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

with the contempt it merited. But something must be done; so a six months’ leave of absence was granted; and the manager was instructed to employ, for that time only, the first likely-looking stranger who presented himself⁠—the latter being clearly given to understand that he was only in the loosest sense of the word an Avondale employee. If Bill returned on the expiration of his furlough, he should be reinstated, and all would be forgiven; if he failed to return, such default would be taken as evidence of contumacy; excommunication would promptly follow, and the station would thereby be acquitted of all responsibility touching any destitute old bummer who might swag the country with the yarn that he had been boundary riding on Avondale for ten years. Captain Royce could be stern enough when he let himself out.

The emu-section of the dream being thus partly fulfilled, Bill clutched at a release in any form; and it happened that, simultaneously with the arrival of Captain Royce’s mandate, came Tom Armstrong and his mate, Andrew Glover, from a job of ringing on the Yanko. The manager, being named Angus Cochrane, plumped Tom into the vacancy, and supplied him with a couple of old station horses. Bill remained a few days longer, teaching Tom the routine of his work; then the manager slacked-off, and Bill harnessed his horse and fled northward⁠—not because he disliked Avondale, but because he liked it so well that he was impatient to make Captain Royce such a bid for the property as that nabob couldn’t think of refusing, with any hope of luck afterward.

On my mentioning Alf’s bullocks, Tom told me that he had heard bells among the lignum in the corner of Mondunbana, a few nights before, and had next morning found twenty bullocks and a bay horse on the Avondale side of the fence. He knew that the Chow had passed them on to him to save trouble, so he immediately passed them back to the Chow. Next evening, his neighbour had re-delivered them to Avondale f.o.b., and in the morning, Tom returned them to Mondunbarra c.o.d. Next night, the untiring Asiatic had them back on Avondale o.r.; and in the morning, Tom did what he should have done at first⁠—put them across the river on to the station from whose bourne no trespasser returned. The ensuing adventures of the bullocks you already know.

Tom had acquired, without any severe wrench of his finer feelings, the boundary man’s hostility to the bullock driver, and was cultivating the same with all the energy of his race. His title, after all, was no more quizzical in its application than that of Ivan the Terrible; and to understand how nasty a station vassal can sometimes make himself, you must know a little concerning the manners none and customs beastly of the time and place wherein our scene is laid.

And, to my unspeakable disgust, I found that though Tom had never met Alf personally, the unfortunate outlaw was his Doctor Fell too. And the very spirit of Leviticus breathed in his tone as he informed me that gin he had umquhile kent the nowte belangit tae yon ill-hairtet raff, he wad hae whummelt them owre the burn (the Lachlan a burn! O, my country) lang syne, an’ no fashit himsel’ wi’ ony sic’ fiddle-fyke.

Nothing but extreme caution would do here. The brutal truth of my unwarranted solicitude for the sick man would certainly cause friction, and might spoil all. So, in a few well-chosen words, I informed Tom that there was a trifle between Alf and me; and he was sick, just when I wanted to keep him on his feet for a while. Would Tom (and my patois became so hideously homely that, for the reader’s sake, I have to paraphrase it)⁠—would Tom, as a personal favour to me, call round at Alf’s camp, morning and evening, for a few days, and in the meantime keep his bullocks safe?

No answer. The silken bond of our nationality wouldn’t stand such a strain. Then I slowly drew out my pocketbook, and, with the stifled sigh of a thrifty man, handed my compatriot one of the four one-pound notes which excluded me from the state of grace enjoyed by Lazarus; remarking, half-sullenly, that he couldn’t be expected to take all this trouble for nothing; and though I was a poor man like himself, it would pay me to get Alf at work again. And, considering that a bullock driver often has it in his power to do a good turn for a boundary man, wouldn’t it be better, I suggested, for Tom to do all this on his own account, without a whisper concerning my interposition?

I had known better than to make such a proposition to Sollicker. That impracticable animal⁠—who would have uncovered his head to receive backsheesh, as backsheesh, from a “gentleman”⁠—would have spurned my lubricant as an unholy thing; and woe to Alf’s bullocks if he had caught them again! But I wasn’t surprised to find my modus vivendi accepted by this passive product of a social code fabricated and compiled in the nethermost pit⁠—a code which, under the heading of Thrift, frankly teaches the poor to grind each other without scruple, whilst religiously avoiding all inquiry into the claims of the rich⁠—a code, in fact, which makes the greasing of the fat pig a work holy unto the Lord. The keen selfishness of my proposal touched a kindred chord in poor Tom’s bosom; the mettlesome casting of my sprat upon the waters, in sure hope of finding a mackerel after many days, awoke his admiration; whilst an immediate and prospective advantage to himself stood out through it all. Yet, under this crust of clannishness, cunning, and money-hunger, there lay a fine manhood. I saw the latter come to the surface a few months afterward. But that is another episode; and I must confine myself to the case before the Court.

Tom knew of an island among