Transcriber’s Note:
Minor errors, attributable to printer’s errors, have been corrected.
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details
regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its
preparation.
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~’.
THE SQUATTER’S DREAM
~A Story of Australian Life~
[Illustration]
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_
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.
THE SQUATTER’S DREAM
_A STORY OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE._
CHAPTER I.
“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._
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 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 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 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 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 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.