Part 5 (1/2)
”Time he was thinkin' about repentin', anyhow,” observed Dixon
”Now, really Thompson--do you believe in these special hby, as Price rejoined the company ”Are you so superstitious?
I should n't have thought it”
”I've good reason to believe in the why I did n't have two teams Now I'll tell you the reason
It's because I'ot a curse on o, when I finished my second season, I found ood, and the prospect of going straight ahead, like the cube root--or the square of the hypotenuse, is it? I forget the exact term, but no matter Well, the curse ca felloas travelling with, got a letter fro him to settle there; so he offered me his plant for two-thirds of its value--fifty notes down and fifty ood-nature of him, for he knew he could have the lot if he liked But there's not many fellows of Charley's stamp So I paid him the fifty notes and we parted
He was to send me his address as soon as he reached New Zealand; but he never got there The vessel recked on some place they call the North Spit; and Charley was one of theNever heard of hiuined) shot!” remarked Mosey ”I wish that sauined) colonial!” assented Dixon and bu about the geography of New Zealand,”
continued Thoot the address of Charley's people
Any honest man would have hunted them up, but that was n't my style; I was n't a wheat-sample; I was a tare Coht there was no ti haste to be rich, and considering not that's there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, as Soloht; I'll pay it some time' Now see the consequence----”
”Just two years after I bid the poor fellow good-bye-two years to the very day, and not very lucky years neither--I found myself in the on left behind, and the bullocks dropping off like fish out of water; bullocks worth ten notes going as if they were n't worth half-a-crown It was like the retreat from Moscow Finally, I lost fourteen on the trip--exactly the nuave it to Baxter for fetching the load the last fifty ht clear away the curse, so I didn't fret over it I felt as if Charley had got satisfaction But I wasn't going to get off so cheap
Two years afterward--you reon fro for Pribble at that very time, and he can tell you how dick the Devil cleanedin afresh with the reon Then a year or two afterward, I went in debt to buy that plant of Mulligan's--hiiel-- and that same winter the pleuro broke out in one; and then, of course, the plague was stopped Not having any use for Mulligan's wagon, I swapped her for a new thirty-by-twenty-four wool-rag, and a Wagga pot, good for eight or ten ht; and, within a on; she's in the bottoht ton of bricks to steady her, and the tarpaulin and bell to keep her co the most critical planks out of a stea her there Afterward, when I was hauling logs for pontooning, on the Goulburn, I kept buying up steers and breaking them in, till I had telves; and one day I left sixteen of the; and suddenly I heard a crash that rattled back and forward across the river for a quarter of an hour I had a presentiain, and I wasn't disappointed
One of the fallers had left a tree nearly through when he went to dinner; and a gust of wind sent it over, and it carried a couple of other trees before it, right on the spot where ht of the me with sixteen My next piece of luck was to lose that new Yankee wagon in the Eight-h that Providence had taken up Charley's case, and was prepared to block ood one Now, I've always stood pretty ith the agents and squatters, and I knoay round Riverina, so I can turn over as al Alf (I beg your pardon, Cooper; I forgot)--but what's the use of money to me?
Only vanity and vexation of spirit, as Shakespear says I get up to a certain point, and then I'nificant sample of the misfortunes I've had since I cheated that dead man; but if they don't prove there's a curse onas proof in this world”
Price cleared his throat ”Them misforcunes was invidiously owin'
to yer own (adj) ht for not havin' better luck,” added Dixon
”Learn you sense, anyhow,” reood,” hazarded buently ”I've had my turn I hope I take it like a ot heads on your bodies--perhaps next year; perhaps next week; perhaps to-morrow
Let's see how you'll take it Mind, there's a curse on every one of us
And look here--we had no business to travel to-day; there was a bite of feed in the Patagonia Swaot a presentiht
Just rown-up children, till Willoughby politely sought to restore ease by contributing his quota to the evening's feast of reason--
”There occurs to , indeed, though apropos of nothing in particular A student, returning fro a hare in his hand 'Friend,'
said the student quietly, 'is that thine own hare or a wig?' The joke, of course, lies in the play on the word 'hare'”
Willoughby's courteous effort orse than wasted, for the general depression deepened
”You're right, Thoot a curse on theh swearin'
and Sabbath-breakin' I've tried to knock off swearin' fifty dozen tiht as well try to fly Last tian for Kenilworth, fouro' rice in the botto tore her, an' she started leakin' through the cracks in the floor o' the wagon; an' I could n't git at her no road, for there was seven ton on top of her; an' the blasted stuff it kep' dribble-dribble till you could 'a' tracked allop for over a hundred mile; an' me swearin' at it till I was black in the face; an' it always stopped dribblin' at night, like as if it was to aggravate a man
If it had n't been for that rice, I'd 'a' kep' from swearin' that trip; an' then, comin' down from Kenilworth with Thompson, I'd 'a' kep' froive him credit for that much”