The Girl from Snowy River
Page 27
And the stockhorse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up —
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of The Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving on the plains.
And one was there, a stripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony — three parts thoroughbred at least —
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry — just the sort that won’t say die —
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, ‘That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop — lad, you’d better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you.’
So he waited sad and wistful — only Clancy stood his friend —
‘I think we ought to let him come,’ he said;
‘I warrant he’ll be with us when he’s wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.
‘He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse’s hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.’
So he went — they found the horses by the big mimosa clump —
They raced away towards the mountain’s brow,
And the old man gave his orders, ‘Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills.’
So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stockhorse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stockwhip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.
Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And the stockwhips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
From cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, ‘We may bid the mob good day,
No man can hold them down the other side.’
When they reached the mountain’s summit, even Clancy took a pull,
It well might make the boldest hold their breath,
The wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip was death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head,
And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat —
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringybarks and saplings, on the rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound,
At the bottom of that terrible descent.
He was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the mountain standing mute,
Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still,
As he raced across the clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet,
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.
And he ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam.
He followed like a bloodhound on their track,
Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.
And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
At midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around The Overflow the reed beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
The man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.
First published in The Bulletin, 26 April 1890
‘Clancy of The Overflow’ by AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar);
’Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’
In my wild erratic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’, where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes, and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid, of the sunlit plain extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city,
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish
rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street;
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting
Comes fitfully and faintly, through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving, where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal, of the cash-book and the journal
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.
First published in The Bulletin, 21 December 1889
‘On the Range’ by Barcroft Boake (1866–92)
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 judgement, 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,
She 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 sprang up 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’d held to the saying ‘Once bitten twice shy’.
The scrubber, thus suddenly roused from his lair,
Struck 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 laid 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 surefooted 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 was not 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 those 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 might 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 from 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.
Then he fancied the straight mountain-ashes, 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 the 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 a quick rise and fall as a tree-trunk they spanned.
In his terror the brumby struck down the rough falls
T’wards 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, but, ere his long stride could be stayed,
With a gathered momentum that gave not a chance
Of escape, and a shuddering, sickening shock,
He struck on the granite that barred his advance
And sobbed out his life at the foot of the rock.
Then Charlie pulled off with a twitch on the rein,
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 spur’s ruddy brand.
There he lay by the rock — drooping head, glazing eye,
Strong limbs stiffed for ever; no more would he fear
The tread 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 by 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.
First published in The Bulletin, 30 May 1891
‘THE SNOWY RIVER’
When Banjo Paterson wrote ‘The Man from Snowy River’ the Eucumbene River too was known as the Snowy River, and the Snowy River region was even larger than the one we refer to as the ‘Snowies’ today. The Snowy was — and still is — a long river, traversing many different kinds of country. Rocky Creek and Rocky Valley are not based on any particular area, but do include the bushland — and rocks like the Rock — that I’m familiar with.
The Snowy’s floods have been tamed by the Snowy Mountains Scheme and the Eucumbene Dam, which also removes much of the flow. It is no longer the river that Flinty would have known. Farms and farming methods in the area also changed greatly in the 1930s and during the ’50s and ’60s, with small settler farms like those in the valley giving way to larger ones.
DRINKWATER
Those readers familiar with A Waltz for Matilda will recognise references to Drinkwater Station, Miss Matilda, Tommy (Thomas) Thompson, Mr Sampson and Pete Sampson.
As is evident in The Girl from Snowy River, Matilda, although married, is still known as Miss Matilda in 1919. Tommy has set up an engineering business at Gibber’s Creek, and Matilda has made good her promise to give her Indigenous relatives part of the Drinkwater estate.
At the end of A Waltz for Matilda she had sold much of her stock. When this story begins she has stocked Drinkwater with cattle during the latter years of the war, when supplies of canned ‘bully beef’ were needed to feed the armies overseas, but is now selling the remnants up in Queensland.