While the Billy Boils | Page 5

way and he stumbled
forward, he jerked the lighter horse back into the plough, and
something would break. Then Tom would blaspheme till he was
refreshed, mend up things with wire and bits of clothes-line, fill his
pockets with stones to throw at the team, and start again. Finally he
hired a dummy's child to drive the horses. The brat did his best he
tugged at the head of the team, prodded it behind, heaved rocks at it,
cut a sapling, got up his enthusiasm, and wildly whacked the light horse
whenever the other showed signs of moving--but he never succeeded in
starting both horses at one and the same time. Moreover the youth was
cheeky, and the selector's temper had been soured: he cursed the boy
along with the horses, the plough, the selection, the squatter, and
Australia. Yes, he cursed Australia. The boy cursed back, was chastised,
and immediately went home and brought his father.
Then the dummy's dog tackled the selector's dog and this precipitated
things. The dummy would have gone under had his wife not arrived on
the scene with the eldest son and the rest of the family. They all fell
foul of Tom. The woman was the worst. The selector's dog chawed the
other and came to his master's rescue just in time---or Tom Hopkins
would never have lived to become the inmate of a lunatic asylum.
Next year there happened to be good grass on Tom's selection and
nowhere else, and he thought it wouldn't be a bad idea--to get a few
poor sheep, and fatten them up for market: sheep were selling for about
seven-and-sixpence a dozen at that time. Tom got a hundred or two, but
the squatter had a man stationed at one side of the selection with dogs

to set on the sheep directly they put their noses through the fence
(Tom's was not a sheep fence). The dogs chased the sheep across the
selection and into the run again on the other side, where another man
waited ready to pound them.
Tom's dog did his best; but he fell sick while chawing up the fourth
capitalistic canine, and subsequently died. The dummies had robbed
that cur with poison before starting it across--that was the only way
they could get at Tom's dog.
Tom thought that two might play at the game, and he tried; but his
nephew, who happened to be up from the city on a visit, was arrested at
the instigation of the squatter for alleged sheep-stealing, and sentenced
to two years' hard; during which time the selector himself got six
months for assaulting the squatter with intent to do him grievous bodily
harm-which, indeed, he more than attempted, if a broken nose, a
fractured jaw, and the loss of most of the squatters' teeth amounted to
anything. The squatter by this time had made peace with the other local
Justice, and had become his father-in-law.
When Tom came out there was little left for him to live for; but he took
a job of fencing, got a few pounds together, and prepared to settle on
the land some more. He got a "missus" and a few cows during the next
year; the missus robbed him and ran away with the dummy, and the
cows died in the drought, or were impounded by the squatter while on
their way to water. Then Tom rented an orchard up the creek, and a
hailstorm destroyed all the fruit. Germany happened to be represented
at the time, Jacob having sought shelter at Tom's but on his way home
from town. Tom stood leaning against the door post with the hail
beating on him through it all. His eyes were very bright and very dry,
and every breath was a choking sob. Jacob let him stand there, and sat
inside with a dreamy expression on his hard face, thinking of childhood
and fatherland, perhaps. When it was over he led Tom to a stool and
said, "You waits there, Tom. I must go home for somedings. You sits
there still and waits twenty minutes;" then he got on his horse and rode
off muttering to himself; "Dot man moost gry, dot man moost gry." He
was back inside of twenty minutes with a bottle of wine and a cornet
under his overcoat. He poured the wine into two pint-pots, made Tom
drink, drank himself, and then took his cornet, stood up at the door, and
played a German march into the rain after the retreating storm. The hail

had passed over his vineyard and he was a ruined man too. Tom did
"gry" and was all right. He was a bit disheartened, but he did another
job of fencing, and was just beginning to think about "puttin' in a few
vines an'