The Story of the Oracle
"We young fellows," said "Sympathy Joe" to Mitchell, after tea,in their first camp west the river -- "and you and I ARE young fellows,comparatively -- think we know the world. There are plenty of young chapsknocking round in this country who reckon they've been through it allbefore they're thirty. I've met cynics and men-o'-the-world,aged twenty-one or thereabouts, who've never been further thana trip to Sydney. They talk about `this world' as if they'd knocked aroundin half-a-dozen other worlds before they came across here --and they are just as off-hand about it as older Australians arewhen they talk about this colony as compared with the others. They say:`My oath! -- same here.' `I've been there.' `My oath! -- you're right.'`Take it from me!' and all that sort of thing. They understand women,and have a contempt for 'em; and chaps that don't talk as they talk,or do as they do, or see as they see, are either soft or ratty.A good many reckon that `life ain't blanky well worth livin'';sometimes they feel so blanky somehow that they wouldn't give a blankwhether they chucked it or not; but that sort never chuck it.It's mostly the quiet men that do that, and if they've got any complaintsto make against the world they make 'em at the head station.Why, I've known healthy, single, young fellows under twenty-fivewho drank to drown their troubles -- some because they reckoned the worlddidn't understand nor appreciate 'em -- as if it COULD!""If the world don't understand or appreciate you," said Mitchell solemnly,as he reached for a burning stick to light his pipe -- "MAKE it!""To drown THEIR troubles!" continued Joe, in a tone of impatient contempt."The Oracle must be well on towards the sixties; he can take his glasswith any man, but you never saw him drunk.""What's the Oracle to do with it?""Did you ever hear his history?""No. Do you know it?""Yes, though I don't think he has any idea that I do. Now, we were talkingabout the Oracle a little while ago. We know he's an old ass;a good many outsiders consider that he's a bit soft or ratty,and, as we're likely to be mates together for some timeon that fencing contract, if we get it, you might as well knowwhat sort of a man he is and was, so's you won't get uneasy about himif he gets deaf for a while when you're talking, or does funny thingswith his pipe or pint-pot, or walks up and down by himselffor an hour or so after tea, or sits on a log with his head in his hands,or leans on the fence in the gloaming and keeps lookingin a blank sort of way, straight ahead, across the clearing.For he's gazing at something a thousand miles across country, south-east,and about twenty years back into the past, and no doubt he sees himself(as a young man), and a Gippsland girl, spooning under the starsalong between the hop-gardens and the Mitchell River.And, if you get holt of a fiddle or a concertina, don't rasp or swank too muchon old tunes, when he's round, for the Oracle can't stand it.Play something lively. He'll be down there at that surveyor's campyarning till all hours, so we'll have plenty of time for the story --but don't you ever give him a hint that you know."My people knew him well; I got most of the story from them --mostly from Uncle Bob, who knew him better than any. The rest leaked outthrough the women -- you know how things leak out amongst women?"Mitchell dropped his head and scratched the back of it. HE knew."It was on the Cudgegong River. My Uncle Bob was mates with himon one of those `rushes' along there -- the `Pipeclay', I think it was,or the `Log Paddock'. The Oracle was a young man then, of course,and so was Uncle Bob (he was a match for most men). You see the Oracle now,and you can imagine what he was when he was a young man.Over six feet, and as straight as a sapling, Uncle Bob said,clean-limbed, and as fresh as they made men in those days;carried his hands behind him, as he does now, when he hasn't got the swag --but his shoulders were back in those days. Of course he wasn'tthe Oracle then; he was young Tom Marshall -- but that doesn't matter.Everybody liked him -- especially women and children.He was a bit happy-go-lucky and careless, but he didn't know anythingabout `this world', and didn't bother about it; he hadn't `been there'.`And his heart was as good as gold,' my aunt used to say.He didn't understand women as we young fellows do nowadays,and therefore he hadn't any contempt for 'em. Perhaps he understood,and understands, them better than any of us, without knowing it.Anyway, you know, he's always gentle and kind where a woman or childis concerned, and doesn't like to hear us talk about women as we do sometimes."There was a girl on the goldfields -- a fine lump of a blonde,and pretty gay. She came from Sydney, I think, with her people,who kept shanties on the fields. She had a splendid voice,and used to sing `Madeline'. There might have been one or two bad womenbefore that, in the Oracle's world, but no cold-blooded, designing ones.He calls the bad ones `unfortunate'."Perhaps it was Tom's looks, or his freshness, or his innocence, or softness-- or all together -- that attracted her. Anyway, he got mixed up with herbefore the goldfield petered out."No doubt it took a long while for the facts to work into Tom's headthat a girl might sing like she did and yet be thoroughly unprincipled.The Oracle was always slow at coming to a decision, but when he doesit's generally the right one. Anyway, you can take that for granted,for you won't move him."I don't know whether he found out that she wasn't allthat she pretented to be to him, or whether they quarrelled,or whether she chucked him over for a lucky digger. Tom never had any luckon the goldfields. Anyway, he left and went over to the Victorian side,where his people were, and went up Gippsland way. It was therefor the first time in his life that he got what you would call`properly gone on a girl'; he got hard hit -- he met his fate."Her name was Bertha Bredt, I remember. Aunt Bob saw her afterwards.Aunt Bob used to say that she was `a girl as God made her' -- a good,true, womanly girl -- one of those sort of girls that only love once.Tom got on with her father, who was packing horses through the rangesto the new goldfields -- it was rough country and there were no roads;they had to pack everything there in those days, and there was money in it.The girl's father took to Tom -- as almost everybody else did --and, as far as the girl was concerned, I think it wasa case of love at first sight. They only knew each otherfor about six months, and were only `courting' (as they called it then)for three or four months altogether, but she was that sort of girlthat can love a man for six weeks and lose him for ever,and yet go on loving him to the end of her life -- and die with his nameon her lips."Well, things were brightening up every way for Tom, and he and his sweetheartwere beginning to talk about their own little home in future,when there came a letter from the `Madeline' girl in New South Wales."She was in terrible trouble. Her baby was to be born in a month.Her people had kicked her out, and she was in danger of starving.She begged and prayed of him to come back and marry her,if only for his child's sake. He could go then, and be free;she would never trouble him any more -- only come and marry herfor the child's sake."The Oracle doesn't know where he lost that letter, but I do.It was burnt afterwards by a woman, who was more than a mother to himin his trouble -- Aunt Bob. She thought he might carry it roundwith the rest of his papers, in his swag, for years, and come across itunexpectedly when he was camped by himself in the bush and feeling dull.It wouldn't have done him any good then."He must have fought the hardest fight in his life when he got that letter.No doubt he walked to and fro, to and fro, all night, with his handsbehind him, and his eyes on the ground, as he does now sometimes.Walking up and down helps you to fight a thing out."No doubt he thought of things pretty well as he thinks now:the poor girl's shame on every tongue, and belled round the districtby every hag in the township; and she looked upon by womenas being as bad as any man who ever went to Bathurst in the old days,handcuffed between two troopers. There is sympathy, a pipe and tobacco,a cheering word, and, maybe, a whisky now and then, for the criminalon his journey; but there is no mercy, at least as far as women are concerned,for the poor foolish girl, who has to sneak out the back wayand round by back streets and lanes after dark, with a cloak onto hide her figure."Tom sent what money he thought he could spare, and next dayhe went to the girl he loved and who loved him, and told her the truth,and showed her the letter. She was only a girl -- but the sort of girlyou COULD go to in a crisis like that. He had made up his mindto do the right thing, and she loved him all the more for it.And so they parted."When Tom reached `Pipeclay', the girl's relations,that she was stopping with, had a parson readied up,and they were married the same day.""And what happened after that?" asked Mitchell."Nothing happened for three or four months; then the child was born.It wasn't his!"Mitchell stood up with an oath."The girl was thoroughly bad. She'd been carrying on with God knowshow many men, both before and after she trapped Tom.""And what did he do then?""Well, you know how the Oracle argues over things, and I supposehe was as big an old fool then as he is now. He thinks that,as most men would deceive women if they could, when one mangets caught, he's got no call to squeal about it; he's bound,because of the sins of men in general against women,to make the best of it. What is one man's wrong counted againstthe wrongs of hundreds of unfortunate girls."It's an uncommon way of arguing -- like most of the Oracle's ideas --but it seems to look all right at first sight."Perhaps he thought she'd go straight; perhaps she convinced himthat he was the cause of her first fall; anyway he stuck to herfor more than a year, and intended to take her away from that placeas soon as he'd scraped enough money together. It might have gone onup till now, if the father of the child -- a big black Irishmannamed Redmond -- hadn't come sneaking back at the end of a year.He -- well, he came hanging round Mrs. Marshall while Tom was away at work --and she encouraged him. And Tom was forced to see it."Tom wanted to fight out his own battle without interference, but the chapswouldn't let him -- they reckoned that he'd stand very little showagainst Redmond, who was a very rough customer and a fighting man.My uncle Bob, who was there still, fixed it up this way:The Oracle was to fight Redmond, and if the Oracle got lickedUncle Bob was to take Redmond on. If Redmond whipped Uncle Bob,that was to settle it; but if Uncle Bob thrashed Redmond, then he was alsoto fight Redmond's mate, another big, rough Paddy named Duigan.Then the affair would be finished -- no matter which way the last bout went.You see, Uncle Bob was reckoned more of a match for Redmondthan the Oracle was, so the thing looked fair enough -- at first sight."Redmond had his mate, Duigan, and one or two others of the rough gangthat used to terrorise the fields round there in the roaring days of Gulgong.The Oracle had Uncle Bob, of course, and long Dave Regan, the drover --a good-hearted, sawny kind of chap that'd break the devil's own buck-jumper,or smash him, or get smashed himself -- and little Jimmy Nowlett,the bullocky, and one or two of the old, better-class diggersthat were left on the field."There's a clear space among the saplings in Specimen Gully,where they used to pitch circuses; and here, in the cool of a summer evening,the two men stood face to face. Redmond was a rough, roaring,foul-mouthed man; he stripped to his shirt, and roared like a bull,and swore, and sneered, and wanted to take the whole of Tom's crowdwhile he was at it, and make one clean job of 'em. Couldn't waste timefighting them all one after the other, because he wanted to get awayto the new rush at Cattle Creek next day. The fool had beendrinking shanty-whisky."Tom stood up in his clean, white moles and white flannel shirt-- one of those sort with no sleeves, that give the arms play.He had a sort of set expression and a look in his eyesthat Uncle Bob -- nor none of them -- had ever seen there before.`Give us plenty of ---- room!' roared Redmond; `one of usis going to hell, now! This is going to be a fight to a ---- finish,and a ---- short one!' And it was!" Joe paused."Go on," said Mitchell -- "go on!"Joe drew a long breath."The Oracle never got a mark! He was top-dog right from the start.Perhaps it was his strength that Redmond had underrated,or his want of science that puzzled him, or the awful silence of the manthat frightened him (it made even Uncle Bob uneasy). Or, perhaps,it was Providence (it was a glorious chance for Providence),but, anyway, as I say, the Oracle never got a mark, except on his knuckles.After a few rounds Redmond funked and wanted to give in,but the chaps wouldn't let him -- not even his own mates -- except Duigan.They made him take it as long as he could stand on his feet.He even shammed to be knocked out, and roared out something abouthaving broken his ---- ankle -- but it was no use. And the Oracle!The chaps that knew thought that he'd refuse to fight,and never hit a man that had given in. But he did. He just stood therewith that quiet look in his eyes and waited, and, when he did hit,there wasn't any necessity for Redmond to PRETEND to be knocked down.You'll see a glint of that old light in the Oracle's eyes even now,once in a while; and when you do it's a sign that you or someoneare going too far, and had better pull up, for it's a red light on the line,old as he is."Now, Jimmy Nowlett was a nuggety little fellow, hard as cast iron,good-hearted, but very excitable; and when the bashed Redmondwas being carted off (poor Uncle Bob was always pretty high-strung,and was sitting on a log sobbing like a great child from the reaction),Duigan made some sneering remark that only Jimmy Nowlett caught,and in an instant he was up and at Duigan."Perhaps Duigan was demoralised by his mate's defeat,or by the suddenness of the attack; but, at all events, he got a hiding, too.Uncle Bob used to say that it was the funniest thing he ever saw in his life.Jimmy kept yelling: `Let me get at him! By the Lord, let me get at him!'And nobody was attempting to stop him, he WAS getting at him all the time --and properly, too; and, when he'd knocked Duigan down,he'd dance round him and call on him to get up; and every timehe jumped or bounced, he'd squeak like an india-rubber ball, Uncle Bob said,and he would nearly burst his boiler trying to lug the big man on to his feetso's he could knock him down again. It took two of Jimmy's matesall their time to lam him down into a comparatively reasonable state of mindafter the fight was over."The Oracle left for Sydney next day, and Uncle Bob went with him.He stayed at Uncle Bob's place for some time. He got very quiet,they said, and gentle; he used to play with the children,and they got mighty fond of him. The old folks thought his heart was broken,but it went through a deeper sorrow still after that and it ain't broken yet.It takes a lot to break the heart of a man.""And his wife," asked Mitchell -- "what became of her?""I don't think he ever saw her again. She dropped down pretty lowafter he left her -- I've heard she's living somewhere quietly.The Oracle's been sending someone money ever since I knew him,and I know it's a woman. I suppose it's she. He isn't the sort of a manto see a woman starve -- especially a woman he had ever hadanything to do with.""And the Gippsland girl?" asked Mitchell."That's the worst part of it all, I think. The Oracle wentup North somewhere. In the course of a year or two his affairgot over Gippsland way through a mate of his who lived over there,and at last the story got to the ears of this girl, Bertha Bredt.She must have written a dozen letters to him, Aunt Bob said.She knew what was in 'em, but, of course, she'd never tell us.The Oracle only wrote one in reply. Then, what must the girl dobut clear out from home and make her way over to Sydney --to Aunt Bob's place, looking for Tom. She never got any further.She took ill -- brain-fever, or broken heart, or something of that sort.All the time she was down her cry was -- `I want to see him!I want to find Tom! I only want to see Tom!'"When they saw she was dying, Aunt Bob wired to the Oracle to come --and he came. When the girl saw it was Tom sitting by the bed,she just gave one long look in his face, put her arms round his neck,and laid her head on his shoulder -- and died. . . . Here comesthe Oracle now."Mitchell lifted the tea-billy on to the coals.
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