Such Is Life (30 page)

“They're across the river now, Alf. Mosey Price told me so, not twenty minutes ago.”

“Across the river!” hissed Alf, half-rising and then falling heavily back, whilst a low moan mingled with the furious grinding of his teeth. “They 've got into Avondale, and Tommy has hunted them across! May the holy”—&c., &c. “Never mind. Let them go. I 've had enough of it. If other people are satisfied, I'm sure
I
am.”

“Who is she?” I thought; and I was just lapsing into my Hamlet-mood—

“Collins!”

“Yes, Alf.”

“Would you be kind enough to lift my dog into the wagon? I haven't been able to call him lately, but he won't be far off.”

“Bad news for you, Alf. The poor fellow got a bait somewhere, and came home to die. He's lying under the wagon, beside your saddle.”

The outlaw turned away his face. ‘Short of being Swift,' says Taine; ‘one must love something.' (Ay, and short of being too morally slow to catch grubs, one must hate something. See, then, that you hate prayerfully and judiciously.)

While I was thinking that every minute's delay would make my journey after the bullocks a little longer, Alf suddenly looked round.

“You needn't stay here,” said he sharply—thin blades of articulation shooting here and there through his laboured whisper, as the water he had drunk took effect on his swollen tongue. “If you would come again in an hour, and give me another turn-over, you would be doing more for me than I would do for you. What day is this?”

“Sunday, December the ninth.”

He pondered awhile. “I've lost count of the days. What time is it?”

“Between one and two, I should think. My watch is at the bottom of the Murray.”

“Afternoon, of course. I think I ought to be dead by this time to-morrow. What's keeping you here? I want to be alone.”

“Don't talk nonsense, Alf. I'll pull you through, if I can only hit the complaint. Have you any symptoms?”

“I don't know. I don't know. I was gradually getting worse and worse for a week, or more; but still able to yoke up a few quiet bullocks to shift the wagon every day; till at last, one night, I just managed to climb in here, to get away from the mosquitos. I don't know what night it was, or how the time has passed since then. Just look at my arms, if you have any curiosity; but don't dare to prescribe for me. I had enough of your doctoring at the Yellow Tank—blast you!”

Without heeding his reminiscence, which has no connection with the present memoir, I untied an old boot-lace which fastened one of his wrist-bands, and drew up the sleeve. The long, sinewy arm, now wet and clammy from the effect of the water he had drunk, was helpless and shapeless, round and rigid; the elbow-joint set at a right-angle, and extremely sensitive to pain.

“There,” said he, with a quivering groan; “the other arm is just the same, and so are my knees and ankles; and my head's fit to burst; and I'm one mass of pains all over. It's all up with me, Collins. Now I only ask one favour of you—and that is to get out of my sight.”

“I'll be back in two or three hours, Alf,” said I, rising. “Keep your mind as easy as possible, and see if you can doze off to sleep.”

So I returned to my own camp, and, with all speed, caught and equipped Cleopatra. Then, after chaining Pup in a shady place, I
stowed some smoking-tackle in the crown of the soft hat I wore; then shed apparel till I was like the photo. of some champion athlete; finally, I stuck the spare clothes, with the rest of my riches, among the branches of a coolibah, out of the way of the wild pigs. The next moment, I was in the saddle, and Cleopatra, after perfunctorily illustrating Demosthenes's three rules of oratory:—the first, Action; the second, ditto; the third, ibid.—turned obediently toward the river, and was soon breasting the cool current, while, with one arm across the saddle, I steered him for the most promising landing-place on the opposite bank.

(Let me remark here, that the man who knows no better than to remain in the saddle after his horse has lost bottom, ought never to go out of sight of a bridge. He is the sort of adventurer that is brought to light, a week afterward, per medium of a grappling-hook in the hollow of his eye. Perhaps the best plan of all—though no hero of romance could do such a thing—is to hang on to the horse's tail. Also, never wait for an emergency to make sure that your mount can swim. Many a man has lost his life through the helpless floundering of a horse bewildered by first and sudden experience of deep water.)

My landing-place happened to be none of the best. After clearing the water, it required all Cleopatra's strength and activity to climb the bank. Having slipped into the saddle as he regained footing, I was lying flat against the side of his neck, to help his centre of gravity and give him a hold with his front feet, when he brushed under a low coolibah, and the spur of a broken branch or something started at the neck of the under-garment which I cannot bring myself to name, and ripped it to the very tail, nearly dragging me off the saddle. When we reached level ground, the vestment alluded to was hanging, wet and sticky, on my arms, like a child's pinny unfastened behind, or, to use a more elegant simile, like the front half of a herald's tabard. What I should have done was to have reversed the thing, and put it on like a jacket; but, being in a desperate hurry, and slightly annoyed by the accident, and not feeling the sun after just leaving the water, I whipped the rag off altogether, and threw it aside. In two seconds more, Cleopatra was stretching away, with his long, eager, untiring stride, towards Yoongoolee home-station, distant about sixteen miles.

Slackening speed now and then to cross creeks and rough places. I found myself following a pad, and noticed the fresh tracks of the bullocks, mile after mile. At last I heard across the lignum the jangle of a brass bell, and the ‘plock, plock' of an iron frog, and
presently my quarry appeared in sight a couple of hundred yards ahead.

To do the boundary-rider justice, he was driving the cattle quietly and considerately. He looked round on hearing the clatter of horse's feet, but my Mazeppa aspect seemed neither to surprise nor disconcert him. He wasn't altogether a stranger to me. For several years I had known him by sight as a solid, phlegmatic man, on a solid, phlegmatic cob; and I suppose he had his own crude estimate of me, though we had never had occasion to exchange civilities.

But now, after a five miles' chase, the sight of the man acted on my moral nature as vinegar is erroneously supposed to act on nitre. I reined-up beside him. The Irresistible was about to encounter the Immovable; and, even in the excitement of the time, I awaited the result with scientific interest. When a collision of this kind takes place, it sometimes happens that the Irresistible bounces off in a more or less damaged state; at other times, the Immovable is scattered to the four winds of heaven in the form of scrap, while the Irresistible, slightly checked, perhaps, in speed, sails on its way. But you can never tell.

“Where are you taking these bullocks?” I demanded in a tone which, I am sorry to say, reflected as little credit on my politeness as on my philosophy.

“Steation yaads,” he replied indifferently, and with a strong English accent.

“Did you take them off purchased land?” I asked, eyeing him keenly.

“Oi teuk 'e (animals) horf of 'e run,” he remarked, rather than replied, without condescending to look at me.

“Do you know what day this is?” I inquired magisterially.

“Zabbath,” he replied kindly.

“And do you know there's a new act passed—Tarkes's Act,' they call it—that makes the removing of working-bullocks from pastoral leasehold, on Sundays, a misdemeanour, punishable by a term of imprisonment not exceeding twelve months, with or without hard labour?”

“Granny!” he remarked.

Driven back in disorder, I hurried up my second line.—

“Do you know who these bullocks belong to?” I inquired ominously.

Something akin to a smile flickered round the shaven lips of the descendant of Hengist as, contemplating the lop ears of his horse, he observedly contentedly,

“Ees, shure; an' 'hat's f'r w'y Oi be a-teakin' of 'em.”

“Well, Alf's laid-up; not able to look after them”—

“Oi've 'eard 'at yaan afoor.”

—“so I 've come to take them back, and leave them at his camp on Mondunbarra.”

“Horrite. Oi wants wun-an'-twenty bob horf o' you afoor 'em (bullocks) tehns reaoun'.”

“Will you have it now, or wait till you get it?” I asked, betrayed by the annoyance of the moment into a species of vulgarity unbecoming an officer and gentleman. “I don't mind paying you the money, provided it clears the bullocks for the future—not otherwise. In the meantime I'm going to take them back—pay or no pay.”

“Be 'e a-gwean to resky 'em?” he inquired, slightly reining his hippopotamus, and looking me frankly in the face, whilst an almost merry twinkle animated his small blue eyes.

“By no means,” I replied suavely; and we rode together for a few minutes in silence.

I had wakened the wrong man. The Immovable had scored. simply because he was a person of one idea, and that idea panoplied in impenetrable ignorance. A compound idea, by the way: namely, that Alf's bullocks were going to the station yards, and that he, Fitz-Hengist, was taking them there. All this was apparent to me as I regarded him out of the corner of my eye.

“Foak bean't a-gwean ter walk on hutheh foak,” he remarked calmly.

“A gentleman against the world for bull-headedness,” I sneered, aiming, in desperation, at the heel by which mother Nature had held him during his baptism in the thick, slab bath of undiluted oxy-obstinacy (scientific symbol, Jn Bl).

“Hordehs is hordehs,” he argued, as the good arrow-point penetrated his epidermis, fair in the vulnerable spot.

I laughed contemptuously. “Fat lot you care for orders! A man in your position talking about orders! Get out!”

“Wot's a (person) to diew?” The point was forcing its way through the sensitive second-skin, or cutis.

“Do!” I repeated, with increasing scorn. “Strikes me, you can do pretty well as you like on this station.”

“Bean't Oi a-diewin' my diewty?” he asked in wavering expostulation—the point now settling in the vascular tissues.

“It's in the blood, right enough,” I retorted, with insolent frankness, and still regarding him out of the corner of my eye. “I believe
you're Viscount Canterbury's brother, on the wrong side of the blanket.”

“Keep 'e tempeh; keep 'e tempeh,” said he deprecatingly, as the poison filtered through his system. “Zpeak 'e moind feear atwixt man an' man. Bean't Oi a-diewin' wot Oi be a-peead f'r diewin'? Coomh!”

“Well, you are a rum character,” I remarked, judiciously assisting the action of the virus. “I'm surprised at a gentleman in your position making excuses like that. Do you know”—and my tones became soft and confidential—“something struck me that you were an Englishman.” (Even this wasn't too strong.) “I wish you were, both for my sake and your own. However, that can't be helped. Now, for the future, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you had your own way, and that you walked a man's bullocks off to the yard while he was helpless. Yes, sir; I'm glad you're not an Englishman. But the sun's too hot for my bare skin, so I must be getting back; and if I've said anything to offend you, I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon.” Then, still regarding him out of the corner of my eye, I turned Cleopatra slowly round.

“'Ole 'aad!” he snorted. “Oi calls 'e a (adj.) feul!”

With this sop to his own dignity, the boundary man slapped his Episcopalian charger round the barrel—not round the flank, for the animal had none—with his doubled cart-whip, and turned off the track at a right-angle, beckoning me to follow. When he had gone twenty yards, he pulled steadily on one rein and, so to speak, wore his ship of the plains round till we faced the cattle again—for I had simultaneously pirouetted Cleopatra on one hind foot.

“Fetch 'em back, Jack,” said he authoritatively. “Put 'em weare 'e got 'em, an' leab'm boide. Iggerant (people) we be; dunno nuffik; carnt diew noffik roight.”

The black collie was sitting where he had stopped on the instant that we had turned off; sitting with his head slightly canted to one side; one ear limp and pendant, the other partly erect, and with something like a smile on his expectant face. On hearing the order, he made a wide circuit round the cattle, and quietly turned them back along the track, where he followed them as before. Meanwhile, Sollicker sullenly slipped off his linen coat, and handed it to me with a low growl. I thanked him with great sincerity, and put it on.

But his glance at me as we fell-in behind the cattle seemed to demand further appreciation; and I was not slow to respond—partly
from a sense of obligation, but principally from a broadening hope of extended concession. I had already selected him as a singularly eligible guardian for Alf's bullocks; and I knew that if I could once get him to accept the trust, nothing short of dynamite would shift him. But the seduction of a direct-action, single-cylinder purpose is a contract not to be taken by any of your mushroom mental firms; and this was a large order. Of course, the diplomatic flunkey-touch of nature has served as a letter of introduction to the man; now I would follow up the national phase of this delicate point of contact.

“No use,” I remarked doggedly. “I give it up. I can't find words. This is not a personal favour. It's an evidence of the principle that makes an Englishman respected all over the world. All over the world, sir; for, you know, the sun follows the English drum-beat right round the earth. Now, I can't flatter you; I'd see you in the bottomless pit first; I'm above anything of that kind; it sort of sticks in my throat; but I can assure you that, in all my experience”—