Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) đ
- Author: Joseph Furphy
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âMorninâ, chaps,â said this plebeian, standing between the wind and our nobility, with a hand on each doorpost. âHope youâre enjoyinâ yourselves. Say, Moriarty; Iâm waitinâ to git that bit oâ loadinâ off.â
âIâll be with you in two minutes,â replied the young storekeeper. âI know you always want to get away.â
âSay, chaps,â continued the bullock driver, advancing into the room, and glancing confidentially round the table, âthink thereâs any use oâ me stickinâ up the boss for leaf to take the buggy-track to Nalrookar? See, I could make the Fog-a-bolla Tank tonight; anâ thereâs bounâ to be a bit oâ blue-bush, if not crows-foot, on them sand-hills. Then Iâd fetch Nalrookar tomorrow, easy. I got two-ton-five for there; anâ Iâm thinkinâ Iâll have a job to deliver it, if I canât git through your run. What do you think, chaps?â
âWhy didnât you take this into consideration when you loaded?â demanded young Arblaster.
âWell, beggars ainât choosers,â replied the apostle of brute force and ignorance. âFact was, Arblaster, I bethought me what a lot oâ work Iâd done for Magomery, one time or another, anâ what good friends me anâ him always was; anâ I says to myself, âWell, Iâll chance herâ âmake a spoon, or spoil a horn.â Thatâs the way I reasoned it out. See, if I got to turn rounâ, anâ foller the main track back agen to the Cane-grass Swamp, anâ take the Nalrookar track from there, I wonât fetch the station much short oâ fifty mile; anâ there ainât a middlinâ camp the whole road. Everythinâ et right into the ground. Starve a locust. âSides, Iâm jubious about the Convincer Sand-hill, even with half a load. Bullocks too weak.â
âWell, itâs hardly likely the boss would let you cross the run,â replied Arblaster. âHeâd be a dâ âžșâ d fool if he did.â
âIâm afraid thereâs no use asking him, Priestley,â added Nelson. âHe wonât make a thoroughfare of the run, at any price. For instance, when Baxter and Donovan delivered that well-timber in the Quondong Paddock, the other day, they werenât five mile from the main roadâ âand a gate to go throughâ âbut he made them come right back by the station; thirty mile of a roundabout; and their cheques werenât forthcoming till they did it. No, Priestley; to ask Montgomery is simply to get a refusal; and to argue with him is simply to get insulted.â
âWell, I sâpose I must worry through, some road,â said the bullock driver resignedly, as he turned and went out.
âFifty miles instead of twenty-two,â remarked Mooney. âHard enough case.â
âAnd yet itâs necessary, in a sense,â replied Nelson. âSame time, anybody except the like of Montgomery would spring a bit in a season like this. I couldnât crush a poor, decent, hardworking devil like that. Iâd give him a thorough good blackguarding for calculating upon crossing the run; and then, as a matter of form, Iâd send a man with him, to see him across. Well, I suppose we must go and get our mot dâ ordre, boys.â
So we left the breakfast-room to Ida. The four narangies, with the practical MâMurdo, went to the veranda of the bossâs house for their dayâs orders; Moriarty, with a ring of keys in his hand, sauntered across to the store; and I managed to drag myself out to a seat built against the south side of the barracks, whence I torpidly surveyed the scene around, whilst listening to my vitality whistling out through four million yawning pores.
In an open shed, near the storeâ âwhere two tribesmen were now assisting Priestley to unloadâ âa travelling saddler and Salvationist, named (without a word of a lie) Joey Possum, was at work on the horse-furniture of the station; his tilted wagonette, blazoned with his name and title, Joseph Pawsome, Saddler, standing close by. Watching these lewd fellows of the baser sort at their sordid toil, my mind reverted to certain incidents of the preceding night, and so drifted into a speculation on the peculiar kind of difficulties which at certain times beset certain sojourners on the rind of this third primary orb. The incidents, of course, have nothing to do with my story.
But as the mere mention of them may have whetted the readerâs curiosity, I suppose it is only fair to satisfy him.
The night in question seemed, from an astrological point of view, to be peculiarly favourable to the ascendancy of baleful influences. The moon hung above the western horizon, in her most formidable phaseâ âjust past the semicircle, with her gibbous edge malignantly feathered. Being now in the House of Taurus, she had overborne the benignant sway of Aldebaran, and was pressing hard on Castor and Pollux (in the House of Gemini). Also, her horizontal attitude was so full of menace that Rigel and Betelgeux (in Orion) seemed to wilt under her sinister supremacy. Sirius (in Canis Major), strongest and most malevolent of the astral powers, hung southwest of the zenith, reinforcing the evil bias of the time, and thus, from his commanding position, overruling the guardianship of Canopus (in Argo), southwest of the same point. Lower still, toward the south, Achernar seemed to reserve his gracious prestige, whilst, across the invisible Pole, the beneficent constellations of Crux and Centaurus exhibited the very paralysis of hopelessness. Worst of all, Jupiter and Mars both held aloof, whilst ascendant Saturn mourned in the House of Cancer.
Such was the wretched aspect of the heavens to my debilitated intelligence, as I slunk home from the swimming-hole, toward midnight. I was somewhat comforted to observe in Procyon a firmness which I attributed to the evident support of Regulus (in the House of Leo); but the most reassuring element in an extremely baleful horoscope was Spica (in the House of Virgo), scarcely affected by the moonâs interference, and now ascending confidently from the eastern horizon.
Still, to my washed-out
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