps. An old digger used to drop in of evenings and sit by the widow’s fire, and yarn, and sympathize, and smoke, and think; and just as he began to yarn a lot less, and smoke and think a lot more, Billy Nowlett himself turned up with a load of rations for a sheep station. He’d been down by the other road, and the letter he’d wrote to his missus had gone astray. Billy wasn’t surprised to hear that he was dead⁠—he’d been killed before⁠—but he was surprised about the five quid.

“You see, it must have been another bullock-driver that died. There was an old shanty-keeper up Coonamble way, so Billy said, that used to always mistake him for another bullocky and mistake the other bullocky for him⁠—couldn’t tell the one from the other no way⁠—and he used to have bills against Billy that the other bullock-driver’d run up, and bills against the other that Billy’d run up, and generally got things mixed up in various ways, till Billy wished that one of ’em was dead. And the funniest part of the business was that Billy wasn’t no more like the other man than chalk is like cheese. You’ll often drop across some colour-blind old codger that can’t tell the difference between two people that ain’t got a bit of likeness between ’em.

“Then there was young Joe Swallow. He was found dead under a burned-down tree in Dead Man’s Gully⁠—‘dead past all recognition,’ they said⁠—and he was buried there, and by and by his ghost began to haunt the gully: at least, all the schoolkids seen it, and there was scarcely a grownup person who didn’t know another person who’d seen the ghost⁠—and the other person was always a sober chap that wouldn’t bother about telling a lie. But just as the ghost was beginning to settle down to work in the gully, Joe himself turned up, and then the folks began to reckon that it was another man was killed there, and that the ghost belonged to the other man; and some of them began to recollect that they’d thought all along that the ghost wasn’t Joe’s ghost⁠—even when they thought that it was really Joe that was killed there.

“Then, again, there was the case of Brummy Usen⁠—Hughison I think they spelled it⁠—the bushranger; he was shot by old Mr. S⁠⸺, of E⁠⸺, while trying to stick the old gentleman up. There’s something about it in a book called Robbery Under Arms, though the names is all altered⁠—and some other time I’ll tell you all about the digging of the body up for the inquest and burying it again. This Brummy used to work for a publican in a sawmill that the publican had; and this publican and his daughter identified the body by a woman holding up a branch tattooed on the right arm. I’ll tell you all about that another time. This girl remembered how she used to watch this tattooed woman going up and down on Brummy’s arm when he was working in the saw-pit⁠—going up and down and up and down, like this, while Brummy was working his end of the saw. So the bushranger was inquested and justifiable-homicided as Brummy Usen, and buried again in his dust and blood stains and monkey-jacket.

“All the same it wasn’t him; for the real Brummy turned up later on; but he couldn’t make the people believe he wasn’t dead. They was mostly English country people from Kent and Yorkshire and those places; and the most self-opinionated and obstinate people that ever lived when they got a thing into their heads; and they got it into their heads that Brummy Usen was shot while trying to bail up old Mr. S⁠⸺ and was dead and buried.

“But the wife of the publican that had the saw-pit knew him; he went to her, and she recognized him at once; she’d got it into her head from the first that it wasn’t Brummy that was shot, and she stuck to it⁠—she was just as self-opinionated as the neighbours, and many a barney she had with them about it. She would argue about it till the day she died, and then she said with her dying breath: ‘It wasn’t Brummy Usen.’ No more it was⁠—he was a different kind of man; he hadn’t spunk enough to be a bushranger, and it was a better man that was buried for him; it was a different kind of woman, holding up a different kind of branch, that was tattooed on Brummy’s arm. But, you see, Brummy’d always kept himself pretty much to himself, and no one knew him very well; and, besides, most of them were pretty drunk at the inquest⁠—except the girl, and she was too scared to know what she was saying⁠—they had to be so because the corpse was in such a bad state.

“Well, Brummy hung around for a time, and tried to prove that he wasn’t an impostor, but no one wouldn’t believe him. He wanted to get some wages that was owing to him.

“He tried the police, but they were just as obstinate as the rest; and, beside, they had their dignity to hold up. ‘If I ain’t Brummy,’ he’d say, ‘who are I?’ But they answered that he knew best. So he did.

“At last he said that it didn’t matter much, any road; and so he went away⁠—Lord knows where⁠—to begin life again, I s’pose.”

The traveller smoked awhile reflectively; then he quietly rolled up his right sleeve and scratched his arm.

And on that arm we saw the tattooed figure of a woman, holding up a branch.

We tramped on by his side again towards the station-thinking very hard and not feeling very comfortable.

He must have been an awful old liar, now we come to think of it.

Bogg of Geebung

At the local police court, where the subject of this sketch turned up periodically amongst the drunks, he had “James” prefixed to his name for the sake of convenience and as a matter of form previous to his being fined forty shillings (which he never paid) and sentenced to “a month hard” (which he contrived to make as soft as possible). The local larrikins called him “Grog,” a very appropriate name, all things considered; but to the Geebung Times he was known until the day of his death as “a well-known character named Bogg.” The antipathy of the local paper might have been accounted for by the fact that Bogg strayed into the office one day in a muddled condition during the absence of the staff at lunch and corrected a revise proof of the next week’s leader, placing bracketed “query” and “see proof” marks opposite the editor’s most flowery periods and quotations, and leaving on the margin some general advice to the printers to “space better,” etc. He also corrected a Latin quotation or two, and added a few ideas of his own in good French.

But no one, with the exception of the editor of the Times, ever dreamed that there was anything out of the common in the shaggy, unkempt head upon which poor Bogg used to “do his little time,” until a young English doctor came to practise at Geebung. One night the doctor and the manager of the local bank and one or two others wandered into the bar of the Diggers’ Arms, where Bogg sat in a dark corner mumbling to himself as usual and spilling half his beer on the table and floor. Presently some drunken utterances reached the doctor’s ear, and he turned round in a surprised manner and looked at Bogg. The drunkard continued to mutter for some time, and then broke out into something like the fag-end of a song. The doctor walked over to the table at which Bogg was sitting, and, seating himself on the far corner, regarded the drunkard attentively for some minutes; but the latter’s voice ceased, his head fell slowly on his folded arms, and all became silent except the drip, drip of the overturned beer falling from the table to the form and from the form to the floor.

The doctor rose and walked back to his friends with a graver face.

“You seem interested in Bogg,” said the bank manager.

“Yes,” said the doctor.

“What was he mumbling about?”

“Oh, that was a passage from Homer.”

“What?”

The doctor repeated his answer.

“Then do you mean to say he understands Greek?”

“Yes,” said the doctor, sadly; “he is, or must have been, a classical scholar.”

The manager took time to digest this, and then asked:

“What was the song?”

“Oh, that was an old song we used to sing at the Dublin University,” said the doctor.

During his sober days Bogg used to fossick about among the old mullock heaps, or split palings in the bush, and just managed to keep out of debt. Strange to say, in spite of his drunken habits, his credit was as good as that of any man in the town. He was very unsociable, seldom speaking, whether drunk or sober; but a weary, hard-up sundowner was always pretty certain to get a meal and a shakedown at Bogg’s lonely but among the mullock heaps. It happened one dark night that a little push of local larrikins, having nothing better to amuse them, wended their way through the old mullock heaps in the direction of the lonely little bark hut, with the object of playing off an elaborately planned ghost joke on Bogg. Prior to commencing operations, the leader of the jokers put his eye to a crack in the bark to reconnoitre. He didn’t see much, but what he did see seemed to interest him, for he kept his eye there till his mates grew impatient. Bogg sat in front of his rough little table with his elbows on the same, and his hands supporting his forehead. Before him on the table lay a few articles such as lady novelists and poets use in their work, and such as bitter cynics often wear secretly next their bitter, cynical hearts.

There was the usual faded letter, a portrait of a girl, something that looked like a pressed flower, and, of course, a lock of hair. Presently Bogg folded his arms over these things, and his face sank lower and lower, till nothing was visible to the unsuspected watcher except the drunkard’s rough, shaggy hair; rougher and wilder looking in the uncertain light of the slush-lamp.

The larrikin turned away, and beckoned his comrades to follow him.

“Wot is it?” asked one, when they had gone some distance. The leader said, “We’re a-goin’ ter let ’im alone; that’s wot it is.”

There was some demur at this, and an explanation was demanded; but the boss bully unbuttoned his coat, and spat on his hands, and said:

“We’re a-goin’ ter let Bogg alone; that’s wot it is.”

So they went away and let Bogg alone that night.

A few days later the following paragraph appeared in the Geebung Times:⁠—“A well-known character named Bogg was found drowned in the river on Sunday last, his hat and coat being found on the bank. At a late hour on Saturday night a member of our staff saw a man walking slowly along the river bank, but it was too dark to identify the person.”

We suppose it was Bogg whom the Times reported, but of course we cannot be sure. The chances are that it was Bogg. It was pretty evident that he had committed suicide, and being “a well-known character,” no doubt he had reasons for his rash act. Perhaps he was walking by himself in the dark along the river bank, and thinking of those reasons when the Times man saw him. Strange to say, the world knows least about the lives and sorrows of “well-known characters” of this kind, no matter what their names might be, and⁠—well, there is no reason why we should bore a reader, or waste any more space over a well-known character named Bogg.

She Wouldn’t Speak

Well, we reached the pub about dinnertime, dropped our swags outside, had a drink, and then went into the dinin’-room. There was a lot of jackaroo swells, that had been on a visit to the squatter, or something, and they were sittin’ down at dinner; and they seemed to think by their looks that we ought to have stayed outside and waited till they were done⁠—we was only two rough shearers, you know. There was a very good-looking servant girl waitin’ on ’em, and she was all smiles⁠—laughin’, and jokin’, and chyackin’, and barrickin’ with ’em like anything.

I thought a damp expression seemed to pass across her face when me and my mate sat down, but she served us and said nothing⁠—we was only two dusty swaggies, you see. Dave said “Good day” to her when we came in, but she didn’t answer; and I could see from the first that she’d made up her mind not to speak to us.

The swells finished, and got up and went out, leaving me and Dave and the servant girl alone in the room; but she didn’t open her mouth⁠—not once. Dave winked at her once or twice as she handed his cup, but it wasn’t no go. Dave was a good-lookin’ chap, too; but we couldn’t get her to say a word⁠—not one.

We finished the first blanky course, and, while she was gettin’ our puddin’ from the side table, Dave says to me in a loud whisper, so’s she could hear: “Ain’t she a stunner, Joe! I never thought there was sich fine girls on the Darlin’!”

But no; she wouldn’t speak.

Then Dave says: “They pitch a blanky lot about them New Englan’ gals; but I’ll back the Darlin’ girls to lick ’em holler as far’s looks is concerned,” says Dave.

But no; she wouldn’t speak. She wouldn’t even smile. Dave didn’t say nothing for awhile, and then he said: “Did you hear about that redheaded barmaid at Stiffner’s goin’ to be married to the bank manager at Bourke next month, Joe?” says Dave.

But no, not a single word out of her; she didn’t even look up, or look as if she wanted to speak.

Dave scratched his ear and went on with his puddin’ for awhile. Then he said: “Joe, did you hear that yarn about young Scotty and old whatchisname’s missus?”

“Yes,” I says; “but I think it was the daughter, not the wife, and young Scotty,” I says.

But it wasn’t no go; that girl wouldn’t speak.

Dave shut up for a good while, but presently I says to Dave “I see that them hoops is comin’ in again, Dave. The paper says that this here Lady Duff had one on when she landed.”

“Yes, I heard about it,” says Dave. “I’d like to see my wife in one, but I s’pose a woman must wear what all the rest does.”

And do you think that girl would speak? Not a blanky word.

We finished our second puddin’ and fourth cup of tea, and I was just gettin’ up when Dave catches holt on my arm, like that, and pulls me down into my chair again.

“ ’Old on,” whispers Dave; “I’m goin’ to make that blanky gal speak.”

“You won’t,” I says.

“Bet you a five-pound note,” says Dave.

“All right,” I says.

So I sits down again, and Dave whistles to the girl, and he passes along his cup and mine. She filled ’em at once, without a word, and we got outside our fifth cup of tea each. Then Dave jingled his spoon, and passed both cups along again. She put some hot water in the pot this time, and, after we’d drunk another couple of cups, Dave muttered somethin’ about drownin’ the miller.

“We want tea, not warm water,” he growled, lookin’ sulky and passin’ along both cups again.

But she never opened her mouth; she wouldn’t speak. She didn’t even, look cross. She made a fresh pot of tea, and filled our cups again. She didn’t even slam the cups down, or swamp the tea over into the saucers⁠—which would have been quite natural, considerin’.

“I’m about done,” I said to Dave in a low whisper. “We’ll have to give it up, I’m afraid, Dave,” I says.

“I’ll make her speak, or bust myself,” says Dave.

And I’m blest if he didn’t go on till I was so blanky full of tea that it brimmed over and run out the corners of my mouth; and Dave was near as bad. At last I couldn’t drink another teaspoonful without holding back my head, and then I couldn’t keep it down, but had to let it run back into the blanky cup again. The girl began to clear away at the other end of the table, and now and then she’d lay her hand on the teapot and squint round to see if we wanted any more tea. But she never spoke. She might have thought a lot⁠—but she never opened her lips.

I tell you, without a word of a lie, that we must have drunk about a dozen cups each. We made her fill the teapot twice, and kept her waitin’ nearly an hour, but we couldn’t make her say a word. She never said a single word to us from the time we came in till the time we went out, nor before nor after. She’d made up her mind from the first not to speak to us.

We had to get up and leave our cups half full at last. We went out and sat down on our swags in the shade against the wall, and smoked and gave that tea time to settle, and then we got on to the track again.