Dray

“ Suddenly the dray stopped and a man got down and opened the gate of a drive on the right-hand side of the road. The constable melted into the hedge some fifty yards behind and remained motionless. Soon he heard the dray move off again and the hard, rattling noise of the road gave place to the softer, slightly grating sound of gravel. As the constable crept up along the hedge he could see the light of the dray moving towards the right. ”

“ I'm sorry.' Then came the drayman out of the mill—a nice, considerate, heart-warm, intelligent human being. Oh, yes! we humans know so much more than animals, don't we, fellows? And because the big, patient, kindly dray-horse had, in its restlessness, moved twenty feet from the spot the driver left him at, that creature that is supposed to have known better, just took his whip and licked and lashed that glorious animal, yelling in a frenzy of temper, 'I'll teach you to move, when I leave you! ”

“ A dray, with eight, ten, or twelve bullocks in it, according, to load, will travel thirty miles a-day. When the folks travel, they take no shelter in a house or hut for the night. When night approaches, they alight, and tie their horses to a stump; they draw down some of the thick branches of the gum-tree, and peel off the bark of a large tree, kindle a fire with a match, or, for want of this, rubbing two sticks together, get up a blaze, and fall to sleep beside it. If the traveller be accompanied by a dray, the tarpauling, is drawn round, and he sleeps beneath it. ”

“ An old local body named Mrs Witherly still went into town twice a-week with her ‘bit av prodjuce’, as O’Dunn called it. She still drove a long, bony, blind horse in a long rickety dray, with a stout sapling for a whip, and about twenty yards of clothes-line reins. The floor of the dray covered part of an acre, and one wheel was always ahead of the other—or behind, according to which shaft was pulled. She wore, to all appearances, the same short frock, faded shawl, men’s ‘lastic sides, and white hood that she had on when the world was made. ”

“ Of the remarkable gorges through which each river finds its way out of the mountains into the plains I must speak when I take my dray through the gorge of the Ashburton, though this is the least remarkable of them all; in the meantime I must return to the dray on its way to Main's, although I see another digression awaiting me as soon as I have got it two miles ahead of its present position.
It is tedious work keeping constant company with the bullocks; they travel so slowly. ”

“ Cheap one-story frame buildings were following these extensions of new and old streets, as fast as piles could be [Pg 180] driven for them, so that a famous clattering of hammers was going on on every side from morning to night.
The two friends soon had an exciting experience. Just ahead of them, a dray was being driven down the wharf at a rapid rate, making the loose planks rattle again. ”

“ Our men set their shoulders to the wheel, and the dray was soon righted, no damage being done. The master of the teams was the driver of the horse-dray on which our property was deposited. He seemed to be a quiet inoffensive fellow, but the driver of the bullock team was an old man, with a face that had not seen water for many a month, and although almost everybody had a beard of some sort, his was enough to terrify any new chum. ”

“ Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote 'points;' instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, 'S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!' and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. ”

“ Those boys are brilliant. If we need a new stove let it be from Duke’s, with a cast-iron guarantee.”
“Right-o,” seconded Dray. “The cast-iron is always useful about a camp. But I say, what about the racket at the Mote last night? That sister of yours, Jack, is wasting her talents. She ought to be chief of a detective bureau.”
“Cora is all right,” Jack returned, proudly. “And while we are on the subject, and not to brag, of course, I might say that some of the other girls are in the same class. ”

“ A man receives these baskets as they arrive at the top, and places them on a dray, having hooked an empty basket on, instead of the full one. Before he drives the dray to a shed at a little distance, where he empties his load, the dust passes through holes prepared to receive it; while the large coals roll down the declivity in heaps, where they are loaded in waggons, and carried to wharfs on the river side, to be put on board the vessels that wait to convey them to distant parts. ”

“ In a building, however secure, should a fire break out, a few hundred bales are easily burned; but once on the dray, this much-dreaded edax rerum in a 312dry country has little chance. The driver, responsible to the extent of his freight, generally sleeps under his dray ”

“ When I asked him about the hunchback he said he knew right where he was; but there was no hurry, and tried to get up a wrestling match between me and a man twice my size who made a specialty of hauling salt, and bragged that he could take a barrel of it by the chimes, and lift it into his dray. I told him that I was in a great hurry and begged to be let off; but while I was talking they had made up a purse of twenty-one shillings to be wrestled for by us two. I finally persuaded the drayman to show me the hunchback's tavern, and promised to come back and wrestle after I had found him ”

“ Drays and parties of men were arriving every few minutes, many of whom gave a cheer as if they saw fortune in their hand when they looked down upon the workers in the bed of the creek below; some were putting up tents and gunyas, and some working, but all busy and all in good humour, barring the men who were constantly leaving, and looked sufficiently disgusted. ”

“ A man is found riding your horse. Are you to presume that the horse came to him of its own accord? and yet horses love liberty,—they love to kick up their heels and run. Yet this would be just as sensible as to suppose that these slaves came on board Drayton's vessel without his direct agency. He came here from Philadelphia for them; they are found on board his vessel; Drayton says he would steal a negro if he could; is not that enough? Then he was here some months before with an oyster-boat, pretending to sell oysters. ”

“ The black draymen standing erect on their two-wheeled craft, like Roman chariot racers, would whirl their mules down the levee at a perilous gallop, scattering the gravel every which way, and our leisure class—boys and darkies—and a good many of the business men, would come down to the foot of Main Street to see her land and watch the rousters swarm off ahead of the bellowing mates and eat up the freight piles. ”

“ Six miles.
"15th.—Crossed Donohoe's Creek; broke one of the traces in crossing, with fair pulling. If the horses had not been extraordinarily good they could never have kept on, in the state in which the roads were. Came to a creek in which there were several drays stuck—one with nine horses—it being unable to cross. There is scarcely a dray you meet on the road that is not accompanied with one or two women, oftentimes with families of children, all bound for or returning from the diggings. ”

“ THE DRAYMAN. For the Table Book.
Lie heavy on him, earth! for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.
Epig. 23, Christmas Treat.
The drayman is a being distinct from other men, as the brewer’s horse is distinct from other horses—each seems adapted to the other’s use: the one eats abundantly of grains, and prospers in its traces—the other drinks porter by the canful, and is hardly able to button his jerkin. Much of a drayman’s [I-375,
I-376] life is spent with his master’s team and barrels. Early rising is his indispensable duty ”

“ He had repelled their friendly advances because he considered them (without meaning to do so) as workmen, and not as neighbors. They reported, therefore, that he was cranky and rode a high horse.
"He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the drayman said.
"Oh, he'll get over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's folks years ago—tiptop folks, too. He ain't well, and that makes him a little crusty."
"That's the trouble—he thinks he's an upper crust," said Jim Cullen, the drayman. ”

“ Sixteen drays at Yuille's Ford, and nearly two hundred people. It is nearly impassable, from the fresh current of yesterday's rain. But the men, tailing on to the ropes by dozens, pull both the horses and carts through. Some there are pulling, some cooking their midday meals, some unloading the drays, some moving off the ground. Over the ford the road is delightful, the scenery charming, the land more broken, and timbered like a park. Ladidak comes in view, a beautiful ravine formed by the convergence of several hills, at the base of which the river so winds that it must be crossed thrice. ”

“ What should he do?
There was a ferry two miles beyond the mill, but he felt that no boat would take him across.
There was the old stone bridge, too, at Raynes Corner, six miles down the road. Well, he must cross there, for it was not likely that the sturdy piers could have suffered even from such a flood as this.
That would do. He would get over the river there; but he must avoid the road, where he might meet the police or people going into the town, who knew him by sight as one of Mr Draycott’s pupils. ”

“ Florent walked on to the end of the street. Drays were driving up at a quick trot, crowding the market with cages full of live poultry, and square hampers in which dead birds were stowed in deep layers. On the other side of the way were other drays from which porters were removing freshly killed calves, wrapped in canvas, and laid at full length in baskets, whence only the four bleeding stumps of their legs protruded. ”

“ But opener and more agreeable country is reached at West Drayton, where, having passed its scattered hamlets on the canal, we find houses not so thick as good old trees about its green, and picturesque nooks by the branching swirls of the Colne. From the Church, enclosed in a park to the left, a fine avenue leads southwards, ending in paths and lanes that, by the villages of Harmondsworth or Harlington, make pleasant ways into the central western highway. ”

“ Whenever there came a short drought the waterhole was sure to run dry; then it was take turns to carry water from the springs—about two miles. We had no draught horse, and if we had there was neither water-cask, trolly, nor dray; so we humped it—and talk about a drag! By the time you returned, if you had n't drained the bucket, in spite of the big drink you'd take before leaving the springs, more than half would certainly be spilt through the vessel bumping against your leg every time you stumbled in the long grass. ”

“ Without answering, Drayton turned to a mattress that lay in the gloom of one corner, lifted it, took up a coat that lay under it, and put it on. It was the ulster with the torn lapel.
Hugh Ritson followed Drayton's movements, and laughed slightly. "Men like you are always cautious in the wrong place," he said. "Let them lay hands on you, and they won't be long finding your—coat." The last word had a contemptuous dig of emphasis.
"Damme if I won't burn it, for good and all," muttered Drayton. ”

“ One of them lifted the hatch a little, and cried out, "Niggers, by G—d!" an exclamation to which the others responded with three cheers, and by banging the buts of their muskets against the deck. A lantern was called for, to read the name of the vessel; and it being ascertained to be the Pearl, a number of men came to the cabin-door, and called for Captain Drayton. I was in no great hurry to stir; but at length rose from my berth, saying that I considered myself their prisoner, and that I expected to be treated as such. ”

“ Drayton--nothing more, thank you," replied Ralph; "I have had quite enough, and all has been very good."
"Perhaps, sir, you would like to look through the house," said Mr. Drayton, determined not to leave the young stranger to his own bitter thoughts if he could help it; "it is a curious old place, and, to my mind, looks better by candlelight than at any other time. I think old places always do; for there is something about them which makes one feel that their real light is gone, and that they can only be viewed pleasantly by something manufactured and modern. ”

“ Many of their associates and friends, stirred up, perhaps, by the recent demonstrations in favor of liberty, begged leave to accompany them, in their flight. The seeds of the cotton-wood were flying everywhere, and springing up in all hearts; so that, on the eventful evening of the 15th of April, 1848, not less than seventy-seven men, women and children, with beating hearts, and anxious secrecy, stowed themselves away in the hold of the little schooner, and Captain Drayton was so wicked that he could not, for the life of him, say “Nay” to one of them. ”

“ Then we made a fire and cooked a huge breakfast in the hungry morning air. Drayton grew quite lyrical as to the charm of the country before the meal was over.
'Browne's not far wrong about her,' he said; 'but there's reason in all things.'
That whole day we heard no news and found no spoor or sign. The hill-country gave us stiff climbing and rocky paths to ride. Kraals and clusters of gardens places where we might hope to hear tidings how few they were in that hill-country! We camped disconsolately at last in a forlorn garden among grey boulders where stumps of trees were burning. ”