第25章 Ben Duggan

Jack Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began,And there was sorrow round the place,for Denver was a man;Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head --her daughter's grief was wild,And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child.

But big Ben Duggan saddled up,and galloped fast and far,To raise the longest funeral ever seen on Talbragar.

By station home And shearing shed Ben Duggan cried,`Jack Denver's dead!

Roll up at Talbragar!'

He borrowed horses here and there,and rode all Christmas Eve,And scarcely paused a moment's time the mournful news to leave;He rode by lonely huts and farms,and when the day was done He turned his panting horse's head and rode to Ross's Run.

No bushman in a single day had ridden half so far Since Johnson brought the doctor to his wife at Talbragar.

By diggers'camps Ben Duggan sped --

At each he cried,`Jack Denver's dead!

Roll up at Talbragar!'

That night he passed the humpies of the splitters on the ridge,And roused the bullock-drivers camped at Belinfante's Bridge;And as he climbed the ridge again the moon shone on the rise;The soft white moonbeams glistened in the tears that filled his eyes;He dashed the rebel drops away --for blinding things they are --But 'twas his best and truest friend who died on Talbragar.

At Blackman's Run Before the dawn,Ben Duggan cried,`Poor Denver's gone!

Roll up at Talbragar!'

At all the shanties round the place they'd heard his horse's tramp,He took the track to Wilson's Luck,and told the diggers'camp;But in the gorge by Deadman's Gap the mountain shades were black,And there a newly-fallen tree was lying on the track --He saw too late,and then he heard the swift hoof's sudden jar,And big Ben Duggan ne'er again rode home to Talbragar.

`The wretch is drunk,And Denver's dead --

A burning shame!'the people said Next day at Talbragar.

For thirty miles round Talbragar the boys rolled up in strength,And Denver had a funeral a good long mile in length;Round Denver's grave that Christmas day rough bushmen's eyes were dim --The western bushmen knew the way to bury dead like him;But some returning homeward found,by light of moon and star,Ben Duggan dying in the rocks,five miles from Talbragar.

They knelt around,He raised his head And faintly gasped,`Jack Denver's dead,Roll up at Talbragar!'

But one short hour before he died he woke to understand,They told him,when he asked them,that the funeral was `grand';And then there came into his eyes a strange victorious light,He smiled on them in triumph,and his great soul took its flight.

And still the careless bushmen tell by tent and shanty bar How Duggan raised a funeral years back on Talbragar.

And far and wide When Duggan died,The bushmen of the western side Rode in to Talbragar.