TALES OF A TRUSTEE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

TALES OF A TRUSTEE.

A LOST MINIATURE.

(By

E.R.M.)

Railway workers, prospectors and cattle drovers all knew “'Dirty Dick.” Tall and gaunt, with twitching limbs that told of frequent bouts of malaria, clad in rag; and with hair and beard straggling in dirty tresses he wasn’t pleasant to look upon. He camped with a Chinese carrier almost as derelict as himself, and it was general talk that Opium was the breath of life to Dick as well as to Chee Kwee. Evon in his cups Dick never spoke of himself or of his folk. Twice or three times a year he would come into the township with Chee Kwee’s donkey wa (TlT oii for stores. Usually, too, he obtained letters that came from overseas and were certainly not addressed to “Dirty Dick”—postmasters in way back townships learn to be very . discreet on the subject of names! In spite of his degradation there were , unmistakable signs of cultured upbringing. Both voice and gesture bespoke Oxford or Cambridge training, while the quiet way he enforced obedience among Chee Kwee’s black employees showed the knowledge of how to treat a subordinate, that can only be absorbed and is never' acquired. Occasionally, very occasionally, the old man would refer to success and failure in the quest for gold. Eventually he died “under the donkey cart at Wandai,” as a mounted constable worded his report. Wandai had given marvellous returns to the early prospectors among whom was Dick, so the old man’s last camp .was made near where good fortune had smiled upon him many years before. Of property he left little indication. Two overseas letters ' found in his pocket from a sister in high places confirmed the opinion that behind the old man’s repulsive exterior there lay stark tragedy. From them could be learned also that Dick had kept from his sister all idea of his poverty and dire straits. To the sister who believed in him to the last he had kept up the fiction of being still » station-owner, and allusions to property made inquiry necessary. With frigid courtesy a few facts concerning Dirty Dick and a few requests for details of his passing were sent.

Son of a bishop, destined for the church —the life history of “Dirty Dick” was but another story of the high spirits of youth misunderstood. “Sent down” from Oxford, smarting under parental displeasure, was it any wonder the lure of Australia was strong? The glow of the golden days of Ballarat and Bendigo was still over everything said or written about that wonderful country, where whole mountains were proving but the repositories of precious metals. And sc it was with high hope of adventure that Dick accepted the inid-Victorian decree of “the Colonies for the failures.” How long it took tlse debonair young society man to drift into the ranks of the gold seekers and from them to the ranks of the “swaggies” will never be known. Careful inquiry- made it only too clear that the less said to his sister of Dick’s Australian career the better for her peace of mind. One request she made with some urgency. It was that efforts should be made to trace an ivory miniature mounted on gold and painted by an artist of great repute. But all efforts failed. There was nothing to do but to advise his sister, and draw the curtains around the melancholy story of Dirty Dick.

There was trouble at ' Marrakai. Lightning, the best black stockman within a hundred miles, was dying. He had been sound and cheerful enough overnight and had dined well and truly upon buffalo entrails and other delicacies. At midnight he was groaning in agony-. A, debbil-de'bbil snake had entered his stomach and lie would die before sundown. The station-owner, who knew the blackfellow, asked whether there was not a “snake doctor” who could 'beat the debbil-deibbil. Lightning knew of one, and liis mates knew where the specialist camped. So in the moonlight the station car tore across hundred miles of open bush to bring him to the aid of Lightning, uncon- ■ scions when it left and only waiting for sundown to arrive and permit him to die decently and in accordance with programme. The snake doctor had never seen a car before, and wasn't too happy- about riding in it. However, Quilp, the guide, overcame the expert’s qualms and the station was reached by noon. One glance at his patient, and the snake doctor demanded tucker and tobacco for himself. “Give him the blanky storeroom,” roared the owner. “I want Lightning to help me muster Hidden Valley tomorrow.”

The doctor, having dined and smoked, proceeded to business. Lightning was carried out into the sunshine. He looked as near dead as man could be, but that did not prevent the snake doctor kneeling on his patient’s stomach, which he treated to a series of knee treads that seemed forceful enough to drive out any little life there was in Lightning. The«only thing the doctor wore was a “dil'ly bag” of magic tools hung around his neck. From this he took what looked like a parrot’s beak and shouted something to : Lightning. Muttering and shouting he scratched the skin of his .patient’s abdomen, collected some of the 'blood and dashed it into Lightning’s face. In a few seconds the unconscious man sat up, and in less than an hour was laughing and talking with the natives as though nothing had happened. Most runholders know of similar “magic” among the blackfellows. What made the Marrakai incident more interesting was that among the treasures in the snake doctor’s dilly bag was a thin gold plate, evidently the mounting of a miniature. Its owner was sulky when asked how he got it and the station owner, in his relief at saving his stockman, would not allow close questioning lest more magic were released, to the upset of station programmes. 'So whether it was Dirty Dick’s miniature that formed part of a Kakadu snake doctor’s professional equipment will never be known..