His tent-home had never seemed so comfortless. He ended his solitary
ride late at night and wet to the skin; his horse had cast a shoe far
from any smithy. Long Jim alone came to the door to greet him. The
shopman, on whose doltish honesty Mahony would have staked his head, had
profited by his absence to empty the cash-box and go off on the spree.--
Even one of the cats had met its fate in an old shaft, where its corpse
still swam.
The following day, as a result of exposure and hard riding, Mahony was
attacked by dysentery; and before he had recovered, the goods arrived
from Melbourne. They had to be unloaded, at some distance from the
store, conveyed there, got under cover, checked off and arranged. This
was carried out in sheets of cold rain, which soaked the canvas walls
and made it doubly hard to get about the clay tracks that served as
streets. As if this were not enough, the river in front of the house
rose--rose, and in two twos was over its banks--and he and Long Jim
spent a night in their clothes, helping neighbours less fortunately
placed to move their belongings into safety.
The lion's share of this work fell on him. Long Jim still carried his
arm in a sling, and was good for nothing but to guard the store and
summon Mahony on the appearance of customers. Since his accident, too, the fellow had suffered from frequent fits of colic or cramp, and was for ever slipping off to the township to find the spirits in which his employer refused to deal. For the unloading and warehousing of the goods, it was true, old Ocock had loaned his sons; but the strict watch Mahony felt bound to keep over this pretty pair far outweighed what their help was worth to him.
Now it was Sunday evening, and for the first time for more than a week
he could call his soul his own again. He stood at the door and watched
those of his neighbours who were not Roman Catholics making for church
and chapel, to which half a dozen tinkly bells invited them. The weather
had finally cleared up, and a goodly number of people waded past him
through the mire. Among them, in seemly Sabbath dress, went Ocock, with
his two black sheep at heel. The old man was a rigid Methodist, and at a
recent prayer-meeting had been moved to bear public witness to his
salvation. This was no doubt one reason why the young scapegrace Tom's
almost simultaneous misconduct had been so bitter a pill for him to
swallow: while, through God's mercy, he was become an exemplar to the
weaker brethren, a son of his made his name to stink in the nostrils of
the reputable community. Mahony liked to believe that there was good in
everybody, and thought the intolerant harshness which the boy was
subjected would defeat its end. Yet it was open to question if clemency
would have answered better. "Bad eggs, the brace of them!" had been his
own verdict, after a week's trial of the lads. One would not, the other
apparently could not work. Johnny, the elder, was dull and liverish from
intemperance; and the round-faced adolescent, the news of whose
fatherhood had raced the wind, was so sheep-faced, so craven, in the
presence of his elders, that he could not say bo to a battledore. There
was something unnatural about this fierce timidity--and the doctor in
Mahony caught a quick glimpse of the probable reverse of the picture.
But it was cold, in face of all this rain-soaked clay; cold blue-grey
clouds drove across a washed-out sky; and he still felt unwell. Returning to his living-room where a small American stove was burning, he prepared for a quiet evening. In a corner by the fire stood an old packing-case. He lifted the lid and thrust his hand in: it was here he kept his books. He needed no light to see by; he knew each volume by the feel. And after fumbling for a little among the tumbled contents, he drew forth a work on natural science and sat down to read. But he did not get far; his brain was tired, intractable. Lighting his pipe, he tilted back his chair, laid the VESTIGES face downwards, and put his feet on the table.