He says he did not shine at school, but was always drawn to TV shows featuring the outback. As a kid I did see this adventure, that's something I really wanted. The call of open space and his love of animals saw Mr Barns leave home at the age of 17 to make the move to Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, to become a zoo keeper. He worked at several wildlife parks before trying his hand as a tour guide. Driving long distances between Alice Springs and Uluru, he remembered what other zoo keepers had told him about leaving dead wildlife on the highway.
But it's also really important to drag it off the road. He said other animals, such as eagles, are often killed or injured near roadkill sites as they search for food. Mr Barns then realised that it was not enough for him alone to save the lives of helpless kangaroos - he needed to spread the message.
Chris Barns now has legions of fans around the world. He conducts several tours a week while being determined to keep the sanctuary as natural as possible for the kangaroos. Since getting married in , he no longer lives in a tin shed on the sanctuary. He has moved into a house nearby with his wife Tahnee and their family of joeys. The joeys spend most of the time in shoulder bags that keep them warm and mimic the mothers' pouches they left behind.
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In , a true crime episodic saved one man from death row, and made the career of a young Rupert Murdoch. Sorry, this video has expired. Kangaroo rescuer Chris 'Brolga' Barns with a joey at his kangaroo reserve. Chris 'Brolga' Barns on his kangaroo reserve near Alice Aprings. Author Lily Brett on living in the shadow of her parents' grief Juliette O'Brien on family tragedies and moving forward Graham Nash on happiness and harmony How the Ken Done brand became a cultural icon Kon Karapanagiotidis labels Labor and Liberal parties cowards 'I don't want to make any more money': Dick Smith Sigrid Thornton on bullying, retirement and a brush with the law Sex doco funnyman Luke McGregor on his battle with anxiety Tim Cahill on why family will always come before football Paralympian Daniela Di Toro on the power of positive thinking.
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We're in friends, ain't we? He says, 'Off the place you go! How dare you come with a message like that on Sunday? An', sure enough, they ain't with yours, Steve. I think they must 'a' gone to Maguire's. Apart from this verbal justification, there was such ingenuous innocence in the speaker's looks and tones that Steve and I sullenly resumed our school-bags, and turned away.
Here we were joined by another boy, a trifle older, and a good deal sturdier, than any of us. This was Wesley Tregurtha, son of a local clergyman.
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When Steve and I had stated our grievance, Wes turned on Freddy with a look of manly scorn, and struck him heavily in the face. Freddy staggered, then recovered himself, and, without raising his hands, opposed his patience to the other's brutality; the blood trickling from a slight abrasion on his cheek-bone, and mingling with his tears.
But Steve drew Freddy aside, and walked away with his arm round the neck of the sobbing boy, offering such consolation as he could. Wes looked thoughtfully at me. Now it seemed my natural condition in those days to be a victim to the unholy passion of ambition that last infirmity of noble minds ; and the highest aspiration of my soul was to go through Wes Tregurtha. Building on the rotten assumption that a bully is necessarily a fraud, I had always been ready to tackle Wes, and always with disastrous results.
I was like the French nation, as pictured in English history. From Cressy to Waterloo, these neighbours have warred almost continuously; and John Bull, though in every instance fighting against terrific odds, has uniformly come out on top. But this never seemed to matter much to Jacques Bonhomme. Give him his customary majority of five to one and he needed no provocation to come up smiling again, and again, and again; to be sent home each time in a wheelbarrow. I was like Jacques, not only in his unbroken record of failure, but in the odds with which he waged his wars; for Wes had always been willing to fight under any reasonable handicap.
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But now he seemed to have delivered himself into my hand. Call Jack Simpson an' Corney Maguire! I'm goin' to take the flashness out o' this psalm-singin' beggar! Now, Wes, I got a crawfishin' line here that'll do to tie your hand behind your back. But the Order of Things is full of compensation. An hour later, Steve was frowning gloomily over the parsing of a treacherous sentence; Wes was wrestling with the difficulty of distinguishing the nominative from the objective on sight; I was trying the word "than" by every possible test, in a fruitless endeavour to decide what part of speech it belonged to; and each of us was cordially execrating the man that invented grammar.
Freddy alone was happy. He was in fairyland again. He was a slight, graceful boy, brave, beautiful, and above all invincible; a creature of heroic blood, and proud though childlike form. With what calm, patrician scorn he confronted the burly avoirdupois of Wes Tregurtha; scarcely deigning to notice the uproarious cheering of the boys, and the tacit approval of the master, as his plebeian antagonist went down before each blow from the small, delicate, aristocratic hand!
But was he not wiser in his generation than the children of actuality? Old Dr Johnson says that the greatest sublunary happiness consists in being well deceived-well deceived, mind; and Julius Caesar is credited with the axiom that, if you want a thing done well, you must do it yourself. Now and then the two worlds silently approach each other; a spectral hand beckons from the Unknown Shore-and who shall detain life-mate, parent, child or brother summoned thus?
Then the golden thread of gaiety, mercifully woven in the Parcaean web, takes a sickly leaden hue in the creeping solemnity of the changed atmosphere. See what sad completeness this shadow gives to that brightest of comedies, Love's Labour's Lost. Act after act, scene after scene, follow each other in the grace and glow of such pastimes as seem to go far toward making mere existence sufficient in itself.
They fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the Golden Age. They eat their bread with joy, and drink their wine with a merry heart. But it cannot last; for the Unbidden Guest is there I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring Is heavy on my tongue.
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The king, your father Thus confronted by a proposition admitting of no debate, the light-hearted Princess shall thenceforward be sadder in mood, and wiser in mind, by the vivid realization of Death's continual nearness. And so with endless iteration the lesson is forced on our reluctant perception, that the tale of life is never told till blue-shrouded Azrael's icy kiss blanches a loved one's lips, and his dread shadow falls on a familiar form. From far away beyond History's dawn, the three old continents had been watered by mourners' tears; and the story is the same in an unexplored hemisphere.
The sky is bright, the wilderness gay with life, and beautiful in summer vesture, as Hiawatha brings home the bride of his choice-brings the moonlight, starlight, firelight; brings the sunlight of his people. But this is not the end; it is only the end of the first chapter. For this joyous epoch contains the indestructible seeds of a coming time when leaden skies shall look down on skeleton forests and wastes of trackless snow; when the Famine and the Fever shall have done their work, and the brokenhearted chieftain shall sit down, still and speechless, on the bed of Minnehaha, at the feet of Laughing Water, at those willing feet that never more shall lightly run to meet him, never more shall lightly follow.
Yet this will be the end of the second chapter only. The infallible literalist, and the no less dogmatic sceptic, are equally presumptuous in forecast of the third. We do not know. We only know that from the bereavement which caused Jesus to weep, there is no escape, no exemption here. Familiar to the point of platitude is the truism, that one shall be taken, and the other left; yet of all actual experience this is the most startling and bewildering. And think not to be overlooked though you mingle with the crowd; for there, with anguish unabated by fellowship in desolation, you shall learn the lesson which dateless parting alone can teach.
Or flee away on the wings of the morning with your loved ones to discover some smiling Azores or rugged Ile de Bourbon, where, since Chaos reigned, no human foot has trod, nor human sin penalized the soil-and how long before the grave-mould shall hide caressing hands for ever stilled, and responsive eyes for ever dimmed? Ay, wherever human life is lived, the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge, still follow each other like surge upon surge. And so let it be, for there is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Alternate sunshine and rain is the law of Nature; alternate smiles and tears is the law of human life; and this rhythmic reaction is as necessary to healthy moral being as the tide to the sea, or the wind to the atmosphere. About five years after the occurrence in the quarry, Steve and I strolled out, one Sunday, to the little country cemetery in hope of obtaining a distant view of some girls whom we mutually worshipped in their collective capacity, and whose leer we would have thought cheaply purchased by any sacrifice of comfort or principle on our part.
The girls were not there; and we mechanically went on till we stood by two little fresh mounds, enclosed by the same picket fence. We glanced at each other, without speaking, and walked away in opposite directions. An epidemic of diphtheria had passed through the neighbourhood, a few weeks before; and our rival champions of feather-weights were sleeping side by side. They had never quarrelled but once; and that quarrel, divested of all its comical accessories, was the uppermost memory in our minds. I mention this, because it was on the very next day that Fred told the truth for the third and last time within my knowledge.
It happened in this way: Monday was a public holiday, owing to its being the birthday, or something, of some person in Europe; a prince of somewhere, I think; Wales, if I remember rightly-but no matter. Steve and I had gone out shooting; not that we found either pleasure or justification in firing on pretty and inoffensive birds, but it was the correct thing to go out shooting on holidays.
Happily, however, we met with such qualified success that four o'clock in the afternoon found us sitting, hungry and tired, on the bank of the creek, two miles from the township, and three miles from home, with no spoil except a possum, which we had shot asleep on a sapling. We were both silent. I was thinking how, in the morning, my little sister had humbly asked me to nail up a shelf in her play-house. Being fully occupied just then in doing nothing, I had ignored the poor petition, and had left the child pottering patiently at the work herself.
And now I was unable to banish the recollection, though it made me feel unbecomingly tall and manly in bodily presence.
The Buln-Buln and the Brolga
She can manage a twelve-foot circle at twenty yards. The only safe place is straight behind her. Anything in the shape of recreation is a mistake. Love's the worst swindle of the lot. You're welcome to get soft on a girl, and make an idol of her and an ass of yourself-and what does she care? I'm off it for the future. It's like the apples on the bank of the Caspian Sea; fair to the eye, and a thing to be desired to make one wise; and when you sink your teeth into them, you find nothing but ashes. How the ashes gets there is the thing that fetches me.
But there's your holiday. Now, Fred Pritchard hasn't had a holiday since he started carrying the mail, twelve months ago; he doesn't look for one now; and he's a lot better without. Presently he'll come jogging along here, as happy as Larry; with his mail-bag on his saddle, and his revolver at his belt.
The revolver amuses me. It's like poor old Fred; always romantic. Does him good to fancy somebody wants to stick him up, if they were only game. Our eyes met; and Steve murmured, half-unconsciously, "Sposen we were to blacken our faces, and stick him up? We could leave his horse and mail-bag where he could get them again. His version of the story would be worth listening to. I'll call you 'Captain'. You can call me 'Terry'. I'll speak with a slight Irish accent. Sticking up Her Majesty's mail comes next after high treason.
I think I see you fetched into the Court with ten police If you know of any just cause or impediment why the above verdict should not be carried into effect, you're to spit it out now, or for ever hold your peace. String him up, boys, and shove on with the next case. God save the Queen! Collins Esquire, at your service,' says I. We move in the best society. Information has been laid before me, one of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the said Colony of Victoria, to wit, namely, that whereas some evil-disposed person or persons, not having the fear of God before their eyes, so to speak, and being instigated by the Devil, as it were, has been sticking up Her said Majesty's mail of malice prepense and aforethought.
What's your view on the subject, Mr Collins-if it's a fair question, in a Vox populi vox Dei sense? Take cover behind this big tree, and let things follow their natural course. The unconscious Fred approached the ambuscade. He was in fairyland, as usual.
A gallant young knight, fearless, reproachless, and terrible as an army with banners. Proudly caracoled his Norman destrere; brightly flashed his lofty helmet, and gaily waved the foam-like plumes thereon. And see, by'r lady! He hath sworn by Saint Jezebel of Vallombrosa--an oath of parlous might-to bear yon fond token through fair and gentle joust, yea through desperate battle fray; and well, albeit lightly, mote that peerless knight maintain his pledge.
Par le splendeur Dex! Lightly he carols, in the sonorous syllables of the Langue d'Oc, a roundelay of love and valour. I'faith he recks not for aught beside. He rides at will through the merry greenwood, in scorn of ducal feodary, or baron or squire, or knight of the shire; for mark ye, knaves! Lightly it clashes against silver stirrup and golden spur; freely it flashes back the rays of the declining sun; four and forty inches of grey Syrian steel, pardie! Now, by my halidom, 'twere worth ten years of peaceful life to behold some half-score clerks of Saint Nicholas sally forth from ambush!
The horse thriftily dragged sufficient slack through his rider's palsied fingers, and began to feed alongside the track; while Fred sat staring wildly at two slim, half-dressed figures, with blackened faces, twenty or thirty yards in front. These had just stepped out from behind a tree, and now stood leaning with ostentatious nonchalance on their grounded guns.
Fred's white lips moved, but no words issued; the poor dreamer was past that. And this remorseful historian cordially endorses every ounce of reprobation you can heap upon the two thoughtless scamps who conducted the enterprise. Again Fred obeyed, with a docility calculated to propitiate the miscreants, who were slowly drawing nearer.
Well, lay down flat, with yer 'ead in that blurry 'eath. He can't get any flatter; he's pressing about half a ton on the ground now. Say, young shaver," he continued, raising his voice; "take out yer blurry watch, an' see wot's the time. Y'll fine y'r blurry 'oss hat the bridge. Hif y' lif' y'r blurry ear afore the arf-hour's hup--". Be the hole in me coat, av he moves leg ar limb, Oi'll settle him! D'ye moind that, now! Fred required no further caution.
Say Goodaye to Brolga, the “Surrogate Mom” to Orphaned Baby Kangaroos
He heard with deep thankfulness the slow footfalls of his horse, as the Captain led the animal to the bridge; and with mingled emotions he listened to the discordant voice of the ferocious subordinate, who, whilst picking up the mail-bag and revolver, poured forth his irrepressible spirit in an airy distich: We'll plant our guns and things in the sand, and wash our faces, and fetch the mail-bag to the post office. If we cut across the paddocks, we'll get there quicker, with the start we've got, than Fred can on horseback.
We'll strap his revolver to the saddle. The idea was good. We washed our faces, resumed the coats we had thrown off, and buried all our shooting tackle. Half an hour later, we were sauntering up to the post office. The mail was due; and the postmaster was standing at his door, looking down the straggling street of the township. A puff of dust, half a mile away, indicated the approach of the flower of chivalry, coming as fast as he could hammer his old moke along. Drop of rain wouldn't hurt. And I see you've got your watch in your pocket still. And here's your mail-bag.
Aren't you ashamed of yourself. Couldn't you come forward like a man, and say honestly that you had lost the mail instead of inventing an impudent lie about bushrangers? Now let this be a warning to you, Fred.
Try if you can break off that habit. And the good-natured, yet precise postmaster shot out the scanty contents of the mail-bag on his table. Fred's face was a scientific study, as he walked away with Steve and me. I'm going straight to inform the police. Think twice, Fred, you want a mighty strong case before you go fooling with the police, let me tell you.
Say one of them was long and thin, and the other was short and fat; or one of them had a long beard, and the other was clean shaved. Something of that sort helps a lie out wonderfully-gives it a proper finish. I don't care what you say. Certainly, one of them was clean shaved, and the other had a sort of grey whisker round his face-yes, I'm certain he had. He was a horrible-looking character. A low, rascally, bloodthirsty Fenian. I'd walk a hundred mile to see him scragged. His name was Terry. How do you know his name was Terry? You've got a beardy cove, and a shaved chap, and an Irishman, and the Captain, and the bloke you call Terry.
Knock off, knock off. Why, you've been dreaming about bushrangers. See how quick old Appleton bowled you out! If you had been stuck up, you'd have come into the township full gallop, with your empty revolver in your hand, and six bullets in your horse, and the blood trickling down your sleeve. Then the police would go out, and fetch in the bodies; and the Government would hold a meeting, and consult about what to do for you.
But that's only one way of looking at it. Not so pleasant to have the bone of your arm smashed into splinters, and see the doctor wiping the blood and marrow and stuff off his saw after the operation. Think of some great, ignorant, hairy savage of a foreigner coming up full butt, and driving a three-square bayonet through your tummy, till it sticks out of the small of your back!
No, beggar me if I'd like to feel a bullet or a bayonet tearing through my inside. There was a minute's silence.
By this time, we were two hundred yards from the post office. But it's never whanged on to a person, except for a breach of Government contracts, or for laying the police on a wrong scent. Why do you ask? Easy way of making five bob. Wish it was five notes. A few months after this event, Pritchard senior died of some unpronounceable scientific term signifying internal haemorrhage of irascibility and malevolence; whereupon Mrs Pritchard sold out and removed to Melbourne.
The farm had belonged to herself-her husband's half-brother, Sir William Falkland, having generously presented her with the purchase-money, ten years before. In fact, there was no end to Sir William's munificence. And from that time forward Fred hyphenated his own two last names; thus promoting his uncle's patronymic from a Christian name to a surname.
There seemed to be a certain intricacy and vagueness of family relations in the case. So far as I have been able to learn, the complication stood thus By morganatic marriage with supplementary lady presumably named Pritchard , this Edward Falkland, Esquire, had also issue Sylvester Pritchard whose obituary notice has led on to this genealogical dissertation. Here the interest veers round to Miss Kirkham, seventh daughter of the Rev. Two months after landing in Melbourne, Sylvester Pritchard had issue my friend Fred-who thus, of course, became eligible for membership in the Australian Natives' Association.
These family entanglements seem to afford a clue to the origin of hyphenated names. Anyone with a fancy for working out such things by algebra or logarithms might find mental exercise here; but, as I never could get beyond Reduction, I must call Fly. About the time when Fred went to England, Steve Thompson and I, confident that we were men of the time, departed from our homes in different directions, to fulfil, severally, our great destinies.
Our efforts, by the way, have been rewarded by a measure of success. Each of us might now say, with Celia's shepherd, "I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear" etc. I had never seen Fred since, but had heard of him from time to time. It must have been in '70 that he went to England, for rumour reported that he had served with startling distinction, as a volunteer, in the Franco-German war. The same authority also stated that, on the return voyage to Victoria, his ship had twice been attacked by pirates-once in the Levant, and once in the Indian Ocean-and had each time been rescued by Fred's courage and address.
Mrs Pritchard, versatile, capable, ladylike, and now relieved from her connubial incubus, was reported to be doing very well as a matron in some Melbourne institution; and, occasionally, country people who knew Fred saw him doing the Block in faultless array, or, more rarely, clerking, sometimes in one Government office and sometimes in another. To do him justice, superiority to any affectation of idleness had always been one of the many virtues which flourished on his Great Central Desert of incompetency.
Toward old friends, it appeared, he was uniformly genial and obliging. But at last came a report which filled me with awe. The poor impostor had fatuously gone out of his way to court detection and ignominy. Now, I have a theory that women do not love their husbands; and the application of this rule to Fred and his wife is the mainspring of the present memoir. I hold that married life is a long-drawn ordeal, which no man short of a Chevalier Bayard has any business to face; and my hypothesis may be reasoned out in several ways.
All deep feeling finds utterance in song. What an invaluable contribution our aggregate patriotic poetry is! Or our amatory; or our elegiac; or our pastoral; or our religious. But our connubial, which, you would think, ought to surpass any other section, is represented by just two songs worth publication: And the last-named miracle of ardent expression is not the subjective utterance of a loving wife, nor is it the dramatic conception of the scholarly William Julius Mickle, to whom it is popularly attributed; it is the passionate, longing aspiration of a poor hysterical schoolmistress of Greenock, Jean Adams by name-a woman who never had a husband in her life, and to whom the far-off field looked anything but blue.
The original song was decidedly fie-fie in language and sentiment. In its present form, it is simply the objective literary exercise of a man who could write anything, and write it well. There were few aspects of human nature that the wonderful Hellenic race had not studied, and few intricacies of mind or heart that the restless research of its poets had not inquired into. Now, it certainly appears that their characteristic way of putting the conjugal case is this: Think over that for a moment, and its completeness will grow upon you.
Cupid charged Psyche that she should never see him; she must be content with realizing his presence. That, of course, was enough to determine poor Psyche, who thereupon waited till Cupid was asleep. Whilst engaged in the interdicted survey, a drop of burning wax fell from her torch on the shoulder of Cupid. Then Love vanished, and the Soul was alone.
That is the end of the original allegory. The apotheosis of Psyche, and her eternal re-marriage with Cupid, are afterthoughts, exquisitely beautiful, but with the passionless loveliness of a sphere we may not explore. We have only one life here; and under the fierce white light that beats upon a married man, the hero vanishes; then I would rather not be the discredited old pensioner who takes his place. To be sure, the truth never suffers by exposure; but we don't want the truth in this case; we want the other thing.
For, unfortunately, the scare-crow truth of masculinity, the incorrigible he-ness of the he-feller, comes out only too brightly under the penetrating rays of Hymen's slush-lamp. Give to lovely woman a slip or scion--be it of the commonest geranium or the unique Plusgorgeousorum Smithii-she will accept it with the vivid but inexplicable delight experienced by her sex in receiving a present probably worth rather less than nothing.
She will carefully plant that scion-most likely with the wrong end uppermost-and tend it according to her best judgment and ability-such as they are. And daily, with a touch soft as the fall of a snowflake, tender as the kiss of Artemis on the lips of sleeping Endymion, she will draw it out of the ground, into the fierce white light, to see how it is getting on.
She will not let well alone. And you see the consequence. Woman's love is romantic, and flows like the Solway in romantic atmosphere, but ebbs like its tide when a more intimate knowledge has resolved that atmosphere into its prosaic components. Woman's love, like a rare Alpine exotic, planted in the backyard of Life, between the wood-heap and the clothesline, wilts and withers and is seen no more.
Yet we will transplant this delicate edelweiss, and then helplessly watch it perish in uncongenial air. And while grass grows and water runs, woman will consider too curiously-Psyche will light her torch--then alas! Ten thousand women revered and idolized John Wesley; but there was one woman to whom he was small spuds, and few in a hill; one woman who used to put out her tongue at him when he was preaching, and who, in the seclusion of domestic life, cursed and cuffed him, and set him utterly at naught.
That was the dear lady Disdain who had studied the demi-god's close-cropped, wigless cranium; who had watched him shaving, and had marked him snore o' nights; who was familiar with all his jokes, and who knew exactly how much truth there was in his yarns; who had heard the demi-god's voice saying:. And who so admired by lady friends as Dr Johnson, the Colossus of Literature? In like manner, the Wizard of the North was no magician to his vally-de-sham.
From Belisarius, the invincible soldier, down through the ages to Ruskin, the incomparable writer, that sad experience is repeated. Illogical idolatry has made the discovery, and the Circumnavigator is doomed. He was found out--that's all. Illogical admiration is not content with the pencilled beauty of the butterfly's wings, but must needs turn the insect upside down, to be rewarded by the sight of a vulgar grub.
Why is Hamlet never a favourite with the woman-student? Merely because she sees him morally vivisected, and illustrated so to speak with coloured plates. Ophelia loved him as the glass of fashion, and so forth; but when he groaned he was no longer a god; when he raised his arabesqued wings, he disclosed the segmented and woolly body common to the Lepidoptera-and all was over.
The gods will give us some faults to make us men; therefore no man is up to the husband-ideal of a loving woman. The bachelor may reach this standard-for why shouldn't he be magnanimous, and mettlesome, and debonair; prepared to do all that may become a man, and sometimes even things that don't? And if he should fall a trifle short of the real Mackay-a contingency that you may safely count upon-he is in no way compelled to flaunt his own worthlessness before the feminine eye.
But Sir Benedick, the married man, must wear his rue rue is good with a difference. To aggravate the disadvantage of living in a glass house, he will, like Martha, be careful and bothered about many things; he will, in a general way, become sordid, and thrifty, and domesticated; he will learn to glory more in buying articles cheap at sales than in carrying off trophies from his compeers; he will become particular over his tucker, and cautious about getting his feet wet; he will become prudent, and circumspect, and churchwardenlike, and befittingly frightened in the presence of anything lawless, from a crash of thunder to a scrub-bred steer.
And, gentle lady, there goes your ideal. Confess it, ye divil! Let us all ring Fancy's knell. David the half-naked minstrel of Bethlehem, I mean--not the French artist, nor the Melbourne newspaper man was just such a daisy as you might expect a woman to love. He was brave, chivalrous, and accomplished; pious, without being at all sanctimonious; "of a fair countenance", the chronicler says, and distinguished, even in early youth, for gallant conduct in the field.
Like Master Fenton, he capers, he dances as we shall see in the sequel , he has eyes of youth, he writes verses much valued by Presbyterians , he speaks holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry't, he will carry't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry't. So far, so good. The lovers' history might be epitomized in two proverbs-one relating to the course of true love, and the other to the bright lexicon of youth.
Anyway, the romance ended as romances ought to end, namely, with orange blossoms, ring, register, rice, old boots, congratulations, etc. Here your novelist would prudently leave them, with the foolhardy summary that they lived happily ever afterward. But the chronicler goes on to say that Michal's affection knew no decline, but rather intensified and matured while the days were going by. He tells us how, when the day's work was over, Michal used to place beside her undetected impostor the pipe and tabor he loved so well, while he spread a sheet of Egyptian papyrus on the table, and, dipping his reed pen in the Tyrian pigment, wrote in Old Hebrew which is more like the charred relics of a half-burnt stockyard than an alphabetical character that honest men have any business to understand his culpably unintelligible superscription, To the Chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith Maschil A Psalm of David.
This "pipe", by the way, was probably something in the form of a chibouque; and the "tabor" seems to have been a vintage from the historic mountain of that name. And in the cornucopia-laden autumn of their well-spent lives, the era of silver threads among the gold, her same old drunk-- for you can call it nothing else-made her still petulantly insist on the affectionate abbreviation of "Mike".
The chronicler says nothing of the sort, for, like myself, he better loves the lone, chaste, monolithic severity of unembellished truth than any meretricious ornamentation-scroll, or acanthus, or parsley-leaf, as one might say-of poetic justice or dramatic unity. So these are his words: It had to come, soon or late. The Psalmist was a man, like the rest of us; and under the fierce white light he had ceased to be a hero to his vally-de-sham, though still remaining the idol of the feminine public.
And when this stage is reached you may write Selah, and close the book. Nothing more tender than armed neutrality can ensue; for masculine human nature, once contemned by its chosen cwt. We find it so much easier, you will observe, to forgive our own shortcomings than the imperfections of our ladye-loves. This 'tis to be married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets. Communing after this fashion with my own soul, I spent a few restful hours under the wattles; and in due time returned to Mrs Ferguson's for what the vulgar call dinner, and what we of finer moral fibre designate lunch.
Then an hour before Fred's train was due I started for the railway station, leaving Pup safely chained in a comfortable place, with a few empty chaff-bags to repose upon. Half-way to the station, I met a horseman, followed by a loose pack-horse; a lean, wiry-looking man, whose sun-darkened face and hands contrasted amusingly with his white boots and stylish city garments. I had to look over him carefully, as he approached, before fully recognizing another friend of former days, though of much later date than Fred.
A look of tranquillity settled on Bob's face. But I'd like to have a pitch with you--sposen I wouldn't be in your road. Bob, with the bushman's habitual taciturnity, had the bushman's artless candour. When the spell of silence was broken, he would tell you, not only anything he thought might interest you, but everything that interested himself. He had just passed a fortnight of utter desolation in Melbourne, and was now returning with all speed to the more cheerful and homelike regions of the Never-Never.
Reaching Echuca by the midday train, he had straightway gone to the paddock for his horses, with a view to Deniliquin Common as his next camp. I'm on'y sorry for the people that's tied up to it. Even the ships was a have. Why, they're no size. I always thought a ship was as long as from here to that pointed church, an' as wide as from here to where that dray's standin'.
I expected to see the mark o' the adze all over them; but they're touched off like buggies, an' most o' them solid iron. But once seein' them's enough, an' once seein' Melb'n's once too often. An' ain't the sea a swindle! Hear lots o' skitin' about sea-bathin'-- well, I tried it one night last week, when there was nobody about; an' I'm blest if my rags ain't stickin' to my hide ever since.
I'd rather stop dirty than fall back on that specie of cleanness. Fact is, the sea ain't fit to bogey in; it's too salt to drink, an' it ain't salt enough to keep properly. It's goin' rotten fast. An' I got my own opinion about the sea-breeze, from this out. Tell you how I got on. I told the boss o' the place where I come from, an' how long I'd been with M'Gregor, an' how I was beginnin' to buck on it, an' wanted to git a settlin' up About as near flyblowed as a man could wish to be,' says I; 'an' can't git no more satisfaction from M'Gregor nor if he was in heaven; an' me has been breakin' my neck tryin' to keep things together for him.
Seems like as if he'd been standin' in my light ever since I been workin' for him. I been chewin' the rag over it for years,' says I; 'but a mighty sight worse for the flast six or eight months. After me settlin' the cattle on a bit o' new country,' says I; 'an' livin' worse nor a blackfeller, an' buryin' my mate--Ah! Grandest feller ever put his foot in a stirrup; an' he'd give you the shirt off of his back! Well,' says I to the boss, 'after me doin' all that a man could do, till a narangy an' a couple o' chaps come an' took charge, the orders was for me to go back to Avondale.
When I got there,' says I, 'I was shoved straight into the job of cleanin' out a tank, sticky as glue, that took me two solid months, with a mate that wasn't worth his grub, pore feller. An' all this time I was charged three bob a week paddickin' for my two horses; an' the boss o' the station, he had the devil's own cheek. You wouldn't believe your own eyes, Mr M'Culloch,' says I, 'how things was altered on Avondale since I fust seen the place-goin' on for fifteen year ago now.
It's mostly all secured, one way or another; an' take my word, it's nothing for nothing; everything brought down as fine as a hair. Well, after makin' a decent job o' this tank-or you might call it a reservoy-I was sent to Wagga with twelve hundred yowes; an' still not a word about settlin' up; an' no satisfaction any road; for I'd jist as soon be dead, straight off, as I'd be crammed down on the Lachlan, where things is cut so fine. If I git a settlin' up with him,' says I, 'I'll sling him.
I don't mind doin' it,' says I, 'for he's bound to clear a lot out o' pore Bat; for Bat's mother's in the Ararat Asylum, an' he never had any father, nor brothers, nor sisters. Can't come this style o' thing at Wilcanniar,' says I, 'nor yet at Hay. It's care of Mr M'Gregor, an' per favour of this office; but it wants a fresh tuppenny to take it on to New South; so Mr M'Gregor he'd have nothing to do with it. He offered to give us your address,' says the boss; 'but, of course, we couldn't forward it without the tuppenny.
An' here's Mr M'Gregor's address, wrote on this nongvelup. Good afternoon,' says he. The letter was from my sister, to say she was jist startin' for Mount Bischoff-wherever that is. My brother-in-law he'd got into a good billet there; an' my mother she was goin' with them; an' they wanted to hear from me quick. Seems my ole man died a bit before that--". I couldn't believe my own eyes; an' I felt like a dog that's been found out shakin' tucker from the camp; for who should drop in but M'Gregor himself!
It was jist as if it was to be. This is my right-hand man,' says he to the office bloke. Great pleasure to me,' says he; 'but I'm frightened I've trespassed on his time. Jist you wait till you hear me makin' myself anyways nasty about it. Same time, I'd feel lonely enough on'y for meetin' with coves like you.
Come an' have a drink, Mr M'Culloch,' says I. An' he fetches me into the house as if I was the Governor, an' gives me an intro. Anyhow, M'Gregor wouldn't hear o' me goin' for one day after another, till I was fair sick an' tired with goin' back an' forrid to Melb'n every day, seein' life. I used to git my tucker in the sort o' second-class-quality place, an' I had a bedroom all to my own self, with washin' tackle an' everything complete. An' mostly every evenin', M'Gregor'd send for me to come into his office; an' he'd talk to me quite confidential about all that was takin' place on his stations, so fur as I knowed.
Course, I ain't a master's man; an' I was careful not to say anything I'd be sorry for after. Still, there ain't a single thing happens on all them properties but what he knows; an' he's got the measure of everybody, from the supers down. Jist the other way, if anything. Is this the place where you're stoppin'? Mrs Ferguson shook her head when I presented Bob as an applicant for lodgings.
The very last bed in the house was already engaged. Take my word, missus, I've slep' every way except standin' on my head; an' I might have to tackle that style yet. Don't bother about me, or you'll make me feel uneasy. I got blankets with me; an' I on'y want you to show me where I won't be in the road. Every time the train stopped for refreshment I had a small feed; so I ain't as badly off as I might be.
Time we was gittin' a move on us, Collins-ain't it? What's your other name? I fancy I've heard it before. Now, Bob, you must watch yourself, and keep from swearing, or saying anything that would shock a lady. But I notice you've turned over a new leaf in the matter of language. Fact, I ain't shy o' sayin' I'm a religious man now. But a person wants to watch his self in respect o' swearin'. Now, I had a fashion of sayin' 'Go to sheol ' when you said anything that struck me forcible; an' when I repented I sort o' overlooked this habit, right on till on'y the Sunday before last. Tell you how it come Then we got into a yarn; an' he seemed to take pleasure in explainin' things.
By-an'-by says I, 'An' how much of a load can you stack onto her, without her goin' heels-over-tip, or anything givin' way? The habit had a holt o' me, an' I didn't know it. After a while, I says Sposen you start her straight,' says I, 'she might go edgin' off right or left, an' you not know. How do you make her fetch the very spot you aim her for, no matter how she wriggles about? I make a point o' civility to any blubber that shows an interest in seafarin' details; but you ain't worth it.
Clear off o' this boat! But that'll tell you how habits git holt of a man. One minit, while I think of it," he continued, after a pause. When you're in Rome, you must do as the Romanists does. Here you are, sonny. His wits, thought I, as I lit my pipe, are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were; but in faith, honest as the skin between his brows. Ay sir, ruminating along the text , and to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Certainly, the Waxworks is splendid; I used to have a look through it every time I passed; but, outside o' that, you can see everything worth seein' in a couple of hours. As for the statutes-I wonder the bobbies allows them. The front part might' a' been worth seein': The blokes on the stage acts right enough, but they can't recite worth sixpence. One o' them happened to spout my own favourite recitation; an' it would give you the influenza to watch his gyvers. Well, this cove, with his black tights an' black poncho, he turns the skull over in the hands for a bit; then he looks across the country at nothing, like a feller in a dream; an' by-an'-by he says, 'Alas!
I was fair disgusted. Yes; I've seen a opera, an' I'm quite satisfied. I forgit the name o' the performance--foreign gibberage, anyhow. Fust, a woman comes on the stage, dressed up to the nines, an' sings something, with music goin' all the time; then comes a bloke, dolled up like's if he'd come out of a ban'-box, an' he sings some parley voo to the woman; an' she sings something back to him. But while these two was actin' the goat, an' the music keepin' time with them, in comes another cove wearin' the same rig-out; an' he sings something to the fust feller; an'the fust feller sings something back to him.
Then each o' them draws a sword about as wide as a saddle-strap, an' they fought to a brisk, lively sort o' music. Next, the woman runs in between them, an' sings something to the second chap; an' he sings back to her; an' the fust bloke chips in with his Last-Rose-of-Summer-That settled me. I can stand a lot o' common foolishness; but I'd want ten bob an hour for seein' operas. I was to have took one o' the servant girls with me that time, on'y M'Gregor wouldn't allow it. Fearful strict, God-fearin' man, he is. He said he thought there was more comin' to me than I was aware about.
So that's all right. He give me a cheque for ten notes, the fust evenin'; an' then, last night, he give me another cheque for thirty notes, besides five sovereigns-'I s'pose you'll be wantin' to git away early in the mornin',' says he. An' take my word for it, he was right. Beggared if I'd 'a' knowed what it was, on'y he told me. An' the last word he says to me, last night, when I was biddin' him good-bye-'Bob, laddie,' says he, an' he lays his hand on my shoulder.
I'm givin' you a free hand,' says he, 'on account o' the opinion I got of you; an' I won't keep you tied up to a locality you don't like. I'll stick to you, Bob,' says he; 'an' I'll expect you to stick to me. Fact, me an' Bat mightn't 'a' got back, on'y for a thunderstorm; for we lost the run o' Bat's horse; an' we on'y had mine between the two of us. One afternoon, we sighted the prettiest little lake you ever seen; an' our horses was mad thirsty; an' we knowed the water was good, by the birds; an' on we goes, yarnin' like two fools, an' lettin' our horses rush the water.
Nice smooth sheet o' white sand all along the edge; you'd think she'd carry ten ton; but my mind misgive me, on account of a dream I had the night before; so I pulled up, an' sung out to Bat. He was tryin' to turn before the word was out o' my mouth; but it was too late, for his horse went through the sand into black mud, an' couldn't recover, no road. Bat he turns a back summerset, an' rolls clear; an' the horse begun to struggle; an' the whole place movin' an' bulgin' like a tarpolin with the wind under it; an' in about two minits there was no more sign of horse, nor saddle, nor bridle, nor there is on that footpath; nothing on'y jist a sort o' wavy crack in the dry sand, with the black mud spuein' up from underneath.
An' as luck would have it, both the two water-bags was on Bat's saddle, on account of his horse bein' a lot stronger nor the bit of a weed I was ridin'.
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Nice way to be fixed, with sixty to eighty mile of rough, waterless country to cross back agen; an' no preparation; an' the ground about two degrees short o' redhot; an' us in a sudden fright about the four hundred head o' cattle we ought to be mindin'-Shows how careful a person ought to be. Uneasy about the cattle, for we'd no business to be both away together. Next afternoon, we begun to feel it. When you're in a cool climate, like this, if you want a drink, you can go without till further orders; but in a warm climate you feel it. So there was us, splodgin' through some sand, peltin' the horse along in front of us, for, to make matters better, he had broke a bit off his hoof in some stony ground.
No foolish yarnin' then, but plenty of good hard thinkin' instead; an' each of us with a mussel in his mouth, to keep it damp; an' we seen the sky turnin' black, low down, out to our left, an' the sun blazin' away everywhere else; an' by an' by we seen the lightnin' so bright it made the sunshine seem dark after; an' we heard the thunder goin' grand. Then we soon reckoned her up to be about five mile away, to the middle. When you see the lightnin', you jist begin to count, middlin' slow'one-two-three'-till you hear the thunder belongin' to that flash; then you drop countin', an' allow a little better'n four to every mile, an' reckon her up.
You foller this rule for a few brattles o' thunder, to make sure; an' you'll git at her middlin' right. Worst of it is, you can't see nor hear no sign of a thunderstorm, if she's goin' on ten or twelve mile away-fact, very seldom eight mile. Queer, too, considerin' the loudness of thunder. I've heard a frog-bell quite as fur from the camp. So we got through right enough. Do your eyes good to see the place where we lost Bat's horse. Grass above your stirrups, an' no end o' permanent water. Seems to be a sort o' island-like the Tatiara; on'y, of course, the desert's a lot rougher, an' the island's a lot better.
I was tellin' M'Gregor it's middlin' bad to git at; but there was some emus, about half-road; an' they wouldn't be far off o' water in that sort o' weather. Must be water there; an' I'll find it before I'm six months older, or you can call me Johnny-come-lately, or Burke-an'-Wills, or anything you like. The long line of carriages drew up to the platform, which instantly became alive with hundreds of holiday-seekers.
I attentively scanned the crowd, doubtful of recognizing Fred, but certain of identifying his wife at a glance. I could picture her exactly. We are all gifted with an intuitive sense of what you might call appellative congruity, or the appreciation of fitness in proper names. But from a very early age I have endeavoured to systematize the crude intuitions, the mental phantasms, which as proper names vibrate on the tympanum, photograph themselves on the uninviting grey matter inside.
In fact, I have formulated a science, which I call Nomenology, and which, like all other sciences except Mathematics, sometimes runs cronk. Yet I felt that I would recognize Mrs Pritchard on sight. As Fred's antithetical complement, she would carry a stern, practical, masterful look; also the poor woman would be sour in temper and repellent in manner, through continual brooding over her grand mistake.
To describe her after the poundkeeperlike manner of your gushing novelist, she would have coarse, hard, black hair, in close proximity to a receding forehead; black eyebrows, well defined, but somewhat misplaced, bounding her nose if you understand me on the south-east and south-west instead of the north-east and north-west, and meeting at the little gutter which separates the nose and mouth.
Small, keen, dark-grey eyes, and a strong-minded aquiline nose, would give character to her face. She would have thin, firm, colourless lips--a mouth which would strike you as being designed for the reception of sustenance, and the expression of opinion, rather than for the more romantic office in which, as poets feign, this important organ is not unfrequently employed.
She would have a strong and prominent chin; a square, pugilistic jaw; and I must not omit to mention a very conspicuous mole, crested by five long, black hairs, and situated on the side of her chin, about an inch below the extremity of her left eyebrow. Sinewy neck, angular shoulders, level bust, and all the rest in proportion. As the crush at the barriers subsided, I saw Fred, carrying a child on his arm, and recognized him with some relief of mind.
Time had dealt bountifully with my old schoolmate. All that he had lost in youthfulness was more than gained in bearing and presence. He had stopped growing-much to his own discontent-at fifteen or sixteen; but the resultant deficiency was now generously overpaid by a better-class portliness. His bright, luxuriant, curly hair-noticeable when he raised his hat to some departing fellow--passengers-was efficiently seconded by the most harmoniously associated whiskers and moustache which I have yet been privileged to admire; and his unobtrusive chin was set off by that aristocratic shave vulgarly known as the "squatters' gap".
Indeed, so pronounced was his air of distinction that even the most casual observer would at once have marked him as a man of no common standard. But there is usually some outward and visible sign of any inward and spiritual greatness; and Fred was as great as Washington, though in an entirely different way. At all events, there was such consciousness of indisputable eminence in his whole aspect that I looked round with vivid interest, and some uneasiness, for the stern face of the person who, in the nature of things, had found him out.