Such Is Life

by Tom Collins

  “Wait, Moriarty—what’s Martin’s horse like? I might see him.”

  “Liver-colour; star and snip; white hind feet; bang tail. One of the best mokes on the station. Belongs to Martin himself. I hope he’ll scratch the bridle off, and roll on the saddle till it’s not worth a cuss. I say—if Martin should find his way here before the fellows get clear, will you just tell him I fancied I saw his horse going for the Connelly paddock, and I shot after him hell-for-leather. No message for Mrs. Beaudesart? Well, so long.” And the good and faithful young servant cantered away toward an adjacent cane-grass swamp.

  I was picking up my possum rug and saddle, when I heard Dixon’s voice, in earnest entreaty. Looking round, I saw him sitting on the edge of his hammock.

  “Say, Collins—will you fetch my (adj.) bullocks, while yer hand’s in? I can’t har’ly move this mornin’.”

  “Yes, Dixon; I won’t see you beat, if I can help it. What’s the matter?”

  “Well, I was on top o’ my load las’ night, gittin’—gittin’ some tobacker an’ matches; an’ I come a buster on top o’ one o’ the yokes here. It’s put a (adj.) set on me, any road.”

  With a few words of condolence, I entered the paddock, carrying my saddle and bridle. As I came in sight of Cleopatra, I was constrained to pause and reflect. The horse was feeding composedly, saddled and bridled; a pair of hobbles hanging to the saddle. The bridle was a cheap affair, but the saddle was as good as they make them in Wagga, and quite new. During the previous afternoon, I had marked something incongruous in Bum’s ownership of such a piece of furniture. But being always, I trust, superior to anything like surprise, I saddled and mounted Bunyip, took Cleopatra by the rein, and joined the Ishmaelites, who, on their bare-backed horses, were hurrying contingents of cattle from different directions toward the gap of the fence, whilst the fascination of overhanging danger bore so heavily on their personal and professional dignity that every eye kept an anxious look-out toward the ram-paddock. In a few minutes more, we were all outside the fence; and the drivers immediately began yoking. I hooked Cleopatra’s rein on a wool-lever, and, still riding Bunyip, kept Thompson’s and Cooper’s bullocks together. Mosey’s dog was performing the same office for him and Price. Willoughby hadn’t returned with the muster; and Bum was still absent

  “Did you count my (bullocks) ?” demanded Dixon, limping slowly and painfully toward his big roan horse.

  “O you sweet speciment!” retorted Mosey, as he picked up his second yoke. “Why the (compound expletive) don’t you rouse roun’?”

  “How the (same expression) ken I rouse roun’? I got the screwmatics in my (adj.) hip.”

  “Somethin’ like you—Stan’ over, Rodney, or I’ll twist the tail off o’ you—You don’t ketch me havin’ nothin’ wrong o’ me when things is”—

  “No, begad! no you don’t!—take that! ah! would you indeed!—on you go, dem you! s-s-s-s-s! get up there!” It was Willoughby’svoice among the salt-bush; and, the next moment, half-a-dozen beasts leaped the wires and darted, capering and shying, past thewagons. “Quod petis hic est!” panted their pursuer triumphantly.“The mouse may help the lion, remember, according to the old”—

  Then such a cataract of obscenity and invective from Price and Mosey, while Cooper remarked gravely:

  “Them ain’t our bullocks, Willerby; them’s station cattle—shoved in that paddick for something partic’lar. Now they’re off to (sheol); an’ it’s three good hours’ work with a horse an’ stockwhip, to git ’em in here agen. An’ that kangaroo dog ain’t makin’ matters much better. Lord stan’ by us now! for we’ll git (adv.) near hung if we’re caught.”

  And, to be sure, there was Pup looping himself along the plain in hot pursuit. It was no use attempting to call him off, for Nature has not endowed the kangaroo dog with sufficient instinct to bring him in touch with his master, except when the latter offers him food. But there is always some penalty attached to the possession of anything really valuable. So, though I wasn’t interested in the cattle, I was bound to follow them till I recovered my dog. Thompson’s unpretentious stockwhip was in my hand at the time; and, judging it unlikely that Cleopatra had been broken in to the use of that disquieting implement, I was just turning Bunyip round, when Willoughby stepped forward—

  “Permit me to redeem my unfortunate mistake by assisting you!” he exclaimed. “I have ridden to hounds in England. May I take this horse? Thanks. Pray remember that I shall be under your orders, Collins.”

  “Take care might he buck-lep,” I remarked casually, as the whaler gathered Cleopatra’s reins, and threw himself into the deep seat of the new saddle.

  And, to my genuine astonishment, he did buck-lep. But he took no mean advantage of his rider; he allowed him time to find the off stirrup, and then led off with a forward spring about five feet high. Willoughby—small blame to him—was jerked clean out of the saddle, and lit fair across the horse’s loins; in the impulse of self-preservation grasping the cantle with both hands. The small thigh-pads afforded a good rough hold, and the next buck jammed the poor fellow well under the seat of the saddle. The position was neither pleasant nor dignified, though certainly more secure for an amateur than the conventional style; particularly after the horse’s tremendous plunges had raised the back of the saddle a foot or more by dint of fair wedging.

  Price, Mosey, Thompson, and Cooper forgot the dangers of the time, and discontinued their work, drawing near the spot with a carefully preserved air of indifference and pre-occupation. Even Dixon ignored his screwmatics, and composed his demeanour to something like apathy.

  Owing to the leverage of the saddle, the girth was gripping Cleopatra in a ticklish place, and the bow of the saddle was dipping into another ticklish place, whilst Willoughby’s swinging feet provided for the ticklish places on the horse’s thighs and flanks. Cleopatra mistook all this for deliberate provocation, and responded to the very best of his splendid ability. Early in the entertainment, Willoughby’s hat was bucked off his head; presently the Wellington boot was bucked off one foot, and the blucher off the other, the prince-alberts following in due course. Then the portion of attire known to one section of society as ‘linen’, and to another as the ‘beef-bag’, was bucked out of that necessary garment which we shrink from naming. The ground was cut up as if rooted by pigs; yet Cleopatra was only just warming to his work; and the whaler was still clinging to the saddle like a native bear to a branch.

  “God help thee, Jack,” I remarked listlessly; “thou hast a bitter breakfast on’t.”

  “He’ll tire the horse out yet,” said Thompson, with an artificial yawn. “Good lad, Willoughby! stick to him a bit longer.”

  “Got no holt,” observed Dixon. “Gone goose, any time.”

  “He don’t want no pipeclay, anyhow,” said Mosey, with childish levity. “Dark-complexion people ought to steer clear o’ playful horses.”

  All eyes were turned on the young fellow’s face in surprise and reprehension; and he uneasily attempted to carry off his inadvertent solecism with a sort of swagger.

  “The horse can’t hold out much longer at that rate,” repeated Thompson, stooping to lace his boots.

  “Can’t he?” drawled Cooper, poking out the stem of his pipe with a stalk of grass. “He can hold out till something gives way. That’s what he’s in the habit o’ doin’, I’m thinkin’; an’ he ain’t goin’ to break his rule this time.”

  “The Far-downer got at you that trip, Collins,” remarked Mosey, seeking to retrieve his dignity by turning his back on the performance. “He seen you comin’. Say, ole son—how’d you like to swap back?”

  “I kep’ misdoubtin’ that hoss all the (adj.) time,” observed Nestor wisely. “I felt sort o’ jubious, on’y I didn’t wanter say nothink.”

  “There goes the pore (fellow) at last; I knowed the horse would do it,” said Cooper, as the stern captive spurn’d his weary load, and asked the image back that heaven bestowed.

  “Collar the horse quick!”
suggested Dixon. “Nail him now, or you’ll never ketch him.”

  “No great hurry,” I muttered, dismounting. “However, I think I’d better have it out with him while he’s warm. Or perhaps one of you fellows would like a try, while I do his yoking—just for a change?”

  Cleopatra, now nibbling the scanty grass, glanced from time to time with grave sympathy at his late rider, who was occupying himself with his toilet.

  “Ketch the (horse) quick!” reiterated Dixon.

  “I wouldn’t mind if I had my mare back again,” I remarked, as I approached Cleopatra’s head. “By Jacob’s staff I swear I have no mind of trying conclusions with this fellow for a dull, sickening”—

  The adjectives were shorn of their noun, for Cleopatra, accurately gauging his distance, suddenly sprung round and lashed out with both hind feet. You could have struck a match on the smoothest part of my earthly tabernacle as I dodged him by about half an inch. Then he went on cropping the grass as before, while I looked round and inquired with sickly bravado, “What noble Lucumo comes next, to taste our Roman cheer?”

  But the bullock drivers silently repudiated the grim invitation, and hurried back to their work, which they now pursued with redoubled vigour and anxiety. I remounted Bunyip, and caught Cleopatra from his back. Then dismounting, I arranged the new saddle with ostentatious offhandedness, though in a prayerful frame of mind, and presently climbed on as if nothing was the matter. I certainly anticipated Westminster Abbey rather than a peerage; but the horse, with a nonchalance greater than my own, inasmuch as it was genuine, turned quietly round as I pressed the rein against his neck, and sailed away across the plain at his own inimitable canter. Then I looked back to see the bullock drivers disgustedly resume the work they had again suspended.

  By this time the cattle had crossed a cane-grass swamp, and were out of sight; but before I had gone a quarter of a mile I saw Pup coming to meet me, limping and crestfallen. He had probably been kicked by one of the absconders; and as he could see no sign of civilisation except our camp, his sagacity had drawn him back. Well pleased, therefore, I returned to the wagons after a few minutes’ absence.

  “The cattle are out of sight, Steve,” said I, as I rounded up the scattering bullocks. “Not worth while to go after them now.”

  “Let them go, by all means,” replied Thompson, with a ghastly simulation of cheerfulness. “We’ll gladly stand the loss of them,and make the station a present of Bum’s mare besides, if we once get out of sight of this infernal camp—Stand up, Magpie—Just let us yoke up as quickly as if our lives depended on it—which, to tell the truth, is not much of an exag—Hello! where’s Damper?”

  “Stuck in a gluepot, jist in front o’ the (adj.) hut,” replied Mosey, without pausing in his work. “I seen him there—Back, Snailey, or I’ll knock the (adj.) horn off o’ you—but I thought it was one o’ them station cattle till you minded me. Why the (sheol) didn’t you count yer lot properly?”

  A deep oath broke from the lips of the man who never swore. But he controlled himself by a strong effort.

  “How much of him’s above ground?” he asked.

  “(Adv.) little on’y his horns; or else I’d ’a’ knowed him—Wub-back, Major,” replied Mosey reluctantly, as he chained his last pair.

  Then, I grieve to say, Thompson let himself out. No puerile repetition; no slovenly, slipshod work there. It was the performance of a born orator and poet, and one who, like Timothy, had known the Scriptures from a child—a long, involved litany of seething malediction, delivered, moreover, with a measured and effortless eloquence and a grammatical exactitude which left St. Ernulphus a bad second. The other fellows pursued their work in awe-stricken silence, till at length Cooper, glancing toward the ram-paddock, said deprecatingly:

  “—it, man, don’t swear; not now, anyway. I’ll fetch these ten across, an’ they’ll (adv.) soon snake him out. Git that spare rope off o’ my wagon, an’ foller me quick.”

  He brought his yoked bullocks through the gap, and drove them rapidly to the spot indicated by Mosey. Thompson mounted his horse and cantered after, with the heavy coil of rope across the front of his saddle. I accompanied him. At the very extremity of the clump, and not fifty yards from the house, was one of those bottomless quagmires too common in Riverina. It was about twenty yards across; and, in the very centre, Damper’s head and the line of his back appeared above the surface; the straight furrow behind him showing that he had been bogged at the edge, but being unable to turn, and being exceedingly strong and sound, had worked himself along to the middle, where he was slowly settling down.

  In a couple of minutes, one end of the wool-rope—sixty feet long and an inch and a-half in diameter—was looped round the roots of the bullock’s horns, and the team was attached to the fall. Then a slow, steady strain drove Damper’s nose into the ground, and gently shifted him, first forward, then upward, then on to the surface, where he slid smoothly to the solid ground. We released him there, and he staggered to his feet, shook himself thoroughly, and followed the team to the camp, ravenously snatching mouthfuls of grass as he went along.

  Price and Mosey had just got under way. Willoughby was trying to yoke Dixon’s leaders, while Dixon, owing to his screwmatics, could do nothing but sit on his horse, cursing with wearisome tautology, and casting glances of frantic apprehension toward the ram-paddock. His anxiety was not unreasonable, for there had just come into sight an upright speck, too small to be a horseman; and it was easy to guess who was the likeliest person to be coming on foot from that direction. There is a limit to the dignified sufficiency even of a bullock driver; and the unhappy conjecture of circumstances had driven Dixon past this point.

  “Stiddy, now; go stiddy, an’ keep yer (adj.) mouth shut. Now lay right (adv.) bang up to him; jam him agen the off-sider, so’s he can ’t shift. There! block him! (Sheol)! Let him rip now. O may the” &c., &c.

  “Dixon! Dixon! I must protest”—

  “Purtest be (verbed). Fetch ’em up agen. Don’t be frightened; they ’on’t bite. Yoke on yer other (adj.) shoulder. Right. Git well up agen him this time. Lay yer whole (adj.) weight on-to him, an’ jam him, so’s he can’t budge if it was to save his (adj.) life.”

  Willoughby, with the yoke on his shoulder, and the off-side bow in his hand, gingerly approached the excited bullocks, essaying a light touch on the near-sider’s shrinking shoulder. The next moment, he was reeling backward, and both bullocks were gone. Eve’s curse on Cain, in Byron’s fine drama, is mere balderdash to what followed on Dixon’s part.

  “Dem your soul, you uncultivated savage! you force me to inform you that your helpless condition was my incentive to these well-meant efforts on your behalf—as, begad! it is now the only consideration which restrains”—

  “O, go to (sheol). you’re no (adj.) good. You ain’t fit to (purvey offal to Bruin). An’ here’s them (adj.) sneaks gone; an’ Martin he’ll be on top o’ me in about two (adj.) twos; an’ me left by my own (adj.) self, like a (adj.) natey cat in a (adj.) trap. May the holy” &c., &c. “If I’d that horse,” he continued, glancing furiously at Cleopatra, “I’d make him smell (adj. sheol).”

  “Nonsense, Dixon,” said I pleasantly; “the horse is not annoying you. Ah! Willoughby; Ne ultra—no, let’s see—Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Let me try my hand there. I took my degree of B.D.—which doesn’t always signify Bachelor of Divinity—before you took your B.A. Will you just bring up the unspeakables as Dixon points them out.”

  “Palmam qui meruit ferat,” responded Willoughby, instantly recovering his temper. “Smoker—Nelson—dem your skins, come up once more!”

  Dixon’s bullocks were exceptionally docile, for that uncultivated animal was one of the most humane and skilful drivers in Riverina; therefore, about twenty-five minutes sufficed to place his team in readiness for a start.

  “You might as well come along o’ me for a change,” said he to Willoughby. “We’ll git on grand together. I’m a quiet, agreeable sort o’ (person), though I
say it myself; an’ I wouldn’t wish for better (adj.) company nor you. Come on; you won’t be sorry after.”

  “Quoeunque trahunt fata sequamur,” rejoined Willoughby, bowing gaily to me. Then taking up the whip—Dixon was a virtuoso in whips, and always carried one with six feet of handle, and twelve feet of lash—he aimed at the team, collectively, a clip which, in the most literal sense, recoiled on himself. And so the officer’s son and the sojer’s son took their way together; to become, as I afterward learned, the most attached and mutually considerate friends on the track. Such is life.

  Thompson and Cooper, now ready for the road, were repairing the fence as well as they could. This being done, and the relics of the fire kicked about, they put their teams in motion, leaving little trace of the camp, except Bum’s mare, standing asleep outside the fence. The ominous speck on the plain had approached much nearer, but had taken definite form as an emu; and now the negative blessing of escape seemed like a positive benefaction. “If,” says Carlyle, “thou wert condemned to be hanged—which is probably less than thou deservest—thou wouldest esteem it happiness to be shot.”

  Serene gratitude therefore shone in the frank faces of the outlaws; tempered, however, in Thompson’s case, by salutary remorse, for his companion had reproachfully asked him what the (adj. sheol) good his swearing had done.