“Who calleth thee, heart? World’s strife,
With a golden heft to his knife.”—_E.B. Browning_
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.
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 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?”
“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 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:—
“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.”
“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 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 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 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 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, “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!”