Cuddingwarra Kate –

CUDDINGWARRA KATE
By R. W. Patrick

Tho fortnightly-mail coach was due. Jack Crenane, the driver, was generally right up to time, and a big crowd always congregated in front of Corney’s pub just before five o’clock to see it come in. The arrival of the coach was looked forward to by every man in the camp; indeed, it might be said the event constituted the main enjoyment they got since the “lowering” standard of beer in one or other of the pubs or “shypoos” (illegally brewed beer) had become such a monotonous dissipation. Mail days brought them, besides news of the world and letters from home, luxuries in the shape of fruit and vegetables.

Such was the rush sometimes for a cabbage or a bunch of parsnips, and what prices were paid! And it was no uncommon occurrence to see a miner, who had arrived too late to secure some of the coveted vegetable delights, bargaining with a fortunate possessor, for two, three, or four times the money they had cost, and being refused, the unlucky one would entreat the buyer to invite him to dinner on the morrow.

But today a greater crowd than usual was waiting impatiently outside Corney’s shanty, the whole town was there, for it had gone abroad that Corney was bringing a new barmaid along in this coach. She would make the third that the astute and enterprising Irishman had imported. The other two had gone away in pretty comfortable circumstances, it was reported. The coach was late, and still, there was no sign of it down the long brown track through the mulga. There was considerable speculation as to the reason and as the time wore on, most of the men began to show signs of annoyance all save Corney, who eyed with beaming face the constant stream coming and going through the bar.

“Funny thing,” said Sam Griggs, “that the bus should be late just because it’s got a tart aboard.”
“Hope she ain’t as slow as the coach,” replied his friend.
“Never knew a woman yet as wasn’t’ said Griggs, ‘except one Your wife.”
“My wife! What the devil’s my wife got to do with YOU?”
“Oh! she ain’t ‘ad nothin’ to do with me thank goodness!” replied his friend; surveying the crowd with a significant and sweeping glance. “Where’s she now?” he added innocently.
“Go to hell”
“But I ain’t looking for her,” answered the wag.

Billie Woodhams stepped in to stop the fight. “If you want to hit anyone,” he said, “just wait till that driver comes along. I expect he’s been kissing and hugging that barmaid all the way from Yalgoo” A good number of the men, tired of waiting, strolled off to their different tents, and it was getting dark before a cloud of dust rose above the mulga away in the distance. Twenty minutes later, four weary-looking brumbies were urged with much cracking of whip to put in a good spurt as they came into the street. Jack, after nodding genially to the crowd, jumped down and assisted his only passenger to alight.

She wasn’t pretty. Bill Woodhams’s remark was eloquent. ”Jack.” he said, approaching the driver,
“I forgive you”.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Well. I was saying awhile back, to Sam here, that you must be delaying the coach flirting with that girl.”
“Was you?” said Jack fiercely. “You have a try at flirting with her, that’s all. Lumme! she’s a beauty. Next time Corney wants me to be a bit late, it’ll cost him a tenner. Jack,’ says ‘e when he asked me to do it, ‘look at ” the time you’ll ‘ave with ‘er, all on your own, too.’  Bahhhhh!!!!!

Kate was not pretty, a fact she couldn’t help neither was she young, which also wasn’t her fault. But she might easily have become popular save for one very alarming peculiarity eclipsing all others. She wanted to get married, wanted to so badly that everyone soon became aware of the fact. It had a most depressing effect on the gallants of the town, for there was no pleasure in flirtation, only stupid courtship if the goal is already assured. So Kate became very unpopular. Carney would have “sacked” her right away, but she had come up under a six-month agreement. When she had been two months with him, he offered her the balance of her wages in a lump sum on the condition that she left ?

“I’ll take a month to think it over,” she told him!

She was known throughout the settlement as ‘Cuddingwarra Kate’, the publican from Dead Finish, AKA otherwise as Cuddingwaria, having offered her a job, for the purpose, he said, when remonstrated with by a member of that camp,  that she frightened the flies away from the beer. Griggs reckoned that was her game; he gave her the euphonious prefix, and it stuck to her like glue. Even genial old Grimwood “Dick the Witty”, he was called, one of those men who have the gift of being pleasant to all women, was known to have remarked that, no doubt, Kate’s face was her fortune-if you looked at it from the point of view of a showman. And grimly added he would assist with any chance to get rid of her.

About the only person that could get on with her was Lionel Beckwith, the lawyer, a small, ripe-faced man, with thin yellow hair, who wore, summer and winter, weekdays and Sundays, the same faded morning coat. He was a clever little chap but drank every copper he could lay hands on. When sober, he was alert and quick-stepping and assumed a most important look, which was exceedingly funny, for a man cannot look imposing whose nose has run to seed. When drunk, he was dirty, his face seemed to sweat grease, and he sneaked from bar to bar till cash and credit were gone. He liked Kate because, in his worst moments he always managed to wheedle a drink out of her; While he could not forget that she had recovered him once from off the pile of empty “tinned-dog” tins and bottles at the back of Corney’s buildings, where he had stumbled after being ejected.

She had seen him to bed. and visited him in the morning with brandy and soda. Perhaps Kate saw possibilities in him. She was standing at the front door one evening during a lull in trade, M¡ck Williams, a chronic “beer-sparrar” leant against a verandah post. He was looking bitterly at Kate, from whom he had failed to cadge a drink, though he had got much. “dryer” in the attempt. Billy Woodhams, the owner of the richest claim in the district, was discussing, his latest “dollying” with Griggs, nearby.

“Good evening,” said Kate to him, “pretty warm?”
“Hot,” replied Billy. “It was terrible this afternoon, I can’t make out what’s the matter with my face, it’s all raw. The heat, I suppose…..

“I expect when the sun saw your face he tried to change it,” she said.

“You think that’s funny, don’t you? Well it ain’t, it’s pathetic,” answered, Woodhams, who was vainly endeavouring to strike a match, on his dungarees.

“You’re, not a gentleman, anyhow, to insult a lady.”
“With a chin like that you could strike matches on it, See! And as if suddenly struck, with an inspiration, he swept his hand over her cheek and the match snapped into flame!

“You wretch” she screamed “You saw that?” She appealed to William and Billy’s friend. ‘Lumme’ I did exclaimed the amazed Williams. “I’ ‘ll have you up for it, I’ll have you before the Warden” cried the poor girl.

‘”Come away Griggs and have a drink at the Shypoo.”Blow me. Bill, was that straight, did you really strike a match there?” “Rot Sammy. It was a trick I learned as a kid. The community thought it was not a bad joke, Oh they were all for a lark these rough humourists.

Drunk or otherwise, this lawyer always made sure of his money.

A while after, Dick Grimwood and a friend held a private conversation with Beckwith, with the result that a writ asking him to show cause why he should not pay £250 to Katherine McHenry for damages to her character was served on William Woodhams, owner of the “One Chance” mine, who was required to appear on the following Monday. The whole thing was illegal and out of order, but that mattered very little in those days. The Warden was out of town, and when the Court sat, it was composed of Dick Grimwood, as Chairman, assisted by Jim Rodman and Ned Boyd, all J.P.s Everyone in town, with the exception of wages men on shift, was present.

Lionel Beckwith, by no means sober, conducted the case for Miss McHenry while Billie, having no lawyer, appeared in person, except for a canvas awning, the case was heard in the open air for there was yet no Court buildings. After some preliminaries had been gone through, the lawyer put his client in the witness box, which was made of an old piano packing case.

“Your name is Katherine McHenry
“Yes.”
“You have been grievously insulted by William Woodhams?”
“Yes.”
“Defendant, it ‘pears, on looking round for place strike matches on made a remark that your face seemed likely place after which he pretended to strike match there, and by some trick of his own he actually did strike it?”
“Yes.”
“Âlso made rude remarks about your face?”
“Yes, the brute!”

Mr Woodhams pleaded not guilty, whereupon Beckwith called his first witness.

“Michael Williams, do you remember seeing the defendant  at Corney’s bar last Tuesday?”
“Yes”
“Did he make some offensive remarks ’bout Miss McHenry’s face?”
“I forget exactly what he said, but it was rough on her, anyhow.”
“And after that what’d he do?”
“Well, durn me, he up strikes a match on her blooming chin, easy as you like ”
“You mean he pretended to?”
“Pretended! well, I seen ‘is hand go streaking across ‘er cheek, and snap, off goes the match, an ‘e lights his pipe.” ‘
“Do you mean to say he actually struck the match on her face?”
“I seen ‘im do it ”
“You’re  a liar!” yelled Miss McHenry, (unable any longer to contain her feelings.)
“Calm yourself, madam,’ said the Chairman.

‘”Calm yourself! Would, you calm yourself if anyone said he’d, seen matches struck on your face?” she shrieked at Woodhams.
“Well, then Mr. Williams,” said Woodhams, do you swear that I struck a match on Cuddingwarra Kate’s chin?”
“I certainly doos.”
“You lying wretch!” screamed Kate. ‘and you, I’ll ‘Cuddingwarra Kate’ you!” on saying this she rushed at Bill and smashed her parasol over his head. Then with the remains of it, she went for the witness. She got one or two blows on him, as he bolted into the crowd, most of which were sitting on the ground holding their sides from, bursting. One of the justices was leaning back gripping his chair hard and the other’s head and arms were sprawling over the desk in front of him. and his laughter was free and uncontrollable. The Chairman was bawling, “Order! Order” and after a bit things got quiet. Miss McHenry resumed her seat; the lawyer rose to call the next witness: It was Griggs. He proved a careful and chivalric man.

“I’m not saying he actually did strike the match on her face, which ain’t the best I’ve seen, though I’ve known worse in this instance, while I couldn’t swear that he really struck the match, it looked very like it.” The crowd broke into renewed laughter. When it subsided, the Chairman asked Billie, if he had, any witnesses to call?

“No” he snapped. “I only say I’m not guilty, and even if I did have a bit of a joke, I’d like to point out the ridiculousness of the amount claimed.
“So if you did not strike a match on her face, undoubtedly it was your intention to make others believe her face was adapted to that purpose said Grimmwood.

“It was only a joke!”

“And jokes often have far-reaching consequences. In our opinion Mr. Woodhams you have committed a most serious offence. You have practically deprived the plaintiff of her means of living. You cast a cowardly slight on the beauty of the lady and for with pretended to prove it. What publican would employ a lady with such a face? Had you anything against her?”
“No nothing”
“Is it not the case that you offered to marry her and she refused to?”
“What!” Billie almost choked. “I marry her ?????

‘”Mr Woodhams! Remember you’re a court of law. Let me put the question to you another way. Forget old quarrels If we guarantee that Miss McHenry will accept you, will you cause the wedding to come off within a week?”

“What? I’ll eat my trousers first with the pockets full of arsenic.”

“Dear man! I was given to understand you were madly in love with the lady. How men change to be sure!” “Go to hell” Dick Grimwood!” yelled Billie. “Mr. ‘Woodhams, are we to understand then, that you no longer wish this marriage – that you’d give anything to get out of it, in fact?”

‘If I’d got into it, I’d give ten-bloomin’ thousand to anyone who’d take her off my hands.”

“There appears to be no doubt that you have a horrible enmity against the plaintiff. Mr Woodhams; but, well, we all know to what extremes unrequited love drives a man.”

”Here Grimwood, tell me what I’ve got to pay and get me out of this.”

“The decision of the court shall be given directly, sir. Meanwhile, I shall. do my best in the interests of an unprotected woman – one of the only three on this goldfield. If you imagine, Woodhams, that because you no longer care for the plaintiff others do not, you are mistaken. Fortunately, I mean, unfortunately, I have a wife in other parts or I myself would gladly gather her in. Mr. Rodman, had, I am convinced, has for some time secretly admired her but like myself, he also has a wife. The only man who has shown his passion is our old and esteemed townsman Mr Beckwith, the leading, and only, solicitor in these parts.

Ogh !!! claimed the lawyer, I believe she treated me handsomely on two occasions.”
“If she gave you a chance, you would jump at it wouldn’t you?”
“Not exactly, you see she’s a fine girl, but I don’t want to get married”.
“But Mr Beckwith, if she had a little money – a little nest egg to set up house with – say £250 and a cash testimonial from the townspeople. What do you say chaps, would you set up a collection?”
“We would, we would was the unanimous reply.” “I’d give a bob or two to see her out of Corney’s
“Here that Mr Beckwith, a money prize and a wife thrown in.”
“Yes” replied the lawyer, that does alter things a bit.”
“DONE” cried Grimwood and then turned to the girl, “What does the plaintiff say?

Miss McHenry saw not the laughing company, she” gazed at the lawyer; he wasn’t much to look at but she quickly ran over in her mind what she might make of him. She closed her jaws tightly and firmly, ”I’ll take him.” she said.
“Gentlemen, the verdict of the court goes in favour of the plaintiff to the full amount of the damages claim £250 which will give Mr. Beckwith a handsome purse on the occasion of his marriage to Miss Katherine McHenry, I commit the honour of putting down a tenner myself. All had money and were free with it, and soon a further £200 was added before the list closed.

The moment Woodhams was free, he sent a horseman off to Gill’s Patch, 30 miles away, to bring along a minister who was stationed there. Meanwhile, with the help of Rodman and whiskey supplied by Corney, they kept Beckwith in a state that disabled him from backing out, they even stayed with him and acted as best men till the ceremony which made him and Kate man and wife.

The happy pair departed on the first coach. Beckwith is now driving a car in the city and the ‘bloom’ has faded from his nose.  It was reported that Billie once waved to him but was not recognised.