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

“Lis’n that (adj.) liar,” growled Cooper, with a fairly successful attempt at easy good-nature. “An’ I’m as bad off as him; an’ there ain’t a whimper out o’ me.”

“I’ll bring a drink for you both,” said I, rising and taking two pannikins from the lid of the tucker-box. “I wouldn’t do it only that I’m famishing, myself; and I’m tired of waiting for someone else to give in.”

Then, whilst helping myself to a drink from the water-bag under the rear of Thompson’s wagon, and filling the pannikins for my friends, I couldn’t possibly avoid overhearing the conversation which sprang into life the moment my back was turned⁠—

“My lord Billy-be-damd,” remarked Mosey. “Wonder why the (sheol) he ain’t at Runnymede tonight, doin’ the amiable with Mother Bodysark. Bright pair, them two.”

“Wouldn’t trust him as fur’s I could sling him,” said Dixon. “Too thick with the (adj.) squatters for my fancy. A man never knows what game that bloke’s up to.”

“Can’t make him out no road,” confessed Cooper. “Seems a decent, easy-goin’, Godsend-Sunday sort o’ feller; but I’ll swear there’s more in his head nor a comb’ll take out.”

“He calls himself a philosopher,” murmured Thompson; “but his philosophy mostly consists in thinking he knows everything, and other people know nothing. That’s the principal point I’ve seen in him; and we’ve been acquainted since we were about that high. It was always his way.”

“Who’s this Mother Bodysark⁠—if it’s a fair question?” asked Cooper.

“Mrs. Beaudesart,” corrected Thompson. “She’s a widow woman⁠—sort of forty-second cousin to Mrs. Montgomery, and housekeeper at the station. I never heard of anybody grudging her to Collins.”

“Between ourselves, Thompson,” remarked Willoughby, “his conversation this afternoon rather amused me. It recalled to my mind an excellent and most characteristic pleasantry, which you may not have heard. The story goes that Coleridge once asked Lamb, ‘Did you ever hear me preach?’ ‘Preach!’ said Lamb; ‘Gad, I never heard you do anything else!’ And yet, if Mr. Collins had enjoyed the advantages accruing from even the rudiments of a liberal ed⁠—”

“He’s got summick to do with Gub’ment lately,” said Price cunningly. “My ’pinion, he’s shadderin’ summedy.”

“He ain’t a gurl o’ that sort,” interposed Bum hastily. “My ’pinion, he’s a spieler. No more a detective nor I am.”

I returned to the group. My friends drained their pannikins; Thompson threw his at the tucker-box, and Cooper was just aiming his, when Willoughby, who had shared the frosted mutton, interposed⁠—

“If you please, Cooper.”

“Seen better days, pore (fellow),” observed Cooper sympathetically, as the ripple of the water into the pannikin indicated that the whaler was at the tap.

“Can’t see much worse,” mused Thompson.

“My (adj.) oath⁠—can’t he?” chuckled Mosey. “Hold on till he gits old.”

“People seem to think Gawd made these here colonies for a rubbage-heap,” said Bum. “That’s the English idear of⁠—”

“Stiddy, Charley,” interrupted Dixon. “Everybody’s got a right to live, an’ that pore (fellow)’s got jist as much right as me or you. A man ought to show respect to misforcune, Charley.”

“Shall I bring a pannikin of water for any of you gentlemen?” asked Willoughby, without a trace of ironical emphasis on the last word.

“Fetch me one while yer hand’s in,” replied Bum.

Willoughby brought the drink. I fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tuckerbox the empty pannikin which Bum had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected him as chief hearer of his recommenced discourse⁠—

“Comes as near the blackfellow as it’s possible for a white man to get. And you couldn’t kill him with an axe. Then start him at any civilised work⁠—such as splicing a loop on a wool rope, or making a yoke, or wedging a loose box in a wheel⁠—and he has the best hands in the country. At the same time, it’s plain to be seen that he has been brought up in the class of society that sticks a napkin, in a bone ring, alongside your plate at dinner.” Here Thompson paused, and the recurrence of some distressing memory elicited a half-suppressed sigh.

“There is nothing unreasonable in that phenomenon,” remarked Willoughby⁠—“rather the reverse. Probably the person you speak of is a gentleman. Now, the man who is a gentleman by birth and culture⁠—by which I mean a man of good family, who has not only gone through the curriculum of a university, but has graduated, so to speak, in society⁠—such a one has every advantage in any conceivable situation. The records of military enterprise, exploration, pioneering, and so forth, furnish abundant evidence of this very obvious fact. You will find, I think, that high breeding and training are conditions of superiority in the human as well as in the equine and canine races; pedigree being, of course, the primary desideratum. Non generant aquilae columbas, we say.”

“Don’t run away with the idear that nobody knows who Columbus was,” retorted Bum. “He discovered America⁠—or else my readin’s did me (adj.) little good.”

“More power to yer (adj.) elbow, Bum,” said Mosey approvingly. “But, gentleman or no gentleman, if a feller ain’t propped up with cash, this country’ll (adj.) quick fetch him to his proper (adj.) level.”

“Pardon me if I differ from you, Mosey,” replied Willoughby blandly. “A few months ago, I travelled the Lachlan with a man fitted by birth and culture to be a leader of society; one whose rightful place would be at least in the front rank of your Australian aristocracy. How do you account for such a man being reduced to solicit the demd pannikin of flour?”

“Easy,” retorted the sansculotte: “the duke had jist settled down to his proper (adj.) level⁠—like the bloke you’ll see in the bottom of a new pannikin when you’re drinkin’ out of it.”

“Mosey,” said Cooper impressively; “if I git up off o’ this blanket, I’ll kick⁠—”(I didn’t catch the rest of the sentence). “Give us none o’ your (adj.)