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

the animal’s sagacity; to which, of course, I couldn’t respond on Pup’s behalf.

Then, whilst we saddled-up and rode off together at a walk, the conversation naturally drifted to horses, until about ten o’clock, when we stopped at a little wicket-gate in the northeast corner of Alf’s ten-by-five paddock.

“You’re in the Patagonia Paddock now,” said he, as I passed through the gate. “You’ll strike the track in six miles. Can I do anything for you at the station?” he added, after a pause. “Any message, or anything?”

“By-the-way, yes, Alf, if you’ll be so good. When will you be going across?”

“Today,” he replied. “I’m not going round the paddock.”

I drew my writing-case from Bunyip’s pack; and this was the note I pencilled:⁠—

Wallaby Track, 10/2/84

Dear Jack

When you remarked, yesterday, that the saddle on my horse was very like one that a redheaded galoot had stolen from you, you displayed a creditable acuteness, combined with a still more creditable unsuspiciousness. It was your saddle once, but it is yours no longer. It is mine.

Demand not how the prize I hold;
It was not given, nor lent, nor sold.

—⁠Rokeby.

You will find three one-pound notes in this letter. Please accept the same as compensation for loss of the article in question. This is all you are likely to get; for though the saddle is honestly worth about twice that amount, my conscience now acquits me in the matter; moreover, my official salary is so judiciously proportioned to my frugal requirements that I can afford no more. If you duly receive this money, and at the same time feel hopelessly mystified concerning the saddle, a double purpose will be fulfilled.

Yours, in a manner of speaking,

Thomas Collins.

“I’ll put this into Jack’s hand, if I live,” said the boundary man, with amusing solemnity, as he buttoned his jumper-pocket over the letter.

“Thank you, Alf. And now,” I continued, retaining for a moment the hand he extended in farewell⁠—“take my advice, and, while you’re at the station, give Montgomery notice. Let some more capable boundary man take your place. You’re not worth your damper at this work; for no man’s ability is comprehensive enough to cover musical proficiency such as yours, and leave the narrowest flap available for anything else. I can see through you like glass. I could write your biography. And, believe me, you’re no more fitted for this life than you are to preside over a school of Stoic Philosophy. You’re a reed, shaken by the wind. Be a man, Alf. Turn your face eastward or southward, and challenge Fortune with your violin and your voice.”

He made no reply, but below the edge of the crape mask I saw his lips move, as he bent his head in unconscious acquiescence.

A quarter of an hour afterward, I looked back to see him and his history a shapeless speck, far away along the diminishing perspective of the line of fence. There was something impressive in the recollection that, during the whole of our companionship, he had never uttered one objectionable or uncharitable word, nor attempted any witticism respecting Mrs. Beaudesart.

VII

The reader, however unruly under weaker management, is by this time made aware of a power, beyond his own likes and dislikes, controlling the selection and treatment of these informal annals. That power, in the nature of things, resides napoleonically with myself, and has, I trust, been exercised toward the information and edification of the few who fall under its jurisdiction⁠—suggesting, as it does, Tom Hood’s idea of perfect rule: An angel from heaven, and a despotism.

Encouraged by this assurance, and prompted, as usual, by a refinement which some might construe into fastidiousness, I shall once more avail myself of the prerogative hitherto so profitably sustained. The routine record of March 9 is not a desirable text. It would merely call forth from fitting oblivion the lambing-down of two stalwart fencers by a pimply old shanty-keeper; and you know this sort of thing has been described ad sickenum by other pens, less proper than mine⁠—described, in fact, till you would think that, in the back-country, drinking took the place of conduct, as three-fourths of life; whilst the remaining fourth consisted of fighting. Whereas, outside the shearing season, you might travel a hundred miles, calling at five shanties, without seeing a man the worse for drink; and you would be still more likely to go a thousand miles, calling at fifty shanties, without seeing any indication of a fight. Of course, there are some queer tragedies, and many melancholy farces, enacted at the shanties; but speaking in a broad, statistical way, the shanty-keeper gets such a miserably small percentage of the money earned outback that he usually lives in saintlike indigence, and dies in the odour of very inferior liquor. Here and there, the exceptional case of a shanty-keeper retiring on his congealed ability goes to show the fatuity of the curse⁠—hypothesis, rounding us up on the one unassailable bit of standing-ground, namely, that such is life.

It would do you no good to hear how the old Major (he was an ex-officer of the Imperial army) fawned on my officialship, and threw himself in rapport with my gentlemanship⁠—how his haggard, handsome wife leered at me over his shoulder⁠—how the openhearted asses of fencers, in weary alternation, confidentially told me fragmentary and idiotic yarns⁠—how they shook hands with me till I was tired, and wept over me till I was disgusted⁠—how they irrelevantly and profusely apologised for anything they might have said, and abjectly besought me, if I felt anyway nasty, to take it out of their (adj.) hides⁠—I say, it would do you no good.

So, for this and two other reasons, I shall take as my text the entry of March 28, and a portion of the following verse. This arbitrary departure in dates will give you another glimpse of Alf Jones. Also, the peculiar scythe-sweep of my style of narrative will take in a rencontre with