During all this the innocence of the boys of Waddy, particularly those boys who had composed Moonlighter’s gang, was quite convincing. They had kept their secret well, and for some time no act of vandalism was suspected. In school during the morning they were most attentive, and particularly assiduous in the pursuit of knowledge; and when the echoes of a disturbance in the township penetrated the school walls, Richard Haddon and his friends may have exchanged significant winks, but nothing in their general demeanour would have betrayed them to the ordinary intelligence. However, Joel Ham’s intelligence was not of the ordinary kind, and after looking up two or three times and catching the master’s little leaden eye fixed upon him with a glance of amused speculation, Dick began to feel decidedly uncomfortable.
The first hint of the truth was brought to Waddy by an infuriated female from Cow Flat. She drove up in an old-fashioned waggon drawn by a lively and energetic but very ancient and haggard bay horse, with flattened hoofs and a mere stump of a tail. She was tall and stout, with great muscular arms bare to the shoulder, and her face was pink with righteous indignation. This woman drove slowly up the one road of Waddy, and standing erect in her vehicle roundly abused the township from end to end. Crying her cause in a big strident voice, she insulted the inhabitants individually and in the mass, and wherever several people were assembled she pulled up and poured out upon them the vials of her wrath in a fine flow of vituperation; and after every few sentences she interpolated an almost pathetic plea to somebody, she did not care whom, to step forward and resent her criticism that she might have an opportunity of hammering decency and religion into the benighted inhabitants of an unregenerate place.
“Who stole the goats?” she screamed, and, receiving no answer, screamed the question from house to house.
“Waddy’s a township of thieves an’ hussies!” she cried, “thieves an’ hussies! Gimme me goats or I’ll have the law on you all—you low, mean stealers an’ robbers, ye! Who stole the goats? Who came by night an’ robbed a decent widdy woman of her beautiful goats? Who? Who? Who? Say you didn’t, someone! Gi’ me the lie, you lot o’ gaol-birds an’ assassinators!”
All Waddy turned out to hear, and many followed the woman up the road. The school children heard the noisy procession go by with amazement and regret, and the visitor grew shriller and fiercer as her search progressed. At length she discovered what she declared to be one of her goats in the possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon and charged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors and throwing up a barricade in the passage. But the stranger was not to be foiled: she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house under siege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked her vengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four women of Waddy for mere diversion.
It was not till the tired miners off the night shift had secured all the goats she pointed out as hers, tied their legs and packed them on her waggon, that the woman could be induced to leave; and as she drove away she heaped further insult on the township, and from the distant toll-bar signalled a final gesture of contempt and loathing.
This woman took back to Cow Flat her own explanation of the mystery of the lost goats, and in due time deputations from the rival township began to reach Waddy, so that the Great Goat Riot developed rapidly. It was long since friendly feeling had existed between Waddy and Cow Flat. There was a standing quarrel about sludge and the pollution of the waters of the creek; there were political differences, too, and a fierce sporting rivalry. By the majority of the people of Cow Flat the purloining of their goats was accepted as further evidence of the moral depravity and low origin of the people of Waddy, and the feeling between the townships was suddenly strained to a dangerous tension.
The first few skirmishing parties from Cow Flat were composed of women and boys, and an undisciplined and rash pursuit of goats followed each visit. The nannies and billies, under stress of the new excitement, ran suddenly wild and developed a fleetness of foot, an expertness in climbing, and powers of endurance hitherto all unsuspected by their owners; so very few animals were recovered by the visitors.
The hunt was continued throughout the next day. Goats were rushing wildly about the place from morning till midnight pursued by their wrathful owners, to the detriment of the peace of Waddy and the undoing of the tractable local milkers; and at last a great resentment took possession of the matrons of the township—there were counter-attacks among the houses, rescue parties beset the women carrying off prizes, and a few skirmishes happened on the flat. Now the men were induced to take a hand, and there was talk of battle and pillage and sudden death.
Devoy, pugnacious and vengeful, provoked the first serious struggle. Discovering a man of Cow Flat who claimed a small family of aggressive brown goats which he had marked out as the vandals that had wrought ruin amongst his well-kept beds, Devoy bearded the stranger and spoke of damages and broken heads, and his small son, Danny, a young Australian with a piquant brogue and a born love of ructions, moved round and incited him to bloodshed.
“Go fer him, daddy. Sure, ye can lick him wid one hand, dear,” pleaded Danny.
“Yer dir-rty goats have ate me gar-rden, sor. D’ye moind me now? It’s ruined me gar-rden is on me,” said Devoy aggressively.
“Hit him, daddy,” screamed Danny.
Devoy accepted the advice and struck the first blow. The man from Cow Flat was very willing, and they fought a long, destructive battle; and through it all Danny danced about the ring, bristling with excitement and crying fierce and persistent encouragement to his sire.
“Let him have it, daddy!” “Now ye have him!” “Good on you, daddy!” “Sure, you’ll do him!” “One round more, daddy, an’ ye have him beat!” These phrases, and shrill inarticulate cries of applause and astonishment and joy, Danny reiterated breathlessly until his father was pronounced the victor; then he took the battered hero fondly by the hand and led him away to be bathed and plastered and bandaged by a devoted wife and mother.
The downfall of Devoy’s opponent brought other champions from Cow Flat; there were open fights in Wilson’s paddocks by day and assaults and sallies by night, and the bitterness deepened into hatred. Waddy now resisted every attempt to carry off the stolen goats, and parties coming from Cow Flat by night were content with any animals they could lay their hands on; so for nearly a week the township was beset with alarums and excursions, and Jo Rogers, as its admitted champion, had more engagements on his hands than he could reasonably be expected to fulfil in a month.
Dickie and his accomplices were amazed at the developments, and watched the trouble grow with the greatest concern. The contests on the open ground beyond the quarries were frequent and free, and then there came a lull; but from Cow Flat came rumours of a grand coup meditated by the leaders on that side. Preparations were being made for an attack by a large body, and the forcible abduction of all the goats, irrespective of individual rights. The excitement had now reached fever heat, and there were few men in Waddy who were not ready, even anxious, to strike a blow for the preservation of the flocks and herds and the credit of the township.
On the side of approach from Cow Flat Waddy was protected for the greater part of the distance by the string of quarries; under the command of Big Peterson, who as an ex-soldier had some military reputation, logs were dragged from the bush, and the space between the end of the quarries and the fence of Summers’ south paddock was smartly barricaded. The defenders were armed with light sticks, and it was understood that these were to be used only if the enemy refused to abide by Nature’s weapons.
All the mines in the vicinity of Waddy worked short-handed on the day of the Great Goat Riot; the men, under the command of Captain Peterson, were sitting in bands, hidden from view in the quarries, smoking, discussing the situation, and patiently awaiting the attack. They did not wait in vain. At about eleven o’clock a scout came in with the intelligence that a large body was advancing in irregular order through Wilson’s paddock, and a quarter of an hour later the men of Cow Flat swarmed out of the bush and over the fence and charged Waddy at a trot.
“Toe the scratch, men!” yelled Peterson; and the defenders of Waddy climbed out of the holes and presently turned a solid front to the enemy. The Cow Flat commander, who had expected to take the place by surprise, wavered at the sight of organised opposition and called a halt at the other edge of the quarries; and invaders and besieged faced each other across the broken ground while the Cow Flat leaders held a council of war. On the level behind the entrenched army the women of Waddy and their families were picknicking gaily on the grass, for it was accepted as a great gala day in the township, and flags of all shapes and colours, devised from all kinds of discarded garments, fluttered from tree-tops, chimneys, posts, clothes-props, and any other eminence to which a streamer could be fastened.
Perceiving their opponents reluctant to charge, Peterson’s command presently developed a fine flow of sarcasm.
“Won’t ye stip over, ye mud-gropers?” cried Devoy. “It’s a nice little riciption we’ve arranged for yez.”
“Who stole the goats?” retorted the enemy.
“Sure, is it the bits of goats, then? Ye might come an’ take them if ye won’t be stayin’ all day there dishcussin’ polemics.” Devoy was understood to be a man of learning and unequalled in argument.
“Kidnappers an’ goat-stealers!” yelled the foe.
Devoy posed on a rock in an oratorical attitude.
“Ye came suspectin’ t’ have a foine aisy time the mornin’,” he said. “Yez contimplated playin’ the divil wid a big shtick among the weemin an’ the childther. Tom Moran, ye thunderin’ great ilephant av a man, d’ye think ye cud fight a sick hen on a fince?”
Moran replied with uproarious profanity and frantic pantomime, and the abuse became general and vociferous. Devoy mounted a larger rock and commenced a scathing harangue; but a sod thrown by an invader took him in the mouth and toppled him over backwards, so that he arose gasping and spitting and clawing dirt out of his beard, and made a rush for his enemy, mad for battle; friends grappled with him and held him back, and he could only shriek defiance and rash challenges as the two parties moved along the quarries towards the log barricade. Here the men of Cow Flat halted again and their leaders conferred, but the rank-and-file were rapidly losing temper and restraint under the black insults heaped upon them by the besieged. They scattered along the row of logs into a long thin line and the men of Waddy followed, till the two parties were almost man to man, facing each other, exchanging jibes and gestures of contempt.
“Moran, ye scut! don’t be skirmishin’ an’ in thriguin’ t’ get forninat a shmall man. My meat ye are, an’ come on, ye—ye creepin’ infor-r-mer, ye!”
It was the last insult. Moran led the charge, roaring like a goaded bullock, the two parties clashed over the logs, and in an instant comparative silence fell upon the men. The yelling, the derisive voices, and scoffing laughter ceased, and nothing was heard but the sharp rattle of the strokes. The fight was fierce, earnest, and bloody; all thoughts of the absurdity of the cause of contention had long since been forgotten, and the battle was as remorseless as if it were waged for an empire.
The women had never expected anything serious to happen, and now they were dreadfully afraid. A valiant few took arms and joined in the fray by the sides of their husbands; but the rest, finding after a few minutes that the fight raged furiously, gave way to bitter tears, and wailed protests from a safe distance, while the children followed their example with all the vigour of young lungs.
In time Peterson and Devoy and Rogers found voice and yelled encouragement to their men, and sticks and fists worked grievous mischief. The Cow Flat men were at an enormous disadvantage in having to scale the logs to make headway; whenever a hero did succeed in gaining the top, Big Peterson, who moved swiftly and tirelessly up and down the line, was there to cope with him, and he was hurled down, bruised and broken. The besiegers struggled valiantly, but it dawned on them in the course of ten minutes that they were waging a vain and foolish fight. A rally and a rescue of Moran, who was on the point of being captured by the enemy, gave them an excuse to draw off, dragging their defeated leader beyond harm’s reach. A few moments later, in the midst of excited cheering and jeering, a number of the men became aware of a small, bare-headed, red-haired, white-faced boy standing on the logs between the foes, where he had stood whilst the fight was still waging, whirling his hat, and crying something at the top of his voice:
“The troopers! The troopers! The troopers!
It was Dick Haddon, very frightened apparently, and ablaze with excitement.
“Don’t fight, don’t fight!” he cried. “’Twas me took the goats, an’ the troopers’re comin’! Look, the troopers!
Sure enough, far off across the level country leading down to Yarraman, a small body of mounted police could be seen riding at a canter towards Waddy, their swords and cap-peaks glittering in the sun. The men stared in the direction pointed by Dick in silence, wondering what this development might mean. Devoy was the first to move. Gripping Dick, he lifted him from the logs.
“Run, run, ye bla’gard!” he said. “Fetch yer school football.”
Then as Dick hastened away Devoy took a commanding position on the barricade.
“Hear me, all of yez,” he cried. “Down wid yer sticks, every divil of yez! You Cow Flat min, too, down wid ’em! Look it here—the troopers is comin’. Shine have infor-rmed on us in Yarraman. Moind, now, this is jist a bit of divarsion we’ve been havin’.”
The Waddy men had dropped their weapons, so also had most of their foes, and all gathered closer about Devoy.
“T’row away thim shticks,” he yelled. “D’ye want tin years fer riot, an’ murther, an’ dish turbin’ the peace? Look peaceable, an’ frindly, an’ lovin’, if it’s in yez so to do. Moran, ye sulky haythen, wud ye be hangin’ the lot av us? Shmile ’r I’ll black the other oye of ye! Shmile, ye hi-potomus!
At this instant the line of troopers rode in between the parties, with a clattering of scabbard and chain. The sergeant drew his foaming bay up sharp and confronted Devoy.
“What is the meaning of this, my man?” he demanded.
“Meanin’ which, sor?” Devoy cocked a black and swollen eye at the officer, and smiled innocently over a lacerated chin.
“Meaning this.” The trooper waved a white glove over the congregation.
“Sure, it’s a bit of a game only—a bit of a friendly game o’ football, as ye may see wid the own eyes of ye.”
Dick’s football had just bounced in between the opposing bodies. The officer ran an eye over the crowd, noting the bloodstains.
“You play football in a funny way at Waddy,” he said.
“We play it wid enthusiasm.”
“Enthusiasm! I should say you played it with shillelahs. Do you always get cracked skulls and black eyes when you play football?”
“It’s our pleasant way, sor.”
“Is it? Well, how the devil do you play football? What is the meaning of this pile of logs?”
“Meaning the fines, sergeant? It’s this way: we of Waddy stands on this side, an’ thim of Cow Flat forninst us on the other side, an’ we kicks it over t’ thim, an’ they kicks it back to ourselves, an’, sure, the side what kicks it over the most frequent wins. Would you like t’ see, sergeant?”
The miners grinned, the troopers giggled, and the sergeant began to feel huffy.
“’Tention!” he cried. “Who won this precious game?”
Devoy pinched hi chin tenderly and grimaced. It was hard to abandon the glory of a well-won battle, but there was no option.
“It was a dthraw,” he said manfully.
“And what were you playing for?”
“Playin’ for? Oh, fer natural love an’ affection, nothin’ more, barrin’ a few goats.”
“Goats, eh? Now look here, my fine fellow, we were told there was to be riot and fighting here over those goats. I don’t believe a word of your cock-and-bull story about football, and for two pins I’d clap a few of you where you wouldn’t play again for some time to come. Now you’d all better settle this goat business while my men are here, and take my advice and drop football if you want to keep on the comfortable and airy side of a gaol. Now then, you fellows from the Flat, round up your goats and look slippy in getting out of this.”
Devoy was the picture of outraged innocence.
“Tut, tut, tut!” he said mournfully, “an’ see how they take off the characther of dacent, paceable, lovin’ min. ’Twas a tinder an’ frindly game we was playin’, sergeant, but if ye will break it up, sure I’m a law-abidin’ man. We did intund t’ axe the min av Cow Flat t’ have the bite an’ sup wid us at the banquit this night, but we rispict the law, an’ we say nothin’ agin it. But, sor, if ever yer men would be likun’ a game of football, we—”
“Get down, you ruffian!” said the sergeant, grinning, and rode his horse at Devoy.
So the Great Goat Riot was settled, and under the eye of the sergeant and his troopers the goats of Cow Flat were drafted from those of Waddy. It was a difficult task, and was not accomplished without trouble and argument and minor hostilities: but the judgment of the sergeant, who seemed to be aware of the whole merits of the case, was final, so that in due time the men of Cow Flat departed driving their goats before them, and comparative peace fell upon Waddy once more.