The Workingmans Paradise | Page 7

such men as
he were watching them all slowly going down lower and lower, were
waiting to leap upon them in their last helplessness and enslave them
all as white girls were sometimes enslaved, even already, in those filthy
opium joints whose stench nauseated the hurrying passers-by. Perhaps
under all their meekness these Chinese were braver, more stubborn,
more vigorous, and it was doomed that they should conquer at last and
rule in the land where they had been treated as outcasts and intruders.
She thought of this--and, just then, Ned turned the corner by the lamp.
Ned was a Down's native, every inch of him. He stood five feet eleven
in his bare feet yet was so broad and strong that he hardly looked over
the medium height. He had blue eyes and a heavy moustache just
tinged with red. His hair was close-cut and dark; his forehead, nose and
chin wore large and strong; his lips were strangely like a woman's. He
walked with short jerky steps, swinging himself awkwardly as men do
who have been much in the saddle. He wore a white shirt, as being
holiday-making, but had not managed a collar; his pants were dark-blue,
slightly belled; his coat, dark-brown; his boots wore highly polished;
round his neck was a silk handkerchief; round his vestless waist, a
discoloured leather belt; above all, a wide-brimmed cabbage tree hat,
encircled by a narrow leather strap. He swung himself along rapidly,
unabashed by the stares of the women or the impudent comment of the
children. Nellie, suddenly, felt all her ill-humour turn against him. He
was so satisfied with himself. He had talked unionism to her when she
met him two weeks before, on his way to visit a brother who had taken
up a selection in the Hawkesbury district. He had laughed when she
hinted at the possibilities of the unionism he championed so fanatically.
"We only want what's fair," he said. "We're not going to do anything
wild. As long as we get £1 a hundred and rations at a fair figure we're
satisfied." And then he had inconsistently proceeded to describe how
the squatters treated the men out West, and how the union would make
them civil, and how the said squatters were mostly selfish brutes who
preferred Chinese to their own colour and would stop at no trick to beat

the men out of a few shillings. She had said nothing at the time, being
so pleased to see him, though she determined to have it out with him
sometime during this holiday they had planned. But somehow, as he
stepped carelessly along, a dashing manliness in every motion, a breath
of the great plains coming with his sunburnt face and belted waist, he
and his self-conceit jarred to her against this sordid court and these
children's desolate lives. How dared he talk as he did about only
wanting what was fair, she thought! How had he the heart to care only
for himself and his mates while in these city slums such misery
brooded! And then it shot through her that he did not know. With a
rapidity, characteristic of herself, she made up her mind to teach him.
"Well, Nellie," he cried, cheerily, coming up to her. "And how are you
again?"
"Hello, Ned," she answered, cordially, shaking hands. "You look as
though you were rounding-up."
"Do I?" he questioned, seriously, looking down at himself. "Shirt and
all? Well, if I am it's only you I came to round up. Are you ready? Did
you think I wasn't coming?"
"It won't take me a minute," she replied. "I was pretty sure you'd come.
I took a holiday on the strength of it, anyway, and made an engagement
for you to-night. Come in a minute, Ned. You must see Mrs. Phillips
while I get my hat. You'll have to sleep here to night. It'll be so late
when we get back. Unless you'd sooner go to a hotel."
"I'm not particular," said Ned, looking round curiously, as he followed
her in. "I'd never have found the place, Nellie, if it hadn't been for that
pub, near the corner, where we saw that row on the other night."
The women opposite had suspended their debate upon Mrs. Hobbs'
latest, a debate fortified by manifold reminiscences of the past and
possibilities of the future. It was known in the little street that Nellie
Lawton intended taking a holiday with an individual who was
universally accepted as her "young man," and Ned's appearance upon
the stage naturally made him a subject for discussion which temporarily

over-shadowed even Mrs. Hobbs' baby.
"I'm told he's a sort of a farmer," said one.
"He's a shearer; I had it from Mrs. Phillips herself," said another.
"He's a strapping man, whatever he