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

a stranger fills the Stewart’s throne,” I replied, with real sadness. “Kooltopa’s sold to a Melbourne company, and is going to be worked for all it’s worth. And I’m thinking of the carrier, coming down with the survivors of a severe trip, and the penniless pedestrian, striking the station at the eleventh hour. These people will miss Stewart badly.

For the guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour,
Since his turban was cleft by the infidel’s sabre.”

“Whose turban?” asked Alf, with a puzzled look.

“Stewart’s. I spake but by a metaphor. As with Antony, ’tis one of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind.”

There was a few minutes’ silence. I was thinking of the Christian squatter, and so, no doubt, was many another wanderer at the same moment.

“But he’ll come back to Riverina when he delivers the loading?” suggested the boundary man.

“Who?”

“This⁠—Alf Morris.”

“I don’t think so. I know he doesn’t intend it.”

Another pause. Glancing at my companion, as he sat with his elbows on the table, and one hand, as usual, across the middle of his face, I noticed his chest heaving unnaturally, and his shapely lips losing their deep colour.

“Are you sick, Alf?”

“Yes⁠—a little,” he whispered.

I filled a cup at the water-bag, and set it before him. He drank part of it.

“Quakers’ meeting!” he remarked at length, with a slight laugh. “Why don’t you say something? I’m not much of a talker myself, but I’m a good listener. Tell us some yarn to pass the time. Anything you like. Tell us all about that camp on the Lachlan, and what passed between you and your friend, Morris.”

Upon this hint I spake. I recounted consecutively the incidents which form the subject of an earlier chapter, whilst an occasional inquiry, or an appreciative nod, proved my eccentric auditor in touch with me from first to last.

“Three or four weeks afterward,” I continued, “I met this Bob Stirling in Mossgeil. He had a bit of a head on him at the time, having just got through five notes⁠—three from Stewart, and two from Alf. I got a bob’s worth of brandy to straighten him up; and we had a drink of tea together, while my horses went through a small feed of bad chaff at sixpence a pound.

“His account was, that Stewart, after parting from me, drove straight to Alf’s camp, and deposited him there to look after things. Stewart himself only stayed a few minutes, and then drove to Avondale, to see Mr. Wentworth St. John Ffrench, Terrible Tommy’s boss. Next morning, a wagonette came from Avondale, with a few parcels of eatables, and a few bottles of drinkables, and other sinful lusts of the flesh. Four days after that, again, Stewart drove round on his way back to Kooltopa. By this time, Alf was able to crawl about, trying his best to be civil to Bob, and succeeding fairly well for a nonsmoker.

“However, when Stewart called, he got into a yarn with Alf, and had a drink of tea while Bob held the horses. Presently, according to Bob’s account, the conversation grew closer; and, after an hour or so, Stewart told Bob to unharness the horses, and hobble them out where they could get a bite of grass. Altogether, Stewart stayed about half a day. In a few days more, Alf was able to yoke and unyoke a few quiet bullocks; then he and Bob started for Kooltopa together. Arrived at their destination, Stewart and Alf each paid Bob, as already hinted; and Bob, having urgent business in Mossgeil, hurried away to transact it. He had just completed the deal when I met him.”

Here I paused to light my pipe.

“And what makes you think he has left Riverina for good?” asked the boundary man absently.

“Catch him leaving Riverina. He knows he has a good character as a quiet, decent, innoffensive sundowner⁠—nobody’s enemy but his own⁠—and experience has taught him that any kind of tolerable reputation is better than no reputation at all.”

“I don’t mean him,” said the boundary man constrainedly.

“Of course not. I beg your pardon. Well, I heard it from himself. I met him about three weeks ago⁠—that would be about three weeks after my interview with Bob Stirling. He’s fairly in love with what he saw of Queensland, before last shearing; and, between bad seasons and selectors⁠—not to mention his own presentiment of a rabbit-plague⁠—he’s full-up of Riverina. But that reminds me that I haven’t brought Alf Morris’s story to a proper conclusion. I heard the rest of it from Stewart, on the occasion I speak of. Stewart has bought his plant, and engaged him permanently. His first business is to take Stewart’s teams to their destination⁠—no easy matter at this time of the year, and such a year as this; but if any man can do it, that man is Alf. He started some weeks ago, a little shaky after his sickness, but recovering fast. Entirely changed in disposition, Stewart tells me; and those who know him will agree that a change wouldn’t be out of place. But Stewart speaks of him as one of the noblest-minded men he ever knew. He says he just wants a man like Alf, and he doesn’t intend to part with him. I fancy our love of paradox makes us prone to associate noble-mindedness with cantankerousness⁠—at all events, nobody ever called me noble-minded. But such is life.”

“Then this new situation is a permanent thing for him?” suggested the boundary man.

“For Alf? No; I’m sorry to say, it’s not.”

“Why?”

“Because Stewart’s about sixty, and Alf’s somewhere in the neighbourhood of thirty-seven. The Carlisle-tables would give Stewart an actuarial expectation of ten or fifteen years, and Alf one of twenty-five or thirty. And there will be old-man changes in the personnel of the station staff when the grand old Christian sleeps with his fathers, and his dirty-flash son reigns in his stead. Such, again, is life. But this won’t affect Alf’s interests to any ruinous extent. He has a stockingful of his own.