Gettin’ Back on Dave Regan

A RATHER FISHY YARN FROM THE BUSH

(AS TOLD BY JAMES NOWLETT, BULLOCK-DRIVER)

You might work this yarn up. I’ve often thought of doin’ it meself, but I ain’t got the words. I knowed a lot of funny an’ rum yarns about the bush, an’ I often wished I had the gift o’ writin’. I could tell a lot better yarns than the rot they put in books sometimes, but I never had no eddication. But you might be able to work this yarn up—as yer call it.

There useter be a teamster’s camp six or seven miles out of Mudgee, at a place called th’ Old Pipeclay, in the days before the railroad went round to Dubbo, an’ most of us bullickies useter camp there for the night. There was always good water in the crick, an’ sometimes we’d turn the bullicks up in the ridge, an’ gullies behind for grass, an’ camp there for a few days, and do our washin’ an’ mendin’, and make new yokes perhaps, an tinker up the wagons.

There was a woman livin’ on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick—an’ she was a hard wick. Her husban’, Jimmy Hardwick was throwed from his horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, an’ he was killed—an’ she was a widder. She had a tidy bit o’ land, an’ a nice bit of a orchard an’ vineyard, an some cattle, an’ they say she had a tidy bit o’ money in the bank. She had the worst tongue in the district, no one’s character was safe with her; but she wasn’t old, an’ she wasn’t bad-lookin’—only hard—so there was some fellers hangin’ round arter her. An’ Dave Regan’s horse was hangin’ up outside her place as often as anybody else’s. Dave was a native an’ a bushy, an’ drover an’ a digger, an’ he was a bit soft in them days—he got hard enough arterwards.

Mrs Hardwick hated bullick-drivers—she had a awful down on bullickies—I dunno why. We never interfered with her fowls, an’ as for swearin’! why, she could swear herself. Jimmy Hardwick was a bullick-driver when she married him, an’ p’r’aps that helped to account for it. She wouldn’t let us boil our billies at her kitchen fire, same as any other bushwoman, an’ if one of our bullicks put his nose under her fence for a mouthful of grass, she’d set her dogs onter him. An’ one of her dogs got something what disagreed with him one day, an’ she accused us of layin’ poisoned baits. An’, arter that, she ‘pounded some of our bullicks that got into her lucerne paddick one night when we was on the spree in Mudgee, an’ put heavy damages on ‘em. She’d left the sliprails down on purpose, I believe. She talked of puttin’ the police onter us, jest as if we was a sly-grog shop. (If she’d kept a sly-grog shop she’d have had a different opinion about bullick-drivers.) An’ all the bullick-drivers hated her because she hated bullickies.

Well, one wet season half a dozen of us chaps was camped there for a fortnight, because the roads was too boggy to travel, an’ one night they got up a darnce at Peter Anderson’s shanty acrost the ridges, an’ a lot of gals an’ fellers turned up from all round about in spite of the pourin’ rain. Someone had kidded Dave Regan that Mother Hardwick was comin’, an’ he turned up, of course, in spite of a ragin’ toothache he had. He was always ridin’ the high horse over us bullickies. It was a very cold night, enough to cut the face an’ hands off yer, so we had a roarin’ fire in the big bark-an’-slab kitchen where the darncin’ was. It was one of them big, old-fashioned, clay-lined fire-places that goes right acrost the end of the room, with a twenty-five foot slab-an’-tin chimbly outside.

Dave Regan was pretty wild about being had, an’ we copped all the gals for darncin’; he couldn’t get one that night, an’ when he wasn’t proddin’ out his tooth with a red-hot wire some one was chaffin’ him about Mrs Hardwick. So at last he got disgusted an’ left; but before he went he got a wet three-bushel flour-bag an’ climbed up very quietly onter the roof by the battens an’ log weights an’ riders, an’ laid the wet bag very carefully acrost the top of the chimbly flue.

An’ we was a mortal hour tryin’ to find out what was the matter with that infernal chimbly, and tackin’ bits o’ tin an’ baggin’ acrost the top of the fire-place under the mantelshelf to try an’ stop it from smokin’, an’ all the while the gals set there with the water runnin’ out of their eyes. We took the green back log out an’ fetched in a dry one, but that chimbly smoked worse than ever, an’ we had to put the fire out altogether, an’ the gals set there shiverin’ till the rain held up a bit an’ the sky cleared, an’ then someone goes out an’ looks up an’ sings out, “Why, there’s somethin’ acrost the top of the blazin’ chimbly!” an’ someone else climbs up an’ fetches down the bag. But the darnce was spoilt, an’ the gals was so disgusted that they went off with their fellers while the weather held up. They reckoned some of us bullickies did it for a lark.

An’ arter that Dave’d come ridin’ past, an’ sing out to know if we knew of a good cure for a smokin’ chimbly, an’ them sorter things. But he always got away before we could pull him off of his horse. Three of us chased him on horseback one day, but we didn’t ketch him.

So we made up our minds to git back on Dave some way or other, an’ it come about this way.

About six months arter the smoked-out darnce, four or five of us same fellers was campin’ on th’ Pipeclay agen, an’ it was a dry season. It was dryer an’ hotter than it was cold ‘n’ wet the larst time. Dave was still hangin’ round Mrs Hardwick’s an’ doin’ odd jobs for her. Well, one very hot day we seen Dave ridin’ past into Mudgee, an’ we knowed he’d have a spree in town that night, an’ call at Mrs Hardwick’s for sympathy comin’ out next day; an’ arter he’d been gone an hour or two, Tom Tarrant comes drivin’ past on his mail-coach, an’ drops some letters an’ papers an’ a bag o’ groceries at our camp.