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253 pages

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. Scientifically, such a contingency can never have befallen of itself. According to one theory of the Universe, the momentum of Original Impress has been tending toward this far-off, divine event ever since a scrap of fire-mist flew from the solar centre to form our planet. Not this event alone, of course; but every occurrence, past and present, from the fall of captured Troy to the fall of a captured insect. According to another theory, I hold an independent diploma as one of the architects of our Social System, with a commission to use my own judgment, and take my own risks, like any other unit of humanity. This theory, unlike the first, entails frequent hitches and cross-purposes; and to some malign operation of these I should owe my present holiday.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819948605
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I
Unemployed at last!
***
Scientifically, such a contingency can never havebefallen of itself. According to one theory of the Universe, themomentum of Original Impress has been tending toward this far-off,divine event ever since a scrap of fire-mist flew from the solarcentre to form our planet. Not this event alone, of course; butevery occurrence, past and present, from the fall of captured Troyto the fall of a captured insect. According to another theory, Ihold an independent diploma as one of the architects of our SocialSystem, with a commission to use my own judgment, and take my ownrisks, like any other unit of humanity. This theory, unlike thefirst, entails frequent hitches and cross-purposes; and to somemalign operation of these I should owe my present holiday.
Orthodoxly, we are reduced to one assumption:namely, that my indomitable old Adversary has suddenly called tomind Dr. Watts's friendly hint respecting the easy enlistment ofidle hands.
Good. If either of the two first hypotheses becorrect, my enforced furlough tacitly conveys the responsibility ofextending a ray of information, however narrow and feeble, acrossthe path of such fellow-pilgrims as have led lives more sedentarythan my own— particularly as I have enough money to frank myself ina frugal way for some weeks, as well as to purchase the fewrequisites of authorship.
If, on the other hand, my supposed safeguard ofdrudgery has been cut off at the meter by that amusinglyshort-sighted old Conspirator, it will be only fair to notify himthat his age and experience, even his captivating habits andwell-known hospitality, will be treated with scorn, rather thanrespect, in the paragraphs which he virtually forces me to write;and he is hereby invited to view his own feather on the fataldart.
Whilst a peculiar defect— which I scarcely like tocall an oversight in mental construction— shuts me out from theflowery pathway of the romancer, a co-ordinate requital endows me,I trust, with the more sterling, if less ornamental qualities ofthe chronicler. This fairly equitable compensation embraces, I havebeen told, three distinct attributes: an intuition which reads menlike sign-boards; a limpid veracity; and a memory which habituallystereotypes all impressions except those relating to personalinjuries.
Submitting, then, to the constitutional interdictalready glanced at, and availing myself of the implied license toutilise that homely talent of which I am the bailee, I purposetaking certain entries from my diary, and amplifying these to theminutest detail of occurrence or conversation. This will afford tothe observant reader a fair picture of Life, as that engagingproblem has presented itself to me.
Twenty-two consecutive editions of Lett's PocketDiary, with one week in each opening, lie on the table before me;all filled up, and in a decent state of preservation. I think Ishall undertake the annotation of a week's record. A man might, ifhe were of a fearful heart, stagger in this attempt; but I shut myeyes, and take up one of the little volumes. It proves to be theedition of 1883. Again I shut my eyes while I open the book atrandom. It is the week beginning with Sunday, the 9th ofSeptember.
SUN. SEPT. 9. Thomp. Coop. and c. 10-Mile Pines.Cleo. Duff. Selec.
The fore part of the day was altogether devoid ofinterest or event. Overhead, the sun blazing wastefully andthanklessly through a rarefied atmosphere; underfoot the hot, blackclay, thirsting for spring rain, and bare except for inedibleroley-poleys, coarse tussocks, and the woody stubble of close-eatensalt-bush; between sky and earth, a solitary wayfarer, wisely laptin philosophic torpor. Ten yards behind the grey saddle-horsefollows a black pack-horse, lightly loaded; and three yards behindthe pack-horse ambles listlessly a tall, slate-coloured kangaroodog, furnished with the usual poison muzzle— a light wire basket,worn after the manner of a nose-bag.
Mile after mile we go at a good walk, till the darkboundary of the scrub country disappears northward in the glassyhaze, and in front, southward, the level black-soil plains ofRiverina Proper mark a straight sky-line, broken here and there bya monumental clump or pine-ridge. And away beyond the horizon,southward still, the geodesic curve carries that monotony acrossthe zone of salt-bush, myall, and swamp box; across the Lachlan andMurrumbidgee, and on to the Victorian border— say, two hundred andfifty miles.
Just about mid-day, the station track I wasfollowing intersected and joined the stock route; and against thebackground of a pine-ridge, a mile ahead, I saw some wool-teams.When I overtook them, they had stopped for dinner among the trees.One of the party was an intimate friend of mine, and three otherswere acquaintances; so, without any of the ceremony which prevailsin more refined circles, I hooked Fancy's rein on a pine branch,pulled the pack-saddle off Bunyip, and sat down with the rest, toscreen the tea through my teeth and flick the diligent littleoperatives out of the cold mutton with the point of mypocket-knife.
There were five bullock-teams altogether: Thompson'stwenty; Cooper's eighteen; Dixon's eighteen; and Price's two teamsof fourteen each. Three of the wagons, in accordance with a fashionof the day, bore names painted along the board inside the guardirons. Thompson's was the Wanderer; Cooper's, the Hawkesbury; andDixon's, the Wombat. All were platform wagons, except Cooper's,which was the Sydney-side pattern.
To avoid the vulgarity of ushering this company intothe presence of the punctilious reader without even the ceremony ofa Bedouin introduction— (This is my friend, N or M; if he stealsanything, I will be responsible for it): a form of introduction, bythe way, too sweeping in its suretyship for prudent men to use inRiverina— I shall describe the group, severally, with suchsuccinctness as may be compatible with my somewhat discursivestyle.
Steve Thompson was a Victorian. He was scarcely atypical bullock driver, since fifteen years of that occupation hadnot brutalised his temper, nor ensanguined his vocabulary, norfrayed the terminal “g” from his participles. I knew him well, forwe had been partners in dogflesh and colleagues in larceny when wewere, as poets feign, nearer to heaven than in maturer life. And,wide as Riverina is, we often encountered fortuitously, and werealways glad to fraternise. Physically, Thompson was tall and lazy,as bullock drivers ought to be.
Cooper was an entire stranger to me, but as hestoutly contended that Hay and Deniliquin were in Port Phillip, Iinferred him to be a citizen of the mother colony. Four monthsbefore, he had happened to strike the very first consignment ofgoods delivered at Nyngan by rail, for the Western country. He hadchanced seven tons of this, for Kenilworth; had there met Thompson,delivering salt from Hay; and now the two, freighted withKenilworth wool, were making the trip to Hay together. Kenilworthwas on the commercial divide, having a choice of two evils— thelong, uninviting track southward to the Murrumbidgee, and the badlywatered route eastward to the Bogan. This was Cooper's firstexperience of Riverina, and he swore in no apprentice style that itwould be his last. A correlative proof of the honest fellow'sEastern extraction lay in the fact that he was three inches taller,three stone heavier, and thirty degrees lazier, than Thompson.
I had known Dixon for many years. He was amagnificent specimen of crude humanity; strong, lithe, graceful,and not too big— just such a man as your novelist would picture asthe nurse-swapped offspring of some rotund or ricketty aristocrat.But being, for my own part, as I plainly stated at the outset,incapable of such romancing, I must register Dixon as one whoseignoble blood had crept through scoundrels since the Flood. Though,when you come to look at it leisurely, this wouldn't interfere witharistocratic, or even regal, descent— rather the reverse.
Old Price had carted goods from Melbourne to Bendigoin '52; a hundred miles, for £100 per ton. He had had two teams atthat time, and, being a man of prudence and sagacity, had two teamsstill, and was able to pay his way. I had known him since I wasabout the height of this table; he was Old Price then; he is OldPrice still; and he will probably be Old Price when my head isdredged with the white flour of a blameless life, and I ampottering about with a stick, hating young fellows, and makingmyself generally disagreeable. Price's second team was driven byhis son Mosey, a tight little fellow, whose body was aboutfive-and-twenty, but whose head, according to the ancient adage,had worn out many a good pair of shoulders.
Willoughby, who was travelling loose with Thompsonand Cooper, was a whaler. Not owing to any inherent incapacity, forhe had taken his B. A. at an English university, and was,notwithstanding his rags and dirt, a remarkably fine-looking man;bearing a striking resemblance to Dixon, even in features. But asthe wives of Napoleon's generals could never learn to walk on acarpet, so the aimless popinjay of adult age can never learn totake a man's place among rough-and-ready workers. Even in spite ofWilloughby's personal resemblance to Dixon, there was a suggestionof latent physical force and leathery durability in the bullockdriver, altogether lacking in the whaler, and equiponderated onlyby a certain air of refinement. How could it be otherwise?Willoughby, of course, had no horse— in fact, like Bassanio, allthe wealth he had ran in his veins; he was a gentleman. Well forthe world if all representatives of his Order were as harmless, asinexpensive, and as unobtrusive as this poor fellow, now situatedlike that most capricious poet, honest Ovid, among the Goths.
One generally feels a sort of diffidence inintroducing one's self; but I may remark that I was at that time aGovernment official, of the ninth class; paid rather according tomy grade than my merit, and not