DOWN THE RIVER

Kelly the Rager half opened an eye
To wink at the Army passing by,
While his hot breath, thick with the taint of beer,
Came forth from his lips in a drunken jeer.
Brown and bearded and long of limb
He lay, as the Army confronted him
And, clad in grey, one and all did pray
That his deadly sins might be washed away—
But Kelly stubbornly answered 'Nay.'
Then the captain left him in mild despair,
But before the music took up its blare
A pale-faced lassie stepped out and spoke—
A little sad girl in a sad grey cloak—
'Rise up, Kelly! your work's to do:
Kelly, the Saviour's a-calling you!'
He strove to look wise; rubbed at his eyes;
Looked down at the ground, looked up at the skies;
And something that p'r'aps was his conscience stirred:
He seemed perplexed as again he heard
The girl with the garments of saddest hue
Say, 'Kelly, the Saviour's a-calling you!'
He got on his knees and thence to his feet,
And stumbled away down the dusty street;
Contrived to cadge at the pub a drink,
But still in his ear the glasses chink
And jingle only the one refrain,
Clear as the lassie's voice again:
'Kelly, Kelly, come here to me!
Kelly the Rager, I've work for thee!'
He trembled, and dropped the tumbler, and slopped
The beer on the counter: the barman stopped,
With a curious eye on his haggard face.
'Kelly, old fellow! you're going the pace.
Don't you fancy it's time to take
A pull on yourself—put your foot on the brake?
You'll have the horrors, without a doubt,
This time next week, if you don't look out.'
But he didn't—he sobered himself that night:
'That time next week' he was nearly right:
Yet still at the mill, though he'd stopped the grog,
As the saw bit into the green pine log,
The wood shrieked out to him in its pain
A fragment caught of the same refrain,
As the swift teeth cut and the sawdust flew—'Kelly,
Kelly, I ve work for you!'

Then the seasons fell and the floods came down
And laid the dust in the frightened town.
No more the beat of hoofs and feet
Was heard the length of the crooked street;
For, leaving counter and desk and till,
All had fled to the far sandhill;
But everywhere that a man might dare
Risk life to save it—Kelly was there!
No more the voice had a tale to tell:
He'd found his work and he did it well.
Who stripped leggings and hat and coat
To swim the lagoon to reach the boat?
Who pushed out in the dead of night
At the mute appeal of a beacon-light?
Who was blessed by the women then,
And who was cheered by the stalwart men,
As he shot the rapids above the town
With two pale Smiths and a weeping Brown,
Landing them safe from his cockle-shell,
Woefully frightened, but safe and well,
With their friends on the sandhill all secure?
Who but Kelly, you may be sure!

They reckoned the heads up, one by one,
And he sighed as he thought that the work was done;
But soon found out that 'twas not begun.
They counted away till it came to pass
They missed the little Salvation lass:
She'd been to pray with a man who lay
Sick on the river-shore, far away.
Men looked askance and the women smote
Their hands in grief, as he launched the boat.
He turned as he cast the painter loose:
'Who'll make another? It's little use
My going alone; for I'm nearly done,
And from here to the point is a stiffish run.'
Then one stepped forward and took an oar,
And the boat shot out for the other shore.
To and fro where the gums hang low
And bar their passage, the comrades row;
Hard up stream where the waters race;
Steady, where floating branches lace;
Through many a danger and sharp escape
And catch of breath, as the timbers scrape
And thrill to the touch of some river shape;
Till at last the huts on the point draw near,
And over their shoulders the boatmen peer.

The flood was running from door to door—
Two-feet-six on the earthen floor;
Half-way up to the bed it ran,
Where two pale women and one sick man
Crouched, and looked at the water's rise
With horror set in their staring eyes;
While the children wept as the water crept.
But how the blood to their hearts high leapt
As over the threshold the rescuers stepped,
And, wrapped in blanket and shawl and coat,
Carried the saved to the crazy boat!

Then Kelly circled the little lass
With his strong right arm, and as in a glass
Saw himself in her eyes that shone
Sweet in a face that was drawn and wan:
And he felt that for her life he'd give his own.
Too short a moment her cheek was pressed
Close to the beat of his spray-wet breast;
While her hair just lay like a golden ray,
The last farewell of a passing day.
Gently he settled her down in the stern
With a tender smile, and had time to turn
To look to the others, and then he saw
That the craft was full and could hold no more.
He looked at the party—old, young, and sick—
While he had no tie, neither wife nor chick.

Then with a shove he sent out the boat
Far on the turbid stream afloat.
'Pull!' said Kelly; 'now pull!' said he;
'Pull with your load and come back for me.
You may be late, but at any rate
I'm better able than you to wait.'
They pulled and, looking back, saw him stand
Shading his eyes with his big, rough hand—
Silent, patient, and smiling-faced,
With the water curling around his waist.

Return they did, but they found him not:
Nought but the chimney then marked the spot.
They found him not when the boat went back—
Never a trace of him, never a track;
Only the sigh and the dreary cry
Of the gums that had wept to see him die:
These alone had a tale to tell
Of a life that had ended passing well—
The sad refrain of a hero's fate
Tuned in a tongue we may not translate.

Facing Death with a stout, brave heart;
Choosing the nobler and better part;
Home to the land of eternal sun
Kelly had gone—for his work was done.

On Nungar the mists of the morning hung low;
The beetle-browed hills brooded silent and black,
Not yet warmed to life by the sun's loving glow,
As through the tall tussocks rode young Charlie Mac.
What cared he for mists at the dawning of day?
What cared he that over the valley stern Jack,
The Monarch of Frost, held his pitiless sway?
A bold mountaineer born and bred was young Mac—
A galloping son of a galloping sire—
Stiffest fence, roughest ground, never took him aback;
With his father's cool judgment, his dash, and his fire,
The pick of Monaro rode young Charlie Mac.

And the pick of the stable the mare he bestrode—
Arab-grey, built to stay, lithe of limb, deep of chest;
Who seemed to be happy to bear such a load
As she tossed the soft forelock that curled on her crest.
They crossed Nungar Creek where its span is but short;
At its head, where together spring two mountain rills,
When a mob of wild horses made off with a snort—
'By thunder!' quoth Mac, 'there's the Lord of the Hills!'
Decoyed from her paddock, a Murray-bred mare
Had fled to the hills with a warrigal band;
A pretty bay foal had been born to her there,
Whose veins held the very best blood in the land—
'The Lord of the Hills,' as the bold mountain men
Whose courage and skill he was wont to defy
Had named him: they yarded him once; but since then
He held to the saying, 'Once bitten, twice shy.'

The scrubber, thus suddenly roused from his lair,
Made straight for the timber, with fear in his heart.
As Charlie rose up in his stirrups, the mare
Sprang forward—no need to tell Empress to start:
She lay to the chase just as soon as she felt
Her rider's skilled touch, light, yet firm, on the rein.

Stride for stride, lengthened wide, for the green timber belt—
The fastest half-mile ever done on the plain—
They reached the low sallee before he could wheel
The warrigal mob: up they dashed with a stir
Of low branches and undergrowth—Charlie could feel
His mare catch her breath on the side of the spur
That steeply slopes up till it meets the bald cone.
'Twas here on the range that the trouble began;
For a slip on the sidling, a loose rolling stone,
And the chase would be done; but the bay in the van
And the little grey mare were a sure-footed pair.
He looked once around as she crept to his heel,
And the swish that he gave his long tail in the air
Seemed to say, 'Here's a foeman well worthy my steel!'

They raced to within half-a-mile of the bluff
That drops to the river—the squadron strung out.
'I wonder,' quoth Mac, 'has the bay had enough!'
But he wasn't left very much longer in doubt,
For the Lord of the Hills struck a spur for the flat
And followed it, leaving his mob, mares and all,
While Empress (brave heart! she could climb like a cat)
Down the stony descent raced with never a fall.
Once down on the level 'twas galloping ground:
For a while Charlie thought he might yard the big bay
At his uncle's out-station; but no! he wheeled round
And down the sharp dip to the Gulf made his way.

Betwixt the twin portals that, towering high
And backwardly sloping in watchfulness, lift
Their smooth grassy summits towards the far sky,
The course of the clear Murrumbidgee runs swift.
No time then to seek where the crossing should be:
It was in at the one side and out where you could:
But fear never dwelt in the hearts of those three
Who emerged in the shade of the low muzzle-wood.
Once more did the Lord of the Hills strike a line
Up the side of the range, and once more he looked back:
So close were they now he could see the sun shine
In the bold grey eyes flashing of young Charlie Mac.

He saw little Empress stretched out like a hound
On the trail of its quarry, the pick of the pack,
With ne'er-tiring stride; and his heart gave a bound
As he saw the lithe stockwhip of young Charlie Mac
Showing snaky and black on the neck of the mare,
In three hanging coils, with a turn round the wrist;
And he heartily wished himself back in his lair
'Mid the tall tussocks beaded with chill morning mist;
While he fancied the straight mountain ash trees, the gums
And the wattles, all mocked him and whispered, 'You lack
The speed to avert cruel capture that comes
To the warrigal fancied by young Charlie Mac;
For he'll yard you, and rope you, and then you'll be stuck
In the crush, while his saddle is girthed to your back;
Then out in the open, and there you may buck
Till you break your bold heart, but you'll never throw Mac!'

The Lord of the Hills at the thought felt a sweat
Break over the smooth summer gloss of his hide:
He spurted his utmost to leave her, but yet
The Empress crept up to him, stride upon stride.
No need to say Charlie was riding her now,
Yet still for all that he had something in hand,
With here a sharp stoop to avoid a low bough,
Or quick rise and fall as a tree-trunk they spanned.
In his terror the brumby struck down the rough falls
Towards Yiack, with fierce disregard for his neck:
Tis useless, he finds, for the mare overhauls
Him slowly: no timber could keep her in check.

There's a narrow-beat pathway that winds to and fro
Down the deeps of the gully, half-hid from the day;
There's a turn in the track where the hop-bushes grow
And hide the grey granite that crosses the way,
While sharp swerves the path round the boulder's broad base:
And now the last scene in the drama is played
As the Lord of the Hills, with the mare in full chase,
Swept towards it, and ere his long stride could be stayed,
With a gathered momentum that gave not a chance
Of escape, and a shuddering, sickening shock,
Struck the pitiless granite that barred his advance
And sobbed out his life at the foot of the rock;
While Charlie pulled off with a twitch on the rein
And an answering spring from his surefooted mount,
One might say, unscathed, though a crimsoning stain
Marked the graze of the granite; but that would ne'er count
With Charlie, who speedily sprang to the earth
To ease the mare's burden: his deft-fingered hand
Unslackened her surcingle, loosened tight girth,
And cleansed with a tussock the spurs' ruddy brand.

There he lay by the rock—drooping head, glazing eye,
Strong limbs stilled for ever. No more would he fear
The thud of a horseman; no more would he fly
Through the hills with his harem in rapid career.
The pick of the mountain mob, bays, greys, or roans,
He proved in his death that the pace 'tis that kills;
And a sun-shrunken hide o'er a few whitened bones
Marks the last resting-place of the Lord of the Hills.