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

than at first. Alf’s bullocks were only respited, and briefly at that. So, as I was telling you, I left them against the boundary fence, and walked across to interview this Terrible Tommy. He was my last resource. I just met him carrying home a couple of buckets of water from the lagoon. ‘Evening, sir,’ says I, as sweet as sugar” etc., etc.

Stewart glanced at the blazing orb, now slowly climbing the coppery sky, sighed again, lit another cigar, and smoked impassively.

“D⁠⸺⁠d if I approve of your action in that instance, Collins,” he remarked gravely, throwing away his second stump, and groping for something under the buggy-seat.

“Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I don’t defend the action. I only endeavour to palliate it on the plea of necessity. And, if Adam fell in the days of innocency, what should poor Tom Collins do in the days of villainy?”

“Shakespeare,” observed the squatter approvingly, as he drew a bottle and glass from a candle-box under the seat. “Misquoted, though, unless my memory betrays me. But I look at the thing in this way⁠—The Poondoo people put a couple of bottles of Albury into the buggy; and I think we can do one of them now, early as it is. When shall we three meet again? Eh? How is that for aptness? A Roland for your (adj.) Oliver.⁠—I look at the thing in this way, Collins⁠—But you mustn’t take anything on an empty stomach. I have some sandwiches here.” He handed a couple to me, a couple to Bob, and reserved a couple for himself.⁠—“I look at the thing in this way. I put myself in Tommy’s place. Now, if any man presumed to play such a trick on me⁠—why, d⁠⸺⁠n me, I should take it very ill. Now, Collins⁠—”

“O, stop, please! don’t fill that glass for me! I’m very sensible of your disapproval, Mr. Stewart. I’m more sorry than I can express⁠—not in the way of penitence, certainly, but that I should be unfortunate enough to have incurred your displeasure. I wish you could put yourself in my place, instead of Tommy’s.⁠—Well, long life to you, Mr. Stewart, both for your own sake and the sake of the public.”

“Thanks for the good wish, Collins, and to (sheol) with the flattery. I may tell you that I do put myself in your place, as well as in Tommy’s. But, d⁠⸺⁠n it, you don’t seem to be alive to the principle of the thing.⁠—You’re not a blue-ribboner, I suppose?” And he tendered the replenished glass to Bob. “Bad hand you’ve got, poor fellow. Severe accident apparently?”

“Sepoy bullet at Lucknow, sir. I was a lad of nineteen then; just joined.”

“You’ve been a soldier?”

“Yes, sir; I was an ensign in the Queen’s 64th. We formed part of Havelock’s column of relief.” The placid, unassertive, incapable face told the rest of the poor fellow’s story.

“You don’t seem to be alive to the principle of the thing,” repeated Stewart, turning again to me. “Your cosmopolitanism is a d⁠⸺⁠d big mistake. Every man has a nationality, remember; and though you’ll find many most excellent fellows of all races, yet, if you want the real thing, you must look⁠—”

“May God bless you, Mr. Stewart!” murmured Stirling of Ours, raising the glass to his lips.

“Thank you, my friend.⁠—You must look to Scotland for it. And, d⁠⸺⁠n it, man, this is the very nationality you have been fleering at. Of course, I don’t dwell on the subject because I happen to be a Scotsman myself; only, I must say I should never have expected⁠—But what do you think is the matter with Alf Morris?”

“Difficult to say. Some sort of arthrodynic complaint, I fancy; at all events, he’s badly gone in most of his joints.”

“Poor devil!” soliloquised the squatter, filling the glass for himself. “He’s a bad lot⁠—a d⁠⸺⁠n bad lot⁠—a d⁠⸺⁠nation bad lot. Bitter, vindictive sort of man. You’re familiar, like myself, with Shakespeare; now, Morris reminds me of Titus Andronicus.⁠—Better luck, boys.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stewart.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stewart.”

“This Titus, as you may remember, was expelled from Athens by the people, after they had elected him consul. They couldn’t stand his d⁠⸺⁠d pride. He took up his abode in a cave, and, for the rest of his life, met every overture of friendship with taunts and insults. Even in his epitaph, written by himself:⁠—

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth⁠—

“Now, d⁠⸺⁠n it, I committed those lines to memory⁠—ay, forty-five years ago. I wish I could recall them.”

“I think I can repeat the passage, Mr. Stewart,” said I modestly:⁠—

Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;
Seek not his name. A plague consume you wicked catiffs left.
Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate.
Pass on, and curse thy fill, but pass, and stay not here thy gait.

“Good,” replied the squatter⁠—all his hurry forgotten in the fascination of profitless gossip. “Now there you have Morris to the very life. Hopeless d⁠⸺⁠d case!”

“But the misanthropy of the Shakespearean hero was not without cause, Mr. Stewart,” I urged. “Given certain rigorous circumstances, acting on a given temperament, and you have a practically inevitable sequence⁠—perhaps a pious faith; perhaps a philosophic calm; perhaps an intensified selfishness; perhaps a sullen despair⁠—in fact, the variety of possible results corresponds exactly with the variety of possible circumstances and temperaments. In the case of the Greek misanthrope, the factor of temperament is first carefully stated; then the factor of circumstances is brought into operation; then the genius of the dramatist supplies the resultant revolution of moral being, in such a manner as to excite sympathy rather than reprobation. Reasoning from cause to effect, we see the inevitableness of the issue. But in Morris’s case, we must reason from effect to cause. We see a certain outcome⁠—”

“D⁠⸺⁠d unmistakably,” muttered the squatter.

“⁠—And it rests with us to account for this from prior conditions of temperament and circumstances. Then we shall have, so to speak, the second and third terms; and from these it won’t be difficult, I think, to calculate the term which should antecede them,