Such Is Life - Joseph Furphy (philippa perry book txt) 📗

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 tonight.”

“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