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

“Where the (adj. sheol) do you reckon on bein’ shoved into when you croak, Bob?” asked Donovan, with a touch of human solicitude.

“Well,” replied Bob pointedly, as he unfolded his long angles to a perpendicular right line⁠—“I got good hopes o’ goin’ to a place where there’s no admittance for swearers. Ain’t ashamed to say I repented eight or ten months ago. Guarantee you fellers ain’t heard no language out o’ my mouth since I set down here. Nor ’on’t⁠—never again. Well, take care o’ yourselves, chaps.” And, without further farewell, Bob removed his lonely individuality from our convention.

“Anointed (adj.) savage,” remarked Donovan, as the subject of his comment receded into the hazy half-light of the plain, where his horse was feeding.

“Uncivilised (person),” added Baxter.

“Well⁠—yes,” conceded Thompson. “Same time, he’s got the profit of his unprofitableness, so to speak. Hard to beat him in the back country. You’d have to be more uncivilised than he is. And I saw that very thing happen to him, four or five weeks ago, out on Goolumbulla.” Thompson paused experimentally, then continued, “Yes, I saw him put-through, till he must have felt a lot too tall in proportion to his cleverness.” Another tentative pause. “But it took the very pick of uncivilisation to do it.” A prolonged pause, while Thompson languidly filled and lit his pipe. Still the dignified indifference of the camp remained unruffled. Thompson might tell his yarn, or keep it to himself. Once already during the evening his tongue had run too freely. “What I’m thinking about,” he continued, in a tone of audible musing, “is that I forgot to tell Bob, when he was here, that I had a long pitch with Dan O’Connell, three or four nights ago.”

“Boundary man on Goolumbulla,” I suggested apathetically. “Got acquainted with Bob years ago, when he was making himself useful on Moogoojinna, and Bob was making himself obnoxious on Wo-Winya, or Boolka.”

“No; they never met till four or five weeks ago,” replied Thompson, with inimitable indifference, though now licensed to proceed without damage to his own dignity. “Dan’s an old acquaintance of yours⁠—isn’t he? I heard your name mentioned over the finding of a dead man⁠—George something⁠—had been fencing on Mooltunya⁠—George Murdock. Yes.”

Thompson told a story well. I verily believe he used to practise the accomplishment mentally, as he sauntered along beside his team. He knew his own superiority here; his acquaintances knew it too, and they also knew that he knew it. Hence they were reluctant to minister occasion to his egotism.

“Speaking of Bob,” he continued listlessly; “I met him in the hut, at Kulkaroo, on the evening I got there with the load. He was on his way down from that new place of M’Gregor’s, where he’s been; and he had come round by Kulkaroo to see one of the very few friends he has in the world; but he lost his labour, for this cove had left the station more than a year before.

“However, we had been yarning for hours, and the station chaps were about turning-in, when we heard someone coming in a hurry. No less than Webster himself⁠—first time he had been in the hut since it was built, the chaps told me afterward. He had a leaf of a memorandum-book in his hand; and says he:

“ ‘Child lost in the scrub on Goolumbulla. Dan O’Connell’s little girl⁠—five or six years old. Anybody know where there’s any blackfellows?’

“Nobody knew.

“ ‘Well, raise horses wherever you can, and clear at once,’ says he. ‘One man, for the next couple of days, will be worth a regiment very shortly. As for you, Thompson,’ says he; ‘you’re your own master.’

“Of course, I was only too glad of any chance to help in such a case, so I went for my horse at once. Bob had duffed his two horses into the ration paddock, on his way to the hut, and had put them along with my mare, so that he could find them at daylight by the sound of her bell. This started me and him together. He lent his second horse to one of the station chaps; and the three of us got to Goolumbulla just after sunrise⁠—first of the crowd. Twenty-five mile. There was tucker on the table, and chaff for our horses; and, during the twenty minutes or so that we stayed, they gave us the outline of the mishap.

“Seems that, for some reason or other⁠—valuation for mortgage, I’m thinking⁠—the classer had come round a few days before; and Spanker had called in every man on the station, to muster the ewes. You know how thick the scrub is on Goolumbulla? Dan came in along with the rest, leaving his own place before daylight on the first morning. They swept the paddock the first day for about three parts of the ewes; the second day they got most of what was left; but Spanker wanted every hoof, if possible, and he kept all hands on for the third day.

“Seems, the little girl didn’t trouble herself the first day, though she hadn’t seen Dan in the morning; but the second day there was something peculiar about her⁠—not fretful, but dreaming, and asking her mother strange questions. It appears that, up to this time, she had never said a word about the man that was found dead near their place, a couple of months before. She saw that her parents didn’t want to tell her anything about it, so she had never showed any curiosity; but now her mother was startled to find that she knew all the particulars.

“It appears that she was very fond of her father; and this affair of the man perishing in the scrub was working on her mind. All the second day she did nothing but watch; and during the night she got up several times to ask her mother questions that frightened the woman. The child didn’t understand her father going away before she was awake, and not coming