A SONG FROM A SANDHILL

Dozens of damp little curls;
One little short upper lip;
Two rows of teeth like diminutive pearls;
Eyes clear and grey as the creek where it swirls
Over the ledges—that's Tip!
With a skip!—
A perfectly hopeless young nip!

Smudge on the tip of his nose;
Mischievous glance of a Puck;
Heart just as big as the rents in his clothes;
Lungs like a locust and cheeks like a rose;—
Total it!—there you have Tuck!
And bad luck
To the man who would question his pluck!

School is all over at last—
School with its pothooks and strokes:
Homeward they toddle, but who could go fast?—
So many wonderful things to be passed—
Froggie, for instance, who croaks
'Neath the oaks
By the creek where the watercress soaks.

Sandpipers dance on the bars;
Swallows, white-throated and fleet,
Dip thirsty beaks in the stream as they pass;
Smooth water-beetles that twinkle like stars
Watch the gay dragon-flies greet.
Hark how sweet
Is the pipe of the tiny pee-weet!

Near, too, the earth is all torn:
Strong, willing workers have thrown
Great heaps of tailings, smooth-polished and worn,
Round the mysterious caverns that yawn—
Stacks of the snowy quartz stone,
Grass-grown
Piles of the Earth's dry bone.

Grasshoppers chirp on the brace;
Briars drop berries blood-red
Into the mouldering void of the race;
Green mosses flourish on cutting and face;
Children speak softly, with dread,
When they tread
In this desolate place of the dead.

'Tum on!' said Tip, 'here's a nest!'
Looking behind as he ran.
'No,' said his brother, expanding his chest,
'I like to play at pro'pectin' the best'—
Thumping a rusty old pan;
Then began
To wash up a dish like a man.

'Tum on! here's four little eggs!
Do tum!'—he whimpers his lip:
A-tremble his eyes, wet by tears as he begs,
And sharp briars are scratching his legs.
A branch strikes his face like a whip;
Then a slip—
And a shaft swallows poor little Tip!

Peering and catching his breath,
Tuck felt his little heart swell:
Nothing at all could he see underneath—
P'r'aps poor old Tippy had gone to his death—
Would it hurt him if he fell?
Who could tell
The depth of that horrible well?

'Tippy! oh,
Tip! are you dead?'...
Never a sound or a sigh!
Tuck held his breath, his heart heavy as lead:
Then: 'Tuck! where are you? I've hurted my head!'
Came up the quav'ring reply;
And a cry:
'Oh, Tuck! don't go 'way, or I'll die!

'Tuck! it's so dark; I'm afraid!'...
He drew down his eyebrows and frowned
Up the creek, down the creek, somewhat dismayed.
Miles to go home; but, again, if he stayed,
How would they ever be found Underground
In that cavern that swallowed all sound?

'Tuck, I'm all covered with blood!'
Sobbed the small voice without cess.
'Why don't you help me up out of the mud?'
Tuck foraged out a long length of pine wood;
Stripped off his little print dress,
Andjust guess!
Rigged a white flag of distress!

Truly the depth was not great—
That, though, the babe did not know;
Lowering himself till the whole of his weight
Hung on the fingers that clutched the blue slate...
'Please God!'...he let himself go;
And I trow
That angel hands caught him below.

Never a scratch or a mark!
    No, and not even a tear!
Little hands feeling their way through the dark...
What if that other should be stiff and stark?
    'Here I am, Tippy! quite near—
      Oh, dear!'
    Then came the answer: 'I'm here!'

Crouched in the mouth of a drive,
    Tippy sobbed out his delight—
    Not so much hurt, after all—quite alive:
Almost convinced that no harm could arrive
    Now that Tuck's arms clasped him tight.
      Then the light
    Died slowly, and lo! it was Night.

Above—the flag blows to the air:
    Sad parents seek vainly and weep:
There are lights 'mid the thistles, and cries of despair:
A rifle cracks loudly, and bonfires glare...
    Below—where the blind creatures creep,
      Hidden deep,
    Two pretty babes smile in their sleep.

Scrape the bottom of the hole: gather up the stuff!
    Fossick in the crannies, lest you leave a grain behind!
Just another shovelful and that'll be enough—
    Now we'll take it to the bank and see what we can find...
      Give the dish a twirl around!
      Let the water swirl around!
Gently let it circulate—there's music in the swish
    And the tinkle of the gravel,
    As the pebbles quickly travel
Around in merry circles on the bottom of the dish.

Ah, if man could wash his life—if he only could!
    Panning off the evil deeds, keeping but the good:
What a mighty lot of diggers' dishes would be sold!
    Though I fear the heap of tailings would be greater than the gold...
      Give the dish a twirl around!
      Let the water swirl around!
Man's the sport of circumstance however he may wish:
    Fortune! are you there now?
    Answer to my prayer now—
Drop a half-ounce nugget in the bottom of the dish.

Gently let the water lap! Keep the corners dry!
    That's about the place the gold will generally stay.
What was that bright particle that just then caught my eye?
    I fear me by the look of things 'twas only yellow clay...
      Just another twirl around!
      Let the water swirl around!
That's the way we rob the river of its golden fish...
      What's that?...Can't we snare a one?
      Don't say that there's ne'er a one!...
Bah! there's not a colour in the bottom of the dish!

Do I know Polly Brown? Do I know her? Why, damme!
You might as well ask if I know my own name!
It's a wonder you never heard tell of old Sammy,
Her father, my mate in the Crackenback claim.

He asks if I know little Poll! Why, I nursed her
As often, I reckon, as old Mother Brown
When they lived at the Flats, and old Sam went a burster
In Chinaman's Gully, and dropped every crown.

My golden-haired mate, ever brimful of folly
And childish conceit, and yet ready to rest
Contented beside me: 'twas I who taught Polly
To handle four horses along with the best.

'Twas funny to hear the small fairy discoursing
Of horses and drivers! I'll swear that she knew
Every one of the nags that I drove to the Crossing—
Their voices, and paces, and pedigrees too.

She got a strange whim in her golden-haired noddle
That a driver's high seat was a kind of a throne:
I've taken her up there before she could toddle,
And she'd talk to the nags in a tongue of her own.

Then old Mother Brown got the horrors around her:
(I think it was pineapple rum drove her daft)
She cleared out one night, and next morning they found her,
A mummified mass, in a forty-foot shaft.

And Sammy? Well, Sammy was wailing and weeping,
And raving, and raising the devil's own row:
He was only too glad to give into our keeping
His motherless babe—we'd have kept her till now;

But Jimmy Maloney thought proper to court her:
Among all the lasses he loved but this one:
She's no longer Polly, our golden-haired daughter;
She's Mrs. Maloney, of Packsaddle Run.

Our little girl Polly's no end of a swell (you
Must know Jimmy shears fifty thousand odd sheep)—
But I'm clean off the track: I was going to tell you
The way in which Polly paid us for her keep.

It was this way: My wife's living in Tumbarumba,
And I'm down at Germanton yards, for a sale,
Inspecting coach-horses (I wanted a number)
When they flashed down a message that made me turn pale.

'Twas from Polly, to say that the old wife had fallen
Down-stairs, and in falling had fractured a bone:
There was no doctor nearer than Tumut to call on,
So she and the blacksmith had set it alone.

They'd have to come down by the coach in the morning,
As one of the two buggy ponies was lame:
Would I see the old doctor, and give him fair warning
To keep himself decently straight till they came?

I was making good money those times, and a fiver
Per week was the wages my deputy got;
A good, honest worker, an out-and-out driver—
But, like all the rest, a most terrible sot.

So, just on this morning—which made it more sinful—
With my women on board, the unprincipled skunk
Hung round all the bars till he loaded a skinful
Of grog, and then started his journey—dead drunk!

Drunk! with my loved ones on board—drunk as Chloe!
He might have got right by the end of the trip
Had he rested contented and quiet; but no, he
Must pull up at Rosewood, for one other nip.

That finished him off quick, and there he sat, dozing
Like an owl on his perch, half awake, half asleep,
Till a lurch of the coach came, when, suddenly losing
His balance, he fell to earth all of a heap;

While the coach, with its four frightened horses, went sailing
Downhill to perdition and Carabost break—
Four galloping devils, with reins loosely trailing,
And passengers falling all roads in their wake.

Two bagmen, who sat on the box, jumped together
And found a soft bed in the mud of the drain;
The barmaid from Murphy's fell light as a feather—
I think she got off with a bit of a sprain;

While the jock, with his nerves most decidedly shaken,
Made straight for the door, never wasting his breath
In farewell apologies: basely forsaken,
My wife and Poll Brown sat alone with grim Death.

While the coach thundered downward, my wife fell a-praying;
But Poll in a fix, now, is dashed hard to beat:
She picked up her skirts, scrambled over the swaying
High roof of the coach, till she lit on the seat,

And there looked around. In her hand was a pretty,
Frail thing made of laces, with which a girl strives
To save her complexion when down in the city—
A lace parasol! yet it saved both their lives.

Oh, Polly was game, you may bet your last dollar!
She leans on the splashboard, and stretches and strains
With her parasol, down by the off-sider's collar,
Until she contrives to catch hold of the reins.

They lay quite secure in the crook of the handle,
She clutched them—the parasol fell underneath.
I tell you no girl ever could hold a candle
To Poll, as she hung back and clenched her white teeth.

The bolters sped downward, with nostrils distended,
She must get a pull on them ere they should reach
The fence on the hill, where the road had been mended...
The blocks bit the wheels with a scroop and a screech;

The little blue veins in her arms swelled and blackened;
The reins were like fiddle-strings stretched in her grip;
When the break hove in sight, the mad gallop had slackened:
She had done it, by God! they were under the whip.

They still had the pace on; but Polly was able
To steer 'twixt the fences with never a graze:
They flashed past the change, where the groom at the stable
Just stood with his mouth open, dumb with amaze.

On the level she turned them—the best bit of driving
That ever was done on this side of the range—
And trotted them back up the hill-side, arriving
With not a strap broken in front of the change.

And the wife? Well, she prayed to the Lord till she fainted:
I reckon He answered her prayers: all the same,
He must have helped Polly, It's curious now, ain't it?
To see a thin slip of a girl be so game.

Did I summons the driver? I had no occasion
The coroner came with his jury instead,
Who found that he died from a serious abrasion—
Both wheels of the coach had gone over his head.