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

you are a rum character,” I remarked, judiciously assisting the action of the virus. “I’m surprised at a gentleman in your position making excuses like that. Do you know”⁠—and my tones became soft and confidential⁠—“something struck me that you were an Englishman.” (Even this wasn’t too strong). “I wish you were, both for my sake and your own. However, that can’t be helped. Now, for the future, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you had your own way, and that you walked a man’s bullocks off to the yard while he was helpless. Yes, sir; I’m glad you’re not an Englishman. But the sun’s too hot for my bare skin, so I must be getting back; and if I’ve said anything to offend you, I’m sorry for it, and I beg your pardon.” Then, still regarding him out of the comer of my eye, I turned Cleopatra slowly round.

“ ’Ole ’aad!” he snorted. “Oi calls ’e a (adj.) feul!”

With this sop to his own dignity, the boundary man slapped his Episcopalian charger round the barrel⁠—not round the flank, for the animal had none⁠—with his doubled cart-whip, and turned off the track at a right-angle, beckoning me to follow. When he had gone twenty yards, he pulled steadily on one rein and, so to speak, wore his ship of the plains round till we faced the cattle again⁠—for I had simultaneously pirouetted Cleopatra on one hind foot.

“Fetch ’em back, Jack,” said he authoritatively. “Put ’em weare ’e got ’em, an’ leab’m boide. Iggerant (people) we be; dunno nuffik; carnt diew noffik roight.”

The black collie was sitting where he had stopped on the instant that we had turned off; sitting with his head slightly canted to one side; one ear limp and pendant, the other partly erect, and with something like a smile on his expectant face. On hearing the order, he made a wide circuit round the cattle, and quietly turned them back along the track, where he followed them as before. Meanwhile, Sollicker sullenly slipped off his linen coat, and handed it to me with a low growl. I thanked him with great sincerity, and put it on.

But his glance at me as we fell-in behind the cattle seemed to demand further appreciation; and I was not slow to respond⁠—partly from a sense of obligation, but principally from a broadening hope of extended concession. I had already selected him as a singularly eligible guardian for Alf’s bullocks; and I knew that if I could once get him to accept the trust, nothing short of dynamite would shift him. But the seduction of a direct-action, single-cylinder purpose is a contract not to be taken by any of your mushroom mental firms; and this was a large order. Of course, the diplomatic flunkey-touch of nature has served as a letter of introduction to the man; now I would follow up the national phase of this delicate point of contact.

“No use,” I remarked doggedly. “I give it up. I can’t find words. This is not a personal favour. It’s an evidence of the principle that makes an Englishman respected all over the world. All over the world, sir; for, you know, the sun follows the English drumbeat right round the earth. Now, I can’t flatter you; I’d see you in the bottomless pit first; I’m above anything of that kind; it sort of sticks in my throat; but I can assure you that, in all my experience⁠—”

“ ’Ees, ’ees; ’at’s horrite; ’at’s horrite. What d’y’ think o’ thet (collie) f’r a dorg?”

There was impatience in the first half of the speech, and arrogance in the last. I eased off, and took the branch track.

“He just knocks spots off any dog I’ve seen working cattle!” I burst-out. “But you can’t beat the Scotch collie⁠—”

“Scotch coolie be dang! Doan’ ’e know a Smiffiel’ coolie? Chork an’ cheese, Oi calls ’em.”

“Smithfield collie, of course! Did I say Scotch collie? Of course, the Smithfield collie has been in good hands for hundreds of years; and when you get the pure breed⁠—Just look at that dog! How did you get such a dog as that? Bred him yourself, I suppose?”

“Noa,” he replied good-naturedly. “Oi g’e ’e foor moor troys. Coomh!”

“Bought him a pup?”

“Troy ageean.”

“Got him a present?”

“Troy ageean?”

“Found him?”

“Not dezackly. Troy ageean.”

I shook my head hopelessly, though I could have suggested another title to the ownership of dogs⁠—a very common one, too, and good enough till the proper person comes interfering. Boys’ dogs are generally held under this tenure. My companion, seeing me at fault, remarked with elephantine waggishness,

“ ’At (dog) coomed deaoun t’ me f’m ebm!”

I assumed the look of a man who conceals staggering bewilderment under the transparent disguise of incredulity; and Sollicker, looking, like Thurlow, wiser than any man ever was, enjoyed my discomfiture as much as he was capable of enjoying anything. Then he proceeded with great deliberation to interpret his oracular utterance; but first, with a powerful facial exertion, he wrenched his mouth and nose to one side, inhaling vigorously through the lee nostril, then cleared his throat with the sound of a strongly-driven wood-rasp catching on an old nail, and sent the result whirling from his mouth at a butterfly on a stem of lignum⁠—sent it with such accurate calculation of the distance of his object, the trajectory of his missile, and the pace of his horse, that the mucous disc smote the ornamental insect fair on the back, laying it out, never to rise again. This was but a ceremonious prologue, intended to deepen the impression of the coming revelation.

“Useter ’ev a ’oss Oi’d ketch hanyweares. ‘Wo, Bob!’ ’n’ ’ud stan’ loike a statoot t’ Oi’d ketch ’e (animal), ’n’ git onter ’im ’n’ shove me hutheh ’osses in ’e yaad, ’n’ ketch wich (one) Oi want. B’t ’e doid hautumn afoor las’⁠—leas’ways, ’e got ’ees ’oine leg deaoun a crack, an’ cou’n’t recoverate, loike; f’r ’e (beast) wur moo’n twenty y’r ole, ’n’ stun blin’, ’e wur. Ahterwahs, by gully! Oi got