SALTBUSH BILL, J.P., AND OTHER VERSES

By A. B. Paterson

Author of “The Man from Snowy River, and Other Verses”, “Rio Grande, and Other Verses”, and “An Outback Marriage”.

Publisher's Note: Major A. B. Paterson has been on active service in Egypt for the past eighteen months. The publishers feel it incumbent on them to say that only a few of the pieces in this volume have been seen by him in proof; and that he is not responsible for the selection, the arrangement or the title of “Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses”.

SALTBUSH BILL, J.P., AND OTHER VERSES

Song of the Pen

  Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
   Not for the people's praise;
  Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
   Claiming us all our days,

  Claiming our best endeavour—body and heart and brain
   Given with no reserve—
  Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain;
   Still, we are proud to serve.

  Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
   Gathering grain or chaff;
  One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
   One, that a child may laugh.

  Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place,
   Freely she doth accord
  Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace,
   Work is its own reward!

Song of the Wheat

  We have sung the song of the droving days,
   Of the march of the travelling sheep;
  By silent stages and lonely ways
   Thin, white battalions creep.
  But the man who now by the land would thrive
   Must his spurs to a plough-share beat.
  Is there ever a man in the world alive
   To sing the song of the Wheat!

  It's west by south of the Great Divide
   The grim grey plains run out,
  Where the old flock-masters lived and died
   In a ceaseless fight with drought.
  Weary with waiting and hope deferred
   They were ready to own defeat,
  Till at last they heard the master-word—
   And the master-word was Wheat.

  Yarran and Myall and Box and Pine—
   'Twas axe and fire for all;
  They scarce could tarry to blaze the line
   Or wait for the trees to fall,
  Ere the team was yoked, and the gates flung wide,
   And the dust of the horses' feet
  Rose up like a pillar of smoke to guide
   The wonderful march of Wheat.

  Furrow by furrow, and fold by fold,
   The soil is turned on the plain;
  Better than silver and better than gold
   Is the surface-mine of the grain;
  Better than cattle and better than sheep
   In the fight with drought and heat;
  For a streak of stubbornness, wide and deep,
   Lies hid in a grain of Wheat.

  When the stock is swept by the hand of fate,
   Deep down in his bed of clay
  The brave brown Wheat will lie and wait
   For the resurrection day:
  Lie hid while the whole world thinks him dead;
   But the Spring-rain, soft and sweet,
  Will over the steaming paddocks spread
   The first green flush of the Wheat.

  Green and amber and gold it grows
   When the sun sinks late in the West;
  And the breeze sweeps over the rippling rows
   Where the quail and the skylark nest.
  Mountain or river or shining star,
   There's never a sight can beat—
  Away to the sky-line stretching far—
   A sea of the ripening Wheat.

  When the burning harvest sun sinks low,
   And the shadows stretch on the plain,
  The roaring strippers come and go
   Like ships on a sea of grain;
  Till the lurching, groaning waggons bear
   Their tale of the load complete.
  Of the world's great work he has done his share
   Who has gathered a crop of wheat.

  Princes and Potentates and Czars,
   They travel in regal state,
  But old King Wheat has a thousand cars
   For his trip to the water-gate;
  And his thousand steamships breast the tide
   And plough thro' the wind and sleet
  To the lands where the teeming millions bide
   That say:  “Thank God for Wheat!”
 

Brumby's Run

      Brumby is the Aboriginal word for a wild horse.  At a recent trial
      a N.S.W. Supreme Court Judge, hearing of Brumby horses, asked:
      “Who is Brumby, and where is his Run?”
 

  It lies beyond the Western Pines
   Towards the sinking sun,
  And not a survey mark defines
   The bounds of “Brumby's Run”.

  On odds and ends of mountain land,
   On tracks of range and rock
  Where no one else can make a stand,
   Old Brumby rears his stock.

  A wild, unhandled lot they are
   Of every shape and breed.
  They venture out 'neath moon and star
   Along the flats to feed;

  But when the dawn makes pink the sky
   And steals along the plain,
  The Brumby horses turn and fly
   Towards the hills again.

  The traveller by the mountain-track
   May hear their hoof-beats pass,
  And catch a glimpse of brown and black
   Dim shadows on the grass.

  The eager stockhorse pricks his ears
   And lifts his head on high
  In wild excitement when he hears
   The Brumby mob go by.

  Old Brumby asks no price or fee
   O'er all his wide domains:
  The man who yards his stock is free
   To keep them for his pains.

  So, off to scour the mountain-side
   With eager eyes aglow,
  To strongholds where the wild mobs hide
   The gully-rakers go.

  A rush of horses through the trees,
   A red shirt making play;
  A sound of stockwhips on the breeze,
   They vanish far away!

       .    .    .    .    .

  Ah, me! before our day is done
   We long with bitter pain
  To ride once more on Brumby's Run
   And yard his mob again.

Saltbush Bill on the Patriarchs

  Come all you little rouseabouts and climb upon my knee;
  To-day, you see, is Christmas Day, and so it's up to me
  To give you some instruction like—a kind of Christmas tale—
  So name your yarn, and off she goes.  What, “Jonah and the Whale”?

  Well, whales is sheep I've never shore; I've never been to sea,
  So all them great Leviathans is mysteries to me;
  But there's a tale the Bible tells I fully understand,
  About the time the Patriarchs were settling on the land.

  Those Patriarchs of olden time, when all is said and done,
  They lived the same as far-out men on many a Queensland run—
  A lot of roving, droving men who drifted to and fro,
  The same we did out Queensland way a score of years ago.

  Now Isaac was a squatter man, and Jacob was his son,
  And when the boy grew up, you see, he wearied of the run.
  You know the way that boys grow up—there's some that stick at home;
  But any boy that's worth his salt will roll his swag and roam.

  So Jacob caught the roving fit and took the drovers' track
  To where his uncle had a run, beyond the outer back;
  You see they made for out-back runs for room to stretch and grow,
  The same we did out Queensland way, a score of years ago.

  Now, Jacob knew the ways of stock—that's most uncommon clear—
  For when he got to Laban's Run, they made him overseer;
  He didn't ask a pound a week, but bargained for his pay
  To take the roan and strawberry calves—the same we'd take to-day.

  The duns and blacks and “Goulburn roans” (that's brindles), coarse and hard,
  He branded them with Laban's brand, in Old Man Laban's yard;
  So, when he'd done the station work for close on seven year,
  Why, all the choicest stock belonged to Laban's overseer.

  It's often so with overseers—I've seen the same thing done
  By many a Queensland overseer on many a Queensland run.
  But when the mustering time came on old Laban acted straight,
  And gave him country of his own outside the boundary gate.

  He gave him stock, and offered him his daughter's hand in troth;
  And Jacob first he married one, and then he married both;
  You see, they weren't particular about a wife or so—
  No more were we up Queensland way a score of years ago.

  But when the stock were strong and fat with grass and lots of rain,
  Then Jacob felt the call to take the homeward road again.
  It's strange in every creed and clime, no matter where you roam,
  There comes a day when every man would like to make for home.

  So off he set with sheep and goats, a mighty moving band,
  To battle down the homeward track along the Overland—
  It's droving mixed-up mobs like that that makes men cut their throats.
  I've travelled rams, which Lord forget, but never travelled goats.

  But Jacob knew the ways of stock, for (so the story goes)
  When battling through the Philistines—selectors, I suppose—
  He thought he'd have to fight his way, an awkward sort of job;
  So what did Old Man Jacob do? of course, he split the mob.

  He sent the strong stock on ahead to battle out the way;
  He couldn't hurry lambing ewes—no more you could to-day—
  And down the road, from run to run, his hand 'gainst every hand,
  He moved that mighty mob of stock across the Overland.

  The thing is made so clear and plain, so solid in and out,
  There isn't any room at all for any kind of doubt.
  It's just a plain straightforward tale—a tale that lets you know
  The way they lived in Palestine three thousand years ago.

  It's strange to read it all to-day, the shifting of the stock;
  You'd think you see the caravans that loaf behind the flock,
  The little donkeys and the mules, the sheep that slowly spread,
  And maybe Dan or Naphthali a-ridin' on ahead.

  The long, dry, dusty summer days, the smouldering fires at night;
  The stir and bustle of the camp at break of morning light;
  The little kids that skipped about, the camels' dead-slow tramp—
  I wish I'd done a week or two in Old Man Jacob's camp!

  But if I keep the narrer path, some day, perhaps, I'll know
  How Jacob bred them strawberry calves three thousand years ago.

The Reverend Mullineux

  I'd reckon his weight at eight-stun-eight,
   And his height at five-foot-two,
  With a face as plain as an eight-day clock
  And a walk as brisk as a bantam-cock—
   Game as a bantam, too,
  Hard and wiry and full of steam,
  That's the boss of the English Team,
   Reverend Mullineux.

  Makes no row when the game gets rough—
   None of your “Strike me blue!”
   “You's wants smacking across the snout!”
   Plays like a gentleman out-and-out—
   Same as he ought to do.
  “Kindly remove from off my face!”
   That's the way that he states his case—
   Reverend Mullineux.

  Kick!  He can kick like an army mule—
   Run like a kangaroo!
  Hard to get by as a lawyer-plant,
  Tackles his man like a bull-dog ant—
   Fetches him over too!
  Didn't the public cheer and shout
  Watchin' him chuckin' big blokes about—
   Reverend Mullineux.

  Scrimmage was packed on his prostrate form,
   Somehow the ball got through—
  Who was it tackled our big half-back,
  Flinging him down like an empty sack,
   Right on our goal-line too?
  Who but the man that we thought was dead,
  Down with a score of 'em on his head,
   Reverend Mullineux.

The Wisdom of Hafiz

  My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo,
  Remember, it's seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow;
  Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow.

  If ever an owner should tell you, “Back mine”—don't you be such a flat.
  He knows his own cunning, no doubt—does he know what the others are at?
  Find out what he's frightened of most, and invest a few dollars on that.

  Walk not in the track of the trainer, nor hang round the rails at his stall.
  His wisdom belongs to his patron—shall he give it to one and to all?
  When the stable is served he may tell you—and his words
    are like jewels let fall.

  Run wide of the tipster who whispers that Borak is sure to be first,
  He tells the next mug that he corners a tale with the placings reversed;
  And, remember, of judges of racing, the jockey's the absolute worst.

  When they lay three to one on the field, and the runners are twenty-and-two,
  Take a pull on yourself; take a pull—it's a mighty big field
    to get through.
  Is the club handicapper a fool?  If a fool is about, p'raps it's you!

  Beware of the critic who tells you the handicap's absolute rot,
  For this is chucked in, and that's hopeless, and somebody ought to be shot.
  How is it he can't make a fortune himself when he knows such a lot?

  From tipsters, and jockeys, and trials, and gallops, the glory has gone,
  For this is the wisdom of Hafiz that sages have pondered upon,
  “The very best tip in the world is to see the commission go on!”
 

Saltbush Bill, J.P.

  Beyond the land where Leichhardt went,
   Beyond Sturt's Western track,
  The rolling tide of change has sent
   Some strange J.P.s out back.

  And Saltbush Bill, grown old and grey,
   And worn with want of sleep,
  Received the news in camp one day
   Behind the travelling sheep

  That Edward Rex, confiding in
   His known integrity,
  By hand and seal on parchment skin
   Had made him a J.P.

  He read the news with eager face
   But found no word of pay.
  “I'd like to see my sister's place
   And kids on Christmas day.

  “I'd like to see green grass again,
   And watch clear water run,
  Away from this unholy plain,
   And flies, and dust, and sun.”

  At last one little clause he found
   That might some hope inspire,
  “A magistrate may charge a pound
   For inquest on a fire.”

  A big blacks' camp was built close by,
   And Saltbush Bill, says he,
  “I think that camp might well supply
   A job for a J.P.”

  That night, by strange coincidence,
   A most disastrous fire
  Destroyed the country residence
   Of Jacky Jack, Esquire.

  'Twas mostly leaves, and bark, and dirt;
   The party most concerned
  Appeared to think it wouldn't hurt
   If forty such were burned.

  Quite otherwise thought Saltbush Bill,
   Who watched the leaping flame.
  “The home is small,” said he, “but still
   The principle's the same.

  “Midst palaces though you should roam,
   Or follow pleasure's tracks,
  You'll find,” he said, “no place like home,
   At least like Jacky Jack's.

  “Tell every man in camp 'Come quick,'
   Tell every black Maria
  I give tobacco half a stick—
   Hold inquest long-a fire.”

  Each juryman received a name
   Well suited to a Court.
  “Long Jack” and “Stumpy Bill” became
   “John Long” and “William Short”.

  While such as “Tarpot”, “Bullock Dray”,
   And “Tommy Wait-a-While”,
  Became, for ever and a day,
   “Scott”, “Dickens”, and “Carlyle”.

  And twelve good sable men and true
   Were soon engaged upon
  The conflagration that o'erthrew
   The home of John A. John.

  Their verdict, “Burnt by act of Fate”,
   They scarcely had returned
  When, just behind the magistrate,
   Another humpy burned!

  The jury sat again and drew
   Another stick of plug.
  Said Saltbush Bill, “It's up to you
   Put some one long-a Jug.”

  “I'll camp the sheep,” he said, “and sift
   The evidence about.”
   For quite a week he couldn't shift,
   The way the fires broke out.

  The jury thought the whole concern
   As good as any play.
  They used to “take him oath” and earn
   Three sticks of plug a day.

  At last the tribe lay down to sleep
   Homeless, beneath a tree;
  And onward with his travelling sheep
   Went Saltbush Bill, J.P.

  The sheep delivered, safe and sound,
   His horse to town he turned,
  And drew some five-and-twenty pound
   For fees that he had earned.

  And where Monaro's ranges hide
   Their little farms away—
  His sister's children by his side—
   He spent his Christmas Day.

  The next J.P. that went out back
   Was shocked, or pained, or both,
  At hearing every pagan black
   Repeat the juror's oath.

  No matter though he turned and fled
   They followed faster still;
  “You make it inkwich, boss,” they said,
   “All same like Saltbush Bill.”

  They even said they'd let him see
   The fires originate.
  When he refused they said that he
   Was “No good magistrate.”

  And out beyond Sturt's Western track,
   And Leichhardt's farthest tree,
  They wait till fate shall send them back
   Their Saltbush Bill, J.P.

The Riders in the Stand

  There's some that ride the Robbo style, and bump at every stride;
  While others sit a long way back, to get a longer ride.
  There's some that ride like sailors do, with legs and arms, and teeth;
  And some ride on the horse's neck, and some ride underneath.

  But all the finest horsemen out—the men to Beat the Band—
  You'll find amongst the crowd that ride their races in the Stand.
  They'll say “He had the race in hand, and lost it in the straight.”
   They'll show how Godby came too soon, and Barden came too late.

  They'll say Chevalley lost his nerve, and Regan lost his head;
  They'll tell how one was “livened up” and something else was “dead”—
  In fact, the race was never run on sea, or sky, or land,
  But what you'd get it better done by riders in the Stand.

  The rule holds good in everything in life's uncertain fight;
  You'll find the winner can't go wrong, the loser can't go right.
  You ride a slashing race, and lose—by one and all you're banned!
  Ride like a bag of flour, and win—they'll cheer you in the Stand.

Waltzing Matilda

      (Carrying a Swag.)

  Oh! there once was a swagman camped in the Billabong,
   Under the shade of a Coolabah tree;
  And he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,
   “Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.”

      Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling,
       Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
      Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag—
       Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

  Down came a jumbuck to drink at the water-hole,
   Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
  And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag,
   “You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!”

  Down came the Squatter a-riding his thorough-bred;
   Down came Policemen—one, two, and three.
  “Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker-bag?
   You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.”

  But the swagman, he up and he jumped in the water-hole,
   Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree;
  And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong,
   “Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?”