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Philiberta: A Novel

Chapter XLV

Chapter XLV.

We 'billed' Timaru and played there three nights, but with not exciting success. 'Small, but appreciative audiences,' as the newspapers put it, were the rule. But Our Basso would not quit the town, and as he was quite indispensable to the success of the Itinerant Show, we could not go on without him. Excited and encouraged by his recent luck at whist, Our Basso took to gambling, and attended nightly a small séance of choice spirits in a quiet dark room in a quiet dark hotel. He gambled successfully, too, and his winnings kept us alive while we waited for him. Our Tenor and I accompanied him once or twice and tried our fortune and lost; and as our losses had to be paid out of Our Basso's gains, he called us names and told us 'we'd better stand out altogether,' and we stood out accordingly.

We spent the days studying Timaru, and picking up stray acquaintances who always asked us to drink, and we never refused. Perfect idleness begot in us a perpetual thirst, in addition to page 291the general disposition for the mischief Satan always has in stock for idle hands to do.

Tempest and I were much amused and interested one day by a liberal-minded bull-dog, which foregathered with and took us for a walk. He was a white dog, with a funny black patch across one eye. That patch had the effect of turning an otherwise respectable-looking animal into a regular blackguard in appearance. It is astonishing how slight a defect will alter for the worse the whole exterior of anybody.

For example: Tempest once knew a clergyman whose countenance and general bearing were the very index of sanctity and goodness, until he received one day, when he was performing the thankless office of a peacemaker between a fighting married pair of his parishioners, an unlucky tap on the nose that changed for ever his whole aspect From one of Heaven's anointed, he was metamorphosed into the most villainous riotous-looking character outside any of her Majesty's gaols. He had to give up the Church and invent a patent medicine to make a living by, for his congregations could not bring themselves to believe that anyone so wicked-looking could help them to salvation.

But to return to our dog. He was very sociable, and displayed a friendly interest in us that was highly flattering, in view of the adage that dogs never show preference for any but good people. He conducted us to every place that he considered sufficiently interesting in and about Timaru, he made us his seconds in several bloodless duels with enemies of his own species, and finally brought us triumphantly to anchor at a certain back-yard, wherein a greyhound of most ladylike appearance and manners was imprisoned. Bully's motive in bringing us there was instantly patent; he wanted us to let the greyhound out; and after he had exchanged civilities with her through a chink, in the gate, he used his most eloquent persuasiveness upon us to that end. We could not, of course, comply with his wish, and as soon as he realized that we fell in his estimation.

When we turned to depart, the greyhound lifted up her dark page 292soft eyes to the sky and gave utterance to a long despairing wail that nearly drove her friend frantic. He made two or three little yapping snaps at us, as if to say, 'Go on alone. I've done with you. Grief like this should be sacred from your unsympathetic eyes and ears; get out!' And then he returned to the chink and caressed the greyhound's pretty black projected muzzle fondly; and the next time we saw him he was inveigling a strange man, in just the way he had inveigled us, along the road to the captive's prison. But near us he never came again. He had been disappointed in us, evidently.

Timaru witnessed the final disorganization of the Itinerant Show. The ladies were the cause of the break-up. Too much idleness had engendered too much quarrelsomeness, and we were unable to keep the peace. Our L.L. took coach to Christchurch. Our S.L. took steamer for Dunedin. Our Pianist declined to go anywhere, and fainted on our hands regularly every two hours until we clubbed together to increase her funds from our own modest stores, and then she yielded and followed Our L.L. to Christchurch. Then we kicked Our Agent out. The paradox of his angelic visage and sinful ways had become too much for us.

Thus was the Itinerant Show reduced to four members—Our Basso, Our Tenor, Our Violinist, and myself. And then it was that Our Basso incited us to the maddest wild-goose chase across country that the mind of man ever imagined. I am to this day uncertain about the means he employed to inveigle us into that piece of insanity; whether he mentioned particular inducements to tempt us, or whether he exercised some occult and malign influence of magic over us. I only know that we set out with him one morning on an enthusiastic tramp, with a swag of cheap blue blankets strapped across our backs, and about as vague an idea in our minds of our mission and probable fate as those innocents invented by John Bunyan had of theirs. After twelve hours' wandering over a tussocky country that would have been a trial even to Moses in the Wilderness, we sank exhausted on the ground; and Our Tenor and I took it in turns to bombard Our Basso with eloquent revilings. He did not seem to mind.

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'Might as well starve here as anywhere,' he said, 'and anyhow we are seeing the country. You can't deny the wisdom and advantage of that. Besides, something is sure to turn up.'

We slept in the tussock that night, and we lived on raw turnips (stolen from a turnip-field) next day. Then we fell in with some swagmen, and travelled with them for a week or two, earning a few shillings at farm-work whenever we could; and rough as it was, we might have continued that tramp of ours indefinitely—for there was a certain Bohemian attractiveness about it—had not Philip Tempest struck and Our Basso married. Yes. Our Tenor's prophecy concerning the ultimate fate of Our Basso was fulfilled. 'Our Basso was scooped in.' The lady was a widow, large and oily, and redolent of her profession, which was spirituous and prosperous. We knew on the second day of our stay at her hotel that Our Basso had been kissing her, because we saw him knocking his watch up against a post to make it go. To make the watch go, you understand, not the post. That watch of Our Basso's was a most extraordinary affair. I was with Our Basso once in the shop of a watchmaker who had been repairing that watch. He, the watchmaker, said that the watch had 'a most splendid escapement.' Our Basso said 'Yes, he knew it had.' When we got outside I asked Our Basso what an escapement was. He said he didn't know, but his watch had got it, and that was enough for him. And he wasn't going to let on that he didn't know a little like that, he said. Ever after, Our Basso used to brag about that escapement whenever he had a chance. He used sometimes to offer to back that escapement against anybody else's escapement for a large sum of money; but we never met anyone who knew what an escapement was any more than we did, so the offer never came to anything. Our Tenor and I have often prayed that someone might come along with an escapement that would knock Our Basso's into the middle of next week, but no one ever did. Our Basso would never have a face glass in that watch, because he said that in saying farewell to people the glass always got broken, and until he gave up having a glass in, every good-bye he said to a lady page 294cost him sixpence. Our Basso's good-byes to the fair sex were impressive, you see. Our Basso's knocking his watch up against a post was an infallible sign that he had been kissing somebody, because his watch always stopped under that process, and knocking it up against a post was the only thing that would make it go again. This peculiarity was probably due to the 'escapement.' One cannot be sure.

We are uncertain even to this day as to whether Our Basso proposed to the widow or the widow to Our Basso. But we know that he told her she was an oasis in the desert of his existence, and we know that from that hour his doom was sealed. She told him that 'the romantic part of her nature went out to him more than to any man she had ever seen, except the dear departed;' and said she didn't care how soon the thing was settled, so that she could lie in bed a bit in the mornings while he tended the bar. He made one or two ineffectual efforts to escape; then resigned himself to his destiny. On the day that we bade him a long farewell he entreated us, in a whisper from behind his hand, to wait for him an hour at a certain point on the road.

'If I fail to join you there within the hour, boys,' said he, almost tearfully, 'you may give me up as lost.'

'Oh, cheer up, Tom,' said Our Tenor. 'After all, you know, it will be a comfort to settle down, with every meal a dead certainly, and no risks of writs and summonses to bother your soul out.'

'Ah, yes, I suppose so,' sighed Our Basso. 'I ought to be grateful.'

'I should think so,' exclaimed Our Tenor. 'Why, man, you're provided for for life. And, with proper management, she'll make a will leaving everything to you, and then go off in apoplexy, or spontaneous combustion or something, within five years at the latest.'

'For heaven's sake talk low,' said Our Basso, looking round nervously.

I said that if he felt timid, we would stay with him to the end. We would be amici usque ad aras for him.

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He replied that it was a mean thing to pitch French at a man like that just in the most trying hour of his life, and that we should likely harass (aras) him a great deal more by staying than going.

After that we went, of course. We waited an hour at the spot he indicated, but he came not; and so we did as he told us, and gave him up as lost.

Knowing the country better now, we reached Timaru in a reasonable time, and then Philiberta—as I shall now call Our Violinist—who had been suffering a good deal for the last few days, succumbed to rheumatic fever. She was not strong, though she was so resolute and enduring, and this vagabondizing told upon her cruelly. It was during this illness that we discovered her secret, but she never knew that we knew it. She was Philip Tempest, Our Violinist, to the end of our companionship. It was while she was lying ill that we had opportunity of witnessing one of those fearful storms so peculiar to, and frequent in, the Timaru roadstead: storms rising suddenly and without apparent cause, dashing the waves into mighty angry billows, and driving great ships ruthlessly ashore, while yet the sky is clear, the sun shining, and the breeze on land blowing mildly. The one we saw was fierce and cruel; such a one had not been for years before, men said, nor was for years afterwards, until that memorable Sunday in the spring of 1878, when Judge Ward's splendid action distinguished him among men as a saviour of lives and a grand example of bravery.

During Tempest's fever, Our Tenor went to Our Basso, and returned with all the money Our Basso could give, and a cheque for twenty pounds from Our Basso's intended, for Philip Tempest's expenses. We considered this very handsome of Our Basso's intended. When Philiberta was sufficiently recovered, we three started by coach for Christchurch. Many weary miles of plain we had to traverse with nought to break the monotony but an occasional solitary settler's hut—the possible nucleus of some future township. What a desolate time of it these pioneer settlers must have pending the development of those townships! In a forest, with trees to fell, scrubs to clear, wild page 296animals to destroy, flesh and fowl to hunt and slay for food, pioneer existence seems tolerably busy and interesting; but on a flat, with no variety of scenery, no beast of the field or fowl of the air to harass or gladden, no obstacle in the way of vegetation—human as well as botanical—

'Sun in the east at morning,
Sun in the west at night
And the shadow of this 'ere station
The only thing moving in sight'—

such a life must be a sore trial to any but true lovers of dead levels and titter monotony.

At Selwyn we deserted the coach, and travelled the remainder of the way gratefully by train. Early in the following week we saw Philiberta off in the Ringarooma for Melbourne, and went our separate ways. Our Woes and Adventures as a united Itinerant Show were concluded.