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Chapter XII.
Trotters.

We never supposed his name was Trotters, you know, but that's what we called him, and what he had been called ever since I had known him. He was a mate of mine on the Fitzroy above Rock-hampton, at the time of the Port Curtis rush, which many of you may remember turned out such a rank duffer, somewhere about '60.

Trotters was an undersized, herring-gutted fellow, “little but wiry,” as he used to say of himself, with sandy hair and blue-grey eyes, weak and red round the lids, not unlike those of a pig, a little cocked-up nose, and a mouth twice too big for him. He was, to tell the candid truth, a mean little cuss to look at, and he wasn't much good as a miner; but be was useful, a sort of chap who could turn his hand to almost anything—cook, cobble up a pair of boots, stitch a button on, cut hair, and so on, all middling well, and therefore he was handy to have about the camp, and so we didn't use to expect him to do much real grafting.

But if Trotters wasn't much of a hand at right down hard work, there were three things he could do to perfection, namely, sleep, talk and eat. He'd sleep the clock round if you didn't rouse him up; he'd talk till further orders if you didn't choke him off; and as for eating, well, that's how he got his name.

It was this way, as I've been told, for he got it before I knew him. It was on the Rocky River diggings. Everybody on the field knew what a gormandiser he was, and one night a lot of fellows at the Miners' Arms got talking about his qualifications in that line. They made a bet among 'em that he could polish off a six pound leg of mutton and a four pound loaf without notice, and at a sitting. The butcher had killed some sheep the day before, and Ned Conn—that was the landlord—had just such a leg of mutton, ready cooked, and untouched, in the house.

Well, a party of four was deputed to go down to his tent and ask him to come up and win the wager if he could. It was about half-past ten, and the little beggar was snug in his bunk, fast asleep. However, they managed to wake him up, and told him their errand.

“Well, mates,” he said, thoughtfully, “I don't know. You see, I've just had a billy of thick porridge and treacle, and a dozen sheep's trotters for supper, and—however, to oblige you, I'll come up and do it.”

And he did. And that's how he came to be called “Trotters.”

On the Fitzroy he was as bad as a famine. Stores were irregular in coming up, and sometimes ran short, and how he lived when they did Lord only knows, for not a shanty on the place would board him at any price. Two or three had tried it, but he made such a holy show of the provisions that they had to give him best. He never by any chance missed a meal, and the way he used to gorge when he was at it was a caution.

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“I wouldn't ha' minded so much,” said old Brown, the boss of the “Jolly Reefers,” after he had had to get rid of him or be eaten out of house and home. “I raly wouldn't ha' minded so much if the wittles had seemed to do him any good, but they didn't. He kep as thin as a rake, and the more he e't the 'ungrier he seemed to get. Raly, it was a standin' reproach agin' my quezeen.”

Mind you, I believe Trotters was as honest a little chap as ever lived. He wouldn't wrong a man out of a farden, but when it came to a matter of meat it was another thing. He must and would have it, no matter where it came from. Not that he was particular in his eating. He'd devour anything, possums, native cats, bears; and they did say that when he was hard set he'd not turn up his nose at a guana, or even a snake, like a blackfellow.

There was no end to the scrapes he used to get into through this insatiable wolf in his maw. One day, I remember, a party of sailor chaps, who were working a hole not far from us, had got a rattling good Irish stew for dinner, enough to serve seven of 'em. Poor Trotters was hungry as usual, and as he snuffed the grateful aroma of the rich compound his feelings got the better of him, and he felt that he must have a taste. Rushing to the tent in hot haste, he called to the man whose turn it was that day to cook: “I say, don't you belong to Bo'sun Bill's crowd up the gully?”

“Yes, and what on it?” was the reply.

“Nothing, only your mates have struck it rich, and you'd better—”

But the deluded man had gone. He had never stopped to think, but, totally regardless of the bubbling stew, and the dangerous proximity of “Trotters” thereto, he had rushed of incontinently to where his mates had “struck it rich.”

If they hadn't, “Trotters” had, for when they reached the tent in hot anger at being so fooled, the flesh-pot was empty, the luscious mixture of chops, steak, potatoes, onions, etc., had gone, and, “like the baseless fabric of a vision, left not a rack behind.” “Trotters” had scoffed the lot.

After that he was missing for three days. I verily believe that if those sailor men had found him they'd have half killed him; but, as it served as a laugh for the camp, they got to laugh at it themselves.

How or where Trotters lived those three days no one knew, but when he came back and sneaked promiscuously up to their tent (just after dinner) like a dog expecting a thrashing, he looked so meek, and, withal, so comically penitent and woe-begone, that the hearty fellows burst into a roar of laughter, and not only forgave him, on promise of amendment of his ways, but actually gave him a feed.

But he did not always get off so easily. His great field day was when he helped the butchers on killing days. He was handy and useful to them on such occasions, and they didn't grudge him what he could eat, mostly the scrag ends of mutton, shins of beef and such like.

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One time, when he was giving Johnson the butcher a hand, that worthy was suddenly called out to see a drover about the purchase of some cattle, and the two went over to the “Jolly Reefers” to settle their business, leaving “Trotters” in charge of the establishment. In a few minutes Johnson returned to his shop, and, as with old Mother Hubbard, “when he got there, the cupboard was bare.” Trotters, unable to resist, had made a raid, and departed.

The way that knight of the cleaver went on was something to listen to. He came down to our claim armed with a stockwhip in search of the offender, and he just raised Cain.

“Where is the thieving vagabond?” he shouted; “let me catch him and I'll cut,” etc., etc. “The unconscionable rascal! I'd given him as much as he could tuck into him not an hour before, enough for any four men, I'll swear, and I hadn't been away five minutes before he scoffed a good six pound of prime beef sausages, to say nothing of a couple of pound or so of tripe. Six pound of sausages if there was an ounce, as I'm a living sinner. Oh! oh!! oh!!! Only let me catch him, I'll,” etc., etc., etc. And he did catch him two days after, and trounced him until some of us interfered.

Other similar escapades, some of which met with condign punishment, others which did not, I might adduce, but one, and one which capped the climax, will be sufficient.

Long Jack M‘Intyre got married to Kitty Brown, daughter of old Brown, of the “Jolly Reefers.” It was quite a grand affair, for Long Jack was in a good claim, and old Brown opened his heart on the occasion and gave a splendid dinner to all invited, as many as the house would hold. Gave, I said, but there, hold on awhile—

It was a swell dinner, there's no mistake about that. Turkeys, geese, ducks, fowls, hams, tongues, pies, tarts, everything that the human heart could desire, and pay for your own liquor, which, after all, was a fair thing, you know.

The wedding was to take place in the schoolroom at Yaamba, the township, the clergyman coming up from Rockhampton for the purpose, and so to Yaamba everybody went, to see Jack hitched up.

At the hotel everything was ready for the wedding party on their return. The waiters were busy setting the tables in the big dining-room and the bar parlor, the eatables were done to a turn, and the cook in an unlucky moment had left the kitchen and all that therein was to see everything was right, and the girl who was assisting him had gone into the house out of feminine curiosity, when Trotters, who had been mooching around all morning, saw the coast clear.

And “Trotters” made a raid. How he did it in the time passes the human understanding; how mortal stomach could contain what he must have devoured is an inscrutable mystery, but there it was.

There was hardly a thing set out on that long kitchen dresser that had not been partaken of: legs and wings of turkeys and other fowls wrenched off, lumps of breast dug out, chunks of ham and tongue cut off, pies maltreated, tarts scrunched, and even the bride-cake sacri- page 58 legiously broken into. The marriage feast was a havoc, a shipwreck, a cataclysm. And the cook, returning, sat down amid the ruins, sat down, as it were, in sackcloth and ashes, and lifted up his voice and wept, while the scullery maid, also returning, looked on in awed silence, in blank amaze, and round-eyed wonder. It needed no one to say who had been there. That was, as mathematicians say, a postulate, a thing to be accepted without proof. One word explained all: “Trotters.”

But where was “Trotters?” Ah! where? Where was last year's snow? “Trotters” had been, “Trotters” had departed, and lo ! “Trotters” was not.

When the wedding party returned from Yaamba, after the ceremony, headed by old Brown in his buggy and robes of state, and tailed by everyone on the diggings who had, or who could buy or borrow, a horse or wheeled vehicle, the picnic commenced.

Old Brown danced a pas du diable on the verandah for the edification of all beholders. Long Jack M‘Intyre, the bridegroom, reddened and paled by turns, and looked as foolishly uncomfortable as if he had been the cause of the contretemps. The pretty bride—and really she did look pretty in spite of her somewhat full-blown charms—went off into hysteries in a cloud of book muslin and satin ribbon. The bridesmaids sobbed aloud in sympathy, and for the rest, everybody made remarks which need not be repeated, but which referred, more or less, to “Trotters.”

But there was no use in crying over spilt milk, and so the best was made of the disjecta membra that the marauder had been good enough to leave, and when the happy pair had departed for Rock-hampton to catch the steamer for Brisbane, amidst a shower of rice and old slippers, and when as evening came on and the big room was cleared out for a dance, “Trotters” and his misdeeds were well nigh forgotten, and even old Brown had almost forgiven him.

But that was “Trotters'” last exploit on the Fitzroy. He never showed his nose in the neighborhood again; although several times we heard of him—once as having been presented with a dose of small shot from a gun for having helped himself to a round of corned beef; another time as having had the dogs set on him for having hired himself to a farmer to dig potatoes, and having eaten over four pounds of cheese at his first meal; a third time as having been ducked in the dam for having devoured an entire damper and half the rations for six men at a shearing shed; and again as having been thrown overboard and left to swim ashore from a coasting schooner on board of which he had engaged as cook, for robbing the harness cask, and polishing off a fortnight's meat in four days.

After that, except that we heard that he had been sent to gaol for a month for looting a baker's oven, and that the prison authorities were only too glad to let him go in a week, he seemed to fade out, and there were no more reports of him. “Trotters” and his wonderful powers of assimilation were forgotten amongst us.

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But, years after, I happened to be in Melbourne, and one Saturday night, walking along Bourke street, my attention was attracted to a glaring, flaring picture outside a show, a picture of a remarkable-looking being clad in skins, and apparently in the enjoyment of a solitary cannibal feast. The showman at the door was expatiating in a strident voice on the wonders to be witnessed inside.

“Here you see,” he yelled, “the wonderful wild man of the woods, just caught in the desert of Afrikey, alive! alive!! alive!!! This extraor'ny bein' lives entirely on rawr flesh, which he eats six times a day, three pound at each meal, bein' the onprecedentated amount of heighteen pound of solid rawr meat within the short space of twelve hours. To be seen alive! alive!! alive!!! and only sixpence, sixpence, I say. Be in time. Just going to begin. This is the last opportunity you'll have of seein' this most wonderful bein', the wild man o' the woods, as was caught,” etc., etc., etc.

As I had never seen a wild man of the woods of the character of this one, I determined to pay my sixpence, did so, and walked in. He was a most extraordinary being, and that's a fact. And he ate the raw meat, and with gusto too, and that's another fact.

But—Good Heavens !—could I be mistaken?

No.

There, in despite of the color he had put on his face, in despite of the outrageous dress in which he was rigged, there was “Trotters.”

The lank hair, the piggish blue grey eyes, the enormous mouth, the cadaverous cheeks, there he was, and thinner than ever. I spotted him in a moment.

I said nothing, but waited outside after the show was over, and presently I saw him come out.

Sidling up to him quietly, I whispered in his ear “Hallo! ‘Trotters.’”

The effect was instantaneous. He started, looked at me suspiciously, and then, all at once, recognized me.

“What sort of a game do you call this, Trotters?” I asked.

“It ain't a very good game for me,” he replied, sadly. “You see they've engaged me because I'm a good eater.”

“By George! you are,” I replied, “there's no mistake about that.”

“And so,” he went on pensively, “they give me my grub to represent the Wild Man of the Woods—but Lor' bless yer, they are beginning to grumble about my appetite—say they can't stand much more on it, and yet they only supplies me with enough to feed a baby, that is such a baby as I am. I assure you, I haven't had what I call a good square meal since I've been with 'em. Raw meat is all very well in its way, but what I want is a meal, a good square meal.”

“Never mind,” said I, “never mind, old man, come and have a drink.”

“A drink I do not want, a drink I will not have,” he responded. “To-morrow, being Sunday, is a blank day with me. Lend me, or give me, five shillings, and you'll see what I do with it.”

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Purely and sheerly for the fun of the thing, I gave him five shillings, making him promise to return when he had expended it.

And he did.

He ccame back to me armed with a Māori kit, and said this: “Master, I've spent the money as you gev me. Do you know what I've done? No, yer don't. Well, I've made preparation for tomorrow. I've been down to the ccorner of Swanston street, and I've bought a cove, leastwise an individual, out. Here's my dinner for to-morrow, Sunday. I've bought his entire basket—all he had. And all had 'll jus about suit me for to-morrow, forty-two sheep's trotters.

Scarcely had the loud laughter and applause which greeted the termination of Jim Lloyd's story died away, when the sentries were heard challenging. The reply was evidently satisfactory, for in a few seconds there appeared, coming at a rapid trot or lope up the open parade ground, a tall form clad in the inevitable Māori mat and kilt, and deeply tattooed on the face. But that he carried a rifle over his arm English fashion, he might have been taken for one of the Māori friendlies, of whom a number were engaged as runners or messengers, but as he topped the slope, and came full into view, he was recognised at once, and welcomed with cries of “Jack Hall! Jack Hall! The Māori scout!”