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

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 (sheol) 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 honorable 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 Bat snapped Potter’s horses the same night. That was on Wo-Winya again⁠—shortly before M’Gregor sold the station to Stoddart, and just 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 halfpenny 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 today⁠—”

“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 upcountry man is decidedly openhanded; he will submit to crushing losses with cheerfulness, tempered, of course, by humility in those cases