Such Is Life (6 page)

“Killed her?” suggested Mosey.

“I caught the horse, an' got her clear, an' carried her into the house, all covered with blood, an' just like a corp; an' I left her there with the married woman we had, while I went for the doctor. Well, there she laid for weeks, half-ways between dead an' alive, an' me like a feller in a dream, thinkin' an' thinkin', an' not able to rec'lect anything but the hammerin's I used to give her, an' the things I used to take off of her, an' set her cryin'. I wouldn't go through that lot agen, not if I got a pension for it. Well, by-'n'-by she got her senses complete; an' this young feller he had been hangin' about the house every day, sayin' nothing to nobody; but when she begun to come round, he begun to keep away. At last she was all right in regard o' health, but she was disfigured for life; she had to wear a crape veil down to her mouth. Then the young feller he used to come sometimes an' just shake hands with her, but otherways he wouldn't touch her with a forty-foot pole. Then he begun to stop away altogether; an' by-'n'-by he suddenly got married to a girl out o' the lowest pub. for ten mile round; an' his father—real decent ole bloke he was—he told him never to show his face about the place agen. But there was no end o' go in him. He had an uncle in Sydney, middlin' rich, a ship-chandler, an' this”—

“What's a ship-chandler?” demanded Mosey.

“A man that supplies candles to ships,” I replied.

“This uncle he'd had a saw-mill left on his hands, out somewhere south; an' he give the saw-mill to the young feller on sort o' time-payment; an' I believe he got on splendid for a couple or three year; an' his wife had one picaninny—so we come to hear—an' suddenly he balled her out with some other feller. I on'y got hearsay for it, mind, but I know it's true; for it's just what ought to happen. Anyhow, the hand of God was on him, an' he got it hot an' heavy. Accordin' to accounts, he sold out, an' give her the bulk o' the cash, an' then he travelled. Last year, out on the Namoi, a man told me he seen him bullock drivin' in the Bland country, seven year ago. It might be him, or it mightn't. I don't know,
an' I don't want to know; for he's done all the harm he could. I got to thank him for all my troubles. On'y for him, I'd 'a' been livin' comfortable in the ole spot still. I don't mention these things not once every three year on a average; but sometimes when you think I'm pleasant an' cheerful, I'm fair wild with thinkin' about that blasted cur; an' you chaps fetched him up fresh in my mind to-night.”

“And the poor girl—is she still at home?” asked Thompson.

“No,” replied Cooper hoarsely; “she's somewhere at the bottom o' the Hawkesbury river; an' there's no more home. About three or four year after her accident, I was away in Sydney one time, on some business about shares; an' when I come home, Molly was gone. She'd left a letter for me, sayin' she'd nothing to live for; an' we 'd meet on the other side o' the grave; an' I must always think kind of her; an' to remember ole times, when there was on'y the two of us; an' prayin' God to bless me for always bein' good to her—Why it knocked me stiff, for I'd always been a selfish, unfeelin'”—He stopped abruptly; he had uttered the last sentences only by a strong effort.

Presently Dixon, pitying his emotion, remarked to Thompson in a gratuitously lively tone, and with diction too florid for exact reproduction,

“Say—was I tellin' you I seen that white bullock you swapped to Cartwright las' year? I think he's gittin' a cancer; mebbe it's on'y blight; I wouldn't say. An' that lyin' (individual), Ike Cunningham, told me he busted his self with trefile jist after Cartwright got him.”

“Ah!” replied Thompson absently.

“What become o' yer place?” asked Mosey, turning to Cooper. “I'll answer that question, but not to satisfy you,” replied Cooper coldly. “Well, chaps, when pore Molly's day was fixed, I scraped up a hundred notes, an' borrered two hundred on the place, to give her a start when the thing took place. My ole dad he left everything to me, with strict orders to see Molly through. He didn't want to make her a bait for loafers. Well, when the thing was squashed—me, like a fool, I was advised to lay the money out in minin' shares for Molly; an' then I kep' risin' more money, an' buyin' more shares; an' I got sort o' muddled somehow; an' to make a long story short, the whole (adj.) thing went to (sheol). It was goin' that road when I seen the last o' pore Molly; an' when I lost her, I jist roused round an' got a team together, an' signed everything the lyin', cheatin' (financiers) told me to sign; an' then
I cleared off. Must be gittin' on for—let's see—Molly was twenty-three when she got her accident, an' it was three year after when she made away with herself. That was nine year ago, so she'd be thirty-five if she was alive now. She needn't 'a' done it! O, she shouldn't 'a' done it!—for she'd the satisfaction o' knowin' the curse that come on that blasted dog! I told her all the particulars I got, thinkin' to satisfy her; but I believe it on'y done her harm, for the end come a week or ten days after. Seems strange, lookin' back at it, to think how simple our fam'ly's been broke up, an' my gran'father's old home gone into the hands o' strangers.”

“Never got a trace of your sister?” asked Thompson.

“Not a trace. Some people would have it she was gone to America, or California, or somewhere—but why would she go? Me an' the Ryans—that was the married couple we had—we knowed most about it, an' we cared most; an' we was sure from the first, though we done everything that could be done. She went away at night, an' took nothing with her—not a single item o' clothes, but jist as she stood. Ah! I'd give what little I got, an' walk a thousand mile on to the back of it, to see her pore bones buried safe, an' then I'd be satisfied.”

Cooper sighed deeply, and lit his pipe; then, for a time, the utter stillness of the bright starlight was broken only by the faint jingle of the horses' hobble-chains, and the sound of some of the nearer bullocks cropping the luxuriant grass.

“The ram-paddick's a fool to this spot,” remarked Mosey, at length. “Mind you, it was friendly of Number Two to lay us on. On'y decent thing I ever knowed him to do. He ain't the clean spud.”

“He's ill-natured, certainly,” observed Thompson; “but I can't help taking an interest in him. As a general rule, the more uncivilised a man is, till you come right down to the level of the blackfellow, the better bushman he is; but I must say this of Thingamybob, that he comes as near the blackfellow”—

“Hold on,” interrupted Dixon, whose private conversation with Bum had caused him to lose step in the march of conversation—“Who the (sheol) is this Thingamybob—bar sells?”

“I wish somebody would fetch me a drink of water,” replied Thompson, dropping his subject in pointed rebuke of Dixon's behaviour. “I'd rather perish than go for it myself; and I won't live two hours if I don't get it. It's Cooper's fault. When he keeps the meat fresh, it walks away; and when he packs it in salt, and then roasts it in the pan—like this evening—you can see the
salt all over it like frost. Grand remedy for scurvy, and Barcoo rot, and the hundreds of natural diseases that flesh is subject to, as the poet says.”

“Lis'n that (adj.) liar,” growled Cooper, with a fairly successful attempt at easy good-nature. “An' I'm as bad off as him; an' there ain't a whimper out o' me.”

“I'll bring a drink for you both,” said I, rising and taking two pannikins from the lid of the tucker-box. “I wouldn't do it only that I'm famishing, myself; and I'm tired of waiting for some one else to give in.”

Then, whilst helping myself to a drink from the water-bag under the rear of Thompson's wagon, and filling the pannikins for my friends, I couldn't possibly avoid overhearing the conversation which sprang into life the moment my back was turned—

“My lord Billy-be-damd,” remarked Mosey. “Wonder why the (sheol) he ain't at Runnymede to-night, doin' the amiable with Mother Bodysark. Bright pair, them two.”

“Wouldn't trust him as fur's I could sling him,” said Dixon. “Too thick with the (adj.) squatters for my fancy. A man never knows what game that bloke's up to.”

“Can't make him out no road,” confessed Cooper. “Seems a decent, easy-goin', God-send-Sunday sort o' feller; but I'll swear there's more in his head nor a comb'll take out.”

“He calls himself a philosopher,” murmured Thompson; “but his philosophy mostly consists in thinking he knows everything, and other people know nothing. That's the principal point I've seen in him; and we've been acquainted since we were about that high. It was always his way.”

“Who's this Mother Bodysark—if it's a fair question?” asked Cooper.

“Mrs. Beaudesart,” corrected Thompson. “She's a widow woman—sort of forty-second cousin to Mrs. Montgomery, and housekeeper at the station. I never heard of anybody grudging her to Collins.”

“Between ourselves, Thompson,” remarked Willoughby, “his conversation this afternoon rather amused me. It recalled to my mind an excellent and most characteristic pleasantry, which you may not have heard. The story goes that Coleridge once asked Lamb, ‘Did you ever hear me preach?' ‘Preach!' said Lamb; ‘ 'Gad, I never heard you do anything else!' And yet, if Mr. Collins had enjoyed the advantages accruing from even the rudiments of a liberal ed”—

“He's got summick to do with Gub'ment lately,” said Price cunningly. “My 'pinion, he's shadderin' summedy.”

“He ain't a gurl o' that sort,” interposed Bum hastily. “My 'pinion, he's a spieler. No more a detective nor I am.”

I returned to the group. My friends drained their pannikins;Thompson threw his at the tucker-box, and Cooper was just aiming his, when Willoughby, who had shared the frosted mutton, interposed—

“If you please, Cooper.”

“Seen better days, pore (fellow),” observed Cooper sympathetically, as the ripple of the water into the pannikin indicated that the whaler was at the tap.

“Can't see much worse,” mused Thompson.

“My (adj.) oath—can't he?” chuckled Mosey. “Hold on till he gits old.”

“People seem to think Gawd made these here colonies for a rub-bage-heap,” said Bum. “That's the English idear of”—

“Stiddy, Charley,” interrupted Dixon. “Everybody's got a right to live, an' that pore (fellow)'s got jist as much right as me or you. A man ought to show respect to misforcune, Charley.”

“Shall I bring a pannikin of water for any of you gentlemen?” asked Willoughby, without a trace of ironical emphasis on the last word.

“Fetch me one while yer hand's in,” replied Bum.

Willoughby brought the drink. I fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tucker-box the empty pannikin which Burn had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected him as chief hearer of his recommenced discourse—

“Comes as near the blackfellow as it's possible for a white man to get. And you couldn't kill him with an axe. Then start him at any civilised work—such as splicing a loop on a wool rope, or making a yoke, or wedging a loose box in a wheel—and he has the best hands in the country. At the same time, it's plain to be seen that he has been brought up in the class of society that sticks a napkin, in a bone ring, alongside your plate at dinner.” Here Thompson paused, and the recurrence of some distressing memory elicited a half-suppressed sigh.

“There is nothing unreasonable in that phenomenon,” remarked Willoughby—“rather the reverse. Probably the person you speak of is a gentleman. Now, the man who is a gentleman by birth and
culture—by which I mean a man of good family, who has not only gone through the curriculum of a university, but has graduated, so to speak, in society—such a one has every advantage in any conceivable situation. The records of military enterprise, exploration, pioneering, and so forth, furnish abundant evidence of this very obvious fact. You will find, I think, that high breeding and training are conditions of superiority in the human as well as in the equine and canine races; pedigree being, of course, the primary desideratum.
Non generant aquilœ columbas
, we say.”

“Don't run away with the idear that nobody knows who Columbus was,” retorted Bum. “He discovered America—or else my readin's did me (adj.) little good.”

“More power to yer (adj.) elbow, Bum,” said Mosey approvingly. “But, gentleman or no gentleman, if a feller ain't propped up with cash, this country'll (adj.) quick fetch him to his proper (adj.) level.”

“Pardon me if I differ from you, Mosey,” replied Willoughby blandly. “A few months ago, I travelled the Lachlan with a man fitted by birth and culture to be a leader of society; one whose rightful place would be at least in the front rank of your Australian aristocracy. How do you account for such a man being reduced to solicit the demd pannikin of flour?”

“Easy,” retorted the sansculotte: “the duke had jist settled down to his proper (adj.) level—like the bloke you'll see in the bottom of a new pannikin when you're drinkin' out of it.”

“Mosey,” said Cooper impressively; “if I git up off o' this blanket, I'll kick”—(I didn't catch the rest of the sentence). “Give us none o' your (adj.) Port Phillip ignorance here.”

“You can git a drink o' good water in ole Vic., anyhow,” sneered Mosey, with the usual flowers of speech.

“An' that's about all you can git,” muttered Cooper, faithfully following the same ornate style of diction.

“Now, Mosey,” said Willoughby, courteously but tenaciously, “will you permit me to enumerate a few gentlemen—gentlemen, remember—who have exhibited in a marked degree the qualities of the pioneer. Let us begin with those men of whom you Victorians are so justly proud—Burke and Wills. Then you have—”