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IV

IV

The men, drawing up to the table, were growing a little shy of James Sorley in these days. Vulgarly speaking, he knew that the governor could butter his bread more thickly than his friends could, and quite evidently the governor was willing to do it. Sorley had lately been made a member of the Legislative Council, and that didn't happen for nothing. Quiet Roger page 62Keyes looked at that narrow face and close mouth between the neat side-whiskers, and hoped that dear old Comyn would not be too incautious.

But never in his life had the Captain been anything else. Now he unbuttoned his waistcoat, loosed his stock. No drawing-room for him to-night, damme, whatever the young cubs might do.

"Pass the wine, Mab…. Gone, has he? Well then, pass the wine, Noll…. Wine to you, Joe. Damme, man, can't you mix your liquors yet? These young folk! … How you fellows can take a pipe when one can snuff good rappee …" He shook his head as the long churchwardens lit up about him. "Country's goin' to the dogs," he said.

Oliver had promised Madam to get them all away soon for the dancing and games, but he was somewhat uneasy. The Captain, a four-bottle man, only mellowed with liquor, but old Sorley hadn't the breeding and his long grey face like a horse's was showing a mental looseness already. He had edged up to Berry and was telling one of his endless stories of earlier days, blinking an eye round now and again to hold the others. Oliver heard:

"First Hobart Town Regatta six years ago…. Ladies' Purse presented by Lady Franklin … open to amateurs, y'know. I vow I shall never forget my pride as she put the trophy into my hands."

"Yes, yes," broke in the Captain, who had never believed that story. "D'you remember when the two whale-boats collided off Macquarie Point and the rascals went to fighting in the water? And all of us running up that marshy foreshore yellin', 'Go it, ye cripples!' fit to burst. Damme, those whalers could pull! I never saw a prettier set of oars than the Try Again …. You remember her, Keyes? … American whaler just back from the Japanese Banks. Got the cup——"

"The Sechem got the cup," cried Sorley. "Green, with white nose and——"

"Damme, sir! I should remember, seeing I dropped a pony on her. The cox was that monstrous proud of his tattooing that he took off his shirt before the race."

"It was the Sechem," said the councillor with a stubborn eye.

"Well, well, pass the wine. There'll be no regatta next year page 63unless things look up. I tell you, gentlemen, the country has never been in worse case than it is to-day…. You would have your eyes opened, Jim, if you went out and talked to the ordinary settlers about it. Yes, I vow you would." The Captain chuckled. "They are mostly old Peninsular men and you know how England's army learnt to swear in Belgium."

"Who says my eyes are not open?" demanded Sorley, sitting up.

Keyes and Beverley looked at each other. The Captain's championship generally did more harm than good. Everyone knew their troubles. Everyone knew how the governor interpreted Downing Street orders by imposing tax after tax and charging increasingly heavy license fees on all trades and callings. Everyone knew the confusion of the convict system, so that the settler might one day have thirty men on his pay-sheet and the next day only three. Everyone knew how men were taking to the bush daily and being screened by sympathizers up and down the land. And where was the sense in abusing the late governor, abusing Gladstone, who had recalled him, and abusing the new man appointed in his stead?

"What all the world wants is a little common sense," said Conrad Beverley.

"What the world wants is fair play, sir I" cried the Captain. His blue eyes blazed under his white brows. To this land of his adoption he was a passionate lover. "But damme! I suppose one doesn't expect fair play from a bloody civilian like Lord Stanley." Lord Stanley, from some safe corner of England, had sent an ultimatum that Van Diemen's Land, being primarily penal, was to remain so. It was this message which was stirring the country from end to end.

James Sorley, fingering his whiskers, said nothing. And they all remembered that he was not one of those councillors who had resigned when the governor lately forced measures through the Assembly in spite of them…. A lick-pot, I fear, thought Roger Keyes.

The Captain, who, like many more, wrote ferocious and quite futile letters to the Colonial Office, began again. Now, as a breeder, he ranged himself with the V.D.L. Syndicate which had page 64brought from England some of the earliest blood stock and gone magnificently to farming among the wild bush of the North-West. And with Mrs. Furlonge, that valiant Scotswoman who so intrepidly annexed a ship-load of Saxon merinos on their way to Sydney and so laid the foundation of the country's greatest asset.

"How, I ask you, is it possible for us to raise the flock standard with the country in this state? If the dealers that travel now between London and Hobart would bring out a bit of sense for the Governor instead of pedigree stock which we may have to put in the pot next year to feed our families on——"

The councillor, who had been drinking steadily, had gone through a period of slurred speech to a precision stiff as clicking wheels. Sitting very straight, he clicked into one of those diatribes which Oliver knew too well. Apparently he had been following his own line of thought, for it had nothing to do with the present question.

"No, sir. I shall never comprehend the objection of educated men such as yourself to convict importation. Granting that to visionless minds any restriction is abhorrent, any rebellion such as tore the Americas from us is welcome, I still cannot see, I really can not see how we could colonize without them. Putting aside England's necessity and the merciful opportunity given these poor creatures of retrieving their fortunes in a new and smiling land——"

"Merciful my eye!" shouted the Captain. "Have you ever been to Port Arthur?"

James turned stiffly. He repeated, "The merciful poppotunity," hesitated, picked up his thread, and continued: "Such as yourself … myself … Mr. Beverley brought out with us a handful of body-servants, and you still keep yours. I … ah——"

"You couldn't keep yours," said the Captain, like a naughty boy. Berry, who had been gradually sliding under the table, pulled himself up, beginning to stare with interest. Sorley, again side-tracked, again found his feet.

"I considered that in my position … ah … tenets implied by Her Gracious Majesty's scheme … I ask you … "He fumbled at his fob, where the faint chill of seal and trinkets gave him fresh impetus. "Who builds our roads, our bridges, our public institutions?" he began on a higher key. "Who are our page 65ploughmen, our stockmen, fencers, shepherds, harvesters? Who but those government men whom you affect, so unjustly, to despise?" He attempted to sit down; was somewhat embarrassed to find himself already sitting, and stared coldly round the table.

William, who was always dreading some reference to the mortgage, said suavely, "We acknowledge that, sir."

"Damme! Who said we didn't?" exploded the Captain. And old Mr. Merrick began in his slow wheezy tones:

"Ain't we always done our share by the ruffians? Ain't we had to feed and clothe them … regulation rations. And trousers. And shirts. Ain't we had to nurse those hairy sinners like we was an orphanage? Ain't we——"

"We don't have to do it under the new Probation System," said Roger Keyes, trying to pour oil.

"That Probation System stinks in the eyes of humanity," said the Captain. "Noll, pass the wine to Mr. Keyes."

"Ah, just so." James Sorley's eyes were glassy with displeasure. "I protest that the arrangement is inevitable, all the same. And what right have we to dictate to Mother England? Shall she not purge her shores?" It was a phrase with which Oliver was very familiar just now, with the Government trying to excuse itself. "Shall we not purge her shores?" he repeated, looking round with great dignity.

"If you ask me," said Oliver lightly, "a passion for colonization is the real motive, isn't it? The nature of the material don't appear to matter."

"Of course we must colonize," said Mr. Beverley, who spoke to the point on the rare occasions when he chose to speak, "but not with tainted blood. England will have to understand that. This new colony of Batman's across the strait has no criminals——"

"Because they have called it Melbourne after an English Prime Minister," burst in the Captain. "If we had chosen to toady in that way——"

"We had not the choice. Sydney is agitating for more free immigrants to be paid a decent wage for their labour. We must do the same. And we must realize that it is useless to be content merely page 66with agitation." Mr. Beverley felt the councillor's watchful eye on him, and ended suavely: "Those are the tactics of children, and these, I fear, are not the topics of Christmas. Forgive me, Comyn."

"I think," said Oliver, who had been waiting his chance, "that games are to be our present topic. Gentlemen, shall we join the ladies?"