"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 a.s.serted itself at once. I may add, in pa.s.sing, 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 c.o.c.kroach 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 p.r.o.nunciation; and if he doesn"t know the proper tw.a.n.g, 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 c.o.c.kroach-- "off you go, like a good chap, and fetch Collins"s horses.
"Impidence ain"t worth a d--n, if it ain"t properly carried out," replied the inferior creation. "Think you git a note a week jist for eatin"
your (adj.) tucker an" orderin" people about? I done my day"s work. Fork over that plug o" tobacker you"re owin" me about the lenth o" that snake.
Otherways, shut up. We ain"t on equal terms while that stick o" tobacker"s between us."
"I"ll straighten you some of these times," replied Moriarty darkly.
"It"s coming, Toby!"
"No catchee, no havee, ole son!" laughed the prince. "The divil resave ye, Paddy! Macushla, mavourneen, tare-an"-ouns! whirroo! b.l.o.o.d.y ind to the Pope!"
"Toby," said Moriarty, with a calmness intended to seem ominous; "if I had a gun in my hand, I"d shoot you like a wild-dog. But I suppose I"d get into trouble for it," he continued scornfully.
"Jist the same"s for layin" out a whitefeller," a.s.sented the prince, still rasping at his c.o.c.kroach, like Ugolini at the living skull of Ruggieri, in Dante"s airy conception of the place where wrongs are rectified.
(That unhappy mannerism again, you see).
"Permit me to suggest," said Moriarty, after a pause, "that if you contemplated your own origin and antecedents, it would a.s.sist you to approximate your relative position on this station. Don"t you think a trifle of subordination would be appropriate to"----
"A servile and halting imitation of Mrs. B.; and imitation is the sincerest flattery," I commented. "I"ll tell Miss K."
"Manners, please!--Appropriate, I was saying, to a blasted varmin like you?
Permit me to remind you that Mrs. Montgomery, senior, gave a blanket for you when you were little."
"I know she did," replied the prince, with just a suspicion of vain-glory.
"n.o.body would be fool enough to give a blanket for you when you was little.
Soolim!"
"Come on, Moriarty," said I, rising; "I must take a bit off the near end of my journey to-night."
"Howld your howlt, chaps," interposed the good-natured half-caste "I"ll run up your horses for you. I was on"y takin" a rise out o"
Mr. Mori--(adj.)--arty, Esquire; jist to learn him not to be quite so suddent."
And in another minute, he was striding down the paddock, with his bridle and stockwhip.
Half an hour later, my horses were equipped; and, all the Levites being absent, four or five tribesmen slowly collected under Pawsome"s shed, waiting to see what would happen. Cleopatra was not without reputation.
"Tell you what you better do," said Moriarty to me--"better hang your socks on Nosey Alf"s crook to-night. His place is fifteen mile from here, and very little out of your way. Ill-natured, cranky beggar, Alf is--been on the pea--but there"s no end of gra.s.s in his paddock. And I say--get him to give you a tune or two on his fiddle. Something splendid I believe.
He"s always getting music by post from Sydney. Montgomery had heard him sing and play, some time or other; and when old Mooney was here, just before last shearing, he sent Toby to tell Alf to come to the house in the evening, and bring his fiddle; and Alf came, very much against his grain. Young Mooney was asked into the house, on account of his dad being there; and he swears he never heard anything like Alf"s style; though the stubborn devil would n"t sing a word; nothing but play. And he was just as good on the piano as on the fiddle, though his hand must have been badly out.
Mooney thinks he jibbed on singing because the women were there.
Alf"s a mis-mis-mis-dash it"----
"Mischief-maker?" I suggested.
"No.--mis--mis"----
"Mysterious character?"
"No, no.--mis--mis"----
"Try a synonym."
"Is that it? I think it is. Well Alf"s a misasynonym--womanhater--among other things. When he comes to the station, he dodges the women like a criminal. And the unsociable dog begged of Montgomery not to ask him to perform again. One night, Nelson was going past his place, and heard a concert going on, so he left his horse, and sneaked up to the wall; but the music suddenly stopped, and before Nelson knew, Nosey"s dog had the seat out of his pants. Nosey came out and apologised for the dog, and brought Nelson in to have some supper; and Nelson stayed till about twelve; but devil a squeak of the fiddle, or a line of a song, could he get out of Alf. But, as the boss says, Alf"s only mad enough to know the difference between an eagle-hawk and a saw--foolish expression, it seems to me. Best boundary man on the station, Alf is. Been in the Round Swamp Paddock five years now; and he"s likely a fixture for life.
Boundary riding for some years in the Bland country before he came here.
Now I"ll show you how you"ll fetch his place"--Moriarty began drawing a diagram on the ground with a stick--"You go through the Red Gate--we"ll call this the gate. The track branches there; and you follow this branch.
It"s the Nalrooka track; and it takes you along here--mind, you"re going due east now"----
"Wait, Moriarty," I interrupted--"don"t you see that you"re reversing everything? A man would have to stand on his head to understand that map.
There is the north, and here is the south."
"Don"t matter a beggar which is the real north and south. I"m showing you the way you"ve got to go. We"ll start afresh to please you. Through here-- along here--and follow the same line from end to end of the pine-ridge, with the fence on your right all the way"----
"Hold on, hold on," I again interrupted--"you"re at right angles now.
Don"t you see that your line"s north and south?--and did you ever see a pine-ridge running north and south? Begin again. Say the Red Gate is here; and I turn along here. Now go ahead."
"No, I"m dashed if I do! I"m no hand at directing; but, by gosh, you"re all there at understanding."
"Jack," said I, turning to the primeval t"other-sider--"can you direct me to Nosey Alf"s?"
"I"ll try," replied the veteran; and he slowly drew a diagram, true to the points of the compa.s.s. ""Ere"s the Red Gate--mind you shet it--then along "ere, arf a mile. Through this gate--an" mind "ow you leave "er, f"r the wire hinclines to slip hover. Then straight along "ere, through the pine-ridge, f"m hend to hend. You"re hon the Nalrookar track, mind, t" wot time you see a gate hin the fence as you"re a-kerryin" hon yer right shoulder. Gate"s sebm mile f"m "ere. Nalrookar track goes through that gate; b"t neb" you mind; you keep straight ahead pas" the gate, hon a pad you"ll "ar"ly see; han jist hat the fur hend o" the pine-ridge you"ll strike hanuther gate; an" you mus" be very p"tic"lar shettin" "er.
Then take a hangle o" fo"ty-five, with the pine-ridge hon yer back; an" hin fo" mile you"ll strike yer las" gate--"ere, hin the co"ner.
Take this fence hon yer right shoulder, an" run "er down. B"t you"ll spot Half"s place, fur ahead, w"en you git to the gate, ef it ain"t night."
"Thank you, Jack, I replied, and then imprudently continued--"It would suit some of these young pups to take a lesson from you."