Part 2

Such a faintness came all over me, you might have then an' there Knocked me down, sir, with a feather or tied me with a hair. Doc., I couldn't speak nor move; an' though I caught the beggar's eye, With a wink he turned the bottle bottom up an' drank it dry.

An' then he flung it from him, bein' suddintly aware That the label on't was merely a deloosion an' a snare; An' the crash cut short the people in the middle of "A-men," An' all the congregation heard him holler "Sold again!"

So that christ'nin' was a failure; every water-flask was drained; Ev'n the monkey in the vestry not a blessed drop contained; An' the parson in a hurry cantered off upon his mare, Leavin' baby unregenerate, an' missus in despair.

That night the child grew worse, but all my care was for the wife; I feared more for her reason than for that wee spark o' life.... But you know the rest--how Providence contrived that very night That a doctor should come cadgin' at our shanty for a light....

Baby? Oh, he's chirpy, thank ye--been baptised--his name is Bill. It's weeks and weeks since parson came an' put him through the mill; An' his mother's mighty vain upon the subjick of his weight, An' reg'lar cock-a-hoop about his sperritual state.

So now you'll take the tenner. Oh, confound the bloomin' change! Lord, had Billy died!--but, doctor, don't you think it summut strange That them as keeps the gate would have refused to let him in Because a fool mistook a drop of Adam's ale for gin?

_THE MARTYR._

BY VICTOR J. DALEY.

(_From "At Dawn and Dusk" poems, by kind permission of Angus and Robertson, Publishers, Sydney and Melbourne._)

Not only on cross and gibbet, By sword, and fire, and flood, Have perished the world's sad martyrs Whose names are writ in blood.

A woman lay in a hovel Mean, dismal, gasping for breath; One friend alone was beside her: The name of him was--Death.

For the sake of her orphan children, For money to buy them food, She had slaved in the dismal hovel And wasted her womanhood.

Winter and spring and summer Came each with a load of cares; And autumn to her brought only A harvest of grey hairs.

Far out in the blessèd country, Beyond the smoky town, The winds of God were blowing Evermore up and down;

The trees were waving signals Of joy from the bush beyond; The gum its blue-green banner, The fern its dark-green frond;

Flower called to flower in whispers By sweet caressing names, And young gum shoots sprang upward Like woodland altar-flames;

And, deep in the distant ranges The magpie's fluting song Roused musical, mocking echoes In the woods of Dandenong;

And riders were galloping gaily, With loose-held flowing reins, Through dim and shadowy gullies, Across broad, treeless plains;

And winds through the Heads came wafting A breath of life from the sea, And over the blue horizon The ships sailed silently;

And out of the sea at morning The sun rose, golden bright, And in crimson, and gold, and purple Sank in the sea at night;

But in dreams alone she saw them, Her hours of toil between; For life to her was only A heartless dead machine.

_Her_ heart was in the graveyard Where lay her children three; Nor work nor prayer could save them, Nor tears of agony.

On the lips of her last and dearest Pressing a farewell kiss, She cried aloud in her anguish-- "Can God make amends for _this_?"

Dull, desperate, ceaseless slaving Bereft her of power to pray, And Man was careless and cruel, And God was far away.

But who shall measure His mercies? His ways are in the deep; And, after a life of sorrow, He gave her His gift of sleep.

Rest comes at last to the weary, And freedom to the slave; Her tired and worn-out body Sleeps well in its pauper grave.

But His angel bore her soul up To that Bright Land and Fair, Where Sorrow enters never, Nor any cloud of care.

They came to a lovely valley, Agleam with asphodel, And the soul of the woman speaking, Said, "Here I fain would dwell!"

The angel answered gently: "O Soul, most pure and dear, O Soul, most tried and truest, Thy dwelling is not here!

"Behold thy place appointed-- Long kept, long waiting--come! Where bloom on the hills of Heaven The roses of Martyrdom!"

_THE CARRYING OF THE BABY._

BY ETHEL TURNER.

Larrie had been carrying it for a long way, and said it was quite time Dot took her turn.

Dot was arguing the point.

She reminded him of all athletic sports he had taken part in, and of all the prizes he had won; she asked him what was the use of being six-foot-two and an impossible number of inches round the chest if he could not carry a baby.

Larrie gave her an unexpected glance and moved the baby to his other arm; he was heated and unhappy, there seemed absolutely no end to the red, red road they were traversing, and Dot, as well as refusing to help to carry the burden, laughed aggravatingly at him when he said it was heavy.

"He is exactly twenty-one pounds," she said, "I weighed him on the kitchen scales yesterday. I should think a man of your size ought to be able to carry twenty-one pounds without grumbling so."

"But he's on springs, Dot," he said; "just look at him, he's never still for a minute; you carry him to the beginning of Lee's orchard, and then I'll take him again."

Dot shook her head.

"I'm very sorry, Larrie," she said, "but I really can't. You know I didn't want to bring the child, and when you insisted, I said to myself, you should carry him every inch of the way, just for your obstinacy."

"But you're his mother," objected Larrie.

He was getting seriously angry, his arms ached unutterably, his clothes were sticking to his back, and twice the baby had poked a little fat thumb in his eye and made it water.

"But you're its father," Dot said sweetly.

"It's easier for a woman to carry a child than a man"--poor Larrie was mopping his hot brow with his disengaged hand--"everyone says so; don't be a little sneak, Dot; my arm's getting awfully cramped; here, for pity's sake take him."

Dot shook her head again.

"Would you have me break my vow, St. Lawrence?" she said.

She looked provokingly cool and unruffled as she walked along by his side; her gown was white, with transparent puffy sleeves, her hat was white and very large, she had little white canvas shoes, long white Suède gloves, and she carried a white parasol.

"I'm hanged," said Larrie, and he stopped short in the middle of the road; "look here, my good woman, are you going to take your baby, or are you not?"

Dot revolved her sunshade round her little sweet face.

"No, my good man," she said; "I don't propose to carry your baby one step."

"Then I shall drop it," said Larrie. He held it up in a threatening position by the back of its crumpled coat, but Dot had gone sailing on.

"Find a soft place," she called, looking back over her shoulder once and seeing him still standing in the road.

"Little minx," he said under his breath.

Then his mouth squared itself; ordinarily it was a pleasant mouth, much given to laughter and merry words; but when it took that obstinate look, one could see capabilities for all manner of things.

He looked carefully around. By the roadside there was a patch of soft, green grass, and a wattle bush, yellow-crowned, beautiful. He laid the child down in the shade of it, he looked to see there were no ants or other insects near; he put on the bootee that was hanging by a string from the little rosy foot, and he stuck the india-rubber comforter in its mouth. Then he walked quietly away and caught up to Dot.

"Well?" she said, but she looked a little startled at his empty arms; she drooped the sunshade over the shoulder nearest to him, and gave a hasty, surreptitious glance backward. Larrie strode along.

"You look fearfully ugly when you screw up your mouth like that," she said, looking up at his set side face.

"You're an unnatural mother, Dot, that's what you are," he returned hotly. "By Jove, if I was a woman, I'd be ashamed to act as you do. You get worse every day you live. I've kept excusing you to myself, and saying you would get wiser as you grew older, and instead, you seem more childish every day."

She looked childish. She was very, very small in stature, very slightly and delicately built. Her hair was in soft gold-brown curls, as short as a boy's; her eyes were soft, and wide, and tender, and beautiful as a child's. When she was happy they were the colour of that blue, deep violet we call the Czar, and when she grew thoughtful, or sorrowful, they were like the heart of a great, dark purple pansy. She was not particularly beautiful, only very fresh, and sweet, and lovable. Larrie once said she always looked like a baby that has been freshly bathed and dressed, and puffed with sweet violet powder, and sent out into the world to refresh tired eyes.

That was one of his courtship sayings, more than a year ago, when she was barely seventeen. She was eighteen now, and he was telling her she was an unnatural mother.

"Why, the child wouldn't have had its bib on, only I saw to it," he said, in a voice that increased in excitement as he dwelt on the enormity.

"Dear me," said Dot, "that was very careless of Peggie; I must really speak to her about it."

"I shall shake you some day, Dot," Larrie said, "shake you till your teeth rattle. Sometimes I can hardly keep my hands off you."

His brow was gloomy, his boyish face troubled, vexed.

And Dot laughed. Leaned against the fence skirting the road that seemed to run to eternity, and laughed outrageously.

Larrie stopped too. His face was very white and square-looking, his dark eyes held fire. He put his hands on the white, exaggerated shoulders of her muslin dress and turned her round.

"Go back to the bottom of the hill this instant, and pick up the child and carry it up here," he said.

"Go and insert your foolish old head in a receptacle for _pommes-de-terre_," was Dot's flippant retort.

Larrie's hands pressed harder, his chin grew squarer.

"I'm in earnest, Dot, deadly earnest. I order you to fetch the child, and I intend you to obey me," he gave her a little shake to enforce the command. "I am your master, and I intend you to know it from this day."

Dot experienced a vague feeling of surprise at the fire in the eyes that were nearly always clear, and smiling, and loving, then she twisted herself away.

"Pooh," she said, "you're only a stupid over-grown, passionate boy, Larrie. You my master! You're nothing in the world but my husband."

"Are you going?" he said in a tone he had never used before to her. "Say Yes or No, Dot, instantly."

"No," said Dot, stormily.

Then they both gave a sob of terror, their faces blanched, and they began to run madly down the hill.

Oh the long, long way they had come, the endless stretch of red, red road that wound back to the gold-tipped wattles, the velvet grass, and their baby!

Larrie was a fleet, wonderful runner. In the little cottage where they lived, manifold silver cups and mugs bore witness to it, and he was running for life now, but Dot nearly outstripped him.

She flew over the ground, hardly touching it, her arms were outstretched, her lips moving. They fell down together on their knees by their baby, just as three furious, hard-driven bullocks thundered by, filling the air with dust and bellowing.

The baby was blinking happily up at a great fat golden beetle that was making a lazy way up the wattle. It had lost its "comforter" and was sucking its thumb thoughtfully. It had kicked off its white knitted boots, and was curling its pink toes up in the sunshine with great enjoyment.

"Baby!" Larrie said. The big fellow was trembling in every limb.

"_Baby!_" said Dot. She gathered it up in her little shaking arms, she put her poor white face down upon it, and broke into such pitiful tears and sobs that it wept too. Larrie took them both into his arms, and sat down on a fallen tree. He soothed them, he called them a thousand tender, beautiful names; he took off Dot's hat and stroked her little curls, he kissed his baby again and again; he kissed his wife. When they were all quite calm and the bullocks ten miles away, they started again.

"I'll carry him," said Larrie.

"Ah no, let me," Dot said.

"Darling, you're too tired--see, you can hold his hand across my shoulder."

"No, no, give him to me--my arms ache without him."

"But the hill--my big baby!"

"Oh, I _must_ have him--Larrie, _let_ me--see, he is so light--why, he is nothing to carry."

_THE OLD GUM._

Stand here; he has once been a grand old gum, But it makes one reflect that the time will come When we all shall have had our fling; Yet, our life soon passes, we scarce know how-- You would hardly think, to see him now, That once he had been a king.

In his youth, in the silence of the wood, A forest of saplings around him stood; But he overtopped them all. And, over their heads, through the forest shade, He could see how the sunlight danced and played, So straight he grew, and so tall.

Each day of his life brought something new, The breeze stirred the bracken, the dry leaves flew, The wild bird passed on the wing: He heard the low, sad song of the wood, His childhood was passed in its solitude; And he grew--and became a king.

Oft has he stood on the stormy night, When the long-forked flash has revealed to sight The plain where the floods were out; When the wind came down like a hurricane, And the branches, broken and snapped in twain, Were scattered and strewn about.

Oft, touched by the reddening bush-fire glow, When clouds of smoke, rolling up from below, Obscured the sun like a pall; When the forest seemed like a flaming sea, And down came many a mighty tree, Has he stood firm through it all.

Those days of his youth have long gone by; The magpie's note and the parrot's cry, As borne on the evening wind, Recall to his thoughts his childhood flown, Old memories, fresh, yet faintly blown, Of the youth he has left behind.

On the brow of the hill he stands to-day, But the pride of his life has passed away; His leaves are withered and sere. And oft at night comes a sound of woe, As he sways his tired limbs to and fro And laments to the bleak night air.

He can still look down on the plain below, And his head is decked by the sunset glow With a glorious crown of light; And from every field, as the night draws on, To his spreading arms the magpies come To shelter there for the night.

Some night, when the waters rage and swell, He will hear the thunder roll his knell, And will bow his head to the ground; And the birds from their nests will wheel in the air, And the rabbits burrow deeper in fear, At the thundering, rending sound.

And the magpies must find another home; No more, at the sunset, will they come To warble their evening song. Ah, well! our sorrow is quickly flown, For the good old friends we have loved and known: And the old tree falls by the tall new grown, And the weak must yield to the strong.

FLORENCE BULLIVANT.

_MURPHY SHALL NOT SING TO-NIGHT._

Specimens of Ireland's greatness gathered round O'Connor's bar, Answering the invitation Patsy posted near and far. All the chandeliers were lit, but did not shed sufficient light, So tallow candles, stuck in bottles, graced the bar that famous night.

All the quality were there; before such talent ne'er was seen; Healy brought the house down fairly with "The Wearin' o' the Green." Liquor went around in lashins, everything was going off right, When O'Connor sent the word round, "Murphy shall not sing to-night."

Faces paled at Patsy's order; none were listening to the song; Through their hearts went vague sensations--awful dreads of coming wrong; For they knew that Danny Murphy thought himself a singer quite, And knew that if he made his mind up, that, bedad, he'd sing that night.

Everyone was close attention, knew that there would be a row, When the chairman said that "Mr. Murphy will oblige us now." "Not so fasht," said Pat O'Connor, rising to his fullest height, "This here pub belongs to me, and Murphy shall not sing to-night."

Up jumps Murphy, scowling darkly as he looks at Pat O'Connor: "Is this the way," he says to Pat, "that you uphold Ould Oireland's honour?" "Oi know Oi'm not much at singin'; any toime Oi'd sooner foight; But, to show me independence, s'help me bob, Oi'll sing to-night."

"Gintlemin," says Pat O'Connor, wildly gazing round about, "It will be my painful duty to chuck Danny Murphy out; It has been a rule with me that no man sings when he is tight; When Oi say a thing Oi mane it--Murphy shall not sing to-night."

Then says Doolan to O'Connor, "Listen what Oi've got to tell; If yez want to chuck out Murphy, yez must chuck out me as well." This lot staggered Pat O'Connor, Doolan was a man of might; But he bluffed him, loudly crying, "Murphy shall not sing to-night."

Then he rushed on Danny Murphy and he smote him hip and thigh; Patsy looked a winner straight, when Doolan jabbed him in the eye. All the crowd at once took sides, and soon began a rousing fight; The battle cry of Patsy's push was "Murphy shall not sing to-night."

The noise soon brought a copper in: 'twas Patsy's cousin, Jim Kinsella. "Hould yer row," he says to Doolan, when Mick lands him on the smeller. They got the best of Doolan's push, though; lumbered them for getting tight. Patsy then had spoken truly, "Murphy did not sing that night."

EPILOGUE.

Specimens of Ireland's greatness gathered round the City court. There before the awful sentence was a touching lesson taught-- Then away they led the prisoners to a cell, so cool and white; And for fourteen days to come Murphy shall not sing at night.

MONTAGUE GROVER.

_CHRISTMAS BELLS._

BY JOHN B. O'HARA, M.A.

(_By kind permission of the Author._)

Bells, joyous bells of the Christmas-time, Dear is the song of your welcome chime; Dear is the burden that softly wells From your joyous throats, O tolling bells! Dear is the message sweet you bind Dove-like to wings of the wafting wind.

You tell how the Yule-king cometh forth From his home in the heart of the icy North; On his Eastern steeds how rusheth on The wind-god of storms, Euroclydon; How his trumpet strikes to the pallid stars That shrink from the mad moon's silver bars, Where the cold wind tortures the sobbing sea, And the chill sleet pierces the pinioned lea, As the snow king hurls from his frozen zone The fragments fast of a tumbled throne.

But what is the song, O silver bells, You sing of the ferny Austral dells, Of the bracken height, and the sylvan stream, And the breezy woodland's summer dream, Lulled by the lute of the slow sweet rills In the trembling heart of the great grave hills? Ah, what is the song that you sing to me Of the soft blue isles of our shimmering sea, Where the slow tides sleep, and a purple haze Fringes the skirts of the windless bays,

That, ringed with a circlet of beauty fair, Start in the face of the dreamer there; O, what is the burden of your sweet chimes, Bells of the golden Christmas times?

You sing of the summer gliding down From the stars that gem bright heaven's crown; Of the flowers that fade in the autumn sere, And the sunlit death of the old, old year. Of the sweet South wind that sobs above The grass-green grave of our buried love: No bitter dirge from the stormy flow Of a moaning sea,--ah! no, no, no! But a sweet farewell, and a low soft hymn Under the beautiful moons that swim Over the silver seas that toss Their foam to thy shrine, O Southern Cross!

O, bright is the burden of your sweet chimes, Bells of the joyous Christmas times! You bring to the old hearts throbbing slow The beautiful dreams of the long ago; Remembrance sweet of the olden Yule, When hearts beat high in life's young school. Ah, haply now, as they list to your chimes, Will the voices rise of the olden times, Till the wings of peace brood over the hours Slipping like streams through sleepy bowers, While you whisper the story loved of One Who suffered for us--the sad sweet Son-- Who taught that afflictions, sent in love, Chasten the soul for the realms above.

_WOOL IS UP._

Earth o'erflows with nectared gladness, All creation teems with joy; Banished be each thought of sadness, Life for me has no alloy. Fill a bumper!--drain a measure, Pewter! goblet! tankard! cup! Testifying thus our pleasure At the news that "Wool is up."

'Thwart the empires, 'neath the oceans, Subtly speeds the living fire; Who shall tell what wild emotions Spring from out that thridden wire? "Jute is lower--copper weaker," This will break poor neighbour Jupp; But for me, I shout "Eureka!" Wealth is mine--for wool is up!

What care I for jute or cotton, Sugar, copper, hemp, or flax! Reeds like these are often rotten, Turn to rods for owners' backs. Fortune! ha! I have thee holden In what Scotia calls a "grup," All my fleeces now are golden, Full troy weight--for wool is up!

I will dance the gay fandango (Though to me its steps be strange), Doubts and fears, you all can hang go! I will cut a dash on 'Change. Atra Cura, you will please me By dismounting from my crup-- Per--you no more shall tease me, Pray get down--for wool is up!

Jane shall have that stylish bonnet Which my scanty purse denied; Long she set her heart upon it, She shall wear it now with pride. I will buy old Dumper's station, Reign as king at Gerringhup, For my crest a bust of Jason, With this motto, "Wool is up."

I will keep a stud extensive; Bolter, here! I'll have those greys, Those Sir George deemed too expensive, You can send them--with the bays. Coursing! I should rather think so; Yes, I'll take that "Lightning" pup; Jones, my boy, you needn't wink so, I can stand it--wool is up!

Wifey, love, you're looking charming, Years with you are but as days; We must have a grand house-warming When these painters go their ways. Let the ball-room be got ready, Bid our friends to dance and sup: Bother! _how_ can I "go steady"? I'm worth thousands--wool is up!

GARNET WALCH.

_WOOL IS DOWN._

Blacker than 'eer the inky waters roll Upon the gloomy shores of sluggish Styx, A surge of sorrow laps my leaden soul, For that which was at "two" is now "one--six." "Come, disappointment, come!" as has been said By someone else who quailed 'neath Fortune's frown, Stab to the core the heart that once has bled, (For "heart" read "pocket")--wool, ah! wool is down.