 Chapter 1 of Robbery Under Arms This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Dunlop. Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boulderwood Chapter 1. My name's Dick Mastin, Sydney side native. I'm 29 years old, 6 feet in my stocking soles and 13 stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't want to blow, not here, any road, but it takes a good man to put me on my back or stand up to me with the gloves or the naked mollies. I can ride anything, anything that ever was lapped in horse hide. Swim like a musk duck and track like a mild black fella. Most things that a man can do I'm up to and that's all about it. As I lift myself now, I can feel the muscles swell on my arm like a cricket ball in spite of the... Well, in spite of everything. The morning sun comes shining through the window bars and ever since he was up I've been cursing the daylight, cursing myself and them that brought me into the world. Did I curse mother and the hour I was born into this miserable life? Why should I curse the day? Why do I lie here groaning, yes, crying like a child and beating my head against the stone floor? I'm not mad, though I am shut up in a cell. No, better for me if I was. But it's all up now, there's no getaway this time. And I, Dick Maston as strong as a bullock, as active as a rock wallaby, chock full of life and spirits and health have been tried for bush-ranging. Robbery under arms, they call it. And though the blood runs through my veins like the water in the mountain creeks and every bit of bone and sinew is as sound as the day I was born, I must die on the gallows this day month. Die. Die. Yes. Die. Be strung up like a dog as they say. I'm blessed if ever I did know of a dog being hanged. Though if it comes to that, a shot or a bait generally makes an end of him in this country. Did I laugh? What a rum thing it is that a man should have a laugh in him when he's only got 29 days more to live. A day for every year of my life. Well, laughing or crying, this is what it's come to at last. All the drinking and recklessness, the flash talk and the idle ways, the merry cross-country rides that we used to have, night or day, made no odds to us. Every man well-mounted as like as not on a race horse in training taken out of his stable within the week. Sharp brushes with the police, when now and then the man was wounded on each side but no one was killed. That came later. Worst luck. The jolly sprees we used to have in the bush townships where we chucked our money about like gentlemen. Where all the girls had a smile and a kind word for a lot of game-upstanding chaps that acted like men if they did keep the road a little lively. Our bush telegraphs were safe to let us know when the traps were closing in on us and then why the coach had been stuck up 100 miles away in a different direction within 24 hours. Mastin's gang again! The police are in pursuit! That's what we'd see in the papers. We had them sent to us regularly besides having the pick of them when we cut open the mailbags. And now that chain rubbed a sore curset. All that racket's over. It's more than hard to die in this settled, infernal, fixed sort of way like a bullock in the killing yard, all ready to be pithed. I used to pity them when I was a boy. Walking round the yard, pushing their noses through the rails, trying for a likely place to jump, stamping and pouring and roaring and knocking their heads against the heavy clothes rails with misery and rage in their eyes till the time was up. Nobody told them beforehand though. Have I and the likes of me ever felt much the same, I wonder? Shut up in a pen like this with the rails up and not a place a rat could creep through. Waiting till our killing time was come. The poor devils of steers have never done anything but ramble off the run now and then while we... But it's too late to think of that. It is hard. There's no saying it isn't. No, nor thinking what a fool, what a blind, stupid, thundering idiot a fellow's been to laugh at the steady working life that would have helped him up bit by bit to a good farm, a good wife and innocent little kids about him like that chap George Storfield that came to see me last week. He was real right down sorry for me I could tell though Jim and I used to laugh at him and call him a regular old crawler of a milkers calf in the old days. Tears came into his eyes regular like a woman as he gave my hand a squeeze and turned his head away. We was little chaps together you know. The man always feels that you know. An old George he'll go back a 50 mile ride but what's that on a good horse? He'll be late home but he can cross the Rockford the short way over the creek. I can see him turn his horse loose at the garden gate walk through the quinces that lead up to the cottage with his saddle on his arm. Can't I see it all as plain as if I was there and his wife and the young ones will run out when they hear father's horse and want to hear all the news. When he goes in there's his meal tidy and decent waiting for him while he tells him about the poor chap he's been to see as his to be scragged next month. What a rum joke it is isn't it? Then you'll go out on the veranda with the roses growing all over the posts and smelling sweet in the cool night air. After that you'll have his smoke and sit there thinking about me perhaps and old days and what not till all ours. Till his wife comes and fetches him in. And here I lie. My God why didn't they knock me on the head when I was born like a lamb in a dry season or a blind puppy? Blind enough God knows. They do so in some countries if the books say true and what a hell of misery that must save some people from. Well, it's done now and there's no getaway. They might as well make the best of it. The sergeant of police was shot in our last scrimmage and they must fit someone over for that. It's only natural. He was rash or starlight would never have dropped him that day. Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night at Willow Tree Shanty. Bad grog too. When a man's half drunk he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink! How do you think a chap that's taken to the bush regularly turned out I mean with a price on his head and a fire burning in his heart night and day can stand his life if he don't drink? When he thinks of what he might have been and what he is why nearly every man he meets has paid to run him down or trap him some way like a stray dog that's taken to sheepkilling? He knows a score of men and women too that are only looking out for a chance to sell his blood on the quiet and pouch the money. Do you think that makes a chap mad and miserable and tired of his life or not? People don't know what they're talking about. Why is that miserable that he wonders why you don't hang himself and save the government all the trouble? And if a few noblers made him feel as if he might have some good chances yet and that it doesn't so much matter after all why shouldn't he drink? He does drink of course. Every miserable man and a good many women has had something to fear or repent of drink. The worst of it is that too much of it brings on the horrors and then the devil. Instead of giving you a jog now and then he sends one of his imps to grin in your face and pull your heartstrings all day and all night long. By George I'm getting clever. Too clever all together I think. If I could forget for one moment in the middle of all the nonsense that I was to die on Thursday three weeks Die on Thursday three weeks. Die on Thursday. That's the way the time runs in my ears like a chime of bells. But it's all mere boss. I've been reading these long six months I've been chained up here after I was committed for trial. When I came out of the hospital after curing me of that wound for I was hit bad by that black tracker they gave me some books to read where I'd go mad and cheek to hangman. I was always fond of reading and many a night I've read to poor old mother and Eileen before I left the old place. I was that weak and low after I took the turn and I felt glad to get me a book to take me away from sitting staring and blinking at nothing by the hour together. It was all very well then. I was too weak to think much. But when I began to get well again I kept always coming across something in the book that made me groan or cry out as if someone had stuck a knife in me. A dark chap did once through the ribs. Didn't feel so bad. A little sharpish at first. Why didn't he aim a bit higher? He never was no good even at that. As I was saying there'd be something about a horse or the country or the spring weather that's just coming in now and the Indian corn shooting after the rain and I'll never see it. Or they'd put in a bit about the cows walking through the river in the hot summer afternoons or they'd go describing about a girl until I began to think of sister Eileen again. Then I'd run my head against the wall or do something like a madman and they'd stop the books for a week and I'd be as miserable as a bandicoot. Worse and worse a lot with all the devil's tricks and bad thoughts in my head and nothing to put them away. I must either kill myself or get someone to fill up my time till the day. Yes, the day comes. I've always been a middling rider though I can't say much for the grammar and spelling in that but I'll put it all down from the beginning to the end and maybe it'll save some other unfortunate young chap from pulling back like a cult when he's first roped setting himself against everything in the way of proper breaking making a fool of himself generally and choking himself down as I've done. The jailer, he looks hard he has to do that. There's more than one or two within here that would have him by the throat with his heart's blood running in half a minute if they had their way and the water was off guard. He knows that very well but he's not a bad hearted chap. You can have books or paper and pens anything you like, he said. You're unfortunate young beggar until you're turned off. If I'd only had you to see after me when I was young, says I. Come, don't whine, he said. Then he burst out laughing. You didn't mean it, I see. I ought to have known better. You're not one of that sort and I like you all the better for it. Well, here goes. Lots of pens, a big bottle of ink and ever so much fool's cap paper the right sort for me or I shouldn't have been here. I'm blessed if it doesn't look as if I was going to write copies again. Don't I remember how I used to go to school and old times, the rides there and back on the old pony and the little gray store field that I was so fond of and used to show her how to do her lessons. I believe I learned more that way than if I'd had only myself to think about. There was another girl, the daughter of the pound keeper that I wanted her to beat and the way we both worked and I coached her up was a caution and she did get above her in her class. How proud we were. She gave me a kiss too and a bit of her hair. Poor Gracie. I wonder where she is now and what she'd think if she saw me here today. If I could have looked ahead and seen myself chained now like a dog and going to die a dog's death this day month anyhow I must make a start. How do people begin when they set to work to write their own sayings and doings? There's been a deal more doing than talking in my life. It was the wrong sort. More's the pity. Well, let's see. His parents were poor but respectable. That's what they always say. My parents were poor and mother was as good a soul as ever broke bread and wouldn't have taken a shillings worth that was on her own if she'd been starving. But as for father he'd been a poacher in England and got sent out for it. He wasn't much more than a boy he said and it was only for a hair or two which didn't seem much. But I begin to think being able to see the writer things a bit now and having no bad grog inside of me to turn a fellow's head upside down as poaching must be something like cattle and horse duffing. Not the worst thing in the world itself but mighty likely to lead to it. Dad had always been a hard working steady going sort of chap. Good at most things and like a lot more of the government men as the convicts were always called round our part he saved some money as soon as he had done his time and married mother who was a simple emigrant girl just out from Ireland. Father was a square built good looking chap I believe then not so tall as I am by three inches but wonderfully strong and quick on his pins. They did say as he could hammer any man in the district before he got old and stiff I never saw him shape but once and then he rolled into a man big enough to eat him and polished him off in a way that showed me though I was a bit of a boy then that he'd been at the game before. He didn't ride so bad either though he hadn't had much of it where he came from but he was afraid of nothing and had a quiet way with cults. They could make pretty good play in thick country and ride a roughish horse too well, our farm was on a good little flat with a big mountain in front and a scrubby, rangy country at the back for miles people often asked him why he chose such a place it suits me he used to say with a laugh and talk of something else we could only raise about enough corn and potatoes in a general way for ourselves, from the flat but there were other chances and pickings which helped to make the pot boil and then we'd have been a deal better without first of all though our cultivation paddock was small and the good land seemed squeezed in between the hills there was a narrow tract up the creek and here it widened out into a large well-grasped flat this was where our cattle ran for of course we had a team of workers and a few milkers when we came no one ever took up a farm in those days without a drainer team a years rations a few horses and milkers pigs and fowls and a little furniture they didn't collar a 40 acre selection as they do now spend all their money in getting the land and squat down as bear as robins a man with his wife and children with a lot of bark nothing on their backs and very little in their bellies however some of them do pretty well though they do say they have to live on possums for a while we didn't do much in spite of our grand start the flat was well enough but there were other places in the gullies beyond that that father had dropped upon when he was out shooting he was a tremendous chap for poking about on foot and though he was an Englishman he was what you'd call a born bushman I never saw any man almost as what he's equal wherever he'd been once there he could take you again and what was more if it was in the dead of the night they could do it just the same people said he was as good as a black fella but I never saw one that was as good as he was all around in a strange country too that was what beat me he'd know the way the creek run and noticed when the cattle headed to camp and a lot of things that other people couldn't see or if they did couldn't remember again he was a great man for solitary walks too he and an old dog he had called Crib a crossbred mongrel looking brute most like what they would call a lurcher in England father said anyhow he could do most anything but talk he could bike to some purpose drive cattle or sheep catch a kangaroo if it wasn't a regular flyer fight like a bulldog and swim like a retriever track anything and fetch and carry but bark he wouldn't he'd stand and look at that as if he worshipped him and he'd make him some sign and off he'd go like a child that's got a message why he was so fond of the old man we boys couldn't make out we're afraid of him and as far as we could see he never patted or made much of Crib he thrashed him unmerciful as he did ask boys still the dog was that fond of him you'd think he'd like to die for him there and then but dogs are not like boys or men either better perhaps well we were all born at the hut by the creek I suppose for I remember it as soon as I could remember anything it was a snug hut enough for father was a good bush carpenter and didn't turn his back to anyone for splitting and fencing hut building and shingle splitting he had a year or two at sawing too but after he was married he dropped that but I've heard mother say that he took great pride in the hut when he brought her to it first and said it was the best built hut within 50 miles he split every slab cut every post and wall plate and rafter himself with a man to help him at odd times and after the frame was up and the bark on the roof he camped underneath and finished every bit of it chimney flooring, doors, windows and petitions by himself Benny dug up a little garden in front and planted a dozen or two peaches and quinces in it put a couple of roses a red and a white one by the posts of the veranda and it was all ready for his pretty Nora as she says he used to call her then if I've heard her tell about the garden and the quince trees and the two roses once I've heard her tell it a hundred times poor mother we used to get round her Eileen and Jim and I and say tell us about the garden mother she'd never refuse those were her happy days she always said she used to cry afterwards nearly always the first thing almost that I can remember was riding the old pony possum out to bring in the milkers father was away somewhere so mother took us all out and put me on the pony and let me have a whip Eileen walked alongside and very proud I was my legs stuck out straight on the old pony's fat back mother had ridden him up when she came the first horse she ever rode she said he was a quiet little old roan with a bright eye and legs like gate posts but he never fell down with us boys for all that if we fell off he stopped still and began to feed so that he suited us all to pieces we soon got sharp enough to flail him along with a quince stick and we used to bring up the milkers I expect a good deal faster than was good for them after a bit we could milk leg rope and bail up for ourselves and help dad brand the calves which began to come pretty thick there were only three of us children my brother Jim who was two years younger than I was and then Eileen who was four years behind him I know we were both able to nurse the baby a while after she came and neither of us wanted better fun than to be allowed to watch her or rock the cradle or as a great treat to carry her a few steps somehow we was that fond and proud of her from the first that we'd have done anything in the world for her and so we would now I was going to say but the poor Jim lies under a forest oak on a sand hill and I well I'm here and if I'd listened to her advice I should have been a free man a free man now it sounds doesn't it with the sun shining and the blue sky over your head and the birds twittering and the grass beneath your feet I wonder if I should go mad before my time's up mother was a Roman Catholic most Irish women are and dad was a Protestant if he was anything however that says nothing people that don't talk much about their religion or follow it up at all won't change it for all that so father their mother tried him hard enough when they were first married wouldn't hear of turning not if he was to be killed for it as I once heard him say no says he my father and grandfather and all the lot and so I shall live and die I don't know as it would make much matter to me but such as my notions is I shall stick to them as long as the craft holds together you can bring up the girl in your own way it's made a good woman of you or found you one which is most likely and so she may take a chance but I stand for church and king and so shall the boys assures my names Ben Marston of chapter one chapter two of Robbery Under Arms this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Dunlop Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boulderwood chapter two my father was one of those people that gets out of a deal of trouble in this world by always sticking to one thing if he said he'd do this or that he always did it and nothing else as for turning him a wild bull halfway down a range was a likely a try on so nobody ever bothered him after he'd once opened his mouth they knew it was so much lost labour I sometimes thought Eileen was a bit like him in her way of sticking to things but then she was always right you see so that clinched it mother gave in like a wise woman as she was the clergyman from Bargo came one day and christened me and Jim made one job of it but mother took Eileen herself in the spring cart all the way to the township and had her christened in the chapel service all right and regular by father Roche there's good and bad of every sort and I've met plenty that were no chop of all churches but if father Roche or father anybody else had any hand in making mother and Eileen half as good as they were I'd turn tomorrow if I ever got out again I don't suppose it was the religion that made much difference in our case for Patsy Daly and his three brothers that lived on the creek higher up were as much on the cross as men could be and many a time I've seen them ride the chapel and attend mass and look as if they'd never seen a clear skin in their lives Patsy was hanged afterwards for bush ranging and gold robbery and he had more than one man's blood to answer for now we weren't like that we never troubled the church one way or the other we knew we were doing what we ought to do and scorned to look pious and keep two faces under one hood by degrees we all grew older began to be active and able to do half a man's work we learned to ride pretty well at least that is we could ride a bareback horse at full gallop through timber or down a range could back a colt just caught and have him as quiet as an old cow in a week we could use the axe and the cross cut saw for father dropped that sort of work himself and made Jim and I do all the rough jobs of mending the fences getting firewood milking the cows and after a bit plowing the bit of flat we kept in cultivation Jim and I when we were 15 and 13 he was bigger for his age than I was so near my own strength that I didn't care about touching him the smartest lads on the creek father said he didn't often praise us either we'd often ridden over to help at the muster of the large cattle stations that were on the side of the range and not more than 20 or 30 miles from us some of our young stock used to stray among the squatters cattle and we liked attending the muster because there was plenty of galloping about and cutting out and fun and it was hard at night and often a half crown or so for helping someone away with a big mob of cattle or a lot for the pound father didn't go himself and I used to notice that whenever we came up and said we were Ben Mastin's boys both master and super looked rather glum and then appeared not to think anymore about it I heard the owner of one of these stations said he was managing then pity isn't it I didn't understand what they meant I do now we could do a few things besides riding because as I told you before we'd been to a bit of a school kept by an old chap that had once seen better days that lived three miles off near a little bush township this village like most of these places had a public house and a blacksmith shop that was about all the public and kept the store and managed pretty well to get hold of all the money that was made by the people round about that is of those that were good drinking men he had a half dozen children and though he was not up to much he wasn't that bad that he didn't want his children to have the chance of doing better than himself I've seen a good many crooked people in my day but very few that though they'd given themselves up as a bad job didn't hope a bit that their youngsters mightn't take after them curious isn't it but it is true I can tell you so Lammaby the publican though he was a greedy slice sort of fellow that bought things he knew was stolen and lent out money and charged everybody two prices for the things he sold them didn't like the thought of his children growing up like mild cattle as he said himself and so he fished out this old Mr. Howard that had been a friend or a victim or some kind of power of his in old times near Sydney and got him to come and keep school he was a curious man this Mr. Howard what he had been or done none of us ever knew but he spoke up to one of the squalors that said something sharp to him one day in a way that showed us boys that he thought himself as good as he was and he stood up straight and looked him in the face till we hardly could think of you as the same man that was so bent and shambling and broken down looking most times he used to live in a little hut in the township all by himself was just big enough to hold him and us with our lessons he had his dinner at the inn along with Mr. and Mrs. Lammaby she was always kind to him and made him puddings and things when he was ill he was pretty often ill and then he'd hear us our lessons at the bedside and make a short day of it mostly he drank nothing but tea he used to smoke a good deal out of a big mere shorn pipe with figures on it that he used to show us when he was in a good humour but two or three times a year he used to set to and drink for a week and then school was left off till he was right we didn't think much of that everybody almost that we knew did the same all the men nearly all they is and some of the women not mother though she wouldn't have touched a drop of wine or spirits to save her life and never did to a dying day we just thought of it as if they'd got a touch of fever or a sunstroke or broke a rib or something they'd get over it in a week or two and be alright again all the same poor old Mr Howard wasn't always on the booze not by any manner of means he never touched a drop of anything not even ginger beer while he was straight and he kept us all going from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon summer and winter for more than six years then he died poor old chap found dead in his bed one morning many are basting he gave me and Jim with an old Malacca cane he had with a silver knob to it we're all pretty frightened of him he'd say to me and Jim and the other boys it's the best chance of making men of yourselves he ever had if you only knew it you'll be rich farmers or settlers perhaps magistrates one of these days that is if you're not hanged it's you I mean he'd say pointing to me and Jim and the dailies I believe some of you will be hanged unless you change a good deal it's cold blood and bad blood that runs in your veins and you'll come to earn the wages of sin someday it's a strange thing he used to say as if he was talking to himself that the girls are so good while the boys are delivered over to the evil one except a case here and there look at Mary Darcy and Jim look at Mary Darcy and Jane Lamaby and my little pet Eileen here I defy any village in Britain to turn out such girls plenty of rosy cheeked gigglers but the natural refinement and intelligence of these little damsels astonishes me well, the old man died suddenly as I said and we were all very sorry and the school was broken up but he had taught us all to write fairly and to keep accounts to read and spell decently and to know a little geography it wasn't a great deal but what we knew we knew well and I often think of what he said now it's too late we ought to have made better use of it after school broke up father said Jim and I knew quite as much as was likely to be any good to us and we must work for our living like other people we'd always done a pretty fair share of that and our hands were hard with using the action the spade let alone holding the plow at odd times and harrowing then helping father to kill and brand and a lot of other things besides getting up while the stars were in the sky so as to get the cows milked early before it was time to go to school all this time we'd lived in a free kind of way we wanted for nothing we had plenty of good beef and a calf now and then about this time I began to wonder how I was that so many cattle and horses passed through father's hands and what became of them I hadn't lived all my life on Rocky Creek and among some of the smartest hands in that line that old New South Wales ever bred without knowing what clear skins and cross beasts meant and being well aware that our brand was often put on a calf that no cow of ours ever suckled don't I remember well the first calf I ever helped to put our letters on I've often wished I'd defied father then taken my licking and bulked away from home it's that very calf and the things that led to that's helped to put me where I am just as I sit here and these cursed irons rattle whenever I move my feet I can see that very evening and father and the old dog with a little mob of our crawling cattle and half a dozen head of strangers cows and calves and a fat little steer coming through the scrub to the old stockyard it was an awkward place for a yard people used to say scrubby and stony all round a blind sort of hole you couldn't see till you were right on top of it but there was a wing around out a good way through the scrub there's no better guide to a yard like that and there was a sort of cattle followed easy enough once you were round the hill anyhow between father and the dog and the old mare he always rode very few beasts ever broke away these strange cattle had been driven a good way I could see the cows and calves looked done up and the steer's tongue was out it was hoddish weather the old dog had been healing him up too for he was bleeding up to the hawks and the end of his tail was bitten off he was a savage old wretch was crib like all dogs that never bark and men too his bite was all the worse go and get the brands confound you don't stand there frightening the cattle says father as the tired cattle after smelling and jostling a bit rushed into the yard you Jim make a fire and look sharp about it I want a brand old polished calf and another or two father came down to the hut while the brands were getting ready and began to look at the harness cask which stood in a little back skillion it was pretty empty we'd been living on eggs bacon and bread and butter for a week old mother there's such a pretty red calf in the yard I said with a star and a white spot on the flank and there's a yellow steer fat enough to kill what said mother turning round and looking at father with her eyes staring a sort of dark blue they were people used to say mine and Jim's were the same color and a brown hair pushed back off her face as if she was looking at a ghost is it doing that again you are after all you promised me and you so nearly caught after the last one didn't I go on my knees to you to ask you to drop it and lead a good life and didn't you tell me you'd never do the like again and the poor innocent children too I wonder you've the heart to do it came into my head now to wonder why the sergeant and two policemen had come down from Bargo very early in the morning about three months ago and asked father to show them the beef and his cask and the hide belonging to it I wondered at the time the beast was killed why father made the hide into a rope and before he did that had cut out the brand and drop it into a hot fire the police saw a hide with our brand on it he was right, killed about a fortnight they didn't know it had been taken off a cancer bullet and that father took the trouble to stick him and bleed him before he took the hide off so as it shouldn't look dark father certainly knew most things in the way of working on the cross I can see now he'd have made his money a deal easier and no trouble of mind if he'd only chosen to go straight when mother said this father looked at her for a bit as if he was sorry for it then he straightened himself up and an ugly look came into his face as he growled out you mind your own business we must live as well as other people there's squatters here that does as bad just like the squires at home think a poor man has no right to live you bring the brand and look alive dick or I'll sharpen you up a bit the brand was in the corner but mother got between me and it stretched out her hand to father as if to stop me and him at God's name she cried out aren't you satisfied with losing your own soul and bringing disgrace on your family but you must be the ruin of your innocent children don't touch the brand dick but father wasn't a man to be crossed and what made it worse he had a couple of glasses of bad Grogonium there was an old villain of a shanty keeper that lived on the back creek he'd been there as he came by and had a glass or two he had a regular savage temper father had so he was quiet enough and not bad to us when he was right but the Grog always spoiled him he gave poor mother a shove which sent her reeling against the wall where she fell down and hit her head against the stool and lay there Eileen sitting down in the corner turned white and began to cry while father catches me a box on the air which sends me kicking picks up a brand out of the corner and walks out with me after him I think if I'd been another year or so older I'd have struck back I felt that savage about poor mother that I could have gone at him myself but we'd been too long used to do everything he told us and somehow even if a chap's father is a bad one he don't seem like other men to him so as Jim had lighted the fire we branded the little red hair for calf first a fine fat six months old nugget she was and then three bull calves all strangers and then polished calf I suppose just for a blind Jim and I knew the four calves were all strangers but we didn't know the brands of the mothers they all seemed different after this all was made right to kill a beast the gallows was ready rigged in a corner of the yard father brought his gun and shot the yellow steer the calves were put into our calf pen polys and all and all the cows turned out to go where they liked we helped father to skin and hang up the beast and pretty late it was when we finished mother had laid us out our tea and gone to bed with Eileen we had ours and then went to bed father sat outside and smoked in the starlight hours after I work up and heard mother crying before daylight we were up again and the steer was cut up and salted and in the harness cask soon after sunrise his head and feet were all popped into a big pot where we used to make soup for the pigs and by the time it had been boiling an hour or two there was no fear of anyone swearing to the yellow steer by we had a hearty breakfast off the skirt but mother wouldn't touch a bit nor let Eileen take any she took nothing but a bit of bread and a cup of tea and sat there looking miserable and downcast father said nothing but sat very dark looking and ate his food as if nothing was the matter after breakfast he took his mare the old dog followed there was no need to whistle for him it's my belief he knew more than many a Christian in a way they went father didn't come home for a week he'd gotten to the habit of staying away for days and days together then things went on the old way end of chapter 2 chapter 3 of robbery under arms this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Dunlop robbery under arms by Rolf Boulderwood so the years went on slow enough they seemed to us sometimes the green winters pretty cold I tell you with frost and howl storms long hot summers we were not called boys any longer except by mother and Eileen but took our places among the men at the district we lived mostly at home in the old way sometimes working pretty hard sometimes doing very little when the cows were milked and the wood chopped there was nothing to do for the rest of the day the creek was that close that mother used to go and dip the bucket into it herself when she wanted one from a little wooden step above the clear reedy waterhole now and then we used to dig in the garden there was reaping and corn pulling and husking for part of the year but often for weeks at a time there was next to nothing to do no hunting worth much we were sick of kangarooing like the dogs themselves that as they grew old would run a little way up if a mob came jump jump past them no shooting except a few ducks and pigeons father used to laugh at the shooting in this country and say they'd never have poachers here the game wasn't worth it no fishing except an odd codfish in the deepest waterholes and you might sit half a day without a bite now this was very bad for us boys lads want plenty of work and a little play now and then to keep them straight if there's none they'll make it and you can't tell how far they'll go once they start well Jim and I used to get our horses and ride off quietly in the afternoon as if we were going after cattle but in reality as soon as we were out of sight of mother to ride over to that old villain Grimes the shanty keeper where we met the young dailies and others of the same sort talked a good deal of nonsense and gossip what was worse played at all fours and yooka which we'd learned from an American harvest hand at one of the large farms besides playing for money which put us rather into trouble sometimes as we couldn't always find a half crown if we lost it we learned another bad habit and that was to drink spirits what burning nasty stuff I thought it at first and so did we all but everyone wanted to be thought a man and up to all kinds of wickedness so we used to make it a point of drinking our nobler and sometimes treating the others twice if we had the cash there was another family that lived a couple of miles off higher up the creek and we'd always been good friends with them they never came to our house and only wee boys went to theirs they were the parents of the little girl that went to school with us and a boy who was a year older than me their father had been a gardener at home only married a native girl who was born somewhere about the hawks breed near Windsor her father had been a farmer and many a time she told us how sorry she was to go away from the old place and what fine corn and pumpkins they grew and how they had a church at Windsor and used to take their hay and fruit and potatoes to Sydney and what a grand place Sydney was with stone buildings called markets for people to sell fruit and vegetables and poultry in and how you could walk down into lower George Street and see Sydney Harbour a great shining saltwater plane a thousand times as big as the biggest waterhole with ships and boats and sailors and every kind of strange thing upon it Mrs. Storfield was pretty fond of talking and she was always fond of me because once when she was out after the cows and her man was away and she'd left Grace at home the little thing crawled down to the waterhole and tumbled in I happened to be writing up with a message for mother to borrow some soap when I heard a little cry like a lambs and there was poor little Grace sitting in the water like a drowning kitten with her face under another minute or two would have finished her but I was off the old pony and into the water like a teal flapper I had her out in a second or two and she gasped and cried a bit but soon came to when Mrs. Storfield came home she first cried over her as if she would break her heart and kissed her and then she kissed me and said now Dick Mastin you look here good woman though simple your father I don't like and I hear many stories about him that makes me think the less we ought to see of the lotter you're the better but you've saved my child's life today and I'll be a friend and a mother to you as long as I live even if you turn out bad and I'm rather afraid you will you and Jim both but it won't be my fault for what of trying to keep you straight and John and I will be your kind and loving friends as long as we live that happens after that it was strange enough but I always talked to the little toddling thing that I pulled out of the water I wasn't very big myself if it comes to that and she seemed to have a feeling about it for she'd come to me every time I went there and sit on my knee and look at me with the big brown serious eyes they were just the same after she grew up and talk to me in her little childish lingo I believe she knew all about it for she used to say dick pull Gracie out of water and then she'd throw her arms around my neck and kiss me and walk off to her mother if I'd let her drown then and tie a stone around my neck and drop through the reeds to the bottom of the big water hole it would have been better for both of us when John came home he was nearly as bad as the old woman and wanted to give me a filly boy as I was I never cared for money nor money's worth and I was not going to be paid for picking a kid out of the water George Storfield, Gracie's brother was about my own age he thought a lot of what I'd done for her and years afterwards I threatened to punch his head if he said anything more about it he laughed and held out his hand you and I might have been better friends lately says he but don't you forget you've got another brother besides Jim one that'll stick to you too fair weather or foul I always had a great belief in George though we didn't get on over well and often had fallings out he was too steady and hardworking all together for Jim and me he worked all day and every day and saved every penny he made catch him gaffing nah not for a sixpence he called the dailies and jacksons thieves and swindlers who would be locked up or even hanged some day unless they mended themselves as for drinking a glass of grog you might just as soon ask him to take a little lord in a more arsenic why should I drink grog he used to say such stuff too as you get at that old villain grimes us with a good appetite and a good conscience I'm afraid of no man the police may come and live on my ground for what I care I work all day have a read in the evening and sleep like a top when I turn in what do I want more nah but you never see any life you're just like an old working bullet that walks up to the yoke in the morning and never stops hauling till he's let go at night this is a free country and I don't think a fellow is born for that kind of thing and nothing else this country's like any other country Jim George would say holding up his head and looking straight at him with his steady grey eyes a man must work and save when he's young if we don't want to be a beggar or a slave when he's old I believe in a man enjoying himself as well as you do but my notion of that is to have a good farm well stocked and paid for by and by and then to take it easy perhaps when my back's a little stiffer than it is now but a man must have a little fun when he's young I said what's the use of having money when you're old and rusty and can't take pleasure at anything the man needn't be so very old at 40 he says then and 20 years steady work will put all of us youngsters well up the ladder besides I don't call it fun getting half drunk with a lot of black guards at a low pot house or a shanty listening to the stupid talk and boasting lies of a pack of loafers and worse they're fit for nothing better than what you and Jim are now look here I got a small contract for Mr Andrews for a lot of fencing stuff it will pay us wages and something over if you like to go in with me we'll go share and share I know what hands you both are at splitting and fencing what do you say Jim poor Jim was inclined to take George's offer he was that good hearted that a kind word would turn him any time but I was put out at his laying it down so about the dailies and us shanting and gaffing and I do think now that some folks are born so as they can't do without a taste of some sort of fun once in a way I can't put it out clear but it ought to be fixed somehow for us chaps that haven't got the gift of working all day and every day but can do two days work in one when we like that we should have our allowance of reasonable fun and pleasure but is what we call pleasure not what somebody thinks we ought to take pleasure in anyway I turned on George rather rough and I says we're not good enough for the likes of you Mr Storfield it's very kind of you to think of us but we'll take our own line and you take yours I'm sorry for a dick and more sorry that you take half of it an old friend who wants to do you good and act a friend's part goodbye some day you'll see it your heart on George says Jim there's no pleasing you today when we think there were lots of chaps fighting how to give us a lift goodbye George old man I'm sorry we can't wire in with you we'd soon knock out those posts and rails on the ironbark range you better stop Jim and take your hand in the deal says I or rather the devil for I believe inside a chap at times and then you and George can take a turn at local preaching when you cut out I'm off so without another word I jumped onto my horse and went off down the hill across the creek and over the boulders the other side without much caring where I was going the fact was I felt I'd acted meanly in sneering at a man who only said what he did for my good and I wasn't at all sure that I hadn't made a breach between Gracie and myself and though I had such a temper when it was all roused that all the world wouldn't have stopped me every time I thought of not seeing that girl again made my heart ache as if it would burst I was nearly home before I heard the clatter of a horse's feet and Jim rode up alongside of me he was just the same as ever with a smile on his face I didn't often see it without one I knew he'd come after me and had given up his own fancy for mine I thought you were going to stay and turn good I said why didn't you might have been better for me if I had he said but you know very well Dick that whatever turns up whether it's for good or evil you and I go together we looked at one another for a moment our eyes met we didn't say anything but we understood one another as well as if we talked for a week we rode up to the door of our cottage without speaking the sun had set and some of the stars had come out early as it was for it was late autumn Eileen was sitting on a bench in the veranda reading mother was working away as usual at something in the house mother couldn't read or write but you never called her sitting with her hands before except when she was asleep I don't think she ever was quite still Eileen ran out to us and stood while we let go our horses and brought the saddles and bridles under the veranda I'm glad you come home for one thing she said there's a message from father he wants you to meet him who brought it I said one of the dailies Patsy I think alright said Jim kissing her as you lifted her up in her strong arms I must go in and have a gossip with the old woman Eileen can tell me after tea I dare say it's not so good that I won't keep mother was that fond of both of us that I believe as sure as I sit here she'd have put her head on the block or died in any other way for either of her boys not because it was her duty but glad and cheerful like to have saved us from death or disgrace I think she was fonder of us too than she was of Eileen mothers are generally fonder of their sons why I never could see and if she thought more of one than the other it was Jim he was the youngest and he had that kind of big frolic some loving way with him like a newfoundland pup about half grown I always used to think somehow nobody ever seemed to be able to get in a pelter with Jim not even father and that was a thing as some people couldn't be got to believe as for mother and Eileen they were as fond of him as if he'd been a big baby so while he went to sit down on the stretcher and let mother put her arms around his neck and hug him and cry over him as she always did if he'd been away more than a day or two I took a walk down the creek with Eileen in the starlight to hear all about this message from father besides I could see that she was very serious over it and I thought there might be something in it more than common first of all did you make any agreement with George Storfield she said no why should I so been talking to you about me what right has he to meddle with my business oh Dick don't talk like that anything that he said was only to do a kindness and Jim hang him in his kindness too I said let him keep it for those that want it but what did he tell you he said first of all answered poor Eileen with the tears in her eyes and trying to take hold of my hand that he had a contract for fencing timber which he'd taken at good prices which he would share with you and Jim that he knew you too and himself could finish her in a few weeks and that he expected to get the contract for the timber for the new bridge at Dargo which he would let you go shares in too he didn't like to speak about that because it wasn't certain but he calculated all the quantities and prices and he was sure he could make 70 or 80 pounds each before Christmas now is there any harm in that and don't you think it was very good of him to think of it well he's not a bad fellow old George I said but is a little too fond of interfering with other people's business Jim and I are quite able to manage our own affairs as I told him this evening when I refused to have anything to do with his fencing arrangement oh dick did you she said what a pity I made sure Jim would have liked it so for only last week he said he was sick and tired of having nothing to do but he should soon lose all his knack at using tools that he used to be so proud of didn't he say he'd like to join George he would I dare say and I told him to do as he liked I came away by myself and only saw him just before we crossed the range he's big enough and old enough to take his own line but you know he thinks so much of you she groaned out that he'd follow you to destruction that will be the end of it depend upon a dick to tell you so now you've taken the bad ways you'll have his blood on your head yet Jim's old enough and big enough to take care of himself I said so clearly if he likes to come my way I won't hinder him I won't try to persuade him one way or the other let him take his own line I don't believe in preaching an old women's talk let a man act and think for himself you'll break my heart and poor mothers too I said Eileen, suddenly taking both my hands and hers what has she done but love us ever since we were born and what does she live for you know she has no pleasure of any kind you know she's afraid every morning she wakes that the police will get farther for some of his cross-doings and now you and Jim are going the same wild way and whatever whatever will be the end of it here she let go of my hands and sobbed and cried as if she was a child again much as I remember her doing one day when my kangaroo dog killed her favourite cat and Eileen was a girl that didn't cry much generally and never about anything that happened to herself it was always about somebody else and their misfortunes she was a quiet girl too very determined and not much given to talking about what she was going to do but when she made up her mind she was sure to stick to it I used to think she was more like father than any of us she had his coloured hair and eyes and his way of standing and looking as if the whole world wouldn't shift him but she'd mother's soft heart for all that and I took the more notice of her crying and whimpering this time because it was so strange for her I was seen straight into my heart just then I was regularly knocked over and had two minds to go inside the gym and tell him we'd take George's splitting job and start to tackle it the first thing tomorrow morning but just then one of those confounded nighthawks flitted on a dead tree before as some began his hoo-ho as if it was laughing at me I can see the place now the mountain black and dismal the moon low and strange looking the little water hole glittering in the half light and this dark bird hooting away in the night an odd feeling seemed to come over my mind and if it had been the devil himself standing on the dead limb it could not have had a worse effect on me as I stopped there uncertain whether to turn to the right or the left we don't often know in this world sometimes whether we're moving off along a road where we shall never come back from or whether we can go just a little way and look at the far off hills and new rivers and come home safe I remember the whole lot of bad meaning thoughts coming with a rush over my heart and I laughed at myself for being so soft as to choose a hard working pokey kind of life at the word of a slow fellow like George when I might be riding about the country on a fine horse drinking and drinking are the best and only doing what people said half the old settlers had made their money by poor Eileen told me afterwards that if she'd thought for a moment I could be turned she'd have gone down on her knees and never got up till I promised to keep straight and begin to work at honest daily labor like a man like a man who hoped to end his days in a good house on a good farm with a good wife and nice children around him some people would call the first after years of honest work and being always able to look everyone in the face being more of a man than the other but people have different ways and different ideas come on Eileen I said are you going to whine and cry all night I should be afraid to come home if you're going to be like this what's the message from father she wiped away her tears and never looked steadily into my face poor boy poor dear dick she said I feel as if I should see that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or other something tells me that there's a bad luck before you but never mind you'll never lose your sister if the luck's ever so bad father sent word you and Jim were to meet him at Broken Creek and bring your whips with you on the world's that for I said half speaking to myself it looks as if there was a big mob to drive and where is he to get a big mob there in that mountainous beastly place where the cattle all bolt like wallabies and where I never saw a 20 head together he's got some reason for it said Eileen sorrowfully if I were you I wouldn't go it's no good and fathers try now to drag you and Jim into the bad ways he's been following these years how do you know if it's so bad I said how can a girl like you know I know very well she said do you think I've lived here all these years and don't know things what makes him always come home after dark and be that nervous every time he sees a stranger coming up you'd think he was come out of jail why has he always got money and why does mother look so miserable when he's at home and cheer up when he goes away he may get jobs of driving or something I said you know right to say that he's robbing or something of that sort because he doesn't care about tying himself to mother's apron string Eileen laughed but it was more like crying he told me just now she said oh so sorrowfully that you and Jim were old enough to take a line of your own why don't you do it now and tell father we'll have nothing more to do with him why not she said standing up straight before me and facing me just as I saw father face the big bullet driver before he knocked him down why not you need never ask him for another meal you can earn an easy living in half a dozen ways you and Jim why should you let him spoil your life and ruin your soul forever more the priest put that into your head I said sneeringly father Doyle of course he knows what they'll do with a fellow after he's dead no she said father Doyle never said a word about you that wasn't good and kind he says mother's a good Catholic and he takes an interest in you boys and me because of her he can persuade you women to do anything I said not that I had any grudge against poor old father Doyle he used to come riding up the rough mountain track on his white horse and tiring his old bones just to look after his flock as he said a nice lamb some of them were but I wanted to tease her and make her break off with this fancy of hers he never does and couldn't persuade me except for my good she said getting more and more roused and her black eyes glowed again and I'll tell you what I'll do to prove it it's a sin but if it is I'll stand by it and now I'll swear here she'll melt down as Almighty God shall help me at the last day if you and Jim will promise me to start straight off up the country and take bush work till sheering comes in and never to have any truck with cross chaps in their ways I'll turn Protestant I'll go to church with you and keep to it till I die wasn't she a Trump I've known women that would give up a lot for a man they were sweet on and wives that would follow their husbands about like Spaniels and women that would lie and deceive and all but rob and murder for men they were fond of and sometimes do nearly as much to spite other women but I don't think I ever knew a woman that would give up her religion for anyone before and it's not as if she wasn't staunch to her own faith she was as regular in her prayers and crossings and beads and all the rest of it as mother herself and if there ever was a good girl in the whole world she was one she turned faint as she said this which she was going to drop down if anything could have turned me then it would have been this it was almost like giving her life for ours and I don't think she'd have valued hers two straws if she could have saved us there's a great deal said about different kinds of love in this world but I can't help thinking that the love between brothers and sisters has been brought up together and have had very few other people to care about is a higher better sort than any other in the world there's less selfishness about it no thought but for the others good if that can be made safe death and pain and poverty and misery are all little things there was no fond of Eileen in spite of all my hardness and cross-grained obstinacy so fond that I was just about to hug her to me and say take it all your own way Eiley dear when Jim came tearing out of the hut bareheaded and stood listening to a far off sound that called all our ears at once we made out the source of it too well far too well what was the noise at that hour of the night it was a hollow faint distant roaring that gradually kept getting louder it was the strange mournful bellowing that comes from a drive of cattle forced along an unknown track as we listened the sound came clearly on the night wind faint yet still clearly coming nearer cattle being driven Jim cried out and a big mob too it's father for a note our horses and made him end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of Robbery Under Arms this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Dunlop Robbery Under Arms chapter 4 all right said I he must have got there a day before his time it is a big mob and no mistake I wonder where they're taking him to Eileen shrugged her shoulders and walked into mother with a look of misery and despair on her face such as I never saw there before she knew it was no use talking to me now the idea of going out to meet a large lot of unknown cattle strongly excited us as would have been the case with every bushbread lad all sorts of wonders passed through our minds as we walked down the creek bank with our bridles in our hands towards where our horses usually fed one was easy to catch the other with a little management was secured in 10 minutes we were riding fast through the dark trees and fallen timber towards the wild gullies and rock-strewed hills of Broken Creek it was not more than an hour when we got up to the cattle we could hear them a good while before we saw them my word said Jim ain't day restless they can't have come far or they wouldn't roar so where can the old man have touched for them how should I know I said roughly I had a kind of idea but I thought he would never be so rash when we got up I could see the cattle had been rounded up in a flat with stony ridges all round there must have been three or four hundred of them only a man and a boy riding round and wheeling them every now and then their horses were pretty well knocked up I knew father at once and the old chestnut mare he used to ride an animal with legs like timbers and a mule rump but you couldn't tire her the no beast that ever was carved could get away from her the boy was a half cast that father had picked up somewhere he was as good as two men any day so you've come at last Grandfather and a good thing too I didn't expect to be here till tomorrow morning the dog came home I suppose that's what brought you here wasn't it I thought the infernal cattle would beat Warrigal on me and we'd have all our trouble for nothing whose cattle are they and what are you going to do with them never mind ask no questions and you'll see all about it tomorrow I'll go and take a snooze now I've had no sleep for three nights with our fresh horses and riding round so we kept the cattle easily enough we did not tell Warrigal he might go rest not thinking a half cast brat like him wanted any he didn't say anything but went to sleep on his horse which walked in and out among the angry cattle as he sat on the saddle with his head down on the horse's neck they sniffed at him once or twice some of the old cows but none of them horned him and daylight came rather quicker than one would think then we saw whose cattle they were they had all hunters and Falklands brands on which showed that they belonged to Banda and Elingamar stations by George says Jim they missed a hunter's cattle and all these circle dots belonged to Banda what a mob of calves not one of them branded what in the world does father intend to do with them father was up and came over where we stood with our horses in our hands before we had time to say more he wasn't one of those that slept after daylight whether he'd work to do or not he certainly could work daylight or dark wet or dry, cold or hot it was all one to father it seems a pity what he did was no use to him as it turned out for he was a man, was old dad every inch of him now boys he said quite brisk and almost good natured for him look alive and we'll start the cattle we've been here long enough let them head up that gully and I'll show you something you'd never seen before for as long as you've known broken creek ranges but where are you going to take them to I said they're all Mr. Hunters and Mr. Falklands the brands are plain enough are the calves branded you blasted fool he said while the black look came over his face that it so often frightened me when I was a child you do what I tell you if you've any pluck and gumption about your oils you and your brother can ride over to Daigo police station and give me away if you like I only don't come home again I warn you sons or no sons if I had done what I had two minds to do for I wasn't afraid of him then savage as you looked told him to do his own duffing and ridden away with Jim there and then poor Jim who sat on his horse staring at both of us and saying nothing how much better it would have been for all of us the old man as well as ourselves but it seemed as if it wasn't to be partly from use and partly from a love of danger and something new which is the bottom of half the crime in the bush districts I turned my horse's head after the cattle which were now beginning to straggle Jim did the same on his side how easy it is for chaps to take the road to hell for that was about the size of it and we were soon too busy to think about much else the track we were driving on led a narrow rocky gully which looked as if it had been split up or made out of a crack on the earth thousands of years ago by an earthquake or something of the kind the hills were that steep that every now and then some of the young cattle that were not used to that sort of country would come sliding down and bellow as if they thought they were going to break their necks the water rushed down it like a torrent in wet winters and formed a sort of creek and the bit of it made what track there was there were overhanging rocks and places that made you giddy to look at and some of these must have fallen down and blocked up the creek at one time or other we had to scramble round them the best way we could when we got nearly up to the head of the gully and great work it was to force the footsaw cattle along as we couldn't use our whips over much Jim called out why here comes old crib who'd have thought he'd have seen the track well done old man now we're right father never took any notice of the poor brood as he came limping along the stones woman or child horse or dog it's the same old thing the more any creature loves a man in this world the worse they're treated it looks like it at any rate I saw how it was father had given crib a cruel beating the night before when he was put out for some trifling matter and the dog had left him and run home but now he'd thought better of it and seen our tracks and come to work and slave with his bleeding feet for they were all cut to pieces and got the whip across his back now and then for his pains it's a queer world when we got right to the top of this confounded gully nearly dead beat all of us and only the dog healing them up every now and then and making his teeth nearly meat in them without a whimper I believe the cattle would have charged back and beat us there was a sort of rough table land scrubby and stony and thick it was but still the grass wasn't bad in summer when the country below was all dried up there were wild horses in troops there and a few wild cattle so Jim and I knew the place well but it was too far and too much of a journey for our own horses to go often you see that sugar loaf hill with the ball top across the range said father writing up just then as we were taking it easy a little don't let the cattle struggle and make straight for that well it's miles away said Jim looking rather dismal we could never get them there we're not going there stupid says father that's only the line to keep I'll show you something about dinner time that'll open your eyes a bit poor Jim brightened up at the mention of dinner time for boy like he was getting very hungry and as he wasn't done growing he had no end of an appetite I was hungry enough for the matter of that but I wouldn't own to it well we shall come to somewhere I suppose says Jim when father was gone blessed if I didn't think he was going to keep us wandering in this blessed Nullar Mountain all day I wish I'd never seen the blessed cattle I was only waiting for you to hook it when we first seen the brands by daylight and I'd have been off like a brindle Mickey down a range better for us if we had I said but it's too late now we must stick to it I suppose we kept the cattle going for three or four miles through the thickest of the country every now and then steering our course by the clear round top of Sugarloaf that could be seen for miles round but never seemed to get any nearer when we came on a rough sort of log fence which ran the way we were going I didn't think there are any farms up here I said to Jim it's a break he said almost in a whisper there's a doffing yard somewhere handy that's what's the matter keep the cattle along it anyway we'll soon see what it leads to the cattle ran along the fence as if they expected to get to the end of their troubles soon the scrub was terribly thick in places and every now and then there was a break in the fence when one of us had to go outside and hunt them until we came to the next bit at last we came to a little open kind of flat with the scrub that thick rounded as you couldn't hardly ride through it and just as Jim said there was a yard it was a doffing yard sure enough no one but people who had cattle to hide and young stock that didn't want other people to see branded would have made a place there just on the south side of the yard which was built of great heavy stringy bark trees cut down in the line of the fence and made up with limbs and logs the range went up as steep as the side of a house the cattle were that tired and foot sore half their feet were bleeding poor devils that they ran in through the slip rails and began to lay down light of fire one of you boys says father putting up the heavy slip rails and fastening them we must brand these calves before dark one of you can go to that gunner just under the range where that big white rock is and you'll find tea and sugar and something to eat Jim brushed off at once while I soulfully began to put some bark and twigs together and build a fire what's the use of all this cross work I said to father we're bound to be caught someday if we keep on at it then there'll be no one left to take care of mother and Eileen he looked rather struck at this and then said quietly you and your brother can go back now never say I kept you against your will you may as well lend a hand to brand those calves then you may clear out as soon as you like well I didn't quite like leaving the old chap in the middle of the work like that I remember thinking like many another young fool I suppose that I could draw back in time just after I'd tackled this job draw back indeed when does a man ever get the chance of doing that once he's regularly gone in for any of the devil's work and wages he takes care there isn't much drawing back afterwards so I said we may as well give you a hand with this lot but we'll go home then and drop all the stuffing work but don't pay I'm old enough to know that and you'll find it out yet I expect father yourself the fox lives long and gives the hounds many a long chase before he's run into he said with a grim chuckle I swore I'd be revenged on them all when they locked me up and sent me out here for a paltry hair broke my old mother's heart so it did I've had a pound for every hair on her skin and I shall go on till I die after all if a man goes to work cautious and runs mute it's not so easy to catch him in this country at any rate Jim at this came running out of the cave with a face of joy a bag of ship biscuit and a lot of other things here's tea and sugar he said and there's some biscuits and jam and a big lump of cheese get the fire right dick while I get some water we'll soon have some tea and these biscuits are jolly the tea was made and we all had a good meal father found a bottle of rum too he took a good drink himself and gave Jim and me a sip each I felt less inclined to quarrel with father after that so we drafted all the calves into a small pen yard and began to put our brand on them quick as we could catch him 160 of them altogether all ages from a month old to nearly a year fine strong calves and rare condition too we could see they were all belonging to Mr. Hunter and Mr. Falkland how they came to leave them all so long unbranded I can't say very careless they often are on these large cattle stations so that sharp people like father and the dailies and a lot more get an easy chance at them whatever father was going to do with them all when he had branded them we couldn't make out there's no place to tail or wean them whispered Jim we're not above 30 miles from Bander in a straight line these cows are dead short and make straight back the very minute they're let out and very nice worker to look with all these calves with our brand on sucking these cows father happened to come round for a hot brown just as Jim finished never you mind about the weaning he snarled I shouldn't ask you to tail them either there wouldn't be a nice job here would it and father actually laughed there wasn't a very gay kind of a laugh and you shut up his mouth with a sort of snap again Jim and I hadn't seen him laugh for I don't know how long and it almost frightened us as Jim said it wouldn't do to let the cattle out again if calves are weaned and have only one brand on it's very hard for any man to swear that they're not the property of the man to whom that brand belongs he may believe them to be his but may never have seen them in his life and if he has seen them on a camp or on the run it's very hard to swear to any one particular red or spotted calf as you would to a horse the great dart is to keep the young stock away from their mothers until they forget one another and then most of the danger is passed but if calves with one man's brand on are seen sucking another man's cows it's pretty plain that the brand on the calves has been put on without the consent of the owner of the cows which is cattle stealing a felony according to the Act 7 and 8 George IV No. 29 punishable with three years imprisonment with hard labor on the roads of the colony or other place as the judge may direct there's a lot of law how did I learn it? I had plenty of time in Barama Jail worse luck, my first stretch but it was after I'd done the foolishness and not before End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Robbery Under Arms This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Richard Kilmer Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Bolderwood Chapter 5 Now then you boys, says Father coming up all of a sudden like and bringing out his words as if it was old times with us when we didn't know whether he'd hit first and talk afterwards or the other way on Get out the lot we've just branded and drive them straight for that peak where the water shines dripping over the stones right again the sun and look siply we're burning daylight and these cows are making row enough blast them to be heard all the way to Banda I'll go on and steady the lead you keep them close up to me Father mounted the old mare the dog stopped behind he knew he'd have to mine the tail his the hindmost cattle and stop them from breaking or running clear away from the others we threw down the rails away the cattle rushed out all in a long string he'd thought no mortal men could have kept them in that blind hole of a place but Father headed them and turned them toward the peak the dog worried those that wanted to stay by the yard or turn another way he kept on them and kept them going in five minutes they were all a moving along in one mob at a pretty sharpest trot like a lot of store cattle Father knew his way about whether the country was thick or open it was all as one to him what a slashing stockman he would have made in a new country if only he could have kept straight it took us an hours hard dinkum to get near the peak sometimes it was awfully rocky as well as scrubby and the poor devils of cattle got as sore-footed as babies blood up to the knee some of them but we crowded them on and there was no help for it at last we rounded up on a flat rocky open kind of place and here Father held up his hand let him ring a bit some of their tongues are out these young things is generally soft come here dick I rode up and he told me to follow him we walked our horses up to the edge of the mountain and looked over it was like the end of the world far down there was a dark dreadful drop into a sort of deep valley you couldn't see the bottom of it the trees on the mountain side looked like bushes and there were big iron barks and messmates too on three sides of us a little desolate-looking precipice a dreary gloomy godforsaken kind of spot the sky got cloudy and the breeze turned cold and began to murmur and whistle in an odd unnatural kind of way while Father, seeing how scared and puzzled I was began to laugh I shuddered a thought crossed my mind that it might be the enemy of souls in his shape going to carry us off in such a piece of wickedness looks queer doesn't it, says Father going to the brink and kicking down a boulder that rolled and crashed down the steep mountainside tearing its way through a scrub and heath till it settled down in the glen below it won't do for a man's horse to slip, will it boy and yet there's a track here into a fine large paddock open and clear too where I'm going to put these cattle into I stared at him without speaking thinking he was mad no, the old man isn't mad, youngster said he not yet at least I'm going to show you a trick that none of you native boys are up to smart as you think yourselves he got off the old mare and began to leader to the edge of the mountain now, you rally the cattle well after me, he said they'll follow the old mare after a bit I left a few cows among them on purpose and when they draw, keep them going well up but not too fast he lengthened the bridle of the mare and tied the end of a light tether rope that he had round her neck to it I saw her follow him slowly and turned down a rocky track that seemed to lead straight over a bluff of the precipice however, I gave the word to head on the dog had started rounding him up as soon as he saw the old mare walk towards the mountainside and the cattle were soon crushed up pretty close to the mare's heels mind this that they were so sore-footed and tender about the hoofs that they could not have run away from us on foot if they had tried after ringing a bit one of the quiet cows followed up the old mare that was walking step by step forward and all the rest followed her like sheep cattle will do that I've seen a stock rider when all the horses were dead beat trying to get fat cattle to take a river and flood jump off and turn a horse loose into the stream if he went straight and swam across all the cattle would follow him like sheep well when that old mare got to the bluff she turned short round to the right and then I saw that she had struck a narrow path a gully that got deeper and deeper every yard we went there was just room for a couple or three calves to go abreast and by and by all of them was walking down it like as if they were the beasts going into Noah's Ark it wound and wound and got deeper and deeper to the walls of the rock were ever so far above our heads our work was done then the cattle had to walk on like sheep in a race we let our horses behind them and the dog walked along saving his sore feet as well as he could and never tried to bite a beast once he got within the walls he looked quite satisfied and kept chuckling almost to himself I really believe I've seen dogs laugh once upon a time I've read of how they'd have taken poor crib for a familiar spirit and hanged or burnt him well he knew a lot and no mistake I've seen plenty of Christians as he could buy and sell and no trouble to him I'm dashed if the old mayor too didn't take a pleasure in working cattle on the cross she was the laziest old wretch bringing up the cows at home or running in the horses many a time Jim and I took a turn out of her when father didn't know but put her after a big mob of cattle as we've known they couldn't be ours and she'd clatter down a range like the wall of a house and bite and kick the tail cattle if they didn't get out of her way they say dogs and horses are all honest and it's only us as teaches them to do wrong my notion they're a deal like ourselves and some of them fancies the square racket dull and safe while some takes a deal kindlier to the other no cattle duffer in the colonies could have had a better pair of mates than old Sally and crib if the devil himself had broke them in special for the trade it was child's play now as far as the driving went Jim and I walked along leading our horses and yarning away as we used to do when we were little chaps bringing in the milkers my word dick dad's dropped into a fine road through this thundering mountain has a tea I wonder where it leads to how high the rock walls are getting above us he says I know now I think I heard long ago from one of the crossbees of a place in the ranges down towards behind the nulla mountain terrible hollow he didn't know about it himself but said an old Stockman told him about it when he was drunk he said the government men used to hide the cattle and horses there in old times and that it was never found out why wasn't it found out Jim if the old fellow split about it someone else would get to know well old Dan said that they killed one man that talked of telling the rest were too frightened after that and they all swore a big oath never to tell anyone except he was on the cross that's how dad come to know I suppose that Jim I wish he never had I don't care about those cross doings I never did I never seen any good come out of them yet well we must go through with it now I suppose it won't do to leave old dad in the lurch you won't will you Jim you know very well I won't says Jim very sober like I don't like it any the more for that but I wish father had broke his leg and was lying up at home with mother nursing him before he found out this hellhole of a place well we're going to get out of it soon too the gully seems getting wider and I can see a bit of open country through the trees thank God for that says Jim my boots apart company soon and the poor devils of calves won't have any hoofs either if there's much more of this they're drawing faster now the leading cattle are beginning to run we're at the end of the drive so it was the deep rocky gully gradually widened into an open and pretty smooth flat this again into a splendid little plane up to the knees and grass a big natural park closed round on every side with sandstone rock walls as upright as if they were built and a couple of thousand feet above the place where we stood this scrub country was crossed by two good creeks with several miles across and a trifle more in length our hungry weaners spread out and began the feed without a notion of their mothers they'd left behind but they were not the only ones there we could see other mobs of cattle some near some farther off horses too and the well-worn track in several ways showed that this was no new grazing ground father came riding back quite comfortable and hearty like for him welcome to terrible hollow lads he says you're the youngest chaps it has ever been shown to and if I didn't know you were the right stuff you'd never have seen it though you're my own flesh and blood jump off and let your horses go they can't get away even if they tried they don't look much like that our poor nags were something like the cattle pretty hungry and stiff they put their heads down to the thick green grass and went in at it with a will bring your saddles along with you father said and come after me I'll show you a good camping place you deserve a treat after last night's work we turned back toward the rocky wall near to where we had come in and there behind a bush and a big piece of sandstone that had fallen down was the entrance to a cave clean and white looking the floor was smooth and the roof was pretty high well blackened with smoke too from the fires which had been lighted in it for many a year gone by a kind of natural cellar had been made by scooping out the soft sandstone behind the ledge from this father took a bag of flour and cornmeal we very soon made some cakes in the pan that tasted well tea and sugar too and quart pots some bacon in a flour bag and that rasher fried in the pan was the sweetest meat I ever ate in all my born days then father bought out a keg and poured some rum into a pint pot he took a pretty stiff pull and then handed it to us a little of it won't hurt you boys he said after night's work I took some not much we hadn't learned to drink then to keep down the fear of something hanging over us a dreadful fear it is it makes a coward of every man who doesn't lead a square life let him be as gay as he may Jim wouldn't touch it no he said when I laughed at him I promised mother last time I had more than was good for me at Dargo races but I wouldn't touch it again for two years I won't either I can stand what any other man can and without the hard stuff either please yourself said father when you're ready we'll have a ride through the stock we finished our meal and a first rate one it was a man never has the same appetite for his meals anywhere else that he has in the bush especially if he has been up half the night it's so fresh there makes him feel as if he ate nothing for a week sitting on a log or in the cave as we were I've had the best meal I've ever tasted since I was born not like the close feeling close smelling dirty clean graveyard they call a jail but it's no use beginning on that we were young men and free too free by all the devils in hell by all the hard devils and there must be to tempt the man or how could he be so great a fool so blind a born idiot has to do anything in this world that would put his freedom in jeopardy and what for for folly and nonsense for a few pounds he could earn with a month's honest work and be all the better man for it for a false woman's smile that he could buy and tend like her and saving for a bit of sudden pride or vanity or passion a short bit of what looks like pleasure against months and years of weariness and cold and heat and dull half death with maybe a dog's death at the end I could cry like a child when I think of it now I have cried many's the time and often since I have been shut up here and dashed my head against the stones and I knocked all sense and feeling out of it not so much in repentance though I don't say I feel sorry but to think what a fool fool I've been yes fool three times over a hundred times to put my liberty in life against such a miserable stake the stake the devil that deals the pack is so safe to win at the end I may as well go on out sometimes when I hear the birds calling to one another as they fly over the yard and know it's fresh air and sun and green grass outside that I never shall see again never see the river rippling under the big drooping trees or the cattle coming down in the twilight to drink after the long hot day never never more and whose fault is it who have I to blame I never helped a bit but I knew better and no one is half as much to blame as myself where were we oh at the cave mouth coming out with our bridles in our hands to catch our horses we soon did that and then we rode away to the other cattle they were a queer lot in fine condition but all sorts of ages and breeds with every kind of brand and had never heard of some had no brands at all full grown beasts too that was a thing we had very seldom seen some of the best cattle and some of the finest horses and there were some real plums among the horses had a strange brand JJ who does the JJ brand belong to I said the father they're the pick of the lot whosoever they are father looked black for a bit and then he growled out don't you ask too many questions lad there's only four living men besides yourselves knows about this place so take care and don't act foolishly or you'll lose a plant that may save your life as well as keep you in cash for many a year to come that brand belongs to Starlight and he was the only man left alive of the men that first found it and used it to put away stock in he wanted help and told me five years ago he took in a half cast chap too against my will he helped them with the last lot of cattle that you noticed but where did those horses come from Jim said I never hardly saw such a lot before all got the JJ brand on too and nothing else all about three years old they brought here as foals said father following their mothers some of them was foaled here and of course as they've only the one brand on they never can be claimed or sworn to they're from some of Mr. Maxwell's best thoroughbred mayors and their sire was Earl of Athlean imported he was here for a year well they might look the real thing said Jim his eyes brightening he gazed at them I'd like to have that dark bae cult with a star my word what a forehand he's got and what quarters too if he can't gallop I'll never say I know a horse from a polly cow you shall have him or as good never fear if you stick to your work says father you mustn't cross starlight for he's a born devil he talks so soft the half-caste is an out-and-out chap with cattle and the horse doesn't stand on four legs that he can't ride and make follow him for the matter of that but he's worth watching I don't believe in him myself and now he have a lot and a damn fine lot they are I said for I was vexed with Jim for taking so easy to the bait about the horse a very smart crowd to be on the road and drag us in with him how do you make that out says father are you going to turn dog now now you know the way in isn't it as easy to carry on for a few years more as it was twenty years ago not by a long chalk I said for my blood was up back the father and give him as good as he sent and all for Jim's sake poor Jim he'd always go to the mischief for the sake of a good horse and many another currency chap has gone the same way it's a pity for some of them that a blood horse was ever fold you think you can't be tracked says I but you must bear in mind I found it police as was pottering about when this bot was first hit on there's chaps in the police getting now natives are all the same as can ride and track every bit as well as the half-caster talking about some day they'll drop on the track of a mob coming in or getting out and then the game will be all up you can cut it if you like now said father don't say I dragged you in you and your brother can go home and no one will ever know where you were no more than if you had gone to the moon Jim looked at the brown colt that just came trotting up his dad finished speaking trotting up with his head high and his tail stuck out like a circus horse if he'd been the devil in a horse hide he couldn't have chosen a better moment we all three looked at each other no one spoke the colt stopped, turned and galloped back to his mates like a red flyer with the dogs close behind him it was not long we all began to speak at once but in that time the dime was cast the stakes were down and in the pool were three men's lives I don't care whether we go back or not says Jim I'll do either way that dick likes but that colt I must have I never intended to go back I said but we're three damned fools all the same father and sons it'll be the dearest horse you ever bought Jim, old man and so I tell you well I suppose it settled now says father so let's have no more chat we're like a pack of old women blessed if we ain't after that we got on more sociably father took us all over the place and a splendid paddock it was wild all round but where we had come in and a narrow gash in the far side that not one man in a thousand could ever hit on except he was put up to it a wild country for miles when you did get out all scrub and rock that few people ever had called right over there was splendid grass everywhere and shelter it was warmer too than the country above as you could see by the coats of the cattle and horses if it had only been honestly come by Jim said what a jolly place it would have been towards the north end of the paddock was a narrow gully with great sandstone walls all round and where it narrowed the first discoverers had built a stockyard partly with dry stone walls and partly with logs and rails there was no trouble in getting the cattle or horses into this and there were all kinds of narrow yards and pens for branding the stock if they were clear skins and altering or faking the brands if they were plain this led into another yard which opened into the narrowest part of the gully once in this like the one they came down and the cattle or horses had no chance but to walk slowly up one behind the other till they got on the table and above here of course every kind of work that can be done to help this guy's cattle was done earmarks were cut out and altered in shape or else the whole ear was cropped off every letter in the alphabet was altered by means of straight bars or half circles figures, crosses, everything you could think of Mr. Starlight is an educated man, said Father this is all his notion and many a man has looked at his own beast with the ears altered and the brand faked and never dreamed he ever owned it he's a great card as Starlight it's a pity he ever took to this kind of life Father said this with a kind of real sorrow that made me look at him to see if the grog had got into his head just as if his life mine and Jim's didn't matter a straw compared to this man's whoever he was that had had so many better chances than we had and it chucked them all away but it's a strange thing that I don't think there's any place in the world where men feel more real out and out respect for a gentleman than in Australia everybody's supposed to be free and equal now of course there shouldn't be in the convict days but somehow a man that's born and bred a gentleman will always be different from other men to the end of the world what's the most surprising part of it is that men like Father who have hated the breed and suffered by them too can't help having a curious liking and admiration for them they'll follow them like dogs fight for them, shed their blood and die for them it's a natural feeling whatever it is it's there safe enough and nothing can knock it out of nine-tenths of all the men and women you meet I began to be uneasy to see this wonderful mate of fathers who has so many things at once a cattle stealer a bush ranger and a gentleman End of Chapter 5 Recording by Richard Kilmer Real Medina, Texas