In Bad Company, and other stories

by Rolf Boldrewood

The old horse by this time had grown hollow-backed, and was evidently on his last legs. Still at a moderate price he would not be unprofitable, and the value of his blood distributed amid my stud could hardly, I thought, be over-estimated. The main thing to be considered by a prudent young pastoralist (I really was one in those days) was the price. This turned out to be under £50. Money was not abundant in that particular year. Stock were ludicrously cheap. For some reason his owners had decided to sell the dear old horse. His age and growing infirmities were against him. Still here was a chance I might never get again. I had just made a largish offer for the store cattle referred to. There was no use talking, however. I felt like a man who had been offered the Godolphin Arabian by a sheik hard-pushed for a ransom. I must have the horse; that was all about it.

There was another slight difficulty. I had not ten £5 notes in my pocket. Far otherwise. I stated facts in the office. I can see old 'Dal's' kind face as he said, 'We'll take your bill at three months, my boy; that will give you time to turn round.' I gratefully assented, and Romeo—intoxicating thought—was mine. That was my first bill. Never before did I write 'Rolf Boldrewood' across the face or back or below any of those insidious substitutes for ready money. Would that the negotiable instrument had been my last. Well impressed on my mind was the look of the worthy gentleman who managed the financial department of the firm which had the privilege of 'keeping my account' when I exultingly informed him of my transaction. He had grown grey in commerce, not altogether successfully. Doubtless memory carried him back for a moment over years of high hope, guarded enterprise, succeeded by wearing anxiety and dull despair. Looking into my youthful, sanguine countenance, he said, 'Take my advice, and never sign another. I wish I had never seen one.'

I did not take his advice, it is hardly necessary to say. It was many a year before the application came in. Such is the general course of events. But if every future acceptance had been as anxiously considered, as punctually paid, and as profitably contracted as Number One aforesaid, no great harm would have been done.

I rode proudly out of Melbourne next day, leading my valued purchase, duly muzzled and sheeted, along the western road. Travelling by easy stages, only varied by a swim across the Leigh River, 'where ford there was none,' I got on well. It was an anxious moment for me, though, when the strong current swept my precious steed round in midstream; but he fought gallantly for a landing, which we finally gained. A slip, a stagger, and we were safely over. At Dunmore he received the admiration which was his due, while I was congratulated on my enterprise and good fortune.

When I reached home the illustrious stranger was treated with deserved attention. A roomy loose-box was specially dedicated to his use. Boiled food, ground corn, every delicacy of the season was lavished upon him. A revival of constitution apparently took place. But he only lived a year, leaving behind him, however, at Dunmore the beautiful, graceful Pasta, half-sister to St. George, and also to The Margravine and Track-Deer; and at Squattlesea Mere, Bonnie Dundee, Ben Bolt, Fairy, and a few other notable nags. 'He owed me nothing,' as his groom said when I sorrowfully attended his burial in the capacity of chief mourner. He lies under a blackwood tree on an 'island' in the mere, where the close-spreading clover blossoms climb and struggle amid the tussock grass of the marshes. He was accorded respectful interment, and my grief was more sincere than that which accompanies more ostentatious funerals. He had not perhaps the opportunity which another year would have furnished of leaving an illustrious progeny in the Port Fairy district, but some of his offspring made their mark.

Dundee, being my principal hackney and stock horse, was a wonderful performer. An admixture of Clifton blood gave him height and 'scope.' He had the sloped Romeo shoulder, with propelling machinery of unusual power. He was fortunately just short of racing speed. But he was a grand 'camp horse'; could be ridden without flinching right into the shoulder of the worst outlaw of the herd, carrying a fourteen-stone weight over any three-railed fence, and stay for a week. He lived to make a trans-Murray reputation, and still the wild riders of the mallee remember the powerful chestnut that was so well to the front with Sylvester Browne and the brothers Beveridge in more than one 'moonlighting' foray.

Ben Bolt, his half-brother, was a bright chestnut, with four white legs, a broad blaze, and a considerable quantity of white in the corners of his eyes, with which he had an uncanny way of regarding his rider. He was truly illustrious in more ways than one. There is no record of any white man (or black one either) having seen him tired. At the end of the longest day, or the most terrific 'cutting-out' work, Ben's head was up, his clear eyes watchful, his uneasy tail, switching slowly from side to side, like a leopard not fully agitated. He had been known to leave Melbourne after a trip with fat cattle (his rider had a young wife on the station certainly), and late on the second day the marshes of the Eumeralla were in sight. A hundred and eighty miles—winter weather too! I can state from personal experience that as a hackney he was deliciously easy, fast, and free. But the luxurious sensation of being so charmingly carried was modified by the ever-present thought that he could 'buck you into a tree-top' whenever it so pleased him; and at what minute the fit might take him no one had ever been able to foretell.

Sprung from a daughter of the Traveller line, Ben inherited the dire resolution of that potent blood, with a fervent intensity peculiar to the descendants of Romeo. The 'nick' was therefore only a partial success. If one had required, as do certain Indian rajahs, a horse warranted to distinguish himself in combat with a tiger, Ben Bolt was the very animal. Once let him get his heels into position and no living tiger would have had a show. He might as well spring at a mitrailleuse. But under saddle he was distinctly unreliable.

I used to break my own colts in those days, and in the course of events Ben was duly haltered and enticed into the stable. Though sensitive certainly, he was not overtly rebellious until the third day, when he kicked at me in what I held to be an unfair and treacherous manner. I gave him a tap in requital with the butt-end of a hay-fork, upon which he deliberately kicked down the partition between his and the next loose-box. He hardly left a slab standing, and generally conducted himself as if he was not sure whether he would not smash the whole building while he was about it.

I avoided contention after this, and in every way applied myself to calm his fears and inspire confidence. It was all in vain. When approached he would contract every muscle till his flesh felt like a board, glaring the while at you with his strangely bright, white-rimmed eyes, in a blood-curdling homicidal way. However, at the end of a week I backed him, looking to every strap and girth, and picking a good soft spot to fall on. He was led, as was the fashion then, along by the side of another horse, and, to every one's surprise, walked away like an old stager. No irregularity took place the next day or the one following. His mouth was good; he held his head up. I was charmed, and rode him proudly about by myself. Next morning he was queer and sullen, and in the middle of the day, for no earthly reason apparently, reared, plunged, bolted, and commenced to buck like a demon. I 'stuck to him' until he gradually got way on, and being apparently temporarily insane, ran into a paling fence, against which he fell down. I came off, of course, but remounted, when he did nothing further.