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

Damper’s head and the line of his back appeared above the surface; the straight furrow behind him showing that he had been bogged at the edge, but being unable to turn, and being exceedingly strong and sound, had worked himself along to the middle, where he was slowly settling down.

In a couple of minutes, one end of the wool-rope⁠—sixty feet long and an inch and a-half in diameter⁠—was looped round the roots of the bullock’s horns, and the team was attached to the fall. Then a slow, steady strain drove Damper’s nose into the ground, and gently shifted him, first forward, then upward, then on to the surface, where he slid smoothly to the solid ground. We released him there, and he staggered to his feet, shook himself thoroughly, and followed the team to the camp, ravenously snatching mouthfuls of grass as he went along.

Price and Mosey had just got under way. Willoughby was trying to yoke Dixon’s leaders, while Dixon, owing to his screwmatics, could do nothing but sit on his horse, cursing with wearisome tautology, and casting glances of frantic apprehension toward the ram-paddock. His anxiety was not unreasonable, for there had just come into sight an upright speck, too small to be a horseman; and it was easy to guess who was the likeliest person to be coming on foot from that direction. There is a limit to the dignified sufficiency even of a bullock driver; and the unhappy conjecture of circumstances had driven Dixon past this point.

“Stiddy, now; go stiddy, an’ keep yer (adj.) mouth shut. Now lay right (adv.) bang up to him; jam him agen the offsider, so’s he can’t shift. There! block him! (Sheol)! Let him rip now. O may the⁠—” etc., etc.

“Dixon! Dixon! I must protest⁠—”

“Purtest be (verbed). Fetch ’em up agen. Don’t be frightened; they ’on’t bite. Yoke on yer other (adj.) shoulder. Right. Git well up agen him this time. Lay yer whole (adj.) weight onto him, an’ jam him, so’s he can’t budge if it was to save his (adj.) life.”

Willoughby, with the yoke on his shoulder, and the offside bow in his hand, gingerly approached the excited bullocks, essaying a light touch on the near-sider’s shrinking shoulder. The next moment, he was reeling backward, and both bullocks were gone. Eve’s curse on Cain, in Byron’s fine drama, is mere balderdash to what followed on Dixon’s part.

“Dem your soul, you uncultivated savage! you force me to inform you that your helpless condition was my incentive to these well-meant efforts on your behalf⁠—as, begad! it is now the only consideration which restrains⁠—”

“O, go to (sheol). You’re no (adj.) good. You ain’t fit to (purvey offal to Bruin). An’ here’s them (adj.) sneaks gone; an’ Martin he’ll be on top o’ me in about two (adj.) twos; an’ me left by my own (adj.) self, like a (adj.) natey cat in a (adj.) trap. May the holy⁠—” etc., etc. “If I’d that horse,” he continued, glancing furiously at Cleopatra, “I’d make him smell (adj. sheol).”

“Nonsense, Dixon,” said I pleasantly; “the horse is not annoying you. Ah! Willoughby; Ne ultra-no, let’s see⁠—Ne sutor ultra crepidam. Let me try my hand there. I took my degree of B.D.⁠—which doesn’t always signify Bachelor of Divinity⁠—before you took your B.A. Will you just bring up the unspeakables as Dixon points them out.”

“Palmam qui meruit ferat,” responded Willoughby, instantly recovering his temper. “Smoker⁠—Nelson⁠—dem your skins, come up once more!”

Dixon’s bullocks were exceptionally docile, for that uncultivated animal was one of the most humane and skilful drivers in Riverina; therefore, about twenty-five minutes sufficed to place his team in readiness for a start.

“You might as well come along o’ me for a change,” said he to Willoughby. “We’ll git on grand together. I’m a quiet, agreeable sort o’ (person), though I say it myself; an’ I wouldn’t wish for better (adj.) company nor you. Come on; you won’t be sorry after.”

“Quocunque trahunt fata sequamur,” rejoined Willoughby, bowing gaily to me. Then taking up the whip⁠—Dixon was a virtuoso in whips, and always carried one with six feet of handle and twelve feet of lash⁠—he aimed at the team, collectively, a clip which, in the most literal sense, recoiled on himself. And so the officer’s son and the sojer’s son took their way together; to become, as I afterward learned, the most attached and mutually considerate friends on the track. Such is life.

Thompson and Cooper, now ready for the road, were repairing the fence as well as they could. This being done, and the relics of the fire kicked about, they put their teams in motion, leaving little trace of the camp, except Bum’s mare, standing asleep outside the fence. The ominous speck on the plain had approached much nearer, but had taken definite form as an emu; and now the negative blessing of escape seemed like a positive benefaction. “If,” says Carlyle, “thou wert condemned to be hanged⁠—which is probably less than thou deservest⁠—thou wouldest esteem it happiness to be shot.”

Serene gratitude therefore shone in the frank faces of the outlaws; tempered, however, in Thompson’s case, by salutary remorse, for his companion had reproachfully asked him what the (adj. sheol) good his swearing had done.

We could see Price’s teams stopped, half a mile away; one of the loads appearing low, and canted over to the off side; bogged, evidently. Dixon’s wagon was close in front of us; Willoughby was zealously flogging himself, and occasionally we could hear Dixon’s voice in encouragement and counsel.

The place where Price’s wagon was stuck was not a creek, but merely a narrow belt of treacherous ground. Mosey hadn’t gone down six inches, but Price had happened on a bad place, and his wagon had found the bottom. All Mosey’s team, except the polers, had been hooked on, but with no result beyond the breaking of a well-worn chain.

“Ain’t got puddin’ enough, Thompson,” said Mosey, as my companions stopped their