.dt The Squatter’s Dream by Rolf Boldrewood
.de div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver; margin:1em 5% 0 5%; text-align: justify;}
.de div.hang { text-indent: -0.25in; text-align: justify; }
.de .blackletter { font-family: "Old English Text MT", Gothic, serif;}
.de @media handheld { .blackletter { font-family: "Century Gothic", Gothic, serif;}}
.de .column-container { text-align: center; clear: both; width:90%; }
.de .column-left { padding-right: 0.1in; border-right-width: 1px; border-right-style: solid; display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width:45%; }
.de .column { padding-left: 0.25in; display: inline-block; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width:45%; }
.de .hang { padding-left: 0.50in; text-indent: -0.25in; }
.sr h |||
.sr h |||
.sr ut || ~|
.sr ut ||~|
.sr l |\[oe\]|oe|
.sr l |\[OE\]|OE|
// Begin Poetry
.dm start_poem
.fs 95%
.nf b
.dm-
// End Poetry
.dm end_poem
.nf-
.fs 100%
.dm-
//Begin quote
.dm start_quote
.fs 95%
.dm-
//End Quote
.dm end_quote
.fs 100%
.dm-
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note:
Minor errors, attributable to printer’s errors, have been corrected.
Please see the transcriber’s #note:endnote# at the end of this text
for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered
during its preparation.
.if t
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical
effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
The appearance of blackletter font is noted here by enclosing
the text in ‘~’ as ‘~blackletter text~’.
.if-
.dv-
.bn 001.png
.nf c
THE SQUATTER’S DREAM
A Story of Australian Life
.nf-
.bn 002.png
.il fn=i_002.jpg w=200px ew=30%
.bn 003.png
.nf c
THE
SQUATTER’S DREAM
A Story of Australian Life
BY
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
AUTHOR OF “ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,” “THE MINER’S RIGHT,” ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1891
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved
.nf-
.bn 004.png
.nf c
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
First Edition (Published Elsewhere).
New Edition Published by Macmillan & Co., July, 1890;
Reprinted August, October, and November, 1890, 1891.
.nf-
.bn 005.png
.pn 1
.sp 4
.h1
THE SQUATTER’S DREAM
.ce
A STORY OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE.
.pi
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER I.
.pm start_poem
“Here in the sultriest season let him rest.
Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees;
Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast,
From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze.”—Byron.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack Redgrave was a jolly, well-to-do young squatter,
who, in the year 185—, had a very fair cattle station in one
of the Australian colonies, upon which he lived in much
comfort and reasonable possession of the minor luxuries of
life. He had, in bush parlance, “taken it up” himself,
when hardly more than a lad, had faced bad seasons, blacks,
bush-fires, bushrangers, and bankers (these last he always
said terrified him far more than the others), and had finally
settled down into a somewhat too easy possession of a
couple of thousand good cattle, a well-bred, rather fortunate
stud, and a roomy, cool cottage with a broad verandah all
covered with creepers.
The climate in which his abode was situated was temperate,
from latitude and proximity to the coast. It was
cold in the winter, but many a ton of she-oak and box had
burned away in the great stone chimney, before which Jack
used to toast himself in the cold nights, after a long day’s
riding after cattle. He had plenty of books, for he did not
altogether neglect what he called his mind, and he had time
.bn 006.png
.pn +1
to read them, as of course he was not always out on the run,
or away mustering, or doing a small—sometimes very small—bit
of business at the country town, just forty miles off,
or drafting or branding his cattle. He would work away
manfully at all these avocations for a time, and then, the
cattle being branded up, the business in the country town
settled, the musters completed, and the stockmen gone
home, he used to settle down for a week or two at home,
and take it easy. Then he read whole forenoons, rather
indiscriminately perhaps, but still to the general advantage
of his intelligence. History, novels, voyages and travels,
classics, science, natural history, political economy, languages—they
all had their turn. He had an uncommonly good
memory, so that no really well-educated prig could be certain
that he would be found ignorant upon any given
subject then before the company, as he was found to possess
a fund of information when hard pressed.
He was a great gardener, and had the best fruit trees and
some of the best flowers in that part of the country. At all
odd times, that is, early in the morning before it was time
to dress for breakfast, in afternoons when he had been
out all day, and generally when he had nothing particular
to do, he was accustomed to dig patiently, and to plant and
prune, and drain and trench, in this garden of his. He
was a strong fellow, who had always lived a steady kind of
life, so that he had a constitution utterly unimpaired, and
spirits to match. These last were so good that he generally
rose in the morning with the kind of feeling which every
boy experiences during the holidays—that the day was not
long enough for all the enjoyable occupations which were
before him, and that it was incumbent on him to rise up
and enter into possession of these delights with as little
loss of time as might be.
For there were so many pleasant things daily occurring,
and, wonderful to relate, they were real, absolute duties.
There were those cattle to be drafted that had been brought
from the Lost Waterhole, most of which he had not seen
for six months. There were those nice steers to ride
through, now so grown and fattened—indeed almost ready
for market. There were ever so many pretty little calves,
white and roan and red, which he had never seen at all, following
.bn 007.png
.pn +1
their mothers, and which were of course to be branded.
It was not an unpleasant office placing the brand carefully
upon their tender skins, an office he seldom delegated—seeing
the J R indelibly imprinted thereon, with the consciousness
that each animal so treated might be considered to be a five-pound
note added to his property and possessions.
There was the wild-fowl shooting in the lagoons and
marshes which lay amid his territory; the kangaroo hunting
with favourite greyhounds; the jolly musters at his
neighbours’ stations—all cattle-men like himself; and the
occasional races, picnics, balls, and parties at the country
town, where resided many families, including divers young
ladies, whose fresh charms often caused Jack’s heart to
bound like a cricket-ball. He was in great force at the
annual race meetings. Then all the good fellows—and there
were many squatters in those days that deserved the
appellation—who lived within a hundred miles would come
down to Hampden, the country town referred to; and
great would be the joy and jollity of that week. Everybody,
in a general way, bred, trained, and rode his own
horses; and as everybody, in a general way, was young and
active, the arrangement was productive of excellent racing
and unlimited fun.
Then the race ball, at which everybody made it a point of
honour to dance all night. Then the smaller dances, picnics,
and riding parties—for nearly all the Hampden young ladies
could ride well. While the “schooling” indulged in by
Jack and his contemporaries, under the stimulus of ladies’
eyes, over the stiff fences which surrounded Hampden, was
“delightfully dangerous,” as one of the girls observed,
regretting that such amusements were to her prohibited.
At the end of the week everybody went peaceably home
again, fortified against such dullness as occasionally invades
that freest of all free lives, that pleasantest of all pleasant
professions—the calling of a squatter.
Several times in each year, generally in the winter time,
our hero would hold a great general gathering at Marshmead,
and would “muster for fat cattle,” as the important
operation was termed. Then all the neighbours within
fifty miles would come over, or send their stockmen,
as the case might be, and there would be great
.bn 008.png
.pn +1
fun for a few days—galloping about and around, and
“cutting out,” in the camp every day; feasting, and smoking,
and singing, and story-telling, both in the cottage and
the huts, with a modest allowance of drinking (in the district
around Hampden there was very little of that), by
night. After a few days of this kind of work, Jack would
go forth proudly on the war-path with his stockman, Geordie
Stirling, and a black boy, and in front of them a good draft
of unusually well-bred fat cattle, in full route for the
metropolis—a not very lengthened drive—during which no
possible care by day or by night was omitted by Jack or his
subordinates—indeed, they seldom slept, except by snatches,
for the last ten days of the journey, never put the cattle in
the yard for any consideration whatever, but saw them
safely landed at their market, and ready for the flattering
description with which they were always submitted to the
bidding of the butchers.
This truly important operation concluded, Geordie and
the boy were generally sent back the next day, and Jack
proceeded to enjoy himself for a fortnight, as became a
dweller in the wilderness who had conducted his enterprise
to that point of success which comprehends the cheque in
your pocket. How he used to enjoy those lovely genuine holidays,
after his hard work! for the work, while it lasted, was
pretty hard. And, though Jack with his back to the fire
in the club smoking-room, laying down the law about the
“Orders in Council” or the prospects of the next Assembly
Ball, did not give one the idea of a life of severe self-denial,
yet neither does a sailor on shore. And as Jack Tar, rolling
down the street, “with courses free,” is still the same man
who, a month since, was holding on to a spar (and life) at
midnight, reefing the ice-hard sail, with death and darkness
around for many a league; so our Jack, leading his horse
across a cold plain, and tramping up to his ankles in frosted
mud, the long night through, immediately behind his half-seen
drove, was the same man, only in the stage of toil and
endurance, preceding and giving keener zest to that of enjoyment.
Our young squatter was a very sociable fellow,
and had plenty of friends. He wished ill to no man, and
would rather do a kindness to any one than not. He liked
all kinds of people for all kinds of opposite qualities. He
.bn 009.png
.pn +1
liked the “fast” men, because they were often clever
and generally had good manners. There was no danger
of his following their lead, because he was unusually
steady; and besides, if he had any obstinacy it was in the
direction of choosing his own path. He liked the savants, and
the musical celebrities, and the “good” people, because he
sympathized with all their different aims or attainments.
He liked the old ladies because of their experience and
improving talk; and he liked, or rather loved, all the young
ladies, tall or short, dark or fair, slow, serious, languishing,
literary—there was something very nice about all of them.
In fact, Jack Redgrave liked everybody, and everybody
liked him. He had that degree of amiability which proceeds
from a rooted dislike to steady thinking, combined
with strong sympathies. He hated being bored in any
way himself, and tried to protect others from what annoyed
him so especially. No wonder that he was popular.
After two or three weeks of town life, into which he
managed to compress as many dinners, dances, talks, flirtations,
rides, drives, new books, and new friends, as would
have lasted any moderate man a year, he would virtuously
resolve to go home to Marshmead. After beginning to
sternly resolve and prepare on Monday morning, he generally
went on resolving and preparing till Saturday, at
some hour of which fatal day he would depart, telling
himself that he had had enough town for six months.
In a few days he would be back at Marshmead. Then a
new period of enjoyment commenced, as he woke in the
pure fresh bush air—his window I need not state was
always open at night—and heard the fluty carols of the
black and white birds which “proclaim the dawn,” and the
lowing of the dairy herd being fetched up by Geordie, who
was a preternaturally early riser.
A stage or two on the town side of his station lived
Bertram Tunstall, a great friend of his, whose homestead
he always made the day before reaching home. They were
great cronies.
Tunstall was an extremely well-educated man, and had
a far better head than Jack, whom he would occasionally
lecture for want of method, punctuality, and general heedlessness
of the morrow. Jack had more life and energy
.bn 010.png
.pn +1
than his friend, to whom, however, he generally deferred
in important matters. They had a sincere liking and
respect for one another, and never had any shadow of coldness
fallen upon their friendship. When either man went
to town it would have been accounted most unfriendly if
he had not within the week, or on his way home, visited
the other, and given him the benefit of his new ideas and
experiences.
Jack accordingly rode up to the “Lightwoods” half an
hour before sunset, and seeing his friend sitting in the
verandah reading, raised a wild shout and galloped up to
the garden gate.
“Well, Bertie, old boy, how serene and peaceful we look.
No wonder those ruffianly agricultural agitators think we
squatters never do any work, and ought to have our runs
taken away and given to the poor. Why, all looks as quiet
as if everything was done and thought about till next
Christmas, and as if you had been reading steadily in that
chair since I saw you last.”
“Even a demagogue, Jack, would hesitate to believe that
because a man read occasionally he didn’t work at all. I
wish they would read more, by the way; then they wouldn’t
be so illogical. But I really haven’t much to do just now,
except in the garden. I’m a store-cattle man, you know,
and my lot being well broken in——”
“You’ve only to sit in the verandah and read till they
get fat. That’s the worst of our life. There isn’t enough
for a man of energy to do—and upon my word, old fellow,
I’m getting tired of it.”
“Tired of what?” asked his friend, rather wonderingly;
“tired of your life, or tired of your bread and butter,
because the butter is too abundant? Oh, I see, we are
just returned from town, where we met a young lady
who——”
“Not at all; not that I didn’t meet a very nice girl——”
“You always do. If you went to Patagonia, you’d say,
‘’Pon my word I met a very nice girl there, considering—her
hair wasn’t very greasy, she had good eyes and teeth,
and her skin—her skins, I mean—had not such a bad
odour when you got used to it.’ You’re such a very
tolerant fellow.”
.bn 011.png
.pn +1
“You be hanged; but this Ellen Middleton really was
a nice girl, capital figure, nice face, good expression you
know, and reads—so few girls read at all nowadays.”
“I believe they read just as much as or more than ever;
only when a fellow takes a girl for good and all, to last him
for forty or fifty years, if he live so long, she’d need to be a
very nice girl indeed, as you say.”
“Don’t talk in that utilitarian way; one would think you
had no heart; but it does seem an awful risk, doesn’t it?
Suppose one got taken in, as you do sometimes about horses
‘incurably lame,’ or ‘no heart,’ like that brute Bolivar I gave
such a price for. What a splendid thing it would be if one
were only a Turk, and could marry every year and believe
one was acting most religiously and devoutly.”
“Come, Jack, who is talking unprofitably now? Something’s
gone wrong with you evidently. Here comes
dinner.”
After dinner the friends sat and smoked in the broad
verandah, and looked out over the undulating grassy downs,
timbered like a park, and at the blue starry night.
“I really was in earnest,” said Jack, “when I talked
about being tired of the sort of life you and I, and all the
fellows in this district, are leading just now.”
“Were you though?” asked his friend; “what’s amiss
with it?”
“Well, we are wasting our time, I consider, with these
small cattle stations. No one has room for more than two
or three thousand head of cattle. And what are they?”
“Only a pleasant livelihood,” answered his friend, “including
books, quiet, fresh air, exercise, variety, a dignified
occupation, and perfect independence, plus one or two
thousand a year income. It’s not much, I grant you; but
I’m a moderate man, and I feel almost contented.”
“What’s a couple of thousand a year in a country like
this?” broke in Jack, impetuously, “while those sheep-holding
fellows in Riverina are making their five or ten
upon country only half or a quarter stocked. They have
only to breed up, and there they are, with fifty or a hundred
thousand sheep. Sheep, with the run given in, will always
be worth a pound ahead, whatever way the country
goes.”
.bn 012.png
.pn +1
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Tunstall; “though I
have never been across the Murray, and don’t intend to go,
as far as I know. As for sheep, I hate them, and I hate
shepherds, lazy crawling wretches! they and the sheep are
just fit to torment one another. Besides, how do you know
these great profits are made? You’re not much of an
accountant, Jack, excuse me.”
“I didn’t think you were so prejudiced,” quoth Jack,
with dignity. “I can cipher fast enough when it’s worth
while. Besides, better heads than mine are in the spec. You
know Foreland, Marsalay, the Milmans, and Hugh Brass, all
longheaded men! They are buying up unstocked country
or cattle runs, and putting on ewes by the ten thousand.”
“Better heads than yours may lie as low, my dear Jack;
though I don’t mean to say you have a bad head by any
means. And as to the account-keeping you can do that
very reasonably, like most other things—when you try,
when you try, old man. But you don’t often try, you
careless, easygoing beggar that you are, except when you
are excited—as you are now—by something in the way of
natural history—a mare’s nest, so to speak.”
“This mare’s nest will have golden eggs in it then. Theodorus
Sharpe told me that he made as much in one year
from the station he bought out there as he had done in
half-a-dozen while he was wasting his life (that was his
expression) down here.”
“Has the benevolent Theodorus any unstocked back
country to dispose of?” asked Tunstall, quietly.
“Well, he has one place to sell—a regular bargain,” said
Jack, rather hesitatingly, “but we didn’t make any special
agreement about it. I am to go out and see the country
for myself.”
“And suppose you do like it, and believe a good deal
more of what Theodorus Sharpe tells you than I should like
to do, what then?”
“Why then I shall sell Marshmead, buy a large block of
country, and put on breeding sheep.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be considered perfectly Eastern
hospitality to call a man a perfect fool in one’s own house.
But, Jack, if you do this thing I shall think so. You may
quarrel with me if you like.”
.bn 013.png
.pn +1
“I should never quarrel with you, dear old boy, whatever
you said or thought. Be sure of that,” said Jack, feelingly.
“We have been too long friends and brothers for that.
But I reserve my right to think you an unambitious, unprogressive
what’s-your-name. You will be eaten out by
cockatoos in another five years, when I am selling out and
starting for my European tour.”
“I will take the chance of that,” said Tunstall; “but,
joking apart, I would do anything to persuade you not to
go. Besides, you have a duty to perform to this district,
where you have lived so long, and, on the whole, done so
well. I thought you were rather strong on the point, though
I confess I am not, of duty to one’s country socially, politically,
and what not.”
“Well, I grant you I had notions of that kind once,”
admitted Jack, “but then you see all these small towns have
become so confoundedly democratic lately, that I think we
squatters owe them nothing, and must look after our own
interests.”
“Which means making as much money as ever we can,
and by whatever means. Jack! Jack! the demon of vulgar
ambition, mere material advancement, has seized upon you,
and I can see it is of no use talking. My good old warm-hearted
Jack has vanished, and in his place I see a mere
money-making speculator, gambling with land and stock
instead of cards and dice. If you make the money you
dream of, it will do you no good, and if not——”
“Well, if not? Suppose I don’t win?”
“Then you will lose your life, or all that makes life worth
having. I have never seen a ruined man who had not lost
much beside his years and his money. I can’t say another
word. Good-night!”
Next morning the subject was not resumed. The friends
wrung each other’s hands silently at parting, and Jack rode
home to Marshmead.
When he got to the outer gate of the paddock he opened
it meditatively, and as he swung it to without dismounting
his heart smote him for the deed he was about to commit,
as a species of treason against all his foregone life and
associations.
.bn 014.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER II.
.pm start_poem
“Who calleth thee, heart? World’s strife,
With a golden heft to his knife.”—E.B. Browning
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
The sun was setting over the broad, open creek flat,
which was dotted with groups of cattle, the prevailing
white and roan colouring of which testified to their short-horn
extraction. It was the autumnal season, but the early
rains, which never failed in that favoured district, had promoted
the growth of a thick and green if rather short
sward, grateful to the eye after the somewhat hot day. A
couple of favourite mares and half-a dozen blood yearlings
came galloping up, neighing, and causing Hassan, his
favourite old hack, to put up his head and sidle about.
Everything looked prosperous and peaceful, and, withal,
wore that indescribable air of half solitude which characterizes
the Australian bush.
Jack’s heart swelled as he saw the place which he had first
chosen out of the waste, which he had made and built up,
stick by stick, hut by hut, into its present comfortable completeness,
and he said to himself—“I have half a mind to
stick to old Hampden after all!” Here was the place where,
a mere boy, he had ridden a tired horse one night, neither of
them having eaten since early morn, into the thick of a
camp of hostile blacks! How he had called upon the old
horse with sudden spur, and how gallantly the good nag, so
dead beat but a moment before, had answered, and carried
him safely away from the half-childish, half-ferocious beings
who would have knocked him on the head with as little
remorse then as an opossum! Yonder was where the old
sod but stood, put up by him and the faithful Geordie, and
in which he had considered himself luxuriously lodged, as a
contrast to living under a dray.
.bn 015.png
.pn +1
Over there was where he had sowed his first vegetable
seeds, cutting down and carrying the saplings with which it
was fenced. It was, certainly, so small that the blacks
believed he had buried some one there, whom he had done
to death secretly, and would never be convinced to the
contrary, disbelieving both his vows and his vegetables.
There was the stockyard which he and Geordie had put up,
carrying much of the material on their shoulders, when the
bullocks, as was their custom, “quite frequent,” were lost
for a week.
He gazed at the old slab hut, the first real expensive
regular station-building which the property had boasted.
How proud he had been of it too! Slabs averaging over
a foot wide! Upper and lower wall-plates all complete.
Loop holes, necessities of the period, on either side of the
chimney. Never was there such a hut. It was the first
one he had helped to build, and it was shrined as a palace
in his imagination for years after.
And now that the rude old days were gone, and the
pretty cottage stood, amid the fruitful orchard and trim
flower-beds, that the brown face of Harry the groom appears,
from a well-ordered stable, with half-a-dozen colts and hacks
duly done by at rack and manger, that the stackyard showed
imposingly with its trimly-thatched ricks, and that the
table was already laid by Mrs. Stirling, the housekeeper, in
the cool dining-room, and “decored with napery” very
creditable to a bachelor establishment;—was he to leave
all this realized order, this capitalized comfort, and
go forth into the arid wilderness of the interior, suffering
the passed-away privations of the “bark hut and tin
pot era”—all for the sake of—what? Making more
money! He felt ashamed of himself, as Geordie came
forward with a smile of welcome upon his rugged face,
and said—
“Well, master, I was afraid you was never coming back.
Here’s that fellow Fakewell been and mustered on the sly
again, and it’s the greatest mercy as I heard only the day
before.”
“You were there, I’ll be bound, Geordie.”
“Ye’ll ken that, sir, though I had to ride half the night.
It was well worth a ride, though. I got ten good calves and
.bn 016.png
.pn +1
a gra-and two-year-old, unbranded heifer, old Poll’s, you’ll
mind her, that got away at weaning.”
“I don’t remember—but how did you persuade Fakewell
to take your word? I should have thought he’d have forged
half-a-dozen mothers for a beast of that age.”
“Well, we had a sair barney, well nigh a fight, you
might be sure. At last I said, ‘I’ll leave it to the black
boy to say whose calf she is, and if he says the wrong cow
you shall have her.’
“‘But how am I to know,’ says he, ‘that you haven’t
told him what to say?’
“‘You saw him come up. Hoo could I know she was here?’
“‘Well, that’s true,’ says he. ‘Well, now you tell me the
old cow’s name as you say she belongs to, so as he can’t
hear, and then I’ll ask him the question.’
“‘All right,’ I said, ‘you hear the paction (to all the
stockmen, and they gathered round); Mr. Fakewell says
he’ll give me that heifer, the red beast with the white tail,
if Sandfly there can tell the auld coo’s name right. You
see the callant didna come with me; he just brought up the
fresh horses.’
“‘All right,’ they said.
“So Fakewell says—‘Now, Sandfly, who does that heifer
belong to?’
“The small black imp looks serious at her for a minute,
and then his face broke out into a grin all over. ‘That one
belong to Mr. Redgrave—why that old ‘cranky Poll’s’
calf, we lose him out of weaner mob last year.’
“All right, that’s so,” says Fakewell, uncommon sulky,
while all the men just roared; ‘but don’t you brand
yer calves when you wean ’em?’
“‘That one get through gate, and Mr. Redgrave says no
use turn back all the mob, then tree fall down on fence
and let out her and two more. But that young cranky
Poll safe enough, I take Bible oath.’
“‘You’ll do; take your heifer,’ says he; ‘I’ll be even
with some one for this.’”
“I dare say he didn’t get the best of you, Master Geordie,”
said Jack, kindly; “he’d be a sharp fellow if he did. You
were going to muster the ‘Lost Waterhole Camp’ soon,
weren’t you?”
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
“There’s a mob there that wants bringing in and regulating
down there just uncommon bad. I was biding a bit,
till you came home.”
“Well, Geordie, you can call me at daylight to-morrow.
I’ll have an early breakfast and go out with you. You know
I haven’t been getting up quite so early lately.”
“You can just wake as early as any one, when you like,
sir; but I’ll call you. What horse shall I tell Harry?”
“Well, I’ll take ‘the Don,’ I think. No, tell him to get
‘Mustang,’ he’s the best cutting-out horse.”
“No man ever had a better servant,” thought Jack as he
sat down in half an hour to his well-appointed table and
well-served, well-cooked repast.
Geordie Stirling was as shrewd, staunch a Borderer as ever
was reared in that somewhat bleak locality, a worthy descendant
of the men who gathered fast with spear and brand,
when the bale-fires gave notice that the moss-troopers were
among their herds. He was sober, economical, and self-denying.
He and his good wife had retained the stern
doctrines in which their youth had been reared, but little
acted upon by the circumstances and customs of colonial life.
Jack applied himself to his dinner with reasonable earnestness,
having had a longish ride, and being one of those
persons whose natural appetite is rarely interfered with by
circumstances. He could always eat, drink, and sleep with
a zest which present joy or sorrow to come had no power to
disturb. He therefore appreciated the roast fowl and other
home-grown delicacies which Mrs. Stirling placed before him,
and settled down to a good comfortable read afterwards,
leaving the momentous question of migration temporarily in
abeyance. After all this was over, however, he returned to
the consideration of the subject. He went over Fred
Tunstall’s arguments, which he thought were well enough in
their way, but savoured of a nature unprogressive and too
easily contented. “It’s all very well to be contented,” he
said to himself; “and we are very fairly placed now, but a
man must look ahead. Suppose these runs are cut up and
sold by a democratic ministry, or allowed to be taken up,
before survey, by cockatoos, where shall we be in ten years?
Almost cockatoos ourselves, with run for four or five hundred
head of cattle; a lot of fellows pestering our lives out; and
.bn 018.png
.pn +1
a couple of thousand acres of purchased land. There’s no
living to be made out of that. Not what I call a living;
unless one were to milk his own cows, and so on. I hardly
think I should do that. No! I’ll go in for something that
will be growing and increasing year by year, not the other
way. This district is getting worn out. The land is too good.
The runs are too small and too close to one another, and will
be smaller yet. No! my idea of a run is twenty miles
frontage to a river—the Oxley or the Lachlan, with thirty
miles back; then with twenty thousand ewes, or even ten to
start with, you may expect something like an increase, and
lots of ground to put them on. Then sell out and have a
little Continental travel; come back, marry, and settle down.
By Jove! here goes—Victory or Westminster Abbey!”
Inspired by these glorious visions, and conceiving quite a
contempt for poor little Marshmead, with only 2,000 cattle
and a hundred horses upon its 20,000 acres, Jack took
out his writing materials and scribbled off the following
advertisement:—
.pm start_quote
“Messrs. Drawe and Backwell have much pleasure in announcing
the sale by auction, at an early period, of which due
notice will be given, of the station known as Marshmead, in
the Hampden district, with two thousand unusually well-bred
cattle of the J R brand. The run, in point of quality, is
one of the best, in a celebrated fattening district. The cattle
are highly bred, carefully culled, and have always brought
first-class prices at the metropolitan sale-yards. The improvements
are extensive, modern, and complete. The only
reason for selling this valuable property is that the proprietor
contemplates leaving the colony.”
.pm end_quote
“There,” said Jack, laying down his pen, “that’s quite
enough—puffing won’t sell a place, and everybody’s heard
of Marshmead, and of the J R cattle, most likely. If they
haven’t, they can ask. There’s no great difficulty in selling
a first-class run. And now I’ll seal it up ready for the post,
and turn in.”
Next morning, considerably to Geordie’s disappointment,
Jack declined to go out to the “Lost Waterhole Camp,”
telling him rather shortly (to conceal his real feelings) that
.bn 019.png
.pn +1
he thought of selling the place, and that it would be time to
muster when they were delivering.
“Going to sell the run!” gasped Geordie, perfectly
aghast. “Why, master, what ever put such a thing into
your head? Where will ye find a bonnier place than this?
and there’s no such a herd of cattle in all the country round.
Sell Marshmead! Why, you must have picked up that when
in town.”
“Never mind where I picked it up,” said Jack, rather
crossly; “I have thought the matter over well, you may
believe, and as I have made up my mind there is no use
in talking about it. You don’t suppose Hampden is all
Australia?”
“No, but it’s one of the best bits upon the whole surface
of it—and that I’ll live and die on,” said Geordie. “Look
at the soil and the climate. Didn’t I go across the Murray
to meet they store cattle, and wasna it nearly the death of
me? Six weeks’ hard sun, and never a drop of rain. And
blight, and flies, and bush mosquiteys; why, I’d rather live
here on a pound a week than have a good station there.
Think o’ the garden, too.”
“Well, Geordie,” said Jack, “all that’s very well, but
look at the size of the runs! Why, I saw 1,000 head of fat
cattle coming past one station I stayed at, in one mob,
splendid cattle too; bigger and better than any of our little
drafts we think such a lot of. Besides, I don’t mind heat,
you know, and I’m bent on being a large stockholder, or
none at all.”
“Weel, weel!” said Geordie, “you will never be convinced.
I know you’ll just have your own way, but take
care ye dinna gang the road to lose all the bonny place ye
have worked hard for. The Lord keep ye from making
haste to be rich.”
“I know, I know,” said Jack, testily; “but the Bible
says nothing about changing your district. Abraham did
that, you know, and evidently was getting crowded up where
he was.”
“Master John, you’re not jestin’ about God’s Word! ye
would never do the like o’ that, I know, but Elsie and I
will pray ye’ll be properly directed—and Elspeth Stirling
will be a sorrowful woman I know to stay behind, as she
.bn 020.png
.pn +1
must, when all’s sold and ye go away to that desolate, waesome
hot desert, where there’s neither Sabbaths, nor Christian
men, nor the Word once in a year.”
The fateful advertisement duly appeared, and divers “intending
purchasers,” introduced by Messrs. Drawe and
Backwell, arrived at Marshmead, where they were met with
that tempered civility which such visitors generally receive.
The usual objections were made. The run was not large
enough; the boundaries were inconvenient or not properly
defined; the stock were not as good as had been represented;
the improvements were not sufficiently extensive. This
statement was made by a young and aristocratic investor,
who was about to be married. He was very critical about
the height of the cottage walls, and the size of the sitting-room.
The buildings were too numerous and expensive, and
would take more money than they were worth to keep in
repair. This was the report and opinion of an elderly
purchaser (Scotch), who did not see the necessity of anything
bigger than a two-roomed slab hut. Such an edifice had
been quite enough for him (he was pleased to remark) to
make twenty thousand pounds in, on the Lower Murray,
and to drink many a gallon of whisky in. As such results
and recreations comprised, in his estimation, “the whole
duty of man,” he considered Jack’s neat outbuildings, and
even the garden—horresco referens!—to be totally superfluous
and unprofitable. He expressed his intention, if he
were to do such an unlikely thing as to buy the wee bit kail-yard
o’ a place, to pull two-thirds of the huts down.
All these criticisms, mingled with sordid chaffering, were
extremely distasteful to Jack’s taste, and his temper suffered
to such an extent that he had thought of writing to the
agents to give no further orders for inspection. However,
shortly after the departure of the objectionable old savage,
as he profanely termed the veteran pastoralist, he received
a telegram to say that the sale was concluded. Mr. Donald
M‘Donald, late of Binjee-Mungee, had paid half cash,
and the rest at short-dated bills, and would send his nephew,
Mr. Angus M‘Tavish, to take delivery in a few days.
Long before these irrevocable matters had come to pass,
our hero had bitterly repented of his determination. Those
of his neighbours who were not on such terms of intimacy
.bn 021.png
.pn +1
as to expostulate roundly, like Tunstall, could not conceal
their distrust or disapproval of his course. Some were
sincerely sorry to lose him as a neighbour, and this expression
of feeling touched him more deeply than the opposition
of the others.
Mr. M‘Tavish arrived, and, after delivery of his credentials,
the last solemnities of mustering and delivery were duly
concluded.
The “nephew of his uncle” was an inexperienced but
deeply suspicious youth, who declined to take the most
obvious things for granted, and consistently disbelieved every
word that was said to him. Geordie Stirling with difficulty
refrained from laying hands upon him; and Jack was so disgusted
with his “manners and customs” that, on the evening
when the delivery was concluded, he declined to spend
another night at old Marshmead, but betook himself, with
his two favourite hacks, specially reserved at time of sale, to
the nearest inn, from which he made the best of his way to
the metropolis.
The disruption of old ties and habitudes was much more
painful than he had anticipated. His two faithful retainers
located themselves upon an adjoining farm, which their
savings had enabled them to purchase. To this they removed
their stock, which was choice though not numerous. Geordie,
after his first warning, said no more, knowing by experience
that his master, when he had set his mind upon a thing, was
more obstinate than many a man of sterner mould. Too
sincere to acquiesce, his rugged, weather-beaten lineaments
retained their look of solemn disapproval, mingled at times
with a curiously pathetic gaze, to the last.
With his wife Elspeth, a woman of much originality and
force of character, combined with deep religious feeling of the
old-fashioned Puritan type, the case was different.
She had a strong and sincere affection for John Redgrave,
whom she had known from his early boyhood, and in many
ways had she demonstrated this. She had unobtrusively and
efficiently ministered to his comfort for years. She had not
scrupled to take him to task in a homely and earnest way for
minor faults and backslidings, all of which rebukes and
remonstrances he had taken in good part, as springing from
an over-zealous but conscientious desire for his welfare. His
.bn 022.png
.pn +1
friends smiled at the good old woman’s warnings and testifyings,
occasionally delivered, when performing her household
duties, in the presence of any company then and there
assembled, by whom she was not in the slightest degree
abashed, or to be turned from any righteous purpose.
“Eh, Maister John, ye’ll no be wantin’ to ride anither of
thae weary steeplechasers?” she had been pleased to inquire
upon a certain occasion; “ye’ll just be fa’in doon and hurtin’
yersel’, or lamin’ and woundin’ the puir beastie that’s been
granted to man for a’ useful purposes!”
She had been in the habit of “being faithful to him,” as
she termed divers very plain spoken and home-thrusting
exhortations in respect to his general habits and walk in life,
whenever she had reason to think such allocution to be
necessary. She had taken him to task repeatedly for unprofitable
reading upon, and lax observance of, the Sabbath; for
a too devoted adherence to racing, and the unpardonable sin
of betting; for too protracted absences in the metropolis, and
consequent neglect of his interests at Marshmead; and,
generally, for any departure from the strict line of Christian
life and manners which she rigidly observed herself, and
compelled Geordie to practice. Though sometimes testy at
such infringements upon the liberty of the subject, Jack had
sufficient sense and good feeling to recognize the true and
deep anxiety for his welfare from which this excess of carefulness
sprang. In every other respect old Elsie’s rule was
without flaw or blemish. For all the years of their stay at
Marshmead, no bachelor in all the West had enjoyed such
perfect immunity from the troubles and minor miseries to
which Australian employers are subjected. Spotless cleanliness,
perfect comfort, and proverbial cookery, had been the
unbroken experience of the Marshmead household. It was
a place at which all guests, brought there for pleasure or
duty, hastened to arrive, and lingered with flattering unwillingness
to leave.
And now this pleasant home was to be broken up, the
peaceful repose and organized comfort to be abandoned, and
the farewell words to be said to the faithful retainer.
Jack felt parting with the old woman more than he cared
to own; he felt almost ashamed and slightly irritated at the
depth of his emotion. “Confound it,” he said to himself,
.bn 023.png
.pn +1
“it’s very hard that one can’t sell one’s run and move off to
a thinly-stocked country without feeling as if one had committed
a species of wrong and treachery, and having to make
as many affecting farewells as I have no doubt my governor
did when he left England for the terra incognita Australia.”
“Well, Elsie,” he said, with an attempt at ease and
jocularity he was far from feeling, “I must say good-bye.
I hope you and Geordie will be snug and comfortable at your
farm. I’ll write to you when I’m settled in Riverina; and, if
I do as well as some others, I shall make a pot of money, and
be off to the old country in a few years.”
He put out his hand, but the old woman heeded it not,
but gazed in his face with a wistful, pleading look, and the
tears filled her eyes, not often seen in melting mood, as she
said—
“Oh, Maister John, oh, my bairn, that I should live to see
you ride away from the bonny home where ye’ve lived so
long, and been aye respeckit and useful in your generation.
Do ye think ye have the Lord’s blessing for giving up the
lot where He has placed ye and blessed ye, for to gang amang
strangers and scorners—all for the desire of gain? I misdoot
the flitting, and the craving for the riches that perish in the
using, sairly—sairly. Dinna forget your Bible; and pray, oh,
pray to Him, my bairn, that ye may be direckit in the right
way. I canna speak mair for greetin’ and mistrustin’ that my
auld een have looked their last on your bonny face. May
the Lord have ye in His keeping.”
Her tears flowed unrestrainedly, as she clasped his hand in
both of hers, and then turned away in silence.
“Geordie,” said our hero, strongly inclined to follow suit,
“you mustn’t let Elsie fret like this, you know. I am not
going away for ever. You’ll see me back most likely in the
summer, for a little change and a mouthful of sea air. I
shall find you taking all the prizes at the Hampden show
with that bull calf of old Cherry’s.”
“It’s little pleesure we’ll have in him, or the rest of the
stock, for a while,” answered Geordie. “The place will no
be natural like, wantin’ ye. The Lord’s will be done,” added
he, reverently. “We’re a’ in His keepin’. I’d come with
ye, for as far and as hot as yon sa-andy desert o’ a place is, if
it werena for the wife. God bless ye, Maister John!”
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER III.
.pm start_poem
“So forward to fresh fields and pastures new.”—Milton.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack’s spirits had recovered their usual high average
when he found himself once more at the club in a very free
and unfettered condition, and clothed with the prestige of
a man who had sold his station well, and was likely to rise
in (pastoral) life.
He was bold, energetic, moderately experienced, and had
all that sanguine trust in the splendid probabilities of life
common to those youthful knights who have come scatheless
through the tourney, and have never, as yet, been
.pm start_poem
“Dragged from amid the horses’ feet,
With dinted shield and helmet beat.”
.pm end_poem
He derived a little amusement (for he possessed a keen
faculty of observation, though, as with other gifts, he did
not always make the best use of that endowment) from the
evident brevet rank which was accorded to him by the
moneyed and other magnates. His advice was asked as to
stock investments. He was consulted upon social and political
questions. Invitations, of which he had always received
a fair allowance, came in showers. Report magnified considerably
the price he had received for Marshmead. Many
chaperons and haughty matrons of the most exacting class
bid eagerly for his society. In short, Jack Redgrave had
become the fashion, and for a time revelled in all the privileged
luxury of that somewhat intoxicating position. Notwithstanding
a fine natural tendency desipere in loco, our
hero was much too shrewd and practical a personage not to
be fully aware that this kind of thing could not last. He
had a far higher ambition than would have permitted him to
.bn 025.png
.pn +1
subside into a club swell, or a social butterfly, permanently.
He had, besides, that craving for bodily exercise, even
labour, common to men of vigorous organization, which,
however lulled and deadened for a time, could not be controlled
for any protracted period.
He had, therefore, kept up a reasonably diligent search
among the station agents and others for any likely investment
which might form the nucleus of the large establishment,
capable of indefinite expansion, of which he had vowed to
become the proprietor.
Such a one, at length (for, as usual when a man has his
pockets full of money, and is hungering and thirsting to buy,
one would think that there was not a purchaseable run on the
whole continent of Australia), was “submitted to his notice”
by a leading agent; the proprietor, like himself in the advertisement
of Marshmead, was “about to leave the colony,”
so that all doubt of purely philanthropical intention in selling
this “potentiality of fabulous wealth” was set at rest.
Jack took the mail that night, with the offer in his pocket,
and in a few days found himself deposited at “a lodge in
the wilderness” of Riverina, face to face with the magnificent
enterprize.
Gondaree had been a cattle-station from the ancient days,
when old Morgan had taken it up with five hundred head of
cattle and two or three convict servants, in the interests
and by the order of the well-known Captain Kidd, of Double
Bay. A couple of huts had been built, with stock-yard and
gallows. The usual acclimatization and pioneer civilization
had followed. One of the stockmen had been speared: a
score or two of the blacks, to speak well within bounds, had
been shot. By intervals of labour, sometimes toilsome and
incessant, oftener monotonous and mechanical, the sole recreation
being a mad debauch on the part of master and man,
the place slowly but surely and profitably progressed—progressed
with the tenacious persistence and sullen obstinacy of
the race, which, notwithstanding toils, dangers, broils, bloodshed,
and reckless revelries, rarely abandons the object
originally specified. Pioneer or privateer, merchant or missionary,
the root qualities of the great colonizing breed are
identical. They perish in the breach, they drink and gamble,
but they rarely raise the siege. The standard is planted,
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
though by reckless or unworthy hands; still goes on the
grand march of civilization, with splendour of peace and
pomp of war. With the fair fanes and foul alleys of cities—with
peaceful village and waving cornfield—so has it ever
been; so till the dawn of a purer day, a higher faith, must
it ever be, the ceaseless “martyrdom of man.”
.pm start_poem
“And the individual withers,
And the race is more and more.”
.pm end_poem
Gondaree had advanced. The drafts of fat cattle had improved
in number and quality—at first, in the old, old days,
when supply bore hard upon demand, selling for little more
than provided an adequate quantity of flour, tea, sugar, and
tobacco for the year’s consumption. But the herd had spread
by degrees over the wide plains of “the back,” as well as over
the broad river flats and green reed-beds of “the frontage,”
and began to be numbered by thousands rather than by the
original hundreds.
Changes slowly took place. Old Morgan had retired to
a small station of his own with a herd of cattle and horses
doubtfully accumulated, as was the fashion of the day,
by permission of his master, who had never once visited
Gondaree.
The old stockmen were dead, or gone none knew whither;
but another overseer, of comparatively modern notions, occupied
his place, and while enduring the monotonous, unrelieved
existence, cursed the unprogressive policy which
debarred him from the sole bush recreation—in that desert
region—of planning and putting up “improvements.”
About the period of which we speak, it had occurred to
the trustees of the late Captain Kidd that, as cattle-stations
had risen much in value in that part of the country, from
the rage which then obtained to dispose of those despised
animals and replace them with sheep, it was an appropriate
time to sell. The station had paid fairly for years past.
Not a penny had been spent upon its development in any
way; and now, “as those Victorian fellows and others, who
ought to know better, were going wild about salt-bush
cattle-stations to put sheep on—why, this was clearly the
time to put Gondaree in the market.”
As Jack drove up in the unpretending vehicle which bore
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
Her Majesty’s mails and adventurous travellers to the scarce-known
township of “far Bochara,” the day was near its
close. The homestead was scarcely calculated to prepossess
people. They had passed the river a couple of miles back,
and now halted at a sandy hillock, beneath which lay a
sullen lagoon. There were two ruinous slab huts, with bark
roofs, at no great distance from each other. There was a
stock-yard immediately at the back of the huts, where piles
of bones, with the skulls and horns of long-slain beasts, told
the tale of the earliest occupation of the place.
There was no garden, no horse-paddock, nothing of any
kind, sort, or description but the two huts, which might
have originally cost ten pounds each. Jack, taking his
valise and rug, walked towards the largest hut, from which
a brown-faced young fellow, in a Crimean shirt and moleskin
trousers, had emerged.
“You are Mr.—Mr.—Redgrave,” said he, consulting a
well-thumbed letter which he took out of his pocket. “I
have orders to show you the place and the cattle. Won’t
you come in?”
Jack stepped over two or three impediments which barred
the path, and narrowly escaped breaking his shins over a
bullock’s head, which a grand-looking kangaroo dog was
gnawing. He glanced at the door, which was let into the
wall-plate of the hut above and below, after the oldest known
form of hinge, and sat down somewhat ruefully upon a
wooden stool.
“You’re from town, I suppose?” said the young man,
mechanically filling his pipe, and looking with calm interest
at Jack’s general get-up.
“Yes,” answered Jack, “I am. You are aware that
I have come to look at the run. When can we make a
beginning?”
“To-morrow morning,” was the answer. “I’ll send for
the horses at daylight.”
“How do you get on without a horse-paddock?” asked
Jack, balancing himself upon the insecure stool, and looking
enviously at his companion, who was seated upon the only
bed in the apartment. “Don’t you sometimes lose time at
musters?”
“Time ain’t of much account on the Warroo,” answered
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
the overseer, spitting carelessly upon the earthen floor.
“We have a cursed sight more of it than we know what to
do with. And Captain Kidd didn’t believe in improvements.
Many a time I’ve written and written for this and
that, but the answer was that old Morgan did very well
without them for so many years, and so might I. I got
sick of it, and just rubbed on like the rest. If I had had
my way, I’d have burned down the thundering old place
long ago, and put up everything new at Steamboat Point.
But you might as well talk to an old working bullock as to
our trustees.”
“What are the cattle like?” inquired Mr. Redgrave.
“Well, not so bad, considering there hasn’t been a bull
bought these ten years. It’s first-class fattening country;
I dare say you saw that if you noticed any mobs as you
came along.” Jack nodded. “When the country is real
good cattle will hold their own, no matter how they’re
bred. There ain’t much the matter with the cattle—a few
stags and rough ones, of course, but pretty fair on the
whole. I expect you’re hungry after your journey. The
hut-keeper will bring in tea directly.”
In a few moments that functionary appeared, with a pair
of trousers so extremely dirty as to suggest the idea that
he had been permanently located upon a back block, where
economy in the use of water was a virtue of necessity.
Rubbing down the collection of slabs which did duty for a
table with a damp cloth, he placed thereon a tin dish, containing
a large joint of salt beef, a damper like the segment
of a cart-wheel, and a couple of plates, one of which was of
the same useful metal as the dish. He then departed, and
presently appeared with a very black camp-kettle, or billy,
of hot tea, which he placed upon the floor; scattering several
pannikins upon the board, one of which contained sugar, he
lounged out again, after having taken a good comprehensive
stare at the new comer.
“We smashed our teapot last muster,” said the manager,
apologetically, “and we can’t get another till the drays
come up. This is a pretty rough shop, as you see, but I
suppose you ain’t just out from England?”
“I have been in the bush before,” said Jack, sententiously.
“Are the flies always as bad here?”
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
“Well, they’re enough to eat your eyes out, and the mosquitoes
too—worse after the rains; but they say it’s worse
lower down the river.”
“Worse than this! I should hardly have thought it
possible,” mused Jack, as the swarming insects disputed the
beef with him, and caused him to be cautious of shutting
his mouth after enclosing a few accidentally. The bread
was black with them, the sugar, the table generally, and
every now and then one of a small black variety would dart
straight into the corner of his eye.
When the uninviting meal was over, Jack walked outside,
and, lighting his pipe, commenced to consider the question
of the purchase of the place. With the sedative influences
of the great narcotic a more calmly judicial view of the
question presented itself.
He was sufficiently experienced to know that, whereas
you may make a homestead and adjuncts sufficiently good
to satisfy the most exacting Squatter-Sybarite, if such be
wanting, you can by no means build a good run if the
country, that is, extent and quality of pasture, be wanting.
A prudent buyer, therefore, does not attach much value to
improvements, scrutinizing carefully the run itself as the
only source of future profits.
“It is a beastly hole!” quoth Jack, as he finished his
pipe, “only fit for a black fellow, or a Scotchman on his
promotion; but from what I saw of the cattle as I came
along (and they tell no lies) there is no mistake about the
country. They were all as fat as pigs, the yearlings and
calves, as well as the aged cattle. I never saw them look
like that at Marshmead, or even at Glen na Voirlich, which
used to be thought the richest spot in our district. There
is nothing to hinder me clearing out the whole of the herd
and having ten or fifteen thousand ewes on the place before
lambing time. There is no scab and no foot-rot within a
colony of us. With fair luck, I could have up a woolshed
in time to shear; and a decent lambing, say 70 per cent.,
would give me—let me see, how many altogether after
shearing?”
Here Jack went into abstruse arithmetical calculations as
to the numbers, sexes, ages, and value of his possible property,
and, after a very rapid subtraction of cattle and
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
multiplication of sheep, saw himself the owner of fifty
thousand of the last-named fashionable animals, which,
when sold at twenty-five shillings per head, or even twenty-seven
and sixpence (everything given in), would do very
well until he should have visited Europe, and returned to
commence operations upon a scale even more grand and
comprehensive.
“I think I see my way,” he said to himself, finally,
knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Of course one must
rough it at first; the great thing in these large stock
operations is decisiveness.”
He accordingly decided to go to bed at once, and informed
Mr. Hawkesbury, the overseer, that he should be ready as
soon as they could see in the morning, and so betook himself
to a couch, of which the supporting portion was ingeniously
constructed of strips of hide, and the mattress, bed-clothing,
curtains, &c., represented by a pair of blankets evidently
akin in antiquity, as in hue, to Bob the cook’s trousers.
Accepting his host’s brief apologies, Jack turned in, and
Mr. Hawkesbury, having disembarrassed himself of his
boots, pulled a ragged opossum-rug over him, and lay down
before the fire-place, with his pipe in his mouth.
The coach and mail travelling, continued during two
preceding days and nights, had banged and shaken Jack’s
hardy frame sufficiently to induce a healthy fatigue. In
two minutes he was sound asleep, and for three or four
hours never turned in his bed. Then he woke suddenly, and
with the moment of consciousness was enabled to realize
Mr. Gulliver’s experiences after the first flight of the
arrows of the Liliputians.
He arose swiftly, and muttering direful maledictions upon
the Warroo, and all inhabitants of its borders from source
to mouth, frontage and back, myall, salt-bush, and cotton-bush,
pulled on his garments and looked around.
It yet wanted three hours to daylight. Mr. Hawkesbury
was sleeping like an infant. He could see the moon through
a crack in the bark roof, and hear the far hoarse note of
the night-bird. Taking his railway rug, he opened the
door, which creaked upon its Egyptian hinge, and walked
forth.
.pm start_poem
“Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest.”
.pm end_poem
.bn 031.png
.pn +1
And so on, as Longfellow has it in mournful Evangeline.
The forest was not exactly black, being partly of the
moderately-foliaged eucalyptus, and having a strip of the
swaying, streaming myall, of a colour more resembling blue
than black. Still there were shadows sufficiently darksome
and weird in conjunction with the glittering moonbeams to
appeal to the stranger’s poetic sympathies. The deep, still
waters of the lagoon lay like dulled silver, ever and anon
stirred into ripples of wondrous brilliancy by the leaping
of a fish, or the sinuous trail of a reptile or water rodent.
All was still as in the untroubled æons ere discovery. In
spite of the squalid surroundings and the sordid human
traces, Nature had resumed her grand solitude and the
majestic hush of the desert.
“All this is very fine,” quoth Jack to himself. “What
a glorious night; but I must try and have a little more
sleep somehow.” He picked out a tolerably convenient spot
between the buttressed roots of a vast casuarina, which from
laziness rather than from taste had been spared by the
ruthless axes of the pioneers, and wrapping himself in his
rug lay down in the sand. The gentle murmur of the ever-sounding,
mournful-sighing tree soon hushed his tired senses,
and the sun was rising as he raised himself on his elbow
and looked round.
It was a slightly different sleeping arrangement from
those to which he had been long accustomed. Nor were the
concomitants less strange. A large pig had approached
nearer than was altogether pleasant. She was evidently
speculating as to the weak, defenceless, possibly edible
condition of the traveller. Jack had not been conversant
with the comprehensively carnivorous habits of Warroo
pigs. He was, therefore, less alarmed than amused. He
also made the discovery that he was no great distance from
a populous ant-hill, of which, however, the free and enlightened
citizens had not as yet “gone for him.” Altogether
he fully realized the necessity for changing front, and,
rising somewhat suddenly to his feet, was about to walk
over to the hut when the rolling thunder of horses at speed,
rapidly approaching, decided him to await the new sensation.
Round a jutting point of timber a small drove of twenty
or thirty horses came at a headlong gallop in a cloud of
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
dust, and made straight for the stockyard in the direct
track for which Jack’s bedroom was situated. Standing
close up to the old tree, which was sufficiently strong and
broad to shield him, he awaited the cavalry charge. They
passed close on either side, to the unaffected astonishment
of an old mare, who turned her eyes upon him with a wild
glare as she brushed his shoulder with her sweeping mane.
Dashing into the large receiving-yard of the old stockyard,
they stopped suddenly and began to walk gently about, as
if fully satisfied with themselves. Following fast came
two wild riders, one of whom was a slight half-caste lad,
and the other, to Jack’s great surprise, a black girl of
eighteen or twenty. This last child of the desert rode en
cavalier on an ordinary saddle with extremely rusty stirrup-irons.
Her long wavy hair fell in masses over her
shoulders. Her eyes were soft and large, her features by
no means unpleasing, and her unsophisticated teeth white
and regular. Dashing up to the slip-rails, this young
person jumped off her horse with panther-like agility, and
putting up the heavy saplings, thus addressed Mr. Hawkesbury,
who, with Jack, had approached:—
“By gum, Misser Hoxbry, you give me that horrid old
mare to-day I ride her inside out, the ole brute.”
“What for, Wildduck?” inquired the overseer; “what’s
she been doing now?”
“Why, run away all over the country and break half-a-dozen
times, and make me and Spitfire close up dead. Look
at him.” Here she pointed to her steed, a small violent
weed, whose wide nostril and heaving flank showed that he
had been going best pace for a considerable period. “That
boy, Billy Mortimer, not worth a cuss.”
Having volunteered this last piece of information, Wildduck
pulled off the saddle, which she placed, cantle downward,
against the fence, so as to permit the moistened
padding to receive all drying influences of sun and air;
then, dragging off the bridle to the apparent danger of
Spitfire’s front teeth, she permitted that excitable courser
to wander at will.
“That one pull my arm off close up,” she remarked, “all
along that ole devil of a mare. I’ll take it out of her to-day,
my word! Who’s this cove?”
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
“Gentleman come up to buy station,” answered Hawkesbury;
“by and by, master belong to you; and if you’re
a good girl he’ll give you a new gown and a pound of
tobacco. Now you get breakfast, and ride over to Jook-jook—tell’m
all to meet us at the Long Camp to-morrow.”
“Kai-i!” said the savage damsel, in a long-drawn plaintive
cry of surprise, as she put her fingers, with assumed
shyness, up to her face, and peered roguishly through
them; then, hitching up her scanty and tattered dress, she
ran off without more conversation to the hut.
“Good gracious!” said Jack to himself, “I wonder what
old Elsie and Geordie Stirling would think of all this;
Moabitish women and all the rest of it, I suppose. However,
I am not here for the present to regulate the social
code of the Lower Warroo. Have you got the tribe here?”
he said, aloud.
“No, Wildduck ran away from a travelling mob of cattle,”
answered Hawkesbury. “She’s a smart gin when she’s
away from grog, and a stunner at cutting out on a camp.”
That day passed in an exhaustive general tour round the
run. Mounted upon an elderly stock-horse of unimpeachable
figure, with legs considerably the worse for wear, and
provided with a saddle which caused him to vow that never
again would he permit himself to be dissociated from his
favourite Wilkinson, Jack was piloted by Mr. Hawkesbury
through the “frontage” and a considerable portion of the
“back” regions of Gondaree. It was the same story:
oceans of feed, water everywhere, all the cattle rolling fat.
Nothing that the most hard-hearted buyer could object to,
if troubled with but a grain of conscience. Billowy waves
of oat grass, wild clover (medicago sativa), and half-a-dozen
strange fodder plants, of which Redgrave knew not the
names, adorned the great meadows or river flats; while out
of the immense reed-beds, the feathery tassels of which stirred
in the breeze far above their heads, came ever and anon,
at the crack of the stock-whip, large droves of cattle in
Indian file, in such gorgeous condition that, as our hero
could not refrain from saying, a dealer in fat stock might
have taken the whole lot to market, cows, calves, bullocks
and steers, without rejecting a beast.
Leaving these grand savannahs, when they proceeded to
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
the more arid back country there was still no deterioration
in the character of the pasturage. Myall and boree belts
of timber, never known to grow upon “poor” or “sour”
land, alternated with far-stretching plains, where the salt-bush,
the cotton-bush, and many another salsiferous herb
and shrub, betokened that Elysium of the squatter, “sound
fattening country.” John Redgrave was charmed. He
forgot the dog-hole he had left in the morning, the fleas,
the pigs, the evil habiliments of Bob the cook, the uninviting
meal, all the shocks and outrages upon his tastes
and habits; his mind dwelt only upon the great extent and
apparently half-stocked condition of Gondaree. And as
they rode home by starlight the somewhat perilous stumbles
of the old stock-horse only partially disturbed a reverie in
which a new wool-shed, a crack wash-pen, every kind of
modern “improvement,” embellished a model run, carrying
fifty thousand high-caste merino sheep.
He demolished his well-earned supper of corned beef and
damper that night with quite another species of appetite;
and as he deposited himself in an extemporized hammock,
above the reach of midnight marauders, he told himself
that Gondaree was not such a bad place after all, and only
wanted an owner possessed of sufficient brains to develop
its great capabilities to become a pleasant, profitable, and
childishly safe investment.
Wildduck’s mission had apparently been successful. The
old mare was making off from the men’s hut in a comparatively
exhausted state, while a chorus of voices, accented
with the pervading British oath, told of the arrival of a
number of friends and allies. High among the noisiest of
the talkers, and, it must be confessed, by no means reticent
of strong language, rose the clear tones and childlike
laughter of the savage damsel. In the delicate badinage
likely to obtain in such a gathering it was apparent that
she could well hold her own.
“My word, Johnny Dickson,” she was saying to a tall,
lathy stripling, whose long hair protected the upper portion
of his spine from all danger of sunstroke, “you get one
big buster off that roan mare to-day; spread all over the
ground, too. Thought you was goin’ to peg out a free-selection.”
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
“You shut up, and go back to old man Jack, you black
varmint,” retorted the unhorsed man-at-arms amid roars of
laughter. “You ain’t no great chop on a horse, except to
ride him to death. I can back anything you’ll tackle, or
ere a black fellow between this and Adelaide. I’m half a
mind to box your ears, you saucy slut.”
“Ha, ha,” yelled the girl, “you ride? that’s a good un!
You not game to get on the Doctor here to-morrow, not for
twenty pound. You touch me! Why, ole Nanny fight you
any day, with a yam-stick. I fight you myself, blessed if
I don’t.”
“What’s all this?” demanded Mr. Hawkesbury, suddenly
appearing on the scene. “Have any of you fellows been
bringing grog on the place? Because it’s a rascally shame,
and I won’t have it.”
“Well, sir,” said one of the stockmen, “one of the chaps
had a bottle, quite accidental like, and the gin got a suck or
two. That’s what set her tongue goin’. But it’s all gone
now, and nothing broke. Which way do we go to-morrow?”
“Well, I want to muster those Bimbalong Creek cattle,
and then put as many as we can get on the main camp,
just to give this gentleman here (indicating Jack) a sort of
idea of the numbers. Daylight start, remember, so don’t
be losing your horses.”
“All right,” said the self-constituted spokesman, the
others merely nodding acquiescence; “we’ll short-hobble
them to-night—they can’t get away very far.”
Considerably before daylight beefsteaks were frying,
horses were being gathered up, and a variety of sounds
proclaimed that when bent upon doing a day’s work the
dwellers around Gondaree could set about it in an energetic
and business-like fashion. There was not a streak of crimson
in the pearly dawn-light, as the whole party, comprising
more than a dozen men and the redoubtable Wildduck,
rode silently along the indistinct trail which led “out
back.” There was a good deal of smoking and but little
talk for the first hour. After that time converse became
more general, and the pace was improved at a suggestion
from Mr. Hawkesbury that the sooner they all got to the
scene of their work the better, as it was a pretty good
day’s ride there and back.
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
“So it is,” answered a hard, weather-beaten-looking,
grizzled stockman. “I never see such a part of the country
as this. If it was in other colonies I’ve been to they’d have
had a good hut, and yards, and a horse-paddock at Bimbalong
this years back. But they wouldn’t spend a ten pound
note or two, those Sydney merchants, not for to save the
lives of every stockman on the Warroo.”
“That wouldn’t be much of a loss, Jingaree,” said the
overseer, laughing, while a sort of sardonic smile went the
round of the company, as if they appreciated the satire;
“and I shouldn’t blame ’em if that was the worst of it.
But it’s a loss to themselves, if they only knew it. All
they can say is, plenty of money has been made on old
Gondaree, as bad as it is. I hope the next owner will do
as well—and better.”
“Me think ’um you better git it back to me and ole man
Jack,” suggested Wildduck, now restored to her usual state
of coolness and self-possession. “Ole man Jack own Gondaree
water-hole by rights. Everybody say Gondaree people
live like black fellows. What for you not give it us back
again?”
“Well, I’m blowed,” answered the overseer, aghast at
the audacious proposition; “what next? No, no, Wildduck.
We’ve improved the country.” Here the stockmen grinned.
“Besides, you and old man Jack would go and knock it
down. You ain’t particular to a few glasses of grog, you
know, Wildduck.”
“White fellow learn us that,” answered the girl, sullenly,
and the “chase rode on.”
In rather less than three hours the party of horsemen
had reached a narrow reed-fringed watercourse, the line of
which was marked by dwarf eucalypti, no specimens of
which had been encountered since they left the homestead.
Here they halted for a while upon a sand-ridge picturesquely
wooded with the bright green arrowy pine (callitris),
and, after a short smoke, Mr. Hawkesbury proceeded
to make a disposition of forces.
“Three of you go up the creek till you get to the other
side of Long Plain, there’s mostly a mob somewhere about
there. You’ll see a big brindle bullock; if you get him
you’ve got the leading mob. Jingaree, you can start; take
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
Johnson and Billy Mortimer with you. Charley Jones,
you beat up the myall across the creek; take Jackson and
Long Bill. Four of you go out back till you come to the
old Durgah boundary; you’ll know it by the sheep-tracks,
confound them. Waterton, you come with me, and Mr.
Redgrave will take the Fishery mob. Wildduck, you too,
it will keep you out of mischief, and you can have a gallop
after the buffalo cows’ mob, and show off a bit.”
“All right,” answered the sable scout, showing her brilliant
teeth, and winding the stock-whip round her head with
practised hand she made Spitfire jump all fours off the
ground, and proceed sideways, and even tail foremost (as is
the manner of excitable steeds), for the next quarter of a mile.
Every section of the party having “split and squandered”
according to orders, which were, like those of a captain at
cricket or football, unhesitatingly obeyed, Jack found himself
proceeding parallel with the creek, with Mr. Hawkesbury
as companion, followed by a wiry, sun-tanned Australian
lad and Miss Wildduck aforesaid.
It was still early. They had ridden twenty miles, and
the day’s work was only commencing. Always fond of this
particular description of station-work, John Redgrave looked
with the keen eye of a bushman, and something of the poet’s
fancy, upon the scene. Eastward the sun-rays were lighting
up a limitless ocean of grey plain, tinged with a delicate tone
of green, while the hazy distance, precious in that land of
hard outlines and too brilliant colouring, was passing from a
stage of tremulous gold to the fierce splendour of the desert
noon.
There was not a hill within a hundred miles. The level
sky-line was unbroken as on the deep, or where the Arab
camel kneels by the far-seen plumy palms. The horses
stepped along briskly. The air was dry and fresh. The
element of grandeur and unimpeded territorial magnificence
told powerfully upon John’s sanguine nature.
“I don’t care what they say,” he thought. “This is a
magnificent country, and I believe would carry no end of
sheep, if properly fenced and managed. I flatter myself I
shall make such a change as will astonish the oldest and
many other inhabitants.”
Following the water, they rode quietly onward until, near
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
a bend of the humble but enormously important streamlet,
they descried the “Fishery,” of which Hawkesbury had
spoken. This was a ruinous and long deserted “weir,”
formed of old by the compatriots of Wildduck, for the
ensnaring of eels and such fish as might be left disporting
themselves in the Bimbalong after a flood of unusual height.
At such periods the outer meres and back creeks received a
portion of the larger species of fish which habitually reposed
in the still, deep waters of the Warroo. Traces could still be
seen of a labyrinth of artificial channels, dams, and reservoirs,
showing considerable ingenuity, and distinct evidence of
more continuous labour than the aboriginal Australian is
generally credited with.
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IV.
.pm start_poem
“Ye seeken loud and see for your winninges.”—Chaucer.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
“My word,” exclaimed Wildduck, jumping from her horse
and gazing at the rare ruin of her fading race, “this big
one fishery one time. Me come here like it picaninny.
All about black fellow that time. Bullo—bullo.”
Here she spread out her hands, as if to denote an
altogether immeasurable muster-roll of warriors.
“Big one corrobaree—shake ’em ground all about; and
old man Coradjee too.”
Here she sank her voice into an awe-stricken whisper.
“Where are they all gone, Wildduck?” inquired Redgrave;
“along a Warroo?”
“Along a Warroo?” cried the girl, mockingly. “Worse
than that. White fellow shoot ’em like possum. That ole
duffer, Morgan, shoot fader belonging to me.”
“Come, come, Wildduck,” said Hawkesbury, “we’re after
cattle just now—never mind about old Mindai. It wasn’t
one, nor yet two, white fellows only that he picked the bones
of, if all the yarns are true.”
“You think I no care, because I’m black,” said the girl,
reproachfully, as the tears rolled down her dusky cheeks. “I
very fond of my poor ole fader.—Hallo! there’s cattle—come
along, Waterton.”
“Changing the subject with a vengeance,” thought Redgrave,
as the mercurial mourner, with all the fickleness of her
race, superadded to that of her sex, looked back a laughing
challenge to the stockman, and closing her heels upon the
eager pony, was at top speed in about three strides. Looking
in the direction of Spitfire’s outstretched neck, Redgrave and
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
his companion could descry a long dark line of moving
objects at a considerable distance on the plain, but whether
horses, cattle, or even a troop of emu, they were unable to
make out with certainty.
“Let’s back her up quietly,” said Hawkesbury. “She and
Charley will head them; it’s no use bustin’ our horses. This
is rather a flash mob, but they’ll be all right when they’re
wheeled once or twice.”
Keeping on at a steady hand-gallop, they soon came up
with a large lot of cattle going best pace in the wrong
direction. The accomplished Wildduck, however, flew
round them like a falcon, Spitfire doing his mile in remarkably
fair time. Being ably supported by Waterton,
the absconders were rounded up, and were ready to return
and be forgiven, when Hawkesbury and Mr. Redgrade joined
them.
“By Jove!” cried our hero, with unconcealed approval,
“what grand condition all the herd seem to be in! Look at
those leaders.” Here he pointed to a string of great raking
five and six year old bullocks, whose immense frames, a little
coarse, but well grown and symmetrical, were filled up to the
uttermost point of development. “You don’t seem to have
drafted them very closely.”
“No,” said Hawkesbury, carelessly. “We never send
anything away that isn’t real prime, and we missed this mob
last year. They get their time at Gondaree; and the last two
seasons have been stunning good ones.”
“Don’t you always have good seasons, then?” asked Jack,
innocently.
The overseer looked sharply at him for a moment, without
answering, and then said—
“Well, not always, it depends upon the rain a good deal;
not but what there’s always plenty of back-water on this
run.”
“Oh! I dare say it makes a difference in this dry country,”
returned Jack, carelessly, thinking of Marshmead, where it
used to rain sometimes from March to November, almost
without cessation, and where a month’s fine weather was
hailed as a distinct advantage to the sodden pasturage. “But
the rain never does anything but good here, I suppose.”
“Nothing but good, you may say that, when it does come.
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
This lot won’t be long getting to camp. Ha! I can hear
Jingaree’s and the other fellows’ whips going.”
By this time they had nearly reached the camp at which
the various scouting parties had separated. They had nothing
to do but to follow the drove, which, after the manner of
well-broken station herds of the olden time, never relaxed
speed until they reached the camp, when they stopped of
their own accord, and while recovering their wind moved
gently to and fro, greeting friends or strangers with appropriately
modulated bellowings.
Much about the same time the other parties of stockmen
could be seen coming towards the common centre, each
following a lesser or a greater drove. Jingaree had been
fortunate in “dropping across” his lot earlier in the day,
and was in peaceful possession of the camp and an undisturbed
smoke long before they arrived.
Mr. Redgrave rode through the fifteen or sixteen hundred
there assembled by himself, the stockmen meanwhile sitting
sideways on their horses, or otherwise at ease, while he made
inspection.
“I should like to have had a lot like this at the Lost
Water-hole Camp, at poor old Marshmead,” thought Jack to
himself, “for old Rooney, the dealer, to pick from, when I
used to sell to him. How he and Geordie would have gone
cutting out by the hour. They would have almost forgotten
to quarrel. Why, there isn’t a poor beast on the camp
except that cancered bullock.”
When he had completed a leisurely progress through the
panting, staring, but non-aggressive multitude, he rejoined
Mr. Hawkesbury, with the conviction strongly established in
his mind that he had never seen so many really fat cattle in
one camp before, and that the country that would do that
with a coarse, neglected herd would do anything.
Mr. Hawkesbury having asked him whether he wanted to
see anything more on that camp, and receiving no answer in
the negative, gave orders to “let the cattle go,” and the party,
proceeding to the bank of the creek, permitted their steeds to
graze at will with the reins trailing under their feet, after the
manner of stock-horses, and addressed themselves to such
moderate refreshment, in the form of junks of corned beef
and wedges of damper, as they had brought with them. Mr.
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
Hawkesbury produced a sufficient quantity for himself and
his guest, who found that the riding, the admiration, and the
novel experience had whetted his appetite.
Fairly well earned was the hour’s rest by the reeds of the
creek. Hawkesbury had at first thought of putting together
the greater part of the herd, but on reflection concluded that
the day was rather far advanced.
They were twenty miles from home. It would be as well
to defer the collection of the cattle belonging to the main
camp until the following day. In a general way it might be
thought that a ride of forty miles, exclusive of two or three
hours’ galloping at camp, was a fair day’s work. So it
would have appeared, doubtless, to the author of Guy
Livingstone, who in one of his novels describes the hero and
his good steed as being in a condition of extreme exhaustion
after a ride of thirty miles. Whyte Melville, too, who handles
equally well pen, brand, and bridle, finds the horses of
Gilbert and his friend in Good for Nothing, or All Down
Hill, reduced to such an “enfeebled condition” by sore backs,
consequent upon one day’s kangaroo-hunting, that they
are compelled to send a messenger for fresh horses a hundred
miles or more to Sydney, and to await his return in camp.
With all deference to, and sympathy with, the humanity
which probably prompted so mercifully moderate a chronicle,
we must assert that to these gifted writers little is known of
the astonishing feats of speed and endurance performed by
the ordinary Australian horse.
Hawkesbury, indeed, rather grumbled when the party
arrived at Gondaree at what he considered an indifferent
day’s work. He, his men, and their horses would have
thought it nothing “making a song aboot,” as Rob Roy says,
to have ridden to Bimbalong, camped the cattle, “cut out”
or drafted, on horseback, a couple of hundred head of fat
bullocks, and to have brought the lot safe to Gondaree stock-yard
by moonlight. This would have involved about twenty
hours’ riding, a large proportion of the work being done at
full gallop, and during the hottest part of the day. But they
had done it many a time and often. And neither the grass-fed
horses, the cattle, nor the careless horsemen were a whit
the worse for it.
However, as Mr. Hawkesbury had truly stated in their first
.bn 043.png
.pn +1
interview, the economy of time was by no means a leading
consideration on the Warroo. So the next day was devoted
to the arousing and parading of the stock within reach of the
main camp. Mr. Redgrave’s opinion, as to the number
and general value of the herd after this operation, was so
satisfactory that on the morrow he once more committed
himself to the tender mercies of the Warroo mail, and
proceeded incontinently to the metropolis, where he without
further demur concluded the bargain, and became the first
proud purchaser of Gondaree, and five thousand head of
mixed cattle, to be taken “by the books.”
Jack found the club a paradise after his sojourn in the
wilderness. At that time comparatively few men had
explored the terra incognita of Riverina with a view to
personal settlement. Therefore Jack’s fame as a man of
daring enterprise and commercial sagacity rose steadily until
it reached a most respectable altitude in the social barometer.
He alluded but sparingly to the privations and perils of his
journey, making up for this reticence by glowing descriptions
of the fattening qualities and vast extent of his newly-acquired
territory. He aroused the envy of his old companions
of the settled districts, and was besieged with applications
from the relatives of wholly inexperienced youths
from Britain, and other youngsters of Australian rearing,
who had had more experience than was profitable, to take
them back with him as assistants. These offers he was
prudent enough to decline.
His cash had been duly paid down, and the name of
John Redgrave attached to sundry bills at one and two years—bearing
interest at eight per cent.—the whole purchase-money
being about twenty thousand pounds, with right of
brand, stock-horses, station-stores, implements, and furniture
given in. What was given in, though it cost some hard
bargaining and several telegrams, was not of great value.
Among the twenty stock-horses there were about two sound
ones. The stores consisted of three bags of flour, half a bag
of sugar, and a quarter of a chest of tea. There was an old
cart and some harness, of which only the green hide portion
was “reliable.” Several iron buckets, which served indifferently
for boiling meat and carrying the moderate supplies of
water needed or, more correctly used on the establishment.
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
Of the three saddles, but one was station property. The
others belonged to Mr. Hawkesbury and the stockman.
Jack had decided to take the cattle at five thousand head
without muster, being of opinion, from the “look of the herd,”
and from a careful inspection of the station-books, wherein
the brandings had been carefully registered, and a liberal
percentage allowed for deaths and losses, that the number
was on the run. He knew from experience that a counting
muster was a troublesome and injurious operation, and that it
was better to lose a few head than to knock the whole herd
about. He therefore made all necessary arrangements for
going up and taking immediate possession of Gondaree.
His plan of operations, well considered and carefully calculated,
was this: He had sternly determined upon “clearing
off” the whole of the cattle. Sheep were the only stock fit
for the consideration of a large operator. For cattle there
could be only the limited and surely decreasing local demand.
For sheep, that is, for wool, you had the world for a market.
Wool might fall; but, like gold, its fashion was universal.
Every man who wore a Crimean shirt, every woman who wore
a magenta petticoat, was a constituent and a contributor;
the die was cast. He was impatient of the very idea of
cattle as an investment for a man of ordinary foresight. He
was not sure whether he would even be bothered with a
score or two for milkers.
To this end he now directed all his energies; and being
able to work, as Bertie Tunstall had truly observed, when he
liked, now that he was excited by the pressure of a great
undertaking—an advance along the whole line of his forces,
so to speak—he displayed certain qualities of generalship.
He first made a very good sale of all the fat cattle on the
run (binding the buyer to take a number which would give
the herd “a scraping”) to his old acquaintance Rooney, the
cattle-dealer. These were to be removed within two months
from date of sale. He left instructions with his agents,
Messrs. Drawe and Backwell, to sell the whole of the
remaining portion of the herd (reserving only twenty
milkers) as store cattle, to any one who was slow and old-fashioned
enough to desire them. He bought and despatched
stores, of a quality and variety rather different from what he
received, sufficient to last for twelve months; all the fittings
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
and accessories for a cottage and for a wool-shed,
including nails, iron roofing, doors, sashes—everything, in
fact, except the outer timber, which could be procured on
the spot. He had no idea of trusting himself to the war-prices
of the inland store-keepers. A few tons of wire for
preliminary fencing, wool-bales, tools, a dray, carts, an earth-scoop
for dam-making, well-gearing and sixty-gallon buckets,
a few tents, plough and harrow (must have some hay), a
few decent horses, an American waggon with four-horse
harness, and other articles “too numerous to mention,”
about this time found themselves on the road to Gondaree.
All these trifling matters “footed up” to a sum which
gave a temporarily reflective expression to Jack’s open
countenance. Necessaries for a sheep-station, especially
in the process of conversion from cattle ditto, have a way
of coming out strong in the addition department.
“What of that?” demanded Jack of his conscience, or
that quiet cousin-german, prudence; “a sheep-station
must be properly worked, or not at all. The first year’s
wool will pay for it all. And then the lambs!”
In order to manage a decent-sized sheep property (and
nothing is so expensive as a small one), you must have an
overseer. Jack was not going to be penny-lunatic enough
to be his own manager. And the right sort of man
must be thoroughly up to all the latest lights and discoveries—not
a working overseer, a rough, upper-shepherd sort of
individual who counted sheep and helped to make bush-yards,
but a fairly-educated modern species of centurion, whose intelligence
and knowledge of stock (meaning sheep) were combined
with commercial shrewdness and military power of
combination. A man who could tell you in a few minutes how
much a dam displacing several thousand cubic yards of earth
ought to cost; how many men, in what number of days,
should complete it; what provisions they ought to consume;
and what wages, working reasonably, they ought to earn.
A man full of the latest information as to spouts and soda,
hot water and cold, with a natural turn heightened by
experience, for determining the proportionate shades of
fineness, density, freeness, and length of staple which, in
combination, could with safety be taken as a model for the
ideal merino. A man capable of sketching, with accuracy
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
and forethought, the multifarious buildings, enclosures,
and “improvements” necessary for a sheep-station in the
first year of its existence, or of conducting the shearing
to a successful issue without them at need.
For subalterns so variously gifted a demand had of late
years grown up, owing to the large profits and wonderful
development of the wool-producing interest. Of one of these
highly-certificated “competition-wallahs” John Redgrave
had determined to possess himself.
In Mr. Alexander M‘Nab, late of Strathallan, and formerly
of Mount Gresham, he deemed that he had secured one
of the most promising and highly-trained specimens of the
type.
Sandy M‘Nab, as he was generally called, was about
eight-and-twenty years of age, the son of a small but
respectable farmer in the north of Ireland, in which
condition of life he had acquired an early knowledge of
stock, and an exceedingly sound rudimentary education.
Far too ambitious to content himself with the limited
programme of his forefathers, he had emigrated at sixteen,
and worked his way up through the various stages of
Australian bush apprenticeship, until he had reached his
present grade, from which he trusted to pass into the
ranks of the Squatocracy.
Having secured this valuable functionary, and covenanted
to pay him at the rate of three hundred per annum, his
first act was to despatch him, after a somewhat lengthy
consultation, to inspect a small lot of ten thousand ewes,
and on approval to hire men and bring them to Gondaree.
It was necessary to lose no time; lambing would be on
in June, in August shearing would be imminent. And the
cattle would require to be off, and the sheep to be on,
somewhere about April, if the first year’s operations were to
have any chance of being financially successful.
The stores having been purchased, and Mr. M‘Nab with
his letter of credit having been shipped, that alert
lieutenant, with characteristic promptitude, reporting himself
in readiness to embark at six hours’ notice, nothing remained
but for Mr. Redgrave to “render himself” again at
Gondaree in the capacity of purchaser.
He accordingly cleared out from the club with
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
alarmingly stern self-denial, and, declining to risk his
important existence in the Warroo mail, took the road
in the light American waggon, with his spare horses and a
couple of active lads accustomed to bush work.
After a journey of ordinary duration and absence of
adventure, he once more sighted the unromantic but
priceless waters of the Warroo, and beheld, with the eye
of a proprietor, the “waste lands of the Crown”—most
literally deserving that appellation—with the full right
and title to which, as lessee, he stood invested.
Mr. Hawkesbury, in apparently the same Crimean shirt,
with black and scarlet in alternate bars, stood smoking
the small myall pipe in much the same attitude at the
hut door as when Jack was borne off by two jibs and a
bolter in the Warroo mail. Bob the cook, the dark hues
of his apparel unrelieved by any shade of scarlet, appeared
in his doorway with his hands in his pockets, but betraying
unwonted interest as the cortège ascended the sandhill.
Ordering the boys to let go the horses, and to pitch the
tent, which he had used on the journey, at a safe distance
from the huts, Jack descended with a slight increase of
dignity, as of one in authority, and greeted his predecessor.
“So you’ve bought us out,” he said, after inspecting
carefully the letter which Jack handed to him, “and
I’m ordered to deliver over the cattle, and the stores,—there
ain’t much of them,—and the horses, and in fact
the whole boiling. Well, I wish you luck, sir; the run’s
a good ’un and no mistake, and the cattle are pretty fair,
considering what’s been done for ’em. I suppose you
won’t want me after you’ve taken delivery.”
“I shall be very glad if you will stay on,” quoth Jack,
whose honest heart felt averse to ousting any man from a
home, “until the cattle are cleared off; after that I shall
have another gentleman in charge of the sheep and place
generally. By staying two or three months you will oblige
me, if it suits your arrangements.”
“All right,” answered Mr. Hawkesbury: “I know the
cattle pretty well, and I dare say I can save as many as
will cover my wages. I think you’ll find them muster up
pretty close to their book-number.”
The signal shot of the campaign was fired, so to speak,
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
upon the arrival of Mr. John Rooney, who came in a few
days by appointment to take the first draft of the Gondaree
fat cattle.
Jack was sitting outside of his tent, like an Arab sheik,
and thinking regretfully of the flower-laden evening breeze
which he had so often inhaled at the same hour at Marshmead,
when a tall, soldierly-looking man rode up on a tired
horse and jumped off with an unreserved exclamation of
relief.
“Hallo! Rooney, is that you, in this uncivilized part
of the world? Rather different from the old place, isn’t it!
Come in, and I’ll have your horse hobbled out. You mustn’t
expect stables or paddock or any other luxuries on the
Warroo.”
“Sure, I know it well—my heavy curse on the same
river; there never was any dacency next or anigh it.
Didn’t they lend me a buck-jumper at Morahgil to-day, and
the first place I found myself was on the broad of my back.”
“What a shame! Did they give you another horse?”
“They did not. I rode the same devil right through.
It’s little bucking he feels inclined for now.”
“So I should think, after an eighty-mile ride. When
did you leave?”
“About twelve o’clock. I was riding all night, and got
there to breakfast. The last time I took cattle from
Morahgil I happened to knock down the superintendent
with a roping pole, maybe that’s why he treated me so—the
mane blayguard.”
“Well, he ought not to have let such a trifle dwell on
his mind, perhaps. But take a glass of grog, Rooney, while
the fellow gets your tea.”
“Faith, and I will, Masther John; and it’s sound I’ll sleep
to-night, fleas or no fleas. A man can’t do without it for
more than three nights at a time.”
In a few days the muster was duly concluded, and three
hundred prime bullocks secured in the ancient but massive
stockyard. One of Rooney’s drovers and a couple of road
hands had arrived the evening before, to whom they were
intrusted. Rooney was too great a man to be able to
afford the time to travel with his own cattle, and had,
indeed, a score of other mobs to meet, despatch, buy, or
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
sell, to arrive in as many different and distant parts of
the colony.
“Well, Masther John,” said he, “I won’t deny that I
haven’t lifted a finer mob this season. Isn’t it a murthering
fine run, when it puts the beef on them big-boned divils
like that? If ye had some of those roan steers we used
to get at the Lost Waterhole Camp, sure they wouldn’t be
able to see out of their eyes with fat. I’ll be able to get
the eight hundred out of these aisy enough. I’ll send Joe.
Best for the cows and the rest of the bullocks the
moment he’s shut of those circle-dot cattle. I must be off
down the river. I’ve a long ride before me. But, Masther
John, see here now, don’t be building too much on the saysons
in these parts. It’s not like Marshmead; I’ve seen it all
as bare as a brickfield, from the Warroo to the Oxley;
and these very cattle with their ribs up to their backbones,
and dyin’ by hundreds. D’ye hear me now? Don’t
be spending all your money before ye see how prices are
going. I’m thinking we’ll see a dale of changes in the next
three or four years—all this racin’ and jostlin’ for breeding
sheep can’t hould out. Good-bye, sir.”
And so the kindly, stalwart, shrewd cattle dealer went
on his way, and Jack saw him no more for a season.
But his warning words left an impression of doubt and
distrust upon the mind of his hearer that no caution had
previously had power to do. Was it possible that he had
made a mistake, and an irrevocable one? Was such a
change in the seasons credible, and could all his stretch
of luxuriant prairie turn into dust and ashes? It was impossible.
He had known bad seasons, or thought he had,
in the old west country; he had seen grass and water
pretty scarce, and had a lower average of fat cattle in some
seasons than others; but as to any total disappearance
of pasture, any ruinous loss of stock, such he had never
witnessed and was quite unable to realize.
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER V.
.pm start_poem
“So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.”—King Henry VI.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack had soon quite enough upon his hands to occupy him
for every waking hour and moment, to fatigue his body,
and, consequently, to lay to rest any obtrusive doubts
or fears as to the ultimate success of his undertaking.
The stores began to arrive, and he had to fix a site for
the new cottage and the indispensable wool-shed. The former
locality he selected at Steamboat Point, before alluded to
by Mr. Hawkesbury, which was a bluff near a deep reach
of the river, shaded by couba trees and river-oaks of great
age, and at an elevation far above the periodical floods which
from time to time swept the lowlands of the Warroo, and
converted its sluggish tide into a furious devastating torrent.
Sawyers were engaged, carpenters, splitters, and labourers
generally. With these, as, indeed, with all the station
employés, much conflict had to be gone through as to
prices of contract and labour. A new proprietor was
looked upon as a person of limited intelligence, but altogether
of boundless wealth, which, in greater or less degree, each
“old hand” believed it his privilege to share. It was held
to be an act of meanness and unjustifiable parsimony for
one in his position to expect to have work done at the
same rate as other people. Jack had much trouble in disabusing
them of this superstition. Eventually it came to
be admitted that “the cove knew his way about,” and “had
seen a thing or two before;” after which matters went
more smoothly.
Then letters came from Drawe and Backwell stating that
a large operator, with a million of acres or so of new country,
where “the blacks were too bad for sheep,” had bought
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
the whole of the herd, after Rooney had done drafting,
and was ready to take delivery without delay.
In due time all this hard and anxious work was accomplished.
Mr. Joe Best returned and possessed himself of
every fat bullock and every decent cow “without incumbrance”
on the place. And then the long-resident
Gondaree herd—much lowing, and fully of opinion,
judged by its demeanour, that the end of the world was
come—was violently evicted and driven off from its birthplace
in three great droves by a small army of stockmen
and all the dogs within a hundred miles.
So the cattle were “cleared off,” at low prices too, as
in after days Jack had occasion to remember. But
nobody bought store cattle in that year except as a sort of
personal favour. Nothing better could be expected.
“Well—so they’re mustered and gone at last,” said
Hawkesbury, the day after the last engagement. “Blest
if I didn’t think some of us would lose the number of our
mess. Those old cows would eat a man—let alone skiver
him. The herd came up well to their number in the books,
didn’t they? There was more of those Bimbalong cattle
than I took ’em to be. Well, there’s been a deal of money
took off this run since I came—next to nothing spent
either; that’s what I look at. I hope the sheep-racket
will do as well, sir.”
“I hope so, too, Hawkesbury,” answered Jack. “One good
season with sheep is generally said to be worth three with
cattle. I had a letter to-day from M‘Nab to say that he was on
the road with the ewes, and would be here early next month.”
“Well, then, I’ll cut my stick; you won’t want the pair
of us, and I’m not much to do with sheep, except putting
the dogs on old Boxall’s whenever I’ve caught ’em over their
boundary. You’ll have to watch him, if you get mixed, or
you’ll come short.”
“Every sheep of mine will be legibly fire-branded,”
said Jack, with a certain pride; “there’s no getting over
that, you know.”
“He’ll fire-brand too,” said Hawkesbury, “in the same
place, quick. And as his ear-mark’s a close crop, and he’s
not particular what ear, his shepherds might easy make
any stray lots uncommon like their own.”
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
“By Jove!” said Jack, rather startled at the new light
thrown on sheep management on the Warroo. “However
M‘Nab will see to that; he’s not an easy man to get round,
they say. Then, would you really prefer to leave? If so,
I’ll make out your account.”
“If you please, Mr. Redgrave. I’ve been up here five
years now; so I think I’ll go down the country, and see my
people for a bit of change. It don’t do to stay in these
parts too long at a time, unless a man wants to turn into
a black fellow or a lushington.”
On the very day mentioned in his latest despatch, Mr.
M‘Nab arrived with his ten thousand ewes; and a very good
lot they were—in excellent condition too. He had nosed
out an unfrequented back track, where the feed was unspoiled
by those marauding bands of “condottieri,” travelling sheep.
Water had been plentiful, so that the bold stroke was successful.
Pitching his tent in a sheltered spot, he sat up half
the night busy with pen and pencil, and by breakfast time
had every account made out, and all his supernumeraries
ready to be paid off. The expenses of the journey, with a
tabulated statement showing the exact cost per sheep of
the expedition, were also upon a separate sheet of paper
handed up to his employer.
From this time forth all went on with unslackening and
successful progress. M‘Nab was in his glory, and went
forth rejoicing each day, planning, calculating, ordering,
and arranging to his heart’s content. The out-stations
were chosen, the flocks drafted and apportioned, a ration-carrier
selected, bush-yards made, while, simultaneously,
the cottage walls began to arise on Steamboat Point, and the
site of the wool-shed, on a plain bordering an ana-branch
sufficient for water, but too inconsiderable for flood, was,
after careful consideration, finally decided upon. The season
was very favourable; rain fell seasonably and plentifully;
grass was abundant, and the sheep fattened up “hand over
hand” without a suspicion of foot-rot, or any of the long
train of ailments which the fascinating, profitable, but too
susceptible merino so often affects.
The more Jack saw of his new manager the more he liked
and respected him. He felt almost humiliated as he noted
his perfect mastery of every detail connected with station
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
(i.e. sheep) management, his energy, his forecast, his rapid
and easy arrangement of a hundred jarring details, and reflected
that he had purchased the invaluable services of this
gifted personage for so moderate a consideration.
“We shall not have time to get up a decent wool-shed this
year, Mr. Redgrave,” he said, at one of their first councils.
“We must have a good, substantial store, as it won’t do to
have things of value lying about. A small room alongside
will do for me till we get near shearing. We must knock up
a temporary shed with hurdles and calico, and wash the best
way we can in the creek. Next year we can go in for spouts,
and all the rest of it, and I hope we’ll be able to shear in
such a shed as the Warroo has never seen yet.”
“It’s a good while to Christmas,” said Jack. “How about
the shed if we put more men on? I don’t like make-shifts.”
“Couldn’t possibly be done in the time,” answered Mr.
M‘Nab, with prompt decision. “Lambing will keep us
pretty busy for two months. We must have shearing over by
October, or all this clover-burr that I see about will be in the
wool, and out of your pocket to the tune of about threepence
a pound. Besides, these sawyers and bush-carpenters can’t
be depended upon. They might leave us in the lurch, and
then we should neither have one thing nor the other.”
“Very well,” said Jack, “I leave that part of it to
you.”
All Mr. M‘Nab’s plans and prophecies had a fashion of
succeeding, and verifying themselves to the letter. Apparently
he forgot nothing, superintended everything, trusted
nobody, and coerced, persuaded, and placed everybody like
pawns on a chess-board. His temper was wonderfully under
command; he never bullied his underlings, but had a way of
assuring them that he was afraid they wouldn’t get on together,
supplemented on continued disapproval by a calm
order to come in and get their cheque. This system was
found to be efficacious. He always kept a spare hand or two,
and was thereby enabled to fill up the place of a deserter at
a moment’s notice.
Thus, with the aid of M‘Nab and of a good season, John
Redgrave, during the first year, prospered exceedingly. His
sheep had a capital increase, and nearly eight thousand gamesome,
vigorous lambs followed their mothers to the wash-pool.
.bn 054.png
.pn +1
The wool was got off clean, and wonderfully clear of
dirt and seed; and just before shearing Mr. M‘Nab exhibited
a specimen of his peculiar talents which also brought grist
to the mill.
It happened in this wise:—Looking over the papers one
evening he descried mention of a lot of store sheep then on
their way to town, and on a line of road which would bring
them near to Gondaree.
“This lot would suit us very well, Mr. Redgrave,” said he,
looking up from his paper, and then taking a careful transcript
in his pocket-book of their ages, numbers, and sexes.
“Seven thousand altogether—five thousand four and six
tooth wethers, with a couple of thousand ewes; if they are
good-framed sheep, with decent fleeces, and the ewes not too
old, they would pay well to buy on a six months’ bill. We
could take the wool off and have them fat on these Bimbalong
plains by the time the bill comes due.”
“How about seeing them?” quoth Jack; “they may be
Queensland sheep, with wool about half an inch long. They
often shear them late on purpose when they are going to start
them on the road. ‘They’re a simple people,’ as Sam Slick
says, those Queenslanders.”
“Of course I must see them,” answered M‘Nab. “I
never buy a pig in a poke; but they will be within a hundred
miles of us in a week, and I can ride across and see
them, and find out their idea of price. Shearing is always an
expensive business, and the same plant and hands will do
for double our number of sheep, if we can get them at a
price.”
M‘Nab carried out his intention, and, falling across the
caravan in an accidental kind of way, extracted full particulars
from the owner, a somewhat irascible old fellow, who was
convoying in person. He returned with a favourable report.
The sheep were good sheep; they had well-grown fleeces,
rather coarse; but that did not matter with fattening sheep;
they were large and would make good wethers when topped
up. The ewes were pretty fair, and not broken-mouthed.
They wanted eleven shillings all round, and they were in the
hands of Day and Burton, the stock agents.
“Now, I’ve been thinking,” said Mr. M‘Nab, meditatively,
“whether it wouldn’t pay for me to run down to Melbourne
.bn 055.png
.pn +1
by the mail—it passes to-morrow morning—and arrange the
whole thing with Day and Burton. Writing takes an awful
long time. Besides, I might knock sixpence a head off, and
that would pay for my coach-fare and time, and a good deal
over. Seven thousand sixpences are one hundred and seventy-five
pounds. Thirty pounds would take me there and back,
inside of three weeks.”
“That will only allow you two days in town,” said Jack,
“and you’ll be shaken to death in that beastly mail-cart.”
“Never mind that,” said the burly son of the “black
north,” stretching his sinewy frame. “I can stand a deal of
killing. Shall I go?”
“Oh, go by all means, if you think you can do any good.
I don’t envy you the journey.”
M‘Nab accordingly departed by the mail next morning,
leaving Jack to carry on the establishment in his absence, a
responsibility which absorbed the whole of his waking hours
so completely that he had no time to think of anything but
sheep and shepherds, with an occasional dash of dingo. One
forenoon, as he was waiting for his midday meal, having
ridden many a mile since daylight, he descried a small party
approaching on foot which he was puzzled at first to classify.
He soon discovered them to be aboriginals. First walked a
tall, white-haired old man, carrying a long fish-spear, and but
little encumbered with wearing apparel. After him a gin,
not by any means of a “suitable age” (as people say in the
case of presumably marriageable widowers), then two lean,
toothless old beldames of gins staggering under loads of
blankets, camp furniture, spare weapons, an iron pot or two,
and a few puppies; several half-starved, mangy dogs followed
in a string. Finally, the whole party advanced to within
a few paces of the hut and sat solemnly down, the old
savage sticking his spear into the earth previously with great
deliberation.
As the little group sat silently in their places bolt upright,
like so many North American Indians, Jack walked down to
open proceedings. The principal personage was not without
an air of simple dignity, and was very different of aspect from
the dissipated and debased beggars which the younger blacks
of a tribe but too often become. He was evidently of great
age, but Jack could see no means of divining whether seventy
.bn 056.png
.pn +1
years or a hundred and twenty would be the more correct
approximation. His dark and furrowed countenance, seamed
with innumerable wrinkles, resembled that of a graven image.
His hair and beard, curling and abundant, were white as snow.
His eye was bright, and as he smiled with childish good
humour it was apparent that the climate so fatal to the
incisors and bicuspids of the white invader, had spared the
larger proportion of his grinders. On Jack’s desiring to know
his pleasure, he smiled cheerfully again, and muttering “baal
dalain,” motioned to the younger female, as if desiring her to
act as interpreter. She was muffled up in a large opossum-rug
which concealed the greater part of her face; but as she
said a few words in a plaintive tone, and with a great affectation
of shyness, Jack looking at her for the first time recognized
the brilliant eyes and mischievous countenance of his
old acquaintance Wildduck.
“So it’s you?” he exclaimed, much amused, upon which
the whole party grinned responsively, the two old women
particularly. “And is this your grandfather, and all your
grandmothers; and what do you want at Gondaree?”
“This my husband, cooley belonging to me—ole man
Jack,” explained Wildduck, with an air of matronly propriety.
“Ole man Jack, he wantim you let him stay long a wash-pen
shearing time. He look out sheep no drown. Swim fust-rate,
that ole man.”
“Well, I’ll see,” replied Jack, who had heard M‘Nab say
a black fellow or two would be handy at the wash-pen—the
sheep having rather a long swim. “You can go and camp
down there by the water. How did you come to marry such
an old fellow, eh, Wildduck?”
“My fader give me to him when I picaninny. Ippai
and Kapothra, I s’pos. Black fellow always marry likit that.
White girl baal marry ole man, eh, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Never; that is, not unless he’s very rich, Wildduck.
Here’s a fig of tobacco. Go to the store and get some tea
and sugar, and flour.”
Old man Jack and his lawful but by no means monogamous
household, were permitted to camp at the Wash-pen
Creek, in readiness for the somewhat heavy list of casualties
which “throwing in” always involves. A sheep encumbered
with a heavy fleece, and exhausted by a protracted immersion,
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
often contrives to drown as suddenly and perversely as a
Lascar. Nothing short of the superior aquatic resources of a
savage prevents heavy loss occasionally. So Mr. Redgrave,
averse in a general way, for reasons of state, to having native
camps on the station, yet made a compromise in this instance.
A few sheets of bark were stripped, a few bundles of grass
cut, a few pieces of dry wood dragged up by old Nanny and
Maramie, and the establishment was complete. A short half-hour
after, and there was a cake baked on the coals, hot tea
in a couple of very black quart pots, while the odours of a
roasted opossum, and the haunch of wallaby, were by no
means without temptation to fasting wayfarers with unsophisticated
palates. As old man Jack sat near the cheerful
fire, with his eyes still keen and roving, wandering meditatively
over the still water and the far-stretching plain, as the
fading eve closed in magical splendour before his unresponsive
gaze, how much was this poor, untaught savage to be pitied,
in comparison with a happy English labourer, adscriptus
glebæ of his parish—lord of eleven babes, and twelve shillings
per week, and, though scarce past his prime, dreading increased
rheumatism and decreasing wages with every coming
winter!
For this octogenarian of one of earth’s most ancient families
had retained most of his accomplishments, a few simple
virtues, and much of his strength and suppleness; still could
he stand erect in his frail canoe, fashioned out of a single
sheet of bark, and drive her swift and safely through the
turbulent tide of a flooded river. Still could he dive like an
otter, and like that “fell beastie” bring up the impaled fish
or the amphibious turtle. Still could he snare the wild fowl,
track the honey-bee, and rifle the nest of the pheasant of
the thicket. Upon him, as, indeed, is the case with many of
the older aboriginals, the fatal gifts of the white man had no
power. He refused the fire-water; he touched not the strange
weed, by reason of the magical properties of which the souls
of men are exhaled in acrid vapour—oh, subtle and premature
cremation!—or sublimated in infinite sneezings. He
drank of the lake and of the river, as did his forefathers; he
ate of the fowls of the air and of their eggs (I grieve to add,
occasionally stale), of the forest creatures, and of the fish of
the rivers. In spite of this unauthorized and unrelieved diet,
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
lightly had the burning summers passed over his venerable
pate. The square shoulders had not bowed, the upright form
still retained its natural elasticity, while the knotted muscles
of the limbs, moving like steel rings under his sable skin,
showed undiminished power and volume.
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VI.
.pm start_poem
“Law was designed to keep a state in peace.”—Crabbe.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
The mail-trap arrived this time with unwonted punctuality,
and out of it stepped Mr. M‘Nab, “to time” as
usual, and with his accustomed cool air of satisfaction and
success.
“Made rather a better deal of it than I expected, sir,” was
his assertion, after the usual greetings. “There were several
heavy lots of store sheep to arrive, so I stood off, and went to
look at some others, and finally got these for ten and threepence.
We had a hard fight for the odd threepence; but
they gave in, and I have the agreement in my pocket.”
“You have done famously,” said Jack, “and I am ever so
glad to see you back. I have been worked to death. Every
shepherd seems to have tried how the dingoes rated the
flavour of his flock, or arranged for a ‘box’ at the least, since
you went. I have put on Wildduck’s family for retrievers
at the wash-pen.”
“Well, we wanted a black fellow or two there,” said
M‘Nab. “Throwing in is always a risky thing, but we can’t
help it this year. There’s nothing like a black fellow where
sheep have anything like a long swim.”
Jack re-congratulated himself that night upon the fortunate
possession of the astute and efficient M‘Nab, who
seemed, like the dweller at the Central Chinese “Inn of the
Three Perfections,” to “conduct all kinds of operations with
unfailing success.” In this instance he had made a sum
equalling two-thirds of his salary entirely by his own forethought
and promptitude of action. This was something like
a subaltern, and Jack, looking proud—
.pm start_poem
Far as human eye could see—
Saw the promise of the future
And the prices sheep would be.
.pm end_poem
.bn 060.png
.pn +1
The season, with insensible and subtle gradation, stole
slowly, yet surely, forward. The oat-grass waved its tassels
strangely like the familiar hay-field over many a league of
plain and meadow. The callow broods of wild fowl sailed
joyously amid the broad flags of the lagoons, or in the deep
pools of the creeks and river. The hawk screamed exultant
as she floated adown the long azure of the bright blue, changeless
summer sky. Bird, and tree, and flower told truly and
gleefully, after their fashion, of the coming of fair spring;
brief might be her stay, it is true, but all nature had time to
gaze on her richly-tinted robes and form, potently enthralling
in their sudden splendour, as are the fierce and glowing
charms of the south.
Unbroken success! The new sheep arrived and were delivered
reluctantly by their owner, who swore by all his gods
that the agents had betrayed him, and that for two pins he
would not deliver at all, but finally consented to hear reason,
and sold his cart and horses, tent and traps—yet another
bargain—to the invincible M‘Nab, departing with his underlings
by mail.
Shearing was nearly over, the last flock being washed,
when one afternoon M‘Nab came home in a high state of
dissatisfaction with everything. The men were shearing
badly; there had been two or three rows; the washers had
struck for more wages; everything was out of gear.
“I’ve been trying to find out the reason all day,” said he,
as he threw himself down on the camp-bed in his tent, with
clouded brow, “and I can think of nothing unless there is
some villainous hawker about with grog; and I haven’t seen
any cart either.”
“It’s awfully vexatious,” said Jack, “just as we were
getting through so well. What the pest is that?” By this
time, the day having been expended in mishaps and conjectures,
evening was drawing on. A dark figure came bounding
through the twilight at a high rate of speed, and, casting itself
on the tent floor, remained in a crouching, pleading position.
“Why, Wildduck,” said Jack, in amazement, “what is the
matter now? You are the most dramatic young woman. Has
a hostile brave been attempting to carry you off? or old man
Jack had a fit of unfounded jealousy? Tell us all about it.”
“That ole black gin, Nanny,” sobbed the girl, lifting up
.bn 061.png
.pn +1
her face, across which the blood from a gash on the brow
mixed freely with her tears; “that one try to kill me, she
close up choke me only for Maramie.” Here she showed her
throat, on which were marks of severe compression.
“Poor Wildduck!” said Jack, trying to soothe the excited
creature. “What made her do that? I thought yours was
a model happy family?”
“She quiet enough, only for that cursed drink. She
regular debbil-debbil when she get a glass.”
“Ay!” said M‘Nab, “just as I expected; and where did
you all get it? You’ve had a nip, too, I can see.”
“Only one glass, Mr. M‘Nab; won’t tell a lie,” deprecated
the fugitive. “That bumboat man sell shearers and washers
some. You no see him?”
“How should I see?” quoth M‘Nab; “where is he now?”
“Just inside timber by the wash-pen,” answered the girl;
“he sneak out, but leave ’em cart there.”
“I think I see my way to cutting out this pirate, or ‘bumboat,’
as Wildduck calls him,” said Jack. “The forest laws
were sharp and stern—that is, I believe, that on suspicion of
illegal grog you can capture a hawker with the strong hand
in New South Wales. So, Wildduck, you go and camp with
the carrier’s wife, she’ll take you in; and, M‘Nab, you get a
couple of horses and the ration-carrier—he’s a stout fellow—and
we’ll go forth and board this craft. We’ll do a bit of
privateering; ha, ha! ‘whate’er they sees upon the seas they
seize upon it.’”
With short preparation the little party set out in the cool
starlight. Jack put a revolver into his belt for fear of accidents.
Mr. M‘Nab had fished out the section of the Licensed
Hawkers’ Act which referred to the illegal carrying of spirits,
and, being duly satisfied that he had the law on his side, was
ready for anything. The ration-carrier was strictly impartial.
He was ready to assist in the triumph of capture, or to return
unsuccessful with an equal mind, caring not a straw which
way the enterprise went. He lit his pipe, and followed
silently. As they approached the wash-pen they became
sensible of an extraordinary noise, as of crying, talking, and
screaming—all mingled. From time to time a wild shriek
rent the air, while the rapid articulation in an unknown
tongue seemed to go on uninterruptedly.
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
“Must be another set of blacks,” said Jack, as he halted
to listen. “I hope not; one camp is quite enough on the
place at a time.”
“It’s that old sweep, Nanny, I’m thinking,” said the ration-carrier.
“When she has a drop of grog on board she can
make row enough for a whole tribe. I’ve heard her at them
games before.”
As the miami of the sable patriarch came into view, dimly
lighted by a small fire, an altogether unique scene presented
itself. The old gin, called Nanny, very lightly attired, was
marching backward and forward in front of the fire, apparently
in a state of demoniac possession. She was crying
aloud in her own tongue, with the voice at its highest pitch
of shrillness, and with inconceivable rapidity and frenzy. In
her hand she carried a long and tolerably stout wand, being,
in fact, no other than the identical yam-stick to which Wildduck
had referred as a weapon of offence, when proposing her
as a fitting antagonist for the contumacious young stockman.
With this she occasionally punctuated her rhetoric by waving
it over her head, or bringing it down with terrific violence
upon the earth. The meagre frame of the old heathen seemed
galvanised into magical power and strength as she paced
swiftly on her self-appointed course, whirling her shrivelled
arms on high, or bounding from the earth with surprising
agility. Such may have been the form, such the accents, of
the inspired prophetess in the dawn of a religion of mystery
and fear among the rude tribes of earth’s earliest peoples—a
Cassandra shrieking forth her country’s woes—a Sibyl pouring
out the dread oracles of a demon worship. The old
warrior sat unmoved, with stony eyes fixed on vacancy, as
the weird apparition passed and repassed like the phantasmagoria
of a dream; while his aged companion, who seemed
of softer mould, cowered fearfully and helplessly by his side.
“By Jove!” said Jack, “this is a grand and inspiriting
sight. I don’t wonder that Wildduck fled away from this
style of thing. This old beldame would frighten the very
witches on a respectable Walpurgis night. Great is the fire-water
of the white man!”
“She’ll wear herself out soon,” said the ration-carrier.
“Old man Jack wouldn’t stand nice about downing her with
the waddy, if she came near enough to him. He and the
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
tother old mammy, they never touches no grog. They’re
about the only two people in this part of the country as I
know of as doesn’t. But the gins is awful.”
“Polygamy has its weak side, apparently,” moralized Jack,
as still the frenzied form sped frantically past, and raved, and
yelled, and chattered, and threatened; “not but what the
uncultured white female occasionally goes on ‘the rampage’
to some purpose. Hallo! she’s shortening stride; we shall
see the finale.”
Suddenly, as if an unseen hand had arrested the force
which had so miraculously sustained her feeble form, she
stopped. The fire of her protruding eyes was quenched; her
nerveless limbs tottered and dragged; uttering a horrible,
hoarse, unnatural cry, and throwing out her arms as in
supplication and fear, she fell forward, without an effort to
save herself, almost upon the embers of the dying fire. Old
man Jack sat stern and immovable; but the woman ran forward
with a gesture of pity, and, dragging the corpse-like
form a few paces from the fire, covered it with a large
opossum-skin cloak or rug.
“We may as well be getting on towards this scoundrel of
a hawker,” proposed M‘Nab. “He ought to get it a little
hotter if it were only for this bit of mischief.”
“There’s a deal of tobacky in the grog these fellows sell,”
observed the ration-carrier, with steady conviction, “that’s
the worst of ’em; if they’d only keep good stuff, it wouldn’t
be so much matter in this black country, as one might say.
But I remember getting two glasses, only two as I’m alive,
from a hawker once; I’m blest if they didn’t send me clean
mad and stupid for a whole week.”
On the side furthest from the creek upon which the temporary
wash-pen had been constructed, and midway between
it and the plains, which stretched far to the eastward, lay a
sand-ridge or dune, covered with thick growing pines. In
this natural covert the reconnoitring party doubted not that
the disturber of their peace had concealed himself. Riding
into it, they separated until they struck the well-worn trail
which, in the pre-merino days, had formed the path by which
divers outlying cattle came in to water; following this, they
came up to a clear space where a furtive-looking fire betrayed
the camp of the unlicensed victualler. A store-cart, with the
.bn 064.png
.pn +1
ordinary canvas tilt, and the heterogeneous packages common
to the profession, were partly masked by the timber. As they
rode up rapidly a man emerged from the shadow of a large
pine and confronted them.
“Hallo! mates,” he said, in a gruff but jocular tone;
“what’s the row? You ain’t in the bushranging line, are
you? because I’ve just sent away my cheques, worse luck.”
“You’ll see who we are directly,” said Jack, jumping
down, and giving his horse to the ration-carrier. “I wish to
search your cart, that’s all. I believe you’ve been selling
spirits to my men. I’m a magistrate.”
“What d’yer mean, then, by coming here on the bounce?”
said the man, placing himself doggedly between Jack and the
cart. “You ain’t got a warrant, and I’ll see you far enough
before you touches a thing in that there cart. Why, my
wife’s asleep there.”
“No she ain’t,” said a shrill voice, as a woman disengaged
herself from the canvas, “but you don’t touch anything for
all that. We’ve our licence, ain’t we, Bill, and what’s the
use of paying money to Government if pore people can’t be
purtected?”
“Perhaps you’re not aware,” said M‘Nab, with cool accuracy,
“that by the 19th and 20th sections of the 13th
Victoria, No. 36, any magistrate or constable, on suspicion
of spirits in unlawful quantities being carried for the purpose
of sale, can search such hawker’s cart and take possession of
the spirits.”
“That’s the law,” said Jack, “and we are going to search
your cart; so stand aside, you cowardly scoundrel, making
your ill-gotten profits out of the wages of a lot of poor
fellows who have worked hard for them. Do you see this?”
Here Jack suddenly produced his revolver, and giving the
fellow a shove, which sent him staggering against a fallen
tree, took possession of the vehicle, all unheeding the
shrill tones and anything but choice language of the female
delinquent.
“Ay!” said M‘Nab, as he leaped actively into the cart,
and turned over packages of moleskin and bundles of boots,
bars of soap, and strings of dried apples, “this is all right
and square; if you had only kept to a fair trade nobody could
take ye. What’s under these blankets?”
.bn 065.png
.pn +1
Lifting a pile of loosely-spread blankets, be suddenly raised
a shout of triumph.
“So this was where the lady was sleeping, is it? Pity for
you, my man, she didn’t stay there; we should have been too
polite to raise her. The murder is out.” Here he drummed
with his hand upon a new kind of instrument—a ten-gallon
keg, half empty too. “What a lot the ruffian must have
sold.”
“What is your name?” asked Jack, blandly.
“William Smith,” answered the fellow, gruffly.
“Alias Jones, alias Dawkins, I suppose; never mind, we
shall have time to find out your early history, I dare say.
Now, William, it becomes my duty to arrest you in the
Queen’s name, and, for fear of your giving us the slip, I
must take the precaution of tying your hands behind your
back.”
Suiting the action to the word, he “muzzled” Mr. William
so suddenly and effectually that, aided by M‘Nab, there was
no great difficulty in securing him by means of a stout cord
which formed part of his own belongings.
“Keep off, Mrs. Smith, or we shall be under the necessity
of tying you up too.”
This was no superfluous warning, as with a considerable
flow of Billingsgate, and with uplifted arms, the “bumboat
woman” showed the strongest desire to injure Jack’s
complexion.
“You call yourselves men,” she screamed, “coming here
in the dead of night, three to one, and rummaging pore
people’s property like a lot of bushrangers. I’ll have the law
of ye, if you was fifty squatters—robbing the country, and
won’t let a pore man live. I’ve got money, and friends too,
as’ll see us righted. Don’t ye lay a finger on me, ye hungry,
grinding, Port Phillip Yankee slave driver”—(this to M‘Nab)—“or
I’ll claw your ugly face till your mother wouldn’t
know ye.”
“It’s my opinion and belief,” said M‘Nab, “that she
wouldn’t be far behind old Nanny, if she had that yam-stick
and another tot or two of her own grog. Here, Wilson, you
catch this fellow’s horse; there he is, hobbled under the big
tree, and put him in the shafts. Mr. Redgrave and I will
bring yours on.”
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
The ration-carrier, much entertained, did as he was told,
and Mr. William being ordered to enter his own vehicle, on
pain of being attached to the tail-board, and compelled to
walk behind, like a bullock-driver’s hackney, the procession
moved off, the ration-carrier driving, and the others riding
behind. Mrs. Smith followed for some distance, disparaging
everybody concerned, and invoking curses upon the innocent
heads of all the squatters in Riverina, but finally consented
to avail herself of the carriage.
In this order they reached Gondaree at an advanced hour
of the night; and the next day Mr. William was safely
lodged in the lock-up at the rising township of Burrabri,
thirty miles down the river. Here he languished, until a
couple of neighbouring Justices of the Peace could spare
time from their shearing to try the case, when, the needful
evidence being forthcoming, he was fined thirty pounds,
with the alternative of three months’ imprisonment in
Bochara gaol.
Hereupon his faithful companion appeared in a new light,
and made a highly practical suggestion-“You take it out,
Bill,” said the artful fair one; “don’t you go for to pay ’em
a red farden. You’ll be a deal cooler in gaol than anywhere
else in this blessed sandy country. I’ll look arter the cart
and hoss, and have all ready for a good spree at Christmas.
You’ll be out by then.”
Mr. William looked at the blue sky through the open door
of the public-house—the improvised court-house on such
occasions—but finally decided to earn an honest penny—ten
pounds per mensem, by voluntary incarceration.
When he did come forth, just before the Christmas week—alas
that the chronicler should have to record one more instance
of woman’s perfidy!—the frail partner of his guilt had
sold the horse and cart, retained the price thereof, and bolted
with “another ‘Bill,’ whose Christian name was John.”
The little episode ended, nothing occurred to mar the
onward progress of events until the last bale of wool was
duly shorn, packed, and safely deposited on a waggon en route
for the steamer and a colonial market.
Then, with a clear conscience and a feeling of intense and
cumulative satisfaction, Mr. John Redgrave betook himself
once more to the busy haunts of men. Had he been Sir
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
John Franklin, returning from a three-years’ voyage to the
North Pole, he could hardly have been more jubilant and
grateful to a kind Providence, when he again ensconced
himself in the up-train for the metropolis. He revelled and
rioted in the unwonted luxuries of town life, like a midshipman
at the Blue Posts. Bread and butter, decent cookery,
and cool claret, the half-forgotten ceremonial of dinner,
billiards, books, balls, lawn parties, ladies, luxuries of all
sorts and kinds; how delicious, how intoxicating they were!
Material advantages went hand in hand with this re-entrance
to Eden. He had very properly agreed with M‘Nab that it
was well to sell this year’s clip in the colony, as the washing
and getting up were only so-so, and wool was high. Next
year they might show the English and French buyers what
the J R brand over Gondaree was like, and reasonably hope
that every year would add to the selling price of that valuable,
extensive, and scientifically got-up clip.
Jack looked bronzed, and thinner than of old, but all his
friends, especially the ladies, voted it an improvement; he
had the air of an explorer, a dweller in the wilderness, and
what not. His wool, which followed him, sold extremely
well. Assumed to be successful, he was more popular than
ever. His bankers were urbane; he was consulted by some
of the oldest and most astute speculators; men prophesied
great things as to his ultimate financial triumphs. And Jack
already looked upon himself as forming one of the congress
of Australian Rothschilds, and began to think of all the
munificent and ingeniously helpful things that he would do in
such case; for he was of a kindly and sentimentally generous
tendency, this speculative Jack of ours, and his day-dreams
of wealth were never unmingled with the names of those who
immediately after such realization would hear something to
their advantage. Jack lingered in Paradise for a couple of
months, during which time he received his wool money, and
made arrangements with his bankers for the purchase of as
much wire as would suffice to fence a large proportion of his
run. His stores were commensurate with the future prestige
of the establishment. He explained to Mr. Mildmay Shrood,
his banker, that he might possibly put on a few thousand
more sheep if he saw a good opportunity. Of course he could
buy more cheaply for cash; and if they paid as well as the
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
lot he had picked up this year, they would be very cheap
after the wool was off their backs.
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Shrood, with an air of friendly
interest, “the bank will be most happy to honour your drafts
up to ten thousand pounds. If you need more you will be
kind enough to advise. I hear the most favourable accounts
of the district in which you have invested, and of your
property in particular. What is your own opinion—which I
should value—upon the present prices of stock and stations?
will they keep up?”
“I have the fullest belief,” quoth Jack, with judicial
certainty, “in the present rates being maintained for the next
ten years; for five years at least it is impossible by my
calculations, if correct, that any serious fall should take place.
The stock, I believe, are not in the country in sufficient
numbers to meet the rapidly enlarging demand for meat.
Wool is daily finding new markets and manufacturers. I
never expect to see bullocks above five pounds again; but
sheep—sheep, you may depend, will go on rising in price
until I should not be surprised to see first-class stations
fetching thirty shillings, or even two pounds, all round.”
“Quite of your opinion, my dear Mr. Redgrave,” quoth
the affable coin-compeller. “Happy to have my ideas
confirmed by a gentleman of so much experience. Depend
upon it, sheep-farming is in its infancy. Good morning.
Good morning, my dear sir.”
Jack saw no particular reason for hurrying himself,
being represented at Gondaree by a far better man than
himself, as he told everybody. So he spent his Christmastide
joyously, and permitted January to glide over, as a month
suitable for gradually making up his mind to return to the
wilderness. Early in February he began to feel bored with
the “too-muchness” of nothing to do, and wisely departed.
.bn 069.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VII.
.pm start_poem
“But he still governed with resistless hand,
And where he could not guide he would command.”—Crabbe.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
When Jack got back he was rather shocked at the
altered aspect of the run. There had been no rain, except
in inconsiderable quantity, during his absence, and the
herbage generally showed signs of a deficiency of moisture.
The river flats, which were so lush and heavily cropped with
green herbage that your horse’s feet made a “swish-swashing”
noise as you rode through it, now were very parched
up, dry, and bare, or else burned off altogether.
On mentioning this to Mr. M‘Nab, he said—
“Well, the fact is that the grass got very dry, and some
fellow put a fire-stick into it. Then we have had a great
number of travelling sheep through lately, and they have fed
their mile pretty bare. The season has been very dry so far.
I sincerely trust we shall get rain soon.”
“We may,” said Jack. “But when once these dry years
set in, they say you never know when it may rain again.
But how do the sheep look?”
“Couldn’t possibly look better,” answered M‘Nab, decisively.
“There is any quantity of feed and water at the
back, and I have not troubled the frontage much. I am
glad ye sent the wire up. We were nearly stopped, as it
came just as the posts were in. I have got one line of the
lambing paddock nearly finished, and we shall have that
part of the play over before long. No more shepherds and
‘motherers’ to pay in that humbugging way next year.”
“And how are the other things getting on?” inquired
Jack.
“Well, the cottage is nearly fit to go into. Your bedroom
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
is finished and ready for you. I had a garden fenced in, and
put on a Chinaman with a pump to grow some vegetables—for
we were all half-way to a little scurvy. The wool-shed is
getting along, though the carpenters went on the spree at
Bochara for a fortnight. In fact, all is doing well generally,
and I think you’ll say the sheep are improved.”
Jack lost no time in establishing himself in his bedroom in
the new cottage, which he had judiciously caused to be built
of “pise,” or rammed earth, by this means saving the cartage
of material, for the soil was dug out immediately in front of
the building, and securing coolness, solidity, and thickness
of wall, none of which conditions are to be found in weather-board
or slab buildings. Brick or stone was not, of course,
to be thought of, owing to the absence of lime, and the
tremendous expense of such materials. The heat was terrific.
But when Jack found himself the tenant of a cool, spacious
apartment, with his books, a writing-table, and a little decent
furniture, the rest of the cottage including a fair-sized sitting-room,
with walls of reasonable altitude, he did not despair of
being able to support life for the few years required for the
process of making a fortune. The river, fringed by the
graceful though dark-hued casuarinas, was pleasant enough
to look on, as it rippled on over pools and sandy shallows,
immediately below his verandah. And beyond all expression
was it glorious to bathe in by early morn or sultry
eve.
The garden, though far, far different from the lost Eden
of Marshmead, with its crowding crops, glossy shrubs, and
heavily-laden fruit trees, was still a source of interest and
pleasure. Under the unwearied labour and water-carrying
of Ah Sing, rows of vegetables appeared, grateful to the eye,
and were ravenously devoured by the employés of the station,
whom a constant course of mutton, damper, and tea—tea,
damper, and mutton—had led to, as M‘Nab said truly, the
border-land of one of the most awful diseases that scourge
humanity. Never before had a cabbage been grown at
Gondaree, and the older residents looked with a kind of awe
at Ah Sing as he watered his rows of succulent vegetables,
toilsomely and regularly, in the long hot mornings and
breezeless afternoons.
“My word, John,” said Jingaree, who had ridden over
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
from Jook-jook one day on no particular business, but to
look at the wonderful improvements which afforded the
staple subject of conversation that summer on the Warroo,
“you’re working this garden-racket fust chop. I’ve been
here eight year, and never see a green thing except marsh-mallers
and Warrigal cabbage. How ever do you make
’em come like that?”
“Plenty water, plenty dung, plenty work, welly good
cabbagee,” said Ah Sing, sententiously. “Why you not grow
melon, tater, ladishee?”
“I don’t say we mightn’t,” said Jingaree, half soliloquizing,
“but it’s too hot in these parts to be carrying water
all day long like a Chow. Give us one of them cabbages,
John.”
“You takee two,” quoth the liberal celestial. “Mr.
Mackinab, he say, give um shepherdy all about. You
shepherdy?”
“You be hanged!” growled the insulted stockman. “Do
I look like a slouchin’, ’possum-eating, billy-carrying crawler
of a shepherd? I’ve had a horse under me ever since I
was big enough to know Jingaree mountain from a haystack,
and a horse I’ll have as long as I can carry a stock-whip.
However, I don’t suppose you meant any offence,
John. Hand over the cabbages. Blest if I couldn’t eat
’em raw without a mossel of salt.”
“Here tomala—welly good tomala,” said the pacific
Chinaman, appalled at the unexpected wrath of the stranger.
“Welly good cabbagee, good-bye.”
Jack being comfortably placed in his cottage, took a
leisurely look through his accounts. He was rather astonished,
and a little shocked, to find what a sum he had got
through for all the various necessaries of his position.—Stores,
wages, contract payments, wire, blacksmith, carpenters,
sawyers, bricklayers (for the wash-pen and the
cottage chimneys).—Cheque, cheque, there seemed no end to
the outflow of cash—and a good deal more was to come, or
rather to go, before next lambing, washing, and shearing
were concluded. He mentioned his ideas on the subject to
Mr. M‘Nab.
That financier frankly admitted that the outlay was large,
positively but not relatively. “You understand, sir,” he
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
said, “that much of this money will not have to be spent
twice. Once have your fences up, and breed up, or buy, till
you have stocked your run, and you are at the point where
the largest amount of profit, the wool and the surplus sheep,
is met by the minimum of expenditure. No labour will be
wanted but three or four boundary riders. The wool, I think,
will be well got up, and ought to sell well.”
“I dare say,” said Jack, “I dare say. It’s no use stopping
half way, but really, the money does seem to run out as
from a sieve. However, it will be as cheap to shear 40,000
sheep as twenty. So I shall decide to stock up as soon as
the fences are finished.”
This point being settled, Mr. M‘Nab pushed on his projects
and operations with unflagging energy. He worked all day
and half the night, and seemed to know neither weariness nor
fatigue of mind or body. He had all the calculations of all
the different contracts at his fingers’ ends, and never permitted
to cool any of the multifarious irons which he had in
the fire.
He kept the different parties of teamsters, fencers, splitters,
carpenters, sawyers, dam-makers, well-sinkers, all in hand,
going smoothly and without delay, hitch, or dissatisfaction.
He provided for their rations being taken to them, kept all
the accounts accurately, and if there was so much as a sheepskin
not returned, as per agreement, the defaulter was
regularly charged with it. Incidentally, and besides all this
work, sufficient for two ordinary men, he administered the
shepherds and their charge—now amounting to nearly 30,000
sheep. Jack’s admiration of his manager did not slacken or
change. “By Jove!” he said to himself, occasionally, “that
fellow M‘Nab is fit to be a general of division. He never
leaves anything to chance, and he seems to foresee everything
and to arrange the cure before the ailment is announced.”
The cottage being now finished, Jack began to find life
not only endurable, but almost enjoyable. He had got up a
remnant of his library, and with some English papers, and
the excellent weeklies of the colonies, he found that he had
quite as much mental pabulum as he had leisure to consume.
The sheep were looking famously well. The lambs were nearly
as big in appearance as their mothers. The store sheep had
fattened, and would be fit for the butcher as soon as their
.bn 073.png
.pn +1
fleeces were off. The shepherds, for a wonder, gave no
trouble, the ground being open, and their flocks strong; all
was going well. The wool-shed was progressing towards
completion; the wash-pen would follow suit, and be ready for
the spouts, with all the latest improvements, which were even
now on the road. Unto Jack, as he smoked in the verandah
at night, gazing on the bright blue starry sky, listening to the
rippling river, came freshly once more the beatific vision of
a completely-fenced and fully-stocked run, paying splendidly,
and ultimately taken off his hands at a profit, which should
satisfy pride and compensate privation.
He and Mr. M‘Nab had also become accustomed to the
ways of the population. “I thought at first,” said Jack,
“that I never set eyes on such a set of duffers and loafers
as the men at the Warroo generally. But I have had to
change my opinion. They only want management, and I
have seen some of the best working men among them I ever
saw anywhere. One requires a good deal of patience in a
new country.”
“They want a dash of ill temper now and then,” rejoined
M‘Nab. “It’s very hard, when work is waiting for want
of men, to see a gang of stout, lazy fellows going on,
refusing a pound and five-and-twenty shillings a week,
because the work is not to their taste.”
“But do they?” inquired Jack.
“There were five men refused work from one of the fence
contractors at that price yesterday,” said M‘Nab, wrathfully.
“They wouldn’t do the bullocking and only get
shepherds’ wages, was the answer. I had the travellers’
hut locked up, and not a bit of meat or flour will any
traveller get till we get men.”
“That doesn’t seem unjust,” said Jack. “I don’t see
that we are called upon to maintain a strike against our
own rate of wages, which we do in effect by feeding all the
idle fellows who elect to march on. But don’t be hard on
them. They can do us harm enough if they try.”
“I don’t see that, sir. The salt-bush won’t burn, and
they would never think of anything else. They must be
taught in this part of the world that they will not be
encouraged to refuse fair wages. Now we are talking about
rates—seventeen and sixpence is quite enough to give a
.bn 074.png
.pn +1
hundred for shearing. We must have an understanding
with the other sheep-owners, and try and fix it this year.”
Whether intimidated by the determined attitude of Mr.
M‘Nab, or because men differ in their aspirations, on the
Warroo as in other places, the next party of travellers
thankfully accepted the contractors’ work and wages, and
buckled to at once. They were, in fact, a party of navvies
just set free from a long piece of contract, and this putting
up posts, pretty hard work, was just what they wanted.
M‘Nab fully believed it was owing to him, and mentally
vowed to act with similar decision in the next case of
mutiny. A steady enforcement of your own rules is what
the people here look for, thought he.
The seasons glided on. Month after month of Jack’s life,
and of all our lives, fleeted past, and once again shearing
became imminent. The time did not hang heavily on his
hands; he rose at daylight, and after a plunge in the river
the various work of each day asserted its claims, and our
merino-multiplier found himself wending his way home at
eve as weary as Gray’s ploughman, only fit for the consumption
of dinner and an early retreat to his bedroom. A more
pretentious and certainly more neatly-arrayed artist—indeed,
a cordon bleu, unable to withstand the temptations
of town life—had succeeded Bob the cook. Now that
the cottage was completed, and reasonable comfort and
coolness were attainable, Jack told himself that it was not
such a bad life after all. A decent neighbour or two had
turned up within visiting distance—that is under fifty
miles. The constant labour sweetened his mental health,
while the “great expectations” of the flawless perfection of
the new wool-shed, the highly improved wash-pen, and the
generally triumphant success of the coming clip, lent ardour
to his soul and exultation to his general bearing. M‘Nab,
as usual, worked, and planned, and calculated, and organized
with the tireless regularity of an engine. Chiefly by his
exertions and a large emission of circulars, the Warroo
sheep-holders had been roused to a determination to reduce
the price of shearing per hundred from twenty shillings
to seventeen and sixpence. This reduced rate, in spite of
some grumbling, they were enabled to carry out, chiefly
owing to an unusual abundance of the particular class of
.bn 075.png
.pn +1
workmen concerned. The men, after a few partial strikes,
capitulated. But they knew from whence the movement
had emanated, and were not inclined altogether to forget
the fact. Indeed, of late M‘Nab, from overwork and concentration
of thought, had lost his originally imperturbable
manner. He had got into a habit of “driving” his men,
and bore himself more nearly akin to the demeanour of
the second mate on board a Yankee merchantman than
the superintendent of the somewhat free and independent
workmen of an Australian colony.
“He’s going too fast, that new boss,” said one of the
wash-pen hands one day, as Mr. M‘Nab, unusually chafed at
the laziness of one of the men who were helping to fit a
boiler, had, in requital of some insolent rejoinder, knocked
him down, and discharged him on the spot. “He’ll get a
rough turn yet, if he don’t look out—there’s some very
queer characters on the Warroo.”
And now the last week of July had arrived. The season
promised to be early. The grasses were unusually forward,
while the burr-clover, matted and luxuriant, made it evident
that rather less than the ordinary term of sunshine would
suffice to harden its myriads of aggressively injurious seed-cylinders.
The warning was not unnoticed by the ever-watchful
eye of M‘Nab.
“There will be a bad time with any sheds that are unlucky
enough to be late this year,” he said, as Jack and he were
inspecting the dam and lately-placed spouts of the wash-pen;
“that’s why I’ve been carrying a full head of steam lately,
to get all in order this month. Thank goodness, the shed
will be finished on Saturday, and I’m ready for a start on
the first of August.”
Of a certainty, every one capable of being acted upon by
the contagion of a very uncommon degree of energy had been
working at high pressure for the last two months. Paddocks
had been completed; huts were ready for the washers and
shearers. The great plant, including a steam-engine, had
been strongly and efficiently fitted at the wash-pen, where a
dam sent back the water for a mile, to the great astonishment
of Jingaree and his friends, who occasionally rode
over, as a species of holiday, to inspect the work.
“My word,” said this representative of the Arcadian, or
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
perhaps Saturnian, period. “I wonder what old Morgan
would say to all this here tiddley-winkin’, with steam-engine,
and wire-fences, and knock-about men at a pound a week,
as plenty as the black fellows when he first came on the
ground. They’ll have a Christy pallis yet, and minstrels
too, I’ll be bound. They’ve fenced us off from our Long
Camp, too, with that cussed wire. Said our cattle went
over our boundary. Boundaries be blowed! I’ve seen
every herd mixed from here to Bochara, after a dry season.
Took men as knew their work to draft ’em again, I can tell
you. If these here fences is to be run up all along the
river, any Jackaroo can go stock-keeping. The country’s
going to mischief.”
Winding up with this decided statement of disapproval,
Mr. Jingaree thus delivered himself at a cattle muster at
one of the old-fashioned stations, where the ancient manners
and customs of the land were still preserved in an uncorrupted
state. The other gentlemen, Mr. Billy the Bay,
from Durgah, Mr. Long Jem, from Deep Creek, Mr. Flash
Jack, from Banda Murranul, and a dozen other representatives
of the spur and stock-whip, listened with evident
approbation to Jingaree’s peroration. “The blessed country’s
a blessed sight too full,” said Mr. Long Jem. “I mind the
time when, if a cove wanted a fresh hand, he had to ride to
Bochara and stay there a couple of days, till some feller had
finished knockin’ down his cheque. Now they can stay at
home, and pick and choose among the travellers at their
ease. It’s these blessed immigrants and diggers as spoils
our market. What right have they got to the country, I’d
like to know?”
This natural but highly protective view of the labour
question found general acquiescence, and nothing but the
absurd latter-day theories of the necessity of population, and
the freedom of the individual, prevented, in their opinion, a
return of the good old times, when each man fixed the rate
of his own remuneration.
Meanwhile Mr. M‘Nab’s daring innovations progressed
and prospered at the much-changed and highly-improved
Gondaree. On Saturday afternoon Redgrave and his
manager surveyed, with no little pride, the completed and
indeed admirable wool-shed. Nothing on the Warroo had
.bn 077.png
.pn +1
ever been seen like it. Jack felt honestly proud of his new
possession, as he walked up and down the long building.
The shearing floor was neatly, even ornamentally, laid with
the boards of the delicately-tinted Australian pine. The
long pens which delivered the sheep to the operator were
battened on a new principle, applied by the ever-inventive
genius of M‘Nab. There were separate back yards and
accurately divided portions of the floor for twenty shearers.
The roof was neatly shingled. All the appliances for saving
labour were of the most modern description, and as different
from the old-world contrivances in vogue among the wool-sheds
of the Warroo as a threshing-machine from a pair of
flails. The wool-press alone had cost more as it stood ready
for work than many a shed, wash-pen, huts, and yards of the
old days.
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VIII.
.pm start_poem
“The crackling embers glow,
And flakes of hideous smoke the skies defile.”—Crabbe.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
“There is accommodation for more shearers than we
shall need this year,” said M‘Nab, apologetically, “but it is
as well to do the thing thoroughly. Next year I hope we
shall have fifty thousand to shear, and if you go in for some
back country I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a hundred
thousand sheep on the board before you sell out. That
will be a sale worth talking about. Meanwhile, there’s
nothing like plenty of room in a shed. The wool will be
all the better this year even for it.”
“I know it has cost a frightful lot of money,” said Jack,
pensively, practising a gentle gallop on the smooth, pale-yellow,
aromatic-scented floor. “I dare say it will be a
pleasure to shear in it, and all that—but it’s spoiled a
thousand pounds one way or the other.”
“What’s a thousand pounds?” said M‘Nab, with a sort
of gaze that seemed as though he were piercing the mists of
futurity, and seeing an unbroken procession of tens of thousands
of improved merinos marching slowly and impressively
on to the battens, ready to deliver three pounds and a-half
of spout-washed wool at half-a-crown a pound. “When you
come to add a penny or twopence a pound to a large clip,
all the money you can spend in a wash-pen, or a shed, is repaid
in a couple of years. Of course I mean when things
are on a large scale.”
“Well, we’re spending money on a large scale,” said
Jack. “I only hope the returns and profits will be in the
same proportion.”
“Not a doubt of it,” said M‘Nab. “I must be off home
to meet the fencers.”
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
The shed was locked up, and they drove home. As they
alighted, three men were standing at the door of the store,
apparently waiting for the “dole”—a pound of meat and a
pannikin of flour, which is now found to be the reasonable
minimum, given to every wayfarer by the dwellers in Riverina,
wholly irrespective of caste, colour, indisposition to
work, or otherwise, “as the case may be.”
Jack went into the house to prepare for dinner, while
M‘Nab, looking absently at the men, took out a key and
made towards the entrance to the store.
“Stop,” cried M‘Nab, “didn’t I see you three men on
the road to-day, about four miles off? Which way have you
come?”
“We’re from down the river,” said one of the fellows,
a voluble, good-for-nothing, loafing impostor, a regular
“coaster” and “up one side of the river and down the
other” traveller, as the men say, asking for work, and
praying, so long as food and shelter are afforded, that he
may not get it. “We’ve been looking for work this weeks,
and I’m sure, sliding into an impressive low-tragedy growl,
the ’ardships men ’as to put up with in this country—a-travellin’
for work—no one can’t imagine.”
“I dare say not,” said M‘Nab; “it’s precious little you
fellows know of hardships, fed at every station you come to,
taking an easy day’s walk, and not obliged to work unless
the employment thoroughly suits you. How far have you
come to-day?”
There was a slight appearance of hesitation and reference
to each other as the spokesman answered—“From Dickson’s,
a station about fifteen miles distant.”
“You are telling me a lie,” said M‘Nab, wrathfully. “I
saw you sitting down on your swags this morning at the
crossing-place, five miles from here, and the hut-keeper on
the other side of the river told me you had been there all
night and had only just left.”
“Well, suppose we did,” said another one, who had not
yet spoken, “there’s no law to make a man walk so many
miles a day, like travelling sheep. I dare say the squatters
would have that done if they could. Are you going to give
us shelter here to-night, or no?”
“I’ll see you hanged first!” broke forth M‘Nab, indignantly;
.bn 080.png
.pn +1
“what, do you talk about shelter in weather like
this! A rotten tree is too good a lodging for a set of lazy,
useless scoundrels, who go begging from station to station
at the rate of five miles a day.”
“We did not come far to-day, it is true,” said the third
traveller, evidently a foreigner; “but we have a far passage
to-morrow. Is it not so, mes camarades?”
“Far enough, and precious short rations too, sometimes,”
growled the man who had spoken last. “I wish some coves
had a taste on it themselves.”
“See here, my man,” said M‘Nab, going close up to the last
speaker, and looking him full in the eye, “if you don’t start
at once I’ll kick you off the place, and pretty quickly too.”
The man glared savagely for a moment, but, seeing but
little chance of coming off best in an encounter with a man
in the prime of youth and vigour, gave in, and sullenly
picked up his bundle.
The Frenchman, for such he was, turned for a moment,
and fixing a small glittering eye—cold and serpentine—upon
M‘Nab, said—
“It is then that you refuse us a morsel of food, the liberty
to lie on the hut floor?”
“There is the road,” repeated M‘Nab; “I will harbour
no impostors or loafers.”
“I have the honour to wish you good-evening,” said the
Frenchman, bowing with exaggerated politeness; “a pleasant
evening, and dreams of the best.”
The men went slowly on their way. M‘Nab went into
the cottage, by no means too well satisfied with himself. A
feeling of remorse sprang up within his breast. “Hang the
fellows!” said he to himself, “it serves them right. Still I
am going in to a comfortable meal and my bed, while these
poor devils will most probably have neither. That Frenchman
didn’t seem a crawler either, though I didn’t like the
expression of his eye as he moved away. They’ll make up
for it at Jook-jook to-morrow. Why need they have told
me that confounded lie? then they would have been treated
well. However, it can’t be helped. If we don’t give them
a lesson now and then the country will get full of fellows
who do nothing but consume rations, and fair station work
will become impossible.”
.bn 081.png
.pn +1
Early next morning—it was Sunday, by the way—Jack
was turning round for another hour’s snooze, an indulgence
to which he deemed himself fairly entitled after a hard
week’s work, when Mr. M‘Nab’s voice (he was always up
and about early, whatever might be the day of the week)
struck strangely upon his ear. He was replying to one of
the station hands; he caught the words—“The shed! God
in heaven—you can’t mean it!” Jack was out of bed with
one bound, and, half clad, rushed out. M‘Nab was saddling
a horse with nervous hands that could scarcely draw
a buckle.
“What is it, man?” demanded Redgrave, with a sinking
at the heart, and a strange presentiment of evil.
“The wool-shed’s a-fire, sir!” answered the man, falteringly,
“and I came in directly I seen it to let you know.”
“On fire! and why didn’t you try and put it out?” inquired
he, hoarsely, “there were plenty of you about there.”
He was hoping against hope, and was scarcely surprised
when the man said, in a tone as nearly modulated to sympathy
as his rough utterance could be subdued to—
“The men are hard at it, sir, but I’m afraid——”
Jack did not wait for the conclusion of the sentence,
but made at once for the loose-box where his hack had
been lately bestowed at night, and in a couple of minutes
was galloping along the lately-worn “wool-shed track” at
some distance behind M‘Nab, who was racing desperately
ahead.
Before he reached the creek upon which the precious and
indispensable building had been, after much careful planning
erected, he saw the great column of smoke rising
through the still morning air, and knew that all was
lost. He knew that the pine timber, of which it was chiefly
composed, would burn “like a match,” and that if not
stifled at its earliest commencement all the men upon the
Warroo could not have arrested its progress. As he galloped
up a sufficiently sorrowful sight met his eye. The
shearers, washers, and some other provisional hands, put on
in anticipation of the unusual needs of shearing time, were
standing near the fiercely-blazing structure, with fallen roof
and charred uprights, which but yesterday had been the best
wool-shed on the Warroo. The deed was done. There was
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
absolutely no hope, no opportunity of saving a remnant of
the value of five pounds of the whole costly building.
“How, in the name of all that’s—” said he to M‘Nab, who
was gazing fixedly beyond the red smouldering mass, as
if his ever-working mind was already busied beyond the
immediate disaster, “did the fire originate? It was never
accidental. Then who could have had the smallest motive
to do us such an injury?”
“I am afraid I have too good a guess,” answered M‘Nab.
“But of that by and by. Did you see any strange men
camp here last night?” he asked of the crowd generally.
“Travellers?” said one of the expectant shearers. “Yes,
there was three of ’em came up late and begged some rations.
I was away after my horse as made off. When I found him
and got back it was ten o’clock at night, and these coves
was just making their camp by the receiving-yard.”
“What like were they?”
“Two biggish chaps—one with a beard, and a little man,
spoke like a ’Talian or a Frenchman.”
“Did they say anything?”
“Well, one of them—the long chap—began to run you
down; but the Frenchman stopped him, and said you was
too good to ’em altogether.”
“Who saw the shed first?”
“I did, sir,” said one of the fencers. “I turned out at
daylight to get some wood, when the fust thing I saw was
the roof all blazin’ and part of it fell in. I raised a shout
and started all the men. We tried buckets, but, lor’ bless
you, when we come to look, the floor was all burned through
and through.”
“Then you think it had been burning a good while?”
asked Jack, now beginning to understand the drift of the
examination.
“Hours and hours, sir,” answered the man; “from what
we see, the fire started under where the floor joins the
battens; there was a lot of shavings under the battens, and
some of them hadn’t caught when we came. It was there
the fire began sure enough.”
“Did any one see the strange men leave?” asked M‘Nab,
with assumed coolness, though his lip worked nervously, and
his forehead was drawn into deep wrinkles.
.bn 083.png
.pn +1
“Not a soul,” said another of the hands. “I looked over
at their camp as we rushed out, and it was all cleared out,
and no signs of ’em.”
John Redgrave and his manager rode back very sadly to
Steamboat Point that quiet Sunday morn. The day was fair
and still, with the added silence and hush which long training
communicates to the mere idea of the Sabbath day.
The birds called strangely, but not unmusically, from the
pale-hued trees but lately touched with a softer green. The
blue sky was cloudless. Nature was kindly and serene. Nothing
was incongruous with her tranquil and tender aspect
but the stern, tameless heart of man.
They maintained for some time a dogged silence. The loss
was bitter. Not only had rather more money been spent
upon the building than was quite advisable or convenient,
but the whole comfort, pride, and perhaps profit, of the
shearing would be lost.
“Those infernal scoundrels,” groaned M‘Nab; “that
snake of a Frenchman, with his beady black eyes. I
thought the little brute meant mischief, though I never
dreamed of this, or I’d have gone and slept in the shed till
shearing was over. I’ll have them in gaol before a week’s
over their heads, but what satisfaction is there in that?
It’s my own fault in great part. I ought to have known
better, and not have been so hard on them.”
“I was afraid,” said Jack, “that you were a little too
sharp with these fellows of late. I know, too, what they
are capable of. But no one could have foreseen such an
outrage as this. The next thing to consider is how to
knock up a rough makeshift that we can shear in.”
“That doesn’t give me any trouble,” answered the spirit-stricken
M‘Nab; “we could do as we did last year; but the
season is a month forwarder, and we shall have the burrs
and grass-seed in the wool as sure as fate. But for that, I
shouldn’t so much care.”
M‘Nab departed gloomily to his own room, refusing consolation,
and spent the rest of the day writing circulars
containing an accurate description of the suspected ones to
every police-station within two hundred miles.
Then it came to pass that the three outlaws were soon
snapped up by a zealous sergeant, “on suspicion of having
.bn 084.png
.pn +1
committed a felony,” and safely lodged in Bochara gaol.
There did they abide for several weary months, until the
Judge of the Circuit Court was graciously pleased to come
and try them.
The loss in the first instance was sufficiently great. The
labour of many men for nearly a year; every nail, every
ounce of iron contained in the large building had been
brought from Melbourne; the sawyers’ bill was considerable.
Twice had the men employed to put on the shingles
deserted, and the finishing of the roof was regarded by the
anxious M‘Nab as a kind of miracle. The sliding doors, the
portcullises, the hundreds of square feet of battening, the
circular drafting-yard; all the very latest appliances and
improvements, united to very solid and perfect construction,
made an unusual though costly success. And now, to
see it wasted, and worse than wasted. “It is enough to
make one believe in bad luck, Mr. Redgrave!” said Mr.
M‘Nab, who had just quitted his bedroom.
“I am afraid it means bad luck for this season,” pursued
he; “our wool will be got up only middling, and if prices
take a turn downward it will be very puzzling to say what
the damage done by this diabolical act of arson will amount
to.”
“We must hope for the best,” said Jack, who, feeling
things very keenly at the time, had a great dislike to the
protracted torture which dwelling upon misfortunes always
inflicts upon men of his organization. “The deed is done.
To-morrow we must rig up a second edition of last year’s
proud edifice.”
The sheep were shorn, certainly. Mr. Redgrave did not
exactly permit the crop of delicate, creamy, serrated, elastic,
myriad-threaded material to be torn off by the salt-bushes,
or to become ragged and patchy on the sheeps’ backs. But
the pleasure and pride of the toilsome undertaking, the light
and life of the pastoral harvest, were absent. There was a
total absence of rain; so there was a good deal of unavoidable
dust. The men could not be got to take the ordinary
amount of pains; so the work was thoroughly unsatisfactory.
Then, in spite of all the haste and indifferent workmanship
purposely overlooked by M‘Nab, the grass-seed and clover-burr
ripened only too rapidly, and the ewes and lambs,
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
coming last, were choke-full of it. The lower part of every
fleece was like a nutmeg-grater with the hard, unyielding,
hooked and barbed tentacles. M‘Nab groaned in spirit as
he saw all this unnecessary damage, which he was powerless
to prevent, and again and again cursed the hasty word
and lack of self-control which, as he fully believed, had
indirectly caused this never-ending mischief.
“A thousand for the shed, and another thousand for
damage to wool,” said he one day, as he flung one of these
last porcupine-looking fleeces with a disgusted air into a
rude wool-bin made of hurdles placed on end. “It’s enough
to make a man commit suicide. I feel as if I ought to walk
to Melbourne with peas in my boots.”
“Never mind, M‘Nab,” said Jack, consolingly; “as I
said before, the thing is done and over, and we may make
ourselves miserable, and so injure our thought and labour
fund. But that won’t build the shed again. Luckily the
sheep are all right—they couldn’t burn them. I never saw
a better lot of lambs, and the numbers are getting up to
the fifty thousand I once proposed as a limit. What’s the
total count we have passed through?”
“Forty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty,” answered
M‘Nab, who always had anything connected with numerals
at his fingers’ ends. “We have bought several small lots
since last year, and the lambing average was very high. Of
course the lambs don’t actually count till weaning time.”
“Well, we must only hope for a good season,” said Jack,
“and for wool and prices to keep up. Then, perhaps, the
loss of the shed won’t be so telling. We ought to have a
good many fat sheep to sell in the winter.”
“So we shall,” said M‘Nab, “nearly ten thousand—counting
the full-mouthed and cull ewes. Then we shall have
lambs from nearly sixteen thousand ewes next year. I hope
the season will not fail us, now the paddocks are all finished.”
“Well, it does look rather dry,” admitted Jack; “so
early in the year too. But then it always looks dry here
when it doesn’t rain. I shall have to run away to Melbourne
now, and arrange whether to sell or ship this only
moderately well-got-up wool of ours. I must have another
interview with Mr. Shrood. It has been all spending and
no returns of late.”
.bn 086.png
.pn +1
Shearing being over—how differently concluded to what
he had fondly anticipated! Jack hied himself to town for
his annual holiday. It did not wear so much the air of a
festival this year. There seemed to be a flavour of stern
business about it; much more than Jack liked.
The wool-market was by no means in so buoyant a condition
as that of last year. The faces of his brother squatters,
especially those of the more enterprizing among them, wore
a serious and elongated expression. Ugly reports went
about as to a probable fall in wool and stock. Jack found
his indifferently got-up clip quite unsaleable in the colonial
market. He therefore shipped it at once, taking a fair
advance thereon. Freight, too, was unreasonably high that
year. Everything seemed against a fellow.
He went in for the little interview with Mr. Mildmay
Shrood, and thought that affable money-changer less agreeable
than of yore. “He wanted to know, you know.” He
asked a series of questions, testifying a desire to have the
clearest idea of Jack’s stock, value of property, liabilities,
and probable expenditure during the coming year. He
dwelt much upon the unfortunate destruction of the wool-shed;
asked for an estimate of the cost of another; looked
rather grave at the account of the get-up of the clip, and
the necessity for shipping the same. However, the concluding
portion of the interview was more reassuring.
“Of course you will continue to draw as usual, my dear
sir; but I may say, in confidence, that in commercial circles
a fall in prices is very generally anticipated.”
“There may be a temporary decline,” rejoined Jack,
candidly, “but it is impossible that it should be lasting. As
for sheep, the stock are not at present in the country to
enable us to keep up with the demand, especially since these
meat-preserving establishments have commenced operations.”
“Quite so, my dear sir, quite so,” assented Mr. Shrood,
looking paternally at him and rubbing his hands, “I am
quite of your opinion; but some of our directors have doubts—have
doubts. Would you mind looking in before you go—say
in a week or two? Thanks. Good-day—good-day.”
Jack attended the wool-sales pretty regularly, and saw the
clips which were undeniably well got up sell at good prices,
in spite of the general dullness of the market. The clip was
.bn 087.png
.pn +1
an unusually heavy one, and every day’s train brought down
trucks upon trucks of bales, as if the interior of Australia
was one colossal wool-store, just being emptied at the command
of an enchanter. But the “heavy and moity” parcels
were not touched by the cautious operators at any price.
So Jack groaned in spirit, doubting that he might come in
for a low market at home, and knowing that he would have
saved himself but for the woful work of the incendiaries.
He did not derive much comfort from the daring spirits
whose early and successful ventures had inspired him with
the first ideas of changing his district. They walked about
like people who owned a private bank, but upon which bank
there happened to be, at present, a run. They were, as a
rule, men far too resolute to give in during adversity, or the
threatening of any, how wild soever, commercial tempest.
Still they looked sternly defiant, as who should say—“to
bear is to conquer our fate.” Jack did not enjoy the probabilities.
These were brass pots of approved strength for
floating in the eddying financial torrents. Might not he,
an earthen vessel, meet with deadly damage, fatal cracks,
irrevocable immersion, in their company? “Que diable
allait-il faire dans cette galère?”
He sent up his stores, making a close calculation as to
quantity. There would not be so many men required after
this shearing. The paddocks were all finished, and few
hands would be needed. Then he had doors and windows,
and hinges and nails, and tons of galvanized iron for roofing
for the shed—all over again. Confound it! Just as a fellow
was hoping to get a little straight. Jack did feel very
unchristian. However, it was as necessary as tea and
sugar—that is, if he ever intended to get a decent price for
his wool again. Somewhat earlier in the season than usual,
Jack commenced to revolve the question of a start. Then
he bethought himself of Mr. Mildmay Shrood.
“I wonder what he wanted to see me for?” asked Jack
of his inner consciousness; “very civil, friendly little fellow
he is. I suspect my over-draft is pretty heavy just now.
But the fencing is all done, that’s a blessing. And forty
thousand sheep and a first-class run are good security for
more money than I’m ever likely to owe.”
So Mr. Redgrave hied away to the grand freestone portals
.bn 088.png
.pn +1
which guarded the palace of gold and silver, and the magic
paper which gladdeneth the heart of man, who reflecteth not
that it is but a fiction—a “baseless fabric”—an unsubstantial
presentment of the potentiality of boundless wealth.
Mr. Shrood was examining papers when he was ushered
into the sacred parlour, and looked rather more like the
dragon in charge of the treasure than the careless, openhanded
financier of Jack’s previous experience, whose sole
business in life seemed to be to provide cheque-books ad
infinitum with graceful indifference. As he ran his eye
down column after column of figures, his brow became corrugated,
his jaw became set, and his face gradually assumed
an expression of hardness and obstinacy.
Throwing down the last of the papers, and clearing his
brow with sudden completeness, he shook hands affectionately
with Jack, and gently anathematized the papers for
their tediousness and stupidity.
“Awfully wearing work, Mr. Redgrave, this looking over
the accounts of a large estate. I feel as fatigued as if I
had been at it all night. How are you, and when do you
leave?”
“I think the day after to-morrow,” said Jack. “I’m
really tired of town, and wish to get home again.”
“Tired of the town, and of all its various pleasures,”
asked Mr. Shrood, “at your age? Well, of course you are
anxious to be at work again—very creditable feeling. By
the way, by the way, now I think of it—you haven’t encumbered
your place by mortgage or in any other way during
the last year, have you?”
“Sir,” replied Jack, with dignity, “I regard my property
as pledged in honour to your bank, by which I have been
treated hitherto with liberality and confidence. I trust
that our relations may continue unaltered.”
“Certainly, my dear sir, certainly,” replied Mr. Mildmay
Shrood, with an air of touching generosity. “Precisely my
own view. I trust you will have no cause to regret your
connection with our establishment. But I have not concealed
from you my opinion that, financially, there exists a
certain anxiety—premature in my view of events—but
still distinct, as to the relations between stock and capital.
I have been requested by my directors, to whose advice
.bn 089.png
.pn +1
I am constrained to defer, to raise the point of security in
those instances where advances, I may say considerable advances,
have been made by us. You see my position, I feel
sure.”
“Oh, certainly,” said Jack; “of course,” not seeing
exactly what he was driving at.
“You will not, therefore, feel that it amounts to any want
of confidence on the part of the bank,” continued Mr. Shrood,
with reassuring explanation in every tone, “if I name to
you the formal execution of a mortgage over your station, as
a mere matter in the ordinary routine of business, for the
support of our advances to you past and future?”
“Oh, no,” replied Jack, with a slight gulp, misliking the
sound of the strictly legal and closely comprehensive instrument,
which he had always associated with ruined men and
falling fortunes hitherto. “I suppose it’s a necessary
precaution when the mercantile barometer is low. I shall
be able to draw for necessary expenses as usual, and all
that?”
Mr. Shrood smiled, as if anything to the contrary was
altogether too chimerical and beyond human imagination to
be considered seriously for one moment.
“My dear sir,” he proceeded, “I hope you have never had
reason to doubt our readiness to follow your suggestions
hitherto. We have unbounded confidence in your management
and discretion. As we have reached this point, however,
would you mind executing the deed which has been
prepared in anticipation of your consent, and concluding this,
I confess, slightly unpleasing section of our arrangements
while we are agreed on the subject, to which I hope not to be
compelled again to recur.”
“Not at all,” replied Jack, “not at all,” feeling like the
man at the dentist’s, as if the tooth might as well be pulled
out now as hereafter.
“Thank you; these things are best carried through at one
sitting. Pray excuse me for one moment. Mr. Smith!”
Here a junior appeared. “Will you bring in that—a—legal
document, for Mr. Redgrave’s signature, and a—attend
to witness his signature? Your present liability to the
bank, Mr. Redgrave,” he explained, as the young gentleman
disappeared, “amounts to, I think, fifteen thousand pounds
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
in round numbers—that is, fourteen thousand nine hundred
and eighty-seven pounds fourteen and ninepence. I think
you mentioned forty thousand sheep as the stock, was it not,
at present depasturing on the station?”
“Forty-two—some odd hundreds,” answered Jack, “but
that is near enough.”
Here Mr. Smith reappeared, with an imposing-looking
piece of parchment, commencing “Know all men by these
presents,” which was handed to Jack for his entertainment
and perusal. Jack glanced at it. Nobody, save a North
Briton or a very misanthropical person, ever does read a deed
through, that I know of. But Jack knew enough of such
matters to pick out heedfully the principal clauses which
concerned him. It was like most other compilations of a
like nature, and contained, apart from unmeaning repetitions
and exasperating surplusage, certain lucid sentences, which
Jack understood to mean that he was to pay up the said
few thousands at his convenience, or in default to yield up
Gondaree, with stock thereto attached, to the paternal but
irresponsible “money-mill,” under the wildly improbable
circumstance of his being unable to clear off such advances
in years to come—with principal and interest.
“Forty-two thousand sheep, and station, at a pound,”
said Jack to himself, “leave a considerable margin; so I
needn’t bother myself. Here goes. It will never be acted
upon—that is one comfort.”
So the name of John Redgrave was duly appended, and
Mr. Smith wrote his name as witness without the least
embarrassment. He regarded squatters who required accommodation
as patients subject to mild attacks of epidemic
disease, which usually gave way to proper medical, that is to
say financial, treatment. Occasionally the patient succumbed.
That however was not his affair. Let them all find it out
for themselves.
He had many a time and oft envied the bronzed squatter
lounging in on a bright morning, throwing down a cheque
and stuffing the five-pound notes carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket.
But, young as he was, he had more than once seen
a careworn, grizzled man waiting outside the bank parlour,
with ill-concealed anxiety for the interview which was to tell
him whether or not he went forth a ruined and hopelessly
.bn 091.png
.pn +1
broken man. Nothing could have been more soothing than
the manner in which the whole operation of the mortgage
had been performed. Still it was an operation, and Jack
felt a sensation difficult to describe, but tending towards the
conviction that he was not quite the same man as he had
been previously. He was not in his usual spirits at dinner
that evening, though of his two sharers of that well-cooked,
yet not extravagant repast, Hautley had ordered it, and
Jerningham was by odds the neatest talker then in town.
The wine somehow wasn’t like last week’s. Must have
opened a new batch. He had no luck at billiards. He sat
moodily in an arm-chair in the smoking-room, and heard not
some of the best (and least charitable) things going. He
mooned off to bed, out of harmony with existing society.
“What the dickens is up with Redgrave?” asked little
Prowler of old Snubham, of the Indian Irregular Force. “He
looks as black as thunder, and hasn’t a word to say for
himself.”
“A very fine trait in a man’s character,” growled
Snubham; “half the people one meets jabber everlastingly,
Heaven knows. What would be the matter with him?
Proposed to some girl, and is afraid she’ll accept him. A
touch of liver, perhaps. Nothing else can happen to a man
at the present day, sir.”
“Must be a woman, I think; he was awful spoony on
Dolly Drosera. He’s too rich to want money,” said
Prowler, with a reverential awe of the squatter proper.
“Humph! don’t know—wool’s down, I believe. He pays
up at loo. Beyond that I have no curiosity. Very ungentlemanlike
thing, curiosity. Mornin’, Prowler.”
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IX.
.pm start_poem
“A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command.”—Wordsworth.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack’s doubts and misgivings were written upon his
open brow for twenty-four hours, but after that period
they disappeared like morning mists. He awoke to a
healthier tone of feeling, and determined to combat difficulty
with renewed vigour and unshaken firmness.
“After all, I have not borrowed more than one good clip,
and a little cutting down of the stock will set all right,” said
he to himself. “Where would Brass, Marsailly, and all
these other great guns have been if they had boggled at a
few thousands at the beginning? Next year’s clip will be
something like; and I never heard of any one but old
Exmore that had two wool-sheds burned running. He put
up a stone and iron edifice then, and told them to see what
they could make of that. There was no grass-seed in his
country though. Well, there is nothing like a start from
town for clearing out the blues. I wonder how fellows ever
manage to live there all the year round.”
These encouraging reflections occurred to the ingenuous
mind of Mr. Redgrave as he was speeding over the first
hundred miles of rail which expedite the traveller pleasantly
on the road to the Great Desert. Facilis descensus Averni—which
means that it is very easy to “settle one’s self” in
life—the “downtrain” being furnished with “palace-cars”
of Pullman’s patent, and gradients on the most seductive
system of sliding scale.
Again the long gray plains. Again the night—one
disjointed nightmare, where excessive jolts dislocated the
most evil witch-wanderings, multiplying them, like the lower
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
forms of life, by the severance. Then the long, scorching
day, the intolerable flies, and lo! Steamboat Point. Gondaree,
in all its arid, unrelieved glare and grandeur once more—Mr.
M‘Nab weighing sheepskins to a carrier, with as much
earnestness as if he expected half-a-crown a pound for them.
Everything much as usual. Ah Sing in the garden, watering
cauliflowers. When Redgrave caught the last glimpse of him
as he left for town he was watering cabbages. Everything
very dry. No relief, no shade. The cottage looked very
small: the surroundings stiff and bare. “My eyes are out of
focus just now,” said Jack to himself. “I must keep quiet
till the vision accommodates itself to the landscape; otherwise
I shall hurt M‘Nab’s feelings.”
“Well, how are you?” said Jack, heartily, as that person,
having despatched his carrier, walked towards him. “You
look very thriving, only dry; rather dry, don’t you think?”
“Well, we have hardly had a drop of rain since you started.
Might be just a shower. But everything is doing capitally.
We are rather short-handed; I sent away every soul but the
cook, the Chinaman, and four boundary-riders directly you
left, and we are now, thanks to the fencing, quite independent
of labour till shearing-time.”
“How in the world do you get on?” inquired Jack, quite
charmed, yet half afraid of M‘Nab’s sudden eviction.
“Nothing can be simpler. The dogs were well poisoned
before the fences were finished. There’s no road through the
back of the run, thank goodness. We haven’t any bother
about wells because of Bimbalong. I count every paddock
once a month, and that’s about all there is to do.”
“And who looks after the store?” inquired Jack.
“I do, of course,” said M‘Nab; “there is very little to give
out, you’ll mind. Two of the boundary-riders live at home
here, and the other two at a hut at Bimbalong. Now you’ve
come there will be hardly enough work to keep us going.”
“Four men to forty thousand sheep,” moralized Jack.
“What would some of the old hands think of that? Oh!
the weaners,” cried he; “I had forgotten them. How
did you manage them, M‘Nab?”
“Well, we had a great day’s drafting, and put them back
in the river paddock. They are all as contented as possible,
and as steady as old ewes—thirteen thousand of them.”
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
“There’s a trifle of bother saved by that arrangement.
What a burden life used to be for the first three months after
the weaning flocks were portioned out!”
Jack’s spirits were many degrees lighter after this conversation.
Certainly there was a heavyish debt—and this
millstone of a mortgage hung round “his neck alway” like the
albatross in the Ancient Mariner; but the compensating
economy of the fencing was beginning to work a cure. If
one could only tide over the shearing with the present reduced
Civil List, what a hole would the clip and the fat sheep make
in the confounded “balance debtor!” There is the wool-shed
over again, to be sure. What a murder that one should
have all those hundredweights of nails, and tons of battens,
and acres of flooring, and forests of posts and wall-plates to
get all over again! It was very bitter work in Jack’s newly-born
tendency to economy to have all this outlay added on to
the inevitable expenditure of the season.
“As I said before,” concluded Jack, rounding off his
soliloquy, “I never knew any fellow but Exmoor undergo
the ordeal by fire two seasons running, so it’s a kind of
insurance against the chapter of accidents this year.”
Jack insensibly returned to his ordinary provincial repose
of mind and body. He rode about in the early mornings and
cooler evenings, and took his turn to convoy travelling sheep,
to officiate at the store, and to relieve the ever-toiling M‘Nab
in any way that presented itself. He kept up this kind of
thing for a couple of months, and then—the unbroken
monotony of the whole round of existence striking him
rather suddenly one day—he made up his mind to a slight
change. There was a station about fifty miles away, down
the river, with the owner of which he had a casual acquaintance;
so, faute d’autre, he thought he would go and see
him.
“You can get on quite as well without me, M‘Nab,” he
said. “I think a small cruise would do me good. I’ll go
and see Mr. Stangrove. One often gets an idea by going
away from home.”
“That’s true enough,” assented M‘Nab, “but I doubt yon’s
the wrong shop for new ones. Mr. Stangrove is a good sort
of man, I hear every one say; but he hails from the old red-sandstone
period (M‘Nab knew Hugh Miller by heart),
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
and has no more idea of a swing-gate than a shearing-machine.”
“Well, one will get a notion of how the Australian
Pilgrim Fathers managed to get a livelihood, and subdue
the salt-bush for their descendants. There must be a flavour
of antiquity about it. I will start to-morrow.”
After a daylight breakfast, Mr. Redgrave departed, riding
old Hassan, and, like a wise man, leading another
hackney, with a second saddle, upon which was strapped his
valise. “If you want to go anywhere,” he was wont to
assert, “you want a few spare articles of raiment.” Sitting
in boots and breeches all the evening is unpleasant to the
visitor and disrespectful to his entertainers, whether he be
what the old-fashioned writers called “travel-stained” in
wet weather, or uncomfortably warm in the dry season. If
you carry the articles alluded to you need a valise. A
valise is much pleasanter on a spare horse than in front of
your own person; and all horses go more cheerily in company,
particularly as you can divide the day’s journey by
alternate patronage of either steed. I think life in a general
way passes as pleasantly during a journey à cheval as over
any other “road of life.” Then why make toil of a pleasure?
Always take a brace of hacks, O reader, and then—
.pm start_poem
“Over the downs mayst thou scour, nor mind
Whether Horace’s mistress be cruel or kind.”
.pm end_poem
The sun was no great distance above the far unbroken
sky-line; the air was pleasantly cool as Jack rode quietly
along the level track which led to his outer gate, and down
the river. The horses played with their bits, stepping along
lightly with elastic footfall. “What a different life,”
thought he, “from my old one at Marshmead! How full
of interest and occupation was every day as it rose! Neighbours
at easy distances; poor old Tunstall to go and poke
up whenever John Redgrave failed to suffice for his own
entertainment and instruction. Jolly little Hampden, with
its picnics and parties, and bench-work, and boat-sailing,
and racing, and public meetings, and ‘all sorts o’ games,’ as
Mr. Weller said. The bracing climate, the wholesome moral
and physical atmosphere, the utter absence of any imp or
demon distantly related to the traitor Ennui; and here, such
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
is the melancholy monotony of my daily life that I find
myself setting forth with a distinctly pleasurable feeling to
visit a man whom I do not know, and very probably shall
not like when our acquaintance expands. Auri sacri
fames,—shall I quote that hackneyed tag? I may as well—the
day is long—there is plenty of time and to spare on
the Warroo, as Hawkesbury said. Fancy a fellow living
this life for a dozen years and making no money after all.
The picture is too painful. I shall weep over it myself
directly—like that arch-humbug Sterne.”
About half way to his destination was an inn—hostelry
of the period; an ugly slab building covered, as to its roof
and verandah, with corrugated iron. There was no trace
or hint of garden. It stood as if dropped on the edge of
the bare, desolate, sandy plain. It faced the dusty track
which did duty as high road; at the back of the slovenly
yard was the river—chiefly used as a convenient receptacle
for rubbish and broken bottles. A half-score of gaunt,
savage-looking pigs lay in the verandah, or stirred the dust
and bones in the immediate vicinity of the front entrance.
A stout man, in Crimean shirt and tweed trousers, stood in
the verandah, smoking, and, far from betraying any “provincial
eagerness” at the sight of a stranger, went on
smoking coolly until Jack spoke.
“How far is Mr. Stangrove’s place?” inquired he.
“What, Juandah?” said the host, in a tone conveying
the idea that in ordinary social circles it was on a par, for
notoriety, with London or Liverpool. “Well, say thirty
mile.”
“Do you take the back road, or the one nearest to the
river?” further inquired Jack.
“Oh, stick to the river bank,” answered the man; “at
this time of year it is nearest.”
“What in the name of wonder,” inquired Jack of himself,
as he rode away, “can a man do who lives at such a fragment
of Hades but drink? He must be a Christian hero, or
a philosopher, if he refrain under the utterly maddening
conditions of life. Were he one or the other, he probably
would not keep the grog-shop which he dignifies with the
title of the Mailman’s Arms.” Of course he drinks—it
is written in his dull eye and sodden face—his wife drinks,
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
the barman drinks—the loafer who plays at being groom in
the hayless, strawless, cornless stable drinks. The shepherd
hands his cheque across the bar—and till every shilling,
purchased by a year’s work, abstinence, and solitude,
disappears, drinks—madly drinks. The miserable, debased
aboriginal—camping there for weeks with his squalid wives—drinks,
and, perchance, when his wild blood is stirred by
vile liquor, murders ere his fit be over. From that den, as
from a foul octopus, stretch forth tentacula which fasten
only upon human beings. Question them, and hear vain remorse,
bitter wrath, agonized despair, sullen apathy—the
name of one resistless, unsparing curse—drink, drink, drink!
The midday sun was hot. The stage was a fair one; but
Jack pushed on, after receiving his information, for half-a-dozen
miles further. Then, discovering a green bend, he
unsaddled, and, taking the precaution to hobble his nags,
lighted his pipe. They rolled and cropped the fresh herbage,
while he enjoyed a more satisfactory noontide lounge than
the horsehair sofa of Mr. Hoker’s best parlour would have
afforded, after a doubtful, or perhaps deleterious, repast.
The day was gone when Jack was made aware, by certain
signs and hieroglyphics, known to all bushmen, that he was
approaching a station. The pasture was closely cropped and
bare. Converging tracks of horses, sheep, and cattle obviously
trended in one direction. At some distance upon the
open plain he could see a shepherd with his flock, slowly
moving towards a point of timber more than a mile in advance
of his present position. “I shall come upon the paddock
fence just inside that timber,” he remarked to himself, “and
the house will probably be within sight of the slip-rails. It
will not be a very large paddock, I will undertake to say.”
This turned out to be a correct calculation. He saw the
sheep-yard, towards which the flock was heading, as he
reached the timber. He descried the paddock fence and the
slip-rail in the road; and within sight—as he put up the
rails and mustered a couple of temporary pegs, for fear of
accidents—was a roomy wooden building surrounded by a
garden.
Riding up to the garden gate, he was announced as “Mr.
Stranger” by about twenty dogs, who gave the fullest exercise
to their lungs, and would doubtless have gone even further
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
had Jack been on foot. A tall, sun-burned man, in an old
shooting-coat, appeared upon the verandah, and, making
straight through the excited pack, greeted Redgrave warmly.
“Won’t you get off and come in? I’ll take your horses.
[Hold your row, you barking fools!] Oh! it is you, Mr.
Redgrave; from Gondaree, I think—met you at Barrabri—very
glad to see you; of course you have come to stay?
Allow me to take the led horse.”
“I think I promised to look you up some day,” said Jack.
“I took advantage of a lull in station-work and—here
I am.”
“Very glad indeed you have made your visit out, though
I don’t know that I have much to show you. But, as we
are neighbours, we ought to become acquainted.”
The horses were led over to a small but tolerably snug
stable, where they were regaled with hay previous to being
turned out in the paddock, and then Jack was ushered into
the house. Mr. Stangrove was a married man; so much
was evident from the first; many traces of the “pug-wuggies,
or little people,” were apparent; and a girl crossing
the yard with a baby in her arms supplied any evidence
that might be missing.
“Will you have a glass of grog after your ride?” inquired
the host, “or would you like to go to your room?”
Jack preferred the latter, being one of those persons who
decline to eat or drink until they are in a comfortable and
becoming state of mind and body; holding it to be neither
epicurean nor economical to “muddle away appetite” under
circumstances which preclude all proper and befitting appreciation.
So Redgrave performed his ablutions, and, having arrayed
himself in luxuriously-easy garments and evening shoes,
made his way to the sitting-room. He had just concluded
“a long, cool drink” when two ladies entered.
“My dear, allow me to introduce Mr. Redgrave—Mrs.
Stangrove, Miss Stangrove.”
A lady advanced upon the first mention of names and
shook hands with the visitor, in a kindly, unaffected manner.
She was young, but a certain worn look told of the early
trials of matronhood. Her face bore silent witness to the
toils of housekeeping, with indifferent servants or none at
.bn 099.png
.pn +1
all; to want of average female society; to a little loneliness,
and a great deal of monotony. Such, with few exceptions,
is the life of an Australian lady, whose husband lives
in the far interior, in the real bush. Her companion, who
contented herself with a searching look and a formal bow,
was “in virgin prime and May of womanhood”—and a most
fair prime and sweet May it was. Her features were regular,
her mouth delicate and refined, with a certain firmness about
the chin, and the mutine expression about the upper lip,
which savoured of declaration of war upon just pretext.
She had that air and expression which at once suggest the
idea of interest in unravelling the character. Jack shook
hands with himself when he thought of how he had persevered
after the traitorous idea had entered his head that
after all it was no use going, Mr. Stangrove wouldn’t be
glad to see him, or care a rush about the matter.
The evening meal was now announced, which circumstance
afforded Jack considerable satisfaction. He had
ridden rather more than fifty miles, and, whereas his horses
had not done so badly in the long grass of the “bend,” our
traveller’s lunch had been limited to a pipe of “Pacific Mixture.”
All the same, while the preparations for tea were
proceeding he took a careful and accurate survey of his
younger feminine neighbour.
Maud Stangrove was somewhat out of the ordinary run
of girls in appearance, as she certainly was in character.
Her features were regular, with a complexion clear and
delicate to a degree unusual in a southern land. Her mouth,
perhaps, denoted a shade more firmness than the ideal princess
is supposed to require. But it was redeemed by the
frank, though not invariable, smile which, disclosing a set
of extremely white and regular teeth, gave an expression of
softness and humour which was singularly winning. The
eyes were darkest hazel, faintly toned with gray. They
were remarkable as a feature; and those on whom they had
shone—in love or war—rarely forgot their gaze; they were
clear and shining; but this is to say little; such are the
every-day charms of that beauty which is in woman but
another name for youth. Maud’s eyes had the peculiar
quality of developing fresh aspects and hidden mysteries of
expression as they fell on you—calm, clear, starlike, but
.bn 100.png
.pn +1
fathomless, glowing ever, and with hidden, smouldering fire.
She was dressed plainly, but in such taste as betokened
reference to a milliner remote from the locality. Rather,
but very slightly, above middle height in her figure, there
was an absence of angularity which gave promise of eventual
roundness of contour—perhaps even too pronounced.
But now, in the flower-time of early womanhood, she moved
with the unstudied ease of those forest creatures in whom
one notices a world of latent force.
Such was the apparition which burst upon the senses of
Mr. Redgrave.
“Average neighbours!” said he to himself. “Who ever
expected this—a vision of no end of fear and interest?
This is a girl fit for any one to make love to or to quarrel
with, as the case might be. I think the latter recreation
would be the easier. And yet I don’t know.”
“I don’t think you have ever been so far ‘down the
river,’ as the people call it, before?” said Mrs. Stangrove.
“I’m afraid I have not been a very good neighbour,” said
Jack, beginning to feel contrite at the de haut en bas treatment
of the general population of the Warroo, in accordance
with which he had devoted himself to unrelieved work
at Gondaree, and looked upon social intercourse as completely
out of the question. “But the fact is, that I have
been very hard at work up to this time. Now the fences
are up I hope to have a little leisure.”
Here Jack paused, as if he had borne up, like another
Atlas, the weight of the Gondaree world upon those shapely
shoulders of his.
Miss Stangrove looked at him with an expression which
did not imply total conviction.
“We have heard of all your wonders and miracles,
haven’t we, Jane? I don’t know what we should have
done in the wilderness here without the Gondaree news.”
“I was not aware that I was so happy as to furnish interesting
incidents for the country generally,” answered
Jack; “but it would have given me fresh life if I had only
thought that Mrs. and Miss Stangrove were sympathetical
with my progress.”
“You would have been rather flattered, then,” said Stangrove,
who was a downright sort of personage, “if you had
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
heard the lamentations of these ladies over your woolshed—indeed,
Maud said that——”
“Come, Mark,” said Miss Stangrove, eagerly, and with
the very becoming improvement of a sudden blush, “we
don’t need your clumsy version of all our talk for the last
year. Nobody ever does anything upon this antediluvian
stream from one century to another, and of course Jane and
I felt grieved that a spirited reformer like Mr. Redgrave
should meet with so heavy a loss—didn’t we, Jane?”
“Of course we did, my dear,” said that matron, placidly;
“and Mark, too, he said the wicked men who did it ought
to be hanged, and that Judge Lynch was a very useful institution.
He was quite ferocious.”
“Thanks very many; I am sure I feel deeply grateful.
I had no idea I had so many well-wishers,” quoth Jack, casting
his eyes in the direction of Miss Maud. “It comforts
one under affliction and—all that, you know.”
“How you must look down upon us, with our shepherds
and old-world ways,” said Maud. “You come from Victoria,
do you not, Mr. Redgrave? We Sydney people believe that
you are all Yankees down there, and wear bowie-knives and
guns, and calculate, and so on.”
“Really, Miss Stangrove,” pleaded Jack, “you are indicting
me upon several charges at once; which am I to answer?
I don’t look very supercilious, do I? though I admit hailing
from Victoria, which is chiefly peopled by persons of British
birth, whatever may be the prevailing impression.”
“Well, you will have an opportunity of discussing the matter—the
shepherds, I mean—with my brother, who is a strong
conservative. I give you leave to convert him, if you can.
We have hitherto found it impossible, haven’t we, Mark?”
“Mark has generally good reasons for his opinions,” said
the loyal wife, looking approvingly at her lord and master—who,
indeed, was very like a man who could hold his own in
any species of encounter. “But suppose we have a little
music—you might play La Bouquetière.”
“The piano is not so wofully out of tune as might be
expected,” asserted Maud, as she sat down comfortably to
her work, all things being arranged by Jack, who was
passionately fond of music—a good deal of which, as of
other abstractions, he had in his soul.
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
“Far from it,” said he, as the shower of delicate notes
which make up this loveliest of airy musical trifles fell on
his ear like a melody of le temps perdu.
Jack had all his life been extremely susceptible to the
charm of music. He had a good ear, and his taste, naturally
correct, had been rather unusually well cultivated. With
him the effect of harmony was to bring to the surface, and
develop as by a spell, all the best, the noblest, the most
exalted portions of his character. Any woman who played
or sang with power exercised a species of fascination over
him, assuming her personal endowments to be up to his
standard. When Miss Stangrove, after passing lightly over
capriccias of Chopin and Liszt, after a fashion which showed
very unusual execution, commenced in deference to his repeated
requests to sing When Sparrows Build, and one or
two other special favourites, in such a mezzo-soprano! he
was surprised, charmed, subjugated—with astonishing
celerity.
However, the evenings of summer, commencing necessarily
late, come to an end rather prematurely if we are very
pleasantly engaged. So Jack thought when Mr. Stangrove
looked at his watch, and opined that Jack after his ride
would be glad to retire.
Jack was by no means glad, but of course assented blandly,
and the two ladies sailed off.
“Shall we have a pipe in the verandah before we turn
in?” asked his host. “You smoke, I suppose? We can
open this window and leave the glasses on the table here
within easy reach.”
Taking up his position upon a Cingalese cane-chair on the
broad verandah, and lighting his pipe simultaneously with
his host, Jack leaned back and enjoyed the wondrous beauty
of the night.
The cottage, unlike the Mailman’s Arms, fronted the
river, towards which a neatly-kept garden sloped, ending in
a grassy bank.
“My sister belongs to the advanced party of reform, Mr.
Redgrave, as you will have observed,” said his entertainer.
“She and I have numerous fights on the subject.”
“I am proud to have such an ally,” said Jack; “but,
seriously, I wonder you have not been converted. Surely
.bn 103.png
.pn +1
the profits and advantages of fencing are sufficiently
patent.”
“You must bear with me, my dear sir, as a very staunch
conservative,” answered his host, smoking serenely, and
speaking with his usual calm deliberation. “There is something,
I think much, to be said on the other side.”
“I feel really anxious to hear your arguments,” said Jack.
“I fancied that beyond what the shepherds always say—that
sheep can’t do well or enjoy life without a bad-tempered old
man and a barking dog at their tails—the brief against
fencing was exhausted.”
“I do not take upon myself to assert,” said Stangrove,
“that my reasons ought to govern persons whose circumstances
differ from my own. But I find them sufficient for
me for the present. I reserve the privilege of altering them
upon cause shown. And the reasons are—First of all, that I
could not enter into the speculation, for such it would be, of
fencing my run without going into debt—a thing I abhor
under any circumstances. Secondly, because the seasons in
Australia are exceedingly changeable, as I have had good
cause to know. And, thirdly, because the prices of stock are
as fluctuating and irregular, occasionally, as the seasons.”
“Granted all these, how can there be two opinions about
an outlay which is repaid within two years, which is more
productive in bad seasons than in good ones, and which dispenses
with three-fourths of the labour required for an
ordinary sheep-station?”
“I have no reason to doubt what you say,” persisted
Stangrove, “but suppose we defer the rest of the argument
until we have had a look at the run and stock together. I
can explain my meaning more fully on my own beat. I dare
say you will sleep tolerably after your ride.”
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER X.
.pm start_poem
“Absence of occupation is not rest.”—Cowper.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack went to bed with a kind of general idea of getting up
in the morning early and looking round the establishment.
But, like the knight who was to be at the postern gate at
dawn, he failed to keep the self-made engagement; and for
the same reason he slept so soundly that the sun was tolerably
high when he awoke, and he had barely time for a
swim in the river, and a complete toilet, before the breakfast-bell
rang.
In spite of the baseless superstition that “there is nothing
like one’s own bed,” and so on, it is notorious that all men not
confirmed valetudinarians sleep far more satisfactorily away
from home. For, consider, one is comparatively freed from
the dire demon, Responsibility, you doze off tranquilly into
the charmed realm of dreamland—with “nothing on your
mind.” Perfectly indifferent is it to you, in the house of a
congenial friend or affable stranger, whether domestic disorganization
of the most frightful nature is smouldering
insidiously or hurrying to a climax. The cook may be going
next week, the housemaid may have contracted a clandestine
marriage. Your host may be sternly revolving plans of
retrenchment, and may have determined to abandon light
wines, and to limit his consumption to table-beer and alcohol.
But nothing of this is revealed to you; nor would it greatly
concern you if it was. For the limited term of your visit, the
hospitality is free, smooth, and spontaneous. Atra Cura,
if she does accidentally drop in by mistake, is a courteous
grande dame, rather plainly attired in genteel mourning,
but perfect in manner. Not a violent, unreserved shrew as
she can be when quite “at home.” A visit is in most
.bn 105.png
.pn +1
instances, therefore, a respite and a truce. The parade, the
review, the skirmish are for a time impossible; so the “tired
soldier” enjoys the calm, unbroken repose in his own tent
so rarely tasted.
The weather was hot, and there did not appear to be any
likelihood of a change. Nevertheless, Jack could not but
acknowledge that no detail had been omitted to insure the
highest amount of comfort attainable in such a climate.
The butter was cooled, the coffee perfect, the eggs, the
honey, the inevitable chop, excellent of their kind. Everything
bore traces of that thorough supervision which is
never found in a household under male direction. Jack
thought Miss Stangrove, charmingly neat and fresh in her
morning attire, would have added piquancy to a much more
homely meal.
“Just in time, Mr. Redgrave,” said that young lady;
“we were uncertain whether you were not accustomed to be
aroused by a gong. Bells are very old-fashioned, we know.”
“I doubt whether anything would have awakened me an
hour since. I am a reasonably early riser generally; but
the ride and the extreme comfort of my bedroom led to a
little laziness. But where’s Stangrove?”
“I blush to say he went off early to count a flock of
sheep,” said Miss Stangrove, with assumed regret. “You
must accustom yourself to our aboriginal ways for a time.
But is it not dreadful to think of? I hope you extracted a
total recantation from him last night.”
“We only made a commencement of the game last
night,” said Jack. “Your brother advanced a pawn or
two, but we agreed to defer the grand attack until after a
ride round the run, which I believe takes place to-day.”
“I am afraid you will have a hot ride; but I don’t pity
you for that. Anything is better than staying indoors
day after day, week after week, as we wretched women
have to do. You might tell Mark if he sees my horse to
have her brought in. I feel as if I should like a scamper.
Oh! here he comes to answer for himself. Well, Mark,
how many killed, wounded, and missing?”
“Good morning, Mr. Redgrave,” said Stangrove, smiling
rather lugubriously at his sister’s pleasantry. “I am afraid
you are just in time to remark on one of the weak points
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
of my management. A shepherd came before daylight to
say that his flock had been lost since the day before. I
have been hunting for them these five hours.”
“And have you brought any home?” inquired Mrs.
Stangrove.
“None at all,” he answered.
“Did you see any?” persisted the lady, who seemed
rather of an anxious disposition.
“Yes—ten.”
“And why didn’t you bring them?” pursued the chatelaine,
whose earnestness was in strong contrast with her
sister’s nonchalance.
“Because they were dead,” replied Stangrove, laconically;
“and now, my dear, please to give me some tea. ‘Sufficient
for the day’—and so on.”
“Accidents will happen,” interposed Jack, politely. “It
is like more important calamities and crimes, a matter of
average.”
“Just so,” said Stangrove, gratefully; “and though I
can’t help worrying myself at a small loss, such as this, I
know that the annual expense from this cause varies very
little.”
“There were wolves in Arcadia, were not there?” demanded
the young lady. “They ate a shepherd now and
then, I suppose. If the dingoes would look upon it in that
light, what a joy it would be, eh?”
“I could cheerfully see them battening upon the carcase
of that lazy ruffian Strawler,” he very vengefully made
answer.
“My love!” said Mrs. Stangrove, mildly, “the children
will be in directly—would you mind reading prayers
directly you finish?”
“Well—ahem,” said the bereaved proprietor, rather
doubtfully; “perhaps you might as well read this morning,
Mr. Redgrave and I have a long way to go—what are you
laughing at, Maud, you naughty girl?”
“Don’t forget to have old Mameluke got in for me, Mark,
and to-morrow I will go sheep-hunting with you myself, if
little Bopeep continues unsuccessful, and in an unchristian
state of mind, unable to say his prayers. I didn’t think the
fencing question involved so high a moral gain before.”
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
Breakfast over, two fresh hacks were brought up (Stangrove
was a great horse-breeder, and Jack’s eye had been
offended as he rode up with troops of mares and foals), and
forth they fared for a day on the run, and a contingent
search for the lost flock.
Stangrove’s run was about the same size as Gondaree, but,
save the cottages and buildings of the homestead, there were
no “improvements” of any kind other than the shepherds’ huts.
For stock, he had seventeen or eighteen thousand sheep, a
herd of cattle, and two or three hundred horses. These last
were within their boundaries in a general way, but were
occasionally outside of these merely moral frontiers. So also
the neighbouring stock wandered at will inside of the said
imaginary subdivisions.
“You see,” commenced Stangrove, in explanation, when
they were fairly out on the plain, “that I came into possession
here some ten years past, just after I had left school. My
poor old governor, who was rather a scientific literary character,
lived at one of those small comfortable estates near town,
where a man can spend lots of money, but can’t by any
possibility make a shilling. Decent people, in those days,
would as soon have gone out to spend a few years with
Livingstone as have come to live permanently on the Warroo.
We had a surly old overseer, of the old sort, who
managed a little and robbed a great deal. When I came
here, after the poor old governor died, you never saw such
a place as it was.”
“I can partly imagine,” Jack said.
“Well, I worked hard, and lived like a black fellow for a
few years, got the property out of debt, improved the stock,
and here we are. I get a reasonable price for my wool, I
sell a draft of cattle now and then, and some horses, and am
increasing the stock slowly, and putting by something every
year.”
“No doubt you are,” said Jack; “but here you have to live
and keep your wife and family in this out-of-the-way place;
and at the present rate of progress it may be years before you
can make money or sell out profitably. Why not concentrate
all the work and self-denial into three or four years—sell out,
and enjoy life?”
“A tempting picture—but consider the risk. Debt always
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
means danger; and why should I incur that danger? At
present I don’t owe a shilling, and call no man master. As
for happiness, I am not so miserable now (if I could only find
those sheep). I have a day’s work to do every day, or to
decline, if I see fit; and I would just as soon be here—a place
endeared to me by old association—as anywhere else.”
“But your family?” asked Jack, rather insincerely, as he
was thinking of Maud chiefly, and the stupendous sacrifice of
her life. “But,” he said, “your children are growing up.”
“Yes, but only growing up. By the time they need masters
and better schooling I shall be a little better off. Some change
will probably take place—stock will rise—or it will rain for
two or three years without stopping, as is periodically probable
in New South Wales; and then I shall sell, go back to the
paternal acres in the county of Cumberland, and grow prize
shorthorns and gigantic cucumbers, and practise all the
devices by which an idle man cheats himself into the belief
that he is happy.”
“By which time you will have lost most of the zest for
the choicer pleasures of life.”
“Even so—but I am a great believer in the ‘in that state
of life’ portion of the catechism. I was placed and appointed
here, and hold myself responsible for the safety and gradual
increase of my ‘one talent.’ Maud, too, has a share. I am
compelled to be a stern guardian in her interest.”
“Well,” returned Jack (after his companion had opened
his mind, as men often do in the bush to a chance acquaintance—so
rare ofttimes is the luxury of congeniality), “I am
not sure that you are altogether wrong. It squares with
your temperament. Mine is altogether opposed to such views.
I think twenty years on the Warroo, with the certainty of
a plum and a baronetcy at the end, would kill me as surely
as sunstroke. Isn’t that sheep?”
As Jack propounded this grammatically doubtful query, he
directed Stangrove’s attention to a long light-coloured line at
a distance. It was soon evident that it was sheep coming
towards them. To Stangrove’s great relief, they proved to be
the missing flock, in charge of one of the volunteers sent out
in all directions, if only they might perchance manage to drop
across them. Upon being counted they were only fifteen short.
Ten being accounted for by the domestic declaration of Mr.
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
Stangrove, the other five were left to take their chance, and
the flock sent back to a new shepherd, vice Strawler
superseded.
Stangrove brightened up considerably after this recovery of
his doubtfully-situated property. Byron asserts “a sullen
son, a dog ill, a favourite horse fallen lame just as he’s
mounted,” to be “trifles in themselves,” but adds, “and yet
I’ve rarely seen the man they didn’t vex.” So with lost
sheep. You must lose a dozen or twenty—you hardly lose
more than fifty, say from ten to five-and-twenty pounds—not
a sum to turn the scale of ruin by any means. Yet, from
the time that the announcement is made of “sheep away”
until they are safely counted and yarded, rarely does the face
of the proprietor relax its expression of weighty resolve and
grave foreboding.
Jack found by his companion’s avowal that at least one
person besides Bertie Tunstall held the same unprogressive
but eminently safe opinions. “Here’s a man,” said Jack,
“with a worse climate, far less recreation and variety than
I had, and see how he sticks to his fight! However, I am
differently constituted—there’s no denying it. If Stangrove’s
father had not been somewhat of the same kidney,
he and I would have had little chance of discussing our
theories on the banks of the Warroo.”
“And so you won’t be tempted into fencing?” demanded
Jack, returning to the charge.
“Not just at present,” rejoined Stangrove. “I do not
say but that if I find myself surrounded by fencing neighbours,
willing to share the expense and so on, in a few more
years I may give in. But I am a firm believer in the Safe.
I am now in a position of absolute security, and I intend
to continue in it.”
“But suppose bad seasons come?”
“Let them! I have no bills to meet. I can weather
them again as I have done before, when on this very station
we had to boil down our meat to a kind of soup; it was too
poor to eat otherwise. We outlived that. Please God, we
shall do so again.”
“I suppose you had terrible losses?”
“You may say that; if another season came like it, the
country would be ‘a valley of dry bones,’ literally. But even
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
if I lost all my increase for a year, and a proportion of my
old stock, it would only shake me, not break me. A man
who is in debt it cooks altogether—that is the difference.”
“Well, let us hope that such times won’t come again,”
said Jack, beginning to be unpleasantly affected by the idea
of an interview with Mr. Shrood, in which he should be
compelled to inform him that the season had been fatal to
his whole crop of lambs, and the greater part of his aged
ewes. “Every one says the seasons have changed, and that
the climate is more moist than it used to be.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said his host, who was not
prone to take much heed of “what everybody said.” “I
see no very precise data upon which to found such an assertion.
What has been may be again. We shall have another
dry season within the next five years, as sure as my name
is Mark Stangrove. What do you think of those horses?
That is rather a fancy mob. I see Maud’s horse Mameluke
among them. We must run them in.”
“How do you reconcile it to your conscience to keep such
unprofitable wretches as horses?” inquired Jack, “eating
the grass of sheep and cattle, and being totally unsaleable
themselves, unfit to eat, and hardly worth boiling down.”
“I am grieved to appear so old-fashioned and ignorant,”
said Mark, “but I have a sentiment about these horses, and
really they don’t pay so badly. They are the direct descendants,
now numbered by hundreds, of an old family stud.
They cost nothing in the way of labour; they need no shepherd
or stockman: they are simply branded up every year.
You couldn’t drive them off the run if you tried. And every
now and then there springs up a demand, and I clear a lot
of them off. It is all found money, and it tells up.”
“Meanwhile, the grass they eat would feed ten thousand
sheep.”
“That is perfectly true; but of course I make no scruple
of putting the sheep on their favourite haunts when hard up.
Horses, you see, can pick up a living anywhere. Besides, I
have always remarked that each of the great divisions of
stock has its turn once or twice in a decade, if not oftener.
You have only, therefore, to wait, and you get your ‘pull.’
My next ‘pull’ with the stud will be when the Indian horse
market has to be supplied by us, as it must some day.”
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
“You seem a good hand at waiting,” said Jack. “I don’t
know but that your philosophy is sound. I can’t put faith
in it however.”
“Everything comes to him who waits, as the French adage
goes,” said Stangrove. “I have always found it tolerably
correct. However here we are at home. So we’ll put this
lot into the yard, and I’ll lead up the old horse with a spare
rein. We must have a ride out to Murdering Lake tomorrow;
it’s our show bit of scenery.”
“Another eventful day over, Mr. Redgrave,” said Maud,
as they met at the tea-table. “Yesterday the sheep were
lost; to-day the sheep are found. So passes our life on the
Warroo.”
“You’re an ungrateful, naughty girl, Maud,” said Mrs.
Stangrove. “Think how relieved poor Mark must be after
all his hard work and anxiety. Suppose he had lost a
hundred.”
“I feel tempted to wish sometimes that every one of the
ineffably stupid woolly creatures were lost for good and all,
if it would only lead to our going ‘off the run’ and having
to live somewhere else. Only I suppose they are our living,
besides working up into delaines and merinos—so I ought
not to despise them. But it’s the life I despise—shepherd,
shearer, stockman—day after day, year after year. These,
with rare exceptions (here she made a mock respectful bow
to Jack), are the only people we see, or shall ever see, till
we are gray.”
“You are rather intolerant of a country life, Miss Stangrove,”
said Jack. “I always thought that ladies had
domestic duties and—and so on—which filled up the vacuum,
with a daily routine of small but necessary employments.”
“Which means that we can sew all day, or mend stockings,
weigh out plums, currants, and sugar for the puddings—and
that this, with a little nursing sick children, pastry-making,
gardening, and very judicious reading, ought to fill up our
time, and make us peacefully happy.”
“And why should it not?” inquired Mark, looking
earnestly at his sister, as if the subject was an old one of
debate between them. “How can a woman be better employed
than in the duties you sneer at?”
“Do you really suppose,” said Maud, leaning forward and
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
looking straight into his face with her lustrous eyes, in
which the opaline gleam began to glow and sparkle, “that
women do not wish, like men, to see the world, of which they
have only dreamed—to mix a little change and adventure
with the skim-milk of their lives—before they calm down
into the stagnation of middle age or matrimony?”
“I won’t say what I suppose about women, Maud,” rejoined
her brother. “Some things I know about them, and
some things I don’t know. But, believe me, those women do
best in the long run who neither thirst nor long for pleasures
not afforded to them by the circumstances of their lives. If
what they desire should come, well and good. If not, they
act a more womanly and Christian part in waiting with
humility till the alteration arrives.”
“What do you say, Mr. Redgrave?” asked the unconvinced
damsel. “Is it wrong for the caged bird to droop
and pine, or ought it to turn a tiny wheel and pull up a tiny
pail of nothing contentedly all its days, unmindful of the
gay greenwood and the shady brook; or, if it beat its
breast against the wires, and lie dead when the captor comes
with seed and water, is it to be mourned over or cast forth
in scorn?”
“’Pon my word,” answered Jack, helplessly, rather overawed
by the strong feeling and earnest manner of the girl,
and much “demoralized” by those wonderful eyes of hers,
“I hardly feel able to decide. I’m a great lover of adventure
and change and all that kind of thing myself; can’t
live without it. But for ladies, somehow, I really—a—feel
inclined to agree with your brother. Sphere of home—and—all
that, you know.”
“Sphere of humbug!” answered she, with all the sincerity
of contempt in her voice. “You men stick together in
advocating all kinds of intolerable dreariness and nonsensical
treadmill work because you think it good for women! You
would be ashamed to apply such reasoning to anything bearing
on your own occupations. But I will not say another
word on the subject; it always raises my temper, and that
is not permitted to our sex, I know. Did you see my dear
old Mameluke to-day, Mark?”
“Yes, and he’s now in the stable.”
“Oh, thanks; we must have a gallop to-morrow and show
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
Mr. Redgrave our solitary landscape. That will be one
ripple on the Dead Sea.”
Life seemed capable of gayer aspects, even upon the
Warroo, as next morning three residents of that far region
rode lightly along the prairie trail. The day was cool and
breezy; a great wind had come roaring up from the south
the evening before, crashing through the far woods and
audible in mighty tones for many a mile before it stirred
the streamers of the couba trees, as they all sat under the
verandah in the sultry night. Then the glorious coolness of
the sea-breeze, almost the savour of the salt sea-foam and of
the dancing wavelets, smote upon their revived senses.
Hence, this day was cool, bracing, with a clear sky and a
sighing breeze. Jack was young, and extremely susceptible.
Maud Stangrove was a peerless horsewoman, and as she
caused Mameluke, a noble old fleabitten gray, descendant of
Satellite, to plunge and caracole, every movement of her
supple figure, as she swayed easily to each playful bound,
completed the sum of his admiration and submission.
“Oh, what a day it is!” said she. “Why don’t we have
such weather more often? I feel like that boy in Nick of
the Woods, when he jumps on his horse to ride after the
travellers whom the Indians are tracking, and who shouts
out a war-whoop from pure glee and high spirits. ‘Wagh!
wagh! wagh! wagh!’ Don’t you remember it, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Oh yes, quite well.” Jack had read nearly all the
novels in the world, and, if any good could have been done
by a competitive examination in light reading, would have
come out senior wrangler. “Nick of the Woods was very
powerfully written—that is, it was a good book; so was the
Hawks of Hawk Hollow. Dick Bruce was the boy’s name.”
“Of course. I see you know all about him, and Big Tom
Bruce is the one that was shot, and didn’t tell them that he
had a handful of slugs in his breast till after the Indian
town is taken, and then he falls down, dying. Grand
fellow, is not he? Nothing of that sort in our wretched
country, is there?”
“We had a little fighting at that Murdering Lake we are
going to,” said Mark. “Nothing very wonderful. But my
horse was speared under me, and he remembered it for the
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
rest of his life. Red Bob was killed; however, as he said
before he died, it wasn’t ‘twenty to one, or anything near
it.’ He had shot scores of blacks, if his own and others’
tales were true.”
“And why were you engaged in your small war, Master
Mark?” demanded Maud. “It’s all very well to talk about
Indians, and so on, but what had these miserable natives
done to you?”
“They were not so miserable in those days,” said her
brother; “this tribe was strong and numerous. I would
have shirked it if possible; but they speared a lot of the
cattle and one of the men. We had to fight or give them
up the run.”
“The old story of Christianity and civilization? However
I know you would not have hurt a hair of their red-ochred
locks if you could have avoided it. Indeed, I wonder you
kept your own scalp safe in those days. The most simple
savage might have circumvented you, I’m sure, you good,
easy-going, unsuspicious, conscientious old goose that you
are.”
Here another expression, which Jack preferred much to
those more animated glances which opposition had called
forth, came over her features; as she gazed at her brother
a soft light seemed gradually to arise and overspread her
whole countenance, till her eyes rested with an expression
of deep unconscious tenderness upon the bronzed, calm face
of Mark Stangrove. “I wonder if anything in the whole
world could lead to her looking at me like that?” thought
Jack.
“This is the place. ‘Stand still, my steed,’” quoted Maud,
as she reined up Mameluke upon a pine-crested sand-hill,
after a couple of hours’ riding. “There you can just see the
water of the lake. Isn’t it a pretty place? The pretty
place, I should say, as it is the only bit with the slightest
pretension upon the whole dusky green and glaring red patch
of desert which we call our run.”
It was, in its way, assuredly a pretty place. The waters
were clear, and had the hue of the undimmed azure, as they
gently lapped against the grassy banks. Around was a
fringe of dwarf eucalypti, more spreading and umbrageous
than their congeners are apt to be. On the further side was
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
a low sand-hill with a thicker covering of shrubs. A drove
of cattle were feeding near; a troop of half-wild horses had
dashed off at their approach, and were rapidly receding in a
long, swaying line in the distance. A blue crane, the
Australian heron, flew with a harsh cry from the shallows,
and sailed onward with stately flight.
“Oh for a falcon to throw off!” cried Maud, whose spirits
seemed quite irrepressible. “Why cannot I be a young lady
of the feudal times, and have a hawk, with silken jesses, and
a page, and a castle, and all that? Surely this is the
stupidest, most prosaic country in the world. One would
have thought that in a savage land like this they would
have devoted themselves to every kind of sport, whereas
I firmly believe one would have more chance of hunting,
shooting, or fishing in Cheapside. Why did I ever come
here?” she pursued in a voice of mock lamentation.
“Because you were born here, you naughty girl,” said
Mark; “are you not ashamed to be always running down
your native country? Don’t I see a fire on the far point?”
They rode round the border of the lake, scaring the plover
and the wild fowl which swam or flew in large flocks in the
shallows. When they reached the spot where the small cape
formed by the sand advanced boldly into the waters of the
lake at the eastern side, they observed that the fire appertained
to a small camp of blacks. Riding close up, the
unmoved countenance of “old man Jack” appeared with his
two aged wives, while at a little distance, superintending
the boiling of certain fish, was the girl Wildduck. She
turned to them with an expression of unaffected pleasure,
and, rushing up to Miss Stangrove, greeted her with the
most demonstrative marks of affection. Suddenly beholding
Redgrave, she looked rather surprised; then, bestowing a
searching look of inquiry upon him, she made her usual
half-shy, half-arch, salutation.
“So Wildduck is a protégée of yours, Miss Stangrove,”
said Jack; “I had no idea she had such distinguished
patronage.”
“Maud is a bit of a missionary in her way,” said Mark;
“though perhaps you might not think it. Many a good
hour she has wasted over the runaway scamp of a gin, and
a little rascal of a black boy we had.”
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
“Poor things!” said Maud, with quite a different tone
from her ordinary badinage. “They have souls, and why
should one not try to do them a little good! I am very fond
of this Wildduck, as she is called, though Kalingeree is
her real name. I remember her quite a little girl. Isn’t
she a pretty creature?—not like gins generally are.”
“She is wonderfully good-looking,” said Jack; “I thought
so the first time I saw her—when she was galloping after a
lot of horses.”
“I am afraid her stock-keeping propensities have led her
into bad company,” said Maud; “and yet it is but a natural
passion for the chase in the nearest approach the bush
affords. I can’t help feeling a deep interest in her. You
wouldn’t believe how clever she is.”
“She looks to me very much thinner than she used to
be,” said Mark. “How large her eyes seem, and so bright.
I’m afraid she will die young, like her mother.”
“She has been ill, I can see,” said Maud, as the girl
coughed, and then placed her hand upon her chest, with a
gesture of pain. “What has been the matter with you,
Wildduck?”
“Got drunk, Miss Maudie; lie out in the rain,” said the
girl, who was as realistic as one of—let us say—Rhoda
Broughton’s heroines.
“Oh, Wildduck!” said her instructress; “how could you
get tipsy again, after all I said to you?”
“Tipsy!” said the child of nature, with a twinkle of
wicked mirth in her large bright eye—“tipsy! me likum
tipsy!”
Mark and his guest were totally unable to retain their
gravity at this unexpected answer to Miss Stangrove’s
appeal, though Jack composed his countenance with great
rapidity as he noticed a deeply-pained look in Maud’s
face, and something like a tear, as she hastily turned
away.
“Are the old miamis there still, Wildduck?” asked Mark,
by way of turning the subject.
“Where you shoot black fellow, long ago?” asked she.
“By gum, you peppered ’em that one day. You kill ’em one—two—Misser
Stangrove.”
“No, I think not, Wildduck. I fired my gun all about.
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
Don’t think I killed anybody. Black fellow spear Red Bob
that day.”
“Aha!” said the girl, her face suddenly changing to an
expression of passion. “Serve him right, the murdering
dog. He kill poor black fellows for nothing; shoot gins,
too, and picaninnies; ask old man Jack.”
Here she said a few words rapidly in her own language to
the old man. The effect was instantaneous. He sprang up—he
seized his spear—his eyes suddenly assumed a fixed
and stony stare—with raised head he strode forward with
all the lightness and activity of youth. He muttered one
name repeatedly. Then his expression changed to one of
horrible exultation.
“I believe old man Jack was there,” said Mark. “Perhaps
he threw the spear that hit me.”
“Dono,” said Wildduck; “might ha’ been. He’d have
done it quick if he had, I know that.”
A spring cart with luncheon had been sent on at an early
hour, and commanded to camp close by the deserted miamis,
which had never been inhabited since the battle. Leaving
their sable friends, with an invitation to come up and
receive the fragments, they rode over to the spot indicated.
“Give me the hobbles,” said Mark to the lad who drove
the spring cart. “You can lay the cloth and set the
lunch.”
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XI.
.pm start_poem
“The Phantom Knight, his glory fled,
Mourns o’er the fields he heaped with dead.“—Scott.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack had the privilege of lifting Maud from her horse,
and then their three nags were unsaddled and hobbled.
Rejoicing in this “constitutional freedom,” they availed themselves
of it to the extent of drinking of the lake, rolling
in the sand, and cropping with relish the long grass which
only grew on the lake-side.
“Here is the very spot—how strange it seems!” said
Mark, “that we should be drinking bottled ale and eating
pâtés de foie gras just where spears were flying and guns
volleying. It was night, however, when we made our
charge. We had been tracking all day, and were guided
by their fires latterly.”
“Did they make much of a fight?” asked Jack.
“They were plucky enough for a while. Our party had
a few nasty wounds. They had some advantage in throwing
their spears, as they were close, and we could not see
them as well as they saw us. Poor old Bob! the spear
that killed him was a long slender one. It went nearly
through him. They took to the lake at last.”
“And have they never inhabited these miamis since?”
asked Maud.
“Never, from that day to this. Blacks are very superstitious.
They believe in all kinds of demons and spirits.
You ask Wildduck when she comes up.”
They walked over the “dark and bloody ground” when
the repast was over. There were the ruined wigwams just
as their occupants had fled from them at the first volley of
their white foes, nearly a generation since. Marks of haste
were apparent. The wooden buckets used for water, and
.bn 119.png
.pn +1
scooped from the bole of a tree, a boomerang or two, a
broken spear, mouldered away together.
“The situation,” said Jack, “is not without a tinge of
romance. This isn’t particularly like Highland scenery;
and blacks always return and carry off their dead, if possible;
otherwise Sir Walter’s lines might stand fairly
descriptive—
.pm start_poem
“‘A dreary glen—
Where scattered lay the bones of men,
In some forgotten battle slain,
And bleached by drifting wind and rain.’”
.pm end_poem
“It must be a terrible thing in a deed like this not to be
quite certain whether one was in the right or not. Very
likely some of those buccaneers of stockmen provoked this
tribe, if you only knew it, Mark.”
“Perhaps they did, my dear—more than likely. But we
had only plain facts to go upon. They were killing our
cattle and servants. We did not declare war. It was the
other way. Injustice may have been done, but my conscience
is clear.”
“There comes old man Jack, and Mrs. old man Jack,
collectively,” said Redgrave. “Let us hear what they say
about it.”
Slowly, and with sad countenances, the little band approached,
and sat down at a short distance from the
luncheon. They were regaled with the delicacies of civilization.
Maud administered port wine to Wildduck, and,
guardedly, to old Nannie. The others declined the juice of
the grape, but partook freely of the eatables.
“Now, then, Wildduck,” said Redgrave, “tell us anything
you know about this battle. Your people never lived
here since?”
“Never, take my oath,” said Wildduck, “never no more—too
many wandings (demons). One black fellow sleep
there one night, years ago; he frighten to death—close up.
He tell me——-”
“What did he tell you, Wildduck?” said Maud.
“Well,” began the girl, sitting down on her heels in
the soft grass, “he was out after cattle and tracked ’em
here at sundown. So he says, ‘I’ll camp at the old miamis,
blest if I don’t. Baal me frighten,’ he say. Well, he lie
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
down long a that middle big one miami and go fast asleep.
In the middle of the night he wake up. All the place was
full of blacks. Plenty—plenty,” spreading out both her
hands. “They ran about with spears, and womrahs, and
heilaman. Then he saw white fellows, and fire came out of
their guns. Very dark night. Then a white fellow, big
man with red hair, fire twice—clear light shine, and he saw
a tall black fellow send spear right through him. He say,”
said the girl, lowering her voice, “just like old man Jack.”
“This is something like the legitimate drama, Miss Stangrove,”
said Jack. “You see there is more good, solid
tragedy in Australian life than you fancied.”
“Go on, Wildduck,” said she. “What a strange scene—only
to imagine! What happened then?”
“When white fellow fall down, the tall black fellow
give a great jump, and shout out, only he hear nothing.
Then all the blacks make straight into the lake. He look
again—all gone—he hear ’possum, night-owl—that’s all.”
“And do you believe he saw anything really, Wildduck?
Come now, tell the truth,” cross-examined Mark.
“Well, Charley, big one, frighten; I see that myself.
But he took a bottle from the Mailman’s Arms, and he’d
never wait till he saw the bottom—I know that. Here
come old man Jack; he look very queer, too.”
The old savage had begun to walk up towards the spot
where they had gathered rather closely together in the
interest of Wildduck’s legend. There was, as she had said,
something strange in his appearance.
He walked in a slow and stately manner; he held himself
unusually erect. From time to time he glanced at the
old encampment, then at the lake. His face lit up with
the fire of strong passion, and then he would mutter to himself,
as if recalling the past.
“Ask him what he is thinking about, Wildduck,” said Mark.
The girl spoke a few words to the old man. It was the
philter that renews youth, the memory of the passionate
past. He stalked forward with the gait of a warrior.
Shaking off the fetters of age, he trod lightly upon the well-known
scene of conflict, with upraised head and lifted hand.
Words issued from his lips with a fiery energy, such as
none present had ever witnessed in him.
.bn 121.png
.pn +1
“He say,” commenced Wildduck, “this the place where
his tribe fight the white man, long time ago. Misser Stangrove
young feller then. Many black fellow shot—so many—so
many (here she spread out her open palms). By and
by all run into lake.”
“Does he remember Red Bob being killed?” asked
Maud.
“Red Wanding,” cried the girl, still translating the old
man’s speech, which rolled forth in faltering and passionate
tones, “he knew well; that debil-debil shoot picaninny belonging
to him—little girl—‘poor little girl’ he say. (Here
the gray chieftain threw up his arms wildly towards the
sky, while hot tears fell from the eyes still glaring with
unsated wrath and revenge.) He say, before that he always
friend to white fellow—no let black fellow spear cattle.”
“Ask him where he was himself that night,” said Mark.
The inquiry was put to him. Old man Jack replied not
for a few moments; then he walked slowly forward to a large
hollow log of the slowly-rotting eucalyptus, which had lain
for a score of years scarce perceptibly hastening on its path
of slow decay. Stooping suddenly, he thrust in his long
arm and withdrew a spear. It was mouldering with age,
but still showed by its sharpened point and smoothed edges
how dangerous a weapon it had been. He felt the point,
touched a darkened stain which reached to a foot from the
end, and, suddenly throwing himself with lightning-like
rapidity into the attitude of a thrower of the javelin,
shouted a name thrice with a demoniac malevolence which
curdled the hearts of the hearers. He then snapped the
decayed lance, and, throwing the pieces at Mark’s feet with
a softened and humble gesture, relapsed into his old mute,
emotionless manner, and strode away along the border of
the lake.
“He say,” concluded Wildduck, with a half confidential
manner, “that he spear Red Bob that night with that one
spear. He hide ’em in log, and never see it again till this
day.”
“Some secrets are well kept,” said Mark. “If it had
been known within a few years after the fight, old man
Jack would have been shot half a dozen times over. Now,
no one would think of avenging Red Bob’s death more
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
than that of Julius Cæsar. After all, it was a fair fight;
and I believe old man Jack’s story.”
“Well, I shall never laugh at bush warfare again,” said
Maud; “there is sad earnest sufficient for anybody in this
tale.”
“We may as well be turning our horses’ heads homeward.
Wildduck, you come up to-morrow and get something
for your cough.”
“Come up now,” accepted Wildduck, with great promptitude.
“Too much frightened of Wanding to-night to stop
here.”
A brisk gallop home shook off some of the influences of
their somewhat eerie adventure. Maud strove to keep
up the lively tone of her ordinary conversation, but did not
wholly succeed. Her subdued bearing rendered her, in
Jack’s eyes, more irresistible than before. He was rapidly
approaching that helpless stage when, in moods of grave
or gay, a man sees only the absolute perfection of his exemplar
of all feminine graces. From the last pitying glance
which Maud bestowed on Wildduck, to the frank kiss
which she so lovingly pressed on Mameluke’s neck as she
dismounted, Jack only recognized the rare combination of
lofty sentiment with a warm and affectionate nature.
Next morning Jack was under marching orders. He
had left M‘Nab sufficiently long by himself, in case anything
of the nature of work turned up. He had secured an extremely
pleasant change from the monotony of home. He
had, most undeniably, acquired one or more new ideas. How
regretfully he saw Mark finish his breakfast, and wait to
say good-bye, preparatory to a long day’s ride after those
eternal shepherds!
“You must come and see us again,” said Mrs. Stangrove,
properly careful to retain the acquaintance of an agreeable
neighbour and an eligible parti. “You have no excuse
now. We shall not believe in the use and value of your
fencing if it won’t provide you with a little leisure
sometimes.”
“You must all come and see me before shearing,” rejoined
he. “I shall make a stand on my rights in etiquette,
and refuse to come again before you have ‘returned my
call,’ as ladies say. I have several novelties beside the
.bn 123.png
.pn +1
fencing to show, which might interest even ladies. I hope
you won’t give Stangrove any rest till he promises to
bring you.”
“We have a natural curiosity to see all the new world
you are reported to have made,” Maud said, “and even your
model overseer, Mr. M‘Nab. He must surely be one of the
‘coming race,’ and have any quantity of ‘vril’ at command.
I suppose the land will be filled with such products of a
higher civilization after we early Arcadians are abolished.”
“You must come and see, Miss Stangrove. I will tell
you nothing. M‘Nab is the ideal general-of-division in the
grand army of labour, to my fancy. But whether it is to
be Waterloo or Walcheren the future must decide. Au
revoir!”
He shook hands with Stangrove, and, mounting, departed
with his brace of hackneys for the trifling day’s ride between
there and home. Truth to tell, he tested the mettle of his
steeds much more shrewdly than in his leisurely downward
course. It was nearer to eight hours than nine when he
reined up before the home-paddock gate of Gondaree.
Returning to one’s own particular abode and domicile is
not always an unmixed joy, however much imaginative
writers have insisted upon the aspect. “The watchdog’s
honest bay” occasionally displays a want of recognition
calculated to irritate the sensitive mind. Evidence is sometimes
forced upon the unwilling revenant of the proverbial
and unwarrantable playing of mice in the absence of the
lord of the castle, who is thereby unpleasantly reminded
that he occupies substantially the position of the cat. Possibly
he is greeted with the unwelcome announcement that
an important business interview has lapsed by reason of his
absence. It may be that he finds his household absent at
an entertainment, thus causing him to moralize upon desolate
hearthstones and shattered statuettes, while he is
gloomily performing for himself the minor offices so promptly
bestowed on more fortunate arrivals. Or fate, being in one
of her dark moods—a subtle prescience of evil, only too
true—meets him on the threshold, and he enters his home
as chief mourner. “Happy whom none of these befall;”
and in such cheer did our hero find himself when, after
hurried inquiry, it transpired that “nothing had happened,”
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
that everything was going on as well as could be, and that
Mr. M‘Nab was out at the woolshed (No. 3), and had left
word that he would be in at sundown.
“So everything has gone on well in my absence,” said
Jack to his lieutenant, as they sat placidly smoking after
the evening meal. “I began to be a little nervous as I
got near home, though why it should be I can’t say.”
“So well,” answered M‘Nab, “that if it were not for the
woolshed there would be too little to do. Once a month is
often enough to muster the paddocks, and the percentage of
loss has been very trifling. The sheep are in tip-top condition.
The clip will be good and very clean. I hope we
are past our troubles.”
“I hope so too,” echoed Jack. “How many sheep are
there in the river paddock?”
“Nine thousand odd. You never saw anything like
them for condition.”
“Isn’t there a risk in having them there at this time of
year? The river might come down; and Stangrove told
me the greater part of that paddock is under water in a
big flood.”
“Plenty of time to get them out. If the worst came we
could soon rig a temporary bridge over the anabranch
creek.”
“People about here say,” objected Jack, “that when a
real flood comes down all sorts of places are filled which
you wouldn’t expect; and sheep are the stupidest things—except
pigs—that ever were tried in water and a hurry.”
“You needn’t be uneasy; I’ll have them out of that
hours before there is any danger,” said M‘Nab, confidently.
“Meanwhile, if they don’t use the feed the travelling stock
will only have the benefit of it. What did you think of
Mr. Stangrove’s place, sir?”
“I was agreeably surprised,” said Jack, with an air of
much gravity. “The whole affair is old-fashioned, of
course; but the stock are very good, in fine order, and
everything about the place very neat and nice. Mr.
Stangrove and his family are exceedingly nice people.”
“So I’ve heard,” said M‘Nab. “So I believe (as if that
was a point so unimportant as to merit the merest assent);
but the Run!—the run is one of the best and largest on
.bn 125.png
.pn +1
the river, and to think of its being thrown away upon less
than twenty thousand sheep, a thousand head of cattle,
and a few mobs of rubbishy horses!”
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” said Jack, smiling at M‘Nab’s
righteous indignation; “but Stangrove is one of those men
who thinks he has a right to do what he wills with his own.
And really he has something to say for himself.”
“I can’t think it, sir; I can’t think it,” asserted the stern
utilitarian. “The State ought to step in and interfere
when a man is clearly wasting and misusing the public
lands. I’d give all the shepherding, non-fencing men five
years’ warning; if at the end of that time they had not
contrived to fence and dig wells the country should be
resumed and let by tender to men who would work the
Crown lands decently and profitably.”
“You’re rather too advanced a land-reformer,” said his
employer. “You might have the tables turned upon you
by the farmers. However, you can argue the point of eviction
with Mr. Stangrove, who will be here with the ladies,
I hope, before shearing. But he has fought for his land
once, and I feel sure would do so again if need were. Still
I think he will be rather astonished at our four boundary
riders.”
The first necessity was an inspection of the new wool-shed,
which was raising its unpretending form, like a
species of degenerate ph[oe]nix, from the ashes of its glorious
predecessor. It was strong and substantial, full of necessary
conveniences—good enough—but not the model edifice—the
exemplar of a district, the pride of Lower Riverina.
Now befell a halcyon time of a couple of months of Jack’s
existence, during which the millennium, as far as Gondaree
was concerned, seemed to have arrived.
The weather was perfect; there was just enough rain, not
more than was needed to “freshen up” the pasture from
time to time. There were ten thousand fat sheep; the
lambing had commenced, and prospects were splendid.
Better than all, the reactionary reign of economy directly
proceeding from M‘Nab’s well-calculated outlay had set in.
With forty-two thousand “countable” sheep and twenty
thousand lambing ewes, “in full blast,” there were but the
four boundary riders, M‘Nab, the cook, and Ah Sing, plus
.bn 126.png
.pn +1
the shed workmen. “This was something like,” Jack said
to himself. “Fancy the small army I should have billeted
upon me if I were like Stangrove, and had the same proportion
of hands to employ. The very thought of it is
madness, or insolvency—which comes to the same
thing.”
“I really believe we could do with even fewer hands upon
a pinch,” said M‘Nab. “Ah Sing is of course a luxury,
though a justifiable one. The boundary-riders come in for
their own rations, so a ration-carrier is unnecessary. The
two that live at the homestead cook for themselves. There
is next to no work in the store till shearing; you or I can
give out anything that is wanted. The cook chops his own
wood, and fetches it in once a week; water is at the door.
If it were not for having to convoy travelling sheep, one
man could watch and the rest go to sleep till shearing.
There are no dingoes, and we have no township near us to
breed tame dogs. Next year we must have thirty thousand
lambing-sheep by hook or by crook, and then you may put
Gondaree into the market with sixty thousand sheep as
soon after as you please.”
“What about these ten thousand fat sheep?” said Jack.
“Isn’t it time we were thinking of drafting and sending
them on the road?”
“If I were you, Mr. Redgrave, I would not sell them,
unless you were obliged, till after shearing. They are
worth from twelve to fourteen shillings all round in Melbourne,
let us say. Well, the wethers will cut six shillings’
worth of wool, and the ewes five. It would pay you to
shear them and sell them as store sheep.”
“That’s all very well; but if you don’t sell at the proper
time I always notice that it ends in keeping them for
another year; by which you lose interest, and risk a fall
in the market.”
“Not much chance of sheep falling below ten shillings,”
rejoined M‘Nab. “We can send them in very prime about
March. We may just as soon make one expense of the
shearing.”
“Well,” yielded Jack, “I dare say it won’t make much
difference. We shall have it—the clip—and if they only
fetch ten shillings there will be a profit of five and twenty
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
per cent. They don’t cost anything for shepherding, that’s
one comfort.”
So matters wore on till July. To complete the astonishing
success and enjoyment of the situation, Jack received a
letter from Stangrove, to say that he was going to drive over,
and would bring the ladies for a day’s visit to Gondaree.
Jack’s cup well-nigh overflowed. To think of having
her actually in the cottage, under his very roof—to have
the happiness of beholding her walking about the garden
and homestead, criticising everything, as she would be sure
to do. Perhaps even appreciating, with that clear intellect
of hers, the scope and breadth of the system of management,
of his life pleasures even. Could she be won to
take an interest, then what delirious, immeasurable joy!
Preparations were made. A feminine supernumerary was
secured from the woolshed camp. Fortunately the cook was
undeniable, and he needed but a word to “impress himself”
and execute marvels. The cottage was entirely given up to
the ladies, and the bachelors’ quarters made ready for occupation
by Stangrove, M‘Nab, and himself. So might they
retire, and smoke and talk sheep ad libitum. The small
flower-garden round the cottage, or rather at the side, as its
verandah almost overhung the river, was made neat. Even
M‘Nab, though grumbling somewhat at a feminine invasion
“just before shearing,” looked out his best suit of clothes,
and prepared to abide the onset. Had there ever been a lady
at Gondaree before? Jack began to consider. It was exceedingly
doubtful.
At the appointed day, just before sundown, Stangrove’s
buggy rattled up behind, as usual, a very fast pair of horses.
He was a great man for pace, and, having lots of horses to
pick out of, generally had something only slightly inferior to
public performers. Indeed, his friends used to complain
that he never could be got to stay a night with any one on
the road—being always bent upon some impossible distance
in the day, and insisting upon going twenty or thirty miles
farther, in order to accomplish it. However that might be,
no man drove better horses.
“Here we are at last, Redgrave,” said he, as Jack rushed
out to satisfy himself that Maud was actually in the flesh at
his gates. “We should have been here before, but the
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
ladies, of course, kept me waiting. However, I think we’ve
done it under seven hours—that’s not so bad.”
“Bad! I should think not—splendid going!” said Jack.
“I must get you to sell me a pair of buggy horses; mine are
slow enough for a poison cart. Mrs. Stangrove, how good
of you to cheer up a lonely bachelor! Miss Stangrove, I
throw myself and household on your mercy. Will you,
ladies, deign to walk in? you will find an attendant, and
take possession of my house and all that is in it. Stangrove,
we must take out the nags ourselves; no spare hands on a
fenced-in run, you perceive.”
“All right, Redgrave, that’s the style I like. Mind you
keep it up.”
The stable was well found, though the groom was absent.
Abundance of hay had been supplied, and the buggy was
placed under cover. The friends were soon sauntering down
by the river, and of course talking sheep, in the interval
before dinner.
“Saw a lot of your weaners as we came along,” said Stangrove.
“How well they look. Much larger than mine, and
the wool very clean. It certainly makes a man think.
How many are there in that paddock?”
“Nine thousand,” answered Jack, carelessly. “They have
been there since they were weaned.”
“And how often are they counted?”
“Once a month, regularly.”
“What percentage of loss?”
“Next to none at all; the fact is we have no dogs, and the
season has been so far, glorious.”
“Well, I have five shepherds for the same number,” said
Stangrove; “have had one or two ‘smashes,’ endless riding,
bother, and trouble. It seems very nice to turn them loose
and never have any work or expense with them—the most
troublesome of one’s whole flock—till shearing. However, as
I said before, my mind is made up for the next couple of
years—after that, I won’t say——”
“I think I hear the dinner-bell,” said Jack; “the ladies
will be wondering what has become of us.”
M‘Nab having arrived about this time, looking highly
presentable, the masculine contingent entered the cottage,
and dinner was announced.
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
“Your housekeeping does not need to fear criticism,”
said Mrs. Stangrove, as she tasted the clear soup. This
was a spécialité of Monsieur Jean Dubois, an artist who,
but for having contracted the colonial preference for cognac,
our vin ordinaire, would have graced still a metropolitan
establishment.
“We women are always complimented upon our domestic
efficiency, home comforts, and so on,” said Maud. “It appears
to me that bachelors always live more comfortably
than the married people of our acquaintance.”
“I don’t think that is always the case,” pleaded Mrs.
Stangrove. “But in many instances I have noted that you
gentlemen, who are living by yourselves, always seem to
get the best servants.”
“‘Kinder they than Missises are,’ Thackeray says, you
know; but it must be quite an accidental circumstance. In
by far the greater number of instances a lone bachelor is
oppressed, neglected, and perhaps robbed.”
“I am not so sure of that,” persisted Maud. “You
exaggerate your chances of misfortune. I know when I
am travelling with Mark we generally find ourselves much
better put up, as he calls it, at a bachelor residence than at a
regular family establishment. Don’t we, Mark?”
“Well, I can’t altogether deny it,” deposed Stangrove,
thus adjured. “It may not last, and the bachelor may be
living on his capital of comfort. But I must say that, unless
I know a man’s wife is one of the right sort, I prefer the
unmarried host. You fling yourself into the best chair in
the room as soon as you have made yourself decent. You are
safe to be asked to take a glass of grog without any unnecessary
waste of time. And you are absolutely certain
that no possible cloud can cast a shade over the evening’s
abandon. Whereas, in the case of the ‘double event,’ the
odds are greater that it won’t come off so successfully.”
“What are you saying about married people, Mark?
You’re surely in a wicked sarcastic humour. Don’t believe
him Mr. Redgrave.”
“My dear! you are the exceptional helpmate, as I am
always ready to testify. But there may be cases, you know,
when the husband has just stated that he’ll be hanged if he
will have his mother-in-law for another six months, just yet;
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
or the cook, not being able to ‘hit it’ with the mistress’s
slightly explosive temper, has left at a moment’s notice, and
there is nothing but half-cold mutton and quite hot soda-bread
to be procured; the grog, too, has run out, which is
never the case in a bachelor’s establishment—and so—and
so. Unless the lady of the house is partial to strangers (like
you, my dear), give me Tom, or Dick, and Liberty Hall.”
“So I say too,” added Maud. “Of course being a single
young person, I feel flattered by the respectful admiration I
meet with at such houses. It’s not proper, I suppose. I ought
to feel more pleased to be under the wing of a staid, overworked,
slightly soured mother of a family, who keeps me
waiting for tea till all the children are put to bed, and
gives me something to stitch at during the evening; but I
don’t—and so there’s no use saying I do.”
“I’m afraid your tastes border on the Bohemian, Miss
Stangrove,” said Jack. “I’m rather a Philistine myself, I
own, in the matter of young ladies.”
“Thinking, no doubt, as is the manner of men, that
stupidity contains a great element of safety for women. I
could prove to you that you are utterly wrong; but you
might think me more a person of independent ideas—that
is, more unladylike than ever. So I abstain. How nicely
your verandah looks over the river. It is quite a balcony.
Isn’t it very unpleasantly near in flood-time?”
“The oldest inhabitant has never seen water cover this
point,” said Jack. “I ascertained that very carefully before
I built here. If you look over to those low green marshy
flats on the other side, you will see that miles of water must
spread out for every additional inch the river rises.”
“Yes, Steamboat Point is all right,” said Mark. “I’ve
heard the blacks admit that. I’ve seen a big flood or two
here too; but the water runs back into the creeks and anabranches
in a wonderful way. Gets behind you and cuts
you off before you can help yourself, sometimes, in the
night. If I were you I would have every weaner out of
those river paddocks before spring.”
“We could have them out soon enough if there was any
danger,” here interposed M‘Nab.
“You would find it hard, take my word for it,” said
Stangrove, “if the river came down a banker.”
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
“I could whip a bridge over any back creek here in half
an hour,” said M‘Nab, decisively, “that would cross every
sheep we have there in two hours.”
“There’s a Napoleonic ring about that, Mr. M‘Nab,”
said Maud; “but the Duke would have had all his forces—I
mean his sheep—withdrawn from the position of danger
in good time. One or two of Buonaparte’s bridges broke
down with him, you remember.”
“It doesn’t look much like a flood at present,” said
Jack; “though this is no warranty in Australia, which is
a land specially dedicated to the unforeseen. Let us hope
that there will be nothing so sensational at or before
shearing this year.”
“Not even bushrangers,” said Maud. “What does this
mean?” handing over to her brother the Warroo Watch-tower
and Down-river Advertiser, in which figured the
following paragraph: “We regret sincerely to be compelled
to state that the rumours as to a party of desperadoes having
taken to the bush are not without foundation. Last
week two drays were robbed near Mud Springs by a party
of five men, well armed and mounted. The day before
yesterday the mailman and several travellers on the Oxley
road were stopped and robbed by the same gang. They are
said to be led by the notorious Redcap, and to have stated
that they were coming into the Warroo frontage to give
the squatters a turn.”
Mrs. Stangrove turned pale, Maud laughed, while Mark
devoted himself very properly to calm the apprehensions of
his wife.
“Maud,” he said, “this is no laughing matter. It is the
beginning of a period, whether long or short, of great
trouble and anxiety, it may be danger, I am not an
alarmist; but I wish we were well out of this matter.”
“It seems very ridiculous,” said Jack; “every man’s
hand will be against them, and they must be run or shot
down, ultimately.”
“Nothing more certain,” admitted Stangrove; “but
these fellows generally ‘turn out’ from the merest folly or
recklessness, and become gradually hardened to bloodshed.
They are like raw troops, mere rustics at first. But they
soon learn the part of ‘first robber,’ and generally lose
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
some of their own blood, or spill that of better men, before
they get taken.”
“We have a dray just loading up from town. There is
time—yes, just time,” said M‘Nab, consulting his pocket-book,
“to write by mail. We can order revolvers, and a
repeating rifle or two, and have them up in five weeks.
Can we get anything for you?”
“Certainly, and much obliged,” said Stangrove; “if they
know that we are well armed, they will be all the more
chary of coming to close quarters. You may order for me
a brace of repeating rifles and three revolvers.”
“With some of the neighbours we might turn out a
respectable force, and hunt the fellows down,” said Jack,
who felt ready for anything in the immediate proximity of
Maud, and only wished the gang would attack Gondaree
then and there.
There was no such luck, however. The ordinary station
life was unruffled. The ladies rode and drove about with
cheerful energy. Maud admired the paddocks and the
unshepherded sheep immensely, and vainly tried to extort
her brother’s consent to begin the reformed system as soon
as they returned to Juandah.
Mark had said that he would defer the enterprise for two
years, and he was a man who, slow in forming resolves,
always adhered to them.
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XII.
.pm start_poem
“So farre, so fast the eygre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow seething wave
Sobbed in the grasses at our feet;
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.”—Jean Ingelow.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
The days passed pleasantly in excursions to Bimbalong,
to the back paddocks, and in rides and drives along the
perfect natural roads peculiar to the locality. In the long
excursions, the twilight was upon them more than once
before they reached home. Jack did not altogether neglect
his opportunities. When he rode close to Maud’s bridle-rein,
as they flitted along in the mild half-light between the
shadowy pines, or the avenues of oak and myall, words
would become gradually lower in tone, more accented with
feeling, than the ordinary daylight converse.
“And so you think,” said Jack, on one of these pleasant
twilight confidentials—Stangrove, who was driving, being
rather anxious to get home before the light got any worse—“that
I am not playing too hazardous a game in spending
freely now, with the expectation of being so largely recouped
within a year or two.”
“It is exactly what I should do if I were a man,” said the
girl, frankly. “How men can consent to bury themselves
alive in this wearisome, never-ending, bush sepulchre I cannot
think. I should perish if I were compelled to lead such a life
without possibility of change. When we think of the glorious
old world, the dreamland of one’s spirit, the theatre of art,
luxury, war, antiquity, which leisure would enable one to
visit—how can one be contented?”
“I never thought I should feel contented on the Warroo,”
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
said her companion; “yet now, really, I don’t find it so
awfully dull, you know.”
“Not just at present,” answered Maud, archly. “Well, I
am candid enough to own that, our families having joined
forces since your visit, things are a shade more bearable. But
fancy growing gray in this life and these surroundings.
Twenty years after! Fancy us all at that date, here!”
“I can’t fancy it. What should we be like, Miss Stangrove?”
“I can tell you,” pursued the excited girl. “Mark much
the same, gray and more silent—strongly of opinion that the
Government of the day were in league with free selectors, and
generally robbers and murderers. His opinions are pretty
strong now. Then, of course, they would have ripened into
prejudices. My sister-in-law, frail, worn out by servants and
household cares; just a little querulous, and more indisposed
to read.”
“And yourself?” asked Jack.
“Oh! I should have been quietly buried under a couba
tree before that impossible period. Or, if I unhappily survived,
would have become eccentric. I should be spoken of generally
as a ‘little strong-minded,’ slight dash of temper, and so on;
very fond of riding, and, they say, can count sheep and act as
boundary-rider when her brother is short of hands. How
do you like the picture?”
“You have not paid me the compliment of including me
on the canvas.”
“I don’t possibly imagine you within thousands of miles
of Gondaree or Juandah at such a time. You will be
dreaming among the ‘Stones of Venice,’ lounging away the
winter in Rome, or settled in a hunting neighbourhood in a
pleasant English county, making up your mind, very
gradually, to return to Australia, and to devote the rest of
your days to model farming and national regeneration.”
“There is only one thing absolutely necessary to render my
existence happy under the conditions which you have so
accurately sketched,”—here he leaned forward, and placing
his hand upon her horse’s mane, saw a softened gleam in her
marvellous eyes—as of the heart’s farewell to unacknowledged
hope—“and that is——”
“We are really riding shamefully slow,” said she suddenly,
as she drew her rein, and the free horse tossed his head and
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
went off at speed. “Mark must have nearly reached home,
and Jane, as usual, will be fancying all kinds of impossible
accidents—that dear old Mameluke has tumbled down, positively
tumbled down and broken my arm in three places. I
tell her she’ll suspect me of taking a ‘bait’ next. How still
the plain looks, and how exactly the same—north and south,
east and west! But even in this light you can distinguish
the heavy, dark, winding line of the river timber.”
In due time the guests departed, and Mr. Redgrave was left
to the consideration of the loneliness of his condition, a view
of life which had not presented itself strongly before his
introduction to Miss Stangrove. He had been contented to
enjoy the society of wife, widow, and maid in the most
artless, instinctive fashion, without any fixed plan of personal
advantage. Not that this unsatisfactory general approbation
had escaped criticism by those who felt themselves to be
sufficiently interested to speak. He had been called selfish,
conceited, fastidious, fast, uninteresting, and mysterious.
Many adjectives had in private been hurled at his devoted
head. But he “had a light heart, and so bore up.” Besides,
he had a reserve of popularity to fall back upon. There
were many people who would not suffer Jack Redgrave to be
run down unreasonably. So up to this time he had eluded
appropriation and defied disapproval.
Now matters were changed. The slow, resistless Nemesis
was upon him. In his ears sounded the prelude to that
melody—heard but once in this mortal life—in tones at first
low and soft, then rich and dread with melody from the
immortal lyre. At that summons all men arise and follow.
Follow, be it angel or fiend. Follow, be the path over vernal
meads, through forest gloom, or the drear shades of the nether
hell.
No woman, Jack soliloquised, had ever before commended
herself to his tastes, his senses, his reason, and his fancy.
She was in his eyes lovely in form and face; original, cultured,
tender, and true. He would make her his wife if his
utmost efforts might compass such triumph, such wild exaggeration
of happiness. She might not care particularly
about him. She might merely have whiled away a dull
week. Now, many a time had he done likewise, with apparent
interest and inward tedium. Were it so, he felt as if
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
he could bestow a legend on Steamboat Point by casting himself
into the rapid but not particularly deep waters which
flowed beneath. At any rate he would try. He would make
the great hazard. He would know his fate after shearing.
Meanwhile, there was nearly enough to do until that solemn
Hegira to put the thought of Maud Stangrove out of his
head.
Having made up his mind, Mr. Redgrave dismissed the fair
Maud with philosophical completeness. Master Jack was
extremely averse to holding his judgment in suspense, that
process involving abrasion of his peculiarly delicate mental
cuticle. He was prone, therefore, to a speedy settlement of
all cases of conscience. Judgment being delivered, he bore
or performed sentence unflinchingly. Yet his friends asserted
that during any stay of proceedings he could amuse himself
as unreservedly, as free from boding gloom, or “the sad companion,
ghastly pale, and darksome as a widow’s veil,” as any
sportive lambkin on his way to mint sauce and deglutition.
Thus, having settled that the subjugation of Miss Stangrove
could not be undertaken until after shearing, he went heart
and soul into the arrangements for that annual agony, to the
total exclusion of all less material considerations.
To a healthy man, in the full possession of all mental and
bodily faculties, perhaps a state of perfect employment is the
one most nearly approaching to that of perfect happiness. It
is rarely conceded at the time; but more often than we wot
of do men recall, when in the lap of ease, that season of comparative
toil and strife, with a sigh for the “grand old days
of pleasure and pain.” Each nerve and muscle is at stretch.
The struggle is close and hard; but there is the glorious sensation
of “the strong man rejoicing in his strength.” The
very fatigue is natural and wholesome. The recovery is sure
and complete; and, if only a reasonable meed of success
crown those unsparing efforts, the heart swells with the proud
joy of him round whose brow is twined the envied crown in
the arena. Let who will choose the dulled sensation with
which, in after life, the successful merchant notes his dividends,
or the politician accepts the long-promised leadership.
Mr. Redgrave, then, having girded himself for the fight, in
company with M‘Nab, drank delight of battle with his peers,
that is, with the shearers, washers, and knockabout men, who
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
struck repeatedly, and gave as much trouble as their ingenuity
could manage to supply during the first week of shearing.
.tb
Suddenly—as is the custom of all Australian weather-wonders—clouds
charged with heavy driving showers came
hurtling across the fair blue sky. This abnormal state of
matters on the Warroo was succeeded by a steady, settled
rainfall, pouring down heavily, and yet more heavily on
several successive days, as if heaven’s windows were once
more opened, and the dry land was again to be circumscribed.
Without loss of time, down came the river, “tossing his
tawny mane,” foam-flecked, and bearing on his broad brown
bosom all sorts of goods and chattels not intended for water
carriage. The anabranch surrounding a large portion of the
river paddock, wherein were the weaners, was simultaneously
filled by the turbid torrent, which dashed into its deep but
ordinarily dry bed from the brimming river. At the present
level no danger was to be apprehended for the unconscious
weaners; but M‘Nab was unwilling to trust to the probabilities,
and decided upon getting them out. A bridge was
extemporised, of a sort laid away in the well-stored chambers
of his practical brain, and thrown across the narrowest part.
With a heavy expenditure of patience, and the efficient
leadership of certain pet sheep, which M‘Nab had reared
and trained for shearing needs, the whole lot were mustered
and safely crossed over the newly-born water-course.
“I am not sure now,” said M‘Nab, “that we have not had
all our trouble for nothing. I believe the river will be low
again in a week.”
“All the same,” affirmed Jack, “it’s well to be on the safe
side, especially of a back creek in flood-time. Nobody knows
what these confounded rivers are capable of doing when no
one wants them.”
“Well, they can have the No. 2 paddock, and the dry
ewes can have No. 3. I wanted No. 2 for the shorn sheep,
though. It’s just a nuisance the water coming down now.”
The mild excitement of the spate, as Mr. M‘Nab called it,
died away. The sun came out; the waters returned to nearly
their former limits, and a wide, half-dried surface of mud,
alone denoted where the deep and turbid waters had rolled
over the broad channel of the anabranch.
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
The wool-shed and wash-pen had been correctly placed
upon the borders of a creek so conveniently humble as never
to attain to any measure of danger or discomfort in the
highest flood. So, directly the rain ceased, the great yearly
campaign went on rapidly and smoothly.
Weeks passed; the season was advancing; the sun became
hotter; there was not a day of broken weather; everything
was in capital gear, and worked with even suspicious
smoothness.
“We are getting on like a house afire,” said M‘Nab; “that
is,” as he suddenly bethought himself of the awkwardness of
the allusion, “much faster than I expected. We have a good
lot of men. There is no dust. The wash-pen is just grand.
I never saw wool cleaner and better got up, though I say
so.”
“Our luck has turned,” said Jack; “no more accidents;
though it’s strange that, when all is unnaturally successful,
something is sure to happen. If the engine was to smash, a
valve or some small trouble to happen, I should feel that the
ring of Polycrates had been thrown into the Warroo, and not
returned by an officious codfish.”
“I don’t know about Polly Whatsyname’s ring,” said Mr.
M‘Nab, whose education had not included the classics; “but
things couldn’t be better. I shall put those weaners back into
the river paddock again. The grass is all going to waste.”
“Just as you like,” said Jack, who had forgotten his
caution now that the emergency was over. “I suppose we
shall have the dust blowing in about a fortnight.”
“By then we shall be done shearing. I don’t care what
comes after,” answered the manager. “And now I must go
back to the shed.”
.tb
“Thank God, it’s Saturday night!” said Jack, as they sat
down to their dinner at the fashionable hour of nine p.m.
“I enjoy a good bout of work; it’s exciting, and pulls one
together. But one wants a little sleep sometimes; likewise
something to eat.”
“This has been a middling hard week,” graciously admitted
M‘Nab, who rarely would concede that any amount of labour
constituted a really laborious term. “One more week, and
every dray will be loaded up, and the wool off our hands.”
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
“Do you think the weather will hold good? It had rather
a lowering, hazy look to-day.”
“That means that it’s raining somewhere else,” said
M‘Nab, uninterestedly. “It’s very often our share of it on
the Warroo here.”
“Don’t know—somehow I have had a queer feeling all day
that I can’t account for. Hard work generally goes to raise
my spirits in view of the splendid appreciation of food and
sleep that follows. But I have felt what the teller of tales
calls a ‘presentiment’—a foreshadowing of evil—if such a
thing can be.”
“Take a glass of grog extra to-night, sir; you’ve caught
cold at the wash-pen, or the influenza the men had before
shearing has fastened on you. Some of them got a great
shaking with it, and lay about like a lot of old women.”
“I suspect the vagabonds considered it a favourable time
to be ill,” laughed Jack, “as they were not paying for their
rations, and thought we might put them on at a little gentle
work. However, we won’t pursue the subject.”
No one can have an adequate comprehension of the value
of the Sabbath as a day of pure rest who has not worked at
high pressure, with brain or hand, the week-time through.
Well and wisely was the Lord’s Day ordained—well and
wisely is it maintained—for the needful recovery of the
wasted powers of the wondrous, miraculous machine called
Man. In this age, above all others, it is vitally necessary
that a weekly truce should be proclaimed, when the life-long
conflict may cease and the fever-throbs of the “malady of
thought” may be stilled.
But for this anodyne, how many a brow, hot with the
electric currents that flash ceaselessly through the brain,
would pass swiftly from pain to madness! How many a
stalwart frame, the unguarded, yet precious, capital of the
son of labour, would stagger and fall by the wayside of a
life which was one endless, monotonous martyrdom of unrelieved
toil! But the eve, the blessed herald of the coming
holy day, arrives; the worn craftsman rests, enjoys, and
sinks into a dreamless sleep. The modern Alchemist, he
who painfully coins his brain into gold, relinquishing crucible
and furnace, walks forth into the pure air of heaven, and
thanks the Great Ruler for the respite—the sweet moments
of a charmed, untroubled day.
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
John Redgrave, as he awoke at dawn, and turned over for
an hour or two of rare repose, had some such glimmerings of
thankfulness. He had nothing to do or to think about until
late in the afternoon, when the sheep for Monday’s shearing
would have to be packed into the shed, and the next contingent
due for the somewhat trying lavation by spout placed
near their tubbing apparatus. All the morning—what an
amazing quantity of time!—absolutely free. A leisurely calm
breakfast, with the glorious “nothing to do” for ever so long
afterwards. It was the reign of Buddha, the classic Elysium.
He would sit on high like broad-fronted Jove, and meditate,
and read and write, and be supremely happy.
From the tenor of Mr. Redgrave’s thoughts, it will not
escape the acute reader that he had forgotten his presentiment.
But scarcely had he concluded his solitary, luxuriously-lingering
meal—(M‘Nab of course was miles away on some indispensable
work, which he kept for Sundays and holidays)—than
the Eidolon stole forth from the curtains of his soul, and
confronted him with disembodied but ghastly presentment.
Down went the register of Jack’s animal spirits—down—down.
The very face of heaven darkened—the sky became
overcast. The breeze became chill and moaned eerily, without
any assignable reason—for what were clouds in Riverina
but the heralds of prosperity, or its synonym, the Rain-King,
but the lord and gold-giver of all the sun-scorched land?
Thus he reasoned. But his logic was powerless to dislodge
the demon. The necessary evening work was formally proceeded
with; but the sun set upon few more depressed and
utterly wretched mortals than John Redgrave, as he moodily
smoked for an hour, and retired early to an uneasy couch.
More than once he half rose through the night, and listened,
as a strange sound mingled with the blast which roared and
raved, and shook the cottage roof in the frenzied gusts of the
changeful spring. But an hour before dawn he sprang suddenly
up and shouted to M‘Nab, who slept in an adjoining
room.
“Get up, man, and listen. I thought I could not be mistaken.
The river has got us this time.”
“I hear,” said M‘Nab, standing at the window, with all
his senses about him. “It can’t be the river; and yet, what
else can it be?”
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
“I know,” cried Jack; “it’s the water pouring into the
back creek when it leaves the river. There must be an awful
flood coming down, or it could never make all that row. The
last time it filled up as smoothly as a backwater lagoon.
Listen again!”
The two men stood, half-clad as they were, in the darkness,
ever deepest before dawn, while louder, and more distinctly,
they heard the fall, the roar, the rush of the wild waters of
an angry flood down a deep and empty channel. A very
deep excavation had been scooped of old by the Warroo at
the commencement of the anabranch, which, leaving the river
at an angle, followed its course for miles, sometimes at a
considerable distance, before it re-entered it.
“My conscience!” said M‘Nab, “I never heard the like
of that before—in these parts, that is. I would give a year’s
wage I hadn’t crossed those weaners back. I only did it a
day or two since. May the devil—but swearing never so
much as lifted a pound of any man’s burden yet. We’ll
not be swung clear of this grip of his claws by calling on
him.”
With this anti-Manichæan assertion, M‘Nab went forth,
and stumbled about the paddock till he managed to get his
own and Jack’s horse into the yard. These he saddled and
had ready by the first streak of dawn. Then they mounted
and rode towards the back of the river paddock.
“I was afraid of this,” said Jack, gloomily, as their horses’
feet plashed in the edge of a broad, dull-coloured sheet of
water, long before they reached the ridge whence they usually
descried the back-creek channel. “The waters are out such
a distance that we shall not be able to get near the banks
of this infernal anabranch, much less throw a bridge over any
part of it. There is a mile of water on it now, from end to
end. The sheep must take their chance, and that only chance
is that the river may not rise as high as Stangrove says he
has known it.”
“I deserve to be overseer of a thick run with bad shepherds
all my life,” groaned M‘Nab, with an amount of
sincerity in his abjectly humiliated voice so ludicrous that
Jack, in that hour of misery, could scarcely refrain from
smiling. “But let us gallop down to the outlet; it may not
have got that far yet.”
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
They rode hard for the point, some miles down, where the
treacherous offshoot re-entered the Warroo. It sometimes
happens that, owing to the sinuosities of the watercourses of
the interior, horsemen at speed can outstrip the advancing
flood-wave, and give timely notice to the dwellers on the
banks. Such faint hope had they. By cutting across long
detours or bends, and riding harder than was at all consistent
with safety to their clover-fed horses, they reached the outlet.
Joy of joys, it was “as dry as a bone.”
“Now,” said M‘Nab, driving his horse recklessly down
into the hard-baked channel, “if we can only find most of
the sheep in this end of the paddock we may beat bad luck
and the water yet. Did the dog come, I wonder? The Lord
send he did. I saw him with us the first time we pulled up.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Jack; “we’ve ridden too hard for
any mortal dog to keep up with us, though Help will come
on our tracks if he thinks he’s wanted.”
“Bide a bit—bide a bit,” implored M‘Nab, forgetting his
English, and going back to an earlier vernacular in the
depth of his earnestness. “The dog’s worth an hour of time
and a dozen men to us. Help! Help! here, boy, here!”
He gave out the canine summons in the long-drawn cry
peculiar to drovers when seeking to signal their whereabouts
to their faithful allies. Jack put his fingers to his mouth
and emitted a whistle of such remarkable volume and
shrillness that M‘Nab confessed his admiration.
“That will fetch him, sir, if he’s anywhere within a mile.
Dash’d if that isn’t him coming now. See him following our
tracks. Here, boy!”
As he spoke a magnificent black and tan collie raised his
head from the trail and dashed up to Jack’s side, with every
expression of delight and proud success.
Mr. Redgrave was one of those men to whom dogs, horses,
children, and others attach themselves with blind, unreasoning
confidence. Is it amiability? Has mesmerism any share in
the strange but actual fascination? There were many far
wiser than he unsought and unrecognized by the classes
referred to. In his case the fact, uncomplimentary or otherwise,
remained fixed and demonstrable. The sheep-dog in
question was introduced to him by an aged Scot, who arrived
one day at Gondaree followed by a female collie of pure
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
breed and unusual beauty. Jack, always merciful and
sympathetic, had comforted the footsore elder, who carried a
large bundle upon his back, at which the dog cast ever and
anon a wistful glance. Lowering the pack carefully to the
ground before he drained the cheering draught, he wiped his
lips, and, untying the knapsack, rolled out, to his host’s wild
astonishment, five blind puppies!
“Ye ken, sir, the auld slut here just whelpit a week syne,
maist unexpectedly to me. I was sair fashed to make my
way doon wi’ sax doggies. But I pledged my word to Maister
Stangrove to gang back to Juandah before shearing, and I
wadna brak my word—no, not for five poond.”
“But are you going to carry the whole litter another fifty
miles?”
“Weel, aweel, sir, I’ll not deny it’s a sair trial; but I
brocht lassie here from the bonnie holms o’ Ettrick, where my
auld bones will never lie. The wee things come of the bluid
of Tam Hogg’s grand dog Sirrah. Forbye they’re maist
uncommon valuable here. I never askit less than a pund for
ilka ane o’ them yet, and siller’s siller, ye ken.”
“I’ll give you a sov,” said Jack, “for the black and tan
pup—him with the spot between the eyes. I suppose we
could rear him with an old ewe?”
“He’s the king of this lot, but ye shall have the pick of
them a’ even withoot the siller, for the kind word and the
good deed you’ve done to the auld failed, doited crater that
ance called himsel’ Jock Harlaw of Ettrick. May the Lord
do so to me and mair, if I forget it.”
The next day the old man came up, and solemnly delivered
over the plump, roly-poly dogling, which, being fostered upon
an imprisoned ewe, throve and grew into one of the best dogs
that ever circumvented that deceitful and wicked quadruped
called the sheep, the measure of whose intelligence has ever
been consistently underrated.
The judicious reader will comprehend that, even on a fenced
run, a good sheep-dog is valuable, and even necessary. The
headlong, reckless system of driving, the cruel, needless
terrorising under which “shepherded sheep” have for generations
suffered in Australia may be as strongly repudiated as
ever. But under certain conditions, it is well known to all
rulers of sheep stations that there is no moving sheep without
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
the aid and conversation of a dog. Therefore, though much
of the occupation of the ordinary half-trained sheep-dog be
gone, a really well-bred and highly-trained animal is still
prized.
The collie “Help,” then, as he grew up, showed great
hereditary aptitude for every kind of knowledge connected
with the “working” of sheep. He was passionately fond of
Jack, whom he recognized as his real and true master; but
he would follow and obey M‘Nab, appearing to know by
intuition when work among the sheep was intended. From
him, as a man of sheep from earliest youth, he learned all the
niceties of the profession. At drafting and yarding he was
invaluable. Lifted into a yard crammed with panic-stricken
or unwilling sheep, he would run along on their bodies or
“go back through them” in a manner wonderful to observe—this
last practice being known to all sheep-experts as the
only way hitherto invented for prevailing on sheep to run up
freely to a gate. He would bark or bite (this last with great
discretion) at word of command. He would stay at any part
of the yard pointed out to him, and though among the station
hands it was commonly, but erroneously, reported that he
could “keep a gate,” and had been seen drafting “two ways
at once,” still it was so far near the truth that he had many
times been posted at the entrance of sub-yards, and had
prevented any sheep from entering during the whole duration
of the drafting. For the rest, he was affectionate, generous,
and brave, a good watch-dog, and no mean antagonist. In
his own branch of the profession he was held to be unequalled
for sagacity and effectiveness on the whole river.
In the hour of sore need this was the friend and ally, most
appropriately named, who appeared on the scene. With a
wave of the hand from Jack, he started off, skirting the
nearest body of sheep. The well-trained animal, racing round
the timid creatures, turned them towards the outlet, and
followed the master for further orders. This process was
repeated, aided by M‘Nab, until they had gone as far from
the outlet of the creek as they dared to do, with any chance
of crossing before the flood came down.
“We must rattle them in now,” said M‘Nab. “I’m afraid
there is a large lot higher up, but there’s five or six thousand
of these, and we must make the best of it.”
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
As the lots of sheep coalesced on their homeward route, the
difficulty of driving and the value of the dog grew more
apparent. Large mobs or flocks of sheep are, like all crowds,
difficult to move and conduct. By themselves it would have
been a slow process; but the dog, gathering from the words
and actions of his superiors that something out of the common
was being transacted, flew round the great flock, barking,
biting, rushing, worrying—driving, in fact, like ten dogs in
one. By dint of the wildest exertion on the part of the
men, and the tireless efforts of the dog, the great flock
of sheep, nearly six thousand, was forced up to the anabranch.
Here the leaders unhesitatingly took the as yet dry, unmoistened
channel, and in a long string commenced to pour up
the opposite bank.
“Give it them at the tail, sir,” shouted M‘Nab, who was
at the lead, “go it, Help, good dog—there is not a moment
to lose. By George, there comes the flood. Eat ’em up, old
man!—give it ’em, good dog!”
There was fortunately one more bend for the flood water
to follow round before it reached the outlet. During the
short respite Jack and M‘Nab worked at their task till the
perspiration poured down their faces—till their voices became
hoarse with shouting, and well-nigh failed. Horses and men,
dog and sheep, were all in a state of exhaustion and despair
when the last mob was ascending the clay bank.
“Two minutes more, and we should have been too late,”
said M‘Nab, in a hoarse whisper; “look there!”
As he spoke, a wall of water, several feet in height, and
the full breadth of the widest part of the channel, came
foaming down, bearing logs, trees, portions of huts and haystacks—every
kind of débris—upon its eddying tide. The
tired dog crawled up the bank and lay down in the grass. A
few of the last sheep turned and stared stolidly at the close
wild water. There was a hungry, surging rush, and in
another minute the creek was level with the river, and the
place where the six thousand sheep had crossed dryshod (and
sheep resemble cats very closely in their indisposition to wet
their feet) was ten feet under water, and would have floated
a river steamer.
Jack returned to the homestead rather comforted by this
present bit of success, and hopeful that the sheep left in the
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
river paddock might yet escape. They had no further
anxiety about those which they had plucked out of the fire—that
is to say, the water—for they were in a secure high
and dry paddock, and they were not likely to attempt to swim
back again.
It was very provoking to think, however, that only a week
previous the whole lot had been absolutely safe if they had
been sufficiently cautious to let well alone till after shearing.
On the morrow such a sight met John Redgrave’s eyes as
they had not looked upon since he entered into possession
of Gondaree. The cottage was built, as has been before
related, upon a bluff, and was believed to be impregnable by
the highest flood that ever came down the Warroo. When
Jack walked into the verandah, and saw by the pale dawn-light
the angry waters, deep, turbulent, and wide as his vision
went, rushing but a few feet below the floor on which he trod,
he felt as if he were at sea, and trusted that the older residents
had made no miscalculation. It was certainly a novel
experience in that dry and thirsty land to hear the “roar of
waters” so closely brought home to one’s bed and board.
On the other side of the river, far as the eye could see, the
vast flats were as an inland sea, the trees standing in the
water like pillars in a vast aqueduct, their stems forming
endless colonnades.
This augured badly for his own river-paddock, and, breakfast
hastily concluded, he started down to see if any of the sheep
were visible from the opposite bank of the anabranch. He
managed to get near enough to sweep the flats with a field-glass,
and at last made out the greater part of the weaners,
huddled together upon a small rise, surrounded by water, and
not much above the general level. Here, though cold and
hungry, they might remain in safety till the flood fell, if the
waters rose no higher. But there lay the danger. The waters
surrounded them for a long stretch on every side. Even if
they could get near them, nothing would induce young sheep
to face a much less expanse of water. The current was too
rapid to work any species of raft. If the river continued
rising through the night, there would not be a sheep of these
three thousand and more alive by daylight.
Jack turned sick at heart with the bare idea. Good heavens!
was he to be eternally the sport of circumstance and the
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
victim of disaster? Was there such a thing as Bad Luck,
an evil principle, in which he had steadfastly disbelieved,
but which he did not doubt in other cases had hunted men
to their doom? Could it possibly happen in his own case?
How rarely do men accept any of life’s evils as possibilities
in their own cases! Here, however, he was again face to
face with an unsolved difficulty, a peril imminent, deadly,
and well-nigh hopeless of escape. Three thousand some
hundreds of beautiful young sheep, with fourteen months’
wool on. Another two thousand pounds gone at one blow!
It was enough to make a man hang himself.
He had a long consultation with M‘Nab, who had settled
in his own mind that nothing could be done, except drown
a man or two, in trying conclusions with such a waste of
water, with large logs and uprooted trees whirling madly
down the stream, which indeed looked like a lake dislodged
from its moorings, and mad for a view of the distant sea.
So he calmly waited the issue, hoping for a fall during
the night, and cursing himself, as deeply as a sound Presbyterian
could afford to do, for having brought this loss upon
his employer by over-greed of grass. The river did not fall.
Indeed, it rose so rapidly that on their last visit to the
place of observation they could hear the continuous bleating
of the hapless sheep—a token that they were alarmed
and endangered by the rising tide.
All that night the sound was in Jack’s ears as he listened
at intervals, or tossed restlessly on an uneasy bed.
With the earliest dawn he was astir and down at the
look-out. There had evidently been a considerable rise during
the night. He saw that the water had made a clean breach
over the spot occupied by the flock—of the whole number,
there was not a solitary sheep to be seen. He would have
been saved a few days of anxious expectation—a feeling
between utter despair and trembling hope—had he known
that his friends at Juandah, that very day, had seen scores
of their carcases floating past their windows, but were
happily unconscious of their particular ownership.
For nearly a week Jack was inconsolable—he took no
interest in the remaining portion of the shearing, which
M‘Nab finished with his customary exactness, paying off the
shearers, washers, and extra hands, and despatching every
.bn 148.png
.pn +1
pound of wool and every sheepskin as if the last of the clip—like
a cow’s milk—was the richest and most valuable.
The floods had rolled away, and the sun shone out hotter
than ever upon miles of blackened clover and mud-covered
pasturage, entirely ruined for the year by the unseasonable
immersion. When they rode over the paddock the sight was
pitiable in the extreme. By far the greater proportion of the
drowned sheep had been floated away bodily, as the “cruel,
crawling tide” rose inch by inch in the darkness, till they
were swept from footing. But many were found entangled
in drift-wood, carried into large hollow trees—as many as
fifteen or twenty, perhaps, in one cluster—black and decomposing,
with the wool bleaching in great strips and masses.
A miserable sight for John Redgrave, in truth, who, but a
fortnight since, had considered that wool almost in his
pocket, and every shorn weaner good value for half a
sovereign all round. Then the confounded fama clamosa of
the affair. The local papers had quick and fast hold of the
tale:
“We are deeply grieved to hear that Mr. Redgrave of
Gondaree, who has spared no cost in improving that valuable
property, has lost ten thousand sheep in the late disastrous
flood.” Next week—“We have much pleasure in stating
that Mr. Redgrave has had only five thousand sheep drowned,
but we had not then learned that his wool-shed and wash-pen,
with a portion of the clip, were entirely washed away.”
And so on.
The quickest way to escape condolences and local sympathy
would be to make tracks for Melbourne. This he accordingly
did, having, like the preceding season, had a sufficiency of
salt-bush life for a while. Matters in some respects were
more favourable to his mental recovery than on his former
visit. Wool was up. The season, bar floods, had been good
on the whole. Everybody connected with sheep was disposed
to be cheerful and make allowances. Most of the people he
met had not heard of the trifling overthrow of the remote
Warroo, and the incidental “natural selection” of his
lamented weaners. Others, who had heard, did not care. The
joyous squatters, on the strength of a good twopenny rise in
the home market, made light of his sorrows. One man said,
laughingly, that he knew of a station, about a thousand
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
miles lower down, which the same flood had treated even
more scurvily.
“Wallingford, you know, had overstocked that run of
his with store cattle; all the back country dry as a bone;
no rain for two years; five or six thousand head of cattle
all but starving; poor as crows, give you my word. Everything
depending upon the river and the lake flats for the
clover, as soon as it was ripe. Well, the flood comes down,
smothers his clover; river twenty miles wide for nearly a
month; lake overflowed too. Droll predicament, wasn’t it?
Quite antipodean. Half the run too dry; t’other half too
wet. No rain; clover of course black as your hat when the
water went down. Wallingford heaps of bills to meet, too.”
The salient points of humour which Mr. Wallingford’s
ingeniously complicated calamities evolved under artistic
treatment served indirectly to comfort our victim. The
misfortunes of others, especially of the same profession, are
soothing, benevolists notwithstanding. Jack felt ashamed
of howling over his few sheep, and recollected the still imposing
numbers of the last count, and returned to his normal
state of contentment with to-day, and rose-coloured anticipation
of to-morrow.
His interview with Mr. Mildmay Shrood was pacific and
encouraging. That gentleman congratulated him upon the
name and fame to which the Gondaree clip had attained,
prophesying even greater distinction. He listened with
polite sympathy to the account of the loss of the weaners,
but observed that such accidents must occasionally happen in
wet seasons, and that, as he was informed, the country
generally had received immense benefit from the late rains.
“Your clip is one of the best in the whole of Riverina,
my dear Redgrave, and your number of sheep—‘52,000,’
thank you—has on the whole kept up admirably. Management,
my dear sir, is everything—everything. Good-morning.
Good-morning.”
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIII.
.pm start_poem
“Hope told a flattering tale.”
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Thus endorsed, Jack began to consider himself to be
as fine a fellow as the rest of the world was bent upon
making him out to be. He held up his head as in the old
days, when debt and he were strangers, and gave his opinion
with imposing decision upon all matters, pastoral, social,
and political. He was glad now that he had followed
M‘Nab’s advice, and shorn the fat sheep. Their wool told
up noticeably in the clip, and he trusted that in the coming
autumn he should be able to top the market with the first
draft of fat sheep from the glorious salt-bush plains which
skirted the lonely Bimbalong.
He received a certain amount of satisfaction from observing
how reduced was the list of stores and necessaries with
which he had been entrusted by M‘Nab. “Why, it’s next
to nothing,” said he, as he looked over it; “one would think
we were providing for a cattle station except for next year’s
shearing requirements. If we have only another decent
year or two, the debt will be wiped off, and hey for Europe!”
Then, from that vision of the sea, arose the form—as of a
Venus Anadyomene—of Maud Stangrove. Would she
share his pilgrimage? How enchanting the thought! How
divine the companionship! Together would they wander
through the cities of the old world, as through the dream-palaces
of his boyish days. Paris, with her mingled splendours
and luxuries. Rome, calm and majestic, even amid
her ruins, as befitted the Mother of Nations. Venice, with
mysterious gondolas still floating adown her sea, which is
“her broad, her narrow streets,” which still, as in old days
of regal pride, and power, and love, is “her black-marble
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
stair.” Switzerland, with her pure, white-robed, heaven-gazing
Alps, receiving their crimson dawn-blush ere beholding
the fresh day-birth of a world. Last of all, but how
far from least, “Merrie England,” the great land of their
fathers—every legendary and historical feature of which
had been graven in his mind from earliest childhood. Bound
on such a pilgrimage as this, “with one fair spirit for his
minister,” how cheerfully would he abandon, for a season,
the dull labours and prosaic thoughts with which his later
years had been bedimmed! He thought of Maud’s cultured
and receptive mind; her keen spirit of observation; her
unfailing cheerfulness; and the deep, unselfish tenderness
which he had remarked in her home intercourse. Could he
but win this peerless creature to himself; could he but provide
for this diamond of purest ray serene the costly setting
which alone harmonized with its rank among “earth’s
precious things,” he told himself that the sayings of cynics
about the ills of humanity would be meaningless falsehoods.
This, perhaps, slightly exalted conception of the probabilities
of matrimony, combined with the absence of the
central figure, around which such roseate clouds softly
circled, tended to abridge Mr. Redgrave’s metropolitan
sojourn. He made the novel discovery that ordinary modern
society was worldly and frivolous—that club viveurs were
selfish and dissipated—that his acquaintances, generally,
were destitute of ennobling aims; and that it behoved any
man, whose soul cherished a lofty purpose, to follow out a
sustained plan unswervingly. To this end he determined,
rather ungratefully, considering how powerful a tonic his
visit had proved, to abandon the vain city, and betake himself
incontinently to the majestic desert and to—Maud
Stangrove.
He made an abrupt departure, somewhat to the surprise
of that very small section of society which troubled itself
with his weal or woe, and appeared suddenly before M‘Nab,
who, in his turn, was surprised also.
Mr. M‘Nab was not only astonished at his employer’s
short stay in Melbourne, but also at his cheerful and
animated demeanour.
“The trip has done you a world of good, sir,” he said. “I
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
thought when you went away that it would take you longer
to forget our losses.”
“Well, there’s nothing like change of air, and the knowledge
of what other people are doing, when you are low.
If people spent more money in trains and coaches they would
spend less on doctors, I believe. A man who is shut up
with his misery broods over it till, like a shepherd, he goes
mad some day. When I got to town, I found others had
suffered even more heavily, and, of course, that comforted
me.”
“And the wool?” inquired M‘Nab.
“Nothing but compliments,” answered Jack. “Never
expected to see wool got up like it on the Warroo, and so
on. Mr. Shrood prophesied all kinds of triumphs and fancy
prices next year. I might have had ten thousand sovereigns
to take away in my hat, if I had asked for them. This
flood seems to have done a world of damage, and such a
trifle as the loss of two or three thousand sheep was voted
not worth talking about.”
“It was an awful sacrifice—just a throwing to the fishes
of two thousand golden guineas, any way ye look at it,”
said, slowly and impressively, the downright M‘Nab. He
could never be led to gloss over any shortcomings, losses, or
failures, holding them as points in the game of life to be
carefully scored, which no player worthy of the name would
omit. “You’re welcome to knock half of it off my wages,”
he continued, “as I shall always believe that I was to blame
for want of care. But I hope we’ll have profits yet that
will clear off the score of this and other losses.”
“I am fully confident that we shall, M‘Nab,” said Jack,
hopefully; “and I have no notion of making my deficit
good out of your screw, though it is manly of you to offer
it. You work as hard and do as much as one man can.
Whether things go right or wrong, I shall never blame you,
be assured. I am free to admit that in your place I should
not do half as well. And now, do you want any help for
a week or two, for I think I shall ride down to Juandah?”
“I did not expect you back for a month more,” said
M‘Nab, smiling to himself; “so I had arranged to do
without you, you see. I can get on grandly till we begin
to draft the fat sheep for market.”
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
Thus absolved and conscience-clear, Mr. Redgrave immediately
betook himself to Juandah, where he was received
with frank and kindly welcome by everybody. It was
fortunate that he had gone to Melbourne after the flood-disaster,
as he was now able to treat that damaging blow
in a much more light and philosophical fashion than would
have been possible to him without the aid of his metropolitan
experiences.
“It was rather a facer,” he admitted to Stangrove, who
had delicately described their grief at seeing the drowned
weaners floating past their windows in scores and hundreds,
“but when a fellow has a large operation in hand he must
look at the progress of the whole enterprise, and not fix his
mind upon minor drawbacks. A single vessel doesn’t matter
out of the whole convoy of East Indiamen. The loss of the
Royal George had no perceptible influence on the rest of the
British navy. I shall shear over sixty thousand sheep next
year, with luck, and when I sell shall think no more of those
poor devils of weaners than you do of the blacks—probably
mythical—that Red Rob slew during your minority.”
“With luck—with luck—as you say,” said Stangrove,
rather absently. “But, as we agreed before, luck seems
necessary to the working out of your plan, which I admit, at
present prices, looks feasible enough. But suppose we don’t
get our fair share of luck this year, what then? However,
we needn’t anticipate evil. Let’s come in and see the ladies.”
“‘So behold you of return,’ as dear old Madame Florac
says,” commenced Maud, looking up from The Newcomes.
“How truly fortunate you men are, Mr. Redgrave, that you
can get away to some decent abode of mankind every now
and then under the pretence of business! Now we poor,
oppressed women have to give reasons that will bear the
most searching investigation before we are allowed to go
anywhere. Men only say vaguely ‘must go—important
business,’ and take themselves off.”
“Really, Miss Stangrove, I don’t see but that you, in this
nice cool room, with nothing to do but to read about Ethel
and Barnes, that grand old cat Lady Kew, and the dear old
Colonel, are about as well off as any one I have seen in my
travels.”
“That’s all nonsense. We endure life here, of course,
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
but look at the delightful change of scene, air, life, people,
trees, bread and butter, everything new and fresh that you
have had lately. Uniformity is death to some natures.
That is why some unhappy individuals of my sex make
dismal endings and horrid examples of themselves. Some
girl marries the butler, or the stockman, or the music master
periodically. Depend upon it, it is nothing but Nature’s
protest against the murderous monotony of their daily lives.”
“Maud, Maud,” interposed Mrs. Stangrove, “how can
you say such dreadful things? Quite improper, I think. I
declare Mr. Redgrave will be shocked and alarmed if you
go on so. Really, my dear!”
Jack mildly combated these extreme and unconventional
opinions, declaring that some of the most discontented,
useless, and life-weary people he had ever seen had enjoyed
no end of variety—passed their lives in sight-seeing—been
everywhere—and yet were more utterly ennuyés than even
Miss Stangrove on the banks of the Warroo.
“Well,” said that young lady, “you see they had only
been working out the vanity and vexation of spirit theory,
and how dreary a result it was for the Wise King to come
to! But I should like ‘to see the folly of it too.’ I think
manufacturing one’s own vanity and vexation is more satisfactory
than acquiring it second-hand.”
“I wonder if our black friends ever feel bored,” said
Jack; “before we came and gave them iron tomahawks it
must have taken a fellow a week to chop out a ’possum; so
I suppose constant employment conduced to cheerfulness.
Still, of late years, food being plentiful, wars traditionary,
and travel impossible, game perhaps a trifle scarcer, a sense
of impatience of the ‘slow, strong hours’ may have crossed
their unused intelligences.”
“It may be, for all we know,” said Mark, who had re-entered
and thrown himself upon a sofa, “at the root of the
frantic love for ardent spirits which all the younger natives
have. The men of a generation or two back, like ‘old man
Jack,’ don’t drink. But all the middle-aged and younger
ones, more particularly those, by comparison, educated, drink
fearfully hard whenever they get the chance.”
“So do all savages,” said Jack; “likewise smoke furiously.
Alcohol and tobacco seem particularly attractive to
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
their organizations; and they have no power of moderation.
‘Too much of anything is not good,’ said the Red Indian,
‘but too much rum is just enough.’ That’s their idea—all
over the world.”
“I suggest that we have exhausted the subject,” mildly
interposed Mrs. Stangrove, “and as it is getting cool
we might all go for a drive in the break with Mark and the
young horses. Can you take us, my dear?”
This was voted a first-rate suggestion. The evening,
comparatively cool only, was approaching. So the ladies
apparelled themselves suitably, and as Mark let the half-broken
team out, without fear of stone or stump, along the
glorious, level, sandy out-station track, the rushing air refreshed
their senses, jaded by the long, breezeless midsummer
day. It was twilight deepening into night as they returned, a
very cheerful and animated party. Maud, with the changeful
mood of her sex, declared herself again reconciled to existence,
and even conscious of pleasurable anticipation as regarded tea.
Jack was catechised after that refection upon the balls,
archery-parties, picnics, races, &c., to which he had been on
his late visit to town. Maud sang a new song or two which
she had managed to get up, buried alive as she assumed
herself to be, and John Redgrave was more deeply enthralled
than ever.
Stangrove asked him to stay a fortnight or so with them,
if he could spare the time; and Jack declared it would be
most uncomplimentary to M‘Nab’s management, and the
fencing system generally, to suppose that a proprietor was
pinned to his homestead like a mere shepherding squatter.
So he gratefully accepted the invitation and the opportunity.
In spite of the weather—and even the presence of the beloved
object cannot render the month of January a pleasant one in
Lower Riverina—the days passed in a dreamily luxurious
tropical fashion. Jack had an early enjoyable swim in the
capacious Warroo, now rippling over sand-bars and pebbles,
as if it had never risen with death upon its angry tide. Then
the breakfast in the cool darkened room, before the great and
resistless glare of the day commenced, was very pleasant.
After that period, and until the sun was down, I am free to
confess that all the dramatis personæ might as well have been
in Madras or Bombay. Outside the heat was awful, and the
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
first effect on leaving the shelter of the cottage after ten
o’clock a.m., was as if one had suddenly encountered the
outer current of a blast furnace. Mark was out on the run,
as a matter of course, pretty nearly all day and every day.
There were never-ending duties among the sheep, cattle, and
horses which did not permit him to make any philosophical
reflections upon the heat of the weather. He simply put it
out of the question, as he had done from boyhood. Consequently
he did not feel it half as much as those who tried
by every means to evade it.
Jack did not feel himself called upon to offer to join
his host in these daily expeditions. He occasionally, of
course, volunteered when his assistance was likely to be
useful. But generally he lounged about the house, and made
himself generally useful by reading aloud to the ladies, irrigating
Mrs. Stangrove’s flower-garden, practising duets with
Maud, and generally raising Miss Stangrove from that desolate
and vacuous condition into which she had been in danger
of falling before his opportune arrival. The riding and the
driving parties were of course not abandoned. There was
always some period arbitrarily defined as the cool of the
evening, when such exercise, even walking by the Warroo
under the sighing river-oaks, was suitable and satisfactory.
He and Mark had long arguments about all kinds of subjects,
in which the ladies now and then took part. Nothing could
have been more generally agreeable than the whole thing.
But the days wore on, and Jack felt that he had no decent
excuse for staying longer; he therefore prepared to depart.
He had not seen his way either, much as he longed for an
opportunity, to put that very tremendous and momentous
question to Maud, to which he had sworn to himself that he
would receive a definitive answer before quitting Juandah.
Truth to tell, their intimacy had not advanced so quickly as
he had hoped. He saw, or thought he saw, that Maud liked
his society. But she was so frank and unembarrassed that he
mistrusted the existence of any deeper sentiment. He was
not altogether without knowledge of the ways of womenkind;
and he knew that this frank recognition of the pleasantness
of his society was by no means a good sign. He did not feel
inclined to ask any girl, obviously non-sympathetic, to marry
him, trusting to the unlikeliness of her seeing any decenter
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
sort of fellow in these wilds, and to her acknowledged distaste
for life on the Warroo. “No, hang it,” he said to himself,
“that would be hardly generous. I’ll wait till she shows
some sign that she really cares for me—loves me, I mean. If
she doesn’t, John Redgrave is not the man to ask her. If
she does, she can’t hide it, nor can any woman that ever
lived. I know so much of the alphabet.”
Thus hardening his heart temporarily and strategically,
Mr. Jack finished copying the last galop, put a finishing
touch to the grand arterial system of irrigation borrowed
from Ah Sing, which he had engineered for the benefit of
Mr. Redgrave’s roses and japonicas, gave Mark Stangrove
a real good day’s work at the branding-yard, showed him a
new dodge for leg-roping which elicited the admiration of
the stockmen, and went on his way, accompanied for a mile
or two by his host.
.bn 158.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIV.
.pm start_poem
“Soft! What are you?
Some villain mountaineers?
I have heard of such.“—Cymbeline.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Mrs. Stangrove and Maud were sitting in the drawing-room
that morning, a little silent and distrait, we may confess,
when a man’s footstep was heard on the verandah.
“I did not think that Mark would have returned so soon,”
said Maud, going to the French window and looking out.
She stood there for an instant, and then, turning to her
sister a face ashen-white and strangely altered, gasped
out a single word—that word of dread, often of doom, in
the far, lone, defenceless Australian waste—“Bushrangers!”
Mrs. Stangrove gave a moaning, half-muffled cry, and
then, obeying the irresistible maternal instinct, rushed into
the adjoining apartment where her children were. At
the same moment a tall man with a revolver raised in his
right hand stepped into the room, and gazed rapidly round
with restless eyes, as of one long used to meet with frequent
foes. Behind him, closely following, were three other
armed men, while a fifth was visible in the passage, thus
cutting off all retreat towards the rear.
Maud Stangrove was a girl of more than ordinary firmness
of nerve. She strove hard against the spasmodic terror
which the feeling of being absolutely in the power of lawless
and desperate men at first produced. Rapidly conning
over the chances of a rescue, in the event of the working
overseer and his men returning, as she knew they were
likely to do, at an early hour, having been out at the
nearest out-station since sunrise, accompanied by Mark,
who had intended when leaving to cut across to them and
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
inspect their work, she felt the necessity of keeping cool
and temporizing with the enemy.
Steadying her voice with an effort, and facing the intruder
with a very creditable air of unconcern, she said—“What
do you want? I think you have mistaken your way.”
The robber looked at her with a bold glance of admiration,
and then, with an instinctive deference which struggled
curiously with his consciousness of having taken the citadel,
made answer—“See here, Miss, I’m Redcap; dessay
you’ve heard of me. You’ve no call to be afeared; but
we’ve come here for them repeating rifles as Mr. Stangrove’s
been smart enough to get up from town.”
“I don’t know anything about them,” said Maud, thankful
to remember that she had not seen lately these unlucky
celebrities in the small-arm way, which, for their marvellous
shooting and rapidity of loading, had been a nine-days’
wonder in the neighbourhood.
“Well,” interposed a black-visaged, down-looking ruffian,
who had ensconced himself in an easy chair, “some of you
will have to know about ’em, and look sharp too, or we’ll
burn the blessed place down about your ears.”
“You shut up, Doctor,” said the leader, who seemed, like
Lambro, one of the mildest-mannered men that ever “stuck
up mails or fobbed a note.” “Let me talk to the lady.
It’s no use your fencing, Miss, about these guns; we know
all about ’em, and have ’em we will. Mr. Stangrove shot
a bullock with the long one last Saturday. You’d better
let us have ’em, and we’ll clear out.”
Maud was considering whether it would not be safer to
“fess” and get rid of the unwelcome visitors, who, though
wonderfully pacific, might not remain so. A diversion was
effected. One of the younger members of the band suddenly
appeared with the baby—the idolized darling of the household—in
his arms.
“Here,” he cried, “I’ve got something as is valuable.
I shall stick to this young ’un to put me in mind of my
pore family as I’ve been obliged to cut away from.”
Mrs. Stangrove, poor lady, had been keeping close with
the older children, flattering herself that this precious infant,
then taking the air in his nurse’s arms, was safe from
the marauders. She was speedily undeceived by the piercing
.bn 160.png
.pn +1
cry which reached her ears, as the affrighted babe, just
old enough to “take notice” of the stranger, proclaimed
distrust of his awkward, though not unkind, dandling.
Rushing in with frantic eagerness, and the “wrathful
dove” expression which the gentlest maternal creature
assumes at any “intromitting” with her young, as old Dugald
Dalgetty phrases it, Mrs. Stangrove suddenly confronted
the audacious intruder, and, seizing the child, tore it out of
his arms with so deft a promptitude that the delinquent
had no time for resistance. Looking half startled, half
sullen, he stood in the same position for a moment, with
so ludicrous an expression of defeat and mortification that
his companions burst into a fit of unrestrained laughter,
while Mrs. Stangrove, in the reaction from her unaccustomed
ferocity, clasped the child to her bosom in a paroxysm of
tears.
“This here’s all very well,” said Redcap, “but we didn’t
come for foolery. If these rifles ain’t turned up in five
minutes you’ll be sorry for it. If some of ’em gets to the
brandy, Miss,” here he lowered his voice and looked significantly
at Maud, “there’s no saying what will happen.
Better deal with us while we’re in a good temper.”
Maud believed that the coveted weapons were somewhere
upon the premises, although she had spoken truly at the first
demand when she averred that she was ignorant of their
precise locality. She was aware that a moment might
change the mood of the robbers from one of amused toleration
to that of reckless brutality. Not wholly ignorant of
the terrible legends, still whispered low and with bated
breath, of wrongs irrevocable suffered by defenceless
households, her resolution was quickly taken.
“Jane,” she said to Mrs. Stangrove, who, helpless and
unnerved, was still sobbing hysterically, “if you know
where these guns are tell me at once, and I will go for
them. It can’t be helped. These men have behaved fairly,
and as we can neither fight nor run away, we must give up
our money-bags, or what they consider an equivalent.
Where are the rifles?”
“Oh, what will Mark say?” moaned out the distracted
wife. “If he were only here I should not care. And yet,
perhaps, it’s better as it is. If they do not hurt the dear
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
children I don’t care what they take. You know best. The
rifles are in Mark’s dressing-room, in the shower-bath.”
Maud went out, and presently reappeared with the beautiful
American repeaters, one of which had the desirable
peculiarity of being able to discharge sixteen cartridges in
as many seconds, if needful; the other was a light and
extremely handy Snider—“a tarnation smart shooting-iron,”
as one of the station hands, who hailed from the
Great Republic, had admiringly expressed himself.
Redcap’s eyes glistened as he possessed himself of the
“sixteen-shooter,” and handed the Snider to the Doctor.
“All’s well that ends well,” growled that worthy, “we’ll
be a match for all the blessed traps between here and
Sydney with these here tools; but for two pins I’d put a
match in every gunyah on the place, just to learn Stangrove
not to be in such a hurry to run in a mob of pore fellers as
had got tired of being messed about by those infernal
troopers.”
“You’ll just do what I tell you, Doctor,” said Redcap,
savagely, “and if I catch one of you burning or shooting
without orders he’ll have to settle with me. Hallo! it can’t
be dinner-time.”
This last observation was called forth by the appearance
of the parlour-maid with the table-cloth and a tray. She
was a buxom country girl, without any of that hyper-sensitiveness
of the nervous system common to town domestics.
A bushranger to her was simply an exaggerated “traveller,”
and nothing more. One o’clock p.m. having arrived, it did
not occur to her that the family would choose to omit the
important midday meal on account of visitors, however unwelcome.
She proceeded, therefore, with perfect coolness to
lay the cloth, and observing no sign of objection from Maud,
presently brought in the dishes, and set the chairs as usual.
Maud, thinking that the less fear they showed the better it
would be for them, called the children, and motioned to
Mrs. Stangrove to take her accustomed place. Simultaneously,
Miss Ethel, a quiet little monkey of nine years,
being extremely hungry, then and there recited the customary
grace, praying God to “relieve the wants of others,
and to make them truly thankful for what they were about
to receive.”
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
Maud afterwards confessed that it cost her a strong effort
to repress a smile as she noted the look of undisguised
astonishment which came over the faces of Redcap and his
men, who probably had not heard for many a year, if ever,
that simple benediction.
The Doctor recovered himself first. “I feel confoundedly
hungry,” said he; “I suppose we may as well take a snack
too.”
“Then come along with me to the kitchen,” said the
maid, promptly, with the most matter-of-fact air, opening
the door of the passage.
The men stared for a moment as if disposed for equal
privileges in the region of communism which they now
morally inhabited. But the old instinct was not entirely
overpowered, and with one look at Maud’s rigid countenance
and the pale face of Mrs. Stangrove, Redcap followed
the girl, and signed to his comrades to do likewise.
At this moment one of the bed-room doors opened, and a
man entered the room, dressed in a full suit of black. His
hair shone with pomatum, and he looked something between
a lay reader and a provincial footman.
“Look out,” roared the Doctor, “perhaps there’s more of
’em coming,” as he raised his revolver.
“Come, none of that, Doctor,” said the new-comer;
“don’t you never see nothin’ but a cove’s clothes?”
A roar of laughter from the others and the returned Redcap
apprised him of his mistake. It was the youngest
member of their own band, who, being of a restless disposition,
had managed to find his way to the spare room, where
he had coolly appropriated a combination suit of John Redgrave’s,
and had further anointed himself with a pot of
pomatum, which did not belong to that gentleman. This
episode improved the spirits both of captors and captives,
and, hustling one another like school-boys, the whole gang
made their way into the kitchen, where, to judge from the
sounds of laughter that issued therefrom, they enjoyed
themselves much more than would have been the case in the
dining-room.
In about half an hour Maud had the inexpressible gratification
of seeing them mount and make off steadily along
the road which led “up the river.”
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
When they were fairly off Maud felt symptoms of having
taxed nature severely. She turned deadly pale as she threw
herself upon the sofa, covering her face with her hands,
while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs, as she
tried with her full strength of will to control the tendency
to “the sad laugh that cannot be repressed.” However, as
chiefly happens in those feminine temperaments where the
reasoning powers are stronger than the emotional, she succeeded,
and bestowed all her regained energy to the support
and consolation of her sister-in-law.
While these wonderful things were happening, John
Redgrave was peacefully riding along the up river road,
thinking of the manifold perfections of his divinity, and little
dreaming that she was at that very moment a distressed
damsel, in the power of traitors and faitours.
“What a lovely morning!” soliloquized he, “not so warm
as it has been; a breeze too. How peaceful everything looks!
Really, this is not such a fearful climate as I thought it at
first. With a decent house, and one fair spirit to be his
minister, a fellow might gracefully glide through existence
here for a few years—that is, if he were making lots of
money. It would be almost too uneventful, that’s the worst
of it—nothing ever happens here. Hallo! what a pace the
Sergeant is coming at, and old Kearney too!”
This exclamation was called forth by the sudden appearance
of the whole police force which was thought necessary for the
protection of a district about a hundred miles square. Jack
knew their figures, and indeed their horses, the Sergeant’s
gray and the trooper’s curby-hocked chestnut, to well to be
mistaken. They raced up to him, and, pulling up short, both
addressed him at once—a trifle out of breath.
“Have you seen any travellers on horseback, Mr. Redgrave?”
asked the Sergeant.
“If it’s purshuing them ye are, ye’re going right wrong,”
blurted out trooper Kearney.
“Seen who? Pursuing what?” demanded Jack. “Why
should I pursue anybody?”
“Then you haven’t heard,” said the Sergeant.
“The divil a hear,” interrupted Private Kearney; “sure he
doesn’t look like it, and he ridin’ along the road as peaceful
as if there wasn’t a bushranger betuxt here and Adelaide.”
.bn 164.png
.pn +1
“Bushrangers!” quoth Jack, fully aroused. “I’d forgotten
all about them, and near here? Where were they seen last,
Stewart?”
“Constable Kearney, will you oblige me by keeping silence,
and falling to the rear,” said the Sergeant, majestically, while
he proceeded to enlighten Jack as to the probable whereabouts
of the gang “from information received.”
“As far as I can make out, sir, and if that scoundrel of a
mailman hasn’t put me on the wrong track, they were at Mr.
Stangrove’s Ban Ban out-station last night, and have either
gone down the river or over to his head-station to-day.”
“His head-station! His head-station!” echoed Jack, in
wild tones of astonishment—“no! surely not!”
“Very likely indeed, I think,” said the Sergeant, “it’s just
about their dart from Ban Ban—they may be there now.”
“What in the name of all the fiends are we wasting time
here for, then?” answered he, in a voice so hoarse and strange
that the Sergeant looked narrowly at him to note whether he
had been drinking, all forms of eccentricity on the Warroo
being referable, in his opinion, founded upon long experience,
to different stages of intoxication. “Thank God, I brought
my revolver with me—come on, there’s a good fellow.”
Sergeant Stewart had not, indeed, done more than slacken
his pace for the time necessary to restore the wind of his
horses, pretty well expended by a three-mile heat. He was a
cool, plucky, good-looking fellow, and no bad sample of a
crack non-commissioned officer of Australian police, a body of
men inferior to none in the world for general light cavalry.
He was as distinguished-looking in his way as his old namesake,
Bothwell, in Old Mortality, whom he resembled in
more points than one.
By the time Jack had concluded his sentence, his blood-hackney
was pulling his arms off, neck and neck with the
Sergeant’s wiry gray, while Mr. Kearney and the doubtful
chestnut were powdering away behind, at no great distance.
“It’s lucky we met you,” said the Sergeant; “there are
five of them, I hear; three of us are a pretty fair match for
the scoundrels.”
“I see you have your rifles,” said Jack; “you don’t generally
carry them.”
“No; but this time we thought we were out for a week.
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
I only saw the mailman, who gave me the office, early this
morning, and came here as hard as we could split. Here
comes another recruit, I suppose—by George! it’s Mr.
Stangrove.”
So it proved. That gentleman, as unsuspicious as Jack
himself, was cantering along a bush track which led into the
main “frontage road” at right angles.
“Halloa, Redgrave! turned round since I left you, and our
gallant police force too. What’s the row—horse-stealers?”
“Worse than that, I’m afraid, old fellow,” said Jack,
going close up. “Redcap and his lot have been seen not
far off.”
He stopped—for the sudden spasm of pain which contracted
Stangrove’s features was bad to see.
“Good God!” he said, at length, gnawing his set lip;
“my poor wife will be frightened to death, and Maud! Let
us ride—pray God we are not too late.”
Little was said. The horses, all tolerably well-bred,
and possessing that capacity for sustaining a high rate of
speed for hours together peculiar to “dry-country horses,”
held on, mile after mile, until they sighted a large reed-bed,
which occupied a circular flat or bend of the river.
“By gad! here they are,” said the sergeant, “camped on
the bank! I can see their saddles; the horses are feeding
in the reed-bed. Now if we can get up pretty close before
they see us we have them.”
“All right,” said Jack, with the cheerfulness of a man
whose spirits are raised by the near approach of danger.
“You and Mr. Stangrove get round that clump of gums,
and take them in the rear; Kearney and I will sneak along
close to the bank, till we’re near enough to charge. I’ll
bet a tenner I have the saddles first. Then they are
helpless.”
“I think you wouldn’t make a bad general, sir,” said the
Sergeant. “Mr. Stangrove, I think we can’t do better.”
Stangrove handled his revolver impatiently, and, with
something between a groan and a reply, rode silently on.
“Now, see here, Mr. Redgrave,” said Pat Kearney—a
rusé old veteran, who had put “the bracelets” upon many
a horse and cattle stealer, and was not now about to have
his first fray with bushrangers—“if we can snake on ’em
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
before they have time to take to thim unlucky rade-bids—my
heavy curse on thim for hiding villains—we have thim
safe. They may fire a shot, but they’re unsignified crathers,
not like Bin Hall or Morgan.”
“And why shouldn’t these fellows fight?” asked Jack.
“Ye see, now, it’s this a way. Just keep under the bank
near thim big oaks—sure that’s iligant. ’Tis a great ornamint
to the force ye’d make intirely. Well, as I tould ye,
that spalpeen of a Redcap—more by token I put a handful
of slugs in him once—has never killed any one yet—nor the
others—d’ye see now?”
“I don’t see, Kearney, that it makes much difference—they’re
outlaws.”
“Ah! but there’s a dale of differ between men that’s
fighting with a halter round their necks, and these half-baked
divils that hasn’t more than fifteen years’ gaol to
fear, with maybe a touch of Berrima, at the outside.”
“I understand, then; you think that they are more likely
to give in after the first flutter than if they were sure to be
hanged when caught.”
“By coorse they will; why wouldn’t they? I knew
Redcap when he’d think more of duffing a red heifer than
all the money in the country. If he seen me, I believe he’d
hold up his hands, from habit like.”
“Then you don’t think it a good plan to make bush-ranging
the same as murder, and to hang a fellow directly
he turns out?”
“Thim that wanted that law made didn’t have their
families living on the Warroo,” said the old trooper, sturdily.
“How can a couple of men like us thravel and purtect a
district as big as Great Britain? And what would turn a
raw lot like these devils let loose quicker than a blundering,
over-severe law? By the mortial, they see us. Hould on,
sir, and we’ll charge them together, like Wellington and the
Proosians at Waterloo.”
The robbers had a good strategical position. Their base
of operations was the reed-bed, a labyrinth of cane-like
stalks which met overhead in the narrow paths worn by the
feet of the stock. They were, however, divided in party
and in purpose. Two of them had been detailed to fetch
up the horses grazing in the reed-bed, and the remainder,
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
having just sighted Redgrave and Constable Kearney, stood
to their arms with sufficient determination.
On the very edge of the river bank, beneath which the
stream ran in a deeper channel than ordinary, were the five
saddles of the gang. They had evidently dismounted at
this spot, and, after unsaddling, had gone to the edge of
the reed brake, where an unusually shady tree afforded
them an inviting lounge.
Thus it chanced that Jack’s keen eyes discovered the state
of affairs, as he and Kearney prepared to rival Waterloo, on
a necessarily limited scale.
“Look here, Kearney,” said he, as they commenced the
grand charge, “I mean to throw those saddles into the river.
The rascals are a good thirty yards from them. They can’t
do much without horses. So you blaze away, and cover me
as well as you can.”
“It’s a great move intirely—but watch that divil Redcap;
’tis a mighty nate shot he is—and you’ll be out in the open—bad
cess to it.”
Jack’s blood was up, and he did not care two straws for
all the Redcaps and revolvers in Saltbushdom. Racing
frantically for the accoutrements, he jumped off, and emptied
his revolver, save one barrel, at the enemy. Kearney, a
cool and experienced warrior, drew off some little distance
to the right, and opened business on his own account, not
only with his revolver, but with his breach-loading rifle,
while his trained horse stood as steady as a Woolwich
gunner. Jack, stooping down, coolly threw one saddle after
another into the swirling current, where they were swept
off before the very eyes of the brigands. As he stood upright,
after hearing the “ping” of more than one bullet
unpleasantly close, he felt a sharp blow—an electric throb—in
his left arm, and realized the fact that a bullet had
passed through the muscles near the shoulder.
Inwardly congratulating himself that his right arm was
unharmed, Jack drew himself up, and, facing the dropping
shots which still hissed angrily around him, his eye fell upon
the redoubtable Redcap, who, rifle in hand, had evidently
been trying the range of Stangrove’s late purchase in a
manner not contemplated by that gentleman. Jack swung
round, and lifting his revolver, as if at gallery practice,
.bn 168.png
.pn +1
pulled the trigger with that deadly confidence of aim which
some men say is never experienced save in snipe-shooting or
man-shooting. Bar accidents, the career of William Crossbrand,
otherwise Redcap, was ended. Not so, however, was
he to be sped. There had been an old forcing-yard built at
the spot for the purpose of swimming cattle and horses over
the river. A few straggling posts were left. Behind one
of these the robber adroitly slipped, and the bullet buried
itself in the massive and twisted timber, just on a level with
Mr. Redcap’s unharmed breast.
“Sure it was the greatest murder in the world,” said
Mr. Kearney, afterwards, with apparent incongruousness.
“’Twas a dead man he was, only for that blagguard of a
post.”
At this moment the Sergeant and Stangrove—who had
been waiting till the two other outlaws came up, driving
their hobbled horses before them—made a rush, which was
the signal for an advance in line of the attacking party. A
few scattered shots were exchanged on both sides. The
shooting (let any of my readers try what practice they can
make, with the best revolvers, from moving horses) was not
anything to boast of. It was soon evident that the bushrangers
were not going to fight to the last gasp. They began
to slacken fire, and show signs of capitulation. Perhaps the
most dramatic incident occurred just before the surrender.
The Sergeant had ridden up, neck and neck, with Stangrove
to their partially entrenched position, and had exhausted
his ammunition in a sharp exchange, when the Doctor
stepped forward from behind a tree, and took deliberate aim
at him with the Snider.
There was no time to reload. Things looked critical.
Stangrove and the others were engaged on their own
account; but the Sergeant was equal to the situation; he
fell back upon the moral force in which he so enormously
excelled his antagonist. Raising his hand in a threatening
attitude, and drawing himself up as if on parade, he fixed his
stern eyes upon the audacious criminal and roared out—
“You infernal scoundrel, would you dare to shoot me?”
It was a strange and characteristic spectacle. The handsome,
soldierly, comparatively refined man-at-arms, sitting
upon his horse, affording a perfectly fair mark; the half-sullen,
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
half-irresolute criminal, with the power of life and
death in his wavering hands; but the mental pressure was
too great. The old reverence for the representative of the
Law was not all uprooted. A host of doubts and dismal
visions of dock and judge, and manacled limbs, and the
Sergeant sternly implacable, “reading him up” before a
crowded court, rose before his overcharged brain. The conflict
was too intense. With a muttered oath he flung down
the historic Snider, and stood with outstretched hands,
which the alert officer of police immediately enclosed in the
gyves of the period.
“You’ve acted like a sensible chap,” said Stewart, patronizingly,
as the handcuffs clicked with the closing snap.
“I’m not sure that you won’t get off light. You have had
the luck not to have killed anybody that I know of since
you turned out.”
About the same time Mr. Redcap and the other semi-desperadoes
had lowered their flags to Stangrove, his late
guest, and Constable Kearney. This last warrior had, like
his superior officer, lost no time in securing the prisoners.
Four pairs of handcuffs were available for the elder men.
The youngest brigand had his elbows buckled together behind
his back with a stirrup-leather.
“Bedad! ye’re a great arr-my intirely,” said Mr. Kearney,
complacently. “Sure it’s kilt and murthered I thought
we’d all be with a lot of fine young men like yees forenint
us. But the Docther there hadn’t the heart to rub out the
Sergeant; ’tis the polite man he always was.”
“Well, they say taking to the bush is a short life and a
merry one,” grumbled out Redcap in a kind of Surrey-side
tragedy growl. “I know our time’s been short, and a
dashed long way from merry. I’m thankful we ain’t shed
any blood—leastways not killed any cove as I knows of.”
Here he looked at Jack’s wounded arm, the blood from
which had considerably altered the hue of his shooting-jacket.
“Oh! the divil a hanging match there’ll be, if that’s
what ye’re thinking of,” said Kearney. “Sure when they
didn’t hang Frank Gardiner why would they honour the
likes of ye with a rope, and Jack Ketch, and a parson?
Cock ye up with hanging indeed! Ye’ll be picking oakum
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
or chipping freestone, or learning to make shoes and mats,
ten years from now.”
“You have been at my station, I see by the rifles,” said
Stangrove; “was that all you took?”
“Nothing else, Mr. Stangrove,” said Redcap, humbly,
“as I’m a living man. We’d heard so much about them—that
the big one could carry a mile and shoot all day—that
we was bound to have ’em. But we done no harm, and the
ladies wasn’t much frightened—not the young lady
anyhow.”
“It’s lucky for you they were not,” said Stangrove,
huskily; “and it may serve you something at your trial.
Sergeant, what are you going to do with the prisoners? will
you bring them to Juandah to-night?”
“No, sir, I propose to make straight for the gaol at Barrabri;
we’ll get to the ‘Mailman’s Arms’ some time before
to-morrow morning. It’s the first halt we shall make; so
step out, you fellows. The sooner we get to Barrabri the
sooner you’ll be comfortably in gaol, where you’ll have nothing
to think of till the Quarter Sessions.”
“Good-bye, Sergeant. Good-bye, Kearney. Redgrave,
you had better come home with me and get that arm seen
to. By the way, Sergeant, leave word at the ‘Mailman’s
Arms’ to send on Doctor Bateman, if he’s anywhere
about.”
“So far so good,” said Jack, as they turned their horses’
heads towards Juandah. “They were not a very terrific set
of ruffians, and had evidently not bound themselves by a
dark and bloody oath never to be taken alive.”
“The sharpest shooting seems to have come your way,”
said Stangrove, noticing that Jack’s face was growing pale.
“I heard a bullet or two whistle near me; but I believe
they were sick of their life and anxious to yield decently.
I feel mercifully inclined towards them, inasmuch as I believe
they let us off cheap at Juandah; whereas, if it had
been one of the old gangs——”
“Here we are,” said Jack, as they reined up at the stable
door. “Do you know I feel very queer.” Here he dismounted,
and moving with some difficulty, that mortal
paleness overspread his face which, once seen, is indelibly
associated with real or temporary lifelessness, and down
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
went Mr. John Redgrave, helpless as a new-born babe, or a
young lady menaced by a black beetle.
Stangrove let go his horse, and raised his prostrate guest
in his arms (and a most awfully heavy burden be found
him) when out rushed Mrs. Stangrove and Maud.
“Oh, my darling, we have had the bushrangers here, the
horrid men; they took both the rifles; and one of them
took dear baby in his arms and frightened me to death.
Have you seen them? And who is that? Why, it’s Mr.
Redgrave. Is he wounded?”
“He was hit through the arm, but he is not desperately
wounded. He lost some blood and fainted. Oh, you’re
coming to; that’s right; sit up, old man, and we’ll soon
have you in bed.”
Maud had come forward with a half-cry parting her lips,
while her widely-opened eyes were expressive of pained yet
warmest sympathy. She could not trust herself to speak,
but, kneeling beside the insensible form, bathed Jack’s face
with her handkerchief dipped in water, with a woman’s
ready wit, and, loosening his neckerchief, watched with
deepest earnestness the first faint signs of returning life.
“’Pon my word,” said Jack, as he sat up and stared
rather wildly around him, “I feel awfully ashamed of
myself to tumble down and give trouble all from a scratch
like this. But I suppose it has bled and Sangrado-ed one
a bit. It will soon pass off.”
“You have been fighting for us, Mr. Redgrave,” said
Maud, with involuntary tenderness in every tone of her
voice; “and we must not be ungrateful. Try if you can
walk inside now. Lean on me. I am ever so strong, I can
tell you.”
Jack did as he was bid, and felt it necessary to avail himself
of the rude strength of which Miss Stangrove boasted.
Without any great loss of time he found himself on a couch
in the spare room, where, with the aid of Mr. and Mrs.
Stangrove, he was turned into an interesting invalid, with
his arm bound up, pending the arrival of Dr. Bateman.
Part of the evening was spent by the household in his
bedroom, and a very pleasant evening it was. Mrs. Stangrove
was gravely happy, but inclined to be tearful when
recurring to the dear children. Maud and her brother
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
took the humorous side of the adventure, and Jack laughed
till his arm ached at Maud’s description of the appearance
of the younger bushranger as he turned out in part of
Jack’s raiment, and the remainder as left by a travelling
agent for an orphan asylum.
“‘All’s well that ends well,’” said Stangrove. “I shall
not have the same anxious feeling every time the dogs bark
now. It might easily have been worse; and, taking them as
bushrangers, a decenter lot of fellows I never wish to meet.”
Dr. Bateman came next morning, having fortunately
looked in at the ‘Mailman’s Arms’ on his way in from a
back block, whither he had been called to set a stockman’s
leg, broken only the week before. Hearing of the casualty
awaiting him at Juandah, he came on best pace, making
running with his wiry iron-legged mustang from the start.
The doctor, who had in a general way to minister to the
indispositions and accidents of the population of a district
about a hundred and fifty miles long and a hundred broad,
required to possess the constitutional qualities of his
favourite mare. Most of them he did possess, thinking
as little of a ride of a hundred miles in a day and a half
as she did of carrying him.
“So you managed to get hit, Mr. Redgrave?” quoth he,
in a loud cheery voice, bustling in after breakfast. “Infernal
scoundrels—never knew such a gang. Never in
my life. Worst lot that have taken the bush since old
Donohoe’s time.”
“But, doctor,” protested two or three voices in a breath,
“you surely mistake—they——”
“What I say I stick to,” interrupted the doctor, with a
twinkle in his shrewd gray eye. “Worst gang I ever
knew—for a medical man. Why, you are, my dear sir, the
only wounded man in the whole district. I’m ashamed of
them—the country’s going to destruction. No energy
among the natives.”
“Oh, that’s it,” said Stangrove; “I was going to stand
up for my friend, the enemy—Mr. Redcap and his merry
men; but from your point of view they did behave disgracefully;
not a patch upon Morgan, or the Clarkes, or
even the virtuous and politically celebrated Frank Gardiner.
What do you think of your patient, doctor?”
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
“That he is in very good quarters. Pulse marks quicker
time to-day than yesterday. Slight touch of fever, only
natural; arm inflamed and painful. A week’s quiet, not a
day less, will set him right. Would have been a very pretty
case had bullet perforated the humerus. As it is, merely
amounts to laceration of muscles, minor vessels, and nerves.”
“You’ll stay to-night, doctor, of course?” asked
Stangrove.
“No, must go after lunch; have to ride down the river
as far as Emu Reach. Man drowned last night—inquest.”
“How was that?”
“Oh, shepherd, of course; frightful amount of lunacy
among them. Poor old Pott Quartsley got a great fright
last week up Din Din. He went into a shepherd’s hut at
dusk and saw him standing just in front of the door.
‘What are you staring at me like that for, you old fool?’
he said. Gave him a slight push. The shepherd turned
half round and slid into the same posture, silently, ‘Great
God!’ said Quartsley, rushing frantically out, ‘what is all
this?’”
“And what was it?” asked Stangrove.
“Why, the man had hanged himself the day before with
his bridle-rein fastened to the tie-beam. His feet just touched
the ground, and his hat was on his head, so that he looked,
in the half-light, exactly like a man standing upright. It had
a great effect on old Quartsley.”
“What direction will the result take?”
“That of fencing, I believe. Says he can’t afford to keep
expensive luxuries like shepherds any longer. That they’re
extravagances are sure to injure the finest property—the
soundest constitution in the long run. Says he shall repent,
economize, and fence—for the future.”
“Bravo!” said Jack, a little feebly; “if old Quartsley
begins to fence you won’t be left behind, Stangrove?”
“I said two years,” answered he, “and in two years I’ll
consider the question, not an hour before that time. In the
interval don’t you excite yourself. The doctor and I are
going to the men’s hut. I’ll send Maud with some cold tea
for you.”
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XV.
.pm start_poem
“A little cloud as big as a man’s hand.”
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
It is not half a bad thing to “be laid up,” as it is called,
for a reasonable and moderate fraction of one’s life—more
especially if a “bright particular star” is impelled to
beam softly and brilliantly upon one in consequence.
Jack, after the inflammation, which gave him “fits” the
first day or two, had subsided, began to enjoy himself
after a subdued fashion. Though food was restricted by
the despotic doctor, and liquor, other than tea, altogether
interdicted, there was no embargo laid upon tobacco.
Mr. Redgrave, therefore, used to get over the window
which “gave” into the garden, and have many a soothing
and delightful pipe in the afternoons and the long, clear,
bright nights.
He was, I firmly believe, perfectly well able to read; but
he pretended that it made his head ache, so Maud fell into
the trap and volunteered to read Macaulay’s Essays, the
Saturday Review, Macmillan’s Magazine, Market Harborough,
and even some choice bits from Tennyson and
Browning. What pleasant mornings these were! Stangrove
was out; Mrs. Jane deep in housekeeping and nursery
details; so these two people were able for a brief season to
taste uninterruptedly the charm of pure intellectual enjoyment,
unalloyed by the jar of small duties or the regretful
sense of unperformed work. Convalescence, that regal state
and condition, evades all ordinary responsibilities. It is
above duty, blame, arithmetic and grammar—the scourges
and penances of this toiling pilgrimage we call life. It
was joy unspeakable to lie back with half-closed eyes and
hear Maud’s fresh, clear young voice ringing out in
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
accents of love, or laughter, or denunciation, or sounding
strangely unnatural in the bitterness of the Saturday’s
sarcasms.
There was much reviewing of reviewers too, poetizing
upon poets; philosophizing upon philosophers. Arguments
and comments were plentifully superinduced by the variety
of texts. A week on board ship is equal to a year on
land—a day’s tending of an invalid involves a feeling of
dominancy and ownership, which renders the experience
equal in completeness to a week on shipboard. According
to this scale of reckoning, Maud Stangrove and John Redgrave
had protracted opportunities of knowing each other’s
characters, amounting in all to such duration of time as
fully justified them in contracting that morally indissoluble
betrothal called an “engagement.” This unlimited
liability they actually had the temerity to enter into, and
in the usual solemn manner sign, seal, and ratify, before
John Redgrave left Juandah, perfectly recovered and unutterably
happy.
He, of course, immediately acquainted Stangrove with the
stupendous and miraculous fact, which that unimaginative
personage received with his usual coolness.
“Maud is of age,” he remarked, “and is fully entitled
to choose for herself. She could not have chosen a better
fellow; but I wish that confounded mortgage of yours was
sold for sewing guards, or whatever the women buy obsolete
deeds for. I was quite startled by seeing ‘Know all men
by these presents’ glaring at me on Jane’s work-table the
other day. I hate the look even of one; it’s like the skin
of a dead serpent.”
“Pooh! pooh!” said Jack, “you don’t think the trifle of
debt I owe upon 60,000 sheep—which they will be and
more by lambing time—worth thinking seriously about.
Why, Mildmay Shrood told me when I was down——”
“Just what he wished you to believe, I dare say. He’s
a good fellow, as men of money go, I grant you; but he
would put his thumb or his foot on you if the money market
fell with as little compunction as I feel for this fellow
here.” And Mark trod savagely upon a large brown flat
insect, which was making its way in a blundering, purblind
fashion from a decayed log to the wood-pile.
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
“I’m sorry that I can’t show as clear a sheet as I
could have done once upon a time, old fellow,” said Jack.
“But, on the other hand, nothing venture nothing have.
If things turn out as I expect, please God, Maud shall
have everything in the wide world that she can frame a
wish for.”
“And if not—you must pardon me for looking on the
dark side of things—I have so much more often seen that
colour come up——”
“If not,” said Jack, “if not—I will never ask her or
any woman to share my poverty. Our engagement must
remain as it is till I can tell with some show of accuracy
how things are likely to go. You may trust me not to
hurry her.”
“I trust you in that and in far more important matters,”
returned Mark, as he wrung his hand. “Henceforth you
are our brother, save in name—let things go as they will—but
I must do my best for Maud.”
“Do you think I shall place a single obstacle in your
way? If I thought I could not add some colour and richness
to her life, which—pardon me—it lacks here, I would
turn away now and never see her face more.”
.tb
When Jack returned to his home and his duties he displayed
an amount of interest in the statistics and general
progress of the station which amazed and delighted Mr.
M‘Nab. That energetic personage had been toiling away
by himself since the news, much exaggerated, of Mr. Redgrave’s
adventure with his ordinary conscientious regularity.
Everything was in apple-pie order. The minimization of
labour had been carried out almost to a fault, as Jack
thought, when he had to unsaddle and feed his own horse,
and, Mr. M‘Nab being absent, and Monsieur Dubois gone
for a load of wood, the place looked desolate enough after
the home-like, old-fashioned Juandah. However, Jack comforted
himself with thinking that this was the straight road
to clearing off the mortgage—to a triumphant sale of a fully
stocked run, and to the final possession of a “kingdom by
the sea,” or beyond sea, in which Maud Stangrove should
reign, when “the happy princess followed him.”
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
Day after day he accompanied M‘Nab in long rides from
one end of the run to the other. With him he counted the
sheep wherever such counting might be necessary. He took
his turn at weighing of rations, and in every way worked
with hand and head as hard (so M‘Nab, with grim humour,
asserted) as if he had been his own overseer.
In the rare intervals of leisure, when that embodiment of
concentrativeness permitted his thoughts to dwell upon any
subject other than sheep, he could not avoid the inference
that the proprietor of Gondaree was a changed man.
Up to this turning-point of his life John Redgrave had
been content to work fairly, sometimes fiercely, with head
or hand; but, in any case, to accept success or failure with
undisturbed serenity. Now it was otherwise. He examined
searchingly the whole working of the establishment, and
satisfied himself, much to M‘Nab’s gratification, of the condition
and well-being of each division of the stock, of the
plant, and machinery of the place. He went carefully
through the account-books, and verified the debits and credits,
with an accuracy which his lieutenant had not believed to
be in him, as he afterwards said. He compiled a statement
of the financial position of Gondaree, which, after various
testings and corrections, was agreed between them to be
arithmetically, mathematically, indisputably exact. He had
fully decided to sell. The sheep were in fine condition, severely
culled, and originally well chosen. The run was of the best
possible quality, in full working order, and capable of yet
greater development. He could not imagine its fetching less
than the highest market price. At that time such a run, so
stocked, so improved, was held to be good value for twenty-five
shillings per head. It was not impossible or even unlikely
that two competing buyers might run it up to
twenty-seven and sixpence. The lesser price would pay off
the mortgage—he had no other debts in the world—and
leave him, say, forty or fifty thousand pounds.
This was the account current he had ciphered out many
and many a time. It was written upon sheets of paper, large
and small, upon blotting-pads, upon stray leaves of journals,
and pretty well engraven upon a less perishable, more
retentive, material—the heart of John Redgrave.
Something in this wise were the figures:—
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
.ta h:46 r:10 r:12
10,000 fat sheep, now ready for market at, say,\
15s. | | £7,500
50,000 sheep, with station, stores, furniture,\
implements, horses, drays, &c., all given in at,\
say, 25s. | | £62,500
| | ————
| |£70,000
Mortgage due Bank of N. Holland | £25,000 |
Interest, commission, incidentals, and\
expenses overlooked, say | £5,000 |
| ——— | £30,000
| | ———-
| | £40,000
.ta-
As far as any one could make out, judging from the
present prices, Gondaree was as safe to sell at this estimate
as Mr. Stangrove’s fast, handsome buggy horses—young,
sound, and a dead match—were to bring fifty pounds in any
sale-yard in the colonies. Here was a magnificent surplus.
Say, forty thousand pounds. That was enough, surely. A
large proportion would of course remain on mortgage, and,
as he would receive one-third or one-half cash, it could not
be better placed, receiving, as he would, eight per cent.
interest, the ordinary tariff between squatter and
squatter. Should he not sell before shearing, and realize
this Aladdin’s Palace, into which the Princess was ready to
step, at once and without delay?
He could not exactly afford the train of slaves, with
diamonds as big as pigeons’ eggs, and rubies and emeralds
to match; but on three or four thousand a year a decent
approximation to rational luxury might be reached. Should
he decide at once, and, as with poor, dear, old, despised
little Marshmead, scribble off the fatal advertisement and
abide the issue?
He took up his pen. But why do so few people sell out
mining shares, railway debentures, seductive scrip of all sorts,
at exactly the maximum of profit? He wavered. Then he
concluded to reap the profit of the last, really the last
shearing; wait till the 20,000 lambs were fit to count, and
thus make sure—of course it was a moral certainty—of an
additional twenty thousand pounds. Prices would keep up
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
at least another couple of years—that would be long enough
for him.
So he decided to see his shearing over, and to have everything
fit to deliver, at a week’s notice, by the time the coming
crop of lambs should be weanable and countable. While
this great resolve was maturing, the fiercely bright summer
days, each about sixteen hours long, were gliding by. The
stars burned nightly in the unclouded heavens, in which so
pure was the atmosphere, so free from the slightest hint of
mist or storm, that the most distant denizen of the thought-untravelled
stellar waste shone golden-clear. Even in the
sultry monotony of that changeless sea-like desert summer
is not endless. Autumn, with an earlier twilight, a keener
breath of early morn, a shorter, scarce less burning day,
advanced, followed with slow but firm step the fading
summer-time.
.tb
“So the fat sheep are drafted, tar-branded, and fairly on
the road at last,” said Mr. Redgrave, after a week’s tolerably
sharp work. “They look very prime. I hope they will
meet as good a market as they deserve.”
“Never a better lot left the Warroo,” said M‘Nab; “the
wethers are very even, and extraordinary weights. Better
sheep I never handled. The drover is a good steady fellow;
and I’ll catch them up before they get near the train.”
“The season has been dry the last month or two,”
remarked Jack; “after those unlucky floods one felt as if it
never would be too dry again; but it looks like it now for
all that.”
“The feed is not so good as it might be on the road,
they say,” agreed M‘Nab; “but six weeks’ steady driving
will take them to the train; and they will lose very little
condition in that time. If we don’t top the market we
ought to do.”
Within a few weeks after this conversation Jack found
himself sole denizen of Gondaree, M‘Nab having taken himself
off by the mail, allowing just sufficient time for him to
catch the sheep and organize the order in which they should
be “trained” for the Melbourne market. With the first
mail after his departure, Jack discovered to his great vexation
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
that a sudden and serious fall had taken place in fat
stock. The season had, without any great demonstration of
dryness, been consistently free from rain. It was cool and
breezy—a hopeful condition, Jack thought. It was a very
bad sign with the older residents.
It has been remarked, by persons of lengthened Australian
experience, that the sudden fluctuations in price which have
occurred with a curious periodicity since there has been stock
enough in the colonies to found theories upon, have usually
as little warning as the alarm of fire in a theatre. One
person, scenting the coming danger, rises and steals quietly
out, a few more follow with ill-concealed haste, then with
sudden terror starts up every creature in the building, and
the resistless agony of the panic is in full operation.
So, apparently, is it with those mighty and disastrous
changes in the value of live stock, which have ever, in the
history of Australia, pulled men’s houses about their ears,
like those of cards. They have whelmed alike the grizzled
pioneer after a life of toil, the youthful capitalist in the
first year of his first purchase, the hoary merchant, and the
gambling speculator in one tidal wave of ruin. Before such
an under-current sets in the apparent dearth of stock, in a
land full of sheep and cattle, from Cooktown to the county
of Cumberland, is curiously noticeable. Nobody will sell
their oldest ewes, their most decrepit cows; it pays so much
better to hold on. Bills, when times and credit are good,
are renewed (with, of course, interest added), and every
financial accommodation is resorted to rather than that the
sanguine stockholder should be compelled to slay the goose
which (in his opinion) is so prolific of the golden eggs, in the
guise of wool and increase.
So the game goes on, until some fine day the money-market
tightens, after its deadly, unforeseen, boa-constrictor fashion.
The ominous cry of fire, or its financial synonym, is raised.
A few wary or fortunate operators “get out;” but for the
rank and file, who have been trusting to continuous good
luck, high prices, and a “change in the climate for the
better,” the stampede of the panic is their only portion. In
all lost battles of life, more than once has it chanced that
“the brave in that trampling multitude had a fearful death
to die.”
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
Similar storm-signals now smote upon Jack’s unaccustomed
ear.
“We are sorry to note that all our correspondents speak
of continued absence of rain in their particular localities. A
drought is beginning to arouse the fears of stockholders, and
prices of fat and store stock have fallen rapidly.” Such was
the utterance of the Warroo Watchman.
This was the letter from his town agents, to whom he
had entrusted the sale of the much-considered fat sheep:—
.sp 2
“Dear Sir,—If you haven’t started your fat sheep, keep
them back till you hear again from us.
“Market glutted—all stock down.
.nf r
“Yours faithfully,
“Drawe & Backwell.”
.nf-
.sp 2
This looked bad. What a nuisance it was! For the last
two years he couldn’t have gone wrong, at whatever time
he had despatched them; a fair average price had been
always obtainable; and now, just when everything was
marked out, the whole arrangements incapable of failure in
any way—here the confounded demand breaks down, and
upsets all a man’s calculations!
Something after this fashion ran Jack’s thoughts. What
should he do? Bringing the sheep back again was expensive,
undignified, and would by no means aid in decreasing
the debt, which had lately become rather a bête noir in
his daily imaginings. The Warroo was not sufficiently
advanced for the telegraph, or he might have held converse
with the ready-witted M‘Nab, who would have been
certain to strike out the most favourable line of action.
He had nothing for it but to write to Drawe and Backwell,
to say that he had sent forward the sheep; that they
must communicate with M‘Nab, in charge, and do the
best they could under the circumstances.
Up to this period of the enterprise John Redgrave, in
despite of the episodes of the wool-shed and the flood, had
suffered from no anxiety as to the ultimate success of the
great venture. The prices of wool and sheep, store, fat, ewes
and lambs, culls—everything that could be counted and
could run out of a yard—had been firm and adamantine,
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
as the bullion in the vaults of the Bank of England.
Every sort, kind, and condition of sheep was worth half-a-sovereign,
two to a pound, minimum; one pound a head
with station; without, ten shillings.
Now there seemed a danger of the citadel being undermined,
of the great fabric of investment and adventure—built
up by a free expenditure of capital and energy during
the last five years—melting away like an iceberg before the
south wind. With such a thaw—resolving into primitive
elements the gilded temple—down would go the fame and
fortune of John Redgrave, and, for aught he cared, down
might go his life, and stilled for ever might be those restless
heart-beats. Thus, when by a sudden intuitive forecast
the shadow of misfortune fell athwart the sunlight of his
soul, did he for an instant feel the dull agony of despair—thus
spoke he to his saddened spirit.
With the first mail that was due after M‘Nab’s departure,
allowing him time to reach the sheep, came a letter,
as thus—“Sheep-market is bad—decidedly bad, with no hope
of getting better. I can keep the sheep about Echuca till
I get your answer. Shall I send them on, or return? My
advice is to sell at all hazards.”
Jack returned answer that he was to do whatever he
thought best, and to use his own discretion unreservedly.
The sheep were sold accordingly. They brought eight
shillings and tenpence all round, which just returned, clear
of all expenses, eight shillings net. A magnificent price
truly, and a terrible come-down from the fourteen or fifteen
shillings which had been the regular price, for years past,
of large, aged, prime sheep, as were the Gondaree lot.
M‘Nab was back in remarkably quick time after this
untoward outcome of so much care and forethought, and
planning and contriving.
“The sheep were beautifully driven; I never saw a lot
better looked after; they showed first-rate in the yards at
Newmarket. All the drovers, butchers, and agents said
there hadn’t been a lot in like them this season. They
topped the market, but what sort of a market was it?—rushed
and glutted with all kinds of half-fat stock, going
for nothing. And cattle down too—regular store prices;
a most miserable sight.”
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
“And what’s said about wool and stations?” inquired Jack.
“That there’s going to be the devil to pay; there’s a
tremendous commercial panic in England. Discount up to
war figures. The great dissenting bankers—Underend,
Burney & Co.—gone for any sum you like to mention.
Run on the Bank of England. Panic on the Stock Exchange.
The end of the world, as far as accommodation is
concerned!”
“By Jove!” said Jack, “could anything have been more
unlucky? I wish to heavens that I had sold out three
months since, though that might only have landed some
other unlucky beggar in the same fix. There’s no chance
of selling now at any price?”
“Sell!” answered M‘Nab, and here he looked kindly
and almost pitifully at Jack, on whose face there was a
dark and troubled look, such as he had never seen there in
bygone mishaps. “There won’t be a station sold for the
next three years, except at prices which will leave the
owners the clothes they wear, and not a half-crown to put
in the breeches-pocket either.”
“What in the world shall I do?” groaned Jack. “I would
have given much to have cleared out after shearing.”
“Well, sir,” said M‘Nab, sitting down and putting on a
calm, argumentative look, “let us look at the matter both
ways. No doubt the outlook is gloomy; but here we have
the place and the stock. There’s not a station in the
colonies that can be worked at a less annual expense.
Surely we can carry on and pay interest on the mortgage
till times come round.”
“Perhaps,” said Jack, disconsolately. “But suppose
times don’t come round; and suppose the Bank presses for
their money?”
“The times will change and improve,” said M‘Nab, impressively,
“as surely as the sun will shine after the next
stormy day, whenever that may be. And as for the Bank,
they seldom push any customer in whom they have confidence,
and who has a real good property at his back.”
“I trust so. But how in the world shall I ever grub on
for three or four years more in this infernal wilderness,
waiting for better seasons, and a rise in the market, which,
for all we know, may never come?”
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
“My dear sir,” said M‘Nab, “nothing but patience and
doggedness ever did any good in stock matters yet. It’s
the men that stick to their runs and their cattle and sheep,
in spite of losses and danger, and discouragement and
misery, that have always come out in the end with the
tremendous profits that from time to time have always been
realized in Australia, and will again. Look at old Ruggie
M‘Alister, coming back to his place one day, after counting
out his two flocks to a person sent up to take charge by his
agents, finding the place burnt down, the hut robbed, the
cook speared, and a big black fellow swimming the Murray
with his best double-barrelled gun in his mouth. There
was cause for despair for ye, if ye like!”
“And what did your friend do?”
“Shot the black fellow with his carbine; dived for the
double-barrel. Lived under a dray with the bailiff till after
shearing; got the run out of debt, and is worth ten thousand
a year, and has a villa near Melbourne this minute.”
“I could have done that once,” answered Jack; “but
whether I am growing old, or have only one supply of
energy, which is exhausted, I know not; I can’t face the
idea of all the work, and daily drudgery, and endless
monotony—over again—over again!”
“There’s nothing else to be done, sir. You’ll think better
of it to-morrow. And you needn’t bother about my salary.
We’ll work together, and I’ll never ask you for a penny of
it till better times come.”
Next day, as was his custom, Jack did not find the storm-signals
so unmistakable or portentous. As M‘Nab had
very properly pointed out, there were still the first-class,
fully-improved run, the sixty thousand sheep. The clip
would be large and well got up, in spite of the fall in the
value of the carcase.
Underend, Burneys, might totter and fall, crushing under
the ruins of a long-decayed house, tunnelled and worm-eaten
with usury, the trusting friend, the confiding public; but
unless mankind and womenkind abandoned those garments,
delicate, indispensable, and universally suitable from India
to the Pole, the demand for wool, like that for gold, might
slacken, but could not cease. This confounded American
war would come to an end. Why the deuce could they not
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
put off this insane, suicidal contest for a year or two?
The season would improve—even that was against a man.
It looked drier, and yet more dry, every day he got up.
Whereas, at Marshmead—ah! why, why did he ever leave
that lovely (though flattish—but never mind), cool, green,
regularly raining Eden? “Sad was the hour and luckless
was the day”—as Hassan the camel-driver said. But if he
had never left it he would never have seen Maud. “So, after
all, it is Kismet. The will of Allah must be done!”
With this rather unorthodox consolation Jack ended his
soliloquy, and prepared to march sternly along the path of
duty, though the flowerets lay withered by the wayside, the
surges of the shoreless sea of Ruin sounded sullenly in his
ears, and though the illuminating image of Maud Stangrove,
smiling welcome with eyes and brow, was hidden by mists
and storm-rack.
.tb
All things went on much as usual; but it was like the
routine of a household in which there has been a death.
Jack’s favourite of all the Lares and Penates had always
been Hope. Her image was not shattered; but the light
and colour had faded from the serenely glowing lineaments.
The calm eyes that had looked forth over every marvel of
earth and sea and sky—resting on the far mountains, illumined
by golden gleams from the Eternal Throne—were
now rayless.
Hope-inspired, John Redgrave was and had proved himself
capable of bodily and mental labour of no mean order—of
self-denial severe and enduring. But severed from
the probability of attainment of success, of eventual
triumph, he was prone to a state of feeling as of the
cheetah that has missed the prey, and after a succession
of lightning-like bounds retires sullenly to hood and
keeper.
As soon as he could assure himself that he was in a
proper and befitting state of mind, he rode down to Juandah,
making the journey in a very different tone and temper
from the last. He did not find that his altered prospects
had made his friends less cordial; on the contrary, it seemed
to him that never before was he so manifestly the bien-venu
as on this occasion. Maud sang and played, and talked
.bn 186.png
.pn +1
cheerily, and with a slight preference for the minor key,
which harmonized with the sore and bruised spirit of the
guest. Mrs. Stangrove, too, exerted herself to the extent
of sprightliness wonderful to behold. When a man is
suffering in mind, body, or estate, the sympathy of sincere,
unworldly women—and all women are unworldly with those
they love—is soothing, tender, and inexpressively healing.
As the dark-souled physician in the Fair Maid of Perth
was enabled by the perfection of his art to apply to the
severed hand of the knight the unguent which stilled his
raging torment at a touch, so the sweet eyes and the soft
tones of Maud Stangrove cooled and composed his fevered
soul. Mark Stangrove, also, was unusually genial, even
hilarious.
“This insatiable Warroo is going to have another dig at
us,” he said. “We have just not escaped a flood, and now
we are in for a drought. That means a few years more of
the mill for us. Well, we’re all in the same boat; we must
stick to the oars, keep a good look out, and weather it out
together.”
“A good look out!” echoed Jack. “I see nothing but
rocks and breakers.”
“Come, come, old fellow; a capful of wind, or even a
heavy gale, doesn’t mean total wreck always. We shall, of
course, have to take in sail, throw cargo over, and all that.
Seriously, things are going to be bad in more ways than one.
I’m not altogether taken by surprise; I’ve seen it before;
but I don’t wish to crow over you for all that. I think in
some ways you are better off than I am.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Why, though I am a good deal under-stocked, this
drought will put me ever so much about. I shall lose a lot
of my lambs and calves, have to travel all the sheep, and,
generally, be compelled to spend money and lose stock right
and left till rain comes again.”
“You can afford it,” said Jack, “and I can’t; it will be
the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A long drought
means unsaleable stock—which means increase of debt,
interest, and principal—which means ruin.”
“You go too fast, my dear fellow. I used to tell you
that you were going to be rich rather more quickly than I
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
fancied probable; and now you are determined to be ruined
with equal rapidity. I must tell Maud to read you a
sermon upon patience and perseverance.”
“I deserve no quarter from her or from you either,”
professed Jack, who was now en pénitence all round, “for
dragging her into this uncertain, anxious life of mine.”
“Well, accidents will happen, you know. I blame
those rascally bushrangers and your gun-shot wound for it
all; no woman can nurse any fellow, under a hundred,
without appropriating him. But I’ll take care that you
are not married till you are something more than a bank
overseer, which is a different thing from a bank manager,
you know.”
“Hang all banks and bank officials, from the board of
directors to the junior messenger,” fulminated Jack,
“though, as they only sell money to fools like me, who
choose to buy, they are scarcely to blame either. And now,
old fellow, as I’ve relieved my mind, we’ll go in and be
civil to the ladies. Even if times are bad, one must not
quite forget to be a gentleman. Thank you, once and for
all, old fellow, for your true kindness.”
After this Jack put away his Skeleton gently, though
firmly, into his closet, and, turning the key, compelled him
there to abide, only permitting him to come out and sit by
the fire with him occasionally when no one was present, or
to walk cheerfully round the room when he was dressing in
the morning—or to wake him before earliest dawn and
whisper in his ear till he rose desperately at the first faint
streak of day. But these being the regularly allotted
periods and interviews, lawfully to be claimed and recognized
by all well-bred skeletons and their proprietors, Jack
could not with any conscience grumble.
He explained the whole state of affairs to Maud, who, to
his surprise, took it coolly, and, like Mark, said “that
things might not turn out so badly. That every one agreed
that his station was very well managed, and that probably
he might overrate the probability of loss. That, whether
or no, she knew he would fight it out manfully—and that
she would wait—oh, yes! years upon years—as long as he
would promise to think of her, and for her, now and then.”
So they parted, Jack thinking how difficult it was to
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
understand women. He would have sworn that the fiery
girl, whose petulances had so often amused him, would have
been as deeply disappointed, as intolerant of the delay, as
himself. And now here she was calmly looking forward to
years of stocking-mending and child-nursing on the Warroo
before they could be married, as if she had never dreamed
of a higher life, to be realized in a few short months.
John Redgrave had never experienced, and therefore had
not realized, the most deeply-rooted attribute of woman’s
manifold nature—the capacity for self-sacrifice. Rarely can
he who is blessed with her first pure love overtax its
wondrous endurance—its angelic tenderness.
With right down hard work, as with the conscientious
performance of military duty, in the trenches or otherwise,
before the enemy, much of the darker portion of the spirit’s
gloom disappears. Man is a working animal—civilization
notwithstanding; and an undecided mental condition, combined
with bodily inaction, has ever produced the direst
forms of misery to which our kind is subjected here below.
So day after day saw Jack and his faithful subject fully
occupied from dawn to sunset in the ordinary routine of
station work. The personal labour devolving upon each
was tolerably severe, but the exact number of hands allotted
to the place by the inexorable M‘Nab was rigidly adhered
to, and not an extra boy even would he hear of until the
inevitable month before shearing, when all ordinary labour
laws must perforce be suspended.
The four boundary-riders, all active, steady men, young
or in the prime of life, well-paid and well-housed, did their
duty regularly and efficiently. It was part of M‘Nab’s
creed that, if you kept a man at all you should pay him
well, and otherwise minister to his well-being. In cheap
labour there was no economy; and for anything like indifferently-performed
work he had a dislike almost amounting
to abhorrence. He and Jack transacted all the business
that of right appertained to the home station. They by
turns convoyed the increasingly numerous and hungry flocks
of travelling sheep; took out the rations; laid the poisoned
meat, which, spread over the run in cartloads, was daily
returning an equivalent in dead eagles, dogs, and dingoes;
counted the sheep regularly; and all this time there was
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
not a sheep-skin unaccounted for—not a nail or a rail out
of order in the whole establishment.
So fared all things until the time for shearing drew nigh.
Jack felt quite delighted at the first engagement of washers,
the first appearance of three or four shearers, with their big
swags and low-conditioned horses, having journeyed from
far land where winter was not wholly obsolete as a
potentate, and did not stand for a mere section of the year
between autumn and spring. The changed appearance of
the long-silent huts was pleasant to his eye; the daily
increase of strange voices and unembarrassed, careless talk;
the giving out of rations; the arrangement of the steam-engine;
the arrival of teamsters—all these things heralded
the cheerful, toilsome, jostling shearing-time, half festive, half
burdensome, yet still combining the pains and pleasures of
harvest.
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVI.
.pm start_poem
“And did she love him? What and if she did?
Love cannot cool the burning Austral sands,
Nor show the secret waters that lie hid
In arid valleys of that desert land.”—Jean Ingelow.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
The season had not been a good one for grass. It was a
very good one for wool. Save a little dust, no exception
could be taken to anything. The clip was well grown; the
washing simply perfection. The lambing had been a fortunate
one. Counting these aspirants for the trials and
triumphs to which the merino proper is foredoomed, the
count stood well over sixty thousand sheep, of all ages.
But a few months since, what a comfortable sum of money
did they represent; whereas now—but it would not bear
thinking of! The shearers even seemed to be unnaturally
good and easy to manage now that no particular benefit
could accrue from their conduct. Everything was right but
the one important fact, which lay at the root—the price of
stock. Even if that had improved, the season was going to
turn and evilly entreat them; the “stars in their courses
fought against Sisera;” and Jack began to consider
himself as his modern exemplar—the prey of the gods!
He sent off his wool, but this year he determined not to go
to town himself; with the present prices and a fast-coming
drought staring him in the face, what could a man do in the
Club or in Collins Street but advertise himself as an incipient
insolvent? Better stick to his work, save a little money, now
that it was too late, and spend the summer pleasantly in
staving off bush fires, following in the dusty wake of endless
hordes of starving travelling sheep, and watching the desolation
.bn 191.png
.pn +1
of the grass famine, already sore in the land, deepen from
scarcity into starvation. A pleasant programme truly, and
considerably altered from that one dreamily sketched out for
himself and Maud so short a year agone—ah, me!
He wrote to his agents, desiring them to sell or ship the
clip at their discretion, and to pour the proceeds into the lap
of the Bank of New Holland, so to speak, by the hands of
Mr. Mildmay Shrood. From that gentleman he, by and by,
received a missive, very soothing and satisfactory, as times
went—“The wool had been sold very well, and had maintained
the high reputation of Gondaree both for quality and condition.
Mr. Redgrave was empowered to continue to draw
upon the bank for expenses, though (he might, perhaps, be
pardoned for suggesting, in the present severe financial
pressure) the bank trusted that their constituents would use
every effort to keep down expenses to the lowest limit consistent
with efficient working. It was thought by gentlemen
of experience that the present untoward season would soon
break up. In the meanwhile, however, the utmost care and
caution were necessary to prevent loss and depreciation of
valuable securities.”
“All this is very reassuring,” said Jack, grimly, to himself,
as he marked the allusion to the securities—doubtless now
regarded as the property of the bank, or something nearly
akin. “However, we are not quite sold up yet, and if the
season would change and a little rally come to pass in the
market we might snap our fingers at the men of mortgage
yet. There is a chance still, I believe. The wool fetched
the best price on the river; everything will depend upon the
season, and how we get through the summer.”
When poor Tom Hood once wrote that the “summer had
set in with its usual severity,” little thought the great
humorist that he was describing the sad simple earnest of
the far land, to him a terra incognita.
All places have their “hard season”—that portion of the
year when the ordinary operation of the weather has power
to inflict the greatest amount of damage upon dwellers or
producers. In one country it is winter, which is the foe of
man with unkind frosts, cruel snow-storms, hurtling blasts,
or dark and dreary days. In another land it is the hurricane
season, when every vessel goes down at anchor, or is lifted
.bn 192.png
.pn +1
high and dry over bar and beach, when the town totters above
the shrinking inhabitants, and when, perchance, the more awful
earthquake gapes for the wretches whom the great tempest
has spared. But in Australia, more especially in that great
interior system of sea-like plains, where for hundreds of
miles the level is unbroken, and where, doubtless, at no very
distant period the surges of ocean resounded, the hard season
there is the summer, more particularly the periodically recurring
oppression of a dry summer following a dry winter. In
that land, where the brief spring is a joy and a luxury only too
transient, where the winter is a time of rejoicing—mild, fair,
verdant—where autumn is the crown and utter perfection of
sublunary weather, the sole terror is of the slow, unnatural,
gradual desiccation which—as in the olden Pharaoh days—eats
up every green herb, and, if protracted, metamorphoses
plain and forest and watercourse into similitudes of the
“valley of dry bones.”
Such has happened aforetime in the history of Australia.
Such may, at the expiration of any aqueous cycle, happen
again.
A term of dread was apparently settling down upon the
land when John Redgrave resolved to stay at home the
summer-time through. Such were the prospects which confronted
him as he rode from paddock to paddock, among the
tens of thousands of sheep, and watched from day to day the
pasturage shrivel up and disappear; the water retire into
the bosom of the sun-baked earth.
The days were long, even dreary, and as the summer wore
on they seemed longer and more dreary still. Hot, glaring,
breezeless—there was no change, no relief—apparently no
hope. There was no sign of distress among the Gondaree
flocks. In that well-watered, well-pastured, well-fenced, and
subdivided station the stock scarcely felt the pressure of the
death-like season which was decimating the flocks in less-favoured
localities. But everything that was heard, said, or
thought of in that melancholy time tended to depression and
despair. “This man had lost ten thousand sheep, having
made too late a start for the back country, and been unable
to reach water from the intervening desert. They—fine,
strong, half-fat wethers—had gone mad with thirst—obstinately
refused to stir—as is the manner of sheep in their
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
extremity, and had perished to the last one. Then some one
had sold three thousand weaners for ninepence a head, a
well-grown lot too.”
As the panic and the season acted and reacted upon one
another, by the time the summer had passed, and the
autumn and the cold nights, but still dry, stern, merciless
as the summer, had come, the value of stock and stations
had come to be nominal.
People of imaginative temperaments began to ask themselves
whether they could have been sane when they in cool
blood set down 20,000 sheep and a station as value for
£20,000 or £25,000. Had such prices been actually paid?
Yes, actually paid! Not in golden sovereigns, perhaps,
but in good cheques upon perfectly solvent bank accounts,
and in bills of exchange, which were legally strong enough
to extract the last penny of their value from him whose
name was written under the talismanic word “accepted.”
The money had been there, doubtless; and now it seemed
as if it had turned into withered leaves, like the fairy gold
in the old legends.
So mused Jack on his daily rounds, as wearily he rode
day after day, often on a weak and tired horse, for grass
was none, and hay and corn were considerably dearer than
loaf sugar; or when he lighted his pipe at night, and sat
staring at the stars, while M‘Nab wrote up his accounts,
and generally bore himself as if droughts were merely passing
obstacles to the prosperity which must eventually attend
the proprietor of well-classed sheep and a fenced-in run.
The famine year dragged on. Long will that season be
remembered throughout the length and breadth of the great
island-continent. Its history was written in the hearts of
ruined men—in the dangerously-tasked minds of many a
proprietor whom “luck and pluck” carried through the
ordeal. Still the drought grasped with unrelenting gripe
the enfeebled flocks—the thirst-maddened and desperate
herds. The great merchants of the land were beginning
to grow accustomed to the sound of the terrible
word “bankruptcy.” All bank shares had fallen, and
were falling, to prices which showed the usual cowardly
distrust of the public in the time of trial. Rumour began
to be busy with the names of more than one bank, including
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
the Bank of New Holland, which had, it was asserted,
made stupendous advances to the squatters. “Hadn’t they
lent old Captain Blockstrop a quarter of a million, and even
that wouldn’t do? Every day the directors met, old Billy
used to talk to the manager in much the same tone of voice
that he had been accustomed to use to his first mate, and
demand ten, twenty, or thirty thousand pounds, as the case
might be. ‘I must have it, Mr. Shrood,’ the old man
would roar out, ‘if I’m to carry on, or else, sir, the house
of William Blockstrop and Co. will have the shutters up to-morrow
morning.’ And he got the money of course.”
“And suppose he didn’t get it?” might remark an inquiring
bystander, innocent of the mighty system of
involuted financial machinery.
“Not get it!” would Croker, or Downemouth, flaneurs
informed in all the monetary diplomacy of the day, say—“Do
you suppose that bank can afford to let old Blockstrop
drop? No, sir; rotten as the commercial and pastoral
interests are, they know better than to cut their own
throats just yet. Other fellows may have to sell their
sheep for half-a-crown a head, and take to billiard-marking,
or ‘pies all hot,’ for all the bank cares; but once you’re in
like old Blockstrop they can’t let you go.”
Autumn passed over, winter commenced—that is, the
month of June arrived. The rain seemed as far off as ever.
One day Jack smiled grimly as he observed the anachronism
of a tolerably smart bush-fire, which was burning away
merrily, not the grass, good wot, but the dried forest leaves
which lay inches deep on the bare bosom of the tranced and
death-like earth.
Up to this time hope had prevailed among the sore disheartened
stock-owners that the weather must change. It
would be unnatural, impossible, that such a season could last
over the next three months. There would be some rain, and
even a little rain in that strange country, where most of
the trees and shrubs are edible and even fattening for stock,
counts for much. Were it to last for three months more
millions of sheep and hundreds of thousands of cattle would
be lying dead on the bare, dusty, wind-swept wastes, which
had formerly been considered to be pastures.
Could this thing be? The old colonists shook their heads.
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
They remembered 1837–38–39—during which memorable
years but little rain fell, when flour was £100 per ton, when
rice even was too expensive for consumption, when more than
half of the handful of stock then in New South Wales
perished for lack of food. With the present heavily-stocked
runs what manner of desolation might be expected now?
In the midst of this “horror of a great tempest—when
men’s hearts were failing them for fear”—John Redgrave
received this letter, lying innocently, anguis in herbâ,
among the ordinary contents of his Monday morning’s mail-bag:—
.sp 2
.nf r
“Bank of New Holland,
”June 30th, 1868.
.nf-
.ce
“John Redgrave, Esq., Gondaree, Warroo.
“My dear Sir,—I have been instructed by the Board of
Directors to draw your attention to the amount of your over-draft,
amounting, at date, with interest, to £30,114 12s. 9d.,
which I am to request that you will reduce at your earliest
convenience.
.nf r
“I remain,
“Yours faithfully,
”Mildmay Shrood.”
.nf-
.sp 2
Jack’s face turned nearly as white as when he fell fainting
at the Juandah gate. He set his teeth hard as he crushed
the fateful missive in his hand; and leaning back, growled
out a savage oath, such as seldom passed his lips. “This
was to be the end, then, of all his hopes, and plans, and work,
exile, and anxiety. To be sold up now, in the very vortex of
the unabated panic, in the worst month of the year, in the
most depressing period of the worst drought that had been
known for thirty years! No warning, no hint of such an
impending stroke. The sword of Damocles had been
suspended financially above his head, in his daily musings,
in his nightly dreams, for many a month. But strong in
sanguine anticipation of a change in the season, in a rise of
the market, he had become accustomed to its presence. It
had come to be as harmless as a punkah; and now—it had
fallen, keen, deadly, inevitable, full upon his defenceless
head.”
For he knew his position to be utterly hopeless. “Reduce
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
his overdraft!” What a world of irony lay in the request!
Even could he sell without the consent of the bank—to
which abstraction every sheep, lamb, and fleece was mortgaged—how
was he to realize, when best fat sheep were selling
under five shillings, and ewes, as well-bred and classed as
his own, were offering in any number at half a-crown a head,
and unsaleable at that? God in heaven! he was a ruined
man—not in the sense of those whom he had known in mercantile
life, who seemed in some wonderful fashion to fail, and
come forth again with personal belongings hardly curtailed
to ordinary observation, but really, utterly, tangibly ruined—left
without home, or household goods, or opportunity to
commence afresh. A beggar and a byword for rashness, extravagance,
utter want of discretion, purpose, energy, what not.
Who has not heard the chorus of cant which swells and
surges round a fallen man? M‘Nab was away; he would tell
him the news next day. Meanwhile, he must go to town and
see what could be done. Matters might be arranged somehow,
though of what the “somehow” was to be composed
he had not the faintest conception, even after a night cap
wherein the proportion of “battle-axe” was not very closely
calculated—“To bed, to bed, to bed!” Banquo, his
ghost, did not more effectually murder sleep than in
Jack’s case did the delicate, deadly caligraphy of Mildmay
Shrood.
On the morrow he told M‘Nab what had happened, and
betook himself on horseback to the stage which the mail
could reach on the following day, choosing the distraction of
a long ride rather than the slow torture of a whole day’s
waiting.
M‘Nab was moved, though not altogether surprised, at
the intelligence. He knew that the interest must have been
running up upon the bank account, when all was necessarily
going out and nothing, since the clip of wool, coming in. He
held as firmly as ever to his opinion that stock and stations
must rise again after a time. The ship would right herself,
though water-logged and dipping bows under with every sea.
The thing was to know how long the storm would rage. He
cautioned Jack to be cool and cautious in his dealing with the
bank, and at whatever cost to procure further accommodation—time
being the all-important matter in such a season.
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
Three days’ rain would send up the value of all stock fifty
per cent. at least, to rise another cent. per cent. within the
year.
.tb
John Redgrave reached Melbourne after a journey over
five hundred miles of a country which, in all but the
essential features of camels and Arabs, would seem to have
been translated bodily from the great desert of Sahara.
Nor leaf, nor grass, reed nor rush relieved the bare, dusty,
red-brown wastes. The stations, deserted by their travelling
stock, looked as if built by a past generation of lunatics
upon a “waste land, where no one comes or hath come since
the making of the world.”
From time to time columns of dust, moving cloud-pillars,
met or passed them on their way, the abodes of evil Genii,
as the Bedouins told. Evil spirits were abroad, doubtless
Jack thought, in sufficient numbers. The land looked as if
not only there never had been any herbage whatever, but,
from the total absence of the roots, as if there could by no
possibility be any in the future. The mail horses were worn
and feeble, threatening to leave them stranded in the midst
of some endless plain. At the mail-station, no fresh animals
being forthcoming, it seemed as if their journey must then
and there end, or be performed on foot. But the driver, a
man of resources, lounged over to the pound, and seeing
therein two comparatively plump nags, one of which had
certainly worn harness, set up a claim, and promptly
released them upon payment of sustenance fees. With these
equivocal steeds the journey was prosecuted to the railway
terminus, and once more, after nearly two years’ absence, Mr.
Redgrave found himself in the great city which has grown
up in little more than a generation.
Pleasant would have been the change from the lone waste,
in process of change into a charnel-house, but for the great
overshadowing dread which dwelt with John Redgrave day
by day. The fresh breezes of ocean fanned his bronzed cheek,
but awoke not, as of old, the joyous pulsations of a heart
free to respond to every tone of the grand harmony of
Nature. The slave who feels at every step the galling of
his heavy chain thanks not God for the blue sky, or the
.bn 198.png
.pn +1
song of the soaring bird; and he who is the thrice fettered
bond-slave of Debt bears a spirit steeled against all softening
and ennobling influences.
Some transient gleams of the joy of new sensation and old
friendship were permitted even to his hopeless condition.
But even amid the welcome and the talk of old associates
there ran depressing announcements.
“Times were incredibly bad. As for stock, no one would
take them at a gift. Wool was down, lower than for years,
and (of course) never would rise again. Hugh Brass was
gone. Estate in liquidation. The Marsalays, Moreland,
ditto; Heaven only knew for what amount—not that it
mattered much, in these days, whether a man stopped for
one hundred thousand or three. Fellow went one day to
bank-manager, and actually wanted advances on a good run
and twenty thousand sheep. Manager, new appointment,
inquired if he had any other liabilities? Shut him up, rather.
Times’ changed, eh, old boy?”
Jack admitted that they were—indeed!
The day after his arrival, Jack hied him to the portals of
the enchanted castle, at which he had so confidently blown
the horn in the days of careless youth. Changed, alas! was
the Knight; dimmed was his armour; hacked his morion; and
shorn the waving plume that had nodded to the breeze.
After entering the antechamber he was compelled to wait.
That purgatorial apartment was tenanted by an elderly man
of the squatter persuasion, as Jack could see at a glance.
He, doubtless, was awaiting his turn in the folter-kammer,
and by the fixed and anxious look of the worn face his
anticipations were strongly tinged with evil. A different
species of pioneer this from Jack, from Stangrove, from
Hugh Brass, from Tunstall. He was more akin to the
Ruggie M‘Alister type. His sinewy hand and weather-beaten
frame were those of a man who by long years of
every kind of toil, risk, and privation had built up a modest
property—a home and a competency—no more. He was
the father of a family, possibly with boys at school receiving
a better education than their parent, a brood of merry girls
disciplined by a much-enduring governess. There would be
an ancient orchard at such a man’s homestead—no doubt it
.bn 199.png
.pn +1
was in or near the settled districts—and a large “careless-ordered”
flower-garden in which the masses of bloom compensated
in picturesqueness and splendour for lack of
neatness. Jack could have sworn he had only incurred debt
by compulsion to buy a few thousand acres immediately
round his house, when the free-selectors came swarming over
the flats he had discovered in old dangerous days, and ridden
over as his own, winter and summer, for twenty years. He
had trusted (so he told Jack) to a good season or two pulling
him through, whereas now, the strong man’s voice trembled
as he said—
“If they sell me up, I shall have to go out a beggar.
Yes, a beggar, sir, after thirty years’ work. I could bear it,
very like; but my wife and the children. Great God! what
will become of us?”
Out of the inner room came a plump, well-shaven townsman.
He was evidently in good spirits; he hummed a tune,
rubbed his hands, looked benevolently at Jack and the older
bushman, and passed forth into the atrium. He was a
stockbroker; his paper was all right till the fourth of next
month. What could man wish for more? It was an eternity
of safety. What changes in the market might take place
by that time! He lit a cigar, looked at his watch, and
lounging over to the café, ordered a somewhat luxurious
lunch, to which, and to a bottle of iced moselle, he did full
and deliberate justice. About the time when the broker had
finished his soup, and was dallying with his amontillado,
the door of the bank sanctum opened, and forth walked, or
rather staggered, the pioneer squatter, with clenched teeth
and features so ghastly in their expression of hopeless woe
that Jack involuntarily rushed to his aid, as to a man about
to fall down in a fit. The old man looked at him with eyes
so awful in their despair that he shuddered—his lips moved,
but no sound came from them. Waving his hand, with a
gesture as deprecating remark, the unhappy man, like one
in his sleep, passed on.
Jack walked in with a quick, resolute step, and an appearance
of composure he was far from feeling, and saluted
the man of doom.
There was a flavour of bygone cordiality in Mr. Shrood’s
.bn 200.png
.pn +1
greeting, but his face instantly assumed an expression of
decorous gravity, mingled with the stern resolution of irresponsible
power. Jack at once crossed swords, so to speak,
by producing the fatal letter. “I received this from you
a week since, Mr. Shrood. What am I to understand
from it?”
Before this momentous interview proceeds further we
may let our readers into a secret which was necessarily
hidden from John Redgrave and the outside world—as the
discussions of the terrible conclave preceding the dread
fiat at the Vehmegericht.
The bank directors had held a general meeting, with the
president in the chair, having in view the circumstances of
the country and the securities and liabilities of the bank.
Among those present were some of the best financial intelligences
of the day, men of ripe experience, keen calculation,
and sound logical habit of mind. Many were the pros
and cons. There was some difference of opinion as to the
mode of operation; none whatever as to the fact of the
danger of the position. One of the oldest directors had
opened the proceedings. He asserted that never before in
the history of the colony had the indebtedness of all classes
of constituents been so large. It had coincided with an
altogether unparalleled period of financial loss and depression
in England—he might add, in Europe; and, with a
heavy fall in the price of wool, stock, and stations, a war
of stupendous magnitude in the new world had not been
without effect upon previous monetary relations. From all
these causes had the great pastoral interest of Australia
suffered, and the suffering was more intensified by the
operation of a drought, still unbroken, and of a severity
unknown for thirty years. He felt the deepest sympathy
for the pastoral interest, for the gentlemen who had invested
their capital—he might almost say their lives—in these
mighty and fascinating adventures. He trusted he might
not be accused of sentimentalism—but the pastoral tenants
had paid in health, strength, and all the powers of manhood,
to the credit of this account, and spent their blood freely in
its support.
He knew that the liability of the bank connected with the
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
indebtedness of this class of constituents—was very great.
But so, likewise, were the resources of their old, stable, and
securely-founded establishment. The squatters had, on the
whole, been their best, their most solvent customers. Let all
be helped now, in their hour of need, except those who were
manifestly unreliable, incapable, or too deeply involved. A
favourable change might take place within the year. If so,
the bank would always receive the praise of having stood firm
in danger, and having helped to save from ruin a deserving,
an honourable, and an indispensable class of producers. Here
Mr. Oakleigh paused, and a murmur as nearly resembling
approbation as could be expected to emanate from the august
assembly, came from the listeners. One would have concluded
that the advocate of mercy and continuous accommodation
had carried his point. But a still more reverend senior, no
other than the president himself, during the debate, left
his place with the deliberation of age, and, adjusting his
spectacles, thus spoke:
“He had listened with great pleasure to the lucid statement
of facts presented to the Board by their friend and valued
director, Mr. Oakleigh. His suggestions did him honour.
They might congratulate themselves upon the possession of
such an intellect, so high a tone of feeling, in their council.
But,” and here the speaker changed his position, and inserted
one hand into his ample white waistcoat, “he must be pardoned
for representing to gentlemen present that the laws
which governed sound banking institutions, such as their own,
did not admit of consideration for individuals or for classes
of constituents, however deserving of sympathy. The logic
of banking was inexorable. Economic laws were unvarying;
they had stood the test of years, of generations. By them,
and them only, could he consent to be governed.” Here he
applied himself to his snuff-box, and proceeded. “It would be
clearly apparent to all now present that the liabilities of the
bank were unusually large; they were daily increasing. The
reserve fund was being seriously, he might say dangerously,
lowered. If such a course were persevered with, in the
present state of the money market, but one result could be
looked for. The credit of the bank would be endangered; even
worse might follow, to which he would not at present allude.
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
Such being the case, and it could not in his opinion be denied,
what was their plain, undoubted, inevitable course of action?
He had had many years of experience as a merchant, and as
director and president of the Bank of New Holland, which
latter position he had had the honour to hold for a term
exceeding the lifetime of some present. From the teaching
of these long and chequered years, not unmarked by financial
tempests, such as they were now contending with, he submitted
his opinion, which was fixed and unalterable. The bank must
close all pastoral accounts under a certain amount. They
must realize upon such securities promptly, and without
respect to persons. It would be for the directors to fix the
sums, but obviously the larger accounts must be called in.
But this course, once decided upon, must be inflexibly adhered
to. Cases of great individual hardship would occur;
it was unavoidable in the operation of all such acts of policy.
No one, speaking as an individual, felt more deeply such consequences
of a protective policy than he himself. But he
would remind gentlemen present that they owed a justice to
families of shareholders in the bank, rather than what might
be considered mercy to those who had assumed a voluntary
indebtedness. The action he had indicated comprehended
safety to the bank, to the shareholders, and to the more
important constituents. Temporizing would, in his opinion,
involve the bank and all concerned in eventual ruin.”
The president took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully
with a spotless handkerchief, and sat solemnly down. His
arguments were felt to be incontrovertible. His great age,
his long experience, his unfailing success in the management
of all affairs with which, for half a century, he had been
connected, his high character, added weight to his arguments,
of themselves not easily to be controverted. But little more
was said, and that chiefly in a conversational manner. Before
the Board separated, a motion was carried that the manager
be instructed to close all pastoral accounts under thirty-five
thousand pounds. In the event of non-payment to realize
upon securities without delay.
Such had been the preliminary debate—such had been
the bill before the oligarchs of the Council of Currency—the
potentates who coerce kings and resist nations, who render
.bn 203.png
.pn +1
war possible or truce compulsory—with whom peace and
prosperity or “blood and iron” are matters of exchange.
Such was the court, such the gravely-debated proposition,
such the irreversible verdict arrived at, before Jack reached
Melbourne. All “unconscious of his doom,” though full of
intuitive dread, did he then demand of Mr. Mildmay Shrood
what he was to understand by the letter he had received.
That gentleman might have saved many words, and some
anxiety to his interlocutor, by simply replying “Ruin!?”—but
an answer so laconic would not have justified the reputation
for politeness which the manager of the Bank of New
Holland, in common with managers of banks generally
deservedly held.
He used no insincerity when he answered that it gave
him much pain to be compelled to state that the bank
felt it necessary to call upon him to reduce, or indeed, to
extinguish his liability to them without delay.
“And, if I am unable—in the teeth of this detestable
season and this infernal panic, which the London money-mongers
seem to have got up on purpose to take away our last
chance, what then?” demanded Jack, commencing to boil
over.
“I must again express my unfeigned regret,” said Mr.
Shrood, “but I cannot disguise from you that the bank will
at once realize upon the security which it holds for your
advances.”
“In plain words, your bank, without warning of any kind,
demands a very large sum of money, advanced during several
years, and sells me up without mercy, in the midst of a grass
famine and a money famine.”
“I am afraid, though you put it strongly, and perhaps
not altogether fairly as regards the bank, that your view of
their action as regards yourself is correct.”
“And can you talk of fairness?” said Jack with quivering
lip and blazing eyes, as he stood up and faced the
calm, decorous man of business. “Was I not led to imagine
when this money was advanced with such apparent
willingness, that I should have time, accommodation, all
reasonable assistance if required, for the repayment? All the
money has been faithfully invested in stock and permanent
.bn 204.png
.pn +1
improvements. No run in the country, at this moment, is
in better order or more cheaply managed. Can any one say
that I have been extravagant in my personal expenses? It is
hard—devilish hard—and unfair to boot.”
Mr. Shrood was quite of the same opinion. He was a man
of kindly though disciplined impulses, and what men call “a
good fellow,” underneath his armour of caution and official
reserve. He did not intend to explain the policy of the bank.
It was his to obey, and not to criticize, though within certain
well defined limits he had much discretionary power. But
he had always liked Jack, and was as sorry as he could afford
to be, with so many unpleasantnesses of similar character to
deal with, for his gravitation towards the bad, which he
doubted could not be arrested.
Still, he thought he would make one effort with the
directors in favour of John Redgrave, whose property he
knew was thoroughly good of its kind, and whose particular
case he felt to be one of “real distress.”
“I can but reiterate my expressions of regret, my dear
Mr. Redgrave,” returned he; “nothing but the extreme,
the unprecedented financial disorganization could have led
the bank authorities to countenance so harshly restrictive a
policy. I cannot speak of it in any other terms. But I will
make a special effort to obtain further accommodation for
you, though I do not advise you to rest any great hope upon
a favourable response. On Wednesday the Board sits again.
If you will call on Monday morning next, I will inform you
of their ultimatum.”
Jack thanked the banker from his heart, and went forth to
spend two or three days after a rather less melancholy fashion.
We know that John Redgrave was so enthusiastic a votary
of the present that, unless that genius was manifestly overshadowed
by the awful future, he was apt to cry ruthlessly—“Stay,
for thou art fair.”
So he ate of the unaccustomed, and drank of the choice,
and otherwise solaced himself, carrying a good hope of the
success of Mr. Mildmay Shrood’s intercession, the prestige
of which he overrated sadly, until Monday morning.
His heart commenced to register a low tide of electricity—dark
doubts, akin to despair, began to throng and rise; there
.bn 205.png
.pn +1
was “a whisper of wings in the air,” altogether non-angelic,
as he stood once more in the presence of Mildmay Shrood, and
of—Fate. One look at the fixed expression of the features of
the manager was sufficient to settle the question of concession.
All hope and expectation died out of Jack’s heart. He
nerved himself for the blow.
“I regret more deeply than I can express——” commenced
Mr. Shrood.
“It is not worth while to go on,” interrupted Jack. “I
believe that you have tried to do what you could for me,
and I thank you sincerely for it. The question is now,
what time can I have to make arrangements with another
bank, or a mercantile firm, to carry me on—if such an
unlikely thing comes to pass?”
“The bank will take no action for one month—so much
I can guarantee; at the end of that period no further
cheque will be paid, and the bank will sell or take possession
of the stock and station, as mortgaged to them.”
“What about current expenses?”
“They will be paid as usual—if not exceeding ordinary
amounts.”
“Well, thank God,” said Jack, “my people, the few
there are of them, are paid up. I shall not have to trouble
you for much. I wish you good morning.”
The banker walked over to him, and looked full in the
face of the man who was going forth, as he believed, to
utter, inevitable ruin. He knew that only by a miracle
could any one obtain assistance in the present state of
finance. All the other banks, all the great mercantile
squatting houses, bankers themselves in all but name, had
been throwing over dead weight, dropping small, doubtful,
or not vitally necessary accounts, for months past.
John Redgrave’s quest would be that of a drowning man
who solicits the inmates of dangerously laden boats, in the
worst possible weather, out of sight of land, to have pity
upon him and to risk their lives, manifestly for his sake.
He might not encounter the precipitate phraseology of the
British tar, but a crack with an oar-blade would, metaphorically,
represent his reception.
Mr. Shrood was not, of course, any more than the officer
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
of any other service, likely to divulge the inner workings of
official action; but he wrung Jack’s hand with an emphasis
not all conventional, as he wished him success, and bade
him a genuine farewell.
“It is precious hard upon that young fellow, I must
say,” said he, half aloud. “I really did not think I could
be so unbusinesslike as to flurry myself about a single
account, with the half-yearly balance coming on too. It
must be near lunch-time.”
Mr. Mildmay Shrood opened an inner baize-embellished
door, and disappeared into a long passage, which led to his
private suite of apartments. He then and there threw
himself into a game of romps with his daughters, aged six
and eight years respectively, and informed his wife that
there would be a flower-show on the following Saturday, to
which, if nothing materially affecting his health, or the
weather, took place in the interval, he intended to have the
honour of escorting her.
Mrs. Shrood expressed her high approval of this announcement,
and at the same time stated her opinion that
he looked rather fagged, asked if the affairs of the bank
were going on well, and if he would like a glass of sherry.
“What bank, my dear? Yes, thank you; the brown
sherry, if you please. What bank do you allude to?”
“Nonsense, Mildmay! Why, our bank, of course.”
“Madam,” replied the husband gravely, draining the
glass of sherry with zest and approbation, “I have before
had the honour to remark to you that, once inside that door,
I know of the existence of no bank, either in New Holland or
New Caledonia. And further, O partner of my cares and
shares—I was about to say—but suppose we say Paris
bonnets, àpropos of one that’s just come in, unless, madam,
you wish to come and see me periodically at Gladesville,
you will not mingle my private life, in any way or form,
with my existence in that——other place.”
Here Mr. Shrood, who had in his earlier days been a
staunch theatre-goer, waved his wine glass, and, putting
himself in the attitude of “first robber,” scowled furiously
at his wife.
That sensible matron first threw her arms round his
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
neck, and told him. not to be a goose, and then, after
arranging her ruff, rang the bell for lunch, to which Mr.
Shrood, having by this time, like a wise man, got Jack’s
stony face and gloomy eyes out of his thoughts, did reasonable
justice.
Mr. Redgrave, with his customary hopefulness, recovered
from the first misery of his position sufficiently to go about
to all likely places, and to test the money-market most
exhaustively, as to the accommodation needed for a squatter
with an undeniable property and a heavy mortgage. His
agents, Drawe and Backwell, were first applied to. They
had nothing to learn, as his relations with them had
always been of a confidential nature, since the old, the good
old days of Marshmead. They had always given him good
advice, which he did not always want, and money, which
he always did. They had always helped him to the limit
of safety, and would have done anything in reason for him
now; but, like many others, they were not able. Their
capital and reserve fund were strained to the fullest extent.
Times and the seasons were so bad that no one without the
resources of the Count of Monte Christo, combined with
the business talents of a Rothschild, could have done the
pastoral community much good in that year. They had a
smoke over it in the back office; but nothing, in the shape
of relief, was found to be practicable.
“You see, old fellow,” said Backwell, who, as old squatter
himself, understood every move in the game, “we could
find four or five thousand pounds for you, but what good
would that be? You would have to sell twenty thousand of
your best sheep to meet the acceptances, and, of course,
the bank won’t stand your reducing the stock much. Then—though
that would have been a good payment to account
a year or two back—they won’t thank you for it now.
They want the whole of their advances to you, and less
won’t do. There are plenty more in the same boat. People
say they are shaky themselves. They have some fearfully
heavy accounts—old Blockstrop and others—we all know.
They can’t afford to show any mercy, and they won’t.
What stock will come to, unless the drought breaks up, no
man can say. We are not what I should call a very solvent
.bn 208.png
.pn +1
firm at present; and so I tell you. They must have some
fellows to sell stock, you know, or we should have a note
to settle our little account in quick sticks. Let me drive you
out to St. Ninian’s to-night, and we’ll have a taste of the
sea-breeze, and look at Drawe’s dahlias; they’re all he has
to live for now, he says.”
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVII.
.pm start_poem
“But dreary though the moments fleet,
O let me think we yet shall meet.”—Burns.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Jack came back next morning rather “picked-up” after
Mrs. Backwell’s kindly talk, and Drawe’s dahlias, and a
stroll by the “loud-sounding sea,” which looked to him as
if it belonged in its glory and freshness to another world
which he should soon quit and never revisit. He was sufficiently
invigorated to try all the banks—the Denominational,
the London Bartered, the Polynesian, the Irish, Welsh, and
Cornish, the Occidental, the Alexandra, the United, and so
on. It was of no avail. At the majority he was informed
that the bank was not prepared to take up fresh squatting
accounts at present. At some he was requested to call after
the next Board day; but the answer, varied and euphemized,
was “No,” in all cases. Then he tried the mercantile firms,
the old-standing English or Australian houses, which, in spite
of the assumed supposed American domination in all things
in the colony of Victoria, had held the lead, and kept their
pride of place since the pre-auriferous days. With them,
and the great wool-dealing firms, the same answer only
could be obtained. They would advance anything in reason
upon the coming clip, or on any given number of sheep, at
market rates; but, as to “taking-up” a fresh account of
that magnitude, they were “not prepared.”
Tired out, disappointed, and disheartened, Jack left town,
after writing a brief note to Mr. Shrood, intimating that the
bank might sell Gondaree as soon as that remorseless corporation
pleased. He recommended Messrs. Drawe and Backwell
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
as auctioneers; they knew the property well, and would
probably get as much for it as any other firm.
Then was the wearisome return journey commenced. In
former days there had always been some glimmer of hope or
expectation wherewith to gild the excessive neutral tints of
the landscape. Now there was no hope, and the expectation
was evil. He would have likened himself to an Indian chief
going back to deliver himself up to the torture. At Gondaree
was the stake to which he would have to be attached on
arrival. The fire would be lighted, and the roasting would
begin and continue till he should receive the coup de
grâce, by being tacitly directed to leave his own station,
and go forth into the wilderness—a beggar and a broken
man.
.tb
M‘Nab did not ask many questions; it was not his wont
except when he wished to lower the spirits of an owner of
store sheep, with a view to a slight concession in price.
But he gathered from Jack’s visage and listless air that no
success of any kind had attended his efforts.
“Gondaree is to be sold,” said he, with the recklessness of
despair, “some time next month. You will soon see an
advertisement headed ‘Magnificent salt-bush property on
the Warroo,’ and so on.”
“And ye were unable to get any assistance from the
bank?”
“No more than brandy and soda out of an iceberg,” responded
Jack, helping himself to the first-named restorative.
“Whether they want money, and have to recoup themselves
out of us poor devils, I don’t know. But you would think
that other than cash payments had been unknown since
Magna Charta. Shall have to carry our coin in leather bags
soon.”
“Ay, that’s bad, very bad! I didn’t realize things
would be just that bad. Surely the banks might have just
a trifle of discrimination; if Gondaree is sold now, they’re
just making some one a present of thirty thousand pounds
out of your pocket.”
“I am much of your way of thinking, M‘Nab; I am just
as sure as that we shall see the sun to-morrow that I am going
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
to be sold off at the edge of a rising market. It’s hard—too
hard; but a man’s life, more or less, can’t matter.”
“Could you not have sold half, and held on with the rest?”
suggested M‘Nab, still restlessly cogitating every conceivable
scheme. “The place could divide first-rate opposite the
Point. If you had sent me down, I’ll warrant I would have
knocked up a deal, or a put-off, in some fashion.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had,” assented Jack. “I
ought to have sent you down with a power of attorney—only
that one has a mistaken preference for mismanaging one’s
own affairs. Well, it can’t be helped now. Cursed be the
stock and station. Cursed be the whole concern.”
Jack was fully a week at home before he could nerve
himself for the inevitable last visit to Juandah—his farewell
to Maud Stangrove. It was a cruel word; it would be a
bitter parting; but he must tell her in his own speech that
his fate had but suffered him to win her heart, had but lured
him to the contemplation of the unutterable happiness that
should have been theirs, to drop the veil for ever, to shatter
the goblet in which the draught had foamed and sparkled
with unearthly brilliancy.
He had thought once that perhaps, pledged as they were
to each other, a mutual understanding to await the events of
the next few years might have still existed between them.
But he cast out the tempting idea, with even added bitterness,
as he thought of the lots of other men and other women
whom he had often pitied and despised.
What, he told himself, could compensate her for the long
weary years of waiting and watching, the gradual extinction
of youth in form, in mind, in soul, to be repaid, after youth
had passed by, with a sombre union, which poverty should
divest of all grace, joy, and romance. No—they must part—and
for ever! Maud, with her youth and beauty, would
soon find a mate more worthy than he of the treasure of
her love. He, with all his faults, was not the man to drag
those light footsteps into the mire of poverty and obscurity.
As for him, he would carve out fame and another fortune
for himself—or fill a nameless grave.
Juandah was suffering, like all the rest of the country
from the withering drought, which still denied water to the
.bn 212.png
.pn +1
dusty fissures, verdure to the earth, and had apparently
closed up the windows of heaven. Still there was a look of
homely comfort about the place, which showed the garrison
to be trusty and bold—fierce though the siege had been, and
close the blockade.
“Come in, old fellow, and we’ll see if we can find you
something to eat,” called out Mark Stangrove, who, with a
very old shooting-coat on, had just ridden in on a very lean
steed, and with a general air of having finished a hard day’s
work. “I’m not very sure of it. Maud and the missus have
been very hard set of late—no eggs, no butter, little milk, no
vegetables, indifferent meat, and a great flavour of rice in all
the dishes. I’ve been pulling weak sheep out of a water-hole
all day. Pleasant work and inspiriting.”
Jack walked in, and it was fully explained to him by the
unspoken kindness of the ladies of the house that they knew
pretty well the measure of his misfortune. Somehow, one is
not always sufficiently grateful for the delicate and generous
consideration that one meets with in time of trouble. It is
like the deference accorded when people are too sick, or too old,
or too generally incompetent to enter into active competition
with the talents of the world militant. It is kindly meant,
but there is a savour of accusation of weakness. So John
Redgrave felt partly grateful, and partly savage with himself,
at being in a condition to be morally “poor-deared” by Maud
and her sister. All his life, up to this time, he had been from
earliest boyhood as one in authority. He had said, since he
could recollect, “to this man, go here,” and so on. Now
was it to be that he should have to descend from his pride of
place, to suffer pity, to endure subordination, to live as the
lowly in spirit and in fortune? With the suddenness of
the levin-bolt it would sometimes flash across him that
such might be his doom. And with the thought would
come a passionate resolve to end his fast-falling, narrowing
existence, ere it were swept away amid the melancholy and
ignoble circumstances which had terminated other men’s
lives.
It may have been gathered from these and other faithful
impressions of the inner workings of John Redgrave’s mind,
that, though a careless, kindly, easy-going species of personage,
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
he was naturally and unconsciously proud. To his pride
was just now added the demon of sullen obstinacy.
He was unable, however, after a few moments, to withstand
the influence of the unaffected kindness and sympathy
of his friends. When he looked at the two women,
and remarked that they looked pale and careworn, as
having had privations of their own to bear in this most
miserable season, he hated himself for having entertained
any selfish feeling.
“You have come back from your travels,” said Maud;
“it seems to me that you are always going and returning.
I always have envied you your wanderings.”
“I am afraid I have come to the stage when I shall go—but,
in the words of the Highland Lament, ‘return nae
mair,’” answered he, sadly.
“You mustn’t talk like that,” said Mrs. Stangrove.
“People who, like us, have lived so long in this country,
know all about the ups and downs of squatting. Why
shouldn’t you begin again, like others, and do better with a
second venture than the first? Look at Mr. Upham, Mr.
Feenix, and Cheerboys Brothers; they have all been ruined,
at least once, and how thriving they are now.”
“I hope to show my friends, and the world too, my dear
Mrs. Stangrove,” said Jack, standing up and squaring his
broad shoulders, “that one fall has not taken all the fight
out of me. But it is an uphill game, and I may, like many
a better man, find the odds too heavy. But, whatever
happens, you may believe that I shall not forget my friends
at Juandah, who have proved themselves such in my hour
of need.”
“I have heard,” at length Maud said, in low faltering
tones, “that people in—in their dark hours—and we all
have them at some time of our lives—should walk by the
counsel of their friends if they know them to be good and
true. We are too apt to be led by our own wayward
spirits, and sorrow warps our better judgment. I know
Mark will be glad to give you his best advice. And oh!
do—do talk matters over with him. He is cool, and sure
judging, and is seldom mistaken in his course.”
Mrs. Stangrove had slipped out “on household work
intent.”
.bn 214.png
.pn +1
“Maud,” he said, “dearest, loveliest, best-beloved, why has
fortune, so kind though unsought for many a year, deserted
me now, when for the first time in my life I had prized her
with a miser’s joy for your dear sake, and for yours alone?
My heart will break—is broken—at the thought of leaving
you. But——”
“Why should you leave us—me, if you will have it so?”
interrupted she passionately; “stay with us for a time till
your wound be healed, as in the first dear time when I
nursed you, and knew the joy of lightening your weary
hours and soothing all your pain. Do you think mine a
fair-weather love, given in assurance of ease, and pleasure,
and fairy summer-time—or did I yield my heart to be
yours in weal or woe? You dishonour me by an implied
mistrust—and yourself by such faint-hearted fears of the
future.”
She had risen, and laid her hand on his shoulder as she
spoke with all the aroused magnetic energy of tender, yet
impetuous womanhood, ere yet experience has quenched the
open trust of youth, or sorrow smirched the faint delicate
hues of beauty.
“Promise me that you will talk your plans over with
Mark. And oh! if you would but follow his advice.”
Jack groaned aloud, but his face was set unyieldingly, as
he took her hand in both of his, and looked pityingly and
mournfully in the sweet pale face, and loving, tear-brightened
eyes.
“My darling, my darling,” he said, hoarsely, “it cannot
be. I must tread my path alone. For good or for evil, I
will confront my fate sole and unfriended, and either make
a name and another fortune, or add mine to the corses on
life’s battle-field. If I live and prosper I will return to my
love. But here I release her from the pain and the lowliness
of a life linked to so ill-starred a destiny as that of
John Redgrave.”
.tb
The evening was not dreary. Mark and his wife exerted
themselves to dispel the gloom that threatened to enshroud
the little party. Maud was again outwardly calm and self-possessed,
as women often are, in the supreme hours of life.
.bn 215.png
.pn +1
Jack exhibited the recklessness of despair, and appeared to
have dismissed from his mind the misery of his position.
Stangrove recounted the many shifts and contrivances rendered
necessary by the exigencies of the season.
“Did you ever taste milk, old fellow,” he said, “distilled
chiefly from water-lilies? I assure you our two melancholy
milkers have consumed no other food for weeks. There is
not, of course, a particle of grass, or so much as an unstripped
salt-bush or cotton-bush for miles. Well, the big lagoon
(quite a lake it looks in winter) has not dried up yet. You
may see the cows standing up to their backs in it all day
long. Even the lilies are not on the surface. An occasional
flower is all that they get there, but from time to time you
may notice one of the amphibious creatures put her head
deeply under water like a diving duck, and raise it after a
longish interval, filled with a great trailing bunch of roots
and esculent filaments. Great idea, isn’t it? I wonder how
long they would take to Darwinize into webbed feet and a
beaverly breadth of tail.”
“They manage to live, and give us milk besides, on this
blanc-mange, or whatever it is,” said Mrs. Stangrove. “I
don’t know what the poor children would have done but for
these submarine plantations.”
“My dear old Mameluke has copied their idea, then,”
joined in Maud, with a brave attempt at light converse, which
ended in a flickering, piteous smile; “for I saw him in the
cows’ water party yesterday, with very little but his head
visible. He has lost all the hair from his knees down, either
from the leeches or the water.”
“We are living in strange times,” remarked Jack; “it is
a pity we can’t get a few hints from the blacks, who must
have seen all the dry seasons since Captain Cook. What
have you done with all your sheep, Mark?”
“We are eating the few that are left,” said Mark.
“And very bad they are,” interposed Mrs. Stangrove.
“We are all so tired of mutton, that I shall never like it
again as long as I live.”
“The beef would be worse, if we had any,” resumed Mark.
“The sheep are just eatable, though I agree as to the indifferent
quality. All the flocks are in the mountains in charge
of my working overseer, old Hardbake, as well as the cattle.
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
Here is the last letter: ‘The sheep is all well, and the wool
will be right if so be as you get rain by the time the snow
falls here. We must cut and run then for fear of haccidence.
The cattle is pore but lively. Send some more
baccy. Yours, to command, Gregory Hardbake.’ Curious
scrawl, isn’t it?”
The ladies having retired, Mark Stangrove and his guest
adjourned to the veranda for the customary tabaks parlement,
and for some time smoked silently under the influence of
the glorious southern night. All was still save the faint
but clearly-heard ripple of the stream, and the low, sighing,
rhythmical murmur of the river oaks. Cloudless was the
sky; the broad silver moon hung in mid firmament, with
splendour undimmed, save by a wide translucent halo—in
happier times suggestive of rain. In this hopeless season,
the denizens of the Warroo had learned by sad experience
to distrust this and all other ordinary phenomena.
“Glorious night,” said Mark at length, breaking the long
silence, “but how infinitely we should prefer the wildest
weather that ever frightened a man to his prayers! Strange,
how comparative is even one’s pleasure in the beauty of
nature, and how dependent upon its squaring with our
humble daily needs. When I read such a passage as—‘the
storm beat mercilessly in the faces of the wayfarers, with
heavy driving showers,’ &c.—when the author has exhausted
himself in this endeavour to elicit your sympathy for the
unlucky hero and heroine—I feel madly envious, which I
take it is not the feeling intended to be produced. So you
are going to clear out, old fellow, for good and all? You
know, I am sure, how sorry we all are. Will you pardon
me if I ask what your plans are for the future?”
“I have no plans,” answered Jack. “I shall make a fresh
start as soon as I am sold up. I must do as other shipwrecked
men, I suppose—go before the mast, or take a third-mate’s
berth, and work up to a fresh command—if it’s in me.”
“That’s all very well in its way. I admire pluck and independence;
but without capital it’s a long, weary business.”
“How have the other men fared?” demanded Jack. “I
am not the first who has been left without a shilling, but
with health, strength, and—well—some part of one’s youth
remaining, it is a disgrace to such a man, in this country
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
above all others, to lie down or whine for assistance at the
first defeat.”
“Granted, my dear fellow; though I confess I take your
proposition to apply more strictly to the labourer proper
than to him who starts weighted with the name and habits
of a gentleman. There is no track open to him that he
could not travel with tenfold greater speed with the aid of
capital to clear the way.”
“That I cannot have without laying myself under obligations
to friends or relatives, and nothing would induce me
to ask or accept such help,” quoth Jack, with unwonted
sternness. “I have lost a fortune and the best years of
my life—as I believe by no fault of my own. I will regain
it, as I have lost it, without help from living man; or the
destiny which has robbed me of all that makes life worth
having may take a worthless life also.”
“It strikes me that you are hardly just, not to say
generous,” rejoined Mark, “to speak of your life as entirely
worthless; but I am not going to preach, old fellow, to a
man in your hurt and wounded state. I have been near
enough to it myself to understand your chief bitternesses.
Now listen to me, like a good fellow, as if I were your
elder brother or somebody in the paternal line. You know
I am a heap of years older, besides having the advantage of
being a spectator, and a very friendly one, of your game.”
Jack nodded an affirmative, while Stangrove, refilling his
pipe, sent forth a contemplative cloud and recommenced:
“When a man is ruined—and I have seen a whole district
cleared out in one year before now—one thing, almost
the chief thing, he has to guard against is, a wild desire
springing mainly from mortification, wounded pride, and a
kind of reactionary despair, to get away from the scene of
his disaster and from his previous occupation, whatever it
may be. Now this feeling is perfectly natural. All the
same it should not be indulged. When a man has done
nothing worse than the unsuccessful, he should calmly review
his position, and above all take the advice of his
friends. If he have plenty of them—as you have—he may
rest assured that their verdict as to his plans and prospects
is far more likely to be correct than his own. When he
disagrees with the whole jury of them, he generally is in
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
the position of the proverbial person who found eleven most
obstinate jurymen entirely opposed to his way of thinking.”
“But surely a man must know his own capacity, and can
gauge the measure of his own powers more correctly than
any number of friends,” pleaded Jack.
“I am not sure of that. I believe in several heads being
better than one, especially where the latter has just come
out of the thick of the conflict, and has not escaped without
a hard knock or two. To pursue my lecture on adversity—don’t
take it so seriously, Redgrave, or I must stop. A
good fellow, with staunch friends, is invariably helped to
one fresh start, often to two. So you may look upon it as
a settled thing. Sheep are cruelly low now——”
“What! begin with another sheep station, and a small
one?” interrupted Jack. “Let me die first.”
“There, again, allow me to differ with you, and to state
another peculiarity of misadventure. A fellow always insists
upon changing his stock. A cattle-man takes to sheep,
after a knock-down, and vice versâ. Whereas, it is just the
thing he should not do. He knows, or fancies he knows,
all the expenses and drawbacks of one division of stock
farming; of the peculiar troubles of the other he is ignorant,
and so over-estimates the advantages. By this shuttle-cocking,
he abandons one sort when their turn for profit is
at hand, and generally gets well launched into the other as
their turn is departing. Besides, all the accumulation of
experience—a fair capital in itself—is thus wasted.”
“Hang experience,” swore Jack, with peculiar bitterness;
“it’s the light that illumines the ship’s wake, as some
unlucky beggar like me must have said; and which leaves
the look-out as dim as ever.”
“You persist in doing yourself injustice,” continued his
patient friend; “everybody will concede that you have had
very hard luck; you have lost by one fluke—you may get
your revenge by another, if you have the wherewithal to put
on the card; not otherwise though. As I said before, sheep
are down to nothing—at that painful price you are compelled
to sell. Why not buy some other fellow’s place at
the same figure? When the tide rises, as it surely will, you
will float into deep water with the rest of them.”
“What do you fancy the real value of runs to be?”
.bn 219.png
.pn +1
“From six to ten shillings for sheep and stations, according
to quality, not a halfpenny more.” Jack could not
repress a groan. “Well, with five thousand pounds you
ought to be able to buy a good property with twenty
thousand sheep—half cash, half at two years.”
“Where’s the money to come from?” demanded Jack,
from the depths of his beard.
“My dear fellow,” Stangrove said, getting up and walking
over to him, “you don’t think me such a beast as to
have bored you all this time if I had not intended to act
as well as talk. I will find the money; you know I have
always been a screwing, saving kind of chap. You can
relieve your conscience by giving me a second mortgage till
you pay up.”
Jack grasped the hand of his entertainer till the strong
man half flinched from the crushing pressure.
“You are a good fellow, true friend, and worthy to be
the brother of the sweetest girl that ever gladdened a man’s
heart. But I cannot accept your offer, noble and self-sacrificing
as it is. I am an unlucky devil; I have no faith
in my future fortune; and I will not be base enough to
run the risk of dragging down others into the pit of my
own poverty and wretchedness.”
“But, my dear fellow, hear reason; don’t decide hastily.
You don’t know to what you are, perhaps, condemning
yourself, and—others besides yourself.”
“It is because I am considering others,” answered Jack,
as he stood up and looked, half pleadingly, at the silver
moon, the silent stars, the clear heavens, the wonder and
majesty of night, as who should strive to win an answer
from an oracle. “It is for the sake of others, for the sake
of her, that I reject your offer. I should only blend your
ruin with my own—foredoomed, it may be, like much else
that happens in this melancholy, mysterious life of ours.
And now, God bless you. I will start early. I could not
say farewell to Maud. Tell her my words, and—to forget me.”
The two men grasped each other’s hands silently, and
without other speech each went to his own apartment.
Before sunrise Jack left an uneasy pillow, and, dressing
hastily, walked quietly out of the house, and into the horse-paddock,
or an enclosure so designated, which in former
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
days had contained adequate nutriment for all inmates. He
found his attenuated steed, and caught him without much
difficulty. The unlucky animal was standing by a box tree,
staring vacantly upwards, and refreshing himself from
time to time with a vigorous bite at the bark, which he
chewed with evident relish. Saddling up at the stable, he
walked towards the outer sliprails, intending to avoid the
dismounting at that rude substitute for a gate, about
which he had often rallied Mark. He had just concluded
the taking down and replacing of these antiquated entrance-bars,
and, with an audible sigh, was about to mount, when
he saw Maud coming along the short-cut footpath from the
house, which led to the garden gate. She waved her hand.
He had no choice—no wish, but to stop. She was his love.
She was before his eyes once again. He had tried to spare
her—perhaps himself. But it was not to be.
She came swiftly up this dusty path, in the clear warm
morning light, her hair catching a gleam of the level sun,
her cheek faintly tinted with a sudden glow, her lips apart,
her eyes burning bright. She looked at him, for one
moment, with the honest tenderness of a woman, pure from
the suspicion of coquetry—loving, and not ashamed though
the world should witness her love.
“John,” she said, in a tone of soft, yet deep reproach,
“were you going away, for ever perhaps, and without a
word of farewell?”
“Was it not better so?” he murmured, taking her hand
in both of his, and looking into her eyes with mingled
gloom and passion, as though he had been Leonora’s lover,
doubting, pitying, yet compelled to bid her forth to the
midnight journey on the phantom steed.
“Better! why should it be better?” said she, with a
wild terror in her voice and looks. “Have you no pity for
yourself—for me—that you despise the advice of your best
friends, and insist upon dooming yourself to poverty and
obscurity? I knew Mark was going to speak to you, and
he told me that he would help—like a good fellow as he is—you
or—us—why should I falter with the word?—to
make a new commencement. Why, why are you so proud,
so unyielding, so unwilling to sacrifice your pride for my
sake? You cannot care for me!”
.bn 221.png
.pn +1
Here the excited girl flung herself forward, as if she
would have humbled herself in the dust before him, while a
storm of sobs shook her bosom, and caused her whole form
to tremble as if in an ague fit.
Jack raised her tenderly in his arms, and, pouring forth
every name of love, strove to soothe and pacify her.
“Darling,” he said, “have pity upon me, and trust me a
little also. All that a man should do would I do for your
dear sake; and if I do not at once consent to accept Mark’s
generous offer, or that of any friend for the present, why will
you not let me try my chance, single-handed, with fortune,
like another? When the Knight returns to his Ladye-love
after such a combat, is he not doubly welcome, doubly dear?
Why should you insist upon my being defended from the
rude blasts of adversity, as if I were unable to prove myself
a man among men!”
“You deceive yourself,” she said, in sad, serene accents;
“you will not yield yourself to the counsels of those who are
cool and prudent. Will you not let me tell you that, though
you are the dearest, greatest of mortal men in my eyes, I do
not think prudence is a marked gift of yours?”
“You are a saucy girl,” he said, as she smiled sadly through
her tears; “but you are only telling me what I knew before.
Still, but for imprudence, or what the world calls such, conquests
and splendid discoveries would never have been made.
I have something of the ‘conquestador’ in me. It must have
space and opportunity for a year or two, or I shall die.”
“Will you make me one promise before you go?” said
she, looking earnestly into his face, “and I can then wait—for,
trust me, I shall wait for you till I die—with a heart
less hopelessly despairing.”
“I will, if——”
“Then promise me this—that if, in two years, you have
not succeeded, as you expect, you will return to me, and will
not then refuse Mark’s proffered aid.”
He hesitated.
“Think this,” she said, as she raised herself slightly on
tiptoe, and whispered in his ear. “It is my life that I am
asking of you; I feel it. If you love your pride—yourself
more——”
“I promise,” he said hastily. “I promise before God, if in
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
two years I have made no progress, I will return and bow
myself at your feet. You shall deal with me as you list.”
Their lips were pressed convulsively together in one lingering
kiss. Then she released herself with mute despair.
She stood for one moment gazing upon him with all the
ardour of her love and truth shining out of her wondrous
eyes. Her face became deadly pale. Its whole expression
gradually changed to one unutterably mournful and despairing.
Then, turning, she walked slowly, steadily, and without
once turning her head, along the homeward path. Jack
watched her till she passed through the garden gate and
entered the veranda. Mounting his horse, he rode along the
river road at a pace more in accordance with the condition
of his emotions than the condition of his hackney.
.bn 223.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVIII.
.pm start_poem
“Fickle fortune has deceived me:
She promised fair, and performed but ill.”—Burns.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Events were following in quick succession across John
Redgrave’s life, like the presentments of a magic lantern;
and it seemed to him at times with a like unreality. But
reason, in hours of compulsory attention, proved with cold
logic that they were only too harshly true.
A little while, as he could not help owning to himself,
and he would be driven forth from the Eden of “the potentiality
of wealth” and luxury, into the outer world of dreary
fact, poverty, and labour. Fast sped the melancholy, aimless,
half-anxious, half-despairing days, following upon the
advertisement which took all the pastoral and commercial
world into his confidence, and stamped him with the stigma
of failure. Thus, one fine day, a stranger, a shrewd-looking
personage, redolent of capital, from his felt wide-awake to
his substantial boots, arrived by the mail, and presented
the credentials which announced him a Mr. Bagemall
(Bagemall Brothers and Holdfast) and the purchaser of
Gondaree. It was even so. That “well-known, fattening
run, highly improved, fenced and subdivided, with 65,794
well-bred, carefully-culled sheep, regularly supplied with
the most fashionable Mudgee blood, the last two clips of
wool having averaged two shillings and ninepence per lb.,”
&c., &c., as per advertisement, had been sold publicly, Messrs.
Drawe and Backwell auctioneers. Sold, and for what price?
For eight shillings and threepence per head, half cash and
half approved bills at short dates!
Well, he had hoped nothing better. In the teeth of
such a season, such a panic, such a general loosening of the
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
foundations alike of pastoral and commercial systems, what
else was to be expected as the proceeds of a forced sale, with
terms equal to cash? The murder was out. The hazard
had been played and lost—let the stakes at least be handed
over with equanimity.
So Mr. Bagemall was received with all proper hospitality,
and courteously entreated, he being apparently bent more
upon the refreshment and restoration of the inner man,
after a toilsome and eventful journey, than upon information
regarding his purchase. He made no inquiries, but
smoked his pipe and enjoyed his dinner, talking in a cheery
and non-committal manner about the state of politics, and
the last European news by the mail. He went early to bed,
pleading urgent want of a night’s rest, and postponed the
serious part of the visit until the morrow.
When the morning meal and the morning pipe had been
satisfactorily disposed of, he displayed a willingness, but no
haste, to commence business.
“I suppose we may as well take a look round the place,
Mr. Redgrave,” said he; “everything looks well in a general
way; nothing like fencing to stand a bad season. Monstrous
pity to put such a property in the market just now. Can’t
think what the banks are about. Sure to be a change for
the better soon, unless rain has ceased to form part of the
Australian climate, and then we shall all be in the same
boat.”
“I shouldn’t have sold if I could have helped it, you
may be sure,” answered Jack; “but the thing is done,
and it’s no use thinking about it. The sooner it’s over
the better.”
“Just as you please—just as you please,” said the
stranger. “You will oblige me by considering me in the
light of a guest during my short stay. I must go back
the end of the week. I don’t know that I need do anything
but count the sheep, in which our friend here
(turning to M‘Nab) perhaps will help me. Everything
being given in, I sha’n’t bother myself or you by inspecting
the station plant. The wash-pen and shed speak for
themselves.”
“Thank you very much,” said Jack; “delivering over a
station is generally a nuisance, especially as to the smaller
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
matters. I remember being at Yillaree, when Knipstone
was giving delivery to old M‘Tavish. They had been
squabbling awfully about every pot and kettle and frying-pan,
all of which Knipstone had carefully entered—some of
them twice over. To complete the inventory he produced
a brass candlestick, saying airily, ‘The other one is on the
store table.’ ‘Bring it here, then, you rascal,’ roared M‘Tavish.
‘I wouldn’t take your word for a box of matches.’”
“The purchase-money was somewhere about eighty thousand
pounds,” remarked Bagemall, who seemed to remember
what every station had brought for the last ten years. “A
paltry fifty pounds couldn’t have mattered much one way
or the other.”
The next morning the counting began in earnest. A
couple of thousand four-tooth wethers had been put in the
drafting yard, for some reason or other, and with this lot
they made a commencement. Now, except to the initiated,
this counting of sheep is a bewildering, all but impossible
matter. The hurdle or gate, as the case may be, is partially
opened and egress permitted in a degree proportioned to the
supposed talent of the enumerator. If he be slow, inexperienced,
and therefore diffident, a small opening suffices,
through which only a couple of sheep can run at a time.
Then he begins—two, four, six, eight, and so on, up to
twenty. After he gets well into his tens he probably makes
some slight miscalculation, and while he is mentally debating
whether forty-two or fifty-two be right, three sheep
rush out together, the additional one in wild eagerness
jumping on to the back of one of the others, and then
sprawling, feet up, in front of the gate. The unhappy
wight says “sixty” to himself, and, looking doubtfully at
the continuous stream of animals, falls hopelessly in arrear
and gives up. In such a case the sheep have to be re-yarded,
or he has to trust implicitly to the honour of the person in
charge, who widens the gate, lets the sheep rush out higgledy-piggledy,
as it seems to the tyro, and keeps calling out
“hundred”—“hundred” with wonderful and almost suspicious
rapidity. Yet, in such a case, there will rarely be
one sheep wrong, more or less, in five thousand. Thus,
when arrived at the yard, M‘Nab looked inquiringly at the
stranger, and took hold of one end of the hurdle.
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
“Throw it down and let ’em rip,” said Mr. Bagemall.
“You and I will count, and Mr. Redgrave will perhaps
keep tally.”
Keeping tally, it may be explained, is the notation of
the hundreds, by pencil or notched stick, the counter being
supposed only to concern himself with the units and
tens.
M‘Nab, who was an unrivalled counter, relaxed his
features, as recognizing a kindred spirit, and, as the sheep
came tearing and tumbling out, after the fashion of strong,
hearty, paddocked wethers, he placed his hands in his
pockets and reeled off the hundreds, as did Mr. Bagemall,
in no time. The operation was soon over. They agreed in
the odd number to a sheep. And M‘Nab further remarked
that Mr. Bagemall was one of those gifted persons who,
by a successive motion of the fingers of both hands, was
enabled (quite as a matter of form) to check the tally-keeper
as well. Paddock after paddock was duly mustered,
driven through their respective gates, and counted back.
In a couple of days the operation, combined with the
inspection of the whole run, was concluded.
Sitting in the veranda after a longish day’s work, all
smoking, and Jack looking regretfully at his garden, which,
small and insignificant compared with the exuberant plantation
of Marshmead, was very creditable for the Warroo,
and indeed was just about to make some small repayment
for labour in the way of fruit, Mr. Bagemall remarked—
“I didn’t know you had any blacks about the place.
Does this lot belong here?”
“It must be old man Jack and his family,” answered
M‘Nab. “I have been wondering what had become of
them for ever so long. I heard Wildduck was very ill.
Yes, this is our tribe, sir; not a very alarming one, but all
that brandy and ball-cartridge have left.”
“What has the old fellow got on his back?” inquired Mr.
Bagemall; “the men carry nothing if they can help it.”
“Poor Wildduck,” said Jack, half to himself, “I had
forgotten all about her of late, with the allowable selfishness
of misfortune. By Jove! it’s she that the old man is
carrying. She must be ill indeed.”
The old savage, followed by his aged wives at humble
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
distance, marched on in a stately and solemn manner, until
he reached a mound near the garden gate. Here the little
procession halted; one of the gins placed an opossum rug
upon the earth, and upon this the old man, with great care
and tenderness, placed the wasted form of the girl Wildduck.
She it was, apparently in the last stage of consumption,
as her hollow cheeks testified, and the altered
face, now lighted by eyes of unnatural size, brilliant with
the fire of death. The three men walked over.
“Ah, Misser Redgrave,” said she, while a dreamy smile
passed over her wan countenance, “stockman say you sell
Gondaree and go away. Old man Jack carry me from
Bimbalong—me must say good-bye.” Here a frightful fit
of coughing prevented further speech, while the old man
and the gins made expressive pantomime, in acquiescence,
and then, seating themselves around, took out sharp-edged
flints, and, scooping a preliminary gash on their faces, prepared
for a “good cry.” Strangely soon blood and tears
were flowing in commingled streams adown their swart
countenances. Wildduck lay gasping upon her rug, and
from time to time sobbed out her share of the lament for
the kind white man who was about to leave their country.
Jack leaned over the ghastly and shrunken form of what
had once been the agile and frolicsome Wildduck. The
dying girl—for such unquestionably she was—looked up in
his face, with death-gleaming and earnest gaze.
“You yan away from Gondaree, Misser Redgrave?” she
gasped out. “No come back?”
Jack nodded in assent.
“Me yan away too,” she continued; “Kalingeree close
up die, me thinkum; that one grog killum, and too much
big one cough, like it white fellow. You tell Miss Maudie,
I good girl long time.”
“Poor Wildduck,” said Jack, genuinely moved by the
sad spectacle of the poor victim to civilization. “Miss
Maudie will be very sorry to hear about you. Can’t you
get down to Juandah? I’m sure she would take care of
you.”
“Too far that one place, now. Me going to die here.
Old man Jack bury me at Bimbalong. My mother sit down
there, long o’ waterhole—where you see that big coubah
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
tree. Misser Redgrave!” she said, with sudden earnestness,
trying to raise herself; “you tell me one thing?”
“What is it, my poor girl?”
“You tell me”—here she gazed imploringly at him, with
a look of dread and doubt piteous to mark in her uplifted
face—“where you think I go when I die?”
“Go!” answered Jack, rather confused by this direct
appeal to his assumed superior knowledge of the future.
“Why, to heaven, I believe, Wildduck. We shall all go
there, I hope, some day.”
“I see Miss Maudie there; she go, I know. You go too;
you always kind to poor black fellow.”
“I hope and trust we shall all go there some day, if
we’re good,” said he, unconsciously recalling his good
mother’s early assurances on that head. “Didn’t Miss
Maudie tell you so.”
“Miss Maudie tell me about white man’s God—teach me
prayer every night—say, ‘Our Father.’ You think God
care about poor black girl?”
“Yes, I do; you belong to Him, Wildduck, just the
same as white girl. You say prayer to Him. He take
care of you, same as Miss Maudie tell you.”
“She tell me she very sorry for poor black girl. She
say, why you drink brandy, Wildduck? that wicked. So
me try—no use—can’t help it. Black fellow all the same
as little child. Big one stupid.”
“White fellow stupid too, Wildduck,” said John Redgrave;
“you have been no worse than plenty of others who
ought to have known better. But perhaps you won’t die
after all.”
“Me die fast enough.” Here the merciless cough for a
time completely exhausted her. “I believe to-morrow. You
think I jump up white fellow?”
“I can’t say, Wildduck,” answered he. “We shall all
be very different from what we are now. You had better
cover yourself up and go to sleep.”
“I very tired,” moaned the girl, feebly; “long way
we come to-day. You tell new gentleman he be kind to old
man Jack. You say good-bye to poor Wildduck.” Here
she held out her attenuated hand. It had been always
small and slender, as in many cases are those of the women
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
of her race. In the days of her health and vigour, Jack
had often noticed the curious delicacy of her hands and
feet, and speculated on the causes of such conformation
among a people all ignorant of shoe and stocking. But
now the small brown fingers and transparent palm were
like those of a child. He held them in his own for a
second, and then said, “Good-night, Wildduck.”
“Good-bye, Misser Redgrave, good-bye. You tell Miss
Maudie, perhaps I see her some day, you too, long big one
star.” Here she pointed to the sky. Her eyes filled with
tears. Jack turned away. When he looked again, she had
covered her face with the rug. But he could hear her sobs,
and a low moaning cry.
“Strange, and how hard to understand!” said Jack to
himself, as he strode forward in the twilight towards the
cottage. “I wonder what the extent of this poor ignorant
creature’s moral responsibility may be. What opportunities
has she had of comprehending her presence on this mysterious
earth? Save a few lessons from Maud, she has never heard
the sacred name except as giving power to a careless oath.
As to actual wickedness she is a thousand-fold better than
half the white sinners of her own sex. Her sufferings have
been short. And perhaps she lies a-dying more happily
circumstanced than a pauper in the cold walls of a work-house,
or a waif in a stifling room in a back slum of any
given city. As far as the children of crime, want, and vice
are concerned, all cities are much on a par, whether Australian,
European, or otherwise.”
The night was boisterous, yet, mingled with the moaning
of the blast, Jack fancied that at midnight he heard a cry,
long-drawn, wailing, and more shrill than the tones of the
wind-harp, or the sighing of the bowed forest.
The pale dawn was still silent, ghostly gray. No herald
in roseate tabard had proclaimed the approach of the tyrant
sun—lord of that stricken waste—when John Redgrave
walked over to the camp. He saw at once, by the attitudes
of the group, that they were mourners of the dead. Each
sat motionless and mute, gazing with grief-stricken countenances
towards the fourth fire—in the equally divided space—by
which lay a motionless figure, covered from head to foot
with furs. He looked at old man Jack, but he moved not a
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
muscle of his disfigured countenance, while in his eyes,
fixed with a strong glare, there was no more speculation
than in those of the dead.
The women sat like ebon statues; down their shrivelled
breasts and bony arms the dried rivulets of blood made a
ghastly blazonry. Jack knew enough of the customs and
ceremonies of this fast-fading people to be aware that no
speech, or even gesture, was possible during the two first
days of mourning. He walked over and raised the covering
from the face of the dead girl. Her features, always delicate
and regular (for, though rarely, such types unquestionably
do exist among most aboriginal Australian tribes), were
composed and peaceful. The closed eyes were fringed with
lashes of extraordinary length. The heavy waving locks,
rudely combed back, were not without artistic effect. The
pallor of death bestowed a fairer hue on the clear brown,
not coal-black, skin. The lingering shadow of a smile
remained upon the scarcely closed lips, which half recalled
the arch expression of the merry forest child, dancing in
the sunshine like the swaying leaflets. Now, like them in
autumn-death, she was lying on the breast of the great
earth-mother. One hand pressed her bosom, in the shut
fingers of which was a small cross, hung round the neck by
a faded ribbon, which he remembered to have been a present
from Maud Stangrove. “He whose word infused with life
this ill-starred child of clay will He not recall the parted
spirit?” thought Jack, as he reverently replaced the fur cloak.
“God bless her,” he said, softly.
He turned and looked back as he entered his dwelling.
There sat the three figures—rigid, sorrow-denoting, motionless
as carvings on a mausoleum. For two days they
watched their dead—soundless, sleepless, foodless. Ere the
third day broke, the mourners and their charge had disappeared.
.tb
Gondaree had been sold. The stock and station had been
“delivered,” in squatting parlance; the meaning of which is,
that the purchaser had satisfied himself that the actual
living, wool-bearing sheep coincided in number, sex, age, and
quality with the statement of Messrs. Drawe and Backwell.
Also that the run comprised about the specified number of
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
square miles; that the fences were tangible, and not paper
delineations; that the wool-shed and wash-pen were not ideal
creations of the poet, or that synonymous son of romance,
the auctioneer; lastly, that the great Warroo itself was
a perennial summer-defying stream, and not a dusty ditch—a
river by courtesy, full-tided only in winter, when everybody
has more water than he knows what to do with. In
the great pastoral chronicles it is written that serious
mistakes as to each and all of these important matters have
been made ere now.
None of these encounters between the real and the probable
had occurred with respect to Gondaree. Mr. Bagemall
had expressed himself in terms of unbusinesslike
approval of the whole property both to Mr. Redgrave and
M‘Nab. The run was, in his opinion, first class; the improvements
judicious and complete; the stock superior in
quality, and in condition really wonderful, considering the
season.
“Nothing the matter, my dear sir,” said he to Redgrave,
“but want of rain and want of credit. Both of these
complaints have become chronic, worse luck. I remember,
some years since, when we were nearly cleaned out from the
same causes. However, if I had not bought the place,
some one else would. I feel ashamed, though, of getting
it such a bargain. Fortune of war, you know, and all that,
I suppose. Horses? Certainly—not mentioned in terms
of sale. But any two of the station-hacks you choose. I
suppose you will go in for back blocks. Take my advice,
don’t be down-hearted. This is the best country that ever
was discovered for making fresh starts in life. As long as
a man is young and hearty, there are chances under his
feet all day long. Think so? Know it. Why, look at
old Captain Woodenwall, turned sixty when he was stumped
up ten years ago, and look at him now. Warm man, member
of the Upper House, drives his carriage again. Got
every one’s good word too. Never give in. Nil whatsy-name,
as the book says. Good-bye, sir, you have my best
wishes. I have made my arrangements with your super-smart
fellow, quite my sort, rising man. Sha’n’t be here
for years, I hope. Good-bye, sir.”
After this somewhat lengthened address, protracted
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
beyond his custom, Mr. Bagemall departed by the mail.
He had previously entered into an arrangement with
M‘Nab, continuing to that energetic personage, whose
talent for organization he fully appreciated, the sole
management of Gondaree. He had furthermore admitted
him to a partnership, the estimated value thereof to be
“worked out” of future profits. Mr. Bagemall had not
now to learn that this was the cheapest and surest way of
securing the permanent services and uttermost efforts of a
man of exceptional brain and energy, as he very correctly
took Alexander M‘Nab to be.
“Well, all is over now,” said Jack to his late manager;
“everything seems to be much as it was before—except
that Hamlet will be played without the unlucky beggar of
a prince. I’m glad Bagemall took you in—he showed his
sense; he’s not a bad fellow by any means.”
“I’m glad, and I’m sorry, Mr. Redgrave. It was too
good an offer for me to refuse; but I’ve saved a couple of
thousand pounds, and I had a notion that if you could have
raised as much more—which would have been easy enough—I
should say we might have gone in together for some back
country with a little stock on it. There are lots of places
in the market, and it’s a grand time for investing. There
will never be a better, in my opinion.”
“Thank you very much, old fellow,” said Jack, moved by
the generosity of his ex-lieutenant, the more so as M‘Nab
was very careful of his money, all of which he had hardly
earned; “but I intend to make tracks, and go on my path
alone. I have hardly settled what I shall do yet. I think
I shall travel and look about me for a few months. I am
heartily tired of this part of Australia.”
“Better by far nip in now, while the chance is good,”
argued the shrewd, clear-sighted M‘Nab. “Depend upon
it, there will be no such opportunities this time next year.
The first forty-eight hours’ rain will make a difference. All
kinds of good medium runs are hawked about now, and if
Mr. Bagemall hadn’t been so quick I should have been in
Collins Street this week with half-a-dozen offers in my
pocket. But what I want to say is this—there’s two thousand
lying to my credit in the London Bartered. Take my
advice, run down to Melbourne and get two or three more
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
to put to it, and Drawe and Backwell will give you a dozen
runs to pick from. It’s heartily at your service. If you
don’t like the saltbush, there’s Gippsland, a splendid
country, with good store cattle-stations going at three
pounds a head.”
John Redgrave grasped the hand of the speaker and wrung
it warmly.
“You’re a good fellow, M‘Nab,” said he, “and you have
justified the opinion which I formed of you at the beginning
of our acquaintance. I shall always remember you as a
true friend, and a much cleverer fellow than myself. I
should almost have felt inclined to have gone in with you as
managing partner, but I cannot take your or any other
friend’s money, to run the risk of losing it and self-respect
together. It cannot be; but I thank you heartily all
the same.”
.bn 234.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIX.
.pm start_poem
“Strong is the faith of our youth to pursue
The path of its promise.”—Frances Brown.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
On the following morning John Redgrave quitted for
ever the place in which he had spent five of the best years
of his life, all his capital, and, measured by expenditure of
emotional force, as much brain-tissue as would have lasted
him to the age of Methuselah at quiet, steady-going Marshmead.
He had packed and labelled his personal belongings,
which were to be sent to Melbourne by the wool-drays.
They would reach their destination long ere he needed
them, doubtless. He mounted his favourite hackney,
leading another, upon the saddle of which was strapped
a compact valise. The boundary-riders had come in, apparently
for no reason in particular. But it had leaked out that
the master was to clear out for good on that day. They
were all about the stable-yard as he came out of the garden
gate, attended by M‘Nab.
They made haste to anticipate him, and one of them led
out the half-Arab gray, while another held his stirrup, and
a third the led horse.
“We want to say, sir,” said the foremost man, “that we are
all sorry as things have turned out the way they have. All
the country about here feels the same. You’ve always acted
the gentleman to every man in your employ since you’ve been
on the river; and every man as knows himself respects you
for it. We wish you good luck, sir, wherever you go.”
Jack tried to say a word or two, but the words wouldn’t
come. Something in his throat intercepted speech, much as
was the case when he last said good-bye to his mother after
the holidays. He shook hands with M‘Nab and with the men
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
all round. Mounting his horse, and taking the led horse by
the lengthened rein, he rode slowly away along the Bimbalong
track. The men raised a cheer, he waved his hand in
response, and the small world of Gondaree went on much as
usual, like the waters of a pond after the widening circles
caused by a transient interruption.
After riding at a foot-pace for an hour, Jack began to
press on a little, intending to put a fair day’s journey at
nightfall between him and his late home. Turning in his
saddle for a moment, to take a last look at the well-known
landscape, with the winding, dark-hued line of the river
timber cutting the sky-line, he saw that he was followed by
the dog ‘Help.’ This astute quadruped, who, as Jack was
wont to assert, “knew in a general way as much as other
folks,” had evidently considered the question of his master’s
departure, and had adopted his line of action. Aware from
experience that if he exhibited an intention to go anywhere,
or do anything, not comprehended in instructions connected
with sheep, he was liable to be chained up till further orders,
he had taken good care to keep out of the way at Jack’s
leave-taking. His master had no intention of taking him
with him, but had wished to pat him for the last time, and
great whistling and calling had taken place in consequence.
“But Gelert was not there.”
As the dog, therefore, upon Jack’s discovering him, came
sidling forward, wagging his tail apologetically, and bearing
in his honest eyes an expression partly of joy and partly of
confession of wrong-doing, Jack felt a sensation of satisfaction
more considerable than some people would have thought the
occasion warranted.
“So you’ve come after me, you old rascal,” said he—upon
which Help, divining that he was forgiven, set up a joyous
bark, and careered wildly over the plain. “Do you know
that you are not showing as much sense as I gave you credit
for, in leaving a rich master to follow a poor one? You’re
only a provincial, it seems, not a dog of the world at all.
However, as you have come, we must make the best of it.
Come to heel—do you hear, sir?—and we must get a muzzle
at the first store we come to.”
The Bimbalong boundary, now a long line of wire fence,
with egress only by a neat gate on the track, was reached in
.bn 236.png
.pn +1
due time. Here Jack’s memory, unbidden, recalled the day
of their first muster of the cattle—the glorious day, the
abundant herbage, the free gallop after the half-wild herd, in
which poor Wildduck had distinguished herself; and, fairer
than all, the glowing hope which had invested the unaccustomed
scene with brightest colours. How different was the
aspect of the spot now! The bare pastures, the prosaic
fence-line—the Great Enterprise carried through to the point
of conspicuous failure; the reckless, joyous child of these lone
wastes lying in her grave, under the whispering streamers of
the great coubah tree yonder. And is every hope as cold and
dead as she? He was faring forth a wanderer, a beggar.
Better, perhaps, thought he, in the bitterness of his spirit,
that I had dropped to the bushranger’s bullet. Better to
have fallen in the front of the battle than to have survived
to grace the triumph and wear the chain.
The landless and dispossessed proprietor rode steadily on
along the well-marked but unfrequented track which led
“back”—that is, into the indifferently-watered, sparsely-stocked,
and thinly-populated region which stretched endless
at the rear of the great leading streams. In this desolate
country, compared with which the frontage properties on the
Warroo, slightly suburban as they might be deemed, were as
fertile farms, lay grand possibilities—the Eldorado which
always accompanies the unknown. Here were still tenantless,
as wandering stockmen had told, enormous plains to which
those on the Warroo were as river flats, fantastic, isolated
ranges, full of strange metallic deposits and presumably rich
ores. Immense water-holes, approaching the character of
lakes, where curious tribes of aboriginals hunted, some of
which were entirely bald, others bowed in the limbs from the
continuous chase of the emu and kangaroo. From time to
time Jack had listened to these tales of Herodotus; had, with
some trouble, verified the localities indicated, and seen a
pioneer or two who had explored this terra incognita.
Full of eager anticipation of the new untrodden land, in
which wonders and miracles might still survive, leading to
fortune by a triumphant short cut—a new run with limitless
plains and hidden lakes, a copper mine, a gold mine, a silver
mine, a navigable river—all these were possible in the
unknown land, waiting only for some adventurer with purse
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
as empty and need as desperate as his owner. Lulled by
these glorious phantasies, John Redgrave gradually recovered
his spirits—they were elastic, it must be confessed; and as
the horses, poor but plucky, like their master, stepped cheerily
along the level trail, he caught himself more than once
humming a half-forgotten air. He had proposed to himself
to make for a small township about forty miles distant, the
inhabitants of which were composed in equal proportions of
horse-stealers, persons “wanted,” and others, these last lacking
only the courage, not the inclination, to turn bushrangers.
Gurran—this was the name of this delectable
settlement—of course boasted of two public-houses.
About an hour before sundown Jack calculated that he
was about ten miles from his destination. He had of course
not been pressing his horses, and had plodded steadily on
without haste, but without halt, since the morning. He could
not, as he calculated, reach Gurran by Sundown, but an
hour’s travelling along the smooth, broad trail by the clear
starlight would be pleasant enough. He did not want,
Heaven knows, to get to the beastly hole too early. A
simple meal, hunger sweetened, a smoke by the fire, and
then to bed, with a daylight start next morning. Such were
his intentions.
As he thought over and arranged these “short views of
life,” he became aware that the sky was overclouded.
Clouds were by no means rare on the Warroo, but no one
had been in the habit of connecting them with rain for
many a month past. And so Jack rode on carelessly, while
the sky grew blacker, the air more still and warm, bank
after bank rose in the south, and at length—no, surely, it
never can be, by Jove! it is—a drop of rain!
“I shouldn’t wonder, now I think of it,” said Jack,
sardonically, “if it were to rain cats and dogs, just when I
am regularly cleaned out. A month ago it might have
made a difference.” He unfastened an overcoat which he
threw over himself, and as the rain commenced in a gentle
but continuous drizzle (he knew the sign) paced gloomily
forward.
His cynical anticipations were but too literally fulfilled.
At first light and almost misty, then a steady downpour, in
twenty minutes it was half a shower-bath, half a water-spout.
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
Every shred of Jack’s clothing was soaked and resoaked,
till the feeling was as if he were clad in wet brown
paper. The horses slipped, and boggled, and stumbled, and
laboured in the black soil plain which alternated with the
sand, and which has the peculiar and vexatious quality of
balling, or gathering on hoof or wheel, when thoroughly
moistened. The air changed, the temperature was lowered,
the night became dark, so that Jack more than once lost his
way. The thunder pealed, and the lightning in vivid
flashes from time to time showed a watery waste, with
creeks running, and all the usual Australian superabundance
of water immediately succeeding the utter absence of even a
drop to drink. It was nine o’clock when, tired, soaked to
the skin, with beaten horses, and temper seriously damaged,
John Redgrave pulled up before the “Stock-horse Inn” at
Gurran. The person who kept the poison-shop came out,
with his pipe in his mouth, and, seeing a traveller, expressed
mild surprise, but did not volunteer advice or assistance.
“Have you any hostler here?” demanded Jack, with
pardonable acerbity.
“Well, there is a chap, but he’s on the burst just now, as
one might say. Are you going to stop?”
“Yes, of course,” said Jack; “why don’t you look a little
more lively! If you were as wet and cold as I am you’d
know what I want.”
“I should want a jolly good nip to begin with,” said the
unmoved landlord; “but you can let your horses go, and put
your saddles and swags in the ferendah, can’t ye?”
“Haven’t you got a stable?” asked Jack, furious at this
reception after such a ride.
“Well, there’s a stable at the back, but the door’s off, and
there’s nothing in it.”
“No corn? no chaff?”
“No—there ain’t nothin’. How am I to get it up
here?”
“And what is there for my horses to eat, if I let them
go?”
“Well, there’s a bit of picking down by the crick. It’s
all our horses has to live on.”
Jack reflected for a while; then, considering that the
other inn couldn’t possibly be worse than this, and might
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
be better, he concluded to try it, and telling the astonished
innkeeper that he was an uncivil brute, and deserved to lose
his license, he headed straight for the light of the rival
hostelry.
Here he met with a decided welcome and abundant
civility. His horses were unsaddled, and put into a building
which, if rude, possessed the essentials of equine comfort.
And when he found himself before a good fire in a small
parlour adorned with wonderful prints, with a glass of hot
grog in possession, and a supper of eggs and bacon in prospect,
he felt that there were extenuating circumstances in
the lot even of that ill-fated and persecuted individual John
Redgrave, late of Gondaree.
He awoke next morning early, and, dressing hastily, went
straight to the stable, which to his exceeding wrath and
despair he found empty. The badly-fastened door was open;
there was no means of knowing at what hour the nags had
escaped or been taken out. Here was a pleasant state of
matters; all the misery of the position, intensified by the
state of his nerves, rushed upon him. He knew well what
a nest of robbers he was among. If not stolen, the horses
had been “planted” or concealed until a reward, consonant
with the ideas of the thieves, was forthcoming. He would
do anything rather than go back to Gondaree. He had a
few pounds left, and he could, at worst, buy a mustang of
the neighbourhood and pursue his journey. Turning back
sullenly to the inn, he saw his host ride up, who stated that
he had been out since daybreak after the absentees without
success, but that he had sent a young man after them, who,
if this here rain didn’t wash out the tracks, would find ’em
“if they was above ground.” With this meagre consolation
Jack proceeded to attack his uninviting breakfast.
The rain was still falling; the dismal, dusty, thinly-timbered
flat, which stretched for miles in unbroken dulness,
with a shallow, unmeaning, dry creek winding tortuously
through, was now converted into a sea of black mud. Jack
knew that in a week it would be carpeted with green, as
would indeed be the whole of Gondaree, and the Warroo
generally. He groaned as he thought that all this “unearned
increment” would be of not a shilling’s-worth of
value to him. Mr. Bagemall and Mr. M‘Nab would reap
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
the benefit of it—it was a clear fifty per cent. upon the
price of every sheep on the place to begin with. Gregory
Hardbake would be on the way down from the mountains
rejoicing. All the world would be joyful and prosperous,
while he was left on his beam-ends, a stranded wreck, and
not even allowed to pursue his lonely voyage in peace. It
was hard; but Fate should break, not bend, him. His
friends, if he had any left, should see that. All that day
he was compelled to pace up and down the narrow verandah
of the melancholy wooden box, comforted by the assurances
of the host that his ’osses would be safe to be got within
the week, that the “young man as was after ’em” had
never been known to miss finding such runaways. Unless—added
he, meditatively—they’ve gone and made back to
where they came from.
However, that night the much-vaunted “young man,” a
long-legged, brown-faced, long-haired son of the soil, of the
worst type of pound-haunting, gully-raking bush native,
returned without the horses. When Jack, in the course of
the evening, mentioned that thirty shillings for each horse
would be forthcoming on delivery, he brightened up, and
declared his determination to have another try next
morning.
As Jack, about noon on the following day, was observing
gloomily that the rain had stopped, to his intense delight
the young man before eulogized was observed approaching,
driving the lost horses before him. Perhaps no sense of
gratification is keener for the moment than that of the
traveller in Australia, who in a strange, possibly evil-reputed
locality recovers the favourite steed. The agonizing
anxiety, the too probable fear of total loss, the delay, expense,
and inconvenience of remount—all these doubts and
dreads vanish at the moment when the well-known outline
appears. Like wrathful passengers upon reaching the end
of the voyage, all previous offences are condoned. The
despotic captain, the surly second officer, become almost
popular, and a general amnesty is proclaimed.
So, as old Pacha, with his high shoulder and flea-bitten
grey skin, followed by his companion, walked into the stable
yard, about two panels square of rickety round rails, Jack
thought the much-suspected “young man” not such a bad
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
fellow after all. He perhaps reciprocated the compliment
after receiving the reward, though his conscience ought to
have troubled him if, as is too probable, he had “shifted”
Jack’s horses the first night, and left them at a convenient
distance from the inn on the second.
Their owner concluded not to tempt misfortune further.
Saddling up promptly, he once more took the road, glad
to leave behind Gurran and all its belongings.
That night John Redgrave reached a station where, of
course, he was hospitably received, and where he rested
secure from the machinations of persons to whom fresh
horses and “clean-skinned” cattle presented an irresistible
temptation.
Keeping a northerly course, he gradually passed the
boundaries of the comparatively settled country, and entered
the legendary and half-explored region that skirted the great
desert of his dreams. Here rose, like polar meteors, fresh
gleams of hope irradiating the sunless cloud-land in which
his spirit had dwelt of late—glimpses of that garden of the
Hesperides—anew discovery—fortunate isles—a land of gold
and gems, were on the cards. Like the garden of old, there
was the Dragon—a dragon to be fought or circumvented, as
circumstances might direct.
Did he lose the faint track which led between the solitary
outposts of the pioneers, there was the certainty of death
by thirst. A few days’ anxious wandering, twenty-four
hours of delirious agony, and the bones of John Redgrave
and his weary steeds would lie blanching on the endless plains
and sand-ridges, until the next lost wayfarer or questing
tracker fell across them.
Did he escape the famine-fiend, were there not the prowling
patient human wolves of the melancholy waste ready to
surround and do to death that enemy of all primeval man,
the wandering, insatiable white man? Little, however, did
John Redgrave reck of Scylla and Charybdis. The barque
must float him onward and still onward to fortune and to
fame, or must lie deep amid ocean’s treasures, or a stranded
wreck upon the inhospitable shore. He was in no mood to
be frightened at aught which other men had dared. With
the demon of poverty astern, what to him was the terrible
deep, fanned by the wildest storm that ever blew? Still he
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
pressed onward; not heedlessly, but with wary patience, as
beseemed an experienced bushman, whose life might depend
upon the strength and speed of the good horse between his
knees. The influence of the great drought in this unstocked
country became fainter and less unfavourable. The gray
tufted grasses and salsolaceous bushes, uncropped by stock,
remained nutritive and uninjured year after rainless year in
that strange Australian desert. Their strength untaxed by
the moderate journeys, old Pacha and his companion, with
the wonderful hardihood of Australian horses, improved in
condition.
Now it chanced that at one of the most distant stations, of
which the proprietor had been able to say, like Othere, “no
man lies north of me,” Jack picked up a partner, who volunteered
to join in his adventure, sharing equally in the expenses
of the modest outfit and in the profits, such as they might be.
Guy Waldron was a big, ruddy-faced, jovial young Englishman,
scarce a year from his father’s hall in Oxfordshire. An
insuperable disgust for the slow gradation of English fortune-making,
combined with the true dare-devil Norse temperament,
had driven him forth with his younger son’s portion
to make or mar a colonial career. The two men took to one
another with sudden strength of liking.
The quiet resolution and utter disdain of danger which
Jack exhibited after a course of highly discouraging anecdotes
volunteered by Mr. Blockham, the proprietor of Outer
Back Mullah, attracted the younger son.
“I am horribly tired,” he said to Jack, “of doing colonial
experience with this old buffer. It’s tremendously hard
work and no pay, and, as I’ve been here for a year, I fancy
we’re quits. I know as much bullock as I’m likely to learn
for the next five years. I got a tip from home the other day.
What do you say if I go run-hunting with you? You’re just
the sort of mate I should like, and I believe there is some
grand country to the north-west, in spite of what old Blockham
says.”
Jack looked at the cheerful, pleasant youngster, full of
mirth, and with the eager blood of generous youth, unworn
and sorrow free, coursing through every vein. Much as he
hungered after congenial fellowship in his lonely quest, he
yet spoke warningly.
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
“It’s a risky game enough, Waldron, you know. I’d
say, if you take my advice, stay where you are for another
year. You’ll get your money out then, and be sure of investing
it properly. You have a little to learn yet, excuse
me, like all new arrivals.”
“Oh, yes, I dare say, that’s all very prudent, and so on.
There are new chums and new chums. Look at my arms,
old fellow.”
Here he rolled up his jersey and showed his muscular
fore-arm, bronzed and well-nigh blackened by exposure to
the unrespecting sun.
“I’ve not had my coat on much, as you see. I can ride,
brand, leg-rope, split, fence, milk, and draft with any man
we’ve ever had here. A year or two more Jackerooing
would only mean the consumption of so many more figs of
negro-head, in my case. No! take me or leave me, as you
like, but I’m off exploring on my own hook if you don’t.”
“In that case,” assented Jack, “we may as well hunt in
couples. We can back up one another if the niggers are
as bad and the water as scarce as your friend says.”
“He be hanged!” said the impetuous youth. “He’s not
a bad old chap, but he tells awful yarns, and, like all old
hands, he thinks nobody knows anything but himself.”
“Then it’s settled. Can you get a couple of horses?”
“Yes, and a stunning black boy. The young scamp is
awfully fond of me, and as a tracker he’s a regular out-and-outer.
By Jove! won’t it be jolly—Redgrave and Waldron,
the intrepid explorers! I feel as if we could go to
Carpentaria.”
Jack smiled at the boy’s joyous readiness for the battle.
Once he had been as wild in delight at feast or foray; but
those days had gone.
“We must wait till we come back,” said he, gravely,
“before we begin to arrange the fashion of the chaplet. If
the black boy is plucky, and really wants to go with us,
bring him by all means.”
Mr. Waldron, for whom remittances had lately arrived,
spent the next day in getting in his horses, packing his
effects, the half of which were condemned by Jack as being
overweight, and questioning and lecturing the boy Doorival
as to his special “call” for the enterprise. This sable waif
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
was not the particular property of any one, so he was permitted
to risk his valueless life without remark or remonstrance.
He had been captured in a somewhat indiscriminate
reprisal upon a wild tribe by a neighbour of Mr.
Blockham’s, with his foot sticking out of a hollow log, in
which, like a dingo puppy, he had instinctively hidden.
Dragged forth by that member, he had been chained up till
he grew tame, and well flogged from time to time till
further “civilized.” After a few years of this stern training
he had become sufficiently civilized to run away, and
had arrived at Outer Back Mullah some months since, a
shade more than half dead with fear and thirst. Travelling
through hostile country, where his kidney fat wouldn’t have
been worth an hour’s purchase after discovery by his
countrymen, he had had necessarily but little leisure and
less refreshment. Guy Waldron had taken him in hand as
he would a bull-terrier pup, and, finding him game and
sharp, had adopted him as personal retainer. On the third
morning after the treaty, therefore, Doorival appeared on
an elderly but well-conditioned screw, leading a pack-horse,
and showing in his roving black eyes and gleaming teeth
the strongest satisfaction at his promotion.
Mr. Blockham did by no means disguise his sentiments
when he bade farewell to his quondam pupil and his adventurous
guest.
“Well, Waldron, good-bye. I wish you both luck, I’m
sure; but I’m blest if I don’t believe a warrigal will be
picking some of your bones before this day six months.
I’ve no opinion of exploring; I don’t believe in running
after new country; let other fellows, if they’re fools enough,
do all that bullocking. Wise men buy their work afterwards—and
cheap enough too. I didn’t take up Outer
Back Mullah; quite the contrary. I gave a chap two
hundred pounds for it, and where’s he now?”
“Somebody must find the runs,” said Guy, “and a good
run, with permanent water, or say a dozen or twenty blocks,
are worth more than two hundred or two thousand pounds
either.”
“That’s all very well,” returned the cynical senior; “but
how do you know there’s any country where you’re going,
let alone water? Besides, excuse me, sir, but you’re a-goin’
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
with a man that’s been unlucky, by his own word,
with everything he’s touched before. I don’t believe in a
man as is unlucky. I’ve seen a deal of life, and I never go
in with one of that sort; not if I know it. No offence to
you, sir.” This to Jack. “You can’t help it, I know. As for
you, you young black bilber, what are you grinnin’ and
lookin’ so pleased at? You’ll wish old Driver was a lickin’
ye with the dog-chain again, when some of them myalls gets
round ye a little before daylight.”
The little expedition set forth, maugre the boding utterances
of Mr. Blockham. The equipment was not costly,
but it was sufficient; and two of the party at least had a
“letter of credit” good for all the drafts which they were
likely to draw upon it for some time to come.
What says the wise, sad humorist?—
.pm start_poem
“Our youth! our youth! that spring of springs,
It surely is one of the blessedest things
By Nature ever invented.
When the rich are happy in spite of their wealth,
When the poor are rich in spirits and health,
And all with their lot contented.”
.pm end_poem
Guy Waldron, full of hope, and thirsting for wild life
and adventure, rode side by side with Jack, carolling as he
went, like Taillefer singing the song of Rollo in the fore-front
of the Battle of Hastings.
Doorival followed at a short distance, accompanied by the
dog Help, whom he had managed to propitiate, and to whom
he from time to time addressed all kinds of pretended
inquiries and suggestions.
“By Jove!” said Guy, “I feel quite a new man now I’ve
got away from that confounded dull place, and that dismal
old growler Blockham. He’s like the man in Marcus
Clarke’s ballad, who ‘Did nothing but swear and smoke.’
It’s a luxury to have a Christian to talk to again. Talk of
Englishmen!—Doorival’s a king to him.”
“It’s all luck,” said Jack; “even in this rather distant
region you might have found a chum who got the periodicals
by every mail, and went in for decent reading at odd
times.”
“That’s true enough,” said the representative of “Young
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
England,” “for I went over one day to get our mail—sixty-mile
ride too—and Haughton’s cousin had just come down
from India, such a jolly chap he was too—had been in
Cashmere lately, and told us no end of yarns. But I was
fool enough to think all squatters were alike, and let my
agents send me anywhere they liked.”
“Well, you’ll know better next time,” said Jack, “after
we’ve discovered this new country, and sold a few blocks to
buy a couple of thousand store cattle with. You can pick
up an Indian swell, or any sort of partner you fancy, if that
works out.”
“You’ll suit me down to the ground, old fellow,” said Mr.
Waldron, enthusiastically. “We’re in ‘for better for worse,’
as they say in the christening service, or the matrimonial
questions and answers, or whatever it is.”
“It doesn’t concern us at present,” said Jack, gravely.
“Possibly you’ll be better informed on that subject likewise,
some day. In the meantime, how long shall we be
getting through this cursed scrub?”
“I believe we shall have a week of it, if old Blockham is
to be believed. He always used to swear that the scrub on
this side of Mullah was more than a hundred miles thick,
and that beyond that was a sandy desert, which ran right
into the middle of the continent.”
“Probably his geographical information was defective,”
answered Jack. “He is evidently one of that order of
pioneers whose watchword is ‘no good country beyond me.’
We must keep a due north-west course, take our chance of
water, and if Australia keeps true to her past character the
worse country we pass through the better our chance of
dropping on to something astoundingly good.”
“You think so really?” asked Waldron.
“Sure of it—look at the Won-won country, the Matyara,
and half-a-dozen other choice districts I could name. The
first explorers must have been perfectly desperate with the
awful jungles and barren tracts they had to pass through.
Then one fine morning a fellow climbs up the last iron-bark
range, or tears his garments in pushing through the last
thicket, and lo! the Promised Land lies stretched out before
him.”
“By George! you raise a fellow’s spirits awfully,” said
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
Guy. “I suppose you have been in this funny country ever
so many years?”
“I wasn’t born in it, if that is what you mean,” answered
his companion; “but I have been in Australia ever since I
could speak; so I have had the benefit of sufficient colonial
experience at any rate.”
Thus conversing, sometimes idly enough, at times with a
strong tinge of earnestness, the day wore on. At sundown
they reached a fairly commodious spot, and there they made
their simple dispositions for passing the night.
Here Mr. Doorival began to demonstrate his quality, and
to establish the soundness of the reasoning which led to his
being promoted to his present position. He it was who
discovered the water, made the fire, helped to unpack the
cooking utensils, and to hobble out the horses—the whole
under the watchful eye of the dog Help, who lay under a
bush and watched the proceedings with great interest.
One horse was tethered, so as to be at hand in case of need;
the others were permitted to range within moderate bounds.
Only a small fire was made, as, once within the boundaries
of the real wild blacks, it would be hazardous to run the
chance of attracting them to the camp. And it was thought
en règle. The nights were mild, as rarely in that region is it
otherwise, the occasional storms and fierce rainfalls excepted.
After the evening meal and the postc[oe]nal smoke, each one
wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down separately,
and at some distance from the fire; so in case of attack their
antagonists would be less likely to surround them, or to discover
the precise locality from which the deadly discharge of
the white man’s firearms might be expected. Help deserted
his youthful acquaintance of the day, and, curling himself up
beside his master, dozed all watchfully, as is the manner of
his kind.
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XX.
.pm start_poem
“Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.”—Cowper.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
For five days the explorers pursued their toilsome journey.
The scrub was dense; the travelling was monotonous
and discouraging; but the leader was too old a bushman
to expect other than difficulty and privation at the onset,
while the temperament of Guy Waldron soared easily in its
first essay of conflict with the wilderness above such trifles
as scarcity of water and a dangerous route. The boy Doorival
managed to jack up a little game from time to time,
which materially aided their unpretending menu. Once,
indeed, the horses went back a whole day’s journey; the
situation was far from reassuring while they waited in
camp for their scout. But at sundown the unerring and
patient tracker returned triumphantly with the truants;
and that night in camp was so full of satisfaction that it
might be considered to approach a condition of actual
pleasure so lightly flow or ebb the currents of mental circulation
which we characterize as joy or sorrow.
“By Jove!” said Guy, “I’ve often thought it was jolly
enough dozing before the fire on a great ottoman at Waldron
Hall, after a good day’s shooting, before it was time to dress
for dinner, but I really believe I feel more real pleasure at this
moment as we lie here smoking and seeing these rascally nags
of ours short-hobbled and safe again for a start. I thought
we were up a tree several times to-day, for exploring on foot
is not inspiriting exercise, anyhow you look at it.”
“Doorival is a trump,” assented Jack. “He was a happy
thought; here’s his health in this flowing bowl of ‘Jack the
Painter.’ I wish Mr. Blockham’s stores had been a little
more recherché.”
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
“He believes in the great doctrine of cheap and t’other
thing,” answered Waldron. “I never could have imagined
that sugar of such exceeding blackness was manufactured as
we always had there. I used to tell him that some planter
distantly related must have worked up his spare niggers in
it. He was always giving me lessons in economy. One
night he said solemnly, as we were smoking, ‘Look here,
Waldron, you’ll never make no money if you use matches
to light your pipe when there’s a fire right before you;’
whereupon he placed a coal on the bowl of his and puffed
away like a man who had saved a sovereign. Fancy saving
the fractional part of a farthing, and then paying a shilling
for a glass of bad grog.”
“It sounds absurd,” agreed Jack, “but with colonists of
his stamp the grog is exceptional, while the penny wisdom
is invariable. And I must say in justice that the Blockhams
of our acquaintance generally die rich, having
burrowed their way to wealth, mole-blind to the pleasures
of the intellect, the claims of sympathy, and the duties of
society.”
“Well, we’ll go in for the severest screwing,” said Guy,
“when we get hold of this new run, with which we shall
make a colossal fortune and a European reputation. I
should like to crow over my old governor, bless his old soul!—he
always delicately hinted that I should never do any
good out here, or anywhere else. Wanted me to take a
farm. A farm! Fancy three hundred acres in Oxfordshire,
with a score or two of bullocks, and twice as many black-faced
Down sheep. Regular cockatooing. I didn’t see it
then. Now I’d almost as soon ‘keep a pike.’”
“You’re an adventurous, crusading kind of fellow, I
know, Master Guy,” said Jack, reflectively, “and I’m very
glad to find another knight-errant. But I’m not sure, all
the same, whether both of us might not have gone into the
Master of Athelstane business advantageously, and grown
heavier and fussier every year, while we looked after our
own green fields and these same despised short-horned
beeves. However, it’s Kismet, I suppose, that such land
and sea rovers should exist, and either plant their standards
or fill the breach for other more cautious combatants to
walk over. Now, every man to his blanket. Good-night.”
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
The scrub was passed at length, and, as Jack had prophesied,
they descried open country so superior to the character
of the district generally as to warrant the expectation of
still more splendid discoveries.
The watercourses were larger and the occasional lagoons
deeper, and beyond all question permanent. The plains
were immense, and though not richly grassed were covered
with the best kinds of salsolaceous herbage, known to bushmen
as affording better and healthier food for stock than
the more enticing-looking green sward.
However, with the insatiable greed of their kind, they
were not disposed to content themselves with anything short
of the magnificent and exalted standard which they had set
up for themselves. So onward and onward still they pressed,
though from time to time the existence of “Indian sign”
began to be pressed upon their attention by the watchful,
uneasy Doorival.
“My word, plenty wild black fellow sit down here,” he
exclaimed one day. “Big one tribe—plenty fighting men—you
see um track.” Here he pointed to some perfectly invisible
imprint upon the hard dry soil. “We better push
on, these fellows sneak ’long a camp some night.”
“Then they’ll get pepper,” answered Guy, with his customary
contempt of danger. “I could knock over as many
of your countrymen, Doorival, with this Terry-rifle as would
keep them corroboreeing for a month. All the same, I’d
rather they didn’t tackle us just yet.”
“I think we must take rather longer stages,” proposed
Jack, “and get out of this hostile country. We haven’t
seen the track of cattle or sheep for nearly a week. I
suspect we are beyond the furthest-out people.”
However, it would appear that Jack had under-estimated
the enterprise of his countrymen, for next day Doorival came
tearing in full of excitement to announce that he had seen
cattle tracks, “all about—all about;” and by a patient
system of induction the gradually concentric tracks brought
them before the light had wholly faded within view of the
actual encampment.
It was an outside station, in every sense of the word. As
they rode up across the long, ever-lengthening plain to the
speck in the shifting wavelets of the mirage which they knew
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
to be a hut, a strangely characteristic reception awaited
them.
In front of a small mud-walled cabin, thatched with wiry
tussock grass which grew sparsely by the great lagoon on the
bank of which it was constructed, sat a ragged individual,
whose haggard features displayed pain and anxiety in equal
proportions.
Before him were two crossed sticks, upon which were
arranged a brace of double-barrelled rifles, much after the
fashion of the disabled soldier in Gil Blas who levied contributions
from the charitable on the roadside.
Perceiving as they advanced that the sentinel hoisted a flag
of truce, so to speak, by waving a tattered handkerchief, they
rode up and dismounted.
“By George! this is a droll homestead,” said Mr. Waldron,
with his usual impetuosity. “May I ask if you are the
survivors of Leichhardt’s expedition, or the Spirits of the
Inner Desert, or Robinson Crusoe redivivus? At any rate I’m
proud to make your acquaintance, sir. Allow me to introduce
my friend, Mr. Redgrave; my own name, Waldron.”
An unaccustomed smile distorted the stranger’s features.
He retained his sitting position, as if, like the prince in the
greatest of all fairy tales, he was composed of black marble
below the waist.
“We’re very glad to see you and your friend too—pleasure
decidedly mutual. Name of our firm, Heads and Taylor.
We made out from Burnt Creek. I’ve been at death’s door
with rheumatism—can’t walk a yard to save my life. Taylor
is just recovering from fever and ague. He’s in bed in the
humpy.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said Jack, sincerely. “But
what is the idea of this battery?”
“Blacks!” said the rheumatic gentlemen. “I believe we
have the greatest lot of devils on this run anywhere this side
of Carpentaria. They’ve tried to rush the hut several times—once
at night, luckily when the stockmen were at home,
and we potted seven. They’re away all day, and I have to
mount guard, as you see. However, turn out your horses,
and we’ll enjoy ourselves for once in a way. It’s no compliment,
unfortunately, to say that the longer you stay the
better shall we be pleased.”
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
“Thanks, very much,” said Jack; “we won’t trespass on
your rations; but we’ll camp alongside of you for a few days,
and perhaps we may be able to be of mutual assistance.”
“Likely enough,” said the prince with the black marble
legs, moving uneasily on his form. “I suppose you are
looking out for country?”
“That is our object. Have you a notion of anything first
class?”
“If you wait till the stockmen come in, I believe one of
them knows of some wonderful country close by, that is
within fifty miles. He lost himself, and got out there when
we first came up; and he has ever since wanted us to move
over and take it up; but this place is good enough and large
enough for all the stock we shall have for the next ten years.
So Taylor and I refused to budge. It will be the very thing
for you. Perhaps you won’t mind helping me into the hut.
I should like to see if Taylor wants anything. It is quite a
luxury to feel safe.”
They lifted their afflicted brother pioneer carefully, and
deposited him upon the edge of a rude stretcher in the hut.
On the other bed lay the wasted form of a man, who raised
his eyes beseechingly as they entered.
“Poor chap,” said Mr. Heads, “he’s past the worst stage,
but he’s awfully weak, and generally very thirsty about this
time. I was just wondering whether I could drag myself in
when you hove in sight. Of course I knew it was all right
when I saw your horses. Horses denote respectability,
always.”
“Except when mounted by bushrangers,” said Jack.
“I didn’t think of that. There’s nothing to steal out here,
and an off-chance of being walked into by the blacks. We
haven’t attained to a sufficiently high stage of civilization
to support white Indians. Meanwhile, ‘sufficient for the
day,’ &c.”
“I should say so,” said Waldron, lost in admiration of the
courage and coolness of these dwellers in the wilderness.
“You have had your share of evils, and something over.”
“It’s all a lottery—the fellows at Burnt Creek used to
call us ‘heads and tails,’ and say we ought to toss up who
would be first eaten by the niggers. I didn’t think it
would be such a close thing, however.”
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
At nightfall the two stockmen came home, and the
history of the establishment was fully disclosed. The
overland journey with the stock had been unusually toilsome,
and in swimming a river and remaining in wet clothes
Mr. Heads had contracted an illness which had taken the
form of acute rheumatism, and threatened to cripple him
for life. Fever and ague had fastened their remitting
fangs upon Taylor, and here in this lonely outpost, in the
midst of hostile savages, hundreds of miles from medical or
other aid, had the wayworn pioneers to brave their fate—to
recover if their constitutions proved sufficiently strong,
or to die and be buried in the waste. Such are the risks,
however, which Englishmen have ever been found willing
to dare for fame or for fortune.
And such, as long as “proud England keeps unchanged
the strong hearts of her sons,” will they still continue to
brave. Fortunately the stockmen were resolute, active
young men, or a very Flemish account of the cattle would
have been rendered. Of course they rode armed to the teeth
with carbine and revolver, and made but little scruple of using
both on occasion.
“I’m blowed if I know how the boss stands it, sitting up
there like an image, day after day. He’s a good shot, and
these warrigal devils knows it, or they’d have rushed the place
long enough before now. I’m that afraid of seeing the hut
burned, and them lyin’ cut up in bits outside, that I hardly
durst come home of a night.”
“How are the cattle doing?” asked Jack.
“Well—they can’t help doing well; and they’d do better
if these black beggars would let ’em alone. Better fattening
country no man ever see. Pity you gentlemen don’t sit down
handy and be neighbours for us.”
“I’m not sure that we won’t,” said Jack, in a non-committal
tone of voice; “but we sha’n’t go in for any but
real, first-class country, and plenty of it. We want run
for ten or fifteen thousand head of cattle, at least.”
“Come, Mick,” said Mr. Heads, “you may as well lay this
gentleman on to that Raak country that you saw when you
were lost beyond the range, if you were not too frightened
to know what it was like.”
“Well, I don’t say but I will,” said Mick, slowly. “I
.bn 254.png
.pn +1
dare say he’ll sling me a tenner if it turns out all right. It
is country, and no blessed mistake. This here run ain’t a
patch on it.”
“Is there plenty of it?” inquired Jack, with commendable
caution. “We don’t want a mulga scrub and a plain
or two. We must have a whole country side; good water,
and twenty-five-mile block. Something in that line. And
I’ll give you——”
“Twenty pounds, after we’ve seen and approved,” broke
in Waldron, who was impatiently chafing to clench the
bargain. “So it’s a bargain, eh?”
“Done—and done with you, sir,” said the stockman
heartily. “You’re one of the right sort; and I’d give a
trifle out of my own pocket to have you alongside of us.
I’ll go a bit of the way to-morrow, and put you up to the
lay of the country—there’s room enough and water enough
for half the cattle in Queensland.”
This important stage reached, the rest of the evening was
spent in comparatively cheerful and abstract talk. Mr. Heads
took a more cheerful view of his situation and surroundings,
and stated that when Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron had
arrived and fairly put down stakes, he should look upon
themselves as residents in a settled district. “They had not
had a beast speared for a week. Matters were decidedly improving.
If Taylor would only get stronger, he believed he
would be on his legs again in no time. Couldn’t say how
cheered up they all felt. Don’t you, Taylor?” Here the
periodical chills came on the sick man, and he began to shiver
as if he would shake his teeth out soon.
It was held, after due consultation, to be only consistent
with the exercise of Christian charity to remain for a few
days, and to comfort the garrison of this garde douloureuse.
The horses profited by the respite; and when the journey was
recommenced the explorers had the satisfaction of leaving
their hosts in a state of mental and bodily convalescence.
Mr. Taylor, having passed over the shaking stage, began to
recover strength, while Mr. Heads, still much restricted as
to locomotion, was hopeful as to ultimate recovery, and inclined
to believe that the heathen would be confounded in
due time, and the persecuted cattle be permitted to eat their
cotton-bush unharmed, free from spears and stampedes.
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
Detailed information as to route and water-courses was
obtained from Mick Mahoney, the stockman, a New South
Welshman of Irish extraction, who was loud in praise of the
grand country he was, in his own phrase, “laying them on
to.” Altogether, matters wore a more hopeful and encouraging
appearance to Jack’s mind than at any time since
the “hegira” from Gondaree. The horses were fresh and in
good heart; their arms and ammunition were carefully looked
to. Some slight addition was made to the commissariat; and
Mr. Waldron, as he rode forth, all adieux having been made,
declared himself to be “as fit as a fiddle,” and ready to fight
all the blacks in the glorious new territory of Raak if it was
half as good as Mick Mahoney had made out.
“I feel like one of the Pilgrim Fathers,” he was good
enough to remark, “just unloaded from the Mayflower, and
all ignorant of Philip of Pokanoket, Tecumseh, and the rest
of the Red Indian swells. I suppose we shall not have any
of their weight to do battle with. A spear like an arrow is
a mild kind of weapon enough unless it hits you. I propose
if we get this country, to be kind to these Austral children
of Ishmael, against whom is, apparently, the hand of every
man.”
“The worst possible policy,” said Jack; “after the place
is settled, well and good, but as long as ill-blood lasts you
can’t be too careful.”
“I think you are disposed to be hard on them,” answered
Guy; “but of course you’re the commanding officer, and I
give in. Only, I have a strong feeling in favour of a genuine
patriarchal reign. The whole tribe, gradually convinced of
the good feeling and firmness of the new ruler, bowing down
to the beneficent white stranger, and, while toiling for him
with passionate devotion, insensibly creating for themselves
a higher ideal.”
“Dreams and phantasies of youth, my dear Waldron,
frightfully exaggerating the good qualities of human nature,
never by any chance realized. There’s always some scoundrel
of a stockman who undoes all your teaching, or some long-headed
crafty pagan who convinces his brethren of the very
obvious fact that stealing is a cheaper way of procuring
luxuries than working for them.”
“It may be so,” said the boy (another name for enthusiast,
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
unless the nature be precociously cold or corrupt); “but all
the same, if we get this country, I should like to do something
for these pre-Adamite parties, or whatever they are. I think
they are very improvable myself.”
“Up to a certain point, but not a peg further; like all
savages, they lack the power of continuous self-denial; that’s
where the lowest known specimens of the white races immeasurably
excel them. Out of any given hundred of the
most debased whites you may get an individual infinitely
susceptible of development by culture. You may take the
continent through, and from the whole aboriginal population
you shall be unable to cull such a one.”
“Well, I know that is the general creed about niggers, as
we comprehensively call all men a few shades darker than
ourselves; but when we annex this kingdom of Raak I will
certainly try the experiment. In the meanwhile, when shall
we get to it? I feel most impatient to gaze on this land of
the Amalekites. They have no walled cities at any rate.”
“If we have luck we may get there to-morrow,” said Jack,
“and camp on our own run, or runs, for we shall have plenty
to sell as well as to keep.”
Steering precisely by the directions given, and a rough chart
manufactured for them, they found themselves quartered
for the first night in a barren and unpromising scrub. However,
this was the description of country described, being,
indeed, the occasion of Mick Mahoney losing his tracks and
eventually blundering into the astonishing land of Raak.
Next morning they were all on the alert, and for the
greater part of the day toiled through a most hopeless and
apparently endless scrub. Evening approached and found
them still in the jungle. Guy began to think that they had
missed their course; or that Mick Mahoney had lied; or that
they were going deeper and deeper into one of the endless
waterless thickets which occur “down there.” Doorival, who
by no means relished this description of travelling, and who
had found his pack-horse most vexatious and hard to manage,
suddenly ascended a high tree, and soon as he reached the
top began to gesticulate and call out.
“All right, Misser Redgrave,” he cried out, as soon as he
had deposited himself, with some breathlessness, on the
ground; “me see ’um that one new country, big waterhole,
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
and big hill, like’t Mick tell you. Plenty black fellow sit
down; I believe me see ’um smoke all about.”
“They be hanged!” said Guy, throwing up his hat; “let
us push on and camp on the edge of it. I don’t want to
stop another night in the wilderness.”
Fired with new hope, they redoubled their exertions, and
as the sun fell in broad banners—“white and golden,
crimson, blue”—he lighted up the welcome panorama of a
vast pyramidal mass of granite, throwing its shadows across
a silver-mirrored lake, while, far as eye could see, stretched
apparently endless plains.
The comrades looked at each other for a moment, and then
Guy burst into a wild hurrah, and, taking Jack’s hand, shook
it with unacted fervour.
“By Jove, old fellow,” said he, “this is a moment worth
living for, worth a whole long life in Oxfordshire, with all
the partridge and pheasant shooting, fishing and hunting,
dressing for dinner, and all the other shams and routine of
recreation. This is life! pure and unadulterated; travel,
adventure, anxiety, and now Success! Triumph! Fortune!”
“Don’t make such a row, my dear fellow,” said Jack, more
philosophical, but inwardly exultant, “or else we shall have
the whole standing army of Raak upon our backs. You may
depend upon it the fellows are pretty well fed in this
locality; and when that is the case they are apt to become
very ugly customers in a skirmish. We may as well take
off the packs.”
“What, camp here?” demanded Waldron, in a most
aggrieved tone.
“Why not? You would not have us go on to the lake
before we know whether the tribe is not in force there. No!
here we have the scrub at our backs, and if attacked—and
we must keep that possibility uppermost in our minds—we
have a capital cover to fight or fly in, whichever may be
most expedient.”
So they abode there, warily abstaining from making any
but the smallest fire, and deferring possession of the new
world till the morrow.
They had been long on their way to the lake—to their lake—concerning
the name of which they had already held
discussion, before the sun irradiated the virgin waste which
.bn 258.png
.pn +1
lay unclaimed, untrodden, save by the foot of the wandering
savage, before and around them. The pyramid of fantastically
piled rocks rose clear and sharp in outline on the shore of the
lake. The distance, as is usual with such landmarks in a
perfectly level country, was greater than they had supposed.
It was midday when they loosed their tired horses among the
luxuriant herbage at its base, and wandered to the edge of
the gleaming waters, doubly gracious from their rarity in
that land of fierce heat and infrequent pool and stream.
Amid the caves which deeply tunnelled the foundation of
this wonder-temple of Nature they found traces of burial
and tribal feast, and the strange, gigantic Red Hand, the
symbol of forgotten rites, traced rudely but indelibly upon
the dim cavern walls. Doorival gazed with wondering and
troubled looks upon these tokens of an older day—a more
powerful organization of the fast-fading tribes.
“I believe big one black fellow sit down here,” he said,
with some appearance of awe and perturbation, a most unusual
state of mind with him, a full-blooded wolf cub that he
was, and curiously devoid of fear; “one old man Coradjee
come every moon and say prayer along a that one murra.
By and by wild black fellow run track belonging to us, and
sneak up ’long a camp.”
“We must keep a good look out, then, Doorival,” said
Redgrave, sanguine and fearless in the presence of the great
discovery. “Keep your revolver in good order, and Mr.
Waldron and I will pick them off with our rifles like crows.
Help will tell us when they are coming, won’t you, old
man?”
That intelligent quadruped, conscious that he was being
appealed to, but not, let us say, fully understanding the
whole of the conversation, looked wistfully at his master for
a minute, and then relieved his feelings by a series of loud
barks and a rush down to the lake, in the erroneous expectation
of catching some of the water-fowl that thronged the
shallows.
They concluded to camp at the lake that day, and on the
next to try and discover the river which they doubted not
divided at some point this magnificent tract of country. The
one fact established of a permanent watercourse, and their
prize was gained. They had nothing more to do but to put
.bn 259.png
.pn +1
in their tenders for as many five-mile blocks as they pleased
of the Raak country. Their fortune was made; they could
easily dispose of a third part of it; stock up another third
with breeding cattle, and after three or four years of very
easy squatter-life—pace the blacks—might consider themselves
to be wealthy men.
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXI.
.pm start_poem
“The brown Indian marks with murderous aim.”—Goldsmith.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
Late next day they fell upon converging tracks and
indications that the wild creatures of the region walked
steadily in one direction, mostly discovered and collated
by Doorival. Keeping the average direction, they came
towards evening upon a noble, full-fed flowing stream,
running north-easterly, and abounding in fish and wild-fowl.
“Hurrah!” shouted Guy Waldron, “this is something
like a river. What a glorious reach that is! We ought to
christen it, for I swear no white man ever saw it before;
what shall we call it? I make you a present of the lake,
by which to immortalize any of your fair friends; but I
should like to name this river; or I’ll toss up, whichever
you like.”
“I will accept the lake, which I hereby call Lake Maud—we
will provide the champagne on a future occasion.
What shall you call the river?”
“I shall call it the Marion, after my dear old mother.
Heaven knows whether she will ever see her wild boy again.
I should like to have my head in the old lady’s lap again, as I
used to do when I was a schoolboy, and she used to talk to me
in her gentle way, and charm all the perversity out of me. I
wonder what sets me thinking of the blessed saint now.”
“It won’t do you any harm, Guy,” said Jack, kindly.
“Mine died when I was a little chap, but I shall never forget
her, it seems like yesterday. And now, what about making
tracks for civilization—save the mark—the day after to-morrow?
We may run the river down to-morrow to see if the
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
country gets worse or better, and then we must head for the
nearest place the mail passes and send in our tenders—the
sooner the better.”
“All right. I should like a month here; but one can’t
be too spry about the tenders; there are always such a lot
of rascally landsharks on the look-out for anything like good
new country. They might have got a scrap or two of information
out of old Blockham, from which basis they are
quite capable of tendering for all the available country
within a thousand miles of him.”
“Quite true,” said Jack. “I’m glad you see it in that
light. I’ve heard of many a pioneer who has had the hard
work of years snatched away from him by tenders suspiciously
close to, but little in advance of, his own. How the
information was supplied Heaven only knows, but it has
been done before now. Didn’t old Ruthven get Yap-yap
and Marngah, all that country side? and didn’t Westrope,
who discovered it, lose heart and migrate to California, disgusted
with Australia, and wroth with the whole civil
service from the messengers to the minister?”
Their exploration fully confirmed the previous high estimate
of the quality of the country. Following the river
downward, they came from time to time upon unusually
broad, deep reaches, equal to a three years’ drought without
serious diminution. The plains retained their character,
and were rich in saline herbage, intermingled with the best
kinds of fattening grasses. There was room for half-a-dozen
stations of the largest size; and as far as they could
see there was no appearance of the country “falling off”—that
is, changing into the apparently verdant but utterly
worthless spinifex, or the endless scrubs which multiply
labour and decrease profits. No; the Raak country was as
good as good could be, perfect in quality, and more than
sufficient in quantity. They rested contented, and decided
to make back to the settlements with morning light. With
that end in view they shaped their course in such fashion
as to strike the Great Scrub, which they had penetrated
after leaving Mr. Blockham’s, at a point more in the direct
line to the settled country, whence they might send in their
tenders for their principality with the smallest possible
loss of time.
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
By cutting off corners, and making use of their previous
experience, they managed to reach the border of this jungle
tract late on the following evening.
All that day and the previous night the boy Doorival had
been uneasy and watchful. Had they not known his exceptional
courage, they would have attributed his uneasiness to
the causeless fear and general apprehension so often exhibited
by aboriginals when in strange territory. More than once
he pointed out a thin column of smoke rising at no great distance
from them. Sometimes one was observable on one
flank, sometimes on the other, or in their rear. And as they
rode forward it seemed that these tiny vaporous phenomena
were rather less distant than in the earlier part of the
day.
“You see that one?” said the boy, in a low, broken voice,
indicative of dread. “Black fellow talk along that one
smoke. One black fellow ’long a hill see you, he make smoke.
’Nother one black fellow see that one smoke, he make ’um
smoke, tell ’nother one black fellow ‘all right.’ By and by,
I believe, we see ’um, and no mistake. I think keep watch,
all hands, ’long a camp to-night.”
“Very well, Doorival,” said Jack, “we shall all sleep
with one eye open. Help will tell us when they are pretty
close up, and we have plenty of cartridges all ready for the
first round.”
They had approached within a couple of miles of a long
cape of scrub which stretched out into the open country, as
a promontory into the sea, when it suddenly became apparent
that they had entered upon a different description of travelling.
They found a wide expanse of deep sand, level as the
blown beaches of the sea, embellished in large patches here
and there with the pink flowering mesembryanthum, which
looked like a great bright flag cast down on the mimic shore,
but deep and toilsome for the horses, so that an active footman
could have run as fast as the struggling, floundering
quadrupeds. Here, in this unexpected trap, suddenly appeared
two large bodies of blacks, who converged, as if by
preconcerted signal, and followed closely upon their tracks.
They did not make any pretence of attack, but followed
patiently in the wake of the party, as if more in the hope
that the horses might sink exhausted in the sand, and so
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
place the party at their mercy, than with the intention of
forcing an engagement.
John Redgrave and his companions had ridden hard that
day in order to reach the point now in front of them, and,
ignoring the possibility of any change of country, had not
perhaps exercised sufficient caution in so doing. Now they
saw their error. The horses toiled, stumbled, and staggered
in the deep, yielding sand, while nearer and still nearer
came the savage horde, following up, with wolf-like obstinacy,
their faltering footsteps. At length, when the
timber was distant about a mile, the expedition held a
council of war.
“I wonder, if we get into the cover, whether there is any
chance of the fellows following us further,” said Waldron.
“My horse is nearly done, thanks to my unfair weight; but
I don’t like to leave him behind.”
“Plain black fellows never go ’long a scrub,” asserted
Doorival; “we get ’long a timber they stop and turn round.
Too much afraid of debil-debil; but I believe they catch us
before that; they close up now.”
“How can we stop them?” demanded Guy. “I can’t
go faster to save my life.”
“I’ll show you,” said Jack, dismounting; “you lead my
horse on slowly, and be ready to wait for me as I come up.
I’ll manage to stop them.”
“But you are going to certain death,” said Waldron. “I
can’t stand that.”
“Not at all,” said Jack, coolly; “you take my orders:
I’m first officer, you know. Walk on quietly, and leave me
here.”
Jack remained where he was, and permitted Waldron and
Doorival to go slowly forward. He looked carefully to his
rifle, and as the array of natives came rather confusedly
along he picked out a conspicuous-looking personage in the
lead and fired. The unfortunate savage threw up his arms
and dropped dead in his tracks. Another fell, desperately
wounded, and yet another to the third shot. The mass of
pursuers became confused at this sudden onslaught. They
halted, appeared irresolute, and finally made a flank movement,
and suffered our travellers to pursue their way in
peace.
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
Jack quickly rejoined his men, who had stopped at the
first shot; they then dismounted, and, leading their weary
horses, made good their way to the cover, where they found
firm ground and a sheltered nook, wherein they rested for
the night, thankful to believe that they would remain unmolested
by the dismayed contingent of the tribes of Raak.
“It was unfortunate that we should be compelled to draw
first blood,” said Jack, as they kept midnight watch, “but
it was unavoidable. If one horse had fallen we should have
had the whole mob upon us at once, without the faintest
chance of escape.”
“What made you think of that particular style of
defence?”
“I happened to know two explorers,” answered Jack,
“who saved themselves in a similar emergency long ago.
Only that they were in very wet, marshy country. Shirley
told me he had never known it fail; and he being an unquestioned
authority I determined to try it.”
“Well, there’s nothing like experience,” said Guy, reflectively.
“I should never have thought of it, though I was
just preparing to sell my life dearly, as the writing fellows
call it. To-morrow we shall be well across this belt of scrub,
and I suppose we may consider the war-path business over.”
“I trust so,” answered his comrade; “we have plenty of
obstacles and troubles before us yet without that. I must
say I shall be glad to see the first bush inn again, unsatisfactory
halting-places as they are, notwithstanding.”
“That tribe give us fits when we go back to Raak again,”
observed Doorival, with decision. “How many men you
take, Misser Redgrave?”
“Plenty of men, plenty of guns, Doorival,” said Guy
Waldron; “don’t you be afraid. You must tell them all
about that if they don’t touch the cattle we’ll be the best
friends they ever had.”
“I not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “You nebber see
me frighten, Misser Waldron!”
“Well, I never did,” admitted Guy; “you are as plucky
a little beggar as I ever saw of your age, white or black.”
For three days they pursued their course through the
interminable scrub, occasionally suffering for want of water,
and at other times rendered anxious by the idea that they
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
had mistaken their course, and perhaps struck the barren,
waterless thicket at a point where it was broader than they
had imagined, in which case they might be a week or even
a fortnight before they threaded its ofttimes fatal maze. On
the fourth day they sent Doorival ahead to see if he could
find any indication of a change of landscape, which would
fortify them in the idea that they had not been mistaken in
their calculations.
To their great joy their messenger returned before sunset
with the welcome intelligence that he had seen open country
ahead, and they would reach it early next morning.
A small supply of water being discovered, the little party
camped, full of sanguine anticipation of the morrow, looking
upon the worst of the journey as past, and already fancying
themselves restored to civilization and free to enter upon the
first stage of their successful discovery.
Their camp-fire was rather larger than usual that night.
Some of the minor precautions were dispensed with. No
sign of native trails had been seen lately, and after their
repulse of the Raak army they felt themselves equal to any
ordinary skirmishing party.
The partners talked long as they sat and smoked by the
fire. Guy was unusually excited with the confirmation of
their reckoning and the expectation of a trip to the metropolis
for the presentation of their tenders, in the names of Redgrave
and Waldron, for so many blocks upon either bank of the
river Marion, with others, including, of course, Lake Maud
and Mount Stangrove.
“It’s full of magnificent sensations, this rôle of successful
explorer, Redgrave,” he said. “Nothing comes up to it that
I ever felt before, especially when you see plainly before you
the unmistakable profits and advantages. It comprehends
so much beside discovery; it’s the creation, as it were, of a
colony of one’s very own.”
“It’s a grand thing in its way,” agreed Jack, with less
enthusiasm, recalling one great enterprise which had looked
as fair and yet failed so fatally. “But, as I said before,
many things have to be done yet; and I’m getting old
enough, I fear, to dread the proverbial slip.”
“I know,” interrupted Guy, with eager scorn; “but there
can’t be a break-down in our case—it’s morally impossible.
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
They must accept our tenders. We can’t have any difficulty
in selling some of our spare blocks for cash enough to put
on store cattle. How glorious it will be to see them pitching
into that lovely saltbush by the lake! I know my
governor would send me out two or three thousand pounds
if he knew I had a real partner and a real station—a
country-side of my own.”
“It all looks very well, old fellow,” said Jack, “and I feel
with you that nothing in the ordinary run of events can
prevent our forming a fine property out of our discovery,
which is entirely confined to our own knowledge. You had
better go straight in with the tenders as soon as we reach
the region of her Majesty’s mails, and I will stay at any
convenient township till I hear from you.”
“But why not come down with me?” demanded Guy.
“I have lots of tin to carry us on for a few months, and a
spell in town would do you no harm.”
“I have made no vow,” said Jack, “but I have taken a
solemn resolution”—and a strange light came into his eyes
as he spoke, and into his heart a thrill as he thought of
Juandah and his last words to Maud Stangrove—“a resolution
not to resume my position in society until I do so as
the man who has achieved a success; I must return a leader,
a conqueror, or my old comrades shall see me no more. My
barque must sail up the harbour with flags flying and prizes
towed astern, or lie a battered hull for wind and wave to
hold revel over.”
“Ha!” said Guy, “stands the case thus? So we are too
proud to bend to the breeze until the wind changes? Well,
I understand the feeling; only you must put me up to all
the ways of your Lands Department, or else I shall get sold
or nobbled, or ‘had,’ and then where will the prize-money
come from?”
“It is all simple enough,” said Redgrave. “You will
leave with everything cut and dry, and in writing. You
will be able to manage advances and so on down below, and
I shall be all the more handy to go and take delivery of the
first lot of store cattle.”
“By Jove!” said Waldron, excitedly, “I feel as if I were
behind them at this very moment.”
As he spoke the dog Help rose slowly and, looking out
.bn 267.png
.pn +1
into the darkness, growled in a low, fierce tone, while
Doorival, converted suddenly into a statue, expressive of
the act of listening, with an intensity apparent in every
nerve and muscle, raised his hand in silent warning. Each
man felt for his arms, and placed himself in full and perfect
readiness for the reception of whatever enemy might appear.
The night was intensely dark. Within a few feet of the
fire the thicket was altogether composed of Egyptian darkness.
It might have been solitary as the great desert, it
might have contained an army with banners, for all that
could be seen: still evil was abroad, they doubted not.
The dog, whose tongue never lied, growled yet more menacingly.
From Doorival at length came the interpretation of
the faint sounds of the desert.
“Hang that fire,” he said, at last, “I think we big fools
for making it; black fellow coming to rush the camp; I
hear ’em stick break just now.”
Not a sound had fallen upon the less delicate organs of
the two men, and Redgrave, but for the corroboration of
Help’s evidence, would have felt almost inclined to discredit
Doorival’s information.
“Sticks break all night in the bush,” he said, “still
there’s something up by the old dog’s bristles. If it were
a dingo he would walk out to meet it; but you see he cowers
close by us. Listen again.”
“Your hear ’em now?” said Doorival, in a hoarse whisper,
as a very faint but continuous murmur of voices came in on
the breeze. “Black fellow—no mistake.”
“Every man to his tree,” said Guy. “I vote we clear out
to the rear of the fire, so that we may deliver a converging
fire upon the scoundrels when they come near the light. I
call it devilish unhandsome to try and pot us now we are so
near civilized society. However, they’ll get it hot, that’s
one comfort.”
“It was a strange experience,” Redgrave thought, as he
coolly picked out the largest available tree where none were
very big, and with Guy awaited the attack. In utter desolation
of that nameless solitude, with the hour midnight,
and the faint but distinct sounds as of the light tread and
hushed voices of the advancing savages, Redgrave felt as if
they were enacting a scene in some weird drama, and were
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
awaiting the Demon with whose intercourse their fate was
interwoven.
That they would come off victorious, with the advantage
of preparation and the immense superiority of fire-arms, he
never doubted. Still the blacks had the advantage of numbers,
and of that instinctive cunning which renders the
savage man no mean antagonist.
The noises ceased; for some minutes, an unpleasant period
of suspense, they awaited the onset. Then the dog suddenly
burst into a loud, fierce bark, as the still, warm midnight
air was rent by a storm of yells; and a shower of spears,
apparently from every point of the compass, covered the
fire and every foot of ground within some distance with
thirsty spear-points.
A double volley, fired low and carefully in the direction of
the thickest spears apparently had some effect, as a sudden
cry, promptly checked, implied. For some time this curious
interchange of missiles took place. Whenever the blacks
pressed forward, desirous of discovering the exact hiding-place
of the daring white men, a steady discharge repulsed
them. The whites were well supplied with ammunition, and
the rapidity with which they loaded and fired deceived the
attacking party. More than one man of note had fallen,
and they became less eager in the attack upon a party so
well prepared, so skilled in defence. Apparently a last
attack was ordered. Some kind of flank movement was
evidently arranged, and some of the boldest of the fighting
men of the tribe ordered to the front. The spears commenced
to fall very closely among the resolute defence corps. They
appeared as if thrown from a shorter distance. Guy could
have sworn that the spear which whizzed so closely by his
head, as he leaned over to fire in the direction of a suspiciously
opaque body, was thrown from behind yon small clump
of mulga. With the decision of intelligence, or the recklessness
of despair, the dog Help suddenly rushed out and
assaulted what appeared to be a man at the base of the
clump referred to. Guy dashed forward to the smouldering
fire, and seizing a fire-stick threw it in the direction of the
combat where the dog was baying savagely, and occasional
blows and spear-thrusts showed that a fight à l’outrance was
proceeding. The brand blazed up for a moment, just sufficient
.bn 269.png
.pn +1
to display the burly form of a savage warrior engaged
in the ignoble contest. With practical quickness Guy took
a snap shot and sent a bullet through the broad chest, the
arms of which at once collapsed.
In the excitement of the moment Guy moved forward, displaying
the whole of his grand and lofty figure in the uncertain
light. A score of spears from the concealed enemy
hurtled around him with the suddenness of a flight of arrows.
One of the puny-looking missiles—they were reed spears,
tipped with bone—pierced his arm, another struck him in the
side. Snapping the former short off, and carelessly drawing
forth the other, the wounded man stalked back to his cover,
from whence he, with Jack and Doorival, kept up a ceaseless
fusillade. So deadly was the fire that their assailants dared
not approach more nearly the desperate strangers, who fought
so hard and shot so straight. From time to time a yell, a
smothered cry, proclaimed that a shot had taken effect.
The explorers took advantage of a pause in the attack to
draw together and hold converse.
“Redgrave, old fellow,” said Guy, in tones which were
strangely altered, “I fancy that I’ve lost more blood than
shows, or else I’m hard hit, for I feel deuced faint and queer.”
“You don’t mean it, Guy; surely you can’t be serious in
thinking those two needle punctures could stop you.”
“The one in the arm is only a scratch, though it makes
one wince; but this confounded one in the flank has bitten
more deeply, and I don’t know what to say about it.”
“Then there is nothing for it,” said Jack, decisively, “but
to beat a retreat. If these black devils think you are badly
hurt nothing will stop their rush when they choose to make
it. We must take stars for our guide, and move steadily
back, keeping our course as well as we can.”
“And what about the horses?”
“They must be left to their fate; we should risk our lives,
and perhaps lose them, if we attracted notice now by trying
to catch them.”
“Pacha and all?” asked Guy, incredulously.
“I believe I could almost suffer my hand to be hacked off
rather than lose him if it were optional,” confessed Jack;
“but we must choose between life and death: the time is
short.”
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
Having communicated the decision to Doorival, and
pointed out the direction, that young person selected a star,
and, marching with eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, the others
followed him.
They were not pursued, probably because they were near
the boundary of the tribe that had assailed them. No people
while unmolested are more punctilious in preserving a proper
attitude to friends and foes than the untaught aborigines.
They respect the hunting-grounds of their neighbours in the
most conscientious manner, and are always ready to hunt up
an outlaw or criminal who has taken refuge in the territory
of a foreign tribe. Such was one element of safety upon
which the little party reckoned, and by great good fortune
it did not fail them.
By the merest chance it happened that the spot where the
unlucky camp-fire had been lighted was within a short
distance of the ancient and scarcely-observed tribal boundary.
So that when John Redgrave with his wounded comrade and
their henchman abandoned their position they were unwittingly
in perfect safety before they had left the scene of the
conflict three miles behind them. It afterwards transpired
that the second chief of the tribe had been mortally wounded
in the last volley. The excitement and grief caused by his
fall aided the retreating party in their silent flight.
All the night through they travelled slowly but steadily
onward, having for their pilot the untiring Doorival, and
for their guidance one friendly star.
As day broke, and the red dawn stole soft and blushing
over the gray plain and duller foliage, they found themselves
upon a pine-clothed sand-hill, from whence they could survey
the landscape in all directions. By the clear dawn-light
each man was enabled to scan the face of his comrade. The
pale and changed countenance of the once gay and volatile
Guy Waldron struck Redgrave with a feeling of wonder and
dread.
“Well, it seems that we are clear of these highly patriotic
‘burghers of this desert city,’” said he, with an attempt at
his old manner, though the pained and fixed expression of
his features belied the jesting words. “Do you think there
is a medical practitioner within hail, Redgrave? though I
fear me he would come late.”
.bn 271.png
.pn +1
“Good God!” said Jack, “you don’t say—you can’t think,
old man, you are really hurt. I thought it was a mere
scratch. Let us look and see; surely something can be done.”
“’Tis not ‘as deep as a draw-well, or as wide as a church-door,’
as Mercutio says, but I am really afraid that I shall see
the old hall no more, not even the modified home of a club
smoking-room. It’s hard—deuced hard, isn’t it, to die by the
hand of miserable savages, in a place only to be vaguely
guessed at as within certain parallels; just when we had hit
the white too.”
“Don’t think of that, my dear old boy,” said Jack, gently,
“you lie down and have a sleep, and perhaps we shall find
that you have over-rated the damage.”
They made a fire; Jack and the boy Doorival kept watch,
while the sore-fatigued and wounded man slept. No sound
of fear or conflict smote upon their ears, as toil-worn and
saddened, they passed the mournful hours. Towards evening
Guy Waldron stirred, but moaned with fresh and increasing
pain.
“Where am I?” he asked, as he looked around, with eyes
which incipient delirium had begun to brighten. “Oh, here,
on this miserable sand-hill—and dying—dying. Yes, I
know that I am going fast. Do you know, Redgrave, that I
dreamed I was back in the old place in Oxfordshire, and I
saw my mother and the girls. I wish—I wish you could
have met my people, but that’s over—as plain as I see you
and Doorival. Don’t cry, you young scamp. Mr. Redgrave
will look after you, won’t you? Well, I thought the governor
looked quite gracious, and said I was just in time for the
hunting season. Every one was so jolly glad to see me,
and then I woke and felt as if another spear was going
slap through me. Oh, how hard it is to die when a fellow
is young and has all the world before him! I don’t want
to whine over it; but it seems such awful bad luck, doesn’t
it now?”
“I wish I had been hit instead,” groaned Jack. “I’m used
to bad luck, and it seems only the order of nature with me.
Try and sleep again, there’s a good fellow.”
“I shall never sleep again—except the long sleep,”
answered Guy, mournfully. “I feel my head going, and I
shall begin to rave before long. So we may as well have our
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
last talk. When I’m gone send my watch and these things—they
are not of any great value—to my agents in Sidney, and
ask them to send them to my people. They know my address—and,
Doorival, come here.”
The boy came, with deepest sorrow in every feature, and
knelt down by his master’s side.
“Will you go home to my father, my house across the big
sea, and tell them how I was struck with a spear in a fight,
and all about me.”
“I go, Misser Walron,” said the boy, cheerfully. “I tell
your people.”
“You not afraid of big one water, and big canoe?”
“Me not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “I go anywhere
for you—you always say, Doorival afraid of nothing.”
“All right, Doorival; you were always a game chicken.
I should have made a man of you if I had lived. Mr.
Redgrave will give you new clothes when you go down the
country, and put you on board ship. Mind you are a good
boy, and remember what I told you, when you go to my
country, and see father belonging to me. Now good-night.”
The boy threw himself on his face beside the dying man,
and with many tears kissed his hand, and then, raising himself,
walked to a tree at some distance and sat with his head
upon his knees, in an attitude of the deepest dejection.
“Look here, old fellow,” continued Guy, “there’s a
hundred or two to my credit at the agents’. I’ll scrawl an
order in your favour. You take it and do what you can for
the honour of the firm, and my share of the profits, if there
be any, in time to come, can go to my sisters. It will remind
them of poor Guy. I shall die happier if I think they will
get something out of it when I’m gone. Let the boy take
all my traps home in the ship with him. It will comfort the
girls and the old people at home, who have seen the last of
their troublesome Guy. I wish you all the luck going; and
some day, when you are thinking of the first draft of fat cattle,
remember poor Guy Waldron, who would have rejoiced to
knock through all the rough work along with you; but it
cannot be. Somebody gets knocked over in every battle, and
it’s my luck, and that’s all about it. Good-bye, Redgrave,
old fellow. I’m done out of my share of hut-building, stock-yard-making,
and all the rest of it. I feel that as much
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
as anything. Give me your hand—my eyes are growing
dim.”
All the long night John Redgrave and the boy watched
patiently and tenderly by the dying man. Shortly before
daylight there was a period of unusual stillness. Jack lighted
a torch and took one look at the still face which he had
learned to love. The features still wore the calm air habitual
to the man. The parted lips bore recent traces of a smile.
The square jaw was set and slightly fallen—Guy Waldron
was dead!—dead in this melancholy desert, thousands of
miles from any one of his own name or kindred.
John Redgrave closed the fearless blue eyes, which still
bore unchanged their steadfast look of truth or challenge.
He covered the still face, placed by his side the arm, carelessly
thrown, as in life’s repose, above the head, and, casting
himself on the sand beside the dead, was not ashamed to
weep aloud.
How well-nigh impossible to realize was it that, but one
short night before, that clay-cold form had been full of
glowing life, high hope, and generous speech. A fitting
representative of the old land, which has sent forth so many
heroes, conquering and to conquer. The darling of an old
ancestral home—the deeply-loved son of a gallant father. The
long-looked-for, dreamed-of wanderer, a demi-god in the eyes
of his sisters. And now, there lay all that was left of Guy
Waldron—lonely and unmarked in death amid that solitary
waste, as a crag fallen from the brow of their scarce-named
peak, as a tree that sways softly but heavily to its fall amid
the crashing undergrowth of the desert woodlands.
.tb
That night John Redgrave and the wailing Doorival buried
him at the foot of a mighty sighing pine, covering up their
traces as completely as the boy’s woodcraft enabled them to
do, and marking the spot in a sure but unobtrusive manner,
so that in days to come the burying-place of Guy Waldron
should not be suffered to remain undistinguished. This duty
being performed, Jack gathered up the small personal
treasures of the dead man, and long before dawn, steering
by the southern stars, they pursued their mournful progress
towards the settlements.
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXII.
.pm start_poem
“I loved him well; his gallant part,
His fearless leading, won my heart.”—Scott.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
For several days they had an average measure of privation
only. The resources of Doorival were found equal to supplying
them with food and water. From the course pointed
out to him he had never varied, and Jack was, from observation
and calculation, perfectly certain that it would bring
them, if carried out, well within the line of the settled
districts.
But as to one condition of success he felt undecided. For
some weeks there had been no rain, and a stretch of country
lay yet before them in which, according to the rainfall, they
might, or might not, find water; in the language of explorers,
signifying that they might, or might not, perish.
Desperate from the death of Guy Waldron, he had been too
reckless to take this risk into the account. He would dare
the hazard, and put his last chance upon the die.
So it fared that, after leaving the last watercourse and
entering upon the wide untrodden system of plain, scrub, and
sand-hill—scrub and sand-hill and plain—which divided the
rivers, Jack was compelled to admit, after two days’ short
allowance of water, and one with none at all, that he had
been foolhardy. The third day passed without the slightest
appearance of moisture. It was inexpedient to diverge from
the line for more than a short distance in search for fear of
wasting their failing strength. The boy, strong in passive
courage, held out unflinchingly. John Redgrave had the
fullest faith in the accuracy of his reckoning. They must,
without the shadow of a doubt, strike the waters of the
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
Wondabyne, if they could hold out. But that was the vital
question. By his closely-examined and re-examined calculation
they should sight the great eucalypti that towered above
those deep and gleaming waters (oh, thought of Paradise!)
hurrying beneath the carved limestone cliffs on the following
sunset, or at least before midnight. Were but one day longer
necessary, then were they both lost. The boy was failing
now in spite of his courage. For himself, he would not, could
not, consciously yield as long as he could stand or crawl on
hands and knees. Yet a certain swelling of his parched
throat, a murmur in his ears, a disposition to talk aloud and
unbidden, all these signs announced to him, as a practised
bushman, that the fourth day, if passed without water, would
find them delirious and dying. Shutting out these thoughts
as far as his volition availed, he strode on, followed feebly by
the boy, during the long terrible day.
At sunset they halted for a few minutes upon the inevitable
sand-hill, with pine and shrub and long yellow grass,
the exact fac-simile of scores which they had crossed since
they had left Raak. Jack faced the west and gazed for a
few moments upon the gorgeous blazonry of scroll-like clouds,
the rolling wavelets of orange, splashed with crimson and
ruddy with burning gold, which rose and fell in shifting
masses, as if rent by Titans from the treasure-house of
Olympus. Far away northward, far as the eye could see,
lay the dim green desert, measureless, lifeless, and life-denying.
“It is the last sunset that I shall see, possibly. It seems
hard, as poor Guy said; but when he and better men had
gone on the battle-field and elsewhere with the sound of
victory in their ears, John Redgrave may well go too. It is
a fitting end of the melodrama of life. Doorival, shoot
that crow.”
This highly inconsequent concluding remark was occasioned
by the alighting of the bird of ill-omen, which had been
following them since dawn with the strange instinct of its
kind, on a branch almost immediately above them. The
boy, wayworn almost to the death, and looking well-nigh
lifeless as he lay at Jack’s feet, could not resist the irony of
the situation, and, noiselessly sliding his carbine into aim,
sent a bullet through the breast of the unlucky “herald of
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
the fiend,” who dropped down before them, like the raven
at the feet of Lucy Ashton and her fateful, fascinating
companion.
.pm start_poem
“To tear the flesh of princes
And peck the eyes of kings.”
.pm end_poem
Murmured Jack, “If one ever could smile again, it would be
at this transposition of situations. A minute since this
unprejudiced fowl had a well-grounded expectation that he
was about to dine or sup upon us. Now we are going to
eat him.”
“Stupid fellow this one waggan,” said Doorival, taking a
long and apparently satisfactory suck at the life-blood of the
incautious one; “he think we close up dead.”
“He wasn’t far wrong either,” answered Jack, grimly.
“Now light a fire, and let us roast him a little for the look
of the thing.”
Stimulated by even this unwonted repast, the forlorn
creatures struggled on till midnight. The night was comparatively
cool, and with parched throats and fevered brain
John Redgrave judged it better, in spite of the increasing
weakness of the boy, to press forward and make their last
effort before dawn.
The Southern Cross, burning in the cloudless azure, with,
as it appeared to the despairing wayfarer, a mocking radiance
and intensity of lustre, had shown by its apparent change of
position that the night was waning, when the boy, who had
been going for the last hour like an over-driven horse, fell
and lay insensible. Jack raised him, and after a few minutes
he opened his eyes and spoke feebly.
“Can’t go no furder, not one blessed step. You go on,
Misser Redgrave, and leave me here. I go ’long a Misser
Waldron.” Here his dark eyes gleamed. “He very glad to
see Doorival again. I believe Wondabyne ahead; you make
haste.”
Jack’s only reply to this was to pick the boy up and to
stagger on with him across his shoulder. For some distance
he managed by frantic effort and sheer power of will to support
the burden; but his failing muscles all but brought him
heavily to the earth over every slight obstruction. He was
compelled to halt, and, placing the lad at the foot of a tree,
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
he extemporized a sort of couch for him of leaves and
branches.
“Now look here, Doorival,” he said; “you and I are not
dead yet, though close up, I know. I will go on, and if I
get to the water before daylight I will come back and bring
you on. I will keep the same track till I drop. I know the
river is ahead, perhaps not very far. I break the branches
and leave track. You come on to-morrow morning if you
don’t see me. Now, good-night. I’ll leave Help with
you.”
The boy’s dull eye glistened as he placed his arm round
the neck of the dog, who, with the wondrous sympathy of
his race, sat in front of the exhausted lad, looking wistfully
into his face. Famishing as was the brute himself, he had
made no independent excursions for the water he so sorely
needed, but had followed patiently the feeble steps of his
comrades in misfortune. At his master’s word he lay down
in an attitude of watchfulness by the fainting boy, and
remained to share a lingering death, as Jack’s steps died
away in the distance.
John Redgrave shook the boy’s hand, parting as those
who, in a common adventure, have been more closely knit
together by the presence of danger and of death. Then he
strode on—weak, weary, alone, but still defiant of Fate.
For more than two hours he pressed forward unwaveringly,
though conscious of increasing weakness of mind and body.
The timber became more dense, and his progress was retarded
by small obstacles which still were sufficient to entangle his
feeble feet. Then his brain began to wander. Sometimes
he thought he was at Marshmead. He heard plainly the
musical cry of the swans in the great meres, and the shrill
call of the plover, circling and wheeling over the broad
marshes. If he could only get through this timber he
would see the reed-brake ahead, and, falling into the knee-deep
water, would lap and lave till his fevered soul was
cooled. Then a white shape walked beside him, and extended
a hand pointing towards that bright star. It was
Maud Stangrove, though her face was turned away—and
the Shape was misty, transparent, indistinct—he knew
every curve and outline of that faultless figure, the poise
of her head, the swaying grace of her step. She had
come to tell him that her pure spirit had passed from
.bn 278.png
.pn +1
earth, that his hour was come—that they would be united
for ever beyond yon fair star—that toil and weariness,
hope, fear, and mordant anxiety, the fierce pangs, the
evil dreams of this vain life, were over. Be it so—he
was content. Let the end come.
Then the fair shape floated onward, gazing on him with
sad, luminous eyes, as of farewell. The look of despairing
fondness, of unutterable pity, was more than his
overwrought senses could bear. He threw up his arms,
and calling on the name of his lost love dashed madly
through the dense undergrowth. Suddenly he was sensible
of a crushing blow, of intense pain, then of utter darkness,
and John Redgrave fell prone, and lay as one dead.
He awoke at length to full consciousness of his position
and surroundings, more clear, perhaps, from the loss of
blood which had followed the blow against his brow from
the jagged limb of a dead tree against which he had
staggered and fallen. The moon shone clearly, the night
was cool almost to coldness. He felt revived, but full of
indignation. It was the ingenious cruelty which restores
the fainting man to the dire torments of the rack. His
swollen tongue, which all that day his mouth had been
unable to contain, was covered, as were his face and
throat, with ants. His throat was parched still, but his
brain was revived. He rose to his feet, sternly obstinate
while life yet flickered. Onward still. He would die with
his face to the river. He would crawl when he could no
longer walk. He would die as a man should die.
Onward—still onward; he remembered his course, and
the star which Doorival called Irara. Weak at first,
but gradually rallying, he walked steadily and more
cautiously forward. An hour passed. The temporary
feeling of excitement has subsided, and overpowering,
leaden drowsiness is pressing heavily upon his brain. Again
he sinks to the earth, half fearing, half wishing to rise
no more. Suddenly he hears the whistling wings of a
flight of birds which sweep overhead. His languid senses
are aroused; he watches mechanically the dark, swift forms
cleave the air in relief against the clear sky. They are
wild-fowl, on their way, no doubt, to distant waters. His
gaze follows them as they glide forward in swaying file,
and suddenly, with the plummet-like fall, drop and disappear.
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
Merciful Heaven! can it be? Versed in all the habits
of fur and feather, as becomes a sworn sportsman, well
he knows that when such birds drop they drop in water,
in water! He staggers to his feet, and stumbling, reeling,
tottering like a drunken man, makes for the place where
they became invisible. One glance, one hoarse broken
cry of joy, pain, rapture mingled in one utterance, and he
is on his knees beside a gleaming, rushing stream. He
hears the gurgling, whistling note of the delighted birds
that are diving and splashing and chasing one another in
ecstasy of enjoyment. It is the Wondabyne! He remains
upon his knees looking for some seconds at the starry
heavens; then, slowly and sparingly, he drinks at intervals;
he laves his brow and parched and bleeding lips again and
again in the cool waters. Then he carefully fills the tin
cup which hangs from a leather strap at his waist, and
turns on his track to the boy Doorival. Him he finds
still sleeping, with the dog beside him, who barks joyously
at his approach. He wakes him, and pointing to the tin
cup, of which the boy drinks eagerly, repeats but the
single word “Wondabyne.”
It is enough; Doorival arises, staggers off with him, as
one risen from the dead.
Once more he sees the reedy shore—the gleaming river
into which Help plunges incontinently. He has much
difficulty in preventing Doorival from “drinking himself
to death.” Both assuage the fiery thirst which has been
burning up brain and marrow. Both throw themselves
upon the warm sandy turf, and sleep till the sun is far on
his path on the morrow.
The battle is won—the standard is planted—all is
plain and easy journeying for the future. They are close
to the mail track; another day’s journey will bring them
to the actual settled country.
On the morrow, just before sunset, they reach The
Pioneers’ Royal Hotel, a palatial weather-board edifice,
apparently dropped down like an aerolite upon the bare
red soil of the plain. If it has no other advantages, it
possesses the inestimable one of being the mail depot.
That invaluable custodian of her Majesty’s correspondence,
.bn 280.png
.pn +1
the mailman, passes the door daily. To-morrow,
if need be, John Redgrave may put himself, his followers,
and his tenders “on board” of this unpretending express
waggon, which bears the fortunes, the passions, the
emotions, the whole abstract life of the interior, to the
metropolis.
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIII.
.ce
“I, the sport of Fortune.”—Duke Charles of Orleans.
.sp 2
Jack, “ragged and tanned,” half-starved, and a “footman”
(as a person not in possession of a horse is termed
in Australian provincial circles), was not for the moment
regarded with special favour by the landlord of the
Royal Pioneer.
However, the first few words led to immediate “class
legislation.” The landlords of Australian inns, I may
observe, are tolerably good judges of “who’s who,” and,
to their honour, are more regardful of gentlemanlike
bearing than of money and good clothes.
So Jack was inducted into the front parlour, and invited
to repair the inroads upon his outward man in a
bedroom of comparative grandeur. He first of all arranged
for the purchase of an entirely new rig-out from the
affiliated store, also in possession of the landlord, and a
bath. After indulgence in the latter luxury, he made up
the whole of his former wearing apparel in a package, and
desired that they might be given to the poor, or otherwise
disposed of. He then decided that he would transact
the imposing ceremony of dinner, and afterwards draw
up his tenders for twenty five-mile blocks on the River
Marion, and be ready for a start to the metropolis next
morning.
Entering the parlour in a suit of rough tweed, he felt
much more like a shepherd king of the future than the
death-doomed pioneer—half hunter, half savage—of the
preceding few days. As he came in, a well-dressed, strongly-jewelled
personage arose from the sofa on which he had
been sitting, and greeted Jack with much cordiality.
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
“Mr. Redgrave, I believe, I have the honour of addressing.
I’ve heard of your heroic feats, sir. I hope you will
give me the pleasure of your company at dinner. Took
the liberty of ordering it the moment I heard of your
arrival. No denial, sir, if you please. You are Frank
Forestall’s guest to-night, whatever happens.”
There was no resisting the dash and pertinacity of his
entertainer, so Jack quietly subsided into the position, and
permitted the strange gentleman to make himself happy
in his own way. The dinner, after a rather unreasonable
delay, arrived, by no means so indifferent as to cuisine
as might have been imagined. Mr. Forestall insisted on
“Piper, No. 2,” and pressed Jack to do him justice in
huge glasses, which he seemed to have magical powers of
emptying.
It must be remembered that Jack had been many
months without the taste of spirits, much less of decent
wine. His recent experiences, the total change of scene,
the hope of a happy sequel, now near and tangible, to
the volume of his life, all these things tended to produce
a general feeling of exhilaration, tending, as the evening
wore on, to entire loss of caution and self-control. Mr.
Forestall described himself as an extensive mail-contractor,
who visited the far interior from time to time with a
view to comprehensive contracts, in which he intended,
at no distant period, to rival, if not to overshadow, the
foreign element, as represented by the potentate Cobb.
He artfully led the conversation to explorations, privations,
and the adventures of Jack and his hapless comrade,
mingling sympathetic flattery with acute inquiries, until,
after successive beakers of “hot stopping” and pipes of
negrohead, Jack was in no humour to conceal any portion
of his intentions and discoveries. How and when he
had retired for the night John Redgrave was, next morning,
unable to remember; but awaking, long after sunrise,
with a splitting headache and a disordered system, he had
a confused recollection of having imparted much information
which he had never intended to reveal except in the sealed
tenders of Redgrave and Waldron, passing in due course
through the Department of Lands.
Dressing and shaking himself together with no inconsiderable
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
effort, he found by inquiring of the landlord that
the mail had come and gone, and that his genial host of
the preceding evening had departed with it. Wroth with
himself for the loss of even one day, he adhered sternly
to the drawing out of the tenders in proper form.
After a subdued and decorous meal, he retired early,
and at the appointed hour deposited himself, Doorival,
and Help in the unpretending conveyance which bore the
toilers of the midmost plateaux to the breeze-swept cities
of the “kingdom by the sea.”
Here, in due time, he was deposited as one who re-enters
Paradise, after rejoicing in the as yet unforgiven
outer world, amid the rayless toil of ungrateful labour,
amid the briars and thorns of Earth—accursed and
unreclaimed.
He lost not an hour after his arrival in despatching
the inestimable “Tenders for (20) twenty five-mile blocks,
situated on the River Marion, west of Daar Creek, and
bearing south-west from the Camp No. XL. of Mr.
Surveyor Kennedy.”
Having done this, Jack awaited impatiently the time
when a reply might reasonably be expected to arrive. He
sought the agents of Guy Waldron, and deposited with
them the relics and the few lines in which the dying man
had traced the record of his last wishes. He found these
gentlemen kindly disposed, and grateful to him for the
manifest sympathy which he exhibited.
“How the old squire will bear it I can’t think,” said
the senior partner. “I am the son of a tenant on his
estate, and I can remember him since I was that big.
He was a terrible man when he was crossed, and Mr.
Guy was always a wild youngster, but he was prouder of
him, I used to think, than of all the rest put together.
It will be a comfort to them all to see this lad here. I
dare say he wrote about him; and as he saw him at the
very last, it may please them to hear of his last moments.”
So the heroic Doorival was despatched, accompanied by
poor Guy’s big outfit in a chest full of all his unused
property, books, papers, &c., and arriving safely in Oxfordshire
was installed as prime favourite, and second in command
to the butler. Let us hope that he behaved better than
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
one anglicised aboriginal, who was for some slight offence
chastised by the butler. That official was solemn and awe-inspiring
of aspect. But the wolf-cub had grown and
strengthened; he turned fiercely to bay, and smote suddenly
and so shrewdly his superior officer that a coroner’s inquest
appeared imminent. Sentence of deportation went
forth against him, afterwards commuted. But the son of
the waste was respected after this outbreak, and in the
servants’ hall was permitted to possess his soul in peace.
There was a balance of something over £300 remaining
in the hands of Guy Waldron’s agents, and this sum,
in the terms of his note, they paid over to Jack, as representative
of the firm of Redgrave and Waldron. He had
nothing now to look forward to but the acceptance of his
tenders. He found that with the weighty and responsible
task before him he was unable to interest himself in
the ordinary frivolities of town life. He was deeply anxious
to get his first lot of store cattle on the way; and to this
end these tenders must be accepted and returned to him
with but little delay.
Day after day he haunted the Lands Office, and by
dint of pertinacity and daily application he managed to
get his papers “put through” that excellent and long-suffering
department. It is hinted that from press of
work or other causes delay has become chronic in that
much-maligned, calm-judging branch of the public service.
Whether they pitied his manifest impatience, or whether
the lives of certain officials were made a burden to them
during the passage of the papers, certain it is that some
weeks before the ordinary routine Jack had reason to believe
that an acknowledgment of his communication would reach
him in advance of the ordinary official period. Before
the impatiently expected official communication arrived,
Jack had made several important arrangements depending
upon this contingency, so that no more time than was
absolutely necessary might be lost. He was feverishly
anxious to be again on the war-path.
He thought of joyous Guy Waldron lying beneath the
solitary pine-tree, on the far sand-hill, swept now in
the advanced season by the burning desert blast; and he
pined for the moment when he could recommence his
.bn 285.png
.pn +1
labour, and make some progress in fulfilment of his pledge
to his dead comrade.
He thought of fair Maud Stangrove, lonely, weary
with vigil and orison, enduring her prosaic, unrelieved
life at Juandah; and his heart stirred with an unaccustomed
throb as he pictured her wild joy upon receiving
his letter, telling of the acceptance of the tenders, and his
departure to stock the Wonder-land so dearly-bought,
so hardly wrested from Nature and from man. He had
arranged with certain stock and station agents for the
placing of a certain number of the blocks in their hands
for sale, upon the receipt of which security they were
willing to advance the cash necessary for the purchase
of a couple of thousand head of cattle.
In pursuance of these plans he had determined, after
extracting a solemn pledge from one of the higher officials
that within a very short space of time he should receive
the necessary reply to his proposals, to proceed at once to
the station where the cattle were on approval. He authorized
the momentous despatch to be delivered to his agents,
to be by them forwarded to him at the cattle-station.
The cattle were mustered, counted, and approved of.
The price was very low, the quality reasonable—it was not
necessary to be too fastidious under the circumstances. The
time Jack had calculated upon expending had just expired,
when lo! the expected despatch, “On Her Majesty’s
Service,” with her Majesty’s envelope and her Majesty’s
Lion-and-Unicorned seal, arrived.
“Just as I calculated, to a day,” quoth Jack. “This
reminds one of old times, when I used to be rather proud
of ‘fitting my connections’ in business matters, as
Americans phrase it. Now for the first Act of Victory
in Westminster Abbey!” He opened the missive hastily.
How neat and decided were the characters of this long-looked-for
epistle! Jack read it twice over, as his vision
after one glance was temporarily obscured.
This was the wording of the important document:—
.in 40
.nf l
“Department of Lands,
”October 15, 186—.
.nf-
.in
“Sir—I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
of tenders for unoccupied Crown lands, as noted in the
margin, bearing date September 10th ultimo, and to
inform you that tenders on the part of F. Forestall and
Co. and others, which would appear to be for the same
blocks, were received at this office upon the 9th September
ultimo.
.nf r
“I have the honour to be, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“J.M. Ingram,
“Under Secretary.
.nf-
.in 2
.nf l
“John Redgrave, Esq.,
“Care of Messrs. Thornbrook and Bayle,
“Stock and Station Agents.”
.nf-
.in
Jack read more than once the fatally clear and concise
announcement, with the blank, expressionless countenance
of a man perusing his death-warrant, unexpectedly
received. Was it credible, possible, that an overruling
Providence could permit such hellish treachery? Now he
understood all the artful inquiries, the feigned bonhomie
and hospitality, the sudden departure of the double-dyed
traitor Forestall. Was this to be the recompense for the
deadly perils, the hunger, the thirst, the blood of Guy
Waldron, his own passage through the Valley of the
Shadow? It could not be! Again and again he showered
wild curses upon his own weakness, on the heartless villain
who had taken advantage of him, the feeble survivor of
the desperate conflict waged with the malign powers of
the desert.
Again he assured himself that such monstrous injustice
before high Heaven could not be carried out. He would
return at once to the metropolis, and if such base theft,
worse a thousand times than the comparatively straight-forward
and manly robbery under arms by the wandering
outlaw, who risked his life upon the hazard, were confirmed,
he would shoot Forestall in midday, in the public streets,
before he would submit to be mocked and plundered of
the prize for which he and his dead comrade had shed their
blood. He felt compelled, to his deep mortification, to explain
to the owner of the partly-purchased herd that unforeseen
circumstances prevented his completing his bargain,
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
and necessitated his instant presence at head-quarters.
Deeply disappointed, and with a host of doubts bordering
upon despair preying upon his very vitals, he abjured rest
and sleep, almost food, until he once more found himself
in the streets of——.
Without an instant’s delay he presented himself at
the office of Messrs. Thornbrook and Bayle, to whom,
haggard and fierce of mien, he at once presented the
official letter.
“I see the whole thing,” said the senior partner, “and
I feel as indignant as yourself at the vile deception
which has been practised upon you. I know the scoundrel
well, and it is far from his first crime in the same direction.
I will go with you to the Minister for Lands, and we will
see what we can do. But first have some breakfast, and
calm down your excitement a little. We may manage to
arrange matters, surely.”
Jack took the well-meant advice, and before long they
were in the ante-chamber of the Minister for Lands, the
arbiter of fate, he who gives or withholds fortune, decreeing
affluence or ruin, “according to the Regulations under
the Land Act.”
After waiting about an hour for the return of a glib
gentleman who went in just before them, with the assurance
that his business could be settled in ten minutes,
they passed into the presence of the great man. They
found a quiet-looking personage seated before a very
comfortable writing-table, on which lay piles of official-looking
papers in envelopes of every gradation of size,
some of them apparently constructed to receive a quire
or two of foolscap without inconvenience. They were
received with politeness, and Mr. Thornbrook introduced
Jack, who at once stated his grievance.
“Your tenders were sent to this department on or
about the——?”
“The tenth of September,” said Jack. “I came down at
once, after returning from the new country applied for.”
The minister rang a bell, and a clerk appeared.
“Send up the tenders, signed John Redgrave for
Redgrave and Waldron, for unoccupied Crown lands, and
any others for the same blocks.”
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
In a few minutes several large envelopes were laid
upon the table, upon one of which was marked “Redgrave
and Waldron.—Tenders for Raak new country.”
“I understand you to complain,” said the minister,
blandly, but not without a tone of sympathy, “that,
whereas you and your partner—since dead, I regret to
hear—were the actual discoverers and explorers of this
Raak country, other persons have put in tenders for
apparently the same blocks.”
“That is my complaint,” said Jack; “and not an unreasonable
one either I should fancy. My partner and I,
at the risk of our lives, he, poor fellow, did lose his,
found and traversed this country, never seen or heard
of by white men, with the sole exception of the stockman
who told us. I came to town with hardly a day’s loss of
time, put in formal tenders, and now, to my utter astonishment,
I find that tenders for the same country are in before
mine. I certainly did speak unguardedly about the affair
to a fellow named Forestall, and he, it appears, has planned
to rob me of my very hardly-earned right to the run.”
“It appears to be a very bad case,” answered the
minister; “but you will, I am sure, concede that the
department can only deal with tenders or applications
for pastoral leases of unoccupied Crown lands as brought
before it, without reference to the characters or motives
of applicants. I may point out to you that these tenders
(here he gathered up a sheaf of the octavo envelopes)
appear to have been put in on the ninth of September,
one day before yours. You and your friend can examine
them.”
Jack and Mr. Thornbrook did look over them. There
were a large number. They were prepared evidently by
skilled and experienced hands. Some were in the name of
Francis Forestall and Co., many in other names, of which
Jack had no knowledge. They offered a shade above the
yearly rental and premium which Jack had put down,
never dreaming of a competitor. Then, again, they were
geographically most accurate. Close calculations evidently
had been made, charts studied, and the nearest possible
approximation as to latitude and longitude around it.
Nor was this the worst. Every square mile of the Raak
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
country was of course included. But the tenders in the
strange names took in the whole available country above,
below, around that desirable oasis, so that there it was
hopeless, if the hostile tenders were accepted, to find even
a decent-sized run anywhere within a week’s ride of
Mount Stangrove and Lake Maud.
Jack turned from the accursed papers to the minister
and demanded whether the mere accident of priority was
to override his unquestionable claims as discoverer.
“Did the matter rest wholly with me,” he replied
calmly—for hundreds of difficult cases, passionate appeals,
and wild entreaties had educated his mind, during his term
of office, to a judicial lucidity and decision—“I have no
hesitation in saying that I should at once direct that your
tenders be accepted; but I am compelled to decide all cases
of this nature entirely by certain regulations made under
the Crown Lands Occupation Act. One of these specifically
states that the order of priority, other things being equal,
must rule the acceptance of tenders; with no other fact
or consideration can I deal. The tenders of Forestall,
Robinson, Andrews, Johnson, and Wade are apparently
for the identical and adjacent blocks. They were received
in this department twenty-four hours before yours.”
“Of course, of course, we allow that,” said Mr. Thornbrook.
“But can nothing be done for my friend here?
It is the hardest of all hard cases. It will ruin him. I
speak advisedly: he has already entered into engagements
that I fear, if this matter goes adversely, he cannot
meet. My dear sir,” said Mr. Thornbrook, warming
with his client’s wrongs, “pray consider the matter; you
must see the equity of the case is with us; try and prevent
such a palpable wrong-doing and perversion of justice.”
“My dear sir,” said the minister, rising, “the matter
shall have the most serious and minute consideration of
myself and my colleagues. There will be a cabinet meeting
on Thursday, at which the affair can be appropriately
brought up. I will order a letter, containing the final
decision of the Government, to be sent to Mr. Redgrave,
whom I now beg to assure of my deep sympathy. Good
morning, gentlemen.”
In the course of ten days Jack received another official
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
letter, in the handwriting which he had come to know,
and also to dread. He had passed a wretched, anxious
time, and now he was to know whether he was to be lifted
up afresh to the pinnacle of hope, or to be hurled down into
an inferno of despair, lower than he had ever yet, dark as
had been his experiences, unmerciful his disasters, been
doomed to endure. He read as follows:—
.nf r
“Department of Lands,
”October 30, 186—.
.nf-
“Sir—I have the honour to inform you, by direction
of the Minister for Lands, that, after the fullest consideration
of your case, it has been finally decided to
accept the tenders of Messrs. Forestall and others for the
blocks noted in margin, as having been received prior to
those of Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron.
.nf r
“I have the honour to be, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“J.M. Ingram,
“Under Secretary.
.nf-
.ti 2
“John Redgrave, Esq.”
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIV.
.ce
De Profundis
.sp 2
Jack hardly knew how and in what fashion he left
the city. Mechanically, and all aimlessly, as he steered
his course, some old memories helped to guide his footsteps
towards the desert, towards the great waste amid
which he had joyed and sorrowed, toiled and endured,
in which the palm-fringed fountains had been so rare,
whence now the simoon had arisen which had whelmed
all the treasures of his existence. From time to time as
he wandered on, ever northward, and trending towards
the outer bush-world, he accepted the rudest labour,
working stolidly and desperately until the allotted task
was concluded. In truth his mind was stunned; he had no
hope, no plan. What was the use of his trying anything?
Was he not doomed? Did not Mr. Blockham warn poor
Guy against having anything to do with an unlucky man?
He tried to forget the past and to avoid thoughts of the
future by hard work and continual exertion. When he
walked it was not in his accustomed leisurely pace, but
as if he were walking for a wager, trying to get away
from himself.
But this could not last long. One day, after he had
left a lonely bush inn, he felt attacked with dizziness,
which for a few moments would obscure his sight. From
time to time he felt as if a mortal sickness had seized
him, but he disregarded the warnings of Nature and
obstinately continued his course, until all at once his
powers failed him, and, sick to death in body and in
mind, he flung himself down by the side of a sheltering
bush and scarcely cared whether he lived or died. Faithful
to the last, patient of hunger and of thirst, strong in the
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
blind, unreasoning love of his kind, with a fidelity that
exceeds the friendship of man, and equals the purest love of
woman, the dog Help, with silent sympathy, lay by his side.
The form of the wanderer lay beneath the forest tree,
which swayed and rocked beneath the rising blast. With the
moaning of the melancholy shrill-voiced wind, wailing all
night as if in half-remembered dirges, mingled the cries of
a fever-stricken man. John Redgrave was delirious.
.sp 2
With recovered consciousness came a wondering gradual
perception of a hut, of the limited size and primitive
design ordinarily devoted to the accommodation of shepherds.
A fire burned in the large chimney; and the small resources
of the building had been carefully utilized. By
the hearth, smoking on a small stool, sat an elderly man,
whose general appearance Jack seemed hazily to recall.
As Jack moved, the man turned round, with the watchful
air of one who tends the sick, and disclosed the white
locks and rugged lineaments of the old Scotch shepherd
whom he had relieved at Gondaree, and to whose gratitude
he had owed the gift of the dog Help.
“Eh! mon!” ejaculated the ancient Scot, “ye have
been mercifully spared to conseeder your ways. I dooted
ye were joost gane to yer accoont when I pickit ye up
yonder, with the doggie howlin’ and greetin’ o’er ye.”
“I don’t see much mercy in the matter. Better far
that I were stiff and cold now under the yarran bush;
but I am much obliged to you all the same.”
“Kindly welcome; ye’re kindly welcome, young man:
ye’ve been on the spree, as they ca’ it, I can tell that
weel, more by token I hae nae preevilege to school ye on
that heed, seeing that I, Jock Harlaw, am just as good
as ready money in the deel’s purse from that self-same
inseedious, all-devourin’ vice.”
“No, it’s not that,” said Jack, with a faint smile,
“but I don’t wonder that you thought so. I’m very
tired, that’s all, and there’s something wrong with my
head, I think.”
“The Lord be thankit; I’m glad it’s no that devil’s
glamour that’s seized ye. But surely I ken the collie;
how did ye come by him, may I speer?”
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
“So you don’t remember me or the dog; you came to
Gondaree with him and the other pups on your back.”
“Lord save us! auld lassie wasna wrang, then; it’s just
fearsome,” ejaculated the old man, in accents of the deepest
concern and wonder. “And do you tell me,” continued he,
“that you’re the weel-gained, prosperous, kind-spoken gentleman
that helped old Jock in his sair need yon time? Fortune’s
given ye a downthraw; but oh, hinny, however sair the burden
may be, or sharp the strokes of adversity, better a hunner
times to bear a thing than to sell your manhood to the enemy
of the flesh.”
Jack saw there was still a suspicion in the old man’s mind;
it must have been hard for him to believe anything but drink
could have brought a man so low, but he did not resent the
mistake, and only closed his eyes wearily.
“If ye ask auld Jock Harlaw to tell you the truth,” the
old man continued, “he’ll say that of all the men he’s had
ken of he never saw one that did not die in the wilderness
once he had bowed the knee to the Moloch of drink. Ye
may see the Promised Land, and the everlastin’ hills glintin’
in the gold o’ the new Jerusalem; but ye maun see, like Moses
on the mountain top, or on the sands o’ the desert, ye’ll no
win oot, ance ye’re like me, if the angels frae heaven cam and
draggit ye by the hand.”
“It’s a bad look out, Jock, by your showing; but how is it,
with your strong perception of the evils of the habit, and your
religious turn of mind, that you have not broken yourself of
it?”
“Maister Redgrave,” answered the old man, solemnly, “that
is one of the awful and inscrutable meesteries of the life of the
puir, conceited, doited crater that ca’s himsel’ man. My
forbears were godly, sober, self-denying Christian men and
women. Till the day I left the bonny homes o’ Ettrick, for
this far, sad, wearifu’ land, nae living man had ever seen the
sign o’ liquor upon me, or could hae charged me wi’ the faintest
token of excess. I was shepherd for the Laird o’ Hopedale,
and nae happier lad than Jock Harlaw ever listened to the
lilting o’ the lasses on the Cowden Knowes.”
“And what tempted you to emigrate, and better your
condition, as it is ironically termed?”
“Weel, aweel,” pursued the old man, contemplatively, “my
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
nature was aye deeply tinged wi’ romance. I had heard tell
o’ the grand plains and forests, and the great sheep farms of
Australia, with opportunities of makin’ a poseetion just uncommon,
and I was tempted, like anither fule, to quit the
hame of my fathers, and the bonny Ettrick-shaw, and Mary
Gilsland, that was bonnier than a’, to mak’ my fortune. And
a pretty like fortune I hae made o’ it.”
“Well, but how did you come to grief? There must have
been so many people too glad to get a man like you among
their sheep.”
“I had my chances, I’ll no deny,” said the old man. “Ilka
one o’ us has ae guid chance in this life, forbye a wheen sma’
opportunities o’ weel-doin’. But though I wrocht, and toiled,
and scrapit for the day when I should write and bid Mary to
join me across the sea, I had nae great luck, and mair times
than one I coupit a’ the siller just as I had filled the stocking.
At the lang end of a’, just as things had mended, my puir
Mary died, and I had nae strength left to strive against the
evil one that came in the form of comfort to my sair heart
and broken speerit. Maybe I had learned to pass a wee
thing too near to the edge when I was working—there’s a
deal too much of that amang men that would scorn the idea
of drunkenness.”
“And the end?”
“And the end was that I was delivered over bound hand
and foot to a debasing habit, which has clung to me for thretty
years, in spite of prayers and resolutions, and tears of blood.
And so it will be, wae’s me, till the day when auld Jock Harlaw
dies in a ditch or under a tree like a gaberlunzie crater, or is
streekit in the dead-house o’ a bush public. And which gate
are ye gangin’ the noo?” demanded the old man with a
sudden change from his dolorous subject.
“Haven’t an idea; don’t know, and don’t care.”
“That’s bad,” said the old shepherd, looking at him with
pained and earnest looks; “but ye’re looking no fit to leave
this. I misdoot that I wranged ye when I thocht it was the
drink. What will I do if it is the fever?”
“Let me rest here; I dare say I shall soon get over it,” said
Jack, with a gleam of his old hopefulness, but he was touched
with the anxious manner of the kind old man, and made the
best of what he was afraid would be a serious illness.
.bn 295.png
.pn +1
But he was happily mistaken; a few days’ rest and the
careful nursing of the shepherd, whose small stock of
medicine had never before been broken into, sufficed to
restore him, not to health, but to a state of convalescence
which permitted him to stroll a little way from the hut.
Jack had had many talks with the old man, whose
experience was worth something, although he had not been
able to avail himself of it, and the conclusion he arrived at
was that he would accompany Harlaw to Jimburah.
“I’m weel kenned there; why suld ye no get a flock o’
sheep too? The doggie will do work fine for ye, and maybe
we’ll get a hut together, and I’ll cook for ye; then when ye
get strong ye can look aboot and see what ye can do.”
“Anything you like, Jock,” said he, wearily; “one thing
is much the same as another to me now.”
“Weel a weel,” said the old man, gratified at his acquiescence,
“there’s better lives than a herd’s in Australia, and
there’s waur. I wadna say but that after sax months or so,
with the labour and the calm, peaceful life where ye see
God’s handiwork and nae ither thing spread out before ye,
after sax months ye might find your courage and your health
come back to ye, and gang on your way to seek your fortune.”
“Didn’t you find it dreadfully lonely at first?” inquired
Jack.
“Weel, I canna in conscience deny that at first I thocht it
just being sold into slavery, but as time passed I found it
wasna sae devoid of rational satisfaction as might ha’ been
supposed. Many a peacefu’ day hae I walked ahint my
flock, sound in mind and body too. There’s poseetions in
life, I’ll no deny, that’s mair dignified and pridefu’, but on
a fine spring morning, when the grass is green, the birds a’
whistling and ca’ing to ither puir things, the face o’ Nature
seems kindly and gracious; the vara sheep, puir dumb
beasties, seem to acknowledge the influence of the scene,
and there’s a calm sense o’ joy and peace unknown to the
dwellers in towns.”
The old man warmed with his subject, and spoke with such
earnestness that Jack could not help smiling, far as his
thoughts were from anything like mirth.
“Well, Harlaw, man is a curious animal, not to be
accounted for on any reasonable plan or system. As you
.bn 296.png
.pn +1
and I have not managed to dispossess ourselves of the complex
functions chiefly exercised in the endurance of various
degrees of pain which we know as life, we may as well wear
them out for a time in what men call shepherding as in any
other direction. They don’t fence hereabout, then?”
“Not within years of it, sir; and I’m thinkin’ it’s just as
well for puir bodies like you and me, if you’ll excuse the
leeberty.”
“Don’t make any excuse, and get out of the way of saying
‘sir,’ if we are to be mates. Call me Jack—Jack Smith. Mr.
Redgrave is dead and buried—fathoms deep. Would to God he
were, and past waking!” he added, with sudden earnestness.
“Dinna say that; oh, dinna cease to have faith in His
mercy and long-suffering,” said the old man, beseechingly.
“I am old and fechless, and, as I hae told ye, a drunkard
neither mair nor less; but I cling to the promises in this book
(here he took from his pocket an old, much-worn Bible), and
though the mortal pairt o’ Jock Harlaw be stained wi’ sin
and weakness and folly, I hae na abandoned the hope and
the teaching o’ my youth, nor the trust that they may yet
gar me triumph over the Adversary. But we must be
ganging; it’s twenty miles, and lang anes too, to Jimburah.”
There was nothing but to buckle to the journey. Jack was
weak after his illness, but he faced the road as the manifest
alternative, the old man’s rations having been exhausted, and
further sojourn in the deserted hut being inexpedient.
He was thoroughly exhausted when the home-paddock of
Jimburah was sighted. He walked up with Jock Harlaw to
the overseer’s cottage, the proprietor’s house being unapproachable
by the “likes of them.” Here he and his
companion stood for half an hour, waiting the arrival of
that important personage, the overseer, along with nearly a
dozen other tramps, candidates for work, or merely food
and shelter in the “travellers’ hut,” like themselves. A
stout, bushy-bearded man rode up at a hand-gallop in the
twilight, and spoke.
“Well, there seem plenty of you just now, a lazy lot of
beggars, I’ll be bound; looking for work and praying you
mayn’t get it, eh?”
This was held to be very fair wit, and some of the hands
laughed appreciatingly at it.
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
“Any shepherds among you? You fellows with the dogs
I suppose have stolen them somewhere to look like the real
thing? Oh, it’s you, old Jock, is it?” he went on, with a
good-natured inflection, changing the hard tones of his voice.
“You’re just in time; I’ve lost two rascally sweeps of shepherds
at the dog-trap. Can you and your mate take two
flocks of wethers there? You know the place.”
“Nae doot they’ll be bad sheep to take,” quoth old Jock,
with national caution. “Just fit to rin the legs off a man
with the way they’ve been handled; but I’m no saying, if
ye’re in deeficulty.”
“Then you’ll take them? Well, you can come as early as
you like to-morrow morning. But stop; is your mate any
good? You don’t look as if you’d done much shepherding,
though you’ve got a fine dog, by the look of him.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” affirmed Jock, with prompt
decision, “and I’ll wager ye a pound o’ ’bacco ye hav’na a
better shepherd on the whole of Jimburah.”
“Humph!” ejaculated the official, “he may be as good as
most of them, and be no great things either. However, I’m
hard up, and must risk it. What’s your name?”
“John Smith,” said Jack, steadily.
“Uncommon fine name too. Well, Smith, you can go out
along with Scotch Jock to-morrow morning, and take the
1,800 flock; he has 2,200 in his. I’ll send your rations out
after you, and will come and count you to-morrow fortnight.
Come in now and take your pannikin of flour for to-night.
He knows the travellers’ hut. Here, you other fellows,
come in and get your grub.”
He who of old boasted himself equal to either fortune
enunciated a great idea. But how different, often, is the
practical application to the theory fresh from the philosopher’s
workshop!
.bn 298.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXV.
.pm start_poem
“There is a tide in the affairs of man
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”—Shakespeare.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
The “travellers’ hut” is an institution peculiar to divers
of the outlying and interior districts of Australia. It is
the outcome of experience and cogitation, the final compromise
between the claims of labour and capital, as to the
measure of hospitality to be extended to workmen errant.
Given the fact that a certain number of labourers will
appear at the majority of stations, almost every day of the
year, demanding one night’s food and lodging, how to
entertain them? Were they suffered to eat and drink at
discretion of the food supplied the permanent employés,
abuses would arise. Said employés would be always requiring
fresh supplies, having “just been eaten out” by the
wayfarers. Also disputes as to the labour of cooking. It
might happen that the more provident and unscrupulous
guests would occasionally carry away with them food
sufficient to place them “beyond the reach of want” on the
following day, or, so wayward is ungrateful man, might
levy upon the garments and personal property of the
station servants after they had gone forth to their work.
Such examples were not wholly wanting before the
establishment of that juste milieu, the “travellers’ hut.”
There, an iron pot, a kettle, a bucket, and firewood are
generally provided. Each traveller receives at the station
store a pint of flour and a pound of meat. These simple
but sufficing materials he may prepare for himself at the
travellers’ hut in any fashion that commends itself to his
palate. On the following day, if not employed, it is incumbent
upon him to move on to the next establishment.
.bn 299.png
.pn +1
Jack smoked his pipe over the fire in the caravanserai
aforesaid, after a meal of fried meat and cakes browned, or
rather blacked, in the frying-pan which had previously prepared
the meat. Old Jock performed this duty cheerfully,
and not without a certain rude skill. He produced from
his kit a small bag containing a modicum of tea and sugar,
which just sufficed for a pint each of the universal and
precious bush beverage, causing them to be looked upon
with envy by their less fortunate companions. Tired out
by the day’s journey, Jack had scarcely energy to consume
his share of the food, and but for the pannikin of tea,
indifferent enough, but still a wonderful restorative in all
“open air” life and labour, could not have essayed even so
much exertion. At another time he would have been
amused by the rude mirth and reckless jests of his associates.
But this night he sat silent and gloomy, hardly able to
realize his existence amid conditions so astonishingly altered.
“You’re rather down on your luck, young man,” observed
a stout but not athletic individual, smoking an exceedingly
black pipe, full of the worst possible tobacco; “you’ve made
too long a stage, that’s about it. I’m blowed if I’d knock
myself up, at this time of year, for all the squatters in the
blessed country.”
“No fear of you doin’ that, Towney,” said a wiry-looking
young fellow with light hair and a brickdust complexion,
which defied the climate to change its colour by a single
shade, “at this time of year, or any other, I should say.
How fur have you come?”
“A good five mile,” quoth the unabashed Towney, “and
quite enough too. I walked a bit, and smoked a bit, you
see. Blest if I didn’t think I should finish my baccy before
the blessed old sun went down.”
“Well, I’m full up of looking for work,” said the younger
man. “There’s no improvements goin’ on in this slow
place, or I could soon get in hut-buildin’, or dam-makin’, or
diggin’ post holes. I ain’t like you, Towney, able to coast
about without a job of work from shearin’ to shearin’. If
the coves knowed you as well as I do they’d let you starve
a bit, and try how you like that.”
An ugly look came into the eyes of the man as he said
slowly, “There might be a shed burnt, accidental-like, if
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
they tried that game. You remember Gondaree, Bill, and
the flash super? I wonder how he and his boss looked that
Sunday mornin’.”
Bill, an elderly, clean-shaved individual, the yellowness
of whose physiognomy favoured the hypothesis of prison
discipline having been applied (ineffectually) for his reformation,
gave a chuckle of satisfaction as he replied—
“Well, it happened most unfortunate. I ’ope it didn’t
ill-convenience ’em that shearin’. I hear as M‘Nab (he’s
boss now, and they’ve bought the next run) has got the
best travellers’ hut on the river. Anybody heard who
they’ve shopped for those hawkers at Bandra?” continued
Bill, who seemed to have got into a cheerful line of anecdote,
running parallel with the Police Gazette.
“Why, what happened them?” asked the fiery-faced
young man.
“Oh, not much,” affably returned Bill; “there wasn’t
much of ’em found, only a heap of bones, about the size
of shillings. Some chaps had rubbed ’em out and burned
’em.”
“What for?” inquired the sun-scorched proprietor of the
prize freckles.
“Well, they was supposed to be good for a hundred or so.
However, they put it away so artful that no one but the
police was able to collar it; and the fellows got nothin’ but a
trifle of slops and a fiver.”
“It’s my belief,” asserted the young man with the high
colour, concluding the conversation, “that you and Towney
are a pair of scoundrels as would cut the throat of your
own father for a note. And for two pins I’d hammer the
pair of ye, and kick yer out of the hut to sleep under a gum-tree.
It’s dogs like you, too, as give working-men a bad
name, and makes the squatters harder upon the lot of us
than they would be. I’m goin’ to turn in.”
The men thus discourteously entreated looked sullenly and
viciously at the speaker, but a low sound of approval from
the half-dozen other men showed that the house was with
him. Besides which, the wiry, athletic bushman was
evidently in good training, and had the great advantage of
youth and unbroken health on his side. So when he stepped
forward with his head up and a slight gesture of the left
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
hand, as of one not wholly devoid of scientific attainment,
the pair of ruffians turned off the affair with a forced laugh;
after which the whole of the company sought their sleeping
compartments or bunks, with but little of the delay
resulting from an elaborate toilette de nuit.
The next day found Jack and his companion in possession
of the Dog-trap out-station hut, and of two flocks of sheep,
duly counted over to them by the overseer. Two brush-yards
constructed on the side of a rocky hill, and half full of
dry sheep manure, a guano-like accumulation of years, completed
the improvements.
A month’s ration for the two men (64lbs. of flour, 16lbs.
sugar, and 2lbs. tea) was deposited upon the earthen floor by
the ration-carrier, who arrived in a spring-cart about the same
time as themselves.
“Now, my men,” said the overseer, after counting the
sheep and entering them in his pocket-book, “you’re all right
for a month. You can kill a sheep every other week, and
salt down what you can’t keep fresh. Smith, you’ll have to
stir them long legs of yours after your wethers; they’re only
four-tooth sheep, and devils to walk, I believe. Keep your
sheep-skins and send ’em in by the cart, or I’ll charge you
half-a-crown apiece for ’em. You can settle among yourselves
which way you’ll run your flocks; though I suppose you’ll
quarrel, and not speak to each other, like all the rest of the
shepherds, before half your time is out. If you lose any
sheep, one of you come in and report. Good-morning.”
With which exhortation Mr. Hazeham rode off, either by
nature not “a man of much blandishment,” or not caring, on
principle, to waste courtesy on shepherds.
“So here we maun sojourn for sax months,” remarked old
Jock, as they sat at their evening meal, after having yarded
their flocks, killed a sheep, swept and garnished their hut,
and made such approximation to comfort as their means permitted.
“I dinna ken but what we may gang along ducely
and comfortably. Ye were wise to write and order the
weekly paper. It will give us the haill news that’s going
and many an hour’s guid wholesome occupation, while the
sheep are in camp or at the water. We’ll maybe get a book
or two from the station library.”
“I expect you’ll have most of the reading for a while,”
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
answered ‘Mr. Smith.’ “What’s the use of knowing that
every one is better off than one’s self? One comfort is that
this flock keeps me going, and I shall sleep at night in
consequence.”
“Ye’ll no find them rin sae muckle after a week or twa’s
guid shepherding. There’s a braw ‘turn out’ here—both
sides frae the hut; once ye get to ken the ways o’ your
flock, ye’ll be like the guid shepherd in the Holy Book, and
they’ll be mair like to follow ye, man, than to keep rin-rinning
awa’ after every bit of green feed.”
In spite of Jack’s gloomy air, and refusal to take comfort,
or acknowledge interest in life, matters slowly improved. The
hut was not so bad, clean-swept and daily tended by the
neat handed Harlaw, who had constituted himself cook,
steward, and butler to the establishment. The country was
open, thus minimizing the labour of looking after the flocks,
which, left a good deal to themselves, as is the fashion of
experienced shepherds, mended and fattened apace. The
atmosphere of the interior, cool and fresh, “a nipping and an
eager air,” soon commenced to work improvement in the
general health of the two Arcadians.
John Redgrave had considerately written and ordered one
of the excellently conducted weekly papers of the colony,
which duly arrived, directed to “Mr. John Smith, Jimburah,
viâ Walthamstowe,” such being the imposing name of their
post town. The weekly journals of Australia, arranged something
after the pattern of The Field, are, we may confidently
assert, in certain respects the most creditable specimens
of newspaper literature known to the English-speaking world.
Comprising, as they do, fairly-written leading articles, tales
and sketches, essays political, pastoral and agricultural information,
travel, biography, records and descriptions of all
the nobler sports and athletic feats of communities hereditarily
addicted to such recreations, plus the ordinary news of the
day, they are hailed as a boon by all who have sufficient
intellectual development to feel the want of at least occasional
mental pabulum. Alike to the country gentleman and farmer,
the lonely stockman, the plodding drover, or the solitary
shepherd, they are at once a necessity and a benefit, occasionally
a priceless luxury.
So it came to pass that after a few weeks had glided on,
.bn 303.png
.pn +1
unmarked but by no means slowly, and the fate-guided comrades
had settled down to a placid endurance bordering upon
enjoyment of their damper, mutton, quart-pot tea, and negro-head,
Jack began to look forward to his paper, and to
digest the contents of it, from the stock advertisements to
the list of new books, unattainable, alas! with a relish which
surprised himself. The regular exercise, the healthful, pure
atmosphere, the absence of anxiety, the sound sleep, and
natural appetite had produced their ordinary effects, had
thoroughly recruited his bodily and mental powers. In
despite of himself, so to speak, and of the persistence with
which he would declare that he was irrevocably ruined, his
mental thermometer rose perceptibly. He experienced once
more a sensation (and there is no more complete test of high
bodily health) which he had rarely enjoyed since the blessed
days of Marshmead. He felt the childlike lightness of spirit,
on awakening with the dawn, which more than all things
denotes an uninjured and perfect physique, a nervous system
in normal and flawless condition. Wonderful is the self-attuning
power of the “harp of a thousand strings,” the
divinely-fashioned instrument upon which, alas! angelic
melodies alternate with demon wailings; and the fiend-chorus
from the lowest inferno is mysteriously permitted to
drown the seraphic tones which would fain uplift the
aspirations of man to his celestial home.
.tb
With braced sinews, freshly-toned nerves, and veins refilled
with pure and unfevered blood, John Redgrave appeared so
manifestly an altered man that his humble mentor could
not refrain from approving comment.
“Eh, ma certie, but ye’re just improvin’ and gainin’
strength, like the vara sheep, the puir dumb craters, just
uncommon. There’s a glint o’ your e’e, and a lift o’ your
heed, and a swing o’ your walk that tell me ye’re castin’ awa’
the black shadow—the Lord be praised for it, and for a’
His mercies. I’ll live to see you ance mair in your rightful
place amang men, and ye’ll give old Jock a corner in your
kitchen, or a lodge gate to keep, when he’s too auld and failed
to work, and hasna strength left for as much as to drink.”
“You have a right to a share of whatever I may have in
time to come,” said Jack, with comparative cheerfulness.
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
“But I have lost the habit of hoping. I do feel wonderfully
better; and if I could look forward to anything but to some
fresh strange trick of destiny I should feel again like the man
I once was, who had the heart to dare and the hand to back
a bold adventure. But I doubt my luck, as I have had good
reason to do; and I believe old Blockham was not far wrong
when he said that there were some men (and he took me to
be one of them) who, with whatever apparent prospects,
never did any good.”
“He’s an auld sneck-drawer. I kenned him weel when
he hadna sae muckle as a guid pair o’ boots. I wadna gie a
foot-rot parin’ for the opinion o’ a hunner like him.”
“He is a stupid old fellow enough,” said Jack; “but those
sort of people have an awkward knack of being right, especially
where the making of money is concerned. A man can’t
be too thick-headed to be a successful money-grubber.”
“It gars one doot o’ the wisdom and maircy of an over-ruling
Providence whiles,” assented the old man; “but I’ll
no deny that siccan thoughts hae passed through my ain brain
when I hae seen the senseless, narrow, meeserable ceephers
that were permitted to gather up a’ the guid things o’ this
life. But that’s no to say that a man wi’ understanding and
pairts suldna learn caution frae adversity, and pass all these
creeping tortoise-bodies in the race of life, like the hare, puir
beastie, if the auld story-book had given him anither heat.”
“But the hare never gets a chance of a second heat, my
old friend,” said Jack, ruefully; “that’s the worst of it; he
jumps into a gravel-pit, or a stray greyhound chops him. I
think I see my sheep drawing off.”
So the colloquy ended for the time. But Jack doubtless
revolved the question suggested by his humble friend, and
asked himself whether the returning hope of which he was
conscious was the herald of a gleam of fickle Fortune’s favour,
or whether it was an ignis fatuus, destined to lure him on to
yet more dire misfortune.
“That can hardly be,” he concluded, in soliloquy. “I
can’t well be lower, and he that is down need fear no fall,
as the old song says.”
But Jack’s hope this time was no ignis fatuus. He had
seen the lowest depths of his adversity, and though his spirit
had been crushed for a while his moral nature had not suffered.
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
And now that his health was restored he was ready to face
his fate as a man should, and struggle once more to get himself
a place among other men as soon as he got the chance;
and the chance came soon, and in a form which he had not
dared to hope.
As he sat one day under a tree watching the sheep which
were feeding on a wide spread of country before him, he took
a newspaper out of his pocket which had arrived at the hut
just as he was starting, and on looking down the column of
“local news” his eye met a paragraph which caused the
blood to leap in his veins, and filled his mind with a new
and sudden hope. It was this—
“We regret to hear that Mr. F. Forestall and his companion,
a stockman, name unknown, have been killed by the
blacks when they were on their way to take possession of
some new land which Mr. Forestall had purchased. The land
is again in the market.”
Jack bounded from his seat in a state of feverish excitement.
“By Jove! there’s a chance for me yet, but I have
not a minute to lose.”
He was impatient to be off at once, but there were the
sheep to be driven in and a horse to be got. While he
stood thinking what was the best to be done he saw Mr.
Hazeham riding up, and suddenly resolved to tell him of his
predicament and appeal to him for help.
“Well, what do you want?” said the overseer, “and what
do you mean by sitting there reading the lies in that confounded
paper and letting your sheep go all over the
country?”
“The sheep have rather a spread,” said Jack, quietly, “but
you’ll find them all right. They are feeding towards the
yard, and have a good way to go yet, but if you have a few
minutes to spare I want to speak to you, if you please, and
ask your help.”
Mr. Hazeham looked in surprise at “John Smith,” and his
astonishment was considerably increased when he heard all
Jack had to say. He was good-natured in the main, and not
unwilling to help a man who had been a large landed proprietor,
and might be again; besides, he was not a little
pleased at his own sagacity, for he remembered that he had
described Jack to Mr. Delmayne, the proprietor, as looking
.bn 306.png
.pn +1
“like a swell out of luck,” so he promptly replied, “Certainly
I will help you, Mr. ——”
“Redgrave,” said Jack, reddening.
“Mr. Redgrave, I see there’s no time to lose. You shall
have old Scamper, he’s the best horse we’ve got, and never
mind about the sheep; a fellow applied this morning, and
he’s still at the huts. I shall be at my place in an hour, or
less; you come up, and you shall have the horse and your
wages, John Smith,” he added with a laugh.
Jack laughed too, and started off as fast as he could go
to find the old shepherd.
On his way his thoughts went back to Forestall whom
he had never forgiven for his treachery; but death does
away with offences, and he only felt pity towards the man
who had supplanted him, and who had not even entered
into possession of his ill-gotten lands.
“Puir fellow,” said old Jock, when he heard the story,
“I expect it was the same black varmints that gave
Meester Waldron his death. There’s naething in the way
of fichting so deevilish as thae wee pisoned arrows, but
I wadna hae ye too much set up. The land may be sold,
ye ken.”
“True, but there is a chance, and luck may be in my
favour this time.”
“Dinna talk o’ luck, laddie; the Lord has seen fit to
chastise your pride, for weel ye wot ye were high-minded
ance, and sin’ ye’ve taken your punishment doucely I’m fain
to believe that He may see fit to reward you; and,” continued
the old man, solemnly lifting his hands, “wherever
ye gang, and whatever happens, may the Lord bless ye, and
hae ye in His holy keepin’.”
“Good-bye, old fellow,” said Jack, wringing his hand,
while his eyes glistened with unwonted dew. “If I succeed
you shall hear of me, and you must come to me, and bring
the dogs with you.”
Mounted on Scamper, which Jack had bought of Mr.
Hazeham, he made the best of his way to the town. His
first proceeding was to call at the office of the Minister for
Lands: it was possible they might be able to direct him to
the agents of Mr. Forestall. Jack was fortunate enough to
see the minister himself, who remembered him directly, for
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
he had felt much sympathy with Jack, and had been indignant
at the way he had been treated.
“I suppose you are come about that land, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Yes, I am,” said Jack, with a beating heart, and a
desperate attempt to speak calmly. “I hope I am not too
late. Will you tell me, sir, whether the transfer was quite
completed?”
“I am happy to tell you it was not, Mr. Redgrave. The
papers were drawn up, but there has been some delay in
the office. Poor Forestall was eager to see his possessions,
and thought he would conclude the arrangements when he
came back. So I suppose we have but to transfer the names,
eh?”
“Thank God,” said Jack, fervently, and the sudden revulsion
from fear and uncertainty to assurance sent a sudden
choke into his throat which prevented his saying any more.
The minister saw his agitation, and talked on in a kindly
way, giving him time to recover.
From the minister’s office Jack went to the cattle agents
he had seen before, and made the same arrangements as
formerly. He had not touched poor Guy’s £300, and that
would be enough to get stores, pay wages, and so on.
There was no delay anywhere. Every one in the office knew
how Jack had been cheated, and was ready to oblige him;
so the papers were ready for him in a very short time, and
once more he set out on his travels.
.bn 308.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVI.
.pm start_poem
“Time and Tide had thus their sway,
Yielding, like an April day,
Smiling morn for sullen morrow,
Years of joy for hours of sorrow.”—Scott.
.pm end_poem
.sp 2
There is no need to write John Redgrave’s history for
the next three years. It was a time of hard and continuous
struggle, large successes and exasperating failures; his stock
increased largely, but there was great difficulty in transporting
droves of cattle to the nearest market; plenty of
water for sheep, and no danger of floods or droughts, but it
was not easy at such an out-station as this to get sufficient
labour in shearing-time, and the great distance the wool
had to be conveyed took off much of the profits. Moreover,
Jack could not make up his mind that it would be right
to bring Maud into such a wilderness, with no neighbours
but the blacks, who, though they had shown no hostility to
Jack, were not to be trusted. He had written to Maud
at first, full of hope and confident of success, and she, dear
girl, had been willing to share with him the rudest log hut;
but as time went on he felt how impossible it was that he
should bring her to be the light of his home before he had
made that home fit to receive her.
In his solitary hours, in the silence of his small dwelling-place,
he bitterly regretted having left Marshmead. It was
possible that he might become a very rich man if he lived to
be old, but meantime his youth was going by, and happiness
along with it.
But time had good things in store yet for the brave man
whose courageous spirit had never suffered more than a temporary
depression. On one of his visits to the town of —— to
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
buy some of the multitudinous articles required on a large
station, he learnt from an old acquaintance who was there
on the same errand that Donald McDonald, who had bought
Marshmead, had expressed a very strong determination to
sell Marshmead and go back to Scotland. His nephew, Mr.
Angus McTavish, had long ago bought a very large sheep
run, and was reported to be doing wonders. Jack’s heart
leaped at the thought of getting back Marshmead, where he
had been so happy, so undisturbed by carking care. With a
thoughtful brow he began to consider the ways and means.
By strict economy and careful management, added to two
fairly good years, he had paid off the greater part of the
purchase-money, and his sheep had increased so much that,
after all his losses, he calculated upon being able to buy
Marshmead if only he could get a purchaser for Wondega.
He wrote, accordingly, to Bertie Tunstall, asking him to
make inquiries about Marshmead, and authorizing him to
buy it if Mr. McDonald was really going to sell.
Pending these negotiations, Jack was restless and excited.
The thought of Maud was ever uppermost; she had expressed
her willingness to wait, for years if it was necessary. At the
same time, rightly judging her love by his own, he felt that
she would be happier, as she frankly said, helping to make
his home happy than in waiting until everything should be
put in order for herself. Yet, again, how could he bring her
to Wondega?
An answer came in due time: McDonald would sell, but
he considered the improvements he had made on the estate,
which turned out to be very slight, and the increase in the
cattle would make it worth a great deal more than he had
given for it.
However, he was willing to sell the place on the same conditions
on which he had bought it—namely, half the money in
cash, and the rest in bills at short date. Despatching another
letter to Tunstall, directing him to close with the offer, Jack
bade adieu to Wondega, a place endeared by no memories of
love and friendship, as had been Gondaree and Marshmead,
but, on the contrary, made gloomy by having been the scene
of Guy Waldron’s death, and his own solitary and uncheered
abode during the time of great anxiety and unceasing effort.
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
There was no difficulty in selling the place; it was different
now from the time when the two adventurers first stood on
the hill and caught sight of Lake Maud; great droves of sheep
pastured on the slopes, a large but rude wool-shed stood in
the shelter of some trees, and a modest cottage was built in
the open, loop-holed at certain heights in case of an attack
from the natives. Some of the land had been fenced in, but
there had been no money to spare for rail-fencing, and the
rails and posts were of wood, mostly cut, shaped, and put
down by Jack himself.
The land sold well, and Jack was enabled to buy back his
own old place. On his way back he passed by Gondaree, and
could not refrain from stopping and making some inquiries
about M‘Nab, who happened to be absent from the station.
The year succeeding his downfall had been unusually
favourable to the pastoral interests. High prices for wool
and stock, steady rainfall, new country opening, a cessation of
wars and rumours of war—all these circumstances had combined
to produce and sustain for squatters the most protracted
term of triumphant success ever known in the Australias.
Those who, without skill or energy, had by good luck purchased
when stock were at their lowest, had of course been
floated out on the ever-deepening tide into undreamed-of
fortune and success. Those who, like Alexander M‘Nab,
possessed both, had gone on from one successful enterprise
to another with astonishing rapidity. His name, as the
managing partner in this district for the great firm of Bagemall
Brothers, was constantly quoted as the exemplar of first-class
management, luck in speculation, successful shrewdness,
and well-deserved advancement. A magistrate, an exhibitor
of prize stock, an inventor of improvements in machinery as
applied to station uses, a co-proprietor of several of the largest
properties in the district, a power in the state, his name was
in every man’s mouth. Time and prosperity had mellowed
his perhaps originally aggressive propensities, and now he was
popular, respected among all classes of men.
John was glad to hear of the prosperity of his old overseer,
and pushed on with a light heart to Juandah. He was met
with a warm welcome. Mark Stangrove looked more prosperous,
a trifle stouter and merrier; the good years had told in
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
his favour. Maud was lovelier than ever, though she was
certainly thinner and paler, so John Redgrave thought at
first, with a pang of compunction, but after he had been
there two or three days he fancied that he must have been
mistaken, for the bloom on her cheek and the sparkle in her
eye were as beautiful as ever.
“Oh, Maud, my darling,” said Jack, as they stood together
in the veranda the evening of his arrival, “what time I
have wasted! I go back to Marshmead a poorer man than
when I left it, for I am burdened with a debt, and what years
I have lost!”
“Don’t regret the past, dear Jack,” said Maud, sliding her
little hand into his; “perhaps if you had never left Marshmead
you would always have been a little dissatisfied with
it; besides, if you had never left it we should not have met.”
“I would bear it all over again if you were the prize at
the end, Maud.”
“Once is enough,” said Maud, with an arch glance from
her bright eyes.
“And I may have my prize?”
“Yes, when you are ready,” replied Maud, demurely.
“I’m ready now, you saucy girl,” said Jack, laughing,
though he winced at the implied reproach in her words,
“and I have a great mind to take you at your word, and
carry you off to Marshmead at once.”
“Come back when you like, my dear fellow,” said Mark
Stangrove, who had just joined them, “and then we’ll see
about it.”
The week passed all too quickly, but Jack resolved that
it should not be very long before he returned, and certain
whispered conferences with Maud settled the time.
As John Redgrave at length reached the homestead,
certain changes were strongly apparent. The once trim,
orderly, and pleasant place was weed-grown and melancholy of
aspect. The stables were tenantless, and bore traces of long
disuse. Many of the buildings were roofless, while the
materials of others had been used up for the formation of
out-houses. Mr. McDonald did not “believe,” as he expressed
it, in improvements, nor in having one man or boy about his
establishment who could possibly be done without; for this
.bn 312.png
.pn +1
reason probably he made use of the garden as a calf paddock,
and Jack’s heart felt acute misery when he saw the trampled
flower-beds, the broken fruit-trees, the mutilated shrubs; but
McDonald was not a man whom this sort of thing troubled.
To have lived in sight of such a daily desecration would have
been to some men an intolerable annoyance. He did not care
a jot, when duly satisfied by careful inspection that his bank
balance was on the right side, that his daily steak and glass
of grog were attainable, if every garden in the land had been
uprooted. In other than these convictions and satisfactions
he had no interest. He rarely rode over the run. He never
helped to bring in the calves to brand, or the fat bullocks for
market. He was by no means particular about keeping up
the purity of the carefully-bred herd. He often permitted
his calves to be past the proper age before they were branded,
probably by the aid of his neighbour’s stockmen. But with
all this apparent neglect, and his whisky-drinking to boot, he
kept steadily to his principle of having as little labour to pay
and feed as was possible. He did not mind a few strayed or
even lost cattle. If a few calves were branded by others he
troubled not his head; and yet this obese, unintelligent block
made more money than the cleverest man in the whole district.
His secret was this, and I present it to aspiring
pastoralists: he had no personal expense; he had no debts;
therefore he was able to weather out the terrible financial
gales when the failure of clever, hard-working men was of
daily occurrence.
As Jack got off his horse at the house, Elsie came to the
door.
“Eh! but it’s Maister John, it’s my ain bairn,” she cried,
“come to bless my auld e’en before I dee; oh, thank the
Lord that I hae lived to see this day.”
The old woman flung her arms round his neck and burst
into tears.
“My dear old Elsie,” said Jack, kissing her, “I am as
glad to be here as you are to see me; and where’s
Geordie?”
“Geordie is awa looking after the cattle in the stock, but
he’ll be here the nicht. And oh, Maister John, is it you
that’s bought the place?”
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
“Indeed it is, Elsie, and you must tell me what has been
done since I left.”
“Eh, but ye must hae your dinner first, my bonny man,
and I must see aboot the getting o’t; but bide a wee, I’ll send
for Geordie; he’ll tell ye a’.”
Later in the evening John heard from the lips of his two
faithful friends what had been done in his absence. Whatever
improvements bad been made, and they were very few, were
in the direction of the cattle-yards. They were larger than
formerly, and that was all; but the stock had increased
largely, and were in good condition. As to the lost garden,
Jack thought that Maud might like to watch the gradual
formation of a new one. He had got out of the habit of
thinking that everything should be complete and perfect
before Maud came.
After setting men to work at repairs in the stables to begin
with, Jack in a few days’ time rode over to pay a visit to his
old friend Bertie Tunstall, who could hardly do enough to
show his gladness. Jack had so much to say that the two
days of his stay hardly sufficed for a recountal of all he had
seen, felt, and suffered, since leaving Marshmead. In old
times they used to enjoy the circulation of ideas produced
and quickened by the mutual intercourse of persons who
read habitually and did not permit the wondrous faculty of
thought to be entirely absorbed by the cares of every-day
life, by the claims of business, by plans and actions tending
directly or indirectly to the acquisition and investment
of money. It is given to few active professions to
afford and to justify as great a degree of leisure for
realizing an abstract thought as to that of the Australian
squatter. He may manage his property shrewdly and successfully,
and still utilize a portion, at either end of the day,
for history and chronicle of old, for poetry and politics, for
rhyme and reason. He can vary intellectual exercise with
hard bodily labour. He may possess, at small additional
cost, the latest literary products of the old and new world.
He may, after the arrival of each mail-steamer, revel in
masterpieces of the thought-giants, fresh from the workshop.
When kindred spirits are available within meeting distance,
great is the joy of the pioneers, what time the half-wild
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
herds are gathered; the tender oxlets seared with the indelible
cipher. Then arises the bustle of the body as each
man lauds a favourite author or decries a pet aversion.
Life again flowed on for Jack with the peaceful security
and round of accustomed duties which had filled up the days
of long ago happily and so completely. Spring ripened into
glowing summer with stores of fruit and flowers; with long
dreamy days of sunshine tempered by breezes which wandered
over marsh and mere, fresh from gentle murmurings with
the wandering ocean wave. Again he saw the wild swan
lead her brood of cygnets through the deep reed-bordered
meres. Again he leaned from his saddle at midday and dipped
his broad-leafed hat in the cool marsh waters which plashed
pleasantly around his horse’s feet. Once more he rose at
dawn to feel the thrice-blessed sense of safety and untroubled
possession of the land. Again he mingled with his fellows
on terms of absolute equality; nay, more, of slight but
acknowledged superiority, as of one who had bought experience,
who had struggled with fate and overcome. And
in the midst of the priceless sensation of contentment and
repose came a fuller tide of thankfulness, a savour of keener
relish, born of the unforgotten hardships of the past. Before
the summer days had reached their longest John Redgrave
brought home his bride.
What need to say that they were happy? The union of
two such loving hearts and two such perfect tempers is sure
to bring happiness. At the sight of his friend’s lovely wife,
and Jack’s perfect delight in her, Bertie Tunstall suddenly
found himself a lonely and miserable man. He said his health
needed a change, and went off to town, from whence he
returned in a few weeks an engaged man, and in due time
made another visit to the same place, and brought back a
pretty, amiable, loving little wife, who proved to be a great
favourite of Maud’s.
According to John Redgrave’s promise, old Jock Harley
was not forgotten; a place by the “ingle neuk” was offered
him, but he preferred a hut of his own, and a comfortable
one was built for him on the hill-side, far away from the
house, where he could have his eye on the cattle, though he
never took the interest in them which he did in sheep, giving
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
it as his opinion that they were “puir doited beasties, and
unco hard to unnerstan’.” The dog Help came with him,
and was made a great pet of by all the household.
When John grew prosperous and wealthy he sent home a
considerable sum to Guy Waldron’s sisters, the increase of
the £300 which had come to him so opportunely when he was
in his direst need.
As years passed on, as the clover and rye-grass matted in
thick sward over the fens and flats of Marshmead, Jack found
his thoughts running much upon the education of the steadily
increasing olive-branches that came, and grew, and flourished
in that cool, breezy clime.
To the alarm of old Elsie and Geordie, who spoiled the
rosy boys and girls to their hearts’ content, Mrs. Redgrave
already begins to hint at a residence in the metropolis, solely,
of course, for the sake of masters and so on for dear Bertie
and Maud.
For many a year John Redgrave’s life and opinions have
been before his countrymen and close neighbours, great and
small, poor and rich. His active principles have been plain
for all men to see. If he buys a thousand acres of the
Marshmead Crown lands, he employs no agent, but stands up
like a man and bids in person. His motto is “fair and above
board.” What he thinks right to do he will perform if he
can, maugre land-sharks, agitators, or even his very respectable
and slightly democratic farmer neighbours. Every one
in the district knows, or believes he knows, nearly every
thought of the heart of that transparent kindly nature—of
that hearty, jolly and benevolent Squire of Marshmead. But
two of his opinions have ever excited remark or called forth
curiosity. One is an intense dislike to sheep, under any and
all forms of management. The other is a furious and unreasonable
hostility to the extensive pastoral region which
lies north of the Murray.
His tale is told. I hold it expedient in common fairness
to inform my confidential friend, the reader, that the writer
is acquainted with more than one Jack who abandoned the
substance for the shadow; with more—many more, alas!—than
one or two young, brilliant, brave, and beautiful Jacks,
who, enthralled by the Circe of new worlds, served henceforth
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
to fill her dungeon-sties, or to wander aimlessly from land to
land, till kindly death released from union wasted body and
ruined soul. But, alas! not with many who, like John
Redgrave, fought their way back to comfort and affluence,
after having gone down into the depths of misfortune,—not
with many who “suffered and were strong.”
.ce
THE END.
.ce
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
.pb
.ni
.ce
MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.
.nf c
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.
.nf-
.in 2
.ti -2
A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Gold-fields
of Australia. A New Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
.in
GUARDIAN.—“A singularly spirited and stirring tale of Australian
life, chiefly in the remoter settlements.... Altogether it is a capital
story, full of wild adventure and startling incidents, and told with a
genuine simplicity and quiet appearance of truth, as if the writer were
really drawing upon his memory rather than his imagination.”
SPECTATOR.—“We have nothing but praise for this story. Of
adventure of the most stirring kind there is, as we have said, abundance.
But there is more than this. The characters are drawn with great skill.
Every one of the gang of bushrangers is strongly individualised. A book
of no common literary force.”
ACADEMY.—“It is not often that an Australian novel, an Australian
romance by an Australian, is so well worth reprinting as Robbery under
Arms. It is picturesque and as true to the life it depicts as was Marcus
Clarke’s famous book, and in its descriptions of stations and up-country
scenes and incidents it is worthy of comparison with Geoffrey Hamlyn.”
.sp 2
.nf c
THE MINER’S RIGHT.
A TALE OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOLD-FIELDS.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
.nf-
ATHENÆUM.—“The picture is unquestionably interesting, thanks
to the very detail and fidelity which tend to qualify its attractiveness
for those who like excitement and incident before anything else.”
SPEAKER.—“There are many good things in it.”
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“The three volumes are brimful of
adventure, in which gold, gold-diggers, prospectors, claim-holders, take
an active part.”
WORLD.—“Full of good passages, passages abounding in vivacity, in
the colour and play of life.... The pith of the book lies in its singularly
fresh and vivid pictures of the humours of the gold-fields: tragic humours
enough they are too, here and again.”
.sp 2
.nf c
A COLONIAL REFORMER.
3 Vols. Crown 8vo. 31s. 6d.
.nf-
GLASGOW HERALD.—“One of the most interesting books about
Australia we have ever read.”
SATURDAY REVIEW.—“Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows
with great point and vigour, and there is no better reading than the
adventurous parts of his books.”
.bn 318.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.ce
Messrs. Macmillan and Co.’s Standard Novels.
.nf c
UNIFORM EDITION OF THE NOVELS OF
F. MARION CRAWFORD.
In Crown 8vo, Cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each.
.nf-
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf
MR. ISAACS: a Tale of
Modern India. Portrait of Author.
DR. CLAUDIUS: A True Story.
A ROMAN SINGER.
ZOROASTER.
MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf
A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
PAUL PATOFF.
WITH THE IMMORTALS.
GREIFENSTEIN.
SANT’ ILARIO.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.sp 2
.nf c
UNIFORM EDITION OF
MRS. CRAIK’S NOVELS AND TALES.
(The Author of “John Halifax, Gentleman.”)
In Crown 8vo, Cloth extra, 3s. 6d. each.
.nf-
OLIVE. With Illustrations by G. Bowers.
THE OGILVIES. With Illustrations by J. McL. Ralston.
AGATHA’S HUSBAND. With Illustrations by Walter
Crane.
HEAD OF THE FAMILY. With Illustrations by Walter
Crane.
TWO MARRIAGES.
THE LAUREL BUSH.
MY MOTHER AND I. With Illustrations by J. McL.
Ralston.
MISS TOMMY: A Mediæval Romance. With Illustrations
by Frederick Noel Paton.
KING ARTHUR: Not a Love Story.
.sp 2
.nf c
RE-ISSUE OF THE SIXPENNY EDITION OF
CHARLES KINGSLEY’S NOVELS.
Medium 8vo, Sewed, Price 6d. each.
.nf-
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf
WESTWARD HO!
HYPATIA.
YEAST.
ALTON LOCKE.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf
TWO YEARS AGO.
.rj
[Just Ready.
HEREWARD THE WAKE.
.rj
[In the Press.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.bn 319.png
.pn +1
.nf c
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.
POPULAR NOVELS BY MR. MARION CRAWFORD.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. each.
.nf-
.ce
MR. ISAACS: A Tale of Modern India.
DAILY NEWS:—“The best novel that has ever laid its scene in our
Indian dominions.”
ATHENÆUM:—“A work of unusual ability.”
.ce
DR. CLAUDIUS. A True Story.
ATHENÆUM:—“Mr. Crawford has achieved another success.”
.ce
A ROMAN SINGER.
TIMES:—“A masterpiece of narrative.... In Mr. Crawford’s
skilful hands it is unlike any other romance in English literature.”
.ce
ZOROASTER.
GUARDIAN:—“An instance of the highest and noblest form of novel....
Alike in the originality of its conception and the power with which
it is wrought out, it stands on a level that is almost entirely its own.”
.nf c
MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.
A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
.nf-
GUARDIAN:—“The tale is written with all Mr. Crawford’s skill.”
SATURDAY REVIEW:—“Unlike most novels, goes on improving
up to the end.”
.ce
PAUL PATOFF.
ATHENÆUM:—“The originality of the story, the charm of the
description, and the brilliancy of the narrative are undeniable.”
.ce
WITH THE IMMORTALS.
SPECTATOR:—“To do justice to Mr. Crawford’s remarkable book
by extracts would be impossible.... It cannot fail to please a reader who
enjoys crisp, clear, vigorous writing, and thoughts that are alike original
and suggestive.”
.ce
GRIEFENSTEIN.
SATURDAY REVIEW:—“With the exception of ‘Saracinesca,’
his most consistent work, Mr. Crawford has not written anything so good
as his last novel, ‘Griefenstein.’”
ACADEMY:—“During the whole of his literary career Mr. Marion
Crawford has produced nothing quite so powerful as one or two of the
situations in ‘Griefenstein.’”
.ce
SANT’ ILARIO.
ATHENÆUM:—“The plot is skilfully concocted, and the interest
is sustained to the end. The various events, romantic and even sensational,
follow naturally and neatly, and the whole is a very clever piece of work.”
SCOTSMAN:—“The book is full of passages of remarkable power.
A reader will find it hard to decide whether this is not the best of Mr.
Crawford’s novels.”
.bn 320.png
.pn +1
.nf c
MESSRS. MACMILLAN AND CO.’S
THREE-AND-SIXPENNY SERIES.
In Crown 8vo. Cloth extra. 3s. 6d. each.
By Rolf Boldrewood.
ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. | THE MINER’S RIGHT.
THE SQUATTER’S DREAM.
By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
LOUISIANA; AND THAT LASS O’ LOWRIE’S.
By Sir H. Cunningham.
THE C[OE]RULEANS. | THE HERIOTS.
WHEAT AND TARES.
By D. Christie Murray and Henry Herman.
HE FELL AMONG THIEVES.
By Thomas Hardy.
THE WOODLANDERS. | WESSEX TALES.
By Bret Harte.
CRESSY.
By Henry James.
A LONDON LIFE. | ASPERN PAPERS. | TRAGIC MUSE.
By Annie Keary.
.nf-
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf
CASTLE DALY.
YORK AND A LANCASTER ROSE.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf
JANET’S HOME.
OLDBURY.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.nf c
By Margaret Lee.
FAITHFUL AND UNFAITHFUL.
.nf-
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf c
By Amy Levy.
REUBEN SACHS.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf c
By Lord Lytton.
THE RING OF AMASIS.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.ce
By D. Christie Murray.
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf
AUNT RACHEL.
JOHN VALE’S GUARDIAN.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf
SCHWARTZ.
THE WEAKER VESSEL.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.ce
By Mrs. Oliphant.
.if t
.in 10
.if-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf
A BELEAGUERED CITY.
JOYCE.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf
NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.
KIRSTEEN.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.dv class='column-container'
.dv class='column-left'
.nf c
By W. Clark Russell.
MAROONED.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv class='column'
.nf c
By Mrs. Humphry Ward.
MISS BRETHERTON.
.nf-
.dv-
.dv-
.if t
.in
.if-
.ce
Uniform with the above.
.nf
STORM WARRIORS. By the Rev. John Gilmore.
TALES OF OLD JAPAN. By A.B. Mitford.
A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS. By W. Warde Fowler. Illustrated by Bryan Hook.
TALES OF THE BIRDS. By the Same. Illustrated by Bryan Hook.
LEAVES OF A LIFE. By Montagu Williams, Q.C.
LATER LEAVES. By Montagu Williams, Q.C.
TRUE TALES FOR MY GRANDSONS. By Sir S.W. Baker.
TALES OF OLD TRAVEL. By Henry Kingsley.
.nf-
.ce
Other Volumes to follow.
.ce
MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
.sp 4
.dv class='tnotes'
.ce
Transcriber’s Note
This table summarizes any corrections made to the text, as printed.
.ta l:10 l:40 l:18 w=90%
p. 17 | the opposition of the others[,/.] | Corrected.
p. 33 | many other inhabitants.[”] | Added.
p. 44 | any dacency next or anigh it[.] | Added.
p. 45 | I’ll send Joe[.] | Added.
p. 47 | you know[.]” | Added.
p. 36 | [‘\“]She and Charley will head them | Corrected.
p. 76 | but we have a far pas[s]age | Corrected.
p. 104 | they were only fifteen short[.] | Added.
p. 111 | was the girl Wildd[cu/uc]k | Transposed.
p. 126 | or Dick, and Liberty Hall.[’/”] | Corrected.
P. 134 | and worked with even suspicious smoothness[.] | Added.
p. 140 | as he [grew, up/grew up,] showed | Moved comma.
p. 159 | to well to[o] be mistaken. | Removed.
p. 161 | [“]Little was said. | Removed.
p. 180 | tun[n]elled | Added.
p. 217 | “I will, if——[”] | Added.
p. 232 | the una[c]customed scene | Added.
p. 298 | in[ ]certain respects | Spaced added.
.ta-
.dv-