Ada Cambridge - Thirty Years in Australia

He was intensely proud, with a temper behind his pride that could never be safely played with, even by his familiar housemates; life itself was a trifle compared with any point of honour in his code – to be given in its defence, if need were, without an instant's hesitation; but there was not a trace of false pride in the whole warp and woof of him. This, however, goes without saying, since I have already said that he was at all points a gentleman.

And, back of his reserve and pride, which wore so cold and stolid an air, was a heart like a shut furnace. Rarely did the flame shine through his grave eyes, but it did when the moment of threatened parting came. "Tell me where you live," he said, as if asking for his life; "I must live there."

As soon as we knew, we told him, and a week after our arrival at W – he turned up, together with a pair of beautiful (and very expensive) dogs. He boarded at the hotel, and came to us every day. And, so far as Australia was concerned, we were his family, and our house his home, thenceforth.

His name was Diederik, which we shortened to Dik. His other name was not undistinguished in his own country, as we learned from his family photographs and the casual but complete evidence provided by the conditions of our joint domestic life – not by direct statement from him, the most modest of men. The picture of his home in Leyden showed a beautiful old house on a tree-bordered canal; in this house, it seemed, each member of the large family had his or her suite of rooms and separate personal servant. "This is a brother of me," he would say, as we turned over his album; and questions would elicit the fact that the person indicated held a court appointment at the Hague. Another "brother of me" filled an important post in the Dutch East Indies; he was governor – kontroleur 1st klasse – of Riouw. Dik was a younger son, born with that bent for wandering which is not confined to any class or nation. And his equipment for the enterprise to which he had committed himself was almost ludicrously elaborate. He had a perfect arsenal of deadly weapons – for the native savages and wild beasts, I suppose. Guns and small arms of all sorts and sizes, the finest of their kind, with tons of ammunition to match, enough to furnish forth a small regiment. I still have a stumpy little six-chambered revolver, which he insisted on my keeping by me, in case I should be molested while alone in the house; and I ought to have also a beautiful inlaid hair-trigger pistol, which was the instrument with which he taught me the art of self-defence. Daily he would call me from my sewing or cooking to shoot bottles off the yard fence, until my execution upon ounce phials satisfied him that I was able to protect myself from the marauding black or bushranger. He had a tool-chest which contained every tool, and large sets of most of them, that handicraftsman could need under any circumstances – even to a turning-lathe, with which, and a great hunk of ivory tusk, he used to make me buttons and sleeve-studs. As for "hempjes" and such things, they were in dozens upon dozens. And all that costly outfit to be so soon disintegrated and dispersed!

The first thing he did at W – was to help us into our cottage, himself inheriting our lodgings and the quinces from us. How useful he was! Until I had a maid – the last piece of furniture procured – he was up o' mornings to chop wood, draw water, boil kettles, and so on; and all day he was on the look-out for a job, the more menial the better. Tears, even now, are not far from my eyes when I open my old diary upon such items as these: – "October 31st. Dik beginning to make a garden for me." … "December 7th. Dik up in the dark to catch fish for breakfast." … "December 8th. Dik up early again to get me fish." Whenever he was at home this sort of thing went on, and all without the slightest fuss or gush, and with a frown for thanks. When there came the prospect of a most important domestic event, we had every reason to flatter ourselves that he had not the dimmest notion of it, from first to last. I made every scrap of baby-clothes myself, and he, being so constantly with us, must have seen me doing it; in fact, I abandoned the usual precautions just because he seemed too utterly dense to notice anything. He was nothing of the sort. It was part of his perfect gentlemanliness not by word or sign to show that he knew, even in his private talks with my husband, otherwise the talk of brothers. One evening he left for his lodgings, as usual, and the great business was comfortably disposed of before the hour of his return in the morning. G. and I, in the midst of our excitements, found a moment to laugh together over the tremendous shock of surprise that we were going to give him. But lo! when he came he manifested no surprise – only quite broke down in trying to express his thankfulness that it was safely over. He was brought in to peep at the new arrival, and I felt like a scoffer at sacred things to have met with a jest that smileless and speechless emotion. On leaving my room, he dashed for his horse, tied to the front gate, and galloped off towards the town; thence in a few minutes he returned, bearing as his offering to the new master of the house a wicker cradle on the saddle before him! He must have looked a ridiculous object, but was lifted above all care for the opinion of the street. That was the cradle I had to wedge into such a tight place that rockers were no use to it. Later it was his joy to nurse the little one, to watch his first movements of intelligence, and speculate as to what period "his nose would come downstairs."

I ought to mention here that his attitude towards women was one of austerest respect and dignity. I shall never forget the blackness of his brow and mood when we returned one night from a day's outing, having left him to keep house for us. It appeared that our Irish maid had taken advantage of the opportunity to make tender overtures to him. She had come behind him as he was reading and smoking, stroked his hair, and addressed him as a "poor feller." I was not supposed to know anything of this, but got the tale from G., and was thus able to take steps to prevent such assaults in future. To me, for whom he had so deep a regard, Dik was a brother, without ever using a brother's familiarities. No man ever treated me with such absolute reverence and respect.

Between the 30th of that first October, when he was making me a road through the "common" that the continued rains had turned into a swamp, and the 7th of December, when he went a-fishing for my breakfast, he made a start upon his own Australian career – the bright beginning that declined to so sad an end. By no fault of his, poor boy! unless his breeding was his fault. He was young and strong – immensely strong – the typical big-limbed, burly Dutchman, eager to work and to rough it, afraid of nothing; he simply failed as I have seen dozens of young men of good family fail – as they all do, if I may judge by my own experience – who come out to make their fortunes under the same conditions. Had he been a skilled mechanic, he would have found his luck immediately; had he been prepared to pay his premium as a "jackaroo" — i. e. an apprentice to the run-holder, who charged £100 a year or so for imparting "colonial experience" – he would have been taken into one of those delightful Bush-houses that I have mentioned, and might have risen (without capital) to be a station manager. But as an amateur who did not know the ropes, his ideas of the situation gathered from books or evolved from his inner consciousness, Dik fared as I shall describe. I give his case because, in its way, it is so distinctly characteristic of the country, and as such may be instructive to the English reader.

Having received ourselves such extraordinary kindness and attentions from the squatter families of our parish (hundreds of miles in area), we thought it an easy thing to make interest for our friend; and so it proved – to a certain extent, which did not go beyond the rough regulations of the Bush, not yet grasped by such new chums as we. An old squatter accepted our guarantee for Dik, and told us to send him along. It was the busy shearing-season, when odd hands were required. Joyfully we took home our news. Hopefully we borrowed a buggy, and ourselves drove him to the house of that old squatter, nursing-father that we imagined him. It was so far that we stayed the night, and we thought it odd to lose sight of Dik as soon as we arrived, and not to see him again to say good-bye; but we came away under the impression that, when not out on the run, he would be treated by the house as it treated us.