Coming Across Page #2

"Coming Across" is a collection of short stories by Australian author Henry Lawson, capturing the rugged spirit and diverse landscapes of early 20th-century Australia. Through vivid characters and authentic dialogue, Lawson explores themes of isolation, the challenges of rural life, and the bonds of friendship and community. His keen observations and lyrical prose offer readers a poignant glimpse into the struggles and resilience of ordinary Australians, making it a significant work in the country's literary canon.

• Short story

								

not compliment him on the quality of his liquor, but the steward said
nothing. He did not even seem interested--only bored. He had heard the
same remark often before, no doubt. He was a fat, solemn steward--not
formal, but very reticent--unresponsive. He looked like a man who had
conducted a religious conservative paper once and failed, and had then
gone into the wholesale produce line, and failed again, and finally
got his present billet through the influence of his creditors and two
clergymen. He might have been a sociable fellow, a man about town, even
a gay young dog, and a radical writer before he was driven to accept
the editorship of the aforesaid periodical. He probably came of a “good
English family.” He was now, very likely, either a rigid Presbyterian
or an extreme freethinker. He thought a lot, anyway, and looked as if he
knew a lot too--too much for words, in fact.

We took a turn on deck before turning in, and heard two men arguing
about the way in which the Dunbar was wrecked.

The commercial travellers, the jeweller, and one or two new chums who
were well provided with clothing undressed deliberately and retired
ostentatiously in pyjamas, but there were others--men of better
days--who turned in either very early or very late, when the cabin was
quiet, and slipped hurriedly and furtively out of their clothes and
between the blankets, as if they were ashamed of the poverty of their
underwear. It is well that the Lord can see deep down into the hearts of
men, for He has to judge them; it is well that the majority of mankind
cannot, because, if they could, the world would be altogether too
sorrowful to live in; and we do not think the angels can either, else
they would not be happy--if they could and were they would not be angels
any longer--they would be devils. Study it out on a slate.

We turned in feeling comfortably dismal, and almost wishing that we had
gone down with the Dunbar.

The intoxicated shearers and the dude kept their concert up till a late
hour that night--or, rather, a very early hour next morning; and at
about midnight they were reinforced by the commercial traveller and
Moses, the jeweller, who had been visiting acquaintances aft. This
push was encouraged by voices from various bunks, and enthusiastically
barracked for by a sandy-complexioned, red-headed comedian with
twinkling grey eyes, who occupied the berth immediately above our own.

They stood with their backs to the bunks, and their feet braced against
the deck, or lurched round, and took friendly pulls from whisky flasks,
and chyacked each other, and laughed, and blowed, and lied like--like
Australian bushmen; and occasionally they broke out into snatches of
song--and as often broke down. Few Englishmen know more than the
first verse, or two lines, of even their most popular song, and, where
elevated enough to think they can sing, they repeat the first verse
over and over again, with the wrong words, and with a sort
of “Ta-ra-ra-rum-ti-tooral, ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rum-ti,
ta-ra-ra-rum-tum-ti-rum-rum-tum-ti-dee-e-e,” by way of variation.

Presently--suddenly, it seemed to our drowsy senses--two of the shearers
and the bagman commenced arguing with drunken gravity and precision
about politics, even while a third bushman was approaching the climax of
an out-back yarn of many adjectives, of which he himself was the hero.
The scraps of conversation that we caught were somewhat as follow. We
leave out most of the adjectives.

First Voice: “Now, look here. The women will vote for men, not
principles. That's why I'm against women voting. Now, just mark my---”

Third Voice (trying to finish yarn): “Hold on. Just wait till I tell
yer. Well, this bloomin' bloke, he says---”

Second Voice (evidently in reply to first): “Principles you mean, not
men. You're getting a bit mixed, old man.” (Smothered chuckle from
comedian over our head.)

Third Voice (seeming to drift round in search of sympathy): “'You will!'
sez I. 'Yes, I will,' he sez. 'Oh, you will, will yer?' I sez; and with
that I---”

Second Voice (apparently wandering from both subjects) “Blanker has
always stuck up for the workin' man, an' he'll get in, you'll see. Why,
he's a bloomin' workin' man himself. Me and Blanker---”

Disgusted voice from a bunk: “Oh, that's damn rot! We've had enough of
lumpers in parliament! Horny hands are all right enough, but we don't
want any more blanky horny heads!”

Third Voice (threateningly): “Who's talkin' about 'orny heads? That
pitch is meant for us, ain't it? Do you mean to say that I've got a
'orny head?”

Here two men commenced snarling at each other, and there was some talk
of punching the causes of the dispute; but the bagman interfered, a
fresh flask was passed round, and some more eternal friendship sworn to.

We dozed off again, and the next time we were aware of anything the
commercial and Moses had disappeared, the rest were lying or sitting in
their bunks, and the third shearer was telling a yarn about an alleged
fight he had at a shed up-country; and perhaps he was telling it for the
benefit of the dissatisfied individual who made the injudicious remark
concerning horny heads.

“So I said to the boss-over-the-board, 'you're a nice sort of a thing,'
I sez. 'Who are you talkin' to?' he says. 'You, bless yer,' I says.
'Now, look here,' he says, 'you get your cheque and clear! 'All right,'
I says, 'you can take that!' and I hauled off and landed him a beauty
under the butt of the listener. Then the boss came along with two
blacklegs, but the boys made a ring, and I laid out the blanks in just
five minutes. Then I sez to the boss, 'That's the sort of cove I am,' I
sez, 'an' now, if you---”

But just here there came a deep, growling voice--seemingly from out of
the depths of the forehold--anyway, there came a voice, and it said:

“For the Lord's sake give her a rest!”

The steward turned off the electricity, but there were two lanterns
dimly burning in our part of the steerage. It was a narrow compartment
running across the width of the boat, and had evidently been partitioned
off from the top floor of the hold to meet the emigration from Australia
to New Zealand. There were three tiers of bunks, two deep, on the far
side, three rows of single bunks on the other, and two at each end of
the cabin, the top ones just under the portholes.

The shearers had turned in “all standing;” two of them were lying feet
to feet in a couple of outside lower berths. One lay on his stomach with
his face turned outwards, his arm thrown over the side of the bunk, and
his knuckles resting on the deck, the other rested on the broad of his
back with his arm also hanging over the side and his knuckles resting on
the floor. And so they slept the sleep of the drunk.

A fair, girl-faced young Swiss emigrant occupied one of the top berths,
with his curly, flaxen head resting close alongside one of the lanterns
that were dimly burning, and an Anglo-foreign dictionary in his hand.
His mate, or brother, who resembled him in everything except that he
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