Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

power, and her memory a holy beacon, shining, by-the-way, with a decidedly intermittent light. Unfortunately, a glance along the three 9ths yet to come shows me that this nobly spurious type of prodigal-Jack the Shellback, vassal of Runnymede Station⁠—will not come within the scope of these memoirs).

Alf dreamily resumed his inconsequent story: “However, this Charley Cross, or Yankee Charley, was an old Victorian digger. About twelve years before his death, he was working on Inglewood, with a mate that he would have trusted, and did trust, to any extent, and in any way. But it was the old, old story. He got a friendly hint, and watched, and watched, for weeks, without betraying any suspicion. At last he was satisfied. Then he carefully laid down his line of action, and followed it to the end. One day, his mate, sitting on the edge of the shaft, ready to put his foot in the rope, suddenly overbalanced, and went down head-foremost. Of course, Cross was close beside him at the time, and no one else was in sight. Cross gave the alarm, and, in the meantime, went hand-under-hand down the rope, intending, like Bruce, to ‘mak sicker’; for the shaft was only about forty feet deep. But it happened that the man’s neck was broken in the fall. Cross forgave his wife, and never breathed a word of his discovery or his vengeance; but in spite of this, the woman seemed to live in fear and horror. During the next couple of years, luck favoured him, and he made an independence. He invested his money judiciously; but there’s no guarantee for domestic happiness⁠—in fact, there’s no guarantee for anything. First, his two surviving children died of diphtheria; then his wife followed, dying, Cross assured me, of a broken heart. He sorrowed for her more deeply, perhaps, because she had cost him so dear; and this, no doubt, was what drove him to drink.”

“Very probably,” I replied. “But, Alf, this taxing of your mind is about as good for you just now as footballing or boxing. Are you a smoker?”

“No.”

“That’s what I feared. Now, take my advice, and give yourself absolute rest, while I boil⁠—”

“One more story, Collins, as well authenticated as any of the three I have told. I knew a young fellow of between twenty-five and thirty⁠—”

“This won’t do,” I interposed firmly, for he had become restless and excited. “Why should you allow your mind to dwell so exclusively on the manifestations of one particular phase of moral aberration, and, to do bare justice to womanhood, an exceedingly rare one⁠—except among the very highest and the very lowest classes? Unless you handle such questions in a scientific spirit, you’ll find them⁠—or unfortunately, you won’t find them⁠—envelop your reasoning faculties in a most unwholesome atmosphere. The perpetual brooding over anyone evil, however fatal that evil may be, naturally side-blinds the mind into a narrow fanaticism which is apt to condone ten times as much wrong as it condemns; and you drift into the position of the man who strains at the moderate drinker, and swallows the usurer. We see this in the Good Templar, the Social Purity person, the Trades Unionist, and the moral faddist generally. Musonius Rufus sternly reminded Epictetus that there were other crimes besides setting the Capitol on fire.”

“Have you done?” asked Alf, coldly but gently. “Let me tell you one more story while I’m able. I’ll soon be silent enough.⁠—The man I’m thinking of was a sawmill owner. He had been married a couple of years, and had one child. I couldn’t say that he actually loved his wife; in fact, she wasn’t a woman to inspire love, though she was certainly good-looking. At her very best, there was nothing in her; at her worst, she was ignorant, and vain, and utterly unprincipled⁠—no, not exactly unprincipled, but non-principled. She was essentially low⁠—if you understand my meaning⁠—low in her tastes and aspirations, low in her likes and dislikes, low in her thoughts and her language, low in everything. She may not have been what is called a bad woman, but⁠—that miserable want of self-reverence⁠—I can’t understand how⁠—Would you give me another drink, please?”

He drank very little this time. He had been speaking with an effort, and a haggard, hopeless look was intensifying in his face. I began to suspect a temporary delirium. The presentiment of impending death was unreasonable, though not ominous; so also with the determination to narrate irrelevant stories; but the incongruity of the two associated notions set me speculating in a sympathetic way.

“Alf,” said I gravely; “it’s foolish to tax your memory for anecdotes now. Try if you can settle yourself to sleep. I’m sure I’ll have great pleasure in exchanging yarns with you at some future time, when you’re more fit.”

“Listen, Collins,” he replied sullenly. “Our sawmill owner got the inevitable glimpse of the truth. He was blind before; now he was incredulous. He condescended to play the spy, and he was soon satisfied. This time it was a Government official-clerk of the local Court⁠—a blackleg vagabond, with interest at headquarters⁠—about the vilest rat, and certainly the vilest-looking rat, that ever breathed the breath of life. Our hero took no further notice of him than to terrify him into confession, and drive him into laying the blame on his paramour. And the amusing feature of the case was, that she, finding herself fairly run to earth, thought she had nothing to do but to turn from the evil of her ways, and take her husband’s part against the other fellow. But no, no. Our hero, after thinking the matter over, took her into his confidence, without giving her any voice in the new arrangement. He sold-out to the best advantage, and divided the proceeds with her; reserving to himself enough to start him in a line of life that he could follow without the annoyance of being associated with anyone. All that he earned afterward, beyond bare expenses, he forwarded to her, to save