Page:Mysteries of Melbourne Life.djvu/14

10 Neither would the reader have recognised our little vagrant of the Yarra scrub. He was dressed neatly in white moleskin trousers, kept up by a leather belt with a serpent buckle, and wore a red Crimean shirt; his hair was cut after the style, and his face was filling out and assuming the rounded proportions proper to the blooming time of life. On the whole, a young nursemaid would have set him down as not a bad-looking fellow.

"So they didn't nab you, eh?" asked Mr. Patsy Quinlan with a queer chuckle; "you always was a knowing card, Bill. Why, I was cotched, and the beak sent me to quod for three months, sayin' I was the biggest larrikin in Melbourne."

"Well wasn't it true?" said Bill; uneasily, however, for he didn't seem to relish the presence of this fellow.

"No, it wasn't," said the other sharply; "I might be the wust, Master Bill, but I wasn't the biggest, ha! ha! ha!" and the little goblin laughed at his own wit. "But, how on earth did you anchor here and get on the square, eh?"

"Well it was fortinate," replied Bill, "Ye see when you'd led me to try and steal the books from Cole's——"

"Steal," said Mr. Patsy, "what ails you—can't you say prig?"

"No," replied Bill; "missus is teaching me better."

"Oho!" cried Patsy; "you're becomin' a genelman, eh? Genelman Bill—O!"—and he laughed his eldritch laugh. "Well, purcced, genelman."

"Well!" continued Bill, rather doggedly, "I knew I'd catch it from old Sturt if he set eyes on me again, for he'd given me plain warning last time, so I made tracks."

"Tracks is good," said Patsy—"you ain't forgotten your hedication altogether."

"And I saw such a thing when I was hiding in the Yarra scrub," said Bill, lowering his voice. "Patsy, did you ever see a murder?"

"A murder I" said the goblin. "Well, I might have, and I mightn't. It's very interesting; besides, I'd like to take lessons—don't know when they'd be handy? he! he!"

"Shut up, you hardened vagabond," cried Bill. "Well, I saw a murder, Patsy, one of the terriblest as could be; a poor woman killed by a great big young fellow; it makes my flesh creep. I can't forget it, Patsy; why when I go to sleep I dream of it every night and think I see the corpse come to my bedside and make faces at me, and threaten to kill me if I don't do something to scrag the fellow——"

"Scrag's good," said Patsy, rubbing his hands, "You ain't altogether forgot, he! he!"

"Well, I was frightened, and ran away, an' I kept wandering about for several days. First I went to a little farmer or milkman down Brighton. Nice place, Patsy; we had to work from daylight to twelve at night milkin' cows, diggin' mangolds, and that sort of thing; and all we got in return was five bob a week, and cold potatoes and skim-milk. Lord! It was high. Did I say we got five bob a week—bless you, no; for when I'd been there some weeks I felt as if I could do no more work, for I was weak as a rat; and I goes to the boss and asks for my wages. 'Wages, you vagabond,' says he ; 'why, you've drawed your wages, and owe me six shillins!' Well, I tried to argue with him; but it was no use, he took me by the collar, and bundled me out at the gate."

"That's a capital kind of argyment," said Patsy; "beat yours hollow."

"Lord! didn't my heart grow big at the thought of that—to slave like a horse, sleep on a bit of straw, shiverin' with cold, all for potatoes and skim-milk, when he was makin his fortune. No wonder there's so many larrikins and thieves, Patsy, when that's the way poor fellows who want to live honestly get treated."

"So you wanted to live honestly, did ye," said Patsy: "That's new; it is."

"I did;" said Bill earnestly. "I was sick of the life I'd led with you and the other chaps, and wanted to try and live right, as poor mother used to talk about. Well, when I was turned off I didn't know what to do; I was without clothes, without money, and afraid of the blue-flies.* I kept knocking about until I got quite desperate; and then one day I was passin' this place, when I saw that angel, my missus; an' when I looks in her face, why I thought I saw pity shinin' out of it. How I shivered; how cold I was; how hungry; and everybody hunting me about like a wild beast. 'Get out, ye larrikin,' said they. I wonder if they've got hearts, Patsy?"

"Yes—gizzards," replied Patsy. "They'd weep like a corcordile while eatin' of ye."

"But when I spoke up and told missus I was dyin' with cold and hunger, the blessed woman believed me—"

"Fust time you was believed," giggled Patsy."

"—And she took me to the kitchen and told