第49章 Part II.(13)

Then Dave took the waterproof cover off his bunk,spread it on the floor,laid his blankets on top of it,his spare clothes,&c.on top of them,and started to roll up his swag.

`What are you going to do,Dave?'I asked.

`I'm going to take the track,'says Dave,`and camp somewhere farther on.

You can stay here,if you like,and come on in the morning.'

I started to roll up my swag at once.We dressed and fastened on the tucker-bags,took up the billies,and got outside without making any noise.We held our backs pretty hollow till we got down on to the road.

`That comes of camping in a deserted house,'said Dave,when we were safe on the track.No Australian Bushman cares to camp in an abandoned homestead,or even near it --probably because a deserted home looks ghostlier in the Australian Bush than anywhere else in the world.

It was blowing hard,but not raining so much.

We went on along the track for a couple of miles and camped on the sheltered side of a round tussock hill,in a hole where there had been a landslip.We used all our candle-ends to get a fire alight,but once we got it started we knocked the wet bark off `manuka'sticks and logs and piled them on,and soon had a roaring fire.

When the ground got a little drier we rigged a bit of shelter from the showers with some sticks and the oil-cloth swag-covers;then we made some coffee and got through the night pretty comfortably.In the morning Dave said,`I'm going back to that house.'

`What for?'I said.

`I'm going to find out what's the matter with that crimson door.

If I don't I'll never be able to sleep easy within a mile of a door so long as I live.'

So we went back.It was still blowing.The thing was simple enough by daylight --after a little watching and experimenting.

The house was built of odds and ends and badly fitted.It `gave'in the wind in almost any direction --not much,not more than an inch or so,but just enough to throw the door-frame out of plumb and out of square in such a way as to bring the latch and bolt of the lock clear of the catch (the door-frame was of scraps joined).Then the door swung open according to the hang of it;and when the gust was over the house gave back,and the door swung to --the frame easing just a little in another direction.

I suppose it would take Edison to invent a thing like that,that came about by accident.The different strengths and directions of the gusts of wind must have accounted for the variations of the door's movements --and maybe the draught of our big fire had helped.

Dave scratched his head a good bit.

`I never lived in a house yet,'he said,as we came away --`I never lived in a house yet without there was something wrong with it.

Gimme a good tent.'

A Wild Irishman.

About seven years ago I drifted from Out-Back in Australia to Wellington,the capital of New Zealand,and up country to a little town called Pahiatua,which meaneth the `home of the gods',and is situated in the Wairarappa (rippling or sparkling water)district.

They have a pretty little legend to the effect that the name of the district was not originally suggested by its rivers,streams,and lakes,but by the tears alleged to have been noticed,by a dusky squire,in the eyes of a warrior chief who was looking his first,or last --I don't remember which --upon the scene.He was the discoverer,I suppose,now I come to think of it,else the place would have been already named.

Maybe the scene reminded the old cannibal of the home of his childhood.

Pahiatua was not the home of my god;and it rained for five weeks.

While waiting for a remittance,from an Australian newspaper --which,I anxiously hoped,would arrive in time for enough of it to be left (after paying board)to take me away somewhere --I spent many hours in the little shop of a shoemaker who had been a digger;and he told me yarns of the old days on the West Coast of Middle Island.

And,ever and anon,he returned to one,a hard-case from the West Coast,called `The Flour of Wheat',and his cousin,and his mate,Dinny Murphy,dead.

And ever and again the shoemaker (he was large,humorous,and good-natured)made me promise that,when I dropped across an old West Coast digger --no matter who or what he was,or whether he was drunk or sober --I'd ask him if he knew the `Flour of Wheat',and hear what he had to say.

I make no attempt to give any one shade of the Irish brogue --it can't be done in writing.

`There's the little red Irishman,'said the shoemaker,who was Irish himself,`who always wants to fight when he has a glass in him;and there's the big sarcastic dark Irishman who makes more trouble and fights at a spree than half-a-dozen little red ones put together;and there's the cheerful easy-going Irishman.Now the Flour was a combination of all three and several other sorts.He was known from the first amongst the boys at Th'Canary as the Flour o'Wheat,but no one knew exactly why.Some said that the right name was the F-l-o-w-e-r,not F-l-o-u-r,and that he was called that because there was no flower on wheat.

The name might have been a compliment paid to the man's character by some one who understood and appreciated it --or appreciated it without understanding it.Or it might have come of some chance saying of the Flour himself,or his mates --or an accident with bags of flour.

He might have worked in a mill.But we've had enough of that.It's the man --not the name.He was just a big,dark,blue-eyed Irish digger.

He worked hard,drank hard,fought hard --and didn't swear.

No man had ever heard him swear (except once);all things were `lovely'with him.He was always lucky.He got gold and threw it away.