808, THE BULLOCKY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2626, 13 July 1904, Page 90

808, THE BULLOCKY.

By Chawles Oscak Palmer. Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful c mile,

The short and simple am als of the poor

There are about a dozen house'- in the •\ alley, but I wouiel' lead you to tho moat tumble-down of that elozen. Xever mind the tender light that lingers about the uVrk-wooded knob auel the deep .shadows that settle over the sombro fore-t below; never mind the silver crescent that s-nks toward tho fire^ bla-,teel birches on the far sullen rielge, but step into the vvhare. Whit a bare, wretched room! Unlined ; the scantling anel rafters black with smoke, blown ov*t from the ru-ty, galvan;seel iron cl imcey. What a pile of a*.hc9 in the wide fireplace ! The heap of glowing embers gives thenco an uncertain light, in whose glow one, with hunched shoulders, leans forward and audibly sucks at a fhortstommed, evil-smelling pipe. We scat ourselves on his bunk. Hard! cruelly hard, a-nd unsavoury, too. How can any rest be enjoyed on such a bunk? Catr fancies follow the sluggish fancy of him whose head is wrapped with the whiffs ot smoke from a tanned and stubbly face.

It is a keen, elcar morning 1 , and beIDW the- sawmill there, by the stream, a youth is seeking for wandvred steers. His yapping dog whisks in and out of the tangled supplejacks and underwood, and the ierns rustle as ho rapidly plunges through the stream. The lael starts and suddenly stojss. A girlie stands at tho -stream-side, somewhat doubtiul of the siippevy stones — the only ford for foot travellers on that narrow track. "May I help you across?" and "If you please." The coarse red hand clasps the slender white fingers, the hob-nails are firmly set on the mossy stones, and in no time she who trembled is across.

As they walk tin ough the bush he shyly holds her hand when helping her over rough places, and feels a mysterious thrill pa=s through him at the softness of her touch, the sweetness of h&r voice. Do you often go this way?"

"Eveiy n.orning and night." Every morning- that lad who drove the logging tram from the bush to the mill met and walked with Carrie from the farm, or from the sc'iocHiousc. But a morning came when Carrie did not go through the bush to school ; an evening came when the young bullocky watched the track in vain. The we ; ka grunted in the fern and the shadows deepened, until, save- for here and there the faint reflection of a star, the stream was hidden. Lights were over the way, and the sound of an accordion, the rasping of feet, the mea -tired sound of dancing in Charl -on's shed. Ho who had so oft&n eseoiteti Carrie to school would tak-a a, look in as he raised the shed; but, thank goodness, Carrie would not be at such a a-liow. Carrie!— his heart fluttered at the dear name. As he stood in the glare of the gutteting c:,ndles he heard a tittering run round the forms whereon the misses and younger mations of i.he place were seated, and, "oh, ye woodhetis ! there was Carrie, ladiant, vivacious, chatting with Jim Colson and Harry Thomas. He of tho bullock whip turned to the night, the dusky trees, the bush track, and the lowly home where waited mother. How good, how puie, how precious she seemed. How the tumult in his heart subsided a? -he looked up o^er her "specs" at her boy. " How late you are, Bob ! You must be frozen; and the tea is cold!" "I'm not hungry, mother! I'm not cold."

Long after !he accordion hael hushed its sque-akings, long after the last dancers had .got them home, Bob tosseel ,and turned on his hard bunk and thought and thought. At- daylight he was out for the bullocks, and at 8 o'clock the first log was at the mill. Bob was listening while Thomas talked to CoUon " Oairie James ! She's a grand little steed. As fine a little filly as over I had my arm round. I had a waltz, the Caledonians, a barn-dance, and polka with her, and took her home at 4- o'clock." Bob was thinking of othei talks he had heard ftom Thomas — talks that he fchuddered to recollect, — such talks as are unprintable, such talks that " blank " and "dash" would fail to hint at. Bob's face was pale as death— the blood was seething about his h»art, but he thought, wherefore «nould he interfere ! To appeal to such a brute were vain, save with the only argument he under«landi — bldtvs. Let him alone !

The sun shone on ihe cloud of vapour puffed from the tall funnel of the engine, on the fragrant sawdust, on the stre-am that spaikled iii the mo? S3', dripping flume, and the saw groaned in the knotty log. Bob went back to tho cleaving wit'i tho "snigging" team. He, w-as alone — blackness, awful blackness, about and within him.

Carrie, the sleneler school gill, was escorted by another now. . . . Ho 01 the bullock team went into the store- and bought pipe, tobacco, and matches. He whose spirit was east in a larger mould knew not that his story had been nobly told time and again — that the divine S'ngers of every age had arisen from such sorrows as was his, to leave to tho earth a glorious heritage. Bob hid his sorrows in his soul — a soul that gradually soured, and when his dear mother laid her knitting aside and passed out into the great s ; lenee Bob sank into his sullen, gloomy self. Maybe- the "pub" has helped him to sink, but we are not lie re to condemn.

Carrie is the mother of girls who cro-s the stream on t'.eir way to schcol, but tho bracken and blaekbc'-rv flourish where the bt\sh of old was beautiful, stilly, fragrant.