Chapter I

The hospitality of the bush never extends to the loan of a good horse to an inexperienced rider. The parson bumping along on old Rosey, who had smelt the water of the “Circler Dam,” was powerless to keep the cunning experienced brute from diverting from the track. With the bit in her teeth, her pace kept him fully occupied to hold his seat. At the edge of the Dam, old Rosey, to avoid the treacherous mud, began, with humped back and hoofs close together, to walk along the plank, that pierwise extended to the deeper water. The parson’s protests ended in his slipping over the arched neck of the wilful brute, on to the few inches of plank that she considerately left for him. The old mare drank leisurely, then backed off with the same precaution, and stood switching the flies with her stunted tail. The parson followed her and thankfully grabbed the reins. After several attempts to get up on the wrong side, he led the exacting animal to a log. He removed the veil he wore as a protection from the sticky eye-eating flies, so that Rosey might recognise him as her erstwhile rider. It was at this stage that “flash” Ned Stennard, always with time to kill and a tongue specially designed for the purpose, rode up and gave him lurid instructions and a leg up.

He had come to their remoteness, he told Ned, as they rode along, to hold a service at a grazier’s homestead some miles distant. Under Ned’s sympathetic guidance he pulled up at the sliprails of a cockey’s selection to announce these tidings. It was Ned’s brother’s place, but Ned, who was not on speaking terms with his sister-in-law, rode on and waited.

A group of half-naked children lay entangled among several kangaroo pups, in a make-believe of shade from a sickly gum tree. A canvas bag, with a saddle strap defining its long neck, hung from a bough, and the pups were yelping mildly at its contents, and licking the few drops of blood that fell. The parson saw the children rub the swarming flies from their eyes and turn to look at him. An older girl, bare-footed and dressed in a petticoat and old hat, was standing near a fire before the wide opening that served as a doorway to the humpy. She had a long stick, and was employed in permitting an aged billy-goat to bring his nose within an inch of the simmering water in the bucket slung over the fire.

“Are your parents in?” he asked.

“You aint ole Keogh?” said the girl.

When he admitted that he wasn’t, he saw her interest in his personality was gone. “Are your mother and father in?”

The thirsty billy was sneaking up again to the water, and she let him advance the prescribed limit before she made the jab that she enjoyed so thoroughly. “Mum’s gorn ter Tilly Lumber’s ter see t’ ther kid, and ther rester them’s gorn ter ther Circler Dam.”

He made known his mission to the girl, but she didn’t divide her attention. The water would soon be too hot for the billy to drink, and there was no fun to be got out of the pups. For when she took the salt pork out of the canvas bag and put it in the bucket, they wouldn’t try to get it out of boiling water.

Doubtful of his success, the parson rejoined Ned, and along the dusty track they jogged. The parson’s part in the dialogue was chiefly remonstrative as to the necessity of Ned’s variegated adjectives. And he had frequently to assure the bushman that it would be useless for him to search in his clerical pockets for tobacco, as he didn’t smoke.

At the Horse Shoe Bend they overtook hairy Paddy Woods of eighteen withering summers. Paddy was punching and blaspheming a nine mile day out of his bullocks. These were straining their load along with heads bent close to the dust-padded track, silent, for all the whip weals, but for a cough to free their mouths and nostrils from dust. Old Rosey, an inveterate yarner, pulled up abruptly; but Paddy, who had his day’s work cut out to a minute, gave a voiceless side-long nod in recognition of the parson’s greeting, and went on driving his team. Probably his share of the conversation, mainly catechismal, would have been yea and nay nods, but for catching Ned’s eye when the parson asked if he were married. Paddy struck an attitude of aged responsibility, and, tipping Ned an intelligent wink, made a pretence of searching through a dusty past, and replied that he thought he was. The parson, giving him the benefit of the doubt, enquired if there were any children for baptism. Paddy, still with an eye on Ned, reckoned that the number of his offspring was uncertain, but promised that as soon as he delivered his load of wool he would have a day’s “musterin’ an’ draftin’ an’ countin’ an’ ear-markin’” and send him the returns. Ned’s loud laugh and “Good old Paddy” had not the effect on its young-old recipient’s well-filled tobacco pouch that he had hoped. The disgusted parson was trying to urge Rosey onward, but Rosey refused to leave her pleasant company till Ned brought his switch across her back.

Ned stayed with Paddy long enough to tell him that, in his opinion, the black-coated parson was “nothin’ but a sneakin’ Inspector, pokin’ an’ prowlin’ roun’ fur ole Keogh”--the lessee of the run, and their common enemy. He added that the green veil he wore over his eyes was a “mast” (mask), but that it didn’t deceive him. Tobaccoless Ned tried further to arouse practical admiration from pouch-full Paddy, by adding that he would ride after this disguised Inspector, “pump ’im dry as a blow’d bladder, an’ then ’ammer ’ell outer ’im.” But even this serious threat against the parson’s stock-in-trade had no fruitful result, and putting his empty pipe back he galloped after his companion.

As they rode along, the parson in admiration watched the wiry little bushman dexterously winking both eyes to the confusion of the flies, and listened to the substitution of words of his own coinage dropped red hot into the conversation in place of the sulphurous adjectives. Soon there was but little unknown to Ned’s listener of the inner history--and with such additions as contrasted unfavourably with his own--of every selector on this sun-sucked run. In order of infamy Ned placed the lessee first; a good second came the Land Agent in the little township whence this pilgrim parson had come. But this fact was made clear to him, that were the lessee ten times richer, the Land Agent ten times more unscrupulous, were “dummy” selectors occupying every acre, Ned was more than a match for them all.

At a later stage of their journey, when he turned again to the narratives of his cockey brethren, another circumstance stood out. It was only when Ned had exhausted the certainty, probability, and possibility of increase among the mares, cows, ewes, and nannies of his and the other cockeys’ flocks and herds, that he would descend to the human statistics, and the parson found that impending probability and possibility entered largely into Ned’s computation of these.

From time to time they sighted the cockeys’ humpies, but Ned, intent on making the most of his amazed listener, kept him on the track to his destination by promising to call at all the selections on his way back, and tell them that there was to be a service to-morrow morning. To emphasise his thoroughness, he added, with a wink of bush freemasonry, that he would “on’y tell two sorts--them wot arsts me, an’ them wot don’t.” And this clerical brother, newly initiated into the mysteries of bush craft, could not have found a better messenger. But the wonder expressed in his eyes, as he watched this new labourer in the vineyard cantering briskly away to bear the glad tidings, would have changed to awe could he have heard the varied versions Ned gave to the scattered families as to the need of their being at the grazier’s homestead the first thing next day. Moreover, most of the conversation related by Ned as having taken place between the parson and him would have been as new to the former as it was to Ned’s audience. For the adjectives with which he flavoured the parson’s share proved him to have readily and fluently mastered the lurid bush tongue.

It was shearing time, and being also the middle of the week, most of the men were away. Those who were at home left their dinners, and came outside to talk to him. A visitor at meal times is always met outside the humpy, and the host, drawing a hand across a greasy mouth, leads the way to the nearest log. The women of the bush have little to share, and nursing the belief that how they live is quite unknown to one another, they have no inclination to entertain a caller. Two of the daily meals consist mainly of sliced damper dipped in a pan of fat, that always hangs over the fire. Mutton at shearing time is a rarity, as the men feed at the sheds. Wild pigs caught and killed by the women make the chief flesh food, but these are often scarce in the dry season.

And in addition Ned was no favourite among the women. This was partly from his being “flash,” but more from his reputation for flogging his missus. Ned, moreover, had tried to force his example on the male community by impressing upon them his philosophy, that it was the proper thing to hit a woman every time you met her, since she must either be coming from mischief or going to it. As to his flashness, he considered he had something to be flash about. He had been twice to Sydney; and not only could he spell by ear, but, given an uncertain number of favouring circumstances, he could use a pen to the extent of putting his name to a cheque. Certainly before he would attempt this, Liz, his missus, had to pen up the goats, shut the hut, and, with the dogs and the kids, drive the fowls a mile from the house, and keep them there till Ned fired a gun. Left to himself, Ned would tear out a cheque, lay it on the table, place a block of wood on the bottom edge of the paper, to keep his hand from travelling off it to the table below. Then he had to tie his wrist to the left side of his belt--he was left-handed--in such a manner that his hand could not stray to the foreign region above the cheque, ink the pen with his right hand, and place it in the left. But even then the task was often unaccomplished. Sometimes he would be so intent on trying to keep the EDWARD on the line, that it would run to the end of the paper, excluding the STENNARD, and, despite Ned’s protests anent insufficient space, the bank did not approve of part of the signature being placed on the back of the cheque. When he tried to write small and straight, the result generally seemed satisfactory till a careful analysis showed a letter or so missing. Or, just as success seemed probable, his cheque book would give out, or his pen break. It was bad for Liz and her own boy Joey when either of these accidents occurred, for he would fire no gun, and, despite all the perspiring activity of Liz, the kids, and the dogs, some of the fowls would make their way home to roost on the hut when night came. For allowing him to be disturbed “jes as I wus gettin’ me ’and in” he would “take it outer” Liz, or, what was worse to her, “outer” Joey.

But on this occasion Ned, ever resourceful and now hungry, refused to be led to a log. His reputation for startling discoveries was against him, but he knew that many of them must have seen him riding past with a black-coated stranger, and he trusted to that to support the story his ingenious imagination had ready for them. Authoritatively he demanded in each case to see the missus. They came ungraciously, but after his dark, bodeful hints as to the necessity of their attending service at the grazier’s homestead next day, he was invited inside and a place was cleared for him at the table. Quite recklessly they plied him with pints of tea and damper and dip, sprinkled with salt, and in some extravagant instances with pepper. And Ned took these favours as his due, though he knew he was no favourite.

Flogging and flashness were lost sight of by these anxious women, as they listened to all he had to say. They coaxed him to wait while they searched among the few spare clothes in the gin cases with hide-hinged lids, for land receipts, marriage lines, letters from Government Departments, registered cattle brands, sheep ear-marks, and every other equipment that protects the poor cockey from a spiteful and revengeful Government, whose sole aim was “ter ketch ’em winkin’” and then forfeit the selection. All of these documents Ned inspected upside down or otherwise, and pronounced with unlegal directness that “a squint et them ’ud fix ’im if thet’s wot ’e’s smellin’ after.” He told them to bring them next day. Those of the men who had swapped horses with passing drovers, without the exchange of receipts, were busy all afternoon trumping up witnesses.