“A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command.”—_Wordsworth._
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 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.”
“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), 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—
“Over the downs mayst thou scour, nor mind
Whether Horace’s mistress be cruel or kind.”
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 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, 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 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 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
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 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.
“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 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.”