To Ride a Fine Horse (8 page)

A few other families came to the Cooper country during this time, for it was thought that the season must soon break well and those in first would have the pick of the land. It was not long, however, before they became disheartened by the loneliness and the drought. The blacks did not welcome them as they had the first comers. Very few came forward to be station workers, and every night from the stillness of the bush rose the mournful, and to some ears ‘blood-chilling' chant of the wild people calling on their spirits to send the trouble makers from the land so that rain might fall again.

How long might it be, the settlers wondered, before the sullen tribespeople, wearied of waiting, took the matter into their own hands? It would not be the first time in Queensland that isolated settlements had been wiped out. So one by one, as the rainless months dragged on, the newcomers packed up their waggons and moved out, warning Patsy and John Costello to do likewise. Only these two pioneers and their families held fast to the belief in the good times to come when the stock would fatten on lush, green pastures and the blacks be friendly again.

Only the natives rejoiced
 . . . 

All the same, it was not easy to smile as the dust of the retreating travellers faded into the south. Only the natives rejoiced, believing that the spirits of their dreamtime had triumphed and that very soon even these determined first comers would be on their way.

T
OWARDS
the end of their fourth year at Thylungra, Pumpkin pointed out to Patsy how the cockatoos, swifts and martins were flying low again and the big grass spiders had begun strengthening their webs. Rain must be coming soon, he said, for although there was still scarcely a sign in the sky the wild creatures always seemed to know.

Almost the next day dark clouds came scudding south on a driving wind. Thunder rumbled and great drops of water fell on the parched, cracked earth. The blacks on the river bank began to chant and scream with joy as they rushed to take shelter from the lightning and the sudden driving rain. Storms that had already fallen to the north had brought the mighty Cooper down with its many creeks and tributaries and the roar of the oncoming water could be heard from miles away. Stockmen rushed to saddle their horses and move the cattle to higher ground, for they knew that in a few hours the parched land would be like a shallow inland sea on which the isolated homesteads would seem to float like little Noah's Arks.

Stockmen rushed to move the cattle to higher ground .
 . . 

‘The Wet' had set in with its myriad insects, its blowflies, sore eyes, mildew and bog, but nobody cared about such discomforts for the receding water left behind a waving sea of succulent clover and grass. Wildflowers splashed the once drab grey plains with dazzling colour. The bush blacks came in again with
peace offerings of fat goannas and kangaroo. The curse was broken and all grievances forgotten.

A plague of locusts swept through the country, devouring Patsy's vegetable garden in its path, flying in his face and down the neck of his shirt as he rode around, but he scarcely noticed them. His heart was singing louder than the cicadas and the returning birds, for the time had come to send south for his friends and relatives.

 

‘Things are fine around the Cooper,

All the grass is green again,

You must hear the frogs in Goulburn

That are croaking on our plain!

 

So pack up, stack up your waggons,

And get out along the track,

With your wives and kids and cattle

And join us here, outback!

 

We'll have all the billies boiling

And we'll kill the fatted cow,

For there's plenty here for everyone

Out on the Cooper now.

 

There'll be race meetings and contests

And every sort of fun

And a
“Caide Milla Faltha”

For each and every one.

 

So pack up, stack up your waggons,

And move north from Goulburn town

With your wives and kids and cattle

For the Cooper has come down.'

Stumpy Michael volunteered to escort some of the newcomers for he had a sweetheart in Goulburn and planned to marry as soon as the drought broke. There was great rejoicing when he returned at last, not only with his bride, but with his beloved mother and an Irish tutor for the bush children.

Patsy had built a little mudbrick schoolhouse wherein, from this time on, Mr Healy began the day's lessons straight after breakfast. As folks mostly rose at daylight in the outback this meant about half past six in the morning. Time was reckoned not by clocks, but by the sun, and ‘recreation' was always announced when the shadow of a tree in the yard reached the schoolhouse door. Mr Healy's pupils often described to a younger generation with what bored longing they watched for that shadow as the old teacher's voice droned monotonously on through the long, warm days. Often the tutor would fall into a doze, to be awakened with a start when his spectacles slipped from his nose and fell upon his desk. Soon, however, his pupils learned to catch the glasses in the nick of time and putting them gently down would creep from the schoolroom, returning to their places just as the shadow touched the door.

After the freedom they had enjoyed the Thylungra children found it hard to settle down to any sort of discipline. They had never seen the outside world and could hardly understand that they would one day have to meet and compete with educated people. They had everything they wanted at Thylungra. Their toys were old waggon-wheels, bows and arrows and shanghais made for them by the stockmen, while the doting natives made them boomerangs and little
fishing spears. A game of their own invention was to fill a bullock's horn with sand which, properly aimed, would bring down butterflies and small birds on the wing. They found too a whole world of wonder and discovery in the creatures of the bush and never tired of observing their habits and seeking out their haunts.

Every day seemed to these children to be filled with interest and excitement. Incidents that were often sore tribulations to their elders were the breath of life to the young people. Floods, when the water level climbed the schoolhouse wall, always meant a holiday and so did bush fires, when smoke and dust cast a deep gloom over their world. Then there were unforgettable times when strange things happened, such as a sudden deluge when thousands of tiny fish and frogs would come down with the rain to wriggle and hop as far as the eye could see. Plagues of locusts were another diversion, but even more exciting the occasional plagues of mice or rats that would come surging like a low-moving grey wave across the countryside. All hands, young and old, would be set to work digging trenches around the station buildings and filling them with lime to trap the oncoming armies, while waddies, sticks, pikes and spears were thrashed about in all directions. Where these plagues started and to where they disappeared was one of the great mysteries of the bush.

Another more fearsome wonder for the bush children was a dreadful denizen of the Thylungra waterhole known as the “Tri-anti-wonti-gong'. Not until quite grown up did they realize that this monster was an invention of their mother's to prevent their falling down the treacherously slippery banks and drowning
in the depths below. And strange it was how all the children believed they had actually seen its terrible black shape and fierce, long horns and heard its unearthly bellow echoing down the riverbed.

Very soon many other relatives, including two of Patsy's married sisters and their families, arrived at Cooper's Creek to claim their properties, and as the youngest brother, Jerry, was also now at Thylungra, Patsy's cup of happiness was full. The long years of separation were at an end and life had come pouring into the empty land. The women and children mostly stayed at Thylungra or Kyabra while their own homesteads were going up and Patsy, his brothers and John Costello hurried from one property to another, helping and advising.

Country not needed by their own people had been advertised for sale, bringing dozens more people outback to inspect and usually to buy. Everybody was impressed by the sight of the stock fattening and multiplying on the rich, grass plains, while buyers were further encouraged by the better conditions of a new Land Act and the improved price of beef.

Before long the heavy weight of mortgage was lifted from the shoulders of the pioneers and they were able to lend money to help other settlers get on their feet.

Now the big, happy parties and bush race meetings they had longed for were again part of their lives. Patsy worked hard but he liked to play hard too, and Thylungra quickly earned the name for being a great place for sport and fun. It was not long before the station was employing forty white men including stockmen, drovers, yard builders and carpenters, a
blacksmith, a storekeeper, a married couple as cook and handyman, and of course old Mr Healy, the tutor.

As 7 PD cattle and horses were now constantly on the road to market while new breeding stock was being brought in to build up the Thylungra herd, it was seldom that all these men were in at the station at the same time. Patsy always tried, however, to have the crowd home for Christmas and his own birthday, which he celebrated on St Patrick's Day, the 17th of March. He would organize the year's programme months ahead so no one need miss either these events or the yearly race meeting, but this was by no means an end of it. Whenever there were a few men at the homestead overnight there would be racing, jumping, stunts and practical jokes. When everyone was exhausted by these events, Patsy would start up on his fiddle and Stumpy Michael's musical young wife on the piano they had brought from Goulburn. Then there would be dancing, singing and merry-making until all hours of the night.

Sometimes the boys would complain: ‘It would be all very well if the boss didn't expect us to be up before the sun.'

But Patsy himself was always first on the move, and briskly clanging the station bell. He never seemed to be tired or dispirited and his cheerfulness and the kindly interest he took in his employees endeared him to them all. Everyone ate at the same big table on the verandah and now that the good times had come they ate well. There were few bought luxuries, for transport was still a problem, but Mrs Patsy was expert at making cheeses, pickles, preserves, sausages and
spiced meats, just as she made all the soap and candles used on the station.

Bush towns had now begun to appear and Patsy no longer had to ride so far to register land or post letters. He began to invest money in butcher's shops, houses and bush hotels. He had also become known as a breeder of fine horses and stud cattle, so that dealers as famous as Sidney Kidman and James Tyson would come to Thylungra to purchase his stock.

The horseman-poet Will Ogilvie tells how the finest horse he ever rode was one that bore Patsy's 7 PD brand. This animal had been stolen from Thylungra and was later bought from a pound by Ogilvie who dedicated a book of verse to its memory:

 

‘To all grey horses fill up again

For the sake of a grey horse dear to me. . . .'

 

In this volume we find a poem to ‘Loyal Heart', which runs:

 

‘In journeys far extending,

When courage played its part,

And sunset saw the ending

And dawn had seen the start,

No horse the bushmen bridled could live with Loyal Heart.

 

And so that each beholder

His worth might understand

He carried on his shoulder

The famous P.D. brand

That tells us how they breed them out there in cattle-land. . . .

 

I loved that grey horse madly,

He was my boast and pride,

And Ah! but I walked sadly

The day that Loyal died;

And when he lived no longer I cared no more to ride.'

 

In 1874 Father Dunham, parish priest of the little town of Roma, hearing that many of his flock were now living around the Cooper, decided to pay them a visit. This was an unforgettable occasion for the far western settlers, who all rolled up at Thylungra in their Sunday best to greet him and invite him to their different stations. Among the many children to be christened was Patsy's third son, Pat, then about five years ago, who in later years recalled the incident clearly. He remembered being brought before the awesome stranger, who stood in priestly robes beside an improvised font, surrounded by an unusually hushed gathering of relatives and friends. This was all too much for the little bush boy who, fearing some terrible fate was about to befall him, made a sudden break for freedom and rushed for protection to the native camp. Pumpkin pushed the terrified child into his hut and stood guard until, convinced that no harm was to befall him, he could at last be persuaded to come out from hiding.