Death of a Swagman. Arthur W. Upfield
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the dock. On this occasion, however, the prisoner was told to halt just within the door. The court was sitting, and when the name Robert Burns was called by the clerk and repeated by Sergeant Marshall, prisoner and escort moved forward to take position beside the solicitors’ table. The clerk read the charge, divided into four sub-sections, and then asked how the prisoner pleaded. On hearing the plea of guilty, he turned to Sergeant Marshall, who prosecuted, and Marshall then intimated that he wished to give evidence.
Having entered the witness box and taken the oath without assistance, he related how he had found the prisoner sleeping off the effects of alcohol, and the resultant conversation following his being awakened on the bench outside the hotel. The prisoner’s interest was centred entirely on the magistrate.
He sat alone on the bench, the court record book before him, his hands clasped and resting on the book. His face was long and narrow, the forehead high, and the top of the rounded head covered with sparse dark hair sprinkled with grey. His nose was thin and straight and appeared to part in dead centre the straggling black moustache. Hair and moustache, together with the dark eyes now directed towards Sergeant Marshall, emphasized the pallor of his face, an oddity in this part of Australia.
Marshall concluded his evidence and waited.
The magistrate transferred his gaze to Bony, the black eyes solemnly regarding the prisoner in a fixed stare. For a man whose hands bore the marks of manual labour, his voice was astonishingly full and rich when, speaking with deliberation, he asked:
“Have you anything to say to this witness?”
“Yes, your honour,” replied Bony, who then turned to Marshall and said: “You said, on oath, that after you asked me my name I opened my eyes and yawned. I suggest to you that I opened only one eye, the left.”
“I didn’t say anything about opening your eyes, or one of ’em,” Marshall stated with surprise plainly expressed on his weather-beaten face. “I said—”
“Read over the witness’s evidence,” ordered the magistrate. The clerk read it.
“Well?” asked the magistrate, again regarding Bony with those searching dark eyes.
“Must have been mistaken,” admitted Bony.
“Any further question to put to the witness?”
“Only that I wasn’t doing any harm sleeping on the bench. ”
“What else have you to say for yourself?”
“Nothing, your honour.”
“Humph! Ah well! We cannot have people sleeping on benches on our sidewalks in broad daylight. You are sentenced to ten days’ detention.”
“What! Only ten days? No option?” exclaimed Bony.
The clerk’s mouth sagged a fraction. Gleeson’s stiffly erect body trembled from the chest upward. The magistrate said sternly and still deliberately:
“You are granted no option of paying a fine. Ten days. ”
“Come on,” said Gleeson, and he and his prisoner marched from the court back to the cells.
“Disappointed, sir?” asked the constable.
“Why, no. It has been a new experience, Gleeson. What is the magistrate’s name?”
“He’s Jason, the garage proprietor.”
“Oh! So that is Mr Jason.”
“Peculiar bird,” Gleeson said. “In his way he’s all there, is old Jason. He’s chairman of the bench and deputy coroner for this district, and a good man for the work, too. Likes himself a lot on the bench, but then, I’d like myself if I were chief commissioner.”
“What’s the wife like?”
“Never knew her. She was dead when he and young Jason came to Merino eight years ago. He’s been an actor in his early days, I understand. The son is a bit of a trial.”
“How so? Tell me about him.”
“He is, I think, twenty-three. Dark like his father but not so tall and much stronger. Has a harelip and one shoulder is higher than the other. Surly disposition and has no respect for the old man. What with his harelip and one shoulder higher than the other, I suppose he couldn’t be expected to have a sunny disposition. To make him worse, one leg is shorter than the other and he has a crooked spine. Still, he’s active enough and as strong as a young bull.”
“They live next door, do they not?”
“That’s so. A woman goes in every day to clean up and prepare the midday dinner. I have heard the old man cooks the breakfast and gets the tea. If you are going to the funeral this afternoon you’ll see the old bird in his funeral regalia, which is in keeping with the hearse. You are not going to forget it for many a day.”
Half an hour after Gleeson had departed for the station office Marshall entered Bony’s cell.
“What was the idea of arguing about eyes?” he asked.
“I wanted again to hear the magistrate’s voice,” replied Bony. “Why the ten days? Was I not to get fourteen?”
“Old Jason sometimes isn’t as tame as I’d like him to be.” Marshall scratched his nose. “Was in one of his cranky moods this morning. Still, ten days is better than a five-bob fine, I suppose.” The sergeant grinned and then said sternly, with faint mockery in his voice: “Now you ... you’re here for ten days and nights. You’ll find time drag a bit, and in here it’s a bit hot during daytime. If you’ll do some painting for me I’ll let you take your meals with me, and I’ll give you a couple of bob a day to spend over at the hotel before closing time.”
“Sounds fair enough to me,” Bony agreed.
Again Marshall grinned and suggested:
“Why not come over to the house for a drink of tea before you start? I’d like you to meet the wife. I told her who you are. She’s safe. Wouldn’t have married her if she hadn’t been.”
“Wise man.”
“Perhaps. You married?”
“Yes. Three sons. Eldest at Brisbane Uni. Going to be a medical missionary to his grandmother’s people. Good lad, Sergeant, but he’s always chronically broke and always, therefore, touching me for a quid. The expression is his, not mine, I hasten to assure you.”
A minute later he found himself being introduced to a woman as tall as her husband and larger.
“I know all about you,” she said after welcoming him and urging him to be seated with her husband at the kitchen table, where she served tea and little cakes. “I am to call you Bony. Rose Marie told me all about the tea party in the cell yesterday. ”
“You are fortunate in being the mother of Rose Marie,” Bony said, bowing slightly from his chair. Mrs Marshall glanced at her husband, also seated at the table, and said:
“She is a sweet child, but she’s terribly precocious. The things she gets to hear other people say is extraordinary. There’s no need for me to visit to hear all the news. I only hope to goodness she doesn’t relate to other people what she hears us say.”
“I gathered from what she told me yesterday that your daughter didn’t like Sergeant Redman,” Bony observed. “I do not think that odd.”
“Nor did we,” Mrs Marshall said. “But Rose Marie hated him. Did she tell you why?”
Bony nodded, saying:
“It appears that Rose Marie likes young Jason, and that Redman bullied young Jason.”
“Redman as good as accused young Jason of having murdered Kendall, but then he as good as accused a dozen people of having done that,” Marshall put in.
“What is your opinion of young Jason?” Bony asked.
“He’s