Such Is Life (2 page)

I had known Dixon for many years. He was a magnificent specimen of crude humanity; strong, lithe, graceful, and not too big—just such a man as your novelist would picture as the nurse-swapped offspring of some rotund or rickety aristocrat. But being, for my own part, as I plainly stated at the outset, incapable of such romancing, I must register Dixon as one whose ignoble blood had crept through scoundrels since the Flood. Though, when you come to look at it leisurely, this wouldn't interfere with aristocratic, or even regal, descent—rather the reverse.

Old Price had carted goods from Melbourne to Bendigo in '52; a hundred miles, for £100 per ton. He had had two teams at that time, and, being a man of prudence and sagacity, had two teams still, and was able to pay his way. I had known him since I was about the height of this table; he was Old Price then; he is Old Price still; and he will probably be Old Price when my head is dredged with the white flour of a blameless life, and I am pottering about with a stick, hating young fellows, and making myself generally disagreeable. Price's second team was driven by his son Mosey, a tight little fellow, whose body was about five-and-twenty, but whose head, according to the ancient adage, had worn out many a good pair of shoulders.

Willoughby, who was travelling loose with Thompson and Cooper, was a whaler. Not owing to any inherent incapacity, for he had taken his B.A. at an English university, and was, notwithstanding his rags and dirt, a remarkably fine-looking man; bearing a striking resemblance to Dixon, even in features. But as the wives of Napoleon's generals could never learn to walk on a carpet, so the aimless popinjay of adult age can never learn to take a man's place among rough-and-ready workers. Even in spite of Willoughby's personal resemblance to Dixon, there was a suggestion of latent physical force and leathery durability in the bullock driver, altogether lacking in the whaler, and equiponderated only by a certain air of refinement. How could it be otherwise? Willoughby, of course, had no horse—in fact, like Bassanio, all the wealth he had ran in his veins; he was a gentleman. Well for the world if all representatives of his Order were as harmless, as inexpensive,
and as unobtrusive as this poor fellow, now situated like that most capricious poet, honest Ovid, among the Goths.

One generally feels a sort of diffidence in introducing one's self; but I may remark that I was at that time a Government official, of the ninth class; paid rather according to my grade than my merit, and not by any means in proportion to the loafing I had to do. Candidly, I was only a Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector, but with the reversion of the Assistant-Sub-Inspectorship itself when it should please Atropos to snip the thread of my superior officer.

The repast being concluded, the drivers went into committee on the subject of grass—a vital question in '83, as you may remember.

“It's this way,” said Mosey imperatively, and deftly weaving into his address the thin red line of puissant adjective; “You dunno what you're doin' when you're foolin' with this run. She's hair-trigger at the best o' times, an' she's on full cock this year. Best watched station on the track. It's risk whatever way you take it. We're middlin' safe to be collared in the selection, an' we're jist as safe to be collared in the ram-paddick. Choice between the divil an' the dam. An' there's too big a township o' wagons together. Two's enough, an' three's a glutton, for sich a season as this.”

“I think Cooper and I had better push on to the ram-paddock,” suggested Thompson. “You three can work on the selection. Division of labour's the secret of success, they say.”

“Secret of England's greatness,” mused Dixon. “I forgit what the (irrelevant expletive) that is.”

“The true secret of England's greatness lies in her dependencies, Mr. Dixon,” replied Willoughbly handsomely; and straightway the serene, appreciative expression of the bullock driver's face, rightly interpreted, showed that his mind was engaged in a Graeco-Roman conflict with the polysyllable, the latter being uppermost.

“Well, no,” said Mosey, replying to Thompson; “no use separatin' now; it's on'y spreadin' the risk; we should 'a' separated yesterday. I wouldn't misdoubt the selection, on'y Cunningham told me the other day, Magomery's shiftin' somebody to live there. If that's so, it's up a tree, straight. The ram-paddick's always a risk—too near the station.”

“The hut on the selection was empty a week ago,” I remarked. “I know it, for I camped there one night.”

“Good grass?” inquired a chorus of voices.

“About the best I've had this season.”

“We'll chance the selection,” said Mosey decidedly. “Somebody can ride on ahead, an' see the coast clear. But they won't watch a
bit of a paddick in the thick o' the shearin', when there's nobody livin' in it.”

“Squatters hed orter fine grass f'r wool teams, an' glad o' the chance,” observed Price, with unprintable emphasis.

“Lot of sense in that remark,” commented Mosey, with a similar potency of adjective.

“Well, this is about the last place God made,” growled Cooper, the crimson thread of kinship running conspicuously through his observation, notwithstanding its narrow provinciality.

“Roll up, Port Phillipers! the Sydney man's goin' to strike a match!” retorted Mosey. “I wonder what fetched a feller like you on-to bad startin'-ground. I swear we didn't want no lessons.”

Cooper was too lazy to reply; and we smoked dreamily, while my kangaroo dog silently abstracted a boiled leg of mutton from Price's tucker-box, and carried it out of sight. By-and-by, all eyes converged on a shapeless streak which had moved into sight in the restless, glassy glitter of the plain, about a mile away.

“Warrigal Alf going out on the lower track,” remarked Thompson, at length. “He was coming behind Baxter and Donovan yesterday, but he stopped opposite the station, talking to Montgomery and Martin, and the other fellows lost the run of him. I wonder where he camped last night? He ought to be able to tell us where the safest grass is, considering he's had a load in from the station. But to tell you the truth, I'm in favour of the ram-paddock. If we're caught there, we'll most likely only get insulted—and we can stand a lot of that—but if we're caught in the selection, it's about seven years. Then we can make the Lignum Swamp to-morrow from the ram-paddock, and we can't make it from the selection. So I think we better be moving; it'll be dark enough before we unyoke. I've worked on that ram-paddock so often that I seem to have a sort of title to it.”

“But there's lots o' changes since you was here last,” said Mosey. “Magomery he's beginnin' to think he's got a sort o' title to the ram-paddick now, considerin' it's all purchased. Tell you what I'll do; I'll slip over in two minits on Valiparaiser, an' consult with Alf. Me an' him's as thick as thieves.”

“I'll go with you, Mosey,” said I. “I've got some messages for him. Keep an eye on my dog, Steve.”

Mosey untied the fine upstanding grey horse from the rear of his wagon; I hitched Bunyip to a tree, and mounted Fancy, and we cantered away together across the plain; the ponderous empty wagon—Sydney-side pattern—with eight bullocks in yoke and
twelve travelling loose, coming more clearly into detail through the vibrating translucence of the lower atmosphere, Alf didn't deign to stop. I noticed a sinister smile on his sad, stern face as Mosey gaily accosted him.

“An' how's the world usin' you, Alf? Got red o' Pilot, I notice. Ever see sich a suck-in? Best at a distance, ain't he? Tell you what I come over for, Alf: They say things is middlin' hot here on Runnymede; an' we're in a (sheol) of a (adjective) st—nk about what to do with our frames to-night. Our wagons is over there on the other track, among the pines. Where did you stop las' night? Your carrion's as full as ticks.”

“I had them in the selection; took them out this morning after they lay down.”

“Good shot!”

“Why, I don't see how it concerns you.”

“The selection's reasonable safe—ain't it?”

“Please yourself about that.”

“Is the ram-paddick safe?”

“No.”

“Is there enough water in the tank at the selection?”

“How do I know? There was enough for me.”

“I say, Alf,” said I: “Styles, of Karowra, told me to let you know, if possible, that you were right about the boring rods; and he'll settle with you any time you call. Also there's a letter for you at Lochleven Station. Two items.”

“I'm very much obliged to you for your trouble, Collins,” replied Alf, with a shade less of moroseness in his tone.

“Well, take care o' yourself, ole son; you ain't always got me to look after you,” said Mosey pleasantly; and we turned our horses and rode away. “Evil-natured beggar, that,” he continued. “He's floggin' the cat now, 'cos he laid us on to the selection in spite of his self. If that feller don't go to the bottomless for his disagreeableness, there's somethin' radic'ly wrong about Providence. I'm a great believer in Providence, myself, Tom; an' what's more, I try to live up to my (adj.) religion. I'm sure
I
don't want to see any pore (fellow) chained up in fire an' brimstone for millions o' millions o' years, an' a worm tormentin' him besides; but I don't see what the (adj. sheol) else they can do with Alf. Awful to think of it” Mosey sighed piously, then resumed, “Grand dog you got since I seen you last. Found the (animal), I s'pose?”

“No, Mosey. Bought him fair.”

“Jist so, jist so. You ought to give him to me. He's bound to
pick up a bait with you; you're sich a careless &c., &c.” And so the conversation ran on the subject of dogs during the return ride.

On our reaching the wagons, it was unanimously resolved that the selection should be patronised. This being so, there was no hurry—rather the reverse—for the selection was not to be reached till dusk.

You will understand that the bullock drivers' choice of accommodation lay between the selection, the ram-paddock, and a perisher on the plain. The selection was four or five miles ahead; the near corner of the ram-paddock about two miles farther still; whilst a perisher on the plain is seldom hard to find in a bad season, when the country is stocked for good seasons. Runnymede home-station—Mooney and Montgomery, owners; J. G. Montgomery, managing partner—was a mile or so beyond the further corner of the ram-paddock, and was the central source of danger.

Presently the tea leaves were thrown out of the billies; the tucker-boxes were packed on the pole-fetchels; and the teams got under way. Thompson pressed me to camp with him and Cooper for the night, and I readily consented; thus temporarily eluding a fatality which was in the habit of driving me from any given direction to Runnymede homestead—a fatality which, I trust, I shall have no further occasion to notice in these pages.

We therefore tied Fancy beside Thompson's horse at the rear of his wagon, and disposed Bunyip's pack-saddle and load on the top of the Wool; the horse, of course, following Fancy according to his daily habit.

A quarter of a mile of stiff pulling through the sand of the pine-ridge, and the plain opened out again. A short, dark, irregular line, cleanly separated from the horizon by the wavy glassiness of the lower air, indicated the clump of box on the selection, four miles ahead; and this comprised the landscape.

Soon we became aware of two teams coming to meet us; then three horsemen behind, emerging from the pine-ridge we had left. As the horsemen gradually decreased their distance, the teams met and passed us without salutation; sullenly drawing off the track, in the deference always conceded to wool. Victorian poverty spoke in every detail of the working plant; Victorian energy and greed in the unmerciful loads of salt and wire, for the scrub country out back. The Victorian carrier, formidable by his lack of professional etiquette and his extreme thrift, is neither admired nor caressed by the somewhat select practitioners of Riverina.

Then the three horsemen overtook Cooper, pausing a little, after
the custom of the country, to gossip with him as they passed. According to another custom of the country, Thompson, Willoughby and I began to criticise them.

“I know the bloke with the linen coat,” remarked Thompson. “His name's M'Nab; he's a contractor. That half-caste has been with him for years, tailing horses and so forth, for his tucker and rags. Mac's no great chop.”

“He lets his man Friday have the best horse, at all events,” said I. “Grand-looking beast, that black one the half-caste is riding.”

“By Jove, yes,” replied Willoughby. “Now, Thompson—referring to the discussion we had this morning—that is the class of horse we mount in our light cavalry.”

“And that strapping red-headed galoot, riding the bag of bones beside him, is what you would call excellent war-material?” I suggested.

“Precisely, Mr. Collins,” replied the whaler. “Nature produces such men expressly for rank and file; and I should imagine that their existence furnishes sufficient rejoinder to the levelling theory.”

“Quite possible the chap's as good as either of you,” remarked Thompson, seizing the opportunity for reproof. “Do you know anything against him?”

“Well, to quote Madame de Staël,” replied Willoughby, “he abuses a man's privilege of being ugly.”

“Moreover, he has left undone a thing that he ought to have done,” I rejoined. “He ought to be taking a spell of carrying that mare. And pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy”…

“'Day, chaps,” said Rufus, as he joined us. “Keep on your pins, you beggar”—and he drove both spurs into his mare's shrinking flanks. “Grey mare belongs to you, boss—don't she?—an' the black moke with the Roman nose follerin'? I was thinkin' we might manage to knock up some sort o' swap. Now this mare's a Patriarch, she is; and you mightn't think it. I won this here saddle with her at a bit of a meetin' las' week, an' rode her my own self—an' that's oc'lar demonster. I tell you, if this here mare had a week spell, you couldn't hold her; an' she'd go a hundred mile between sunrise an' sunset, at the same bat. Yes, boss; it's the breed does it. I seen some good horses about the King, but swelp me Gawd I never seen a patch on this mare; an' you mightn't think it to look at her jist now. Fact is, boss, she wants a week or a fortnit spell. Couldnn't we work up some sort o' swap for that ole black moke o' yours, with the big head? If I got a trifle o' cash to boot, I wouldn't
mind slingin' in this saddle, an' takin' yours. Now, boss, don't be a (adj.) fool.”