The Rising of the Court | Page 9

der
light horses in from der patticks, and gif dem a goot feet mit plenty
corn; and get der double-parrelled puggy ant der sinkle puggy and der
three spring carts retty. Dere vill pe peoples vanting lifts to-morrow.
Ant get der harnesses and sattles retty. Vake up, olt vomans!" (Mrs
Buckolts must have been awake by this time.) "Call der girls ant see to
dere plack tresses. Py Gott, ve moost do dis thing in style. Does his
poor sister know over dere across the creeks, Pen? Durn out! you lazy,
goot-for-noddings, or I will chain you up on an ants' bed mit a rope like
a tog; do you not hear that Shack Denver voss dett?"
"I vill sent some of der girls over dere first thing in der morning. Holt
on, Pen, ant I vill sent you out some vine."
Ben rode with the news to Lee's farm where Maurice Lee--at feud with
Buckolts and a silent man--was, for he had known Denver all his life,
and had gone, in his young days, on a long droving trip with him and
Ben Duggan.
A little later Ben returned to the main road on a fresh horse. He turned
towards Gulgong, and rode hard; past the new bark provisional school
and along the sidings. He left the news at Con O'Donnell's lonely tin
grocery and sly-grog shop, perched on the hillside--("God forgive us
all!" said Con O'Donnell). He left the news at the tumble-down
public-house, among the huts and thistles and goats that were left of the
Log Paddock Rush. There were goats on the veranda and the place
seemed dead; but there were startled replies and inquiries and matches

struck. He left the news at Newton's selection, and Old Bones Farm,
and at Foley's at the foot of Lowe's Peak, close under the gap between
Peak and Granite Ridge. Then he turned west, at right angles to the
main road, and took a track that was deserted except for one farm and
on every alternate Sunday. He passed the lonely little slab bush
"chapel" of the locality, that broke startlingly out of the scrub by the
track side as he reached it; and left the news at Southwick's farm at the
end of the blind track. At more than one farm he left the bushwoman
hurriedly looking up her "black things;" and at more than one, one of
the boys getting his bridle to catch his horse and ride elsewhere with
the news.
Ben rode back, through the moonlight and the moon-shadow haunted
paddocks, and the naked, white, ringbarked trees, along Snakes Creek,
parallel with the main road he had recently travelled till he struck
Pipeclay Creek again lower down. He turned down the track towards
the river, and at the junction left word at Lowe's--one of the old
land-grant families. The dogs woke an old handy man (who had been
"sent out" in past ages for "knocking a donkey off a hen-roost"-as most
of them were) and Ben told him to tell the family.
At Belinfante's Bridge across the Cudgegong Ben struck a big camp of
bullock-drivers, some going down with wool and some going back for
more.
"Hold on, Ben," cried Jimmy Nowlett, from his hammock under his
wagon as Ben was riding off--"Hold on a minute! I want to look at
yer."
Jimmy got his head out of his bunk very cautiously and carefully, and
his body after it--there were nut ends of bolts, a heavy axle, and
extremely hard projections, points, and corners within a very few short
inches of his chaff-filled sugar-bag pillow. Slipping cannily on to his
hands and knees, he crawled out under the tail-board, dragging his
"moles" after him, and stood outside in the moonlight shaking himself
into his trousers.
Jimmy was a little man who always wore a large size in moleskins--for
some reason best known to himself--or more probably for no reason at
all; or because of a habit he'd got into accidentally years ago--or
because of the motherly trousers his mother used to build for him when
he was a boy. And he always shook himself into his pants after the

manner of a woman shaking a pillow into a clean slip; his chin down on
his chest and his jaw dropped, as if he'd take himself in his teeth, after
the manner of the woman with a pillow, were he not prevented by
sound anatomical reasons.
"You look reg'lerly tuckered out, Ben," he said, "an' yer horse could do
with a spell too. Git down, man, and have a pint er tea and a bite."
Ben got down wearily and knew at once how knocked up he was. He
sat right down on the hard ground, embracing and drawing up his knees,
and felt as if he'd like