Such Is Life (31 page)

“‘Ees, 'ees; 'at's horrite; 'at's horrite. Wot d' y' think o' thet (collie) f'r a dorg?”

There was impatience in the first half of the speech, and arrogance in the last. I eased off, and took the branch track.

“He just knocks spots off any dog I've seen working cattle!” I burst-out. “But you can't beat the Scotch collie”—

“Scotch coolie be dang! Doan' 'e know a Smiffiel' coolie? Chork an' cheese, Oi calls 'em.”

“Smithfield collie, of course! Did I say Scotch collie? Of course, the Smithfield collie has been in good hands for hundreds of years; and when you get the pure breed—Just look at that dog! How did you get such a dog as that? Bred him yourself, I suppose?”

“Noa,” he replied good-naturedly. “Oi g'e 'e foor moor troys. Coomh!”

“Bought him a pup?”

“Troy ageean.”

“Got him a present?”

“Troy ageean?”

“Found him?”

“Not dezackly. Troy ageean.”

I shook my head hopelessly, though I could have suggested another title to the ownership of dogs—a very common one, too, and good enough till the proper person comes interfering. Boys'
dogs are generally held under this tenure. My companion, seeing me at fault, remarked with elephantine waggishness,

“'At (dog) coomed deaoun t' me f'm ebm!”

I assumed the look of a man who conceals staggering bewilderment under the transparent disguise of incredulity; and Sollicker, looking, like Thurlow, wiser than any man ever was, enjoyed my discomfiture as much as he was capable of enjoying anything. Then he proceeded with great deliberation to interpret his oracular utterance; but first, with a powerful facial exertion, he wrenched his mouth and nose to one side, inhaling vigorously through the lee nostril, then cleared his throat with the sound of a strongly-driven wood-rasp catching on an old nail, and sent the result whirling from his mouth at a butterfly on a stem of lignum—sent it with such accurate calculation of the distance of his object, the trajectory of his missile, and the pace of his horse, that the mucous disc smote the ornamental insect fair on the back, laying it out, never to rise again. This was but a ceremonious prologue, intended to deepen the impression of the coming revelation.,

“Useter 'ev a 'oss Oi'd ketch hanyweares. ‘Wo, Bob!' 'n' 'ud stan' ioike a statoot t' Oi 'd ketch 'e (animal), 'n' git onter 'im 'n' shove me hutheh 'osses in 'e yaad, 'n' ketch wich (one) Oi want. B't 'e doid hautumn afoor las'—leas'ways, 'e got 'ees 'oine leg deaoun a crack, an' cou'n't recoverate, loike; fr 'e (beast) wur moo 'n twenty y'r ole, 'n' stun blin', 'e wur. Ahterwahs, by gully! Oi got pepper—follerin' ahteh me 'osses hevery mo'nin' afoot. Wet 'n'—droy; day hin, day heaout; tiew, three, foor heaours runnin'; 'n'—‘ey (horses) spankin' abeaout, kickin' oop 'er 'eels loike wuno'clock. ‘Ed ter wark 'em deaoun afoot, loike.”

“But why didn't you hobble them?”

His face reddened slightly. “Me 'obble my 'osses! Tell 'e wot, lad: 'at's Fr w'y 'e C'lonian 'osses bean't no good, aside o' Hing-lish 'osses. Ain't got n' moor g—ts 'n a snoipe. G—ts shocked outen 'em a-gallerpin' in ‘obbles. Tell 'e, Oi seed my (horses) a-gallerpin' foor good heaours, 'n' me ahteh 'em all 'e toirne. Noo 'osses 'ud dure sich gallerpin' in 'obbles. Doan' 'e preach 'obbles ter me, lad. Oi got good 'osses; noo man betteh; 'osses fit f'r a gentleman; on'y C'lonian 'osses 'es C'lonian fau'ts—ahd ter ketch—'ell ter ketch. Fifteen monce—hevery day on it—wet 'n' droy; day hin, day heaout; tiew, three, foor heaours runnnr; 'n' 'ey (horses) spankin' abeaout, kickin' oop 'er 'eels loike wun o'clock, 'n' gittin' wuss 'n' wuss, steed o' betteh 'n' betteh. Toimes, Oi see me a'moos' losin' tempeh.”

I turned away my face to conceal my emotion. Sollicker went on—

“Accohdin', wun mo'nin' las' winteh, heaout Oi goes, o' course; 'n' my 'osses 'edn't n' moo 'rn stahted trampin' loike; 'n' heverythink quiet's zabbath, 'n' nubbody abeout f'r moiles; 'n' horf goos 'em 'osses loike billy-o; horf 'ey goos 'arf-ways reaoun' 'he pad-dick, 'n' inter 'e stockyaad, 'n' 'ere 'ey boides; 'n' 'at dorg a-settin' in 'e panel, a-watchin' of 'em, loike. Neaow, 'ow d'ye ceaount f'r 'at, lad? Doan' 'at nonpulse 'e? Coomh!”

“It does, indeed! You didn't put him on the horses?”

“Noa, s'elp me bob. Neveh clapped heyes honter 'im, not t' Oi seed 'im hahteh my 'osses, a-yaadin' of 'em f'r me. My Missus, she 'lows a hangel fetched 'e (dog) deaown f'm ebm! 'at's w'y Oi calls 'm ‘Jack'.”

“I see!” said I admiringly. Which, the censorious reader will not fail to notice, marked a slight deflection from my moral code. “And he stayed with you, sir?”

“Follered hahteh me 'oss's 'eels heveh since. (Dog) dews heverythink loike a Christian—heverythink b't tork. Hevery mo'nin', hit's ‘Cyows, Jack; we's y' cyows?' An' horf goos Jack, 'ees hown self, 'n' fetches 'e cyows. Hahteh breakfas' hit's ‘'osses, Jack; fetch y' 'osses'. An' horf trots Jack, 'n' presinkly 'e 'osses be in 'e yaad, 'n' 'e (dog) a-settin' in 'e panel, a-watchin' of 'em.”

“Beats all!” I murmured, thinking how the Munchausens run in all shapes; then, desiring to minister occasion to this somewhat clumsy practitioner, I continued, “I suppose you drop across some whoppers of snakes in your rounds, sir?”

“Sceace none. Hain't seed b't wun f'r tiew year pas'; 'n' 'e (reptile) wahn't noo biggeh 'n me w'ip-an'l.”

“Grand horse you're riding,” I remarked, after a pause.

This neatly-placed comment opened afresh Sollicker's well of English undefiled; and another hour passed pleasantly enough, except that Alf's bullocks preyed on my mind, and I wanted them to prey on Yoongoolee instead. I therefore modestly opened my mouth in parable, recounting some half-dozen noteworthy reminiscences, as they occurred to my imagination, and always slightly or scornfully referring to the magnanimous and indomitable hero of my yarn as ‘one of these open-hearted English fools,' or as ‘an ass of a John Bull that hadn't sense enough to mind his own business.' These apologues all seemed to point toward chivalrous succour of the helpless and afflicted as a conspicuous weakness of the English
character; and Sollicker listened with a stolid approbation unfortunately altogether objective in character.

I never dealt better since I was a man. No one has dealt better since Antony harangued the Sollickers of his day on dead Caesar's behalf; but I differed from Antony so largely in result that the comparison is seriously disturbed. There was no more spring in my auditor than in a bag of sand. The honest fellow's double-breasted ignorance stood solidly in the way, rendering prevarication or quibble, or any form of subterfuge, unnecessary on his part. He merely formed himself into a hollow square, and casually glanced at the impossibility of those particular bullocks loafing on his paddock. If they came across the river again, he would hunt them back into Mondunbarra—he would do that much—but Muster M'Intyre's orders were orders. Two bullock drivers (here a truculent look came over the retainer's face) had selected in sight of the very wool-shed; and now all working bullocks found loafing on the run were to be yarded at the station—this lot being specially noticed, for Muster M'Intyre had a bit of a derry on Alf.

By way of changing the subject, Sollicker became confidential. He had been in his present employ ever since his arrival in the country, ten years before, and had never set foot outside the run during that time. He was married, three years ago come Boxing Day, to the station bullock-driver's daughter; a girl who had been in service at the house, but couldn't hit it with the missus. Muster M'Intyre wanted to see him settled down, and had fetched the parson a-purpose to do the job. He had only one of a family; a little boy, called Roderick, in honour of Muster M'Intyre. His own name (true to the 9th rule of the Higher Nomenology) was Edward Stanley Vivian—not Zedekiah Backhand, as the novel-devouring reader might be prone to imagine—and his age was forty-four. If I knew anyone in straits for a bit of ready cash, I was to send that afflicted person to him for relief. He liked to oblige people; and his tariff was fifteen per cent. per annum; but the security must be unexceptionable.

I gave him some details of Alf's sickness, and asked whether he had any medicine at home—Pain-killer, by preference. I have great faith in this specific; and I'll tell you the reason.

A few years before the date of these events, it had been my fortune to be associated, in arduous and unhealthy work, with fifteen or twenty fellow-representatives of the order of society which Daniel O'Connell was accustomed to refer to as ‘that highly important and respectable class, the men of no property'—true makers
of history, if the fools only knew, or could be taught, their power and responsibility. Occasionally one of these potential rulers and practical slaves would come to me with white lips and unsteady pace—

“I say, Tom; I ain't a man to jack-up while I got a sanguinary leg to stan' on; but I'm gone in the inside, some road. I jist bin slingin' up every insect-infected sanguinary thing I've et for the last month; an' I'm as weak as a sanguinary cat I must ding it. Mebbe I'll be right to-morrow, if I jist step over to the pub., an' git”—

Here I would stop him, and endeavour to establish a diagnosis. But a man with the vocabulary of a Stratford wool-comber (whatever a wool-comber may be) of the 16th century—a vocabulary of about two hundred and fifty words, mostly obscene—is placed at a grave disadvantage when confronted by scientific terminology; and my patient, casting symptomatic precision to the winds, and roughly averaging his malady, would succinctly describe himself as sanguinary bad. That was all that was wrong with him. Nevertheless, having a little theory of my own respecting sickness, I always undertook to grapple with the complaint I had noticed as a singular feature in Pain-killer, that the more it is diluted, the more unspeakably nauseous and suffocating it becomes; wherefore, my medicine chest consisted merely of a couple of bottles of this rousing drug. My practice was to exhibit half-a-dozen tablespoonfuls of the panacea in a quart of oxide of hydrogen (vulgarly known as water). When my patient had swallowed that lot, I caused him to lie down in some shady place till the internal conflagration produced by the potent long-sleever had subsided to cherry-red; and then sent him back to his work like a giant refreshed with new wine. I never knew one of those potentates to be sick the second time.

Sollicker didn't know whether his wife had any medicine, but we could see. Accordingly, when the twenty bullocks and the horse had landed themselves on Mondunbarra, close to Alf's camp, we started at a canter, and, after riding a couple of miles, pulled up at a comfortable two-roomed cottage, half-concealed by the drooping, silvery foliage of a clump of myall. Sollicker turned his moke loose in the paddock; I tied my horse to the fence; and we entered the house. A tall, slight, sunburnt, and decidedly handsome young woman, with a brown moustache, was replenishing the fire.

“Theas (gentleman) 'e be a-wantin' zoom zorter vizik f'r a sick man,” remarked the boundary rider, taking a seat.

“D—d if I know whether I got any,” replied his wife, with kindly 
concern, and with an easy mastery of expression seldom attained by her sex. “I'll fine out in about two twinklin's of a goat's tail. Sit down an' rest your weary bones, as the sayin' is. I shoved the kettle on when I seen you comin'.” She opened a box, and produced a small, octagonal blue bottle, which she held up to the light. “Chlorodyne,” she explained; “an' there's some left, better luck. Good thing to keep about the house, but it ain't equal to Pain-killer for straightenin' a person up.” She handed me the bottle, and proceeded to lay the table. I endeavoured to make friends with Roddy, but he was very shy, as bush children usually are.

“He's a fine little fellow, ma'am,” I remarked. “How old is he?”

“He was two years an' seven months on last Friday week,” she replied, with ill-concealed vainglory.

“No, no,” said I petulantly. “What is his age, really and truly?”

“Jist what I told you!” she replied, with a sunny laugh. “Think I was tryin' to git the loan o' you? Well, so help me God! There!”

“Helenar!” murmured her husband sadly. And, as he spoke, an inch of Helenar's tongue shot momentarily into view as she turned her comely face, overflowing with merriment, toward me.

“My ole man was cut out for a archdeacon,” she remarked. “I tell him it's all in the way a person takes a thing. But it's better to be that way nor the other way; an' he ain't a bad ole sort—give the divil his due. Anyway, that's Roddy's age, wrote in his Dad's Bible.”

I laid my hand on the boundary rider's shoulder. “Look here, sir,” said I impressively: “you're an Englishman, and you're proud of your country; but I tell you we're going to have a race of people in these provinces such as the world has never seen before.” And, as I looked at the child, I drifted into a labyrinth of insoluble enigmas and perplexing hypotheses—no new thing with me, as the sympathetic reader is by this time well aware.

The boundary rider shook his head. “Noa,” he replied dogmatically. “Climate plays ole Goozeb'ry wi' heverythink hout 'ere. C'lonians bean't got noo chest, n' mo'n a greyhound.” And he placed his hand on his own abdomen to emphasise his teaching. “W'y leuk at 
'
er
; leuk at 'ee ze'f; leuk at 'e 'oss, ev'n. Ees, zhure; an' Roddy'll be jist sich anutheh. Pore leetle (weed)!”