Part 34 (1/2)
He deliberately defied me by stabbing into the ink-bottle with increased vigour. Liza giggled triumphantly, and the little ones strove to emulate her. I calmly produced my switch and brought it smartly over the shoulders of my refractory pupil in a way that sent the dust in a cloud from his dirty coat, knocked the pen from his fingers, and upset the ink.
He acted as before--yelled ear-drum-breakingly, letting the saliva from his distended mouth run on his copy-book. His brothers and sisters also started to roar, but bringing the rod down on the table, I threatened to thrash every one of them if they so much as whimpered; and they were so dumbfounded that they sat silent in terrified surprise. Jimmy continued to bawl. I hit him again.
”Cease instantly, sir.”
Through the cracks Mrs M'Swat could be seen approaching. Seeing her, Jimmy hollered anew. I expected her to attack me. She stood five feet nine inches, and weighed about sixteen stones; I measured five feet one inch, and turned the scale at eight stones--scarcely a fair match; but my spirit was aroused, and instead of feeling afraid, I rejoiced at the encounter which was imminent, and had difficulty to refrain from shouting ”Come on! I'm ready, physically and mentally, for you and a dozen others such.”
My curious ideas regarding human equality gave me confidence. My theory is that the cripple is equal to the giant, and the idiot to the genius.
As, if on account of his want of strength the cripple is subservient to the giant, the latter, on account of that strength, is compelled to give in to the cripple. So with the dolt and the man of brain, so with Mrs M'Swat and me.
The fact of not only my own but my family's dependence on M'Swat--sank into oblivion. I merely recognized that she was one human being and I another. Should I have been deferential to her by reason of her age and maternity, then from the vantage which this gave her, she should have been lenient to me on account of my chit-s.h.i.+p and inexperience. Thus we were equal.
Jimmy hollered with renewed energy to attract his mother, and I continued to rain blows across his shoulders. Mrs M'Swat approached to within a foot of the door, and then, as though changing her mind, retraced her steps and entered the hot low-roofed kitchen. I knew I had won, and felt disappointed that the conquest had been so easy. Jimmy, seeing he was worsted, ceased his uproar, cleaned his copy-book on his sleeve, and sheepishly went on with his writing.
Whether Mrs M'Swat saw she had been in fault the day before I know not; certain it is that the children ever after that obeyed me, and I heard no more of the matter; neither, as far as I could ascertain, did the ”ruction” reach the ears of M'Swat.
”How long, how long!” was my cry, as I walked out ankle-deep in the dust to see the sun, like a ball of blood, sink behind the hills on that February evening.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Where Ignorance is Bliss, 'Tis Folly to be Wise
When by myself, I fretted so constantly that the traces it left upon me became evident even to the dull comprehension of Mrs M'Swat.
”I don't hold with too much pleasure and disherpation, but you ain't had overmuch of it lately. You've stuck at home pretty constant, and ye and Lizer can have a little fly round. It'll do yous good,” she said.
The dissipation, pleasure, and flying round allotted to ”Lizer” and me were to visit some of the neighbours. Those, like the M'Swats, were sheep-farming selectors. They were very friendly and kind to me, and I found them superior to my employers, in that their houses were beautifully clean; but they lived the same slow life, and their soul's existence fed on the same small ideas. I was keenly disappointed that none of them had a piano, as my hunger for music could be understood only by one with a pa.s.sion for that art.
I borrowed something to read, but all that I could get in the way of books were a few _Young Ladies' Journals_, which I devoured ravenously, so to speak.
When Lizer's back would be turned, the girls would ask me how I managed to live at Barney's Gap, and expressed themselves of the opinion that it was the most horrible hole in the world, and Mrs M'Swat the dirtiest creature living, and that they would not go there for 50 pounds a week.
I made a point of never saying anything against Mrs M'Swat; but I fumed inwardly that this life was forced upon me, when girls with no longings or aspirations beyond being the wife of a Peter M'Swat recoiled from the thought of it.
My mother insisted upon my writing to her regularly, so once a week I headed a letter ”Black's Camp”, and condemned the place, while mother as unfailingly replied that these bad times I should be thankful to G.o.d that I was fed and clothed. I knew this as well as any one, and was aware there were plenty of girls willing to jump at my place; but they were of different temperament to me, and when one is seventeen, that kind of reasoning does not weigh very heavily.
My eldest brother, Horace, twin brother of my sister Gertie, took it upon himself to honour me with the following letter:
Why the deuce don't you give up writing those letters to mother? We get tongue-pie on account of them, and it's not as if they did you any good.
It only makes mother more determined to leave you where you are. She says you are that conceited you think you ought to have something better, and you're not fit for the place you have, and she's glad it is such a place, and it will do you the world of good and take the nonsense out of you--that it's time you got a bit of sense. Sullivan's Ginger.
After she gets your letters she does jaw, and wishes she never had a child, and what a good mother she is, and what bad devils we are to her.
You are a fool not to stay where you are. I wish I could get away to M'Swat or Mack Pot, and I would jump at the chance like a good un. The boss still sprees and loafs about town till some one has to go and haul him home. I'm about full of him, and I'm going to leave home before next Christmas, or my name ain't what it is. Mother says the kiddies would starve if I leave; but Stanley is coming on like a haystack, I tell him, and he does kick up, and he ought to be able to plough next time. I ploughed when I was younger than him. I put in fourteen acres of wheat and oats this year, and I don't think I'll cut a wheelbarrow-load of it.
I'm full of the place. I never have a single penny to my name, and it ain't father's drinking that's all to blame; if he didn't booze it wouldn't be much better. It's the slowest hole in the world, and I'll chuck it and go shearing or droving. I hate this dairying, it's too slow for a funeral: there would be more life in trapping 'possums out on Timlinbilly. Mother always says to have patience, and when the drought breaks and good seasons come round again things will be better, but it's no good of trying to stuff me like that. I remember when the seasons were wet. It was no good growing anything, because every one grew so much that there was no market, and the sheep died of foot-rot and you couldn't give your b.u.t.ter away, and it is not much worse to have nothing to sell than not be able to sell a thing when you have it. And the long and short of it is that I hate dairying like blue murder. It's as tame as a clucking hen. Fancy a cove sitting down every morning and evening pulling at a cow's t.i.ts fit to bust himself, and then turning an old separator, and was.h.i.+ng it up in a dish of water like a blooming girl's work. And if you go to a picnic, just when the fun commences you have to nick off home and milk, and when you tog yourself on Sunday evening you have to undress again and lay into the milking, and then you have to change everything on you and have a bath, or your best girl would scent the cow-yard on you, and not have you within cooee of her. We won't know what rain is when we see it; but I suppose it will come in floods and finish the little left by the drought. The gra.s.shoppers have eaten all the fruit and even the bark off the trees, and the caterpillars made a croker of the few tomatoes we kept alive with the suds. All the c.o.c.keys round here and dad are applying to the Government to have their rents suspended for a time. We have not heard yet whether it will be granted, but if Gov. doesn't like it, they'll have to lump it, for none of us have a penny to bless ourselves with, let alone dub up for taxes. I've written you a long letter, and if you growl about the spelling and grammar I won't write to you any more, so there, and you take my tip and don't write to mother on that flute any more, for she won't take a bit of notice.
Yr loving brother,