his pocket a fine sort of hat-band that Victoria had contrived with ribbon and artificial flowers and wooden beads. Gladys sat for a moment shyly on her uncle’s knee, and he held her there as if she were a big pillow he was scarcely conscious of holding. Her stepfather sat exactly as if the child did not exist, or were not present. It was neutrality brought to a remarkable pitch. Only Somers seemed actually aware that the child was a little human being — and to him she seemed so absent that he didn’t know what to make of her.
Rose came out bringing beer and sausage rolls, and the girl vanished away again, seemed to evaporate. Somers felt uncomfortable, and wondered what he had been brought for.
“You know Cornwall, do you?” said William James, the Cornish singsong still evident in his Australian speech. He looked with his light-grey, inscrutable eyes at Somers.
“I lived for a time near Padstow,” said Somers.
“Padstow! Ay, I’ve been to Padstow,” said William James. And they talked for a while of the bleak, lonely northern coast of Cornwall, the black huge cliffs, with the gulls flying away below, and the sea boiling, and the wind blowing in huge volleys: and the black Cornish nights, with nothing but the violent weather outside.
“Oh, I remember it, I remember it,” said William James. “Though I was a half-starved youngster on a bit of a farm out there, you know, for everlasting chasing half a dozen heifers from the cliffs, where the beggars wanted to fall over and kill themselves, and hunting for a dozen sheep among the gorsebushes, and wading up to my knees in mud most part of the year, and then in summer, in the dry times, having to haul water for a mile over the rocks in a wagon, because the well had run dry. And at the end of it my father gave me one new suit in two years, and sixpence a week. Ay, that was a life for you. I suppose if I was there still he’d be giving me my keep and five shillin’ a week — if he could open his heart as wide as two half-crowns, which I’m doubting very much.”
“You have money out here, at least,” said Somers. “But there was a great fascination for me, in Cornwall.”
“Fascination! And where do you find the fascination? In a little Wesleyan chapel of a Sunday night, and a girl with her father waiting for her with a strap if she’s not in by nine o’clock? Fascination, did you say?”
“It had a great fascination for me — a magic — a magic in the atmosphere.”
“All the fairy tales they’ll tell you,” said William James, looking at the other man with a smile of slow ridicule. “Why ye didn’t go and believe them, did ye?”
“More or less. I could more easily have believed them there than anywhere else I’ve been.”
“Ay, no doubt. And that shows what sort of a place it be. Lot of damn silly nonsense.” He stirred on his seat impatiently.
“At any rate, you’re well out of it. You’re set up all right here,” said Somers, who was secretly amused. The other man did not answer for some time.
“Maybe I am,” he said at last, “I’m not pining to go back and work for my father, I tell you, on a couple of pasties and a lot of abuse. No, after that, I’d like you to tell me what’s wrong with Australia.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Somers, “Probably nothing at all.”
Again William James was silent. He was a short, thick man, with a little felt hat that sat over his brow with a half humorous flap. He had his knees wide apart, and his hands clasped between them. And he looked for the most part down at the ground. When he did cock his eye at Somers, it was with a look of suspicion marked with humour and troubled with a certain desire. The man was restless, desirous, craving something — heaven knows what.
“You thinking of settling out here then, are you?” he asked.
“No,” said Somers. “But I don’t say I won’t. It depends.”
William James fidgeted, tapping his feet rapidly on the ground, though his body was silent. He was not like Jack. He too, was sensitive all over, though his body looked so thick it was silently alive, and his feet were still uneasy. He was young too, with a youth that troubled him. And his nature was secretive, maybe treacherous. It was evident Jack only half liked him.
“You’ve got the money, you can live where you like and go where you like,” said William James, looking up at Somers. “Well, I might do the same. If I cared to do it, I could live quietly on what I’ve got, whether here or in England.” Somers recognized the Cornishman in this.
“You could very easily have as much as I’ve got,” he said laughing.
“The thing is, what’s the good of a life of idleness?” said William James.
“What’s the good of a life of work?” laughed Somers.
Shrewdly, with quick grey eye, Trewhella looked at the other man to see if he were laughing at him.
“Yet I expect you’ve got some purpose in coming to Australia,” said William James, a trifle challenging.
“Maybe I had — or have — maybe it was just whim.”
Again the other man looked shrewdly, to see if it were the truth.
“You aren’t investing money out here, are you?”
“No, I’ve none to invest.”
“Because if you was, I’d advise you not to.” And he spat into the distance, and kept his hands clasped tight.
All this time Jack sat silent and as if unconcerned, but listening attentively.
“Australians have always been croakers,” he said now.
“What do you think of this Irish business?” asked William James.
“I? I really don’t think much at all. I don’t feel Ireland is my job, personally. If I had to say, offhand, what I’d do myself, why, if I could I’d just leave the Irish to themselves, as they want, and let them wipe each other out or kiss and make friends as they please. They bore me rather.”
“And what about the Empire?”
“That again isn’t my job. I’m only one man, and I know it. But personally, I’d say to India and Australia and all of them the same — if you want to stay in the Empire, stay; if you want to go out, go.”
“And suppose they went out?”
“That’s their affair.”
“Supposing Australia said she was coming out of the Empire and governing herself, and only keeping a sort of entente with Britain. What do you think she’d make of it?”
“By the looks of things, I think she’d make a howling mess of it. Yet it might do her good if she were thrown entirely on her own resources. You’ve got to have something to keep you steady. England has really kept the world steady so far — as steady as it’s been. That’s my opinion. Now she’s not keeping it very steady, and the world’s sick of being bossed, anyhow. Seems to me you may as well sink or swim on your own resources.”
“Perhaps we’re too likely to find ourselves sinking.”
“Then
