I never knew what to make of Guest; he certainly believed all that he told me. He eventually came to my lodging2 and lived in the next room; he had an old duck, I think he said it was eighteen years old; he carried it about much the same as folks do a pet poodle. I never saw such a wise and affectionate thing as that duck was. By his bed in a large collar-box it would sit the whole night long and follow him and me about the room like a kitten. How he got it and why he was so fond of it was a mystery to me; he was the last man in the world one would have thought to have a pet duck and put up with the nuisance of it, but he had the duck right enough, and when we sat having our meals together it would push its beak3 under our arms and steal the dainty bits off our plates. That was nuisance enough, but the smell of it was outrageous4 and I very seldom had luncheon5 with Guest afterwards, but had most of my meals in a restaurant hard by.
I was still engaged at playing the fiddle6 at the dancing hall, and now and again I accepted engagements to go out to balls, etc., among the “élite” of San Francisco. It was at the palatial7 residence of 302a ’Frisco nabob out at Menbo Park that I played my first public solo. I was terribly nervous. The solo I played was Rode’s “Air in G,” and I gave as an encore the “Cavatina” by Raff. Guest was there that night; I had managed to get him a ticket and borrowed a decent suit for him. I was sorry after that I had invited him. He got drinking too much, and though I had warned him to behave himself he shouted at the top of his voice as soon as I had finished my solo, “Good old Middleton! Give us another.” I turned hot all over and the perspiration8 whisked off my brow as I bowed to the applause of the audience and the pretty girl at the piano gazed up into my face and quickly placed the music of the “Cavatina” on the pianoforte and I was glad to start off playing again. I made several mistakes but I don’t think anyone noticed them; my name on the programme was not Middleton but Signor Marrionette! and everyone, of course, had great faith in the playing of a gentleman with that name.
Through my musical ability and enterprise I saw a good deal of ’Frisco “high life,” and after a deal of experience I came to the conclusion that low life was only the crude essence of high life. One set wiped their noses with a silk pocket handkerchief and the other with the thumb and forefinger9, but both acted under the same impulse. The real curse of those early engagements was that after I had played the ladies would circle round me, quizz me up and down, old and young plying10 me with questions, telling me how they would love to spend their 303lives listening to delicious strains of music; they thought I was a soft sentimental11 poetical12 youth, green to the ways of life, and little dreamed that I had seen them all, so to speak, dancing in the South Seas with nothing on!
I was very homesick about that time and as Guest had made up his mind to go to Alaska I made up my mind to get out of ’Frisco and home to England. I threw my job up and not having enough money to pay my fare home I set about trying to get a berth14 on a ship. I will not weary you with my disappointments, but I eventually after many hardships got a job as deck-hand on the Alameda bound for Sydney. I had made up my mind to get to Sydney first and then get a berth on a ship that went by the Suez Canal route. After a rotten trip across tropic seas, working like a nigger, and sleeping in quarters that would have made the ’Frisco Chinamen sniff15 with disgust, I arrived at Woolloomoolloo Bay, was paid off and wandered about for several days.
I could not discover any of my old acquaintances that I would like to have seen. The Lubeck was in dock, but though I tried all I could to see if William my friend had returned, I could get no information. There were hundreds of English fellows trying to work their passages back to England and every week the deep-sea boats came through Sydney Heads with hundreds of passengers on deck gazing with admiring eyes at the beautiful scrub-covered hills of Sydney Harbour, their hearts beating happily as the relatives and friends waved their hands on the 304wharf. I often stood and watched the sisters, brothers, and lovers meet, and as the ships left the wharf16 for England once more I stood and watched the farewell hands waving as the great P. & O. or Orient liners sailed away, taking the hearts of the pinched white-faced, ragged17 brigade with her.
Failing to get a berth or a job at violin-playing, I availed myself of an opportunity offered me to go up country sheep-shearing. The new friends I had fallen in with told me that I could earn a splendid wage at the job, and though I knew nothing about the work, I believed them and went off.
We went a hundred miles by rail and tramped the rest, and when I eventually reached the sheep-station I had no boots to my feet, and my trouser legs were torn away through tramping through stiff scrub. I never had such a rough job in my life as on that sheep-shearing station. Hundreds of men arrived day after day from different parts of New South Wales, and clamoured for work. They were men of all degrees, swagsmen of long experience, and men of no experience, new chums and old chums. I got in just in time to get a job as a “rouse-about,” and then became a “penner-up.”
Many of us slept in camp tents and I made a good bit of money by fiddle-playing. I extemporised a small orchestra, which consisted of a concertina, two banjos and a bone clapper, and when the work was done we would sit under the blue gums and, as the sun twinkled on the skyline and disappeared, start 305the concert, and never did I have such an appreciative18 audience as they stood, those rough unshaved men leaning against the trees or sitting on stumps19 smoking and listening to the melodies that took their hearts back to the homeland, and as we played away and the marsh20 frogs croaked21 they would join in the chorus of some old song and put their whole soul in it. “Play that again, matey,” they would say as some strain touched them and awoke memories of long ago. I’ve often seen the tears in the eyes of those men, and I liked them; some of them were old enough to be my father. They were mostly men of a sentimental turn of mind and good men, as far as their intentions went, but they all found it so hard to make their actions harmonise with their intentions. They work hard when they do work, and after the shearing season go off with a big cheque and a firm resolve to start a little business or go back across the seas to see the old faces again.
With their billy-can swinging in their hand and their swag on their back they start across the bush, outbound to the new life of quiet and sweetness, and then the dreadful fall comes. Hot and tired they all stumble across the grog shanty22 in the bush town, outside of its wooden door they drop their swags to the ground, gaze in each other’s eyes with that querying23 look that says in silent language, “Well, I don’t think just one drink would hurt us,” and then each one carefully looks at the other, as though to say, “Mind, Bill, only one this time,” for they have all been through the same old fiasco 306before, made the same good resolutions and alas13, then do as they will always do, for that one drink resolves into two. Each one looks once more at the other and each one relents and grants his comrade one more drink. “Yes, Bill, but mind you that’s the last,” and then one poking24 his head out of the grog shanty sees the sun setting and remarks to the others, “It’s getting late, chums; we’d better camp here for the night.” They all agree, and again all agree that another drink could not possibly hurt any of them. By that time they are getting half-seas over with the extra drinks in between which they each swallowed while the other wasn’t looking! Then the loud songs commence, and the yarns25 of past brave deeds, and the grog seller rubs his hands, delighted to see them getting affectionate one with the other as each finds his appreciative listener. By this time their voices can be heard at the township homesteads two miles over the hills, and the folk come from far and near to hear the songs, and to see the drunken spree of the homebound shearers. Already the dance has commenced, and the banjo is going full speed, “pink-a-tee-pink,” and then a space is cleared for the grand fight over the awful insult to the man from Stony26 Creek27 who has been doubted when he said he knew where gold could be found by the ton, and he found it but it was so heavy that he couldn’t carry it into town.
By midnight all the money is nearly spent, and on the slopes by the grog shanty most of them are sprawling28 fast asleep, the more excitable ones lifting 307their hatless heads up now and again, gurgling out some spasmodic strain of the last drunken song which they were singing just before they fell down.
At daybreak they are standing29 outside of the grog seller’s door kicking it with their boots, their mouths fevered and parched30 by the awful poison which they drank the night before, and so the great resolution ends once more. With their billy-cans and swags they depart across the bush on their several ways sad men on the “Wallaby track” homeless and penniless. And so they go on till they die, and I can well tell you all this because I was with those men, heard the good resolutions, saw the tears rise in their fearless eyes as they spoke31 with emotion of the happy-to-be future, and then witnessed their fall. With four of them I tramped away across the bush solitudes32 to look for work in a world of stern reality, for wherever you go in this world you will find that you cannot live on dreams.
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1
shearing
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| n.剪羊毛，剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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2
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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3
beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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6
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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7
palatial
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| adj.宫殿般的，宏伟的 | |
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8
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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9
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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10
plying
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的现在分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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11
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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12
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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13
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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14
berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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15
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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16
wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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17
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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18
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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19
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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21
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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querying
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的现在分词 )；询问 | |
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24
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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25
yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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26
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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27
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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28
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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29
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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30
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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31
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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32
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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