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The little girls were knocked about in their beds at night, a stout servant was forcibly held hand and foot, the children's shoes were thrown about, the chairs glided about the room. It would seem that all this bold horse-play must soon have been exposed, but it went on merrily. Whenever any tune was called for, it was given on the drum. The family Bible was thrown upside down into the ashes.
Lunar rainbow. A charming spot. A pool of water. Cones of the main range. A new pass. Dreams realised. A long glen. Glen Ferdinand. Mount Ferdinand. The Reid. Large creek. Disturb a native nation. Spears hurled. A regular attack. Repulse and return of the enemy. Their appearance. Encounter Creek. Mount Officer. The Currie. The Levinger. Excellent country. Horse-play. Mount Davenport. Small gap.
I began to recognize the increasing foulness of air, and to distinguish words of conversation from the groups about me. There was but little profanity but some rough horse-play, and a marked effort to pretend indifference. I could make out gray-beards and mere boys mingling together, and occasionally a man in some semblance of uniform.
Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service.
North Poling, as I call it, must be a man's natural bent; otherwise you kill the best that's in him." "Heaven on earth, will you look! A policeman is arguing with him." Hewitt shook with laughter. "But I bought him out," protested Fitzgerald. "There's no law to prevent me selling these." "Oh, I'm wise. We want no horse-play on this corner; no joyful college stunts," roughly.
This man was a Frenchman, Victor Goujon by name, who had lost his employment as a watchmaker by reason of an injury to his right hand, which destroyed its steadiness, and so he had fallen upon evil days and odd jobs. He was a little man of no great strength, but extraordinarily excitable, and the coarse gibes and horse-play of the big negro drove him almost to madness.
In truth, no one tried more than Newgag to excel in "horse-play," but his temperament or his training did not equip him for excelling in it; he defended the monotony, emptiness, and toilsomeness of his humour on the ground that it was "legitimate." One night Newgag drank two glasses of beer in rapid succession and looked at me with a touching countenance.
They were shouting with laughter at a joke which made her blush, and one dragged a companion in by the arm. Another, breaking off from rude horse-play, came towards her with a drunken leer. She shrank from his hot face and wine-laden breath as she drew back, wondering how she could reach her father, who stood in the doorway trying to restrain his guests.
His report of it was clumsy and farcical; but in a large, loose way it was like enough; at least he had caught the note of our self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality, and this was not altogether lost in his mocking horse-play. I cannot make out that I was any the less fond of Dickens because of it.
The usual pranks were indulged in by the sailors when Father Neptune came aboard the day the line was crossed, and Bob came in for not a little horse-play. But he did not mind it, and in turn he played several jokes on the sailors and was not rebuked. It was a time of freedom from restraint. Continuing on south, the Eagle passed from the hot region, and once more was in the temperate zone.
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