Rigby's Romance

Making straight for my customary place of sojourn--namely, Mrs.
Ferguson's Coffee Palace--I helped the landlady's husband to unsaddle
and feed my horses; after which, I caused that unassuming bondman to
bring about twenty lbs. of scraps for Pup, whilst I chained him (Pup,
of course) in an empty stall. Then, with six or eight words of
explanation and apology to Mrs. Ferguson, I sought my usual bedroom,
and, shedding all my garments but one, threw myself into collision
with that article of furniture which has proved fatal to some better
men, and to a great many worse.

Here an opportune intermission of about ten hours in the march of
events affords convenience for explaining the purpose of my journey to
Yarrawonga. The fact is that I object to being regarded as a mere
romancist, even as a dead-head speculator, or dilettante reporter, of
the drama of life. You must take me as a hard-working and ordinary
actor on this great stage of fools; but one who, nevertheless, finds a
wholesome recreation in observing the parts played by his fellow-
hypocrites. (The Greek "hupokrisis," I find, signifies, indifferently,
"actor" and "hypocrite.")

I was booked for one of those soft things that sometimes light on us
as gratefully and as unaccountably as the wholesale rain from heaven
upon the mallee beneath. John C. Spooner, Rory O'Halloran and I had
just bought the Goolumbulla brand. Or rather, the manager, Mr.
Spanker, had given us the clearing of the run under certain
conditions, one of which was the payment of £100.

Goolumbulla--centrally-situated in that wilderness between the
Willandra and the Darling--had been settled for about five years. Six
hundred head of cattle had originally been placed on the run, to the
disgust and exasperation of Mr. Spanker, whose bigoted faith in the
evil-smelling merino admitted no toleration for any other kind of
stock. His antipathy was reasonable enough in this instance, for these
were warrigals, even as scrub-bred cattle go. You know the class--
long-bodied, clean-flanked, hard-muscled, ardent-eyed, and always in
the same advanced-store condition. They had been wild enough when
first brought from the ranges of the Upper Lachlan, and Goolumbulla
was just the sort of country to accelerate their reversion to the pre-
domesticated type. At the time I speak of, they could barely endure
the sight of a man on horseback. As for a man on foot, they would face
anything else on earth to get away from him; and if they couldn't get
away, that man might either betake himself to his faith, or stand on
guard. Which latter alternative sounds so dishonestly vague and non-
committal that literary self-respect demands a slight digression.

To deal with fear-maddened cattle in confined spaces--as in drafting
or trucking--the infantry man requires an alert eye, a cool head, and
a suitable stem of scrub, terminating in a nasty spray of leafless
twigs; also his flank and rear must be covered, in order to confine
the enemy to a frontal assault. These conditions being fulfilled, the
operator can reserve his mortal preparation for some future emergency,
though it would, perhaps, be as well to abstain from anything in the
nature of language until the draft is put through. A handy piece of
brush, judicially presented, will check the charge of any steer. The
animal will try to get round the obstruction, but he won't attempt to
break through.

Here, by the way, I may seize an opportunity of further disturbing
the congested ignorance of the bookish public by noticing Sir Walter
Scott's misapprehension of the bovine temperament, as displayed in
"The Lady of the Lake." You remember how the milk-white bull--
"choicest of the prey we had, when swept our merry men Gallangad"--is
depicted as fiery-eyed, fierce, tameless and fleet, to begin with.