The son of Haphazard was failing,
The Yattendon filly was done;
He cut down the Don and the Dancer,
He raced clean away from the mare --
He's in front! Catch him now if you can, sir!
And up went my hat in the air!
Then loud from the lawn and the garden
Rose offers of `Ten to one ON!'
`Who'll bet on the field? I back Pardon!'
No use; all the money was gone.
He came for the third heat light-hearted,
A-jumping and dancing about;
The others were done ere they started
Crestfallen, and tired, and worn out.
He won it, and ran it much faster
Than even the first, I believe
Oh, he was the daddy, the master,
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
He showed 'em the method to travel --
The boy sat as still as a stone --
They never could see him for gravel;
He came in hard-held, and alone.
. . . . .
But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow;
Like me, with my
thatch of the snow;
When he dies, then I hope I may follow,
And go where the racehorses go.
I don't want no harping nor singing --
Such things with my style don't agree;
Where the hoofs of the horses are ringing
There's music sufficient for me.
And surely the thoroughbred horses
Will rise up again and begin
Fresh races on far-away courses,
And p'raps they might let me slip in.
It would look rather well the race-card on
'Mongst Cherubs and Seraphs and things,
`Angel Harrison's black gelding Pardon,
Blue halo, white body and wings.'
And if they have racing hereafter,
(And who is to say they will not?)
When the cheers and the shouting and laughter
Proclaim that the battle grows hot;
As they come down the racecourse a-steering,
He'll rush to the front, I believe;
And you'll hear the great
multitude cheering
For Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
Clancy of the Overflow
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was s
hearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a
writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his s
hearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'
. . . . .
In my wild erratic fancy
visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving `down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the
vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the
everlasting stars.
. . . . .
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of
sunlight struggles
feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the
gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and
faintly through the
ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and
nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and
greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round
eternal of the cash-book and the
journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of `The Overflow'.
Conroy's Gap
This was the way of it, don't you know --
Ryan was `wanted' for stealing sheep,
And never a
trooper, high or low,
Could find him -- catch a
weasel asleep!
Till Trooper Scott, from the Stockman's Ford --
A bushman, too, as I've heard them tell --
Chanced to find him drunk as a lord
Round at the Shadow of Death Hotel.
D'you know the place? It's a
wayside inn,
A low grog-shanty -- a bushman trap,
Hiding away in its shame and sin
Under the shelter of Conroy's Gap --
Under the shade of that frowning range,
The roughest crowd that ever drew
breath --
Thieves and rowdies,
uncouth and strange,
Were mustered round at the Shadow of Death.
The
trooper knew that his man would slide
Like a dingo pup, if he saw the chance;
And with half a start on the mountain side
Ryan would lead him a merry dance.
Drunk as he was when the
trooper came,
To him that did not matter a rap --
Drunk or sober, he was the same,
The boldest rider in Conroy's Gap.
`I want you, Ryan,' the
trooper said,
`And listen to me, if you dare resist,
So help me heaven, I'll shoot you dead!'
He snapped the steel on his prisoner's wrist,
And Ryan,
hearing the handcuffs click,
Recovered his wits as they turned to go,
For
fright will sober a man as quick
As all the drugs that the doctors know.
There was a girl in that rough bar
Went by the name of Kate Carew,
Quiet and shy as the bush girls are,
But ready-witted and plucky, too.
She loved this Ryan, or so they say,
And passing by, while her eyes were dim
With tears, she said in a
careless way,
`The Swagman's round in the
stable, Jim.'
Spoken too low for the
trooper's ear,
Why should she care if he heard or not?
Plenty of swagmen far and near,
And yet to Ryan it meant a lot.
That was the name of the grandest horse
In all the district from east to west
In every show ring, on every course
They always counted the Swagman best.
He was a wonder, a raking bay --
One of the grand old Snowdon
strain --
One of the sort that could race and stay
With his
mighty limbs and his length of rein.
Born and bred on the mountain side,
He could race through scrub like a kangaroo,
The girl herself on his back might ride,
And the Swagman would carry her
safely through.
He would travel gaily from daylight's flush
Till after the stars hung out their lamps,
There was never his like in the open bush,
And never his match on the cattle-camps.
For faster horses might well be found
On racing tracks, or a plain's extent,
But few, if any, on broken ground
Could see the way that the Swagman went.
When this girl's father, old Jim Carew,
Was droving out on the Castlereagh
With Conroy's cattle, a wire came through
To say that his wife couldn't live the day.
And he was a hundred miles from home,
As flies the crow, with never a track,
Through plains as pathless as ocean's foam,
He mounted straight on the Swagman's back.
He left the camp by the
sundown light,
And the settlers out on the Marthaguy
Awoke and heard, in the dead of night,
A single
horseman hurrying by.
He crossed the Bogan at Dandaloo,
And many a mile of the silent plain
That
lonely rider behind him threw
Before they settled to sleep again.
He rode all night and he steered his course
By the shining stars with a bushman's skill,
And every time that he pressed his horse
The Swagman answered him gamely still.
He neared his home as the east was bright,
The doctor met him outside the town:
`Carew! How far did you come last night?'
`A hundred miles since the sun went down.'
And his wife got round, and an oath he passed,
So long as he or one of his breed
Could raise a coin, though it took their last
The Swagman never should want a feed.
And Kate Carew, when her father died,
She kept the horse and she kept him well:
The pride of the district far and wide,
He lived in style at the bush hotel.
Such was the Swagman; and Ryan knew
Nothing about could pace the crack;
Little he'd care for the man in blue
If once he got on the Swagman's back.
But how to do it? A word let fall
Gave him the hint as the girl passed by;
Nothing but `Swagman --
stable-wall;
`Go to the
stable and mind your eye.'
He caught her meaning, and quickly turned
To the
trooper: `Reckon you'll gain a stripe
By arresting me, and it's easily earned;
Let's go to the
stable and get my pipe,
The Swagman has it.' So off they went,
And soon as ever they turned their backs
The girl slipped down, on some
errand bent
Behind the
stable, and seized an axe.
The
trooper stood at the
stable door
While Ryan went in quite cool and slow,
And then (the trick had been played before)
The girl outside gave the wall a blow.
Three slabs fell out of the
stable wall --
'Twas done 'fore ever the
trooper knew --