Page:Such Is Life.djvu/27

Rh ten-mile paddock, and stick a bob a head on them, but that’s a thing that I’m very familiar with; it’s a dirty transaction to refuse water to perishing beasts, but I’ve been refused times out of number, and will be to the end of the chapter; it’s a dirty transaction to persecute men for having no occupation but carting, yet that’s what nine-tenths of the squatters do, and this Montgomery is one of the nine. You’re a bit sarcastic. How long is it since you were one of the cheekiest grass-stealers on the track?”

“Never, Steve. You’ve been drinking.”

“Anyway, you needn’t be more of a hypocrite than you can help,” grumbled Thompson. “If you want a problem to work out, just consider that God constructed cattle for living on grass, and the grass for them to live on, and that, last night, and to-night, and to-morrow night, and mostly every night, we’ve a choice between two dirty transactions—one is, to let the bullocks starve, and the other is to steal grass for them. For my own part, I’m sick and tired of studying why some people should be in a position where they have to go out of their way to do wrong, and other people are cornered to that extent that they can’t live without doing wrong, and can’t suicide without jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. Wonder if any allowance is made for bullock drivers?—or are they supposed to be able to make enough money to retire into some decent life before they die? Well, thank God for one good camp, at all events.”

“How’s the water?” asked Cooper, meeting us at the fence.

“Enough for to-night,” replied Thompson; “but very little left for posterity.”

“After us, the Deluge,” observed Willoughby.

“I hope so,” replied Cooper devoutly. “Lord knows, it’s badly wanted; and I’m sure we don’t grudge nobody the benefit. Turnin’ out nice an’ cool, ain’t it? The bullocks’ll be able to do their selves some sort o’ justice.”

It was a clear but moonless night; the dark blue canopy spangled with myriad stars—grandeur, peace, and purity above; squalor, worry, and profanity below. Fit basis for many an ancient system of Theology—unscientific, if you will, but by no means contemptible.

Price and Cooper, being cooks, had kindled an unobtrusive fire in a crabhole, where three billies were soon boiling. And the tea, when cool enough, needed no light to escort a due proportion of simple provender into that mysterious laboratory which should never be considered too curiously.

After supper, we lay around, resting ourselves; everyone smoking tranquilly except Willoughby. Dixon and Bum were evidently old friends; they reclined with their heads together, occasionally laughing and whispering—a piece of bad manners silently but strongly resented by the rest of the company.

“I’ll jist go an’ have a squint at the carrion,” remarked Mosey, at length, with the inevitable adjective; and, passing through the broken fence, he disappeared in the timber and old-man salt-bush.

“Wants some o’ the flashness took outen him,” remarked Price, in arrogant assertion of parental authority, yet glancing apprehensively after Mosey as he spoke.