Josephus Riley
The rum was rich and rare,
There were wagers in the air,
The atmosphere was rosy, and the tongues were
wagging free;
But one was in the revel
Whose occiput was level -
Plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
The conversation's flow
Was not devoid of “blow,”
And neither was it wanting in the plain, colloquial “D.”
With a most ingenuous smile -
'This here is not my style,'
Said plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
'And I wouldn't be averse
To emptying my purse,
And laying some small wager with the present
companee,
To cut the matter short -
Foot racing is my forte,'
Said plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
“I think it's on the cards
That I can run three hundred yards
(The match to be decided where you gentlemen
agree)
Against your fleetest horse;
The race would prove a source
Of pleasure,' said Josephus, from the North Countree.
'To equalise the task,
This little start I ask -
The rider, ere he follows, must imbibe a cup of tea;
A simple breakfast-cup
He will have to swallow up.
That's me - Josephus Riley, from the North
Countree.'
Then a “knowing 'un” looked wise,
“Begged to apologise;
But might he ask what temp'rature the liquid was
to be!
Would it come from out the pot
Milkless, steaming, boiling-hot?”
'Oh, not at all,' said Riley, from the North
Countree.
'Allow me to explain;
I do observe with pain,
This jocular reflection on my native honestee,
My bump of truth is huge,
I'd scorn a subterfuge' -
Said plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
“Before the parties start
I'll take the Judge apart
To prove, by tasting, whether I have tampered with
the tea;
And I beg to state again
Your suspicions give me pain,'
Said plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
Then they were all satisfied
That the match was 'boneefied,'
The bond was signed, and Riley went to 'preparate”
the tea;
But his slow, ambiguous smile
Would have seemed to token guile
In any man but Riley, from the North Countree.
He brought the fatal cup -
By its saucer covered up -
The Judge examined its contents with awful gravitee,
Then read the papers o'er,
But could not find a flaw:
'Wade in! Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.'
Then the “wagerer” just bowed,
And, passing through the crowd,
He handed up the beverage unto the “wageree;”
And off across the flat,
Springing gaily, pit-a-pat,
Went plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
But behind him what a yell
Of execration fell
From lips that lent themselves to shapes of great
profanitee!
For the people of that town
Were done a lovely brown
By plain Josephus Riley, from the North Countree.
And here's the reason why:
The tea was simply DRY,
You might eat it, but to drink it was impossibilitee;
But, curious to state,
Men did not appreciate
This hum'rous innovation from the North Countree.
You'll understand, of course,
That wager was a source
Of very little profit to the hapless “wageree,”
And, dating from that day,
I much regret to say,
Men look askance at Riley, from the North Countree.
How Polly Paid For Her Keep
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 vices, and paces, and pedigrees too.
She got a strange whim in her golden-haired noodle
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 the 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 Paddlesack 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 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, and 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 the 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 “sroope” 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, my word, 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 was ever 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.
