Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

his pins. They did say as he could hammer any man in the district before he got old and stiff. I never saw him shape but once, and then he rolled into a man big enough to eat him, and polished him off in a way that showed me⁠—though I was a bit of a boy then⁠—that he’d been at the game before. He didn’t ride so bad either, though he hadn’t had much of it where he came from; but he was afraid of nothing, and had a quiet way with colts. He could make pretty good play in thick country, and ride a roughish horse, too.

Well, our farm was on a good little flat, with a big mountain in front, and a scrubby, rangy country at the back for miles. People often asked him why he chose such a place. “It suits me,” he used to say, with a laugh, and talk of something else. We could only raise about enough corn and potatoes, in a general way, for ourselves from the flat; but there were other chances and pickings which helped to make the pot boil, and them we’d have been a deal better without.

First of all, though our cultivation paddock was small, and the good land seemed squeezed in between the hills, there was a narrow tract up the creek, and here it widened out into a large well-grassed flat. This was where our cattle ran, for, of course, we had a team of workers and a few milkers when we came. No one ever took up a farm in those days without a dray and a team, a year’s rations, a few horses and milkers, pigs and fowls, and a little furniture. They didn’t collar a 40-acre selection, as they do now⁠—spend all their money in getting the land and squat down as bare as robins⁠—a man with his wife and children all under a sheet of bark, nothing on their backs, and very little in their bellies. However, some of them do pretty well, though they do say they have to live on ’possums for a time. We didn’t do much, in spite of our grand start.

The flat was well enough, but there were other places in the gullies beyond that that father had dropped upon when he was out shooting. He was a tremendous chap for poking about on foot or on horseback, and though he was an Englishman, he was what you call a born bushman. I never saw any man almost as was his equal. Wherever he’d been once, there he could take you to again; and what was more, if it was in the dead of the night he could do it just the same. People said he was as good as a blackfellow, but I never saw one that was as good as he was, all round. In a strange country, too. That was what beat me⁠—he’d know the way the creek run, and noticed when the cattle headed to camp, and a lot of things that other people couldn’t see, or if they did, couldn’t remember again. He was a great man for solitary walks, too⁠—he and an old dog he had, called Crib, a crossbred mongrel-looking brute, most like what they call a lurcher in England, father said. Anyhow, he could do most anything but talk. He could bite to some purpose, drive cattle or sheep, catch a kangaroo, if it wasn’t a regular flyer, fight like a bulldog, and swim like a retriever, track anything, and fetch and carry, but bark he wouldn’t. He’d stand and look at dad as if he worshipped him, and he’d make him some sign and off he’d go like a child that’s got a message. Why he was so fond of the old man we boys couldn’t make out. We were afraid of him, and as far as we could see he never patted or made much of Crib. He thrashed him unmerciful as he did us boys. Still the dog was that fond of him you’d think he’d like to die for him there and then. But dogs are not like boys, or men either⁠—better, perhaps.

Well, we were all born at the hut by the creek, I suppose, for I remember it as soon as I could remember anything. It was a snug hut enough, for father was a good bush carpenter, and didn’t turn his back to anyone for splitting and fencing, hut-building and shingle-splitting; he had had a year or two at sawing, too, but after he was married he dropped that. But I’ve heard mother say that he took great pride in the hut when he brought her to it first, and said it was the best-built hut within fifty miles. He split every slab, cut every post and wallplate and rafter himself, with a man to help him at odd times; and after the frame was up, and the bark on the roof, he camped underneath and finished every bit of it⁠—chimney, flooring, doors, windows, and partitions⁠—by himself. Then he dug up a little garden in front, and planted a dozen or two peaches and quinces in it; put a couple of roses⁠—a red and a white one⁠—by the posts of the verandah, and it was all ready for his pretty Norah, as she says he used to call her then. If I’ve heard her tell about the garden and the quince trees and the two roses once, I’ve heard her tell it a hundred times. Poor mother! we used to get round her⁠—Aileen, and Jim, and I⁠—and say, “Tell us about the garden, mother.” She’d never refuse; those were her happy days, she always said. She used to cry afterwards⁠—nearly always.

The first thing almost that I can remember was riding the old pony, ’Possum, out to bring in the milkers. Father was away somewhere, so mother took us all out and put me on the pony, and let me have a whip. Aileen walked