He’d come back [short story by Henry Lawson]

[Editor: This story by Henry Lawson was published in While the Billy Boils (1896).]

He’d come back

The yarn was all lies, I suppose; but it wasn’t bad. A city bushman told it, of course, and he told it in the travellers’ hut.

‘As true’s God hears me I never meant to desert her in cold blood,’ he said. ‘We’d only been married about two years, and we’d got along grand together; but times was hard, and I had to jump at the first chance of a job, and leave her with her people, an’ go up-country.’

He paused and fumbled with his pipe until all ears were brought to bear on him.

‘She was a beauty, and no mistake; she was far too good for me — I often wondered how she came to have a chap like me.’

He paused again, and the others thought over it — and wondered, too, perhaps. The joker opened his lips to speak, but altered his mind about it.

‘Well, I travelled up into Queensland, and worked back into Victoria ’n South Australia, an’ I wrote home pretty reg’lar and sent what money I could. Last I got down on to the South-Western Coast of South Australia — an’ there I got mixed up with another woman — you know what that means, boys?’

Sympathetic silence.

‘Well, this went on for two years, and then the other woman drove me to drink. You know what a woman can do when the devil’s in her?’

Sound between a sigh and a groan from Lally Thompson. ‘My oath,’ he said, sadly.

‘You should have made it three years, Jack,’ interposed the joker; ‘you said two years before.’ But he was suppressed.

‘Well, I got free of them both, at last — drink and the woman, I mean; but it took another — it took a couple of years to pull myself straight ——’

Here the joker opened his mouth again, but was warmly requested to shut it.

‘Then, chaps, I got thinking. My conscience began to hurt me, and — and hurt worse every day. It nearly drove me to drink again. Ah, boys, a man — if he is a man — can’t expect to wrong a woman and escape scot-free in the end.’ (Sigh from Lally Thompson.) ‘It’s the one thing that always comes home to a man, sooner or later — you know what that means, boys.’

Lally Thompson: ‘My oath!’

The Joker: ‘Dry up yer crimson oath! What do you know about women?’

Cries of ‘Order!’

‘Well,’ continued the story-teller, ‘I got thinking. I heard that my wife had broken her heart when I left her, and that made matters worse. I began to feel very bad about it. I felt mean. I felt disgusted with myself. I pictured my poor, ill-treated, little wife and children in misery and poverty, and my conscience wouldn’t let me rest night or day’ — (Lally Thompson seemed greatly moved) — ‘so at last I made up my mind to be a man, and make — what’s the word?’

‘Reparation,’ suggested the joker.

‘Yes; so I slaved like a nigger for a year or so, got a few pounds together and went to find my wife. I found out that she was living in a cottage in Burwood, Sydney, and struggling through the winter on what she’d saved from the money her father left her.

‘I got a shave and dressed up quiet and decent. I was older looking and more subdued like, and I’d got pretty grey in those few years that I’d been making a fool of myself; and, somehow, I felt rather glad about it, because I reckoned she’d notice it first thing — she was always quick at noticing things — and forgive me all the quicker. Well, I waylaid the school kids that evening, and found out mine — a little boy and a girl — and fine youngsters they were. The girl took after her mother, and the youngster was the dead spit o’me. I gave ’em half-a-crown each and told them to tell their mother that someone would come when the sun went down.’

Bogan Bill nodded approvingly.

‘So at sundown I went and knocked at the door. It opened, and there stood my little wife looking prettier than ever — only careworn.’

* * * *

Long, impressive pause.

‘Well, Jack, what did she do?’ asked Bogan.

‘She didn’t do nothing.’

‘Well, Jack, what did she say?’

Jack sighed and straightened himself up: ‘She said — she said — “Well, so you’ve come back”.’

Painful silence.

‘Well, Jack, and what did you say?’

‘I said yes.’

‘Well, and so you had!’ said Tom Moonlight.