Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy (philippa perry book txt) 📗

After tea, Rory took a billy and went out into the horse-paddock to milk the goats⁠—Mary, of course, clinging to his side. I remained in the house, confiding to Mrs. O’Halloran the high respect which Rory’s principles and abilities had always commanded. But she was past all that; and I had to give it up. When a woman can listen with genuine contempt to the spontaneous echo of her husband’s popularity, it is a sure sign that she has explored the profound depths of masculine worthlessness; and there is no known antidote to this fatal enlightenment.

Rory’s next duty was to chop up a bit of firewood, and stack it beside the door. Dusk was gathering by this time; and Mrs. O’Halloran called Mary to prepare her for the night, while Rory and I seated ourselves on the bucket-stool outside. Presently a lighted lamp was placed on the table, when we removed indoors. Then Mary, in a long, white garment, with her innocent face shining from the combined effects of perfect happiness and unmerciful washing, climbed on Rory’s knees⁠—not to bid him goodnight, but to compose herself to sleep.

“Time the chile was bruk aff that habit,” observed the mother, as she seated herself beside the table with some sewing.

“Let her be a child as long as she can, Mrs. O’Halloran,” I remarked. “Surely you wouldn’t wish any alteration in her.”

“Nat without it was an altheration fur the betther,” replied the worthy woman. “An’ it’s little hopes there is iv hur, consitherin’ the way she’s rairt. Did iver anybody hear o’ rairin’ childher’ without batin’ them when they want it?”

“You bate hur, an’ A’ll bate you!” interposed Rory, turning to bay on the most salient of the three or four pleas which had power to rouse the Old Adam in his unassertive nature.

“Well, A’m sure A was bate⁠—ay, an’ soun’ly bate⁠—when A was lek hur; an’ iv A didn’t desarve it then, A desarved it other times, when A didn’t git it.”

An obvious rejoinder rose to my mind, but evidently not to Rory’s, for the look on his face told only of a dogged resolution to continue sinning against the light. He knew that his own contumacy in this respect would land his soul in perdition, and he deliberately let it go at that. Brave old Rory! Never does erratic man appear to such advantage as when his own intuitive moral sense rigorously overbears a conscientiousness warped by some fallacy which he still accepts as truth.

Yet the mother loved the child in her own hard, puritanical way. And, in any case, you are not competent to judge her, unless you have to work for your living, instead of finding somebody eager to support you in luxury for the pleasure of your society; unless, instead of marrying some squatter, or bank clerk, or Member of Parliament, you have inadvertently coupled yourself to a Catholic boundary man, named nothing short of Rory O’Halloran.

The embittered woman retired early, and without phrases. As she did so, I casually noticed that the bedroom was bisected by a partition, with a curtained doorway.

“Ever try your hand at literature, Rory?” I presently asked, remembering Williamson’s remark.

“Well, A ken har’ly say No, an’ A ken har’ly say Yis,” replied Rory, with ill-feigned humility. “A’ve got a bit iv a thraytise scribbled down, furbye a wheen o’ other wans on han’. A thought mebbe”⁠—and his glance rested on the angelface of the sleeping child⁠—“well, A thought mebbe it would do hur no harrum fur people till know that hur father⁠—well-as ye might say⁠—Nat but what she’ll hev money in the bank, plaze God. But A’ll lay hur down in hur wee cot now, an’ A’ll bring the thrifle we wur mentionin’.”

He tenderly carried the child into the first compartment of the bedroom, and, soon returning, placed before me about twenty quarto sheets of manuscript, written on both sides, in a careful, schoolboy hand. The first page was headed, A Plea for Woman.

“My word, Rory, this is great!” said I, after reading the first long paragraph. “I should like to skim it over at once, to get the gist of the argument, and then read it leisurely, to enjoy the style. And that reminds me that I brought you an Australasian. I’ll get it out of my swag, and you can read it to kill time.”

But it became evident that he couldn’t fix his mind on the newspaper whilst his own literary product was under scrutiny. The latter unfolded itself as a unique example of pure deduction, aided by utter lack of discrimination in the value of evidence. It was all synthesis, and no analysis. A certain hypothesis had to be established, and it was established. The style was directly antithetical to that curt, blunt, and simple pronouncement aimed at by innocents who deceive no one by denouncing Socialism, Trades-Unionism, etc., over the signature of “A Working Man.” But the Essay. I am debarred from transcribing it, not only because of its length, but because⁠—

“Rory, you must let me take a copy of this.”

“Well, Tammas, A’m glad it plazes ye; right glad, so A am; but A thought till⁠—till⁠—”

“Spring it on the public⁠—so to speak?”

“Yis.”

“Well, I’ll faithfully promise to keep the whole work sacred to your credit. And if ever I go into print⁠—which is most unlikely⁠—I’ll refer to this essay in such a way as to whet public curiosity to a feather edge. Again, if anything should happen to this copy, you’ll have mine to fall back upon.”

“A’ll thrust ye, Tammas. God bless ye, take a copy any time afore ye go.”

The object of the essay was to prove that, at a certain epoch in the world’s history, the character of woman had undergone an instantaneous transformation. And it was proved in this way:

The two greatest thinkers and most infallible authorities our race has produced are Solomon and Shakespeare.

Solomon’s estimate of woman is shockingly low; and there is no getting away from the truth of it.