The Man From Snowy River | Page 9

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Next week, under `Seller and Buyer',?Appeared in the DAILY GAZETTE:?`A racehorse for sale, and a flyer;?Has never been started as yet;?A trial will show what his pace is;?The buyer can get him in light,?And win all the handicap races.?Apply here before Wednesday night.'
He sold for a hundred and thirty,?Because of a gallop he had?One morning with Bluefish and Bertie,?And donkey-licked both of 'em bad.?And when the old horse had departed,?The life on the station grew tame;?The race-track was dull and deserted,?The boys had gone back on the game.
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The winter rolled by, and the station?Was green with the garland of spring?A spirit of glad exultation?Awoke in each animate thing.?And all the old love, the old longing,?Broke out in the breasts of the boys,?The visions of racing came thronging?With all its delirious joys.
The rushing of floods in their courses,?The rattle of rain on the roofs?Recalled the fierce rush of the horses,?The thunder of galloping hoofs.?And soon one broke out: `I can suffer?No longer the life of a slug,?The man that don't race is a duffer,?Let's have one more run for the mug.
`Why, EVERYTHING races, no matter?Whatever its method may be:?The waterfowl hold a regatta;?The 'possums run heats up a tree;?The emus are constantly sprinting?A handicap out on the plain;?It seems like all nature was hinting,?'Tis time to be at it again.
`The cockatoo parrots are talking?Of races to far away lands;?The native companions are walking?A go-as-you-please on the sands;?The little foals gallop for pastime;?The wallabies race down the gap;?Let's try it once more for the last time,?Bring out the old jacket and cap.
`And now for a horse; we might try one?Of those that are bred on the place,?But I think it better to buy one,?A horse that has proved he can race.?Let us send down to Sydney to Skinner,?A thorough good judge who can ride,?And ask him to buy us a spinner?To clean out the whole countryside.'
They wrote him a letter as follows:?`We want you to buy us a horse;?He must have the speed to catch swallows,?And stamina with it of course.?The price ain't a thing that'll grieve us,?It's getting a bad 'un annoys?The undersigned blokes, and believe us,?We're yours to a cinder, `the boys'.'
He answered: `I've bought you a hummer,?A horse that has never been raced;?I saw him run over the Drummer,?He held him outclassed and outpaced.?His breeding's not known, but they state he?Is born of a thoroughbred strain,?I paid them a hundred and eighty,?And started the horse in the train.'
They met him -- alas, that these verses?Aren't up to the subject's demands --?Can't set forth their eloquent curses,?FOR PARTNER WAS BACK ON THEIR HANDS.?They went in to meet him in gladness,?They opened his box with delight --?A silent procession of sadness?They crept to the station at night.
And life has grown dull on the station,?The boys are all silent and slow;?Their work is a daily vexation,?And sport is unknown to them now.?Whenever they think how they stranded,?They squeal just like guinea-pigs squeal;?They bit their own hook, and were landed?With fifty pounds loss on the deal.
An Idyll of Dandaloo
On Western plains, where shade is not,?'Neath summer skies of cloudless blue,?Where all is dry and all is hot,?There stands the town of Dandaloo --?A township where life's total sum?Is sleep, diversified with rum.
It's grass-grown streets with dust are deep,?'Twere vain endeavour to express?The dreamless silence of its sleep,?Its wide, expansive drunkenness.?The yearly races mostly drew?A lively crowd to Dandaloo.
There came a sportsman from the East,?The eastern land where sportsmen blow,?And brought with him a speedy beast --?A speedy beast as horses go.?He came afar in hope to `do'?The little town of Dandaloo.
Now this was weak of him, I wot --?Exceeding weak, it seemed to me --?For we in Dandaloo were not?The Jugginses we seemed to be;?In fact, we rather thought we knew?Our book by heart in Dandaloo.
We held a meeting at the bar,?And met the question fair and square --?`We've stumped the country near and far?To raise the cash for races here;?We've got a hundred pounds or two --?Not half so bad for Dandaloo.
`And now, it seems, we have to be?Cleaned out by this here Sydney bloke,?With his imported horse; and he?Will scoop the pool and leave us broke?Shall we sit still, and make no fuss?While this chap climbs all over us?'
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The races came to Dandaloo,?And all the cornstalks from the West,?On ev'ry kind of moke and screw,?Came forth in all their glory drest.?The stranger's horse, as hard as nails,?Look'd fit to run for New South Wales.
He won the race by half a length --?QUITE half a length, it seemed to me --?But Dandaloo, with all its strength,?Roared out `Dead heat!' most fervently;?And, after hesitation meet,?The judge's verdict was `Dead heat!'
And many men there were could tell?What gave the verdict extra force:?The stewards, and