Such Is Life (7 page)

“Hold on, hold on,” interrupted Mosey. “Don't go no furder, for Gossake. Yer knockin' yerself bad, an' you don't know it. Wills was a pore harmless weed, so he kin pass; but look 'ere—there ain't a drover, nor yet a bullock driver, nor yet a stock-keeper, from 'ere to 'ell that couldn't 'a' bossed that expegition straight through
to the Gulf, an' back agen, an' never turned a hair—with sich a season as Burke had. Don't sicken a man with yer Burke. He burked that expegition, right enough. ‘‘Howlt!
Dis
-
MOUNT
!'Grand style o' man for sich a contract! I tell you, that (explorer)died for want of his sherry an' biscakes. Why, the ole man, here, seen him out beyond Menindie, with his”—

“Pardon me, Mosey—was Mr. Price connected with the expedition?”

“No (adj.) fear!” growled Price resentfully. “Jist happened to be there with the (adj.) teams. Went up with stores, an' come down with wool.”

Willoughby, who probably had wept over the sufferings of Burke's party on their way to Menindie, seemed badly nonplussed. He murmured acquiescence in Price's authority; and Mosey continued, “Well, the ole man, here, seen him camped, with his carpet, an' his bedsteed, an' (sheol) knows what paravinalia; an' a man nothin' to do but wait on him; an'—look here!—a cubbard made to fit one o' the camels, with compartments for his swell toggery, an'—as true as I'm a livin' sinner!—one o' the compartments made distinctly o' purpose to hold his bell-topper!”

“Quite so,” replied Willoughby approvingly. “We must bear in mind that Burke had a position to uphold in the party; and that, to maintain subordination, a commander must differentiate himself by”—

“It's Gord's truth, anyhow,” remarked Price, rousing his mind from a retrospect of its extensive past. And, no doubt, the old man was right; for a relic, answering to Mosey's description, was sold by auction in Melbourne, with other assets of the expedition, upon Brahe's return.

“They give him a lot o' credit for dyin' in the open,” continued the practical little wretch, with masterly handling of expletive—“but I want to know what else a feller like him could do, when there was no git out? An' you'll see in Melb'n', there, a statue of him, made o' cast steel, or concrete, or somethin', standin' as bold as brass in the middle o' the street! My word! An' all the thousands o' pore beggars that's died o' thirst an' hardship in the back country—all o' them a dash sight better men nor Burke knowed how to be—where's theyre statues? Don't talk rubbage to me. Why, there was no end to that feller's childishness. Before he leaves Bray at Cooper's Creek, he drors out—what do you think?—well, he drors out a plan o' forti—(adj.)—fications, like they got in
ole wore-out countries; an' Bray had to keep his fellers workin' an' cursin' at this thing till the time come for them to clear. An' mind you, this was among the tamest blackfellers in the world. Why, Burke was dotin'. Wants a youngfeller, with some life in him, for to boss a expegition; an' on top o' Burke's swellishness an' uselessness, dash me if he wasn't forty!”

“Well, no; he warn't too old, Mosey,” interposed Price deprecatingly. “Wants a experienced man fer sich work. Same time, you couldn't best Burke fer a counterfit.”

“Sing'lar thing, you'll never hear one good word o' that man,” observed Cooper. “Different from all the other explorers. Can't account for it, no road.”

“Another singular thing is that you'll never read a word against him,” added Thompson. “In conversation, you'll always learn that Burke never did a thing worth doing or said a thing worth saying; and that his management of that expedition would have disgraced a new-chum schoolboy; and old Victorian policemen will tell you that he left the force with the name of a bully and a snob, and a man of the smallest brains. Wonder why these things never get into print.”

“
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
is an excellent maxim, Thompson,” remarked Willoughby.

“It is that,” retorted Mosey. “Divil a fear but they'll nicely bone anythin' in the shape o' credit. Toffs is no slouches at barrickin' for theyre own push. An' I'll tell you another dash good maximum,—it's to keep off of weltin' a dyin' man.”

“Did you ever read Burke's Diary, Willoughby?” asked Thompson. “It's just two or three pages of the foolishest trash that any man ever lost time in writing; and I'm afraid it's about a fair sample of Burke. I wish you could talk to some fellows that I know—Barefooted Bob, for instance. Now, there's a man that was never known to say a thing that he wasn't sure of; and he's been all over the country that Burke was over, and heard all that is to be known of the expedition. And Bob's a man that goes with his eyes open. I wish you could talk to him. Lots of information in the back country that never gets down here into civilisation.”

“There is a certain justice in Mosey's contention,” I remarked, addressing Willoughby. “He argues that, as Burke, by dying of hardship, earned himself a statue, so Brown, Jones, and Robinson—whose souls, we trust, are in a less torrid climate than their unburied bones—should, in bare justice, have similar post-obituary recognition. For Burke's sake, of course, the comparison in value
of service had better not be entered on. Mosey would have our cities resemble ancient Athens in respect of having more public statues than living citizens.”

“Your allusion to Athens is singularly happy,” replied the whaler; “but you will remember that the Athenians were, in many respects, as exclusive as ourselves. The impassable chasm which separates your illustrious explorer from Brown, Jones, and Robinson, existed also in Athens, though, perhaps, not so jealously guarded. But let us change the subject.”

“Yes; do,” said Cooper cordially. “I hate argyin'. Fust go off, it's all friendly;—‘Yes, my good man.'—‘No, my dear feller.'—‘Don't run away with that idear.'—‘You're puttin' the boot on the wrong foot'—‘You got the wrong pig by the tail.'—an' so on, as sweet as sugar. But by-'n'-by it 's, ‘To (shoel) with you for a (adj.) fool!'—‘You're a (adj.) liar!'—‘Who the (adj. sheol) do you think you're talking to?'—an' one word fetchin' on another till it grows into a sort o' unpleasantness.”

“Hear anything of Bob and Bat lately?” asked Thompson, after a pause.

“Both gone to have a confab with Burke; an' good enough for the likes o' them,” replied Mosey. “Them sort o' varmin's the curse o' the country. I ain't a very honourable sort, myself, but I'd go on one feed every two days before I'd come as low as them. Well, couple or three year ago, you know, ole M'Gregor he sent the (adj.) skunks out with cattle to some new country, a hundred mile beyond (sheol); an' between hardship, an' bad tucker, an' bad conscience, they both pegged out. So a feller from the Diamantinar told me a fortnit ago.”

“Smart fellows in their way,” remarked Thompson. “I don't bear them any malice, though they rounded me up twice, and made me fork out each time.”

“Boolka horse-paddick?” suggested Mosey. “They grabbed us there once, an' it was touch-an'-go another time. But the place is worth a bit o' risk.”

“No; both times it was on Wo-Winya, on the Deniliquin side,” replied Thompson. “First time was about nine years ago. Bob and Bat were dummying on the station at the time, and looking after the Skeleton paddock. Flash young fellers they were then. Cunningham and I worked on that paddock one night, as usual, coming up empty from the Murray. Of course, we were out in the morning at grey daylight, but it was a bit foggy, and instead of finding the bullocks, we found Bob and Bat cantering round, looking for them.
Cunningham and I separated, and so did the other two; and the four of us spent the liveliest half-hour you could wish for; chasing, and crossing, and meeting one another in all directions, and not a word spoken, and not a hoof to be seen. At last the fog lifted a bit, and Cunningham spotted cattle in a timbered swamp, but Bat was between him and them; so he circled round gently, and was edging up to get a good start, when Bat took the alarm, and saw the cattle; then it was neck-or-nothing with them for possession. Bob and I happened to be in sight, and when we saw our mates go off on the jump, we both went for the same spot. Cunningham beat Bat by a few lengths, and got possession; but when I got within a quarter of a mile, I saw there was only part of our lot there. Just then I saw Bob turn his horse, and race straight toward me; and when I looked in the direction he was going, I saw more cattle. I went for them with a clear start of a hundred yards, and would have won easy, only that I saw they were station cattle; and at the same time I caught sight of another little lot in a hollow to the left, and Bat travelling for them. I slewed round, and gave him a gallop for it, but he won by fifty yards. However, there was only five of our lot in the little mob. There was thirteen wanted still; and Bob had possession of them among the station cattle. So they got eighteen altogether, and we only got sixteen, after running the legs off our horses.”

“Port Phillip,” observed Cooper pointedly.

“Another time, going on for three years ago,” continued Thompson, “Bob had me as cheap as dirt for the whole twenty, while Batsnapped Potter's horses the same night. That was on Wo-Winyaagain—shortly before M'Gregor sold the station to Stoddart, andjust before the two of them were sent out to the Diamantina”—

“M'Gregor and Stoddart, of course?” I gently suggested.

“Yes, Tom; I thought I made that clear.”

“So you did, Steve. I beg pardon.”

“Don't mention it, Tom.”

True friendship lay underneath this severity, for when Thompson got started on his reminiscences, he was apt to continue indefinitely, to the ruin of his own dignity.

“But why this solicitude and panic over being detected in trifling trespass?” asked Willoughby. “Like most things in this country, it appears to be purely a matter of £ s. d. Now, I have taken the liberty of totting up, in my own mind, some of your earnings. Will Thompson permit me to take his case as an illustration? I find, Thompson, that the tariff of your wool is exactly sevenpence half-penny
per ton per mile. You have eight tons on your wagon at the present time. This will give you five shillings for each mile you travel. You have travelled ten miles to-day”—

“Sabbath day's journey,” sighed Thompson.

—“that is two pounds ten. Now—all things considered—an occasional penalty of, say, one pound, appears to me by no means ruinous. It is not to be mentioned in comparison with other losses which you have been unfortunate enough to sustain, yet it appears to be your chief grievance.”

“Yes; that's one way of looking at it,” muttered Thompson, after a pause. The other fellows were silently and futilely wrestling with the apparent anomaly. A metaphysical question keeps slipping away from the grasp of the bullock driver's mind like a wet melon-seed.

[Yet the solution is simple. The up-country man is decidedly open-handed; he will submit to crushing losses with cheerfulness, tempered, of course, by humility in those cases where he recognises the operation of an overhanging curse; he will subscribe to any good or bad cause with a liberality excelled only by the digger; he will pay gambling debts with the easy, careless grace which makes every P. of W. so popular in English sporting circles—in a word, the smallest of his many sins is parsimony. But the penal suggestiveness of trespass-penalty touches the sullen dignity of his nature; and the vague, but well-grounded fear of a law made and administered solely by his natural enemies makes him feel about as apprehensive as John Bunyan, though certainly more dangerous. Of course, Willoughby, born and bred a member of the governing class, couldn't easily conceive the dismay with which these outlaws regarded legal seizure for trespass—or possibly prosecution in courts dominated by squatters.]

“I knows wun respectable man with two teams wot's seed the time he'd emp'y a double-barr'll gun on them two fellers jis' same's if they was wild dogs,” remarked Price ominously. “I happen ter mind me o' wun time this man hed ter fetch hees las' wool right on ter Deniliquin, f'm Hay, f'r two-five hextry, 'count o' there bein' no river that season. An' that man 'e war shaddered hevery day acrost Wo-Winyar, an' hees bullicks collared hevery night with Bob or Bat; an' them bullicks har'ly fit ter crawl with fair poverty. Dirty! W'y, Chows ain't in it with them varmin f'r dirtiness.” Here followed a steady torrent of red vituperation, showing that Price took a strong personal interest in the respectable man with the two teams.

“To my (adj.) knowledge, they dummied land for ole M'Gregor, an' never got a cent for it,” remarked Dixon. “Same time, I got nothin' to say agen 'em, for they never got a slant to snavel my lot. Brothers—ain't they?”

“No (adj.) fear,” replied Mosey. “You never seen brothers hangin' together like them chaps. I know some drovers that's been prayin' for theyre (adj.) souls every night for years, on account o' the way they used to rush travellin' stock across M'Gregor's runs. Whenever there was dirty work to be did, them two blokes was on hand to do it. An' I got it on good authority that they chanced three years chokey for perjury, when they was dummyin' for M'Gregor; an' all they got for it was the fright hangin' over them. A man shouldn't make a dog of his self without he's well paid for it. That's my (adj.) religion.”

“So far as dummying is concerned,” said I; “no one except their Maker and M'Gregor knows how the thing was worked. But if they had owned all the land they secured for M'Gregor, by perjury, and personation, and straightforward dummyism, they would have been little squatters themselves. At the same time, they were true-hearted, kindly, unselfish men, according to their uncertain light; and in all probability they're gone to heaven. Such is life, boys.”