by Tom Collins
“But there’s lots o’ changes since you was here last,” said Mosey. “Magomery he’s beginnin’ to think he’s got a sort o’ title to the ram-paddick now, considerin’ it’s all purchased. Tell you what I’ll do; I’ll slip over in two minits on Valiparaiser, an’ consult with Alf. Me an’ him’s as thick as thieves.”
“I’ll go with you, Mosey,” said I. “I’ve got some messages for him. Keep an eye on my dog, Steve.”
Mosey untied the fine upstanding grey horse from the rear of his wagon; I hitched Bunyip to a tree, and mounted Fancy, and we cantered away together across the plain; the ponderous empty wagon—Sydney-side pattern—with eight bullocks in yoke and twelve travelling loose, coming more clearly into detail through the vibrating translucence of the lower atmosphere, Alf didn’t deign to stop. I noticed a sinister smile on his sad, stern face as Mosey gaily accosted him.
“An’ how’s the world usin’ you, Alf? Got red o’ Pilot, I notice. Ever see sich a suck-in? Best at a distance, ain’t he? Tell you what I come over for, Alf: They say things is middlin’ hot here on Runnymede; an’ we’re in a (sheol) of a (adjective) st—nk about what to do with our frames to-night. Our wagons is over there on the other track, among the pines. Where did you stop las’ night? Your carrion’s as full as ticks.”
“I had them in the selection; took them out this morning after they lay down.”
“Good shot!”
“Why, I don’t see how it concerns you.”
“The selection’s reasonable safe—ain’t it?”
“Please yourself about that.”
“Is the ram-paddick safe?”
“No.”
“Is there enough water in the tank at the selection?”
“How do I know? There was enough for me.”
“I say, Alf,” said I: “Styles, of Karowra, told me to let you know, if possible, that you were right about the boring rods; and he’ll settle with you any time you call. Also there’s a letter for you at Lochleven Station. Two items.”
“I’m very much obliged to you for your trouble, Collins,” replied Alf, with a shade less of moroseness in his tone.
“Well, take care o’ yourself, ole son; you ain’t always got me to look after you,” said Mosey pleasantly; and we turned our horses and rode away. “Evil-natured beggar, that,” he continued. “He’s floggin’ the cat now, ’cos he laid us on to the selection in spite of his self. If that feller don’t go to the bottomless for his disagreeableness, there’s somethin’ radic’ly wrong about Providence. I’m a great believer in Providence, myself, Tom; an’ what’s more, I try to live up to my (adj.) religion. I’m sure I don’t want to see any pore (fellow) chained up in fire an’ brimstone for millions o’ millions o’ years, an’ a worm tormentin’ him besides; but I don’t see what the (adj. sheol) else they can do with Alf. Awful to think of it” Mosey sighed piously, then resumed, “Grand dog you got since I seen you last. Found the (animal), I s’pose?”
“No, Mosey. Bought him fair.”
“Jist so, jist so. You ought to give him to me. He’s bound to pick up a bait with you; you’re sich a careless &c., &c.” And so the conversation ran on the subject of dogs during the return ride.
On our reaching the wagons, it was unanimously resolved that the selection should be patronised. This being so, there was no hurry—rather the reverse—for the selection was not to be reached till dusk.
You will understand that the bullock drivers’ choice of accommodation lay between the selection, the ram-paddock, and a perisher on the plain. The selection was four or five miles ahead; the near corner of the ram-paddock about two miles farther still; whilst a perisher on the plain is seldom hard to find in a bad season, when the country is stocked for good seasons. Runnymede home-station—Mooney and Montgomery, owners; J. G. Montgomery, managing partner—was a mile or so beyond the further corner of the ram-paddock, and was the central source of danger.
Presently the tea leaves were thrown out of the billies; the tucker-boxes were packed on the pole-fetchels; and the teams got under way. Thompson pressed me to camp with him and Cooper for the night, and I readily consented; thus temporarily eluding a fatality which was in the habit of driving me from any given direction to Runnymede homestead—a fatality which, I trust, I shall have no further occasion to notice in these pages.
We therefore tied Fancy beside Thompson’s horse at the rear of his wagon, and disposed Bunyip’s pack-saddle and load on the top of the Wool; the horse, of course, following Fancy according to his daily habit.
A quarter of a mile of stiff pulling through the sand of the pine-ridge, and the plain opened out again. A short, dark, irregular line, cleanly separated from the horizon by the wavy glassiness of the lower air, indicated the clump of box on the selection, four miles ahead; and this comprised the landscape.
Soon we became aware of two teams coming to meet us; then three horsemen behind, emerging from the pine-ridge we had left. As the horsemen gradually decreased their distance, the teams met and passed us without salutation; sullenly drawing off the track, in the deference always conceded to wool. Victorian poverty spoke in every detail of the working plant; Victorian energy and greed in the unmerciful loads of salt and wire, for the scrub country out back. The Victorian carrier, formidable by his lack of professional etiquette and his extreme thrift, is neither admired nor caressed by the somewhat select practitioners of Riverina.
Then the three horsemen overtook Cooper, pausing a little, after the custom of the country, to gossip with him as they passed. According to another custom of the country, Thompson, Willoughby and I began to criticise them.
“I know the bloke with the linen coat,” remarked Thompson. “His name’s M’Nab; he’s a contractor. That half-caste has been with him for years, tailing horses and so forth, for his tucker and rags. Mac’s no great chop.”
“He lets his man Friday have the best horse, at all events,” said I. “Grand-looking beast, that black one the half-caste is riding.”
“By Jove, yes,” replied Willoughby. “Now, Thompson—referring to the discussion we had this morning—that is the class of horse we mount in our light cavalry.”
“And that strapping red-headed galoot, riding the bag of bones beside him, is what you would call excellent war-material?” I suggested.
“Precisely, Mr. Collins,” replied the whaler. “Nature produces such men expressly for rank and file; and I should imagine that their existence furnishes sufficient rejoinder to the levelling theory.”
“Quite possible the chap’s as good as either of you,” remarked Thompson, seizing the opportunity for reproof. “Do you know anything against him?”
“Well, to quote Madame de Staël,” replied Willoughby, “he abuses a man’s privilege of being ugly.”
“Moreover, he has left undone a thing that he ought to have done,” I rejoined. “He ought to be taking a spell of carrying that mare. And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy”…
“’Day, chaps,” said Rufus, as he joined us. “Keep on your pins, you beggar”—and he drove both spurs into his mare’s shrinking flanks. “Grey mare belongs to you, boss—don’t she?—an’ the black moke with the Roman nose follerin’? I was thinkin’ we might manage to knock up some sort o’ swap. Now this mare’s a Patriarch, she is; and you mightn’t think it. I won this here saddle with her at a bit of a meetin’ las’ week, an’ rode her my own self—an’ that’s oc’lar demonster. I tell you, if this here mare had a week spell, you couldn’t hold her; an’ she’d go a hundred mile between sunrise an’ sunset, at the same bat. Yes, boss; it’s the breed does it. I seen some good horses about the King, but swelp me Gawd I never seen a patch on this mare; an’ you mightn’t think it to look at her jist now. Fact is, boss, she wants a week or a fortnit spell. Couldnn’t we work up some sort o’ swap for that ole black moke o’ yours, with the big head? If I got a trifle o’ cash to boot, I wouldn’t mind slingin’ in this saddle, an’ takin’ yours. Now, boss, don’t be a (adj.)
fool.”
“To tell you the truth,” I replied, “that black horse has carried a pack so long that he’s about cooked for saddle. But he does me right enough.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do!” exclaimed Rufus impulsively. “Look here! At a word! I’ll go you an even swap for that little weed of a grey mare! At a word, mind! I’m a reckless sort o’ (person) when I take the notion! but without a word of exaggeration, I wouldn’t do it on’y for being fixed the way I am. This here mare’s got a fortune in her for a man like you.”
“Now howl’ yer tongue!” interposed M’Nab, who, with the half-caste—a lithe, active lad of eighteen—had joined us. “Is it swappin’ ye want wi’ decent men? Sure thon poor craytur iv a baste hesn’t got the sthrenth fur till kerry it own hide, let alone a great gommeril on it back. An’ thon’s furnent ye! Hello, Tamson! begog A didn’t know ye at wanst.”
“Good day, Mr. M’Nab. Alterations since I delivered you that wire at Poondoo. Been in the wars?” For M’Nab was leaning forward and sideways in his saddle, evidently in pain.
“Yis,” replied the contractor frankly. “There was some Irish rascals at the pub. thonder, where we stapped las’ night; an’ wan word brung on another, an’ at long an’ at last we fell to, so we did; an’ A ’m dam but they got the betther o’ me, being three agin wan. A b’lee some o’ me ribs is bruk.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Thompson, straining a point for courtesy.
“Are you an Orangeman too, sonny?” I asked the half-caste aside; for the young fellow had a bunged eye, and a flake of skin off his cheek-bone.
“No, by Cripes!” responded my countryman emphatically. “Not me. That cove’s a (adj.) liar. He don’t give a dam, s’posin’ a feller’s soul gits bashed out. Best sight I seen for many a day was seein’ him gittin’ kicked. If the mean begger’d on’y square up with me, I’d let summedy else do his”—
“Thon’s a brave wee shilty, sur—thon grey wan o’ yours,” broke in the contractor, who had been conversing with Thompson, whilst looking enviously at Fancy, hitched behind the wagon. “Boys o’ dear,” he added reflectively, “she’s just sich another as may wee Dolly; an’ A’ve been luckin’ fur a match fur Dolly this menny’s the day. How oul’ is she, sur?”
“Six, this spring.”
“Ay-that! Ye wudn’t be fur partin’ we her, sur? A ’m mortial covetious fur till git thon baste. Houl’ an”—he pondered a moment, glancing first, at the honest-looking hack he was riding, then at the magnificent animal which carried the half-caste. “Houl’ an. Gimme a thrifle fur luck, an’ take ether wan o’ them two. A’ll thrust ye till do the leck fur me some time afther.”
He had been travelling with the red-headed fellow, and the fascination of swapping was upon him, poorly backed by his suicidal candour. The utter simplicity of his bracketing his own two horses—worth, respectively, to all appearance, £8 and £30—and the frank confession of his desire to have my mare at any price, made me feel honestly compunctious.
“Now thon’s a brave loose lump iv a baste,” he continued, following my eye as I glanced over the half-caste’s splendid mount. “Aisy till ketch, an’ as quite as ye plaze.”
“How old is he, Mr. M’Nab?”
“He must be purty oul’, he’s so quite and thractable. Ye kin luck at his mouth. A don’t ondherstand the marks myself.”
I opened the horse’s mouth. He was just five. I regret to record that I shook my head gravely, and observed:
“You’ve had him a long time, Mr. M’Nab?”
“Divil a long. A got him in a swap, as it might be this time yistherday. There’s the resate. An’ here’s the resate the man got when he bought him out o’ Hillston poun’. Ye can’t go beyant a poun’ resate.”
“Why do you want to get rid of the horse, Mr. M’Nab?”
“Begog, A don’t want till git red iv the baste, sich as he is,” replied M’Nab resentfully. “But A want thon wee shilty, an’ A evened a swap till ye, fur it’s a prodistaner thing nor lavin’ a man on his feet, so it is.”
“See anything wrong with the horse, Steve?” I asked in an undertone.
“Perfect to the eye,” murmured Thompson. “Try him a mile, full tilt.”
I made the proposal to M’Nab, and he eagerly agreed. At my suggestion, the half-caste unhitched and tried Fancy, while I mounted the black horse, and turned him across the plain. I tried him at all paces; but never before had I met with anything to equal that elastic step and long, easy, powerful stride. To ride that horse was to feel free, exultant, invincible. His gallop was like Marching Through Georgia, vigorously rendered by a good brass band. All that has been written of man’s noblest friend—from the dim, uncertain time when some unknown hand, in a leisure moment, dashed off the Thirty-ninth chapter of the Book of Job, to the yesterday when Long Gordon translated into ringing verse the rhythmic clatter of the hoof-beats he loved so well—all might find fulfilment in this unvalued beast, now providentially owned by the softest of foreigners.
“Well?” interrogated M’Nab, as I rejoined him.
“Don’t you think he’s a bit chest-foundered?” I asked in reply.
“Divil a wan o’ me knows. Mebbe he is, begog. Sure A hedn’t him long enough fur till fine out.”
“And how much boot are you going to give me?” I asked, with a feeling of shame which did honour to my heart.
“Och, now, lave this! Boot! is it? Sure A cud kerry thon wee shilty ondher may oxther! Ye have a right till be givin’ me a thrifle fur luck. A’ll let ye aff we two notes.”
But after five minutes’ more palaver, M’Nab agreed to an even swap. I had pen and ink in my pocket; my note-book supplied paper; and receipts were soon exchanged. Then the saddles were shifted, and we cantered ahead till we rejoined Thompson. I tied my new acquisition behind the wagon, where, for the first five minutes, he severely tested the inch rope which secured him.
“Now, Mr. M’Nab,” said I, “I’ll give you my word that the mare is just what you see. You may as well tell me what’s wrong with the horse?”
“Ax Billy about thon. Mebbe he’s foun’ out some thricks, or somethin’.”
“Well, look here,” said Billy devoutly—“I hope Gord’ll strike me stark, stiff, stone dead off o’ this saddle if the horse has any tricks, or anythin’ wrong with him, no more nor the man in the moon. Onna bright. There! I’ve swore it.”
“Well, the mare is as good as gold,” I reiterated. “She’s one among a hundred. Call her Fancy.”
“The horse’s name’s Clayopathra,” rejoined M’Nab; “an’ by gog ye’ll fine him wan out iv a thousan’. A chris’ned him Clayopathra, fur A thought till run him.”
“A very good name too,” I replied affably. “I should be sorry to change it.”
And I never did change it, though, often afterward, men of clerkly attainments took me aside and kindly pointed out what they conceived to be a blunder. I have dwelt, perhaps tediously, upon this swap; my excuses are—first, that, having made few such good bargains during the days of my vanity, the memory is a pleasant one; and, second, that the horse will necessarily play a certain part in these memoirs.
“Well, we’ll be pushin’ an, Billy,” said M’Nab; “the sun’s gittin’ low. An’ you needn’t tail me up enny fardher,” he added, turning to Rufus. “Loaf an these people the night. A man thravellin’ his lone, an’ nat a shillin’ in his pocket!”
“O, go an’ bark up a tree, you mongrel!” replied the war-material, with profusion of adjective. “Fat lot o’ good tailin’ you up! A man that sets down to his dinner without askin’ another man whether he’s got a mouth on him or not! Polite sort o’ (person) you are! Gerrout! you bin dragged up on the cheap!”
“Come! A’ll bate ye fifty poun’ A ’m betther rairt nor you! Houl’ an!—A’ll bate ye a hundher’—two hundher’, if ye lek, an’stake the money down this minit”—
“Stiddy, now! draw it mild, you fellers there!” thundered Cooper from behind. “Must
n’t have no quarrellin’ while I’m knockin’ round.”
“Ye’ll be late gettin’ to the ram-paddock, Tamson,” remarked M’Nab, treating Cooper with the silent contempt usually lavished upon men of his physique. “Axpect thon’s where ye’re makin’ fur?”
“I say—you better camp with us to-night,” suggested Thompson, evading the implied inquiry.
Without replying, the contractor put his horse into a canter, and, accompanied by his esquire, went on his way, pausing only to speak to Mosey for a few minutes as he passed the foremost team.
“Curious sample o’ (folks) you drop across on the track sometimes,” remarked Rufus, who remained with us.
“No end to the variety,” I replied. Then lowering my voice and glancing furtively round, I asked experimentally, “Haven’t I seen you before, somewhere?”
“Queensland, most likely,” he conjectured, whilst finding something of interest on the horizon, at the side farthest from me. “Native o’ that district, I am. Jist comin’ across for the fust time. What’s that bloke’s name with the nex’ team ahead—if it’s a fair question?”
“Bob Dixon.”
“Gosh, I’m in luck!” He spurred his mare forward, and attached himself to Dixon for the rest of the afternoon.
But time, according to its deplorable habit, had been passing, and the glitter had died off the plain as the sun went on its way to make a futile attempt at purifying the microbe-laden atmosphere of Europe.
At last we reached the spot selected as a camp. Close on our left was the clump of swamp box which covered about fifty acres of the nearer portion of the selection, leaving a few scattered trees outside the fence. On our right, the bare plain extended indefinitely.