THE PASSING OF NAT

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 11, 14 March 1908, Page 65

THE PASSING OF NAT

A TALE OF THE BUSH

LIFE among the Kauri teaches one that all humanity therein may be classified into two varieties, first, the bush cook, second, everybody else. “Cookey” is a unique species. Nat Fallows was no exception. He was the personification of inconsistency. Though cross-grained and cynical, he thought nothing of sitting up half the night to rub painkiller - into the sinews of a lumbago-tortured mate. He w;s uneducated but widely read, bony and Winkled yet spry as the best of us. In fact, Nat was at once philosopher and—drunkard. His knowledge as gauged by the public school syllabus would hardly have sufficed him to gain a primary certificate, but I have known him to clench more than one argument with a quotation from Locke’s “Human Understanding.” Ruskin, Bacon amt Carlyle were his playmates, for he would spend his leisure hours with well thumbed copies of their works for company, whilst such historians as Froude, Prescott, Napier and Kinglake were regarded by him as personal friends. His past was of course a mystery. When on rare occasions he let slip a few words concerning the “days gone by,” our inquiring looks would portray our curiosity, and Nat would hastily change the subject, and not even the tempting bait of a bottle of rum would induce him to refer again to what he had said. Despite his few cantankerous ways and his ever-ready sarcastic remarks, we all respected Nat. He knew how to use his fists too, and that accomplishment counts for nl’uch in bush camps. Woe to the new chum who wilfully offended our Cookey. I have seen his long bony arm shoot out with meteoric swiftness, and his astoriished opponent would carry the trade-mark of Nat’s hard knuckles for many a day, as a reminder that dexterity in the Noble Art may command respect where social standing fails. Perhaps the best side of Nat’s character was his hatred of any sign of disrespect shown to womankind when we indulged in wild yarns and doubtful conversations. This rather exceptional trait became almost a mania with him, and though we never quite understood its cause until the End, we studiously avoided any unseemly reference to the gentler sex while Nat was present, and I think the old fellow appreciated this consideration of his feelings. I do not for a moment suppose that his real name was Nathaniel Fallows, but otherwise the details here set forth to record his strange romance in real life are correct, for one must believe a mate when he speaks in dead earnest, and when Truth rings out in the clear crisp statements, and glances from the memory-searched appeal of tear-dimmed eyes. Nat had just returned from the Bay, his clothes w - et through, and his whole body quivering, partly from the effects of sleeping out on two successive nights in the soaking wet tea-tree, but more a.s the result of indulging in Murphy’s slygrog whisky, a nameless ’brand of fiery and tissue-destroying tanglefoot that cost a day’s wages per quart bottleful. The old man allowed us to help him into dry garments, but when we offered him fried damper and billy-tea, .he promptly refused, for alcohol and ap]>etite do not agree. He would n.ot even join us in a game of euchre, for he had “blewed” his month’s cheque, and Nat would never “gamble on a mortgage.” “No, boys, I’ll turn in,” he said. “Bunk is the place for me. I’ll turn in and dream of Edgar Allan Poe, and graveyards, and the rattlin’ of bones.” “No, you won’t, Natl” said Cam

Joyce. “You’ll come along to the fire first, and get warmed up a bit before you go to roost.” .“Come along now!” added the warmhearted bushman as Fallows- showed signs of hesitation. Cam was a sort of leader in our camp. He had the happy knack of saying the right thing at the right time, and of doing the right thing at the right time, too. He led the shivering “Cookey” to our huge earthen fireplace, where a blazing pile of tawa and dead manuka sent out that cheery glow of warmth so welcome to those in melancholy mood. “Why, ye’re shaking like a—like a—” said Joyce, hesitating for a suitable term of comparison. “Like a epileptic blong-monj, eh, Cam?” prompted Nat, as he sank wearily on to the inverted candle-box, our only form of seat. Cam threw a bush rug over the old man’s shoulders and returned to his game of euchre; while Nat drew out his spare pipe—an ancient and blackened clay dudeen—from its niche in the zine lining of the chimney. “Queer, I can’t co-eree these here footy matches,” he muttered, vainly en,deavouring to strike a wax vesta, and his shaking fingers presently sought a live coal for a pipe light. To have lit a match for him would only have produced a torrent of abuse, for, like mostold boozers, he resented a persistent show of sympathy. you, Morgan, shut , thedoor,” he said querulously, as the one he addressed looked out at the weather. Morgan was an inconsequent youth, a new hand ta the screw-jack and therolling road; he had once defied Nat, and took a week to recover from the effects thereof. We finished our hand at cards, and somewhat dismally drew up our packingcase seats to the fire, whilst outside the howling wind and the beating rain threatened to demolish our frail shanty. The boss, a decent sort of fellow whose contracts never paid, drew out a bottle,, whereat Nat gleefully smacked his lips, but when the pannikin clattered against his teeth, he swore at the palsy. “Thanks, Mister Rhodes,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and after a glance around the room, and an obvious effort, he began, “Now, you boys! You look melancholic. I expect its the indigestion, caused by the bad cookin’ during my furlough! I dunno, but I’m thinkin’ maybe it feels like near time that my mortal coil began to shuffle itself off o’ these old bones. Anyway, it’s time my yarn was spun. Nat Fallows is as dead as a defunk morepork to the outside world, and you chaps see that he remains so. Shut that opening in yer head yer calls a mouth, Morgan, and listen, all of ye, for I don’t expect the chance’ll come again. .... Way back in the early days, 1 wasn't exactly wh? t ye might call one o’ t-ae Sunday-school Teacher type of animal, and at one particular time, when Her Majesty's officials was a little too official and officious for my likings, I fov.-’.d it advisable to seek retirement in the leafy solitudes of the bloomin’ bush. Ain’t that a poetical way o’ puttin’ it, eh, Cam? The Maoris knew me well. I uster help ’em a bit when they were sick, you know, and in my temperairy embarrysnient tne kindhearted beggars passed me on from tribe to tribe, and though they knew I was ‘wanted’ for a plain unvarnished case o’ murder, they never even hinted at yielding up my corpus for the sake of the blood money. And that’s what many white folks wouldn’t have done, neither. The value set On my devoted head was five hundred quid. But" after a bit, when things quietened down considerable enough,.! worked my way back to

civil-1 isatiou. You see I had got Kitty’s promise to marry me, and Kitty was one o’ them as knew how to keep a promise. She was Colonel Bagot’s servant girl, and the track of our true love had run smooth enough until the trouble came. .. . What trouble? Well, I suppose I’ll has-3 to let it out at last. To cut the yarn short, it was a lonely fight in an empty bar-room, and I got in an unlucky left hander which landed his head fair on to the brass knob of a fire grate, and the fool died in Hospital. Reston, you know. Eh, Mister Rhodes? You remember the little affair, do you! Lord, I’m giving myself awav!” The old man suddenly gave a violent start, and tried to rise, but he was too weak, and sank back, fainting. A nip from the bottle revived him however, and after a while he continued, but in a uoniewhat subdued voice. “I may as well finish now I’ve gone so far. I think I’ve had my , last spree. Feels like the time a’comin’ to—well, well! Never mind that. Where was I? Yes, I worked my way back and crawled up at dark, and gaxe the old knock on Kitty’s window. .... 1 must shorten up this yarn. It ain’t nice in the telliu’ I stole Kitty off at dead o’ night, as the novels say. Of course she whs willin’ to be stole., and tramped right bravely through the bush and over tire ranges with me, her pretty feet sore and tired, and her hair all out o’ - curl from campin’ in the open air, for we Y. had to keep clear o’ the main tracks and i as the folk might be askin’ questions. ? “On the third day, when Kitty had -> “done all the tramping she wanted to do - for the rest of her nat’ral life, I made for old Ropai’s Kaluga, and there my - coloured friends fixed us up with a big supply of tucker and k dug-out canoe, and I paddled away down the Waipa to hunt round for uttermost seclusion and bliss. I found a likely spot, miles from the beaten pakeha-tracks, and rigged up a bark whare, and our prospects and kumara beds flourished. Of course we obeyed the Maori law and got a tohuuga to’ mutter his matri-monial charms <wer out ceri-monial weddin’. There weren't no cake nor no cards! “I should have told you that Connor, the town policeman, had for long been wantin’ my fi-ancy to marry him, though Ire knew that she was my property. So, when Kitty was stole, Connor guessed that I had resurrected myself, and what must he do but start off to follow up my trail like the snivelling blighter he was. He had old Tewae the tracker to help him. Remember Tewae, Mister Rhodes? You don’t, ch? Why, he was.the Maori bloodhound who dug young Murray the sailor out o’ the Waitomo caves after he'd shot Pemberton for argyfying about dividin’ the spoil they’d collared out o’ the East Coast mail. “Well, Connor reckoned on trackin’ me, so gettin’ a good healthy murder case, as well as a’collarin of what h> calculated was his girl, and posin’ as a hero o’ the first water in clutching the languishing female from outer the villyitn's grasp! “ And right enough, after months of hidey-go-seek and pimpin’ round, he collared me! I had left our whare early one morning to go eel fishin’, and 1 had a good haul, but Kitty never cooked those eels! A cold revolver muzzle against my ear was chapter the onetli, three days' trudging in handcuffs to the town lock-up was chapter the twoth of that, little affair, and I wondered what Kitty thought! “I wouldn’t own up to murder, but the

jury brought me in “Guilty.” The judge thought fit to rub it in to me. ‘A well merited sentence,’ says he, ‘You have evaded justice long enough. May the Lord have mercy on your soul!’ And then he went to his dinner. “A few days later, Connor bawled through my door that he had got a week’s leave of absence, and was off to bring Kitty home, also, that 1 was to have a six-foot drop! He took care, the ugh. that three inches of kauri boarding lay bet ween ns before he chose to cheer me up with his little eppy-tome of news But his spite was soon to suffer fatty re-generation of the heart, for he didn’t get away as soon as he had expected to. and in a couple o’ days he was forced to carry very different tidings into the condemned cell.—nothing more nor less than a slap-up reprieve and my order of release! He sulkily told me that the true murderer had confessed! I was staggered a bit, nat’rally, but collected my wits and said, “The J.ord's will be done,” or some such language. just to allay any surspicions, yon know, and to hide my feelin’s a bit. “When I got away from the gaol, I set straight off to Kitty, wonderin’. and settled in my own mind that my proxy (they would not tell me his name) was either a lunatic or someone too scart to commit susanside. so thought he’d get the Guv'ment to carry out his little short cut to Glory for him. But that was his business. Mine was Home and Kitty, so on 1 trudged, merrily enough. But when I arrived within sight of our whare, tired and weary, but cheery as a locust. I got a sudden shock on seem’ that no smoke came from the clod chimney. The soul seemed to go out of my body when I found that Kitty had gone, and had left no sign. Yes, one sign,—I saw the mark of her twelve-and-six-penny boots, leading off on the mountain track, a real dangerous short cut to town! So after a night's rest, back I goes on the same tramp, hungry, tired, and puzzled, but feeling sorter relieved to know that I was following on Kitty’s track! “I met Tewae the tracker, who told me that some woman, whose name he bad forgotten, had confessed to hitting Reston on the head with a lump of firewood, —that she had followed him up to the pub because he had jilted her, and got him alone in the bar-room, and in a fit o’ fury had landed him a crack on the head with a piece o’ rata she hauled outer the fire! The court believed her on oath, and all as in a dream (for Connor and Co. had kept me in the dark) 1 had got my walking ticket, for things in the justice line then-a-days were not like they are npw, you know. Bless me, no! Why, I remember, down at Patera ngi Bush, old Capn* Loram fining a pal o' mine a bottle o’ whiskey for bangin’ the Bush-clerk on the coker-nut with a rika stump, and the liquor had to be fetched and lowered before the court broke up! “But that ain’t my yarn. A sudden revelation, an awful thought, of a heroine—a self sacrificing Kitty—flashed into my mind, and I ran all the way to the cells. As I had been directly concerned ■n the case. I got immediate permission to go in and institoot enquiries. I found that my nightmare of a notion was all too true, for Kitty had bravely carried out her cracked up yarn, but womanlike. broke down when she saw me, and told me all about it, and then she put her arms around my neck and bung on! Boys, I tell ye. the devil came into my soul, and 1 shut my teeth hard. I "ripped Kitty around the waist, and fetched out my sheath-knife. “The warder came first, but I had a strong wrist then-a-days. Kitty's scream at the blood-flow fetched Air Policeman Connor, but I saw him in time, ami he dropped with a broken jaw. My. course was clear, for the old lock-up boasted no system of high walls and turnkeys. 1 half carried Kitty, for she was too dazed and faint to nin, and we made off into the bush.” Nat’s voice grew lower and lower as he recounted his startling life story. He paused, and we re-primed our pipes in silence. Another “first mate’s nip” at the bottle served to revive the old man, ami presently he cleared his throat, and in a half mutter went on. “I must pass over a long time now; bow we lived on fern root and tawheras, <nd tucker begged from friendly Maoris, how we tramped, hid. and tramped for months and months, till we hit on a retreat away on the West Coast, where a big Kauri bush Kicked the coast-line, and where the beaches provided us with

plenty of pipis and pawas. By-the-way, we call that bush district “Hokianga,” now! “My rough cut whare gave us shelter, poor enough though, for the few tools I had begged from old Ropai were not fitted for mansion building, exactly. My poor girl suffered hardships it’s outer the question to tell of. You can all imagine what she had to put up with! Patience? Why, she twisted maunga-maunga around a stick o’ dry puriri, and rubbed it into dead tawa pulp until she got a fire agoin’! She was a female Mark Tapley, she was, ami never a complaint did she make, no matter how we fared, bless her! “Well, as nothing happened to alarm us, we soon felt secure enough, and by-and-by welcomed the signs o’ Christmas a’comin’ on the Pohutukawas. But one morning, just about when Christmas Day would lie sending out the holiday-makers (lucky beggars), a big white-sailed pleasure yacht came skimming into our bay. We eculd see that picknickers were aboard by the cut o‘ their clothes. Presently they came ashore, I suppose to see our lonesome hut, which would nat’rally attract attention in that solitary spot. We hadn’t time to get away, and, besides, Kitty wasn’t too well anyway, so I had to put a bold face on it, and went out, as if I was almighty pleased to welcome the visitors to our abode! You can imagine my disgust when I saw, all too late, that a laughin’ lass had “snapped” me with an infernal three-legged camera she had quickly fixed up! I suppose my wild rig-out gave me a sorter Robinson Crusoe appearance. Howsomedever, this camera affair was dangerous, though on consultin’ Kitty when the yacht had gone and we were at last alone, we decided that only deuced bad luck would bring that photy-graph under official gaze. Besides, and this is what was the decidin’ fackter, the main thing was, that Kitty was not fit to take to the bush again just then. So we just risked circumstances. “But circumstances was our enemy. I tell ye, boys, inside of a month, as we were peacefully finishin’ our evenin’ meal o’ roast clams, and yarnin’ about laying in a store o’ tucker for the winter, our blessed whare was surprised and rushed! . . . My wits gathered up the facts in a second, but my heart seemed to drop clean outer my body and my brain reeled, when I saw that no less than seven armed men were coming at us! ‘But despair beats numbers. I tore our slab table oft' its posts and heaved it at the leader, who dropped, and even in my wild fury I recognised the features of the warder I had left for dead in the lock-up. The second man blazed a pistol at me, but his arm was knocked up, and he fell back from a blazin’ root that Kitty thrust in his face. How we did it, I can’t tell you, but after a mad and desperate scramble, and though runnin’ awful risks from the pepperin’ pistol bullets, we got away into the bush unhurt, but just about in fit mood to join hands and take a flyin’ leap over the cliff and end matters on the rocks below! But the blankness o’ Death is a bitter notion to young folk, and Love seems to cling to Life! Poor Kitty could not travel, so I gathered a heap o’ moss and made her as comfortable as it was possible in the gathering darkness, and then I went back to reconnoitre. Picture my feelin’s when I saw the raiders sittin’ round the glowin’ ashes of what had been my home, and a loved home, too, for there Peace had dwelt, and Love had softened Care! I turned to go back to my wife, but again bad luck followed me. for I lost my way in the darkness of the hush, and daren’t cooee to her for fear o’ bringin’ the men after us. So Kit was left alone, and when, after a cruel night. I crept along at streak o’ dawn and found the hidin’ place where I had left her, they were both dead and cold!” Again the old man paused; his voice had died away to a whisper. We looked at him inquiringly, and Rhodes ventured, “Both!” “Yes —both,” and after another longdrawn silent pause, “Both Kit and her kiddy! What troubles me most —I can’t speak any louder—l had to bolt away, for I heard the police startin’ off to hunt for us. They were only a few yards off, but I got away, though I hadn’t even time to kiss the dead lips. I just said ‘God rest . . . !’ I must turn in now, boys. I’m quite warm, Cam, old man. Good night, all!” We helped him to his bunk, and then

remained silent, listening to the rain, and thinking. That silence was Kitty’s elegy! The next morning broke fine and clear, and Rhodes woke me early. “Come here,” he said, and beckoned

me towards Nat’s bunk. I went ovel] and shook the old man to awaken but suddenly stopped to listen, and then gently drew the bush rug over his face, for Nat r.ad joined his “Kit and her kiddy.” j