His Father's Mate

"His Father's Mate" is a poignant short story by Australian author Henry Lawson, exploring the themes of friendship, loyalty, and the complexities of relationships in the context of rural life. Set against the backdrop of the Australian bush, the narrative revolves around the bond between two young men, highlighting their shared experiences, aspirations, and the challenges they face. Through vivid imagery and characteristic Australian vernacular, Lawson delves into the emotional landscape of his characters, ultimately shedding light on the enduring impact of familial ties and the sacrifices made for those we hold dear. The story reflects Lawson's mastery in capturing the essence of life in the bush, blending humor and pathos in a deeply resonant tale.

• Short story

								
It was Golden Gully still, but golden in name only, unless indeed the
yellow mullock heaps or the bloom of the wattle-trees on the hillside
gave it a claim to the title. But the gold was gone from the gully, and
the diggers were gone, too, after the manner of Timon's friends when his
wealth deserted him. Golden Gully was a dreary place, dreary even for an
abandoned goldfield. The poor, tortured earth, with its wounds all bare,
seemed to make a mute appeal to the surrounding bush to come up and
hide it, and, as if in answer to its appeal, the shrub and saplings were
beginning to close in from the foot of the range. The wilderness was
reclaiming its own again.

The two dark, sullen hills that stood on each side were clothed from tip
to hollow with dark scrub and scraggy box-trees; but above the highest
row of shafts on one side ran a line of wattle-trees in full bloom.

The top of the western hill was shaped somewhat like a saddle, and
standing high above the eucalypti on the point corresponding with the
pommel were three tall pines. These lonely trees, seen for many miles
around, had caught the yellow rays of many a setting sun long before the
white man wandered over the ranges.

The predominant note of the scene was a painful sense of listening, that
never seemed to lose its tension--a listening as though for the
sounds of digger life, sounds that had gone and left a void that was
accentuated by the signs of a former presence. The main army of diggers
had long ago vanished to new rushes, leaving only its stragglers and
deserters behind. These were men who were too poor to drag families
about, men who were old and feeble, and men who had lost their faith in
fortune. They had dropped unnoticed out of the ranks; and remained to
scratch out a living among the abandoned claims.

Golden Gully had its little community of fossickers who lived in a
clearing called Spencer's Flat on one side and Pounding Flat on the
other, but they lent no life to the scene; they only haunted it. A
stranger might have thought the field entirely deserted until he came on
a coat and a billy at the foot of saplings amongst the holes, and heard,
in the shallow ground underneath, the thud of a pick, which told of some
fossicker below rooting out what little wash remained.

One afternoon towards Christmas, a windlass was erected over an old
shaft of considerable depth at the foot of the gully. A greenhide bucket
attached to a rope on the windlass was lying next morning near the mouth
of the shaft, and beside it, on a clear-swept patch, was a little mound
of cool wet wash-dirt.

A clump of saplings near at hand threw a shade over part of the mullock
heap, and in this shade, seated on an old coat, was a small boy of
eleven or twelve years, writing on a slate.

He had fair hair, blue eyes, and a thin old-fashioned face--a face that
would scarcely alter as he grew to manhood. His costume consisted of a
pair of moleskin trousers, a cotton shirt, and one suspender. He held
the slate rigidly with a corner of its frame pressed close against his
ribs, whilst his head hung to one side, so close to the slate that his
straggling hair almost touched it. He was regarding his work fixedly
out of the corners of his eyes, whilst he painfully copied down the head
line, spelling it in a different way each time. In this laborious task
he appeared to be greatly assisted by a tongue that lolled out of the
corner of his mouth and made an occasional revolution round it, leaving
a circle of temporarily clean face. His small clay-covered toes also
entered into the spirit of the thing, and helped him not a little by
their energetic wriggling. He paused occasionally to draw the back of
his small brown arm across his mouth.

Little Isley Mason, or, as he was called, “His Father's Mate,” had
always been a favourite with the diggers and fossickers from the days
when he used to slip out first thing in the morning and take a run
across the frosty flat in his shirt. Long Bob Sawkins would often tell
how Isley came home one morning from his run in the long, wet grass as
naked as he was born, with the information that he had lost his shirt.

Later on, when most of the diggers had gone, and Isley's mother was
dead, he was to be seen about the place with bare, sunbrowned arms and
legs, a pick and shovel, and a gold dish about two-thirds of his height
in diameter, with which he used to go “a-speckin'” and “fossickin'”
 amongst the old mullock heaps. Long Bob was Isley's special crony, and
he would often go out of his way to lay the boy outer bits o' wash
and likely spots, lamely excusing his long yarns with the child by the
explanation that it was “amusin' to draw Isley out.”

Isley had been sitting writing for some time when a deep voice called
out from below:

“Isley!”

“Yes, father.”

“Send down the bucket.”

“Right.”

Isley put down his slate, and going to the shaft dropped the bucket down
as far as the slack rope reached; then, placing one hand on the bole of
the windlass and holding the other against it underneath, he let it
slip round between his palms until the bucket reached bottom. A sound of
shovelling was heard for a few moments, and presently the voice cried,
“Wind away, sonny.”

“Thet ain't half enough,” said the boy, peering down. “Don't be
frightened to pile it in, father. I kin wind up a lot more'n thet.”

A little more scraping, and the boy braced his feet well upon the little
mound of clay which he had raised under the handle of the windlass to
make up for his deficiency in stature.

“Now then, Isley!”

Isley wound slowly but sturdily, and soon the bucket of “wash” appeared
above the surface; then he took it in short lifts and deposited it with
the rest of the wash-dirt.

“Isley!” called his father again.

“Yes, father.”

“Have you done that writing lesson yet?”

“Very near.”

“Then send down the slate next time for some sums.”

“All right.”

The boy resumed his seat, fixed the corner of the slate well into his
ribs, humped his back, and commenced another wavering line.

Tom Mason was known on the place as a silent, hard worker. He was a man
of about sixty, tall, and dark bearded. There was nothing uncommon about
his face, except, perhaps, that it hardened, as the face of a man might
harden who had suffered a long succession of griefs and disappointments.
He lived in little hut under a peppermint tree at the far edge of
Pounding Flat. His wife had died there about six years before, and new
rushes broke out and he was well able to go, he never left Golden Gully.

Mason was kneeling in front of the “face” digging away by the light of
a tallow candle stuck in the side. The floor of the drive was very wet,
and his trousers were heavy and cold with clay and water; but the old
digger was used to this sort of thing. His pick was not bringing out
much to-day, however, for he seemed abstracted and would occasionally
pause in his work, while his thoughts wandered far away from the narrow
streak of wash-dirt in the “face.”

He was digging out pictures from a past life. They were not pleasant

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