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

namely, temperament. Morris is a widower. His wife was a magnificent singer, and, in a general way, one of those tawny-haired tigresses who leave their mark on a man’s life, and are much better left alone⁠—”

“Has he any children?” asked Stewart.

“Well, no; these tawny-haired tigresses don’t have children. Anyway, she died some ten years ago; but at the time of her death they had been separated for about three years.”

“They couldn’t have been living long together; or else he married young,” suggested Stewart.

“No, they weren’t long together: but Alf is a man of peculiar moral constitution; he frets a lot over her memory; loves and hates her at the same time. Secondary to this, is a misunderstanding with his father, which caused Alf to clear off, leaving the old man to mind everything himself. Of course, I’m only giving you the heads; and my information is derived from no random hearsay, but is obtained by an intransmissible power of induction, rare in our times.”

“Thought as much!” muttered Stewart.

“It remains, then,” I continued, “to determine the temperament which, acted upon by these circumstances, has given the result which is already before us. Now, I think that that temperament, though, perhaps, tending to the volcanic, must have been a sensitive and an amiable one; however it may have soured and hardened into misanthropy and avarice. We can’t all be philosophers, Mr. Stewart.”

“If there’s one thing I hate like (sheol)” replied the squatter gravely, “it is the quoting of Scripture as against my fellow-creature; but, d⁠⸺⁠n it, we are told that ‘when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity all the days of his vanity which God giveth him under the sun, he shall be likened unto a foolish man that built his house upon the sand.’ You know the rest. If we take upon us to judge Morris at all, we must judge him as he is. Your judgment is generous, but nonsensical; mine is rational, but churlish⁠—d⁠⸺⁠d churlish.” He paused, in evident discomfort, flicked a roley-poley with his whip, and continued. “You know, I had him on Kooltopa for a couple of months, bringing in pine logs, when Barker’s sawing-plant was there. Well, without going into details⁠—Capable fellow, too; fine combination of a cultivated man and an experienced rough-and-ready bushman. Strictly honest, also, I think⁠—only for his d⁠⸺⁠nable disposition.”

“Doctor Johnson liked a good hater,” I suggested sadly, for it was evident that my unfortunate protégé had already, in his own peculiar way, recommended himself to Stewart.

You can imagine, by that circumstance alone, what a strong tincture of venom was held in solution by this feeble tenant of an hour. Indeed, if the matter had rested with the squatters, they would have starved him out of Riverina by industrial boycott. But the in-transport of wool, and the out-transport of goods, are cares that, as a rule, fall to the lot of the forwarding firms; and these resemble George IV., in having no predilections (though, let us hope, the similarity ceases here). Hence, the jolly good soul of a carrier, with lots of spring in him⁠—the man who seldom buys any groceries, whose breath often smells like broached grog-cargo, and who makes a joke of camping for a few weeks with a load on his wagon⁠—is very naturally passed over in favour of the misanthrope who neither asks nor gives quarter. And the personal popularity of the latter with his own guild is not enhanced by this preference.

“Doctor Johnson be d⁠⸺⁠d!” replied the squatter warmly. “What is his dictum worth? What the (sheol) entitled him, for instance, to sneer at the very element of population that has made Britain a nation? You know what I allude to? Now, speaking with strict impartiality, it strikes me d⁠⸺⁠d forcibly that the finest prospect England ever saw is the road that leads from Scotland.” He checked himself, and continued in a gentler tone. “That just reminds me of a very able article I read some time ago⁠—I think it was in Blackwood’s. The writer proves that your Shakespeare must have imbibed his genius, to a great extent, in Scotland. He grounds his argument partly⁠—and I think, justly⁠—on the fact that the best play in the collection is a purely Scottish one. He makes a d⁠⸺⁠d strong point, I remember, of the expression, ‘blasted heath.’ ‘Say from whence, upon this blasted heath you stop our way, making night hideous?’⁠—and so forth.”

“Yes,” I replied mechanically. And then, avoiding the eye of the grand old saint, and hating myself as a buffoon, I continued, “My own conjecture is that something must have occurred to irritate the dramatist whilst he was writing that passage, and the expression slipped from his pen unawares.”

“Never!” replied Stewart. “No man under the influence of petty irritation ever wrote anything like the passage where that expression occurs. Criticism is not your forte, Collins. The writer I’m speaking of sees a landscape photographed in those two words. Pardon me for saying that your talent seems to run more in the line of low-comedy acting. I don’t like referring to it again, but d⁠⸺⁠n it all, my interest in you personally makes me feel very strongly over your interview with this Tom Armstrong.”

“Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have fallen in your estimation. But you were speaking of Alf Morris when I unfortunately drew you from the subject.”

“Ay. To return to Morris. Do you know how he came to leave the Bland country, some five or six years ago?”

“Well, yes,” I replied reluctantly; “rates are a lot higher here than there.”

“Did you ever hear that he shot anyone? A boundary rider, for instance?”

“The kernel of truth in that report, Mr. Stewart, is that he spoke of a certain boundary rider as a man that deserved shooting.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, in the first place, I’m only allowing for fair average growth in the report; and in the second place, when a person shoots a boundary man, he’s not allowed