Part 23 (2/2)
”No, it isn't fair.”
”Why, Johnnie, we hadn't got fifty miles beyond civilisation when, what with the heat and the rough food and bad water, Johnnie, my London legs and my London heart failed me, and down I must lie. We were near a bit of a c.o.c.katoo farmer's shanty.”
”Does it pay to breed c.o.c.katoos?” said Archie innocently.
”Don't be the death o' me, Johnnie. A c.o.c.katoo farmer is just a crofter. Well, in there Bob helped me, and I could go no farther. How long was I ill, Bob?”
”The best part o' two mouths, Harry.”
”Ay, Johnnie, and all that time Bob there helped the farmer--dug for him, trenched and fenced, and all for my sake, and to keep the life in my c.o.c.kney skin.”
”Well, Harry,” said Bob, ”you proved your worth after we got up. You hardened down fine after that fever.”
Harry turned towards Archie.
”You mustn't believe all Bob says, Johnnie, when he speaks about me.
Bob is a good-natured, silly sort of a chap; and though he has a beard now, he ain't got more 'n 'alf the lime-juice squeezed out of him yet.”
”Never mind, Bob,” said Archie, ”even limes and lemons should not be squeezed dry. You and I are country lads, and we would rather retain a shade of greenness than otherwise; but go on, Bob.”
”Well, now,” continued Bob, ”I don't know that Harry's fever didn't do us both good in the long run; for when we started at last for the interior, we met a good lot of the rush coming back. There was no fear of losing the tracks. That was one good thing that came o' Harry's fever. Another was, that it kind o' tightened his const.i.tution. La! he could come through anything after that--get wet to the skin and dry again; lie out under a tree or under the dews o' heaven, and never complain of stiffness; and eat corn beef and damper as much as you'd like to put before him; and he never seemed to tire. As for me, you know, Archie, I'm an old bush bird. I was brought up in the woods and wilds; and, faith, I'm never so much at home as I am in the forests.
Not but what we found the march inland wearisome enough. Worst of it was, we had no horses, and we had to do a lot of what you might call good honest begging; but if the squatters did give us food going up, we were willing to work for it.”
”If they'd let us, Bob.”
”Which they didn't. Hospitality and religion go hand in hand with the squatter. When I and Harry here set out on that terribly long march, I confess to both of ye now I didn't feel at all certain as to how anything at all would turn out. I was just as bad as the young bear when its mother put it down and told it to walk. The bear said, 'All right, mother; but how is it done?' And as the mother only answered by a grunt, the young bear had to do the best it could; and so did we.
”'How is it going to end?' I often said to Harry.
”'We can't lose anything, Bob,' Harry would say, laughing, 'except our lives, and they ain't worth much to anybody but ourselves; so I'm thinkin' we're safe.'”
Here Bob paused a moment to stir his tea, and look thoughtfully into the cup, as if there might be some kind of inspiration to be had from that.
He laughed lightly as he proceeded:
”I'm a bad hand at a yarn; better wi' the gun and the 'girn,' Harry.
But I'm laughing now because I remember what droll notions I had about what the Bush, as they call it, would be like when we got there.”
”But, Johnnie,” Harry put in, ”the curious thing is, that we never did get there, according to the settlers.”
”No?”
”No; because they would always say to us, 'You're going Bush way, aren't ye, boys?' And we would answer, 'Why, ain't we there now?' And they would laugh.”
”That's true,” said Bob. ”The country never seemed to be Bush enough for anybody. Soon's they settled down in a place the Bush'd be farther west.”
”Then the Bush, when one is going west,” said Archie, ”must be like to-morrow, always one day ahead.”
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