The Best Australian Bush Stories Read online

  What the ’orse did to the ’ouse or vice versa no one ever knew; doubts have been freely expressed whether there ever was such a case at all, and certainly, if it covered all the ground that old Considine stretched it over, it was a wonderful decision.

  However, genuine or not, whenever a swindle seemed likely to succeed, old Considine would rise to his feet and urbanely inform the bench that under the ‘well-known case of Dunn v. Dockerty, case that Your Worship of course knows, case of the ’orse outside the ’ouse’, this claim must fail; and fail it accordingly did, to the promotion of justice and honesty.

  This satisfactory state of things had gone on for years, and might be going on yet only for the arrival at Kiley’s of a young lawyer from Sydney, a terrible fellow, full of legal lore; he slept with digests and law reports; he openly ridiculed old Considine’s opinions; he promoted discord and quarrels, with the result that on the first court day after his arrival, there was quite a little crop of cases, with a lawyer on each side, an unprecedented thing in the annals of Kiley’s Crossing.

  In olden days one side or the other had gone to old Considine, and if he found that the man who came to him was in the wrong, he made him settle the case. If he was in the right, he promised to secure him the verdict, which he always did, with the assistance of Ram on Facts and ‘the ’orse outside the ’ouse’.

  Now, however, all was changed. The new man struggled into court with an armful of books that simply struck terror to the heart of the P.M. as he took his seat on the bench. All the idle men of the district came into court to see how the old man would hold his own with the new arrival.

  It should be explained that the bush people look on a law case as a mere trial of wits between the lawyers and the witnesses and the bench; and the lawyer who can insult his opponent most in a given time is always the best in their eyes. They never take much notice of who wins the case, as that is supposed to rest on the decision of that foul fiend the law, whose vagaries no man may control nor understand. So, when the young lawyer got up and said he appeared for the plaintiff in the first case, and old Considine appeared a verdict for the defendant, there was a pleased sigh in court, and the audience sat back contentedly on their hard benches to view the forensic battle.

  The case was simple enough. A calf belonging to the widow O’Brien had strayed into Mrs Rafferty’s backyard and eaten a lot of washing off the line. There was ample proof. The calf had been seen by several people to run out of the yard with a half-swallowed shirt hanging out of its mouth. There was absolutely no defence, and in the old days the case would have been settled by payment of a few shillings, but here the young lawyer claimed damages for trespass to realty, damages for trover and conversion of personalty, damages for detinue, and a lot of other terrible things that no one had ever heard of.

  He had law books to back it all up, too. He opened the case in style, stating his authorities and defying his learned friend to contradict him, while the old P.M. shuffled uneasily on the bench, and the reputation of old Considine in Kiley’s Crossing hung trembling in the balance.

  When the old man rose to speak he played a bold stroke. He said, patronisingly, that his youthful friend had, no doubt, stated the law correctly, but he seemed to have overlooked one little thing. When he was more experienced he would no doubt be more wary. (Sensation in court.) He relied upon a plea that his young friend had no doubt overlooked, that was that plea of cause to show. ‘I rely upon that plea,’ he said, ‘and of course Your Worship knows the effect of that plea.’

  Then he sat down amid the ill-suppressed admiration of the audience. The young lawyer, confronted with this extraordinary manoeuvre, simply raged furiously. He asserted (which is quite true) that there is no such plea known to the law of this or any other country as an absolute defence to claim for a calf eating washing off a line, or to any other claim for that matter.

  He was proceeding to expound the law relating to trespass when the older man interrupted him. ‘My learned friend says that he never heard of such a defence,’ he said, pityingly. ‘I think that I need hardly remind Your Worship that that very plea was successfully raised as a defence in the well-known case of Dunn v. Dockerty, the case of ‘the ’orse outside the ’ouse.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the bench, anxious to display his legal knowledge, ‘that case . . . er . . . is reported in Ram on Facts, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, it is mentioned there, Your Worship,’ said the old man, ‘and I don’t think that even my young friend’s assurance will lead him so far as to question so old and well-affirmed a decision!’

  But his young friend’s assurance did lead him that far, in fact, a good deal further. He quoted decisions by the score on every conceivable point, but after at least half an hour of spirited talk, the bench pityingly informed him that he had not quoted any cases bearing on the plea of cause to show, and found a verdict for the defendant.

  The young man gave notice of appeal and of prohibitions and so forth, but his prestige was gone in Kiley’s. The audience filed out of court, freely expressing the opinion that he was a ‘regular fool of a bloke; old Considine stood him on his head proper with that plea of cause to show, and so help me goodness, he’d never even heard of it!’

  THE IRONBARK CHIP

  HENRY LAWSON

  DAVE REGAN AND PARTY—bush-fencers, tank-sinkers, rough carpenters, etc.—were finishing the third and last culvert of their contract on the last section of the new railway line, and had already sent in their vouchers for the completed contract, so that there might be no excuse for extra delay in connection with the cheque.

  Now it had been expressly stipulated in the plans and specifications that the timber for certain beams and girders was to be ironbark and no other, and Government inspectors were authorised to order the removal from the ground of any timber or material they might deem inferior, or not in accordance with the stipulations.

  The railway contractor’s foreman and inspector of subcontractors was a practical man and a bushman, but he had been a timber-getter himself; his sympathies were bushy, and he was on winking terms with Dave Regan. Besides, extended time was expiring, and the contractors were in a hurry to complete the line. But the Government inspector was a reserved man who poked round on his independent own and appeared in lonely spots at unexpected times, with apparently no definite object in life, like a grey kangaroo bothered by a new wire fence, but unsuspicious of the presence of humans. He wore a grey suit, rode, or mostly led, an ashen-grey horse; the grass was long and grey, so he was seldom spotted until he was well within the horizon and bearing leisurely down on a party of sub-contractors, leading his horse.

  Now ironbark was scarce and distant on those ridges, and another timber, similar in appearance, but much inferior in grain and ‘standing’ quality, was plentiful and close at hand. Dave and party were ‘about full of’ the job and place, and wanted to get their cheque and be gone to another ‘spec’ they had in view. So they came to reckon they’d get the last girder from a handy tree, and have it squared, in place, and carefully and conscientiously tarred before the inspector happened along, if he did.

  But they didn’t.

  They got it squared, and ready to be lifted into its place; the kindly darkness of tar was ready to cover a fraud that took four strong men with crowbars and levers to shift; and now (such is the regular cussedness of things) as the fraudulent piece of timber lay its last hour on the ground, looking and smelling, to their guilty imaginations like anything but ironbark, they were aware of the Government inspector drifting down upon them obliquely, with something of the atmosphere of a casual Bill or Jim who had dropped out of his easy-going track to see how they were getting on, and borrow a match.

  They had more than half hoped that, as he had visited them pretty frequently during the progress of the work, and knew how near it was to completion, he wouldn’t bother coming anymore. But it’s the way with the Government. You might move heaven and earth in vain endeavour to get the ‘Guvermunt’ to flutter an
eyelash over something of the most momentous importance to yourself and mates and the district, even to the country; but just when you are leaving authority severely alone, and have strong reasons for not wanting to worry or interrupt it, and not desiring it to worry about you, it will take a fancy into its head to come along and bother.

  ‘It’s always the way!’ muttered Dave to his mates. ‘I knew the beggar would turn up! . . . And the only cronk log we’ve had, too!’ he added, in an injured tone. ‘If this had’a been the only blessed ironbark in the whole contract, it would have been all right . . . Good-day, sir!’ (to the inspector). ‘It’s hot?’

  The inspector nodded. He was not of an impulsive nature. He got down from his horse and looked at the girder in an abstracted way; and presently there came into his eyes a dreamy, far-away, sad sort of expression, as if there had been a very sad and painful occurrence in his family, way back in the past, and that piece of timber in some way reminded him of it and brought the old sorrow home to him. He blinked three times, and asked, in a subdued tone:

  ‘Is that ironbark?’

  Jack Bentley, the fluent liar of the party, caught his breath with a jerk and coughed, to cover the gasp and gain time. ‘I . . . ironbark? Of course it is! I thought you would know ironbark, mister.’

  Mister was silent.

  ‘What else d’yer think it is?’

  The dreamy, abstracted expression was back. The inspector, by the way, didn’t know much about timber, but he had a great deal of instinct, and went by it when in doubt.

  ‘L . . . look here, mister!’ put in Dave Regan, in a tone of innocent puzzlement and with a blank bucolic face. ‘B . . . but don’t the plans and specifications say ironbark? Ours does, anyway. I . . . I’ll git the papers from the tent and show yer, if yer like.’

  It was not necessary. The inspector admitted the fact slowly. He stooped, and with an absent air picked up a chip. He looked at it abstractedly for a moment, blinked his threefold blink; then, seeming to recollect an appointment, he woke up suddenly and asked briskly:

  ‘Did this chip come off that girder?’

  Blank silence. The inspector blinked six times, divided in threes, rapidly, mounted his horse, said ‘Day,’ and rode off.

  Regan and party stared at each other.

  ‘Wha . . . what did he do that for?’ asked Andy Page, the third in the party.

  ‘Do what for, you fool?’ enquired Dave.

  ‘Ta . . . take that chip for?’

  ‘He’s taking it to the office!’ snarled Jack Bentley.

  ‘What . . . what for? What does he want to do that for?’

  ‘To get it blanky well analysed! You ass! Now are yer satisfied?’ And Jack sat down hard on the timber, jerked out his pipe, and said to Dave, in a sharp, toothache tone:

  ‘Gimmiamatch!’

  ‘We . . . well! What are we to do now?’ enquired Andy, who was the hardest grafter, but altogether helpless, hopeless, and useless in a crisis like this.

  ‘Grain and varnish the bloomin’ culvert!’ snapped Bentley.

  But Dave’s eyes, that had been ruefully following the inspector, suddenly dilated. The inspector had ridden a short distance along the line, dismounted, thrown the bridle over a post, laid the chip (which was too big to go in his pocket) on top of it, got through the fence, and was now walking back at an angle across the line in the direction of the fencing party, who had worked up on the other side, a little more than opposite the culvert.

  Dave took in the lay of the country at a glance and thought rapidly.

  ‘Gimme an ironbark chip!’ he said suddenly.

  Bentley, who was quick-witted when the track was shown him, as is a kangaroo dog (Jack ran by sight, not scent), glanced in the line of Dave’s eyes, jumped up, and got a chip about the same size as that which the inspector had taken.

  Now the ‘lay of the country’ sloped generally to the line from both sides, and the angle between the inspector’s horse, the fencing party, and the culvert was well within a clear concave space; but a couple of hundred yards back from the line and parallel to it (on the side on which Dave’s party worked their timber) a fringe of scrub ran to within a few yards of a point which would be about in line with a single tree on the cleared slope, the horse, and the fencing party.

  Dave took the ironbark chip, ran along the bed of the watercourse into the scrub, raced up the siding behind the bushes, got safely, though without breathing, across the exposed space, and brought the tree into line between him and the inspector, who was talking to the fencers. Then he began to work quickly down the slope towards the tree (which was a thin one), keeping it in line, his arms close to his sides, and working, as it were, down the trunk of the tree, as if the fencing party were kangaroos and Dave was trying to get a shot at them.

  The inspector, by the by, had a habit of glancing now and then in the direction of his horse, as though under the impression that it was flighty and restless and inclined to bolt on opportunity. It was an anxious moment for all parties concerned—except the inspector. They didn’t want him to be perturbed. And, just as Dave reached the foot of the tree, the inspector finished what he had to say to the fencers, turned, and started to walk briskly back to his horse. There was a thunderstorm coming. Now was the critical moment, there were certain prearranged signals between Dave’s party and the fencers which might have interested the inspector, but none to meet a case like this.

  Jack Bentley gasped, and started forward with an idea of intercepting the inspector and holding him for a few minutes in bogus conversation. Inspirations come to one at a critical moment, and it flashed on Jack’s mind to send Andy instead. Andy looked as innocent and guileless as he was, but was uncomfortable in the vicinity of ‘funny business’, and must have an honest excuse.

  ‘Not that that mattered,’ commented Jack afterwards; ‘it would have taken the inspector ten minutes to get at what Andy was driving at, whatever it was.’

  ‘Run, Andy! Tell him there’s a heavy thunderstorm coming and he’d better stay in our humpy till it’s over. Run! Don’t stand staring like a blanky fool. He’ll be gone!’

  Andy started. But just then, as luck would have it, one of the fencers started after the inspector, hailing him as ‘Hi, mister!’ He wanted to be set right about the survey or something, or to pretend to want to be set right, from motives of policy which I haven’t time to explain here.

  That fencer explained afterwards to Dave’s party that he ‘seen what you coves was up to’, and that’s why he called the inspector back. But he told them that after they had told their yarn, which was a mistake.

  ‘Come back, Andy!’ cried Jack Bentley.

  Dave Regan slipped round the tree, down on his hands and knees, and made quick time through the grass which, luckily, grew pretty tall on the thirty or forty yards of slope between the tree and the horse. Close to the horse, a thought struck Dave that pulled him up, and sent a shiver along his spine and a hungry feeling under it. The horse would break away and bolt! But the case was desperate. Dave ventured an interrogatory ‘Cope, cope, cope?’ The horse turned its head wearily and regarded him with a mild eye, as if he’d expected him to come, and come on all fours, and wondered what had kept him so long; then he went on thinking.

  Dave reached the foot of the post; the horse obligingly leaning over on the other leg. Dave reared head and shoulders cautiously behind the post, like a snake; his hand went up twice, swiftly. The first time he grabbed the inspector’s chip, and the second time he put the ironbark one in its place. He drew down and back, and scuttled off for the tree like a gigantic tailless goanna.

  A few minutes later he walked up to the culvert from along the creek, smoking hard to settle his nerves.

  The sky seemed to darken suddenly; the first great drops of the thunderstorm came pelting down. The inspector hurried to his horse, and cantered off along the line in the direction of the fettlers’ camp.

  He had forgotten all about the chip, and left it on top of the post!


  Dave Regan sat down on the beam in the rain and swore comprehensively.

  HERE COMES THE BRIDE

  FRANK DALBY DAVISON

  CLOUDS LIKE A BIG bruise had risen above the ranges, towering like the wrath of God, thunderously growling, spreading like coils of sulphurous smoke, casting an unearthly light upon the distant scene, and wafting a scent of rain on the gusts of wind that were driven from their lower darkness. Now they were rolling low above the treetops.

  With his axe, straining fork and a couple of loops of wire over his shoulder, Pa Pettingel, who had been mending a fence at the back of his selection, was stumping home through the drenching storm. He plodded through a rain-striped gloom where wet tree trunks glistened darkly. From his sodden old hat the water trickled down his face carrying the taste of sweat to his lips. Water squelched and bubbled from the lace-holes of his boots at every step. His shirt and trousers clung to him like a half-sloughed skin.

  But Pa’s heart was light. The thrash of the rain on the earth was like music to him. He welcomed the beat of it against his body as it swept past. The cool clean smell of it and of wet soil and leaf were scent to get drunk on. He felt as if the tensions of a spring, long coiled with aching tightness, had been loosened within him. His thoughts were fixed in happy anticipation on the moment of his arrival at the homestead.

  Times had gone rather hard with Pa of late. It had begun when he handed his wife what amounted practically to an open cheque for Rose’s wedding expenses. The district was in the middle of a prolonged dry spell, but he didn’t know that—how could he? He had been moved by the recollection of the weddings of his other daughters, living in Gippsland. Violet and Myrtle had each been given a spanking send-off; trousseaux lacking nothing, generous presents, wedding parties that were still talked of in the district.

  Rose and her mother, in view of it being only the second year of their occupation of the western Queensland selection, had been a little diffident about drawing too heavily on his resources; but here another factor had entered into the matter. His optimism in persuading them to up-sticks and leave their old home among the green hills of Gippsland had not yet been fully vindicated. He had a thought, as well, of the mob of yearlings he had recently bought on spec from one of his neighbours. To hedge on wedding expenses after the expansive attitude shown on that outlay would indicate a poor spirit.