The Butcher Shop Page 4

  He was of the type that assimilates quickly, that remembers, that learns without effort, that lives every minute of life. He was the antithesis of Messenger, who preferred his own thoughts to those of others, and with whom frivolities counted little.

  On this Saturday in August, 1924, Tutaki and the half-dozen shepherds under him were also out “lambing.” Like Messenger, they began their work at daybreak and carried on untiringly throughout the day. However, unlike Messenger, they were not all conscientious, nor did one or two of them feel, as he did, the pangs of the silly sheep to be of such moment as their own comfort. Sometimes Messenger and Tutaki came across obvious cases of neglect, and at such times their blood would run high.

  We shall return and move along the valley with Barry. The deep snow detained him. The dusk came down quickly; the fury of the wind increased. Compassion moved him as he thought of hapless patient mothers. But in the dark he could do little. By sound only could he be guided, and, besides, the work was too dangerous even for his hardihood on those rugged hills, reticulated with narrow sheep-track ledges. He had decided that he had better make tracks for home when his horse stumbled upon a carcase almost buried in the snow. He dismounted and, finding that the animal had been dead some days, straightway commenced plucking the wool from it, filling it into a haversack carried for the purpose. The job nauseated him, but it was soon done. He climbed into the saddle again and made for home, at a distance of some miles. Up hill and down dale his horse jerked its way, left entirely, as always in the dark, to its own resources.

  The dull plodding of another horse came to Messenger’s ears. At once he shouted: “Ho-o!”

  “Ho-o!” came back to him from close range in Jimmy Tutaki’s voice, and the horses, without compulsion, veered towards each other.

  The two men rode along silently together for some time, and then Messenger asked: “What luck?”

  “Not bad. Only two dead mothers to-day. Not bad, considering the rotten weather.”

  “I’ve had six.”

  Nothing more for some time, and then Tutaki said: “Tell you what. We should have had them drafted into the home paddocks for the ‘lambing.’ ”

  Messenger thought, then said: “Question of food, I think. Might try it, though.” They shortly came to the boundary fence of the station, and slipped through a gate on to the public road. Here they set their horses at a canter, and in ten minutes were ambling up the long avenue leading to the homestead.

  They were the first shepherds to reach home. A tumult from kennelwards greeted the clatter of their horses’ feet on the rough cobblestones of the stable yard. They passed the animals into the stable-boy’s care and hurried to the detached bathroom, a long, narrow room furnished with six shower baths especially for the men’s use. They revelled in the hot water pouring down their sleek bodies. Beautiful they were, the pair of them, their forms from the shoulders down bearing a remarkable resemblance except that the white’s leg tapered uniformly from the knee down, and the brown man’s was almost straight from knee to ankle on the inside and carried the bulge of his calf on the outside. In pre-pakeha days Tutaki’s leg would have caused his fellow-tribesmen much envy. Messenger’s skin was white almost as the snow outside, but not more beautiful than the luscious gold of his friend’s body, which shone as though burnished in the strong electric light. (Messenger’s first action after his father’s death had been to bring electricity from the plant ten miles away to his home. This had cost him a large sum, but he considered the money well spent.) The hot water revived Tutaki, and he sang as he towelled himself vigorously.

  The other six shepherds trooped in one by one, all dog-tired.

  “Aw, shut yer row!” snapped one, and flung a boot at Tutaki, who deftly dodged and ignored the remark. But as the thick steam loosened tired muscles, tongues also were unleashed, and very soon the usual badinage flung back and forth. Soon Messenger and Tutaki passed to the men’s quarters where dinner was awaiting them.

  These quarters consisted of a long dining-room and kitchen all in one, which opened into a passage leading to the “big house,” as the homestead is generally called. Small bedrooms, each accommodating two men, opened off the dining-room. Here were domiciled those “hands” who were unmarried, or, though married, had not their homes on the station. Jimmy Tutaki slept at his father’s house, but latterly had taken to eating in the communal dining-room. Several other “hands,” boys and men, were seated around the huge log fire when Messenger and the Maori entered. These were drovers, fence hands and general workers.

  The cook came from the kitchen and swore belligerently at the lateness of the shepherds’ arrival, but no one took any notice of him beyond Tutaki’s order to “Hurry up with the scran. A chap’s belly is like a concertina.”

  Messenger always ate with his men on weekdays. On Sundays, following his father’s custom, he took his meals with his housekeeper in the dining-room of the big house. Lately he had had Tutaki to these meals with him, an arrangement which had at first been viewed with disfavour by the lady, who, being but a recent arrival from home, had not then learned that between Hawaiki’s brown sons and the white there was no room for line of demarcation. A few curt words from Messenger had, however, silenced her comments. She had sat at table amazed, that first day, at the cultured table manners and undeniable mental superiority of the Maori. “Why,” she had exclaimed to Barry afterwards, “he is a gentleman, like yourself!”

  And Barry had laughed at her and replied: “Sure. Why not?”

  However, the “gentleman” in both Messenger and Tutaki was not at all to the fore when they came to the table ravenous after a day’s awful toil. To eat! To demolish that steaming pile of roast mutton, potatoes and cabbage, to drain the mugs of strong tea and fill the crannies left with the rich plum pudding or pie, their one thought.

  The other six shepherds tumble over each other in their hurry. The cook swears and is sworn at in turn. All good-humoured enough, though, as he is a good cook. The men handle the good cook tenderly, even on occasion cut some wood for him.

  “I could get outside a hog! Here, jerk the brownie along, Potts. Think you’ve got the only guts at the table?” Remarks of this kind meander back and forth until, all satisfied, they push their chairs back and bring out pipe and cigarette for a smoke before turning in. Eight-thirty o’clock now. By six in the morning they will be miles out on the hills.

  Messenger planted himself before the fire while he filled his pipe. He eyed his shepherds over—with a purpose. Potts, like nothing so much as a bull, with his short, thick neck jammed upon massive shoulders and folds of flesh hanging from his chin; with his tiny eyes, fleshy nose and cauliflower ear, which gave him pride as being reminiscent of his wrestling days. Like a surly bull he looked, yet Barry knew him to be gentle and tender-hearted as a loving woman. His dogs were the most unreliable on the station because of his fondling and overfeeding of them.

  Evans, lank and long, merely nondescript. What Messenger was seeking was not to be found in that vacuous, amiable grin.

  Little Tuhi, a half-caste, with the white skin and fair hair of his mother and the pure Maori features of his father. He might be careless, perhaps, but cruel, no.

  Bill and Bob Maclure, both middle-aged, both old hands of his father’s, the common shepherd type.

  Only “Prince” Hortry left. He sat astride his chair, chin resting upon the chair-back, and stared into the fire. Barry studied him. Cruelty of disposition must surely be reflected in a man’s face, he thought. Hortry was handsome, in a weak, effeminate way. He was “dandified,” too, and certainly well educated. Hence the “Prince.” Barry knew his people to be well up in the business world in Wellington. In a roundabout way the news had come to him that Hortry was shepherding because his father had refused to keep the money up to his manner of life in town. Nothing vicious, exactly. Drink, and the well-bred larrikinism of the idle younger set. He had made a competent shepherd, so far as Barry knew. He did not spy on his men. But there were the
repeated tales of his dogs—unsavoury.

  The unwritten law of station life forbade interference between a man and his dogs; the average shepherd-dog’s life was a long and exceedingly bitter one, but if Messenger had heard one particular yarn before engaging this man, Hortry would never have been on his paysheet. As it was—

  Hortry looked up and caught the thoughtful gaze of his boss upon him.

  “What the hell are you looking at me for, Messenger?” he drawled in his soft, effeminate way. Then he rose, stretched himself and said generally: “Time for bed, I think.”

  Messenger lit his pipe, then took it in his hand and said abruptly: “I found a case of deliberate cruelty to one of the animals to-day. Gross neglect. It was on your range, Hortry. What about it?”

  Hortry, without turning to Barry, thrust his hands into his pockets and said tranquilly: “Been on my range?”

  Messenger flushed. “I did not go on your range to spy on you. I had to go for a purpose unconnected with the ‘lambing.’ I found the case I spoke of. What about it?”

  The other men listened uncomfortably. They were surprised at the boss. It was not the custom for things of this nature to come up. Unsensitive, necessarily rendered callous by their hard, brutal lives, to their way of it a mothering sheep untended called for no particular remark. A rough jest, perhaps.

  “I don’t remember any particular case. You pay me twenty-five shillings a week and my tucker, Messenger, I have been out on the range fourteen hours to-day. Does that leave any room for complaints?”

  Messenger was baffled for a minute. He had been side-tracked from the argument, he knew, but his sense of justice saw that the point raised by the other was a fundamental one that effectually disposed of criticism of any kind. Humanitarianism did not take these men out on the range. The stomach drive did it. They were just machines putting through a certain amount of work in return for which they were allowed to live. His sheep were to them what they were to the abstract Messenger, or any other buyer of labour-power. To expect humanitarianism from machines was ridiculous. Humane impulses did not arise from common clay, nor from organisms of a low order. They are the product of refinement, of a certain amount of cultural development.

  Messenger saw this in a mangled way during the minute he stood regarding Hortry before answering him. It was foolish of him to expect from mere “hands,” whom society placed on a level with the sheep, the same humanitarianism that had been developed in himself and Tutaki by their superior, cultured upbringing. But all the same, he saw too that the general argument did not apply in this individual case. Hortry was a cultured man really, as far removed as himself and Jimmy from his workmates. This fact it probably was that had prompted his question. Hortry had had the sense to seize on the unanswerable general to excuse a variation, an individual kink, in himself. He was smarter than Messenger, his junior by some years, and he smiled maliciously at seeing the latter’s puzzlement.

  Messenger flushed with sudden anger and detestation. His mental processes, though slow, were quick enough to see that Hortry was fooling him. He knew too that the case of the neglected sheep was deliberate cruelty. Hortry had been with the animal. There had been fresh imprints of horse and man all around. But he could think of no ready response. He glanced at Tutaki, who was sitting upon the table with a face like wood (Messenger was the Maori’s friend, but he was just the same his boss), at the other dozen or so men around the fire. They were warily but eagerly sympathetic with Hortry. He would not have had them otherwise, either. Loyalty to class was an essential to decent life. Then he said: “No, I must admit that hardly leaves room for complaints. From now on until ‘lambing’ is over you shepherds will receive double pay. But regarding this case of cruelty, Hortry: I am not speaking to you now as your boss, but as a man. If I ever again have reason to suspect cruelty on this station and can sheet it home to anyone, I shall pound the hog responsible to jelly! Do you get me?”

  Hortry shrugged coolly with lifted eyebrows and turned towards his bedroom. The others followed suit, until only Messenger and Tutaki remained. They smoked silently for a while, and then Barry said: “Well, I’m pretty stiff. How about it?”

  “Righto. Bunk will do me. Got a fine yarn this week-end.”

  “Did you? Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  CHAPTER II

  Messenger walked through the passage connecting the men’s quarters with the big house. This was a rambling structure, obviously a hotch-potch of many additions, but comfortable nevertheless. The passage traversed by Barry opened into the house kitchen. He found this empty as he expected. He stopped and considered a moment. Should he go straightway to bed or look in at the big dining-room? He wanted badly to look in at the dining-room. His housekeeper, Mrs. Curdy, would be there, knitting beside the fire. Her squat, homely figure, however, presented to the young man’s mind no allurement.

  The brown maid would be there, too, just idling, probably, as was her way. Did Messenger’s cogitations take her into account? Oh, no!

  Another would be there, also a maid. One who had but lately come to the station. Messenger saw the dark head, with its customary broad bows of black ribbon, bending over the eternal book. Should he go in for a minute? Yes, he must.

  But what should he say if he did? His tongue became tied, his heart began to pound so foolishly at the mere sight of her. He knew so little of girls. He did not, as a matter of fact, know what to say to her. She was so different, in every way, from the other girls he knew—girls of his own class, who jabbered incessantly about every frivolous thing under the sun. No need to talk to them. They were bored to listen, and besides, their inanities called for little attention. But this girl, occupying the position of a menial in his house, this girl was different. Of course he had spoken very little to her. Not because of any “class” foolishness, but because he had been seldom in the house since she came. Just these few minutes before retiring at night had he been in her company, but that had been enough. For one thing, she had scarcely noticed him. Just a few words of greeting, and she would return to her book. He had seen her without the book only once. Sometimes Mrs. Curdy or Maire, the brown girl, would bring her into the conversation, but she had rarely entered into it herself. He had noticed her listening eagerly when he talked of the station work, of the animals.

  It occurred to him now that perhaps she did not feel free to talk to him. Perhaps she regarded him as a “master” because he paid her wages. That thought led to another. How did he regard her, anyhow? A quick surge of warmth swept through him. How did he regard her, anyhow? This young girl, his housemaid, who had been in his home about a fortnight, and who had not been out of his thoughts since the night he first saw her. He fell against the kitchen table with his teeth clenched upon his pipe. His thoughts raced madly, chaotically. He had not been himself at all lately. Well, he would face the reason and see what it meant. The reason was that girl. No doubt about that. What it meant? Slowly the answer formulated in his mind in its full significance. It meant—to him—everything. It meant that he was in love. It meant—to him, if possible, Marriage. He trembled. All that? Yes, just that—Marriage. And why not? He was a man grown, strong, healthy and rational-minded. He had thought of marriage, of course, though as something belonging to the dim and distant future. He had felt such a boy, until lately.

  He suddenly straightened himself, threw back his great shoulders and flung out his clenched hands in exultation at the realisation of his manhood—of his clean manhood. He pounded his hands upon his chest. This—this was why he had instinctively preserved himself. He thanked the gods for the parentage that had bequeathed to him a body free from vicious instincts, that had brought him through the perils of young manhood with the glory of his soul untarnished. His mating time had come. He knew it infallibly. He had preserved himself in order that he might breed a fine, clean race, he and—one other, that girl he had loved from the first time of meeting.

  But she! Fright gripped him. Then he laughe
d. How absurd. To be frightened by a slip of a girl. Had she given him a thought? He did not know. His thoughts wavered about uncertainly. She had hardly looked at him. But then he had been careful to keep his gaze from her also. It troubled him so to look at her—troubled his virginity. What had he better do? What was right for him to do? Why, woo her, of course. Let her see he wanted her. Well, he would not have much time till “lambing” was over. But he could go in to her now. Suddenly he thought that she might have gone to bed while he had been palavering there to himself. Dreadful thought! Before he knew it his hand was on the dining-room door-knob.

  She was there, sitting at one side of the fire as usual, and his heart thumped painfully at seeing her head rise eagerly at his coming. All three women greeted him. Mrs. Curdy rose at once and pushed an easy chair up to the fire for him. This proceeding, on which she would insist, always annoyed him exceedingly, and to-night more than usual, for it seemed to shame him before that girl.

  He pushed the easy chair back into its place again and sat down by the table upon a straight-backed wooden one, saying: “Oblige me by letting me attend to my own wants in future, Mrs. Curdy. I am not a baby.”

  The lady he addressed looked up in astonishment. “You are my master!” she exclaimed.

  “That is my misfortune, not my fault,” he answered curtly, and, to his own secret astonishment, turned at once to the white girl, whom he found regarding him with shining eyes. Their glances met and for a second held. Messenger thought that the pounding of his heart must be audible to her. How extraordinary! It hurt, in a delicious sort of way. He had not dreamt that love would affect a man like that. Then her eyes dropped to her book again. He pulled himself together. He must make her talk. He must. How soft and deep her voice was for so young a girl! She looked eighteen, not a day more. Why, her hair was still down her back, tied with those broad, black bows. It lay upon her forehead in tiny, dark brown curls. Her brows were two perfect arches set high above heavy lids. He must make her look up again. Was ever before such a look in a woman’s eyes? Of deepest violet, long and wide, they harboured unfathomable beauties that lay in the soul behind.