Such is Life

J >> Joseph Furphy >> Such is Life

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Nevertheless, I collected the wreckage of what had been very fair faculties,
and attempted to grapple with an idea which Ida's conversation had suggested.
Finding this impossible, I made a mental memo. of the inspiration--and by
the same token, I neatly utilised it within the next few hours. Your attention
will be drawn to the circumstance in due season.

At mid-day, the bell sounded from the hut. Pawsome and the tribesmen
quitted their work, and went to dinner. Priestley had started an hour before,
bound for Nalrooka, with the remaining half of his load.

All the Levites, except Moriarty, were out on the run, but Martin,
the head boundary rider, had timed himself for lunch. This man's status
was a vexed question. He certainly rated--but did he rate high enough
for the barracks? As head boundary man, decidedly not; but as recent
proprietor of a small station absorbed by Runnymede, he was not destitute
of pretensions. Out in the open air, he was, of course, as good as any Levite,
but----Well, though we rather resented his presence in the Inner Court,
we yielded him the benefit of the doubt; and he took that benefit,
just as if he had been born in the purple, like ourselves.

Martin was an Orangeman of rank. He had attained the Black Degree.
It was whispered that he held all the loyal brethren of Riverina under
the whip, by reason of his being the only man in the region beyond
the Murrumbidgee who could confer the Purple Degree. For, owing to
an inherent haziness in the theses and aims of Orangeism, there are Orders
in the Society as hard to attain as those German university degrees
which no man ever took and had his eyesight perfect afterward; though,
to be sure, there is a certain difference in the relative value of the two
species of attainment.

Moriarty--whose front name was Felix--was, if anything, a Catholic; and,
partly on this account, partly on account of his being a young fellow,
and partly on account of Miss King, the governess, Martin set him. Now,
there was just one man within a hundred miles who knew less of Irish History
than Martin, and that man was Moriarty; consequently, the two jostled
each other as they rushed into that branch of learning where scholars fear
to tread--each repeatedly appealing to me for confirmation of his outlandish
myths and clumsy fabrications. I listlessly confirmed anything and everything.
Having lost all mental, as well as physical, energy where King John
lost his regalia, namely, in the Wash, the line of least resistance
was the line for me.

After a hearty lunch, I made my way back to the seat against the wall,
while Moriarty lounged across to the store, and Martin went to speak
to the High Priest at the door of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Then Martin mounted
his horse, and rode away; and presently the tribesman, Jerry, brought a buggy
and pair to the front door. Montgomery and Folkestone--the latter
in knickerbockers--took their seats in the buggy, and whirled away
down the horse-paddock fence. Then all was still, save for the faint
pling-plong of a piano in the Holy of Holies.

Whom have we here? Moriarty to disturb me. Let him come. It is meat
and drink to me to see a clown; by my faith, we that have good wits have much
to answer for; we shall be flouting; we cannot hold.----

The young Levite, closing the door of the store behind him, advanced
with the indescribably weary step of a station man when the day is warm
and the boss absent, and seated himself by my side.

"Why ain't you in the barracks having one of your quiet palavers
with Mrs Beaudesart?" he asked.

"Prithee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk," I murmured.

"Something I wanted to ask you, Collins," he resumed; "but I'm beggared
if I can think what it is. Slipped away like a snake, while you're looking
round for a stick. Singular how a person can't remember a thing for the life
of them, when once they forget it; and suddenly it crops up of its own accord
when you're not thinking of it."

"Parse that," said I, listlessly.

"Parse your granny!" he retorted. "I don't believe you could parse it
yourself, as clever as you think you are. Beggar conceitedness;
beggar everything. I wish I was about forty."

"And know as much as you do now?" I barely articulated.

"Yes--and know as much as I do now," he repeated doggedly. "In fact,
I never met anyone that knows as much as I do; but people won't pay
any attention to a young fellow, no matter if he was Solomon. That Martin
wants a lift under the ear."

"Does he?" I asked faintly. "I did n't hear him express the desire."

"Gosh! you've been on the turkey; you'll be cutting yourself some of
these times. I wish Toby was back with the mail. I hope he'll forget
to ask for your letters."

"Now the Lord lighten thee; thou art a great fool," I sighed. "What time
does Toby generally get back?"

"Any time between two in the afternoon and sunrise next morning,
according to the state of the mailman's horses. Beggar such a life as this.
At it, early and late; working through accounts, and serving-out rations,
and one thing or another; and no more chance of distinguishing myself
than if I was in jail. I can't stand it much longer, and what's more, I won't.
I wish the mail was in. I've got a presentiment of something good this time.
If you don't speculate, you won't accumulate, as the saying is; and if a man
can't make a rise by some sort of gambling, he may as well lie down and die,
straight-off. But the first rise is the difficulty; and, of course,
you've got to take the risk."

"What do you do with the rise when you get it?" I asked, drowsily.

"Why, distinguish yourself, of course--what else? There's a great future
sticking out for a fellow, if he's got his head screwed on right."

"So there is. Well, what shall it be? Mechanics? Fine opening for
an inventive genius there--but you must be up and doing, as the poet says."

"You had all the chances when you were my age," replied Moriarty bitterly.
"I'm too late arriving. Everything's invented now."

"True," I observed. "I hadn't thought of that objection. Then why not take up
some interesting study, and work it out from post to finish?
Political Economy, for instance?"

"Anybody could do that," replied the young fellow contemptuously.
"I want to distinguish myself."

"Then I'll tell you what you'll do, Moriarty. Take a narrow branch of some
scientific study, and restrict yourself to that. Say you devote your life
to some special division of the Formicae?"

"The what?"

"Formicae. The name is plural. It embraces all the different species
of ants."

"Why, there's only about three species of ants altogether; and there's nothing
to learn about them except that they make different kinds of hills,
and give different kinds of bites. That sort of study would about suit you.
Fat lot of distinction a person could get out of ants."

"Still, every avenue to distinction is not closed," I urged. "We're knocking
at the gates of Futurity for the Australian pioneer of
poetry--fiction--philosophy--what not? You've got all the working plant
ready in your office. There you are!"

"No use, Collins," he replied hopelessly. "I've got the talent, right enough,
but I haven't got the patience. In fact, I'm too dash lazy."

"Charge it on the swimming-hole, brother," I sighed.

"No; I can't very well do that. I haven't been there for the last month.
I'd go to-night if I had a horse."

"Heavens above!" I murmured; "what would he be like if he was clean?
He would distinguish himself in one direction. The material is there."

"Jealousy, jealousy," replied Moriarty disgustedly. "Never mind. I'll make
things hum yet. Do you know--I stand to win twenty-four notes on the regatta,
besides my chance of the station sweep on the big Flemington, let alone
private bets. We'll get news of both events to-day; and I have a presentiment
of something good. Gosh! I wish Toby was here!"

"And how much do you stand to lose, if your mozzle is out?" I asked.
"By-the-way, didn't I incidentally hear that you were playing cards
all last Sunday?"

"I don't believe that has anything to do with it," replied Moriarty,
in an altered tone. "But, to tell you the truth, I dare n't count up how much
I'll lose if things go crooked. I've plunged too heavy--there's no doubt
about that--but I did it with the best intention. I made sure of scooping;
and, for that matter, I make sure of it still. But whatever you do,
don't begin to preach about the evils of gambling--not now, Collins;
not till after we get news of these events. Doesn't everybody gamble,
from the Governor downward--bar you, and a couple or three more sanctimonious
old hypocrites, with one foot in the grave, and the other in the devil's mouth?
Why, Nosey Alf is the only fellow on this station that has no interest
in the sweep, besides no end of private bets."

"Is n't that Toby?" I asked, indicating a horseman, half-a-mile away.

"Gosh, yes!" replied Moriarty nervously. "I wonder what brings him
from that direction? Come, Collins--will you give me five to one he has
letters for you? I'll take it at that."

"Indeed you won't, sonny."

"Well, let's have some wager before he gets any nearer," persisted Moriarty,
with an unpleasant laugh. The suspense was beginning to tell upon a mind
not originally cast in the Stoic mould. So much so, that I felt inclined
to lose a trifle to him, even as a teetotaller would administer a nip
to a man who was beginning to see things. "Come!" he continued recklessly;
"I'll give you two to one he has letters for you; twenty to one he has letters
for the station"----And so he gabbled on, whilst, drifting into my Hamlet-mood,
I charted the poor fellow's mind for my own edification.

"Hold on, Moriarty," I interrupted, recalling myself. "Let's hear that
fifty-to-one offer again. Am I to understand that if Toby has letters
for the station and none for me, you win; if he has letters for me and none
for the station, I win; and, failing the fulfilment of either double,
the wager is off?"

"That's it. Are you on?"

"Make it a hundred to one."

"Done! at a hundred to one--in what?"

"Half-sovereigns," I replied, feeling for the purse which, vulgar as it is,
bushmen even of aristocratic lineage are compelled to carry. I placed
the little coin--about one-tenth of my total wealth--in Moriarty's hand.
He shrank from the touch.

"What do you mean?" he asked petulantly. "I might n't win it, after all.
Don't be more disagreeable than you can help."

"You intend to get it without giving an equivalent--don't you?
You know it's yours. Are n't you betting on a certainty? Lay it on
the window-sill, if you like, and pick it up when you can read your title
clear. If you don't speculate, you won't accumulate; and I suppose
you've no objection to looking into the morality of your speculation"----

I had cleared my throat for a disquisition which would have been intolerable
to the unprincipled reader, when a very curious thing arrested the attention
both of Moriarty and myself--the strangest coincidence, perhaps, within the
personal experience of either of us--a conjuncture, in fact, which for a moment
threw us both staggering back on the theology of childhood. At the present
time, I feel too meek to attempt any unravelment, and too haughty to offer
any apology other than that such is life.

The half-caste had cantered up to the horse-paddock gate, had dismounted,
had divested his horse of the saddle and bridle, and had given the animal
a slap with the latter. Now he was depositing those equipments in the shed.
Now he approached us, taking two letters and a newspaper from the tail-pocket
of what had once been an expensive dress-coat of Montgomery's.

"Yours, Collins," said he. "Don't say I never gave you nothing. Nix for you,
Mr. (adj.) Moriarty."

"You're very laconic," observed the storekeeper in a hollow voice,
yet eyeing the prince sternly; "very laconic, indeed, I must say.
If I was you, I would n't be quite so laconic. How the (sheol) comes it
that you did n't fetch the mail?"

"Need n't look in that paper for the Flemington, Collins," said the
heir-apparent; "she's a day too soon. I took a squint at her, comin' along."

"I was asking how the (adj. sheol) you managed to come without the mail?"
repeated Moriarty, with dignity.

"I heard you, right enough. I ain't deaf. Well, I come on a moke.
Think I padded it? Fact was, Moriarty, I met Magomery at Bailey's Tank,
an' he told me to go like blazes to Scandalous Sandy's hut, on Nalrooka,
an' tell him a lot o' his sheep was boxed with ours in the Boree Paddick.
'I'll fetch the mail home myself,' says he. There now."

"And why didn't you go to Scandalous Sandy's?" nagged Moriarty.

"Well, considerin' you're boss o' this station, an' my bit o' filthy lucre
comes out o' your pocket, I got great pleasure informin' you I met ole
Gladstone, comin' to tell us the same yarn. Anything else you want to know?"

"Did you hear which crew won the regatta?" asked Moriarty, almost civilly.

"Sydney," replied the prince. "Think you Port Phillipers could lick us?"

"That's a lie!" exclaimed Moriarty, catching his breath.

"Right. It's a lie, if you like. I got no stuff on it. See what Collins'
paper says. An' now I feel like as if I could do a bit o' dinner--unless
you got any objections?"

He stalked away toward the hut, whilst I opened what turned out to be
a love-letter--evidently intended for some other member of our diffusive clan,
for I could make neither head nor tail of it; nothing, indeed, but heart,
and such heart as it has never been my luck to capture. Meanwhile, Moriarty
had cut the string of the newspaper, and was running his eye over its columns.

"My mozzle is out, Collins." said he, with an effort. "I'll never
clear myself--never in the creation of cats. It's all up!"

"Yes; you suffer by comparison with the sanctimonious old hypocrites now,"
I replied, in a fatherly tone, as I took the half-sovereign
from the window-sill. "Feel something like an overproof idiot--don't you?
We'll talk about that presently. But see what I've got here."

My second letter ran:--

K3769
No. 256473
Central Office of Unconsidered Trifles,
Sydney, February 1, 1884.

Mr. T. Collins.

Sir,--I am directed to inform you that the Deputy-Commissioner
purposes visiting Nyngan on the I7th prox. You are required
to attend the Office of the Department in that township
at 11 a.m. on the day above mentioned, to furnish any
information which he may require.

I am, Sir

Ynnnnnnnnnnly

MMMnnynnlnny

pro Assistant-Under-Secretary.

"Not a whisper about the M-form," I remarked. "Perhaps it's in your mail.
No odds. Montgomery can complete it, and send it on, just as well as if
I had n't been near the place at all. But here's something like two hundred
and thirty miles to be done in seven days--and the country in such a state.
This is the balsam that the usuring senate pours into captains' wounds.
Never mind The time is only too near, when I'll sit in my sumptuous office,
retaliating all this on some future Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector. And,
in the meantime, this long dusty ride will make a man of me once more.
I must start at once; and I could do with some money. Moriarty,
you're owing me fifty notes."

"I know I am," replied the storekeeper, in a quivering voice.
He was as punctiliously honourable in some ways as he was perfidious
in others--being amiably asinine in each extreme.

"Now, including your little liability to me, how much are you out,
even if the Flemington gamble goes in your favour?" I asked.

"Only sixty-eight notes," he faltered. "I'll clear it, right enough,
if I'm not rushed, and if I don't get the sack off the station."

"But, by every rule of analogy, you're also badly left on the Flemington,"
I continued serenely. "How much does that leave you out?"

"Ninety-seven notes, and my rifle," he replied, steadying his voice
by an effort. "Mad-mad-mad! I wish I were dead!"

"Will you swear of gambling altogether till my claim is discharged?
On that condition, I can extend the time--say to the Greek Kalends."

"If you think I could raise the money by that time," replied the poor fellow
dubiously. "Anyway, I give you my solemn promise. But, I say," he continued,
with seeming irrelevance--"when do you expect promotion?"

"At any moment. My presentiments, being based on the deepest inductions
of science, and the subtlest intuitions of the higher philosophy,
are a trifle more trustworthy than yours; and I have a presentiment that
the thing is impending. But you need n't congratulate me yet.
Think about yourself."

"That's just what I'm doing. If you tell her about this wager,
I'll suicide, or clear."

"Well, upon my word! Do you think I'd condescend to undermine you,
you storekeeper? Look out for Martin; never mind me."

"I don't mean her," mumbled the young fool; "I mean Mrs. Beaudesart.
You're going to marry her when you get your promotion--ain't you?"

There was such evident sincerity in his tone that I maintained a stern
and stony silence, whilst his eyes met mine with a doubtful, deprecating look;
then he remarked doggedly,

"Well, that's what she told Mrs. Montgomery, last Sunday; and she said it
seriously. Miss King was present at the time; and she told Butler,
and Mooney, and me, across the gate of the flower-garden, the same evening.
Mrs. Beaudesart takes it for granted, and so does everybody else. She says
she accepted you some time ago."

"You lying dog!" I remarked wearily.

"I hope I may never stir alive off this seat if I'm not telling you
the exact truth. Ask Mooney or Butler."

"If I do sleep, would all my wealth would wake me," I murmured,
half-unconsciously.

"You don't want to marry her, then, after all?"

"How long do you suppose I would last?"

"Well, don't marry her."

"Does it occur to you," I asked, with some bitterness, "that there are
some things a person can do, and some things he can't do? If the head
of my Department orders me to Nyngan, I can reply by letter, telling him
to mind his own business, and not concern himself about me; but if
Mrs. Beaudesart assumes--if she merely takes for granted--that I'm going
to marry her, I must do it, to keep her in countenance. How, in the fiend's
name, can I slink out of it, now that I'm accepted? Can I tell her
I've examined my heart, and I find I can only love her as a sister?
Now, would n't that sound well? No, no; I'm a done man. Of course,
she had no business to accept me unawares; but as she has done so,
I must help her to keep up the grisly fraud of feminine reluctance; for,
as the abbot sings, so must the sacristan respond. It is kismet. This is how
all these unaccountable marriages are brought about; though, to be sure,
I have the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the enterprise brings me
a good many days' march nearer home."

The expression of heavenly beatitude on Moriarty's face goaded my mind
to activity. Sweeping, with one glance, the whole horizon of expediency
and possibility, I caught sight of the idea glanced at in a former page,
and suggested, you will remember, by my dialogue with Ida.

"By the way, Moriarty," said I; "respecting that trifling debt of honour--
there's another condition that I didn't think of. As a sort of payment
on account, you must privately and insidiously circulate a very grave
scandal for me."

"Well, I won't!" exclaimed the young fellow, after a moment's pause.
"I don't mind telling a lie when I'm driven to it; but a woman's a woman.
Do your own dirty work!"

"Then, by Jove, I'll post you!"

If anyone had used this threat to me, I would have asked how the posting
was usually done, and what results might be expected to follow; but Moriarty's
lip quivered under the threat.

"Do your worst," said he, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"You may depend on that," I replied quietly. "However, the scandal
was only about myself."

"I don't understand."

"I'll enlighten you. I was going to ask you to take Nelson, or Mooney,
or both of them, into your confidence. Then you would arrange that
Mrs. Beaudesart should overhear you discussing some horrible scandal
in connection with me. And mind, she would have to believe it, or you would
be a ruined man for the rest of your life--you would be a defaulting gambler,
a byword, a hissing, an astonishment, with the curse of Cain upon your brow.
Then she would spurn me with contumely, and I would be my own man again.
I would be in sanctuary, so to speak; inviolable by reason of my disgrace.
Metaphorically, you could lay the blast, and fire it at your leisure,
in my absence. I would leave all details to your own judgment,
only holding you responsible for quality of fuse, and quantity of powder.
I'd stand the explosion."

"I'm on!" exclaimed Moriarty, brightening up. "Gosh! I'll give you
a character to rights! Mind, it'll make you look small."

"The smaller the better. I have a small aperture to crawl through,
and no other means of escape. Of course, being innocent all the time,
the scandal won't even fizz on my inner consciousness. In fact, I'll feel
myself taking a rise out of everyone that believes the yarn; and I'll
live it down in good time. Now lay your plans carefully, Moriarty, and make
a clean job of it, for your own sake."

This being definitely settled, I soon demonstrated to the young fellow
that his case, as regarded other liabilities, was by no means desperate;
and his elastic temperament asserted itself at once. I may add, in passing,
that he has never broken his anti-gambling pledge; also, that my £50
remains unpaid to this day.

"Now I must go and catch my horses," said I. "Can you come?"

"Hold on," replied Moriarty; "here comes Toby; we'll send him."

As the half-caste lounged out of the front door of the hut, the cook went out
by the back door, and gathered an armful of firewood. Toby turned, and glided
back into the hut, and, a moment later, the cook also re-entered, at the
opposite side. Then the prince bounded out through the front door,
with a triumphant grin on his brown face, and an enormous cockroach
of black sugar in his hand. The next moment, a piece of firewood whizzed
through the open door, smote H.R.H. full on Love of Approbation, ricochetted
from his gun-metal skull, and banged against the weatherboard wall
of an out-house.

"Will yo ever go home, I dunno?" laughed the prince, picking up his hat,
while the baffled cook recovered his stick, and returned to the hut.

"Now what's the use of arguing that a blackfellow belongs to the human race?"
queried Moriarty--the last ripple of trouble having vanished from the serene
shallowness of his mind. "That welt would have laid one of us out.
And did you ever notice that a blackfellow or a half-caste can always
clear himself when his horse comes down? The first thing a whitefellow thinks
about, when he feels his horse gone, is to get out of the way of what's coming;
but it's an even wager that he's pinned. Never so with the inferior race.
Now, last Boxing Day, when we had races here, we could see that the main event
rested between Admiral Rodney--a big chestnut, belonging to a cove on a visit
to the boss--with Toby in the saddle; and that grey of M'Murdo's,
Admiral Crichton, with"----

"Repeat that last name, please?"

"Admiral Cry-ton. That slews you! Did n't I tell you you'd be cutting
yourself? It's M'Murdo's own pronunciation; and if he doesn't know
the proper twang, I'm dash well sure you don't; for he owns the horse.
But wasn't it a curious coincidence of name--considering that neither
the owners nor the horses had ever met before? Well, Young Jack was to ride
Admiral Crichton; and I had such faith in the horse, with Jack up,
that I plunged thundering heavy on him. So did Nelson. But, by jingo,
the more we saw of Admiral Rodney, the more frightened we got--in fact,
we could see there was nothing for it but to stiffen Toby. Toby was to get
a note if he won the big event, and nothing if he lost; but it paid us
to give him two notes to run cronk"----

"One moment," I interrupted--"just oblige me with the name and address
of that horse's owner?"

"Shut-up. It's blown over now. But as I was telling you, the chestnut
had been a few times round the course, under the owner's eye, and he knew
the road; and to make matters better, you might break the reins, but
you could n't get a give out of his mouth; and he could travel like
a rifle-bullet; so when Toby tried to get him inside the posts, he pulled
and reefed like fury, and bolted altogether; and came flying into the straight,
a dozen lengths to the good. Of course, losing the race made a difference
of a note to Toby; so he caught the horse's shoulder with his spur,
and turned him upside down, going at that bat. Then, to keep himself out
of a row, he gammoned dead till we poured a pint of beer down his throat;
and he lay groaning for two solid hours, winking now and then at Nelson and me.
But that'll just tell you the difference. Neither you nor I would be game
to do a thing like that; we could n't be trained to it; simply because
we belong to a superior race. I say, Toby!"--for the half-caste had seated
himself near Pawsome's bench, and was there enjoying his cockroach--
"off you go, like a good chap, and fetch Collins's horses.

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