Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

what doth a station manager with splitting headaches? Answer, ye pastoralists!

Stevenson had just drafted and paid for his batch, when Barefooted Bob stalked up, bearing an unmistakable scowl on his frank face, and a saddle on his shoulder.

“Did you receive my message last night, Bob?” demanded Smythe.

“Well,” drawled Bob, “I couldn’t say whether it was las’ night or this mornin’⁠—but I got your message right enough.”

“And why didn’t you turn-up?”

“Why didn’t I turn-up,” repeated Bob thoughtfully. “P’r’aps you’ll be so good as to inform me if my work’s cleanin’ out reservoys or mindin’ paddicks?”

“But you should be loyal to your employ,” replied Smythe severely.

“Meanin’ I shouldn’t turn dog?” conjectured Bob. “No more I don’t. I ain’t turnin’ dog on anybody when I stick to my own work, an’ keep off of goin’ partners with opium an’ leprosy. Same time, mind you, I’d be turnin’ dog on the station if I took advantage o’ your message, to go round warnin’ the chaps that was workin’ on the paddick. Way I was situated, the clean thing was to stand out. An’ that’s what I done.”

Meanwhile, Stevenson had lingered to feel his pockets, sort his papers, examine his horse’s legs, and so forth, while his draft spread out over the grass.

“You were right, and I was wrong,” he remarked, aside to me. “Bob is trustworthy⁠—ruthlessly so.”

“Only in respect of conscience, which is mere moral punctilio, and may coexist with any degree of ignorance or error,” I replied. “I wouldn’t chance sixpence on his moral sense⁠—nor on yours, either.”

“Thank-you, both for the lesson and the compliment. Don’t forget to call round at my camp, any time you’re crossing Koolybooka. Goodbye.”

“Are your bullocks here, Bob?” demanded Smythe.

“Horses too,” replied Bob. “Ain’t you lookin’ at ’em?” But Smythe didn’t know half-a-dozen beasts on the station; and Bob (as he afterward told me) was aware of his boss’s weakness in individuality.

“Take them and get to work then,” retorted Smythe. “How many bullocks are you working?” he added, with sudden suspicion⁠—his idea evidently being that Bob might wish to do a good turn to some of the bullock drivers.

“Well, I’m workin’ ten, but⁠—”

“ ‘But!’⁠⸺⁠I’ll have no ‘but’ about it!” snapped Smythe. “Take your ten, and go!”

“Right,” drawled Bob, and he slowly strode toward one of his own horses.

“And look-sharp, you fellows!” vociferated Smythe. “This paddock must be cleared within fifteen minutes, or I shall proceed to more extreme measures.”

Whereupon Thompson withdrew his lot, deliberately followed by four other culprits, whose names are immaterial. Meanwhile, Bob had some trouble in sorting out his ten⁠—often slowly crossing and re-crossing the paths of Donovan and Baxter, in their still more arduous and long-drawn task. At last the eagle-eye of the squatter counted Bob’s ten, accompanied by his spare horse, as he tailed the lot toward his camp; and the same aquiline optic tallied-off an aggregate of thirty-six to Baxter and Donovan⁠—who, to my own private knowledge, had entered the paddock with thirty-four. This disposed of the whole muster.

Months afterward, when the two Mondunbarra bullocks had been swapped-away into a team from the Sydney side, I camped one night with Baxter and Donovan, who discussed, in the most matter-of-fact way, their own tranquil appropriation of the beasts. Each of these useful scoundrels had the answer of a good conscience touching the transaction. They maintained, with manifest sincerity, that Smythe’s repudiation of the bullocks, and his subsequent levy of damages upon them as strangers and trespassers, gave themselves a certain right of trover, which prerogative they had duly developed into a title containing nine points of the law. Not equal to a pound-receipt, of course; but good enough for the track. And throughout the discussion, Bob’s name was never mentioned, nor his complicity hinted at. Such is life.

VI

Sat. Feb. 9. Runnymede. To Alf Jones’s.

Not much in that bill of fare, you think? Perhaps not. Nor was Count Federigo degli Alberighi’s falcon much of a banquet for the Lady Giovanna, though that meagre catering cost a considerable jar to the sensibilities of the impoverished aristocrat⁠—accurately represented, in this instance, by the writer of these memoirs. Of course, I am committed to any narration imposed by my random election of dates; but just notice that perversity, that untowardness, that cussedness in the affairs of men, which brings me back to Runnymede, above all places in the spacious southwestern quarter of the Mother Province. The unforeseen sequences of that original option are masters of the situation, till they run their course⁠—and most tyrannical masters they are. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, but, bear-like, I must fight the course. Ay! your first-person-singular novelist delights in relating his love-story, simply because he can invent something to pamper his own romantic notions; whereas, a similar undertaking makes the faithful chronicler squirm inasmuch as Oh!⁠—you’ll find out soon enough.

Five days before the date of this entry, I had received orders to proceed at once to Runnymede, and there to complete an M-form, which would in the meantime be forwarded from our Central Office to Mr. Montgomery. Twelve hours’ riding had brought me to the station, but the document had not arrived, so there was nothing for it but to wait till the next mail came in. That would be on the 9th.

Being a little too exalted for the men’s hut, and a great deal too vile for the boss’s house, I was quartered in the narangies’ barracks.

Social status, apart from all consideration of mind, manners, or even money, is more accurately weighed on a right-thinking Australian station than anywhere else in the world.

The folklore of Riverina is rich in variations of a mythus, pointing to the David-and-Goliath combat between a quiet wage-slave and a domineering squatter, in the brave days of old. With one solitary exception, each station from the Murray to the Darling claims and holds this legend as its own. On Kooltopa alone, the tables are turned, and the amiable Stewart makes a holy show of