BEYOND THE LAW

Evening Star, Issue 20990, 2 January 1932, Page 2

BEYOND THE LAW

- [Written by M.E.S., for tho ‘ Evening Star.’] A quarter of a century ago wo used to bo known as “The lawless coast.” Even to-day we have no great respect for law and order in its more formal aspect, nor, in a widely-scattered and thinly-populated district, can the force of public opinion be used as a weapon. But nowadays our scope is limited as it was not twenty years ago. A proportion of our main roads is metalled, there is tho telephone, and, should your budding criminal have the forethought to cut the wires, there still remains tho possibility of being pursued by motor or aeroplane. In “the good old days” we were largely a law unto ourselves. Authority might declaim, but, with forty miles of unmetalled road dividing us from tho nearest police station, its powers wore singularly handicapped in midwinter. Looking hack upon those days it remains a surprise to me that wo contented ourselves with such mild outbreaks as regular alcoholic “sprees” and the occasional running out of an unpopular interloper or sheep stealer. It was largely a question of the personal equation. Here and there ono personality would exercise an extraordinary influence over the wilder spirits. There was a man once, manager of our tiny branch of a great bank, himself small and delicate and crippled physically, whose high purpose and unflinching honesty dominated tho whole district. He lived in a two-roomed shack behind his lean-to bank, and he carried the personal and financial secrets of every settler for fifty miles. He encouraged every man, turned his back upon no waster, however hopeless, did duty for our absent parson on Sunday and at burials, played an inscrutable game of bridge, and umpired at every legitimate but strictly private fight in the settlement. When he left, every “ cocky ” knew that his best friend had gone. But even before the bank had penetrated into our wilds there was the authority of Sam Freeman, proprietor of the Pioneer Coach Service, blacksmith, veterinary surgeon, father confessor, and autocrat of the Coast. His was no imaginary power. Commanding, as he did, our only means of access to civilisation, his position was a strong one. Nor did he scruple to use it. But Sam stood always on the side of rough justice, decency, and fair play between man and man. The Coast acknowledged his worth and submitted to his rule.

Unfortunately his nature was notone tactfully to conciliate the powers that be, nor was it easy for him to doff the autocrat and become the public servant. He had a rough and ready way of dealing with red tape and his unswerving consideration for his horses often brought him into conflict with the postal authorities. A wise_ official, recognising the titanic difficulties of a forty-mile trip over bleak ranges and dangerous roads, with never a load of metal to ease the going, winked at delayed parcel bags and irregular hours. But when a new inspector, or a seeker after quick promotion, decided to “straighten up Sam Freeman,”conflict ensued and the odds were freely laid upon the Coast that Sam would come out victor. It was a safe bet, for. there was little hope of finding a substitute for the old Pioneer Coach, no chance at all that another man would have brought coach, passengers, and mails safely through those roads week by week in cruel winter weather. On the whole the Post Office recognised that they had a good man and wisely shut their eyes to small faults. With the district as a whole Sam was extremely popular despite his rough tongue. He understood the men and the country, knew the difficulties of their lives, never shirked direct issues nor betrayed a friend. More, he could appreciate that extremely difficult and elusive quality—the Coast sense of humour. There were times when he, like the rest of us, suffered under it. “ But a joke’s a joke, and you can t be always tho laugher,” he said to me in an expansive moment as we climbed up a long hill, the old coach straining and creaking and tho horses’ heads well down to the pull. “They surely got one on to me about Jog M'Alister’s coffin, but it weren’t no good kicking. . . . Ever beard that story? ” Of course I was far too tactful to have done any such thing, and, “ Well,” Sam resumed, “Joe was a dour chap, and mighty near. Still, I was sorry when I got an urgent message in town one day that he’d died sudden, and will I bring out a coffin. The word went round and I had a full load of chaps goin’ to the funeral, for Joe was well known, and besides, a funeral’s a funeral. It was winter, and the roads rough, and that, there coffin • was a caution. She wouldn’t ride nohow, but at last we tied her on the roof and put all the parcels inside, and then some of the folks acted silly-like about it. One Maori comes out in the dusk and calls out: “Where’s my bread and sausage”? and I answers, easy-going, “In the coffin.” But he squeals and scampers off—wouldn’t fancy that tucker, somehow.” “ It was a bad trip, but the boys had brought their cold cures and we was all pretty well inked-up by the time we got to Joe’s. It was getting dark, too, and we goes stumbling over that paddock lugging the coffin and none of us walking too steady, and all the dead trees looking down ghostlike through the creeping mist. The whare was all dark, Joe bein’ a bachelor, but it seemed strange to me that none of tho boys was along to lend a hand. Well, we bangs the door open and in we shoves her. And then a figure rises up slow in the half-dark, and Joe comes to meet us. ...

“ Tho mourners they none ’of them speaks, but just stands in a row gibbering. I did hear tell two of them signed the pledge next day—weak in the head, likely. But Joe was the queer one—no sense of humour at all. Will you believe it, ho couldn’t see no joke in it, goes so far as to say there ain’t one, and doesn’t even offer tho mourners a cup of tea. He turns quite nasty, too, when I asks him who’s to pay for the coffin. “ Yes, it was all a joke of some of tho young chaps on one of the stations, but I’ve never given ’em away to nobody, and I’m not going to now. They was dull, it being winter, and looking for a lark. The coffin? The storekeeper took it off my hands and kept chaff in it, 1 pending developments,’ as tho _ lawyers do say. It came in handy in the end, for it’s a useful thing to have by you in the backblocks, is a coffin. Me? Why, I had a good laugh over it when I led them mourners out in the dark and left the corpse cursin’ nice and hearty, and a good laugh’s better than the freight on a coffin any day.”