An’ a straight chap that knows me gets a job to take a flock o’ sheep or a mob o’ cattle ter the bloomin’ Gulf, or South Australia, or somewheers—an’ loses one of his horses goin’ out ter take charge, an’ borrers eight quid from me ter buy another. He’ll turn up agen in a year or two an’ most likely want ter make me take twenty quid for that eight—an’ make everybody about the place blind drunk—but I’ve got ter wait, an’ the wine an’ sperit merchants an’ the brewery won’t. They know I can’t do without liquor in the place.
An’ lars’ rains Jimmy Nowlett, the bullick-driver, gets bogged over his axle-trees back there on the Blacksoil Plains between two flooded billerbongs, an’ prays till the country steams an’ his soul’s busted, an’ his throat like a lime-kiln. He taps a keg o’ rum or beer ter keep his throat in workin’ order. I don’t mind that at all, but him an’ his mates git flood-bound for near a week, an’ broach more kegs, an’ go on a howlin’ spree in ther mud, an’ spill mor’n they swipe, an’ leave a tarpaulin off a load, an’ the flour gets wet, an’ the sugar runs out of the bags like syrup, an’— What’s a feller ter do? Do yer expect me to set the law onter Jimmy? I’ve knowed him all my life, an’ he knowed my father afore I was born. He’s been on the roads this forty year, till he’s as thin as a rat, and as poor as a myall black; an’ he’s got a family ter keep back there in Bourke. No, I have ter pay for it in the end, an’ it all mounts up, I can tell yer.
An’ suppose some poor devil of a new-chum black sheep comes along, staggerin’ from one side of the track to the other, and spoutin’ poetry; dyin’ o’ heat or fever, or heartbreak an’ home-sickness, or a life o’ disserpation he’d led in England, an’ without a sprat on him, an’ no claim on the bush; an’ I ketches him in me arms as he stumbles inter the bar, an’ he wants me ter hold him up while he turns English inter Greek for me. An’ I put him ter bed, an’ he gits worse, an’ I have ter send the buggy twenty mile for a doctor—an’ pay him. An’ the jackaroo gits worse, an’ has ter be watched an’ nursed an’ held down sometimes; an’ he raves about his home an’ mother in England, an’ the blarsted University that he was eddicated at—an’ a woman—an’ somethin’ that sounds like poetry in French; an’ he upsets my missus a lot, an’ makes her blubber. An’ he dies, an’ I have ter pay a man ter bury him (an’ knock up a sort o’ fence round the grave arterwards ter keep the stock out), an’ send the buggy agen for a parson, an’—Well, what’s a man ter do? I couldn’t let him wander away an’ die like a dog in the scrub, an’ be shoved underground like a dog, too, if his body was ever found. The Government might pay ter bury him, but there ain’t never been a pauper funeral from my house yet, an’ there won’t be one if I can help it—except it be meself.
An’ then there’s the bother goin’ through his papers to try an’ find out who he was an’ where his friends is. An’ I have ter get the missus to write a letter to his people, an’ we have ter make up lies about how he died ter make it easier for ’em. An’ goin’ through his letters, the missus comes across a portrait an’ a locket of hair, an’ letters from his mother an’ sisters an’ girl; an’ they upset her, an’ she blubbers agin, an’ gits sentimental—like she useter long ago when we was first married.
There was one bit of poetry—I forgit it now—that that there jackaroo kep’ sayin’ over an’ over agen till it buzzed in me head; an’, weeks after, I’d ketch the missus mutterin’ it to herself in the kitchen till I thought she was goin’ ratty.
An’ we gets a letter from the jackaroo’s friends that puts us to a lot more bother. I hate havin’ anythin’ to do with letters. An’ someone’s sure to say he was lambed down an’ cleaned out an’ poisoned with bad bush liquor at my place. It’s almost enough ter make a man wish there was a recorin’ angel.
An’ what’s the end of it? I got the blazin’ bailiff in the place now! I can’t shot him out because he’s a decent, hard-up, poor devil from Bourke, with consumption or somethin’, an’ he’s been talkin’ to the missus about his missus an’ kids; an’ I see no chance of gittin’ rid of him, unless the shearers come along with their cheques from West-o’-Sunday nex’ week and act straight by me. Like as not I’ll have ter roll up me swag an’ take the track meself in the end. They say publicans are damned, an’ I think so, too; an’ I wish I’d bin operated on before ever I seen a pub.
THE SHEARER’S DREAM
Mitchell and I rolled up our swags after New Year and started to tramp west. It had been a very bad season after a long drought. Old Baldy Thompson had only shorn a few bales of grass-seed and burrs, so he said, and thought of taking the track himself; but we hoped to get on shearing stragglers at West-o’-Sunday or one of the stations of the Hungerford track.
It was very hot weather, so we started after sunset, intending to travel all night. We crossed the big billabong, and were ploughing through the dust and sand towards West Bourke, when a buggy full of city girls and swells passed by. They were part of a theatrical company on tour in the Back-Blocks, and some local Johnnies. They’d been driven out to see an artesian bore, or wool-shed, or something. The horses swerved, and jerked a little squawk out of one of the girls. Then another said: