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

“God help thee, Jack,” I remarked listlessly; “thou hast a bitter breakfast on’t.”

“He’ll tire the horse out yet,” said Thompson, with an artificial yawn. “Good lad, Willoughby! stick to him a bit longer.”

“Got no holt,” observed Dixon. “Gone goose, any time.”

“He don’t want no pipeclay, anyhow,” said Mosey, with childish levity. “Dark-complexion people ought to steer clear o’ playful horses.”

All eyes were turned on the young fellow’s face in surprise and reprehension; and he uneasily attempted to carry off his inadvertent solecism with a sort of swagger.

“The horse can’t hold out much longer at that rate,” repeated Thompson, stooping to lace his boots.

“Can’t he?” drawled Cooper, poking out the stem of his pipe with a stalk of grass. “He can hold out till something gives way. That’s what he’s in the habit o’ doin’, I’m thinkin’; an’ he ain’t goin’ to break his rule this time.”

“The Far-downer got at you that trip, Collins,” remarked Mosey, seeking to retrieve his dignity by turning his back on the performance. “He seen you comin’. Say, ole son⁠—how’d you like to swap back?”

“I kep’ misdoubtin’ that hoss all the (adj.) time,” observed Nestor wisely. “I felt sort o’ jubious, on’y I didn’t wanter say nothink.”

“There goes the pore (fellow) at last; I knowed the horse would do it,” said Cooper, as the stern captive spurn’d his weary load, and asked the image back that heaven bestowed.

“Collar the horse quick!” suggested Dixon. “Nail him now, or you’ll never ketch him.”

“No great hurry,” I muttered, dismounting. “However, I think I’d better have it out with him while he’s warm. Or perhaps one of you fellows would like a try, while I do his yoking⁠—just for a change?”

Cleopatra, now nibbling the scanty grass, glanced from time to time with grave sympathy at his late rider, who was occupying himself with his toilet.

“Ketch the (horse) quick!” reiterated Dixon.

“I wouldn’t mind if I had my mare back again,” I remarked, as I approached Cleopatra’s head. “By Jacob’s staff I swear I have no mind of trying conclusions with this fellow for a dull, sickening⁠—”

The adjectives were shorn of their noun, for Cleopatra, accurately gauging his distance, suddenly sprung round and lashed out with both hind feet. You could have struck a match on the smoothest part of my earthly tabernacle as I dodged him by about half an inch. Then he went on cropping the grass as before, while I looked round and inquired with sickly bravado, “What noble Lucumo comes next, to taste our Roman cheer?”

But the bullock drivers silently repudiated the grim invitation, and hurried back to their work, which they now pursued with redoubled vigour and anxiety. I remounted Bunyip, and caught Cleopatra from his back. Then dismounting, I arranged the new saddle with ostentatious offhandedness, though in a prayerful frame of mind, and presently climbed on as if nothing was the matter. I certainly anticipated Westminster Abbey rather than a peerage; but the horse, with a nonchalance greater than my own, inasmuch as it was genuine, turned quietly round as I pressed the rein against his neck, and sailed away across the plain at his own inimitable canter. Then I looked back to see the bullock drivers disgustedly resume the work they had again suspended.

By this time the cattle had crossed a cane-grass swamp, and were out of sight; but before I had gone a quarter of a mile I saw Pup coming to meet me, limping and crestfallen. He had probably been kicked by one of the absconders; and as he could see no sign of civilisation except our camp, his sagacity had drawn him back. Well pleased, therefore, I returned to the wagons after a few minutes absence.

“The cattle are out of sight, Steve,” said I, as I rounded up the scattering bullocks. “Not worth while to go after them now.”

“Let them go, by all means,” replied Thompson, with a ghastly simulation of cheerfulness. “We’ll gladly stand the loss of them, and make the station a present of Bum’s mare besides, if we once get out of sight of this infernal camp⁠—Stand up, Magpie⁠—Just let us yoke up as quickly as if our lives depended on it⁠—which, to tell the truth, is not much of an exag⁠—Hello! where’s Damper?”

“Stuck in a gluepot, jist in front o’ the (adj.) hut,” replied Mosey, without pausing in his work. “I seen him there⁠—Back, Snailey, or I’ll knock the (adj.) horn off o’ you⁠—but I thought it was one o’ them station cattle till you minded me. Why the (sheol) didn’t you count yer lot properly?”

A deep oath broke from the lips of the man who never swore. But he controlled himself by a strong effort.

“How much of him’s above ground?” he asked.

“(Adv.) little on’y his horns; or else I’d ’a’ knowed him⁠—Wub⁠—back, Major,” replied Mosey reluctantly, as he chained his last pair.

Then, I grieve to say, Thompson let himself out. No puerile repetition; no slovenly, slipshod work there. It was the performance of a born orator and poet, and one who, like Timothy, had known the Scriptures from a child⁠—a long, involved litany of seething malediction, delivered, moreover, with a measured and effortless eloquence and a grammatical exactitude which left St. Ernulphus a bad second. The other fellows pursued their work in awestricken silence, till at length Cooper, glancing toward the ram-paddock, said deprecatingly:

“⁠⸻ it, man, don’t swear; not now, anyway. I’ll fetch these ten across, an’ they’ll (adv.) soon snake him out. Git that spare rope off o’ my wagon, an’ foller me quick.”

He brought his yoked bullocks through the gap, and drove them rapidly to the spot indicated by Mosey. Thompson mounted his horse and cantered after, with the heavy coil of rope across the front of his saddle. I accompanied him. At the very extremity of the clump, and not fifty yards from the house, was one of those bottomless quagmires too common in Riverina. It was about twenty yards across; and, in the very centre,