It occasionally occurs to our unresting, unreasonable minds, prone, as
we all are, to straining the mental vision and wearying our hearts with
efforts to descry the form, to catch the Sibylline words, of the veiled
future, that we are not so very wretched in the society of the present.
After some slight intervals of sighing for the (social) fleshpots of
Egypt, Mr. Neuchamp began to enjoy his life very thoroughly, and to
question whether he should be so much happier after he had become a
proprietor and carried out his plans of regeneration. The spring had
set in, and nothing could be more lovely than the fresh warm air, the
gloriously fresh mornings, the cool calm nights.
‘How happily the days of Thalaba went by!’ His health, spirits, and
appetite were faultless. It was a time of hope and expectation for the
great event of the year. The shearing was coming on, and insensibly
the increase of station hands. The putting into order of the disused
shearers’ huts, wash-pens, machinery, and woolshed, spoke of impending
transactions of importance, and told that ‘the year had turned.’ He
had made up his mind, too, that ‘after shearing he would revisit the
metropolis.’ There the moon-lighted, sea-washed verandah of Morahmee,
with a slight and graceful form pacing thereon, musing ‘in maiden
meditation fancy free,’ showed softly yet bright, as an occasional
romance gleam through the somewhat prosaic mist of his ordinary
day-dreams. It might have been the influence of the pure dry air, of
the oxygenated atmosphere, which caused Ernest to become so very light
of heart after this heroic resolution. If it were so, nothing that has
ever been said by enthusiastic tourists in praise of the beauty and
salubrity of the Australian climate can be held to be in the slightest
degree exaggerated.
Another effect was noticeable about this time. Ernest commenced to be
remarked, among his observing mess-mates, for a suspicious eagerness to
learn and acquire all the mysteries of stock farming, some of which he
might have previously overlooked. He delighted Mr. Doubletides by his
alacrity, and that grim veteran remarked that in a year or two more he
might be able to look after a small station himself, always provided
that he had a careful overseer.
‘The deuce a bit you’ll see of him thin, me ould shepherd-driver, in a
year or two, or next year either,’ said Barrington. ‘I know the signs
of it. He’s going to cut Garrandilla after shearing, and he’s trying
to suck ye, like a marrow-bone, of all the fruits of all yer long hard
life and experience, me ould warrior. And why wouldn’t he? Sure I’d be
off myself and invest, if my uncle would only send out the ten thousand
that he promised me.’
‘_Neuchamp_ manage a station!’ said Malcolm Grahame. ‘He just knows
naething whatever about foot-rot, and he disna know first-combing from
pieces; it’s my deleeberate opinion he’ll just be insolvent within the
year.’
‘How do you know?’ quoth Charley Banks. ‘It’s half luck, seems to me.
I know an old cove that only branded his cattle once about every two
years, and he made more money than all the district put together.
Neuchamp’s a good sort of notion about a horse, and he don’t drink.
I’ll lay six to two he ain’t broke next year, nor the year after.’
Garrandilla was not a fenced run. It was in the pre-wire-bearing stage,
preceding that daring and wondrous economy of labour. At the period of
which this veracious chronicle treats, the older pastoral tenants were
wont to speak with distrust of the new-fangled idea of turning large
numbers of valuable sheep ‘loose—literally loose, by George—night and
day’ in securely fenced but unguarded enclosures.
One thing was certain, they had made their money mainly by the
exercise of certain qualities, among which were numbered, beside
industry and energy, a talent for organisation scarcely inferior to
that required by a general of division. At Garrandilla the twenty or
thirty flocks, averaging two thousand each, were marshalled, counted,
gathered, dispersed, with the punctuality, exactness, and discipline
of a battalion on field duty. Were all these rare endowments, these
valuable habits, to be henceforth of no avail? Were the sheep to be
just turned loose and seen from time to time like a lot of store
cattle? Were experienced shepherds, skilled overseers, henceforth to
be unnecessary? And would any young inexperienced individual who had
brains enough to know a dingo from a collie, or to see a hole in a
fence when such hiatus was present, do equally as well to look after
five or ten thousand sheep in a paddock, as the oldest shepherd, under
the orders of the smartest manager in the land? These were serious
and important questions. Mr. Jedwood was not a man given to hurried
outlay. The process of building up his fortune had been hard, anxious,
and gradual. He had no idea of reversing the process in any possible
casting down of that edifice. Therefore, with the aforesaid twenty or
thirty shepherds, ration-carriers, etc., it did not admit of doubt
as to there being plenty of work at Garrandilla. Of a truth the work
was unceasing from daylight on Monday morning till dark, or later, on
Saturday night. Indeed Sunday was often spent by Mr. Doubletides in
weighing out rations, and making out a few of the men’s accounts, as a
species of rest from his labours not unbefitting the day.
The process of general management was somewhat in this wise. Each of
the young men had certain flocks placed in his charge; these he was
expected to count at least once a week. He had a small sheep-book
or journal in which the name of every shepherd, with the number of
his flock, was entered upon a separate page, as thus: ‘John Hogan,
14th May; 4-tooth wethers; No. 2380; dead, 5; added, 14; taken out,
52—total, 2337.’
A similar account was kept of every flock upon the station, which was
expected to be verified by a count at any moment. This counting it was
_de rigueur_ to perform early in the morning. As the shepherd usually
left the yard or fold soon after sunrise, and many of the flocks were
ten or fifteen miles from the head station, it followed that the young
gentleman who counted a distant flock had to quit his couch at an
exceedingly early hour.
Then the ration-carriers, who were always conveying provisions, water,
wood, all things necessary to the shepherds, required in their turn
supervision.
Nothing but the hardest bodily labours and unsleeping apprehensive
vigilance kept this small army in good order and efficiency. If a
shepherd lost his flock, there was mounting hot haste and terrific
excitement till the sheep were found; Mr. Jedwood riding and aiding
personally in the quest as if ruin was awaiting the non-arrival of the
flock, to pounce down upon him and his.
There was no denying that the management of Garrandilla was very
successful upon the whole. The fat sheep were eagerly competed for
by dealers and others directly it was known that they were in the
market. The wool brought a good though not extreme price in the home
or colonial markets. The station accounts were kept by the storekeeper
with the strict accuracy of those in a merchant’s office. There was
no waste, no untidiness, no delay, no dawdling of any kind. The men
were well though not extravagantly lodged and fed, after the manner
of the country. They received the ordinary wages, sometimes a shade
above them. Whatever they drew from the station-store was accurately
debited to them, and they received a cheque for the exact amount of the
balance upon the day of their departure. What they did with the said
cheque—whether they spent it in forty-eight hours at the nearest inn,
whether they kept their money for the purpose of buying land, whether
they put it into the savings bank, or gambled it away—was a thing
unknown to Mr. Jedwood, and concerning which he never troubled himself
to inquire.
When Mr. Neuchamp, in the ardour of his unquenched philanthropy,
questioned him about these things, he declared that he had no great
opinion of station-hands as a class, that most of them were d——d
rascals, and that as long as they did his work and received the pay
agreed upon he really did not care two straws what became of them.
Ernest felt this to be a very doubtful position, as between master and
men, and further required to know whether, if he, Mr. Jedwood, took
measures to locate a few of his best men with their families upon the
frontage to the river, he would not secure an attached tenantry, and be
always certain of a better and readily available class of labour.
To this Mr. Jedwood made answer that he should consider himself to be
qualifying for admission to a lunatic asylum if he attempted to do any
such thing. ‘In the first place you would lose,’ he said, ‘a quantity
of your best land, and your best water. In the next place, as their
stock increased they would use and spoil double the quantity of land
they had any legal title to. Most probably they would _not_ work for
you, when you needed labour, except at their own price and terms; and
if you wished at any time to buy them out, they would ask and compel
you to give double the price they had paid. No, no; I’ve kept free
selectors out all these years, and, as long as I live here, I’ll do so
still.’
So Mr. Neuchamp had again to fall back upon his own thoughts and
excogitations. He was not convinced by Mr. Jedwood, who took a
narrowed, prejudiced view of the case, he contended. But he arrived at
the conclusion in his own mind, that the amount of bodily and mental
labour devoted to the sheep-pasturing division of Garrandilla was
exhaustingly large, and that any mode of simplifying it, and reducing
this great army of labourers, would be very desirable.
More and more to him was it apparent daily that there was no cessation,
no leisure, no possible contemplative comfort in a life like this. It
was the same thing every day. Sheep, sheep, sheep—_usque ad nauseam_.
Garrandilla was a highly unrelieved establishment. There were no
ordinary bush distractions. There was no garden. There were no
buildings except those positively necessary for the good guidance and
government of the place. Jedwood’s two rooms served him for every
conceivable want here below. They really were not so much bigger than
the captain’s cabin in the good ship which brought Ernest to Australia.
But they were large enough to eat, drink, and sleep in twenty years
since, and they were so now.
At times a neighbour rode over and spent an hour or two, talking sheep,
of course. Occasionally a lady, from sheer weariness or ennui, would
accompany her husband or brother, and beat up the great Mr. Jedwood’s
quarters for a short visit.
One day Ernest was standing near the cottage in a meditative position,
when a gentleman rode up, having a lady on either hand. Mr. Jedwood,
with old-fashioned gallantry, promptly assisted the fair visitors to
dismount, and then calling out loudly, said, ‘Neuchamp, take these
horses over to the stable.’
Ernest walked over, and taking the horses mechanically, was about to
make for the stable, when one of the ladies exclaimed in a tone of
great astonishment, ‘Mr. Neuchamp!’ He looked up, and to his very
considerable surprise recognised one of the young ladies of the
Middleton family, his fellow-voyagers.
‘Why, what is the meaning of all this?’ inquired Miss Middleton. ’I
never thought to see you so generally useful; but I understand—you
are staying at Garrandilla, and performing the “colonial experience”
probation.’
‘You have guessed it exactly with your usual acuteness, Miss
Middleton,’ said Ernest, who, slightly confused at having to act as
amateur stable-boy, had now recovered his usual self-possession,—never
long absent, to do him justice. ‘I will come in as soon as I have
stabled the horses.’
When Ernest returned he found the ladies evidently concluding a short
narrative to Mr. Jedwood, in which he guessed himself to have figured.
Nothing could be warmer or more pleasurable, however, than their
recognition.
‘And so, Mr. Neuchamp, here we meet, after all our arguments, and
passages-of-arms,’ said the younger sister. ‘We are on our native
heath, you know, so we shall take the offensive. How do you find all
the new theories and schemes for improvement stand the climate?’
‘Not so very badly,’ assented Ernest boldly. ‘I am biding my time, like
the Master of Ravenswood. I intend to cause a sensation by carrying
them out when I have a station of my own.’
‘Oh, you must get one in this district,’ affirmed the elder sister with
determination; ‘it would be so pleasant to have some one to talk to.
We are living in utter solitude, as far as rational conversation is
concerned.’
Mr. Jedwood at this juncture ‘trusted that, as they did him the honour
to pay him a visit now and then, they did not include Garrandilla in
the conversational solitude.’
‘Oh, you know, you’re such an old friend. We can recollect riding to
Garrandilla with papa ever since we could be trusted on horseback. It
is one of our chief pleasures and resources. But really, Mr. Jedwood,
you ought to build a new cottage. I used to think the old hut a
splendid place once, but it looks now, you must confess, rather small.’
‘Two rooms for one man, and that man an old bachelor, Miss Middleton,
are not so very bad. I’m used to the old place. I can sit there and
write my letters, and here, by the chimney side, I smoke my pipe and
watch the embers. But I think I must put up a new place, if it’s only
for my young lady friends. I’ll see about it after shearing, after
shearing.’
But this promise of a comparatively palatial edifice after shearing had
been made, to the young ladies’ knowledge, for several years past, and
they evidently did not place much faith in it; Miss Middleton asserting
that it was lucky Mr. Jedwood had not commenced life at Garrandilla in
a watch-box, as he most certainly would have continued the use of that
highly compressed apartment.
They all laughed at this, and Mr. Middleton affected to reprove his
merry daughter for her sally, but the end of it was that Ernest
received a very cordial invitation to visit his old acquaintances at
their station, distant about twenty miles, and mentally resolved to
take an early opportunity of availing himself of it. The society of
young ladies had been entirely out of his line since he had parted
with Antonia Frankston, on the verandah at Morahmee. The effect was
agreeable in proportion to the period of compulsory withdrawal from
such pleasures and recreations.
Truth to tell, he was commencing to weary somewhat of the eternal,
never-ending merino drill. He could understand a lad of seventeen or
eighteen, like Charley Banks, spending two or three years profitably
enough in the Garrandilla grind, and being better so employed than
anywhere else. But he, Ernest Neuchamp, was a man whose years and
months were of somewhat more value in the world than those of a raw
lad. He thought, too, that he knew about as much of the not very
abstruse and recondite lore necessary for the average management of a
station as he was likely to acquire in another year, or any greater
length of time. He resolved that, after shearing, he would state his
case fully to Mr. Frankston, and secure, if possible, that paternal
elder’s consent to his purchasing a station of his own with his own
money.
From time to time at long intervals, whenever by no possibility could
any excuse be found for working among the sheep, would Mr. Doubletides
summon him, the other youngsters, and any unoccupied individuals that
were handy, and crossing the river, proceed to ‘regulate the cattle a
bit,’ as he expressed it. Jack Windsor being a first-class stockman,
and handy with the roping-pole, was always invited to join the party.
Then they would have a week’s mustering, branding, drafting, weaning,
fat cattle collecting, what not—and then every one would come back much
impressed with the heroism of the whole expedition, and the cattle
would be left to their own devices for three or four months longer.
These muster parties were extremely congenial to Mr. Neuchamp’s tastes
and tendencies. He found the country, which was wild and hilly in
places, more interesting than the uniform, monotonous, but profitable
campaign, where roamed the carefully-tended merino. There were Alpine
gorges, tiny streamlets, masses of foliage, botanical treasures,
and above all, a mode of life more irregular, more volitional, than
the daily mechanical regularity with which the machinery of the
‘merino-mill,’ as Barrington profanely called it, revolved diurnally at
Garrandilla proper.
Moreover there was occasionally trials of speed, of bottom, of
horsemanship, in thus tracking the half wild cattle to their
fastnesses, in which Osmund distinguished himself, and which were more
akin to the noble sport of hunting than anything which Ernest had met
with in Australia. The driving of the great herd into the stockyard,
the drafting, the roping, the branding, the cutting out, all these were
novelties and excitements of a very high order, as they then appeared
to the ardent mind of Mr. Neuchamp.
So keenly did he appreciate the general work among the cattle, that
upon a recommendation from Mr. Doubletides, who thought all time not
absolutely devoted to sheep and wool thoroughly wasted, he was promoted
to be a kind of cattle overseer. Then from time to time, in company
with Jack Windsor, for whose services he formally petitioned, he was
despatched on short but pleasant missions to the cattle station when
any particular duty of an outpost nature was required to be done.
Then the friends were in their glory. Jack Windsor had been brought
up on a cattle station, and had a strong preference for them as stock
over sheep. He always took care to provide an ample commissariat
in case of accidents, while Mr. Neuchamp armed himself against the
perils of a long evening or two at the hut of the cattle manager by
bringing a book. Thus fully accoutred they would start off amid the
congratulations of Barrington and Charley Banks for a week’s perfect
happiness.
Why Mr. Neuchamp esteemed himself to be favoured by fate in being
especially selected for this department, was chiefly on this
account—that it opened a prospect of change and comparative mental
leisure. I have described my hero carelessly and faintly, but the
judicious reader will ere this have discovered that Ernest was
essentially less disposed to action than contemplation. Not that he
disliked or avoided work, but he liked it in large quantities rather
than in small, with spaces for consideration and preparation duly
interspersed.
For instance, at Garrandilla it was one constant succession of calls
and appointments and engagements. ‘Would Mr. Neuchamp get something out
of the store? Would he make out So-and-so’s account? Would he go down
and draft So-and-so’s flock? Would he be sure to be up before daylight
and count the sheep at the Rocky Springs? Mr. Jedwood was returning
from the farthest back station, and would he lead a fresh horse to meet
him at the fifteen-mile hut? Would he take out a fortnight’s rations
to old Bob, and be sure to bring in all the sheep-shears? Would he
calculate the number of cubic yards in the Yellow Dam, just completed,
and check the storekeeper’s account with the contractor?’ and so on.
Now, all these things Ernest could do, and did do—as did his
fellow-cadets—still the endless small succession troubled him. Small
wonder, then, that a feeling of relief and satisfaction possessed him
when he got the route for Warbrok, and he and Jack packed up their
effects and necessaries for a week’s comfortable, steady, solitary work
among the cattle, where no complications existed, and where they saw no
one but a couple of stockmen and old Mr. Hasbene, the manager, from the
time they left Garrandilla till they returned.
In the long days of tracking the outlying ‘mobs’ or small subdivisions
of the main herd, in the unrelieved wandering through ‘the merry
greenwood,’ with its store of nature’s wonders—hidden watercourses,
mimic waterfalls, rare ferns, plants, and flowers, strange birds and
stranger beasts—Ernest felt the new delight and enjoyment of a born
naturalist. Then the sharp gallops, ‘when they wheeled the wild scrub
cattle at the yard,’ were exciting and novel.
The evening, too, spent in the rude but snug building that had served
the cattle overseer—a laconic but humorous old man who had once been a
prosperous squatter—for a habitation for many a year, story-telling,
reading, or dozing before a glowing fire, were pleasant enough in their
way.
In the ordinary yard work—drafting, branding, roping, throwing,
etc.—Mr. Neuchamp felt a strong and increasing interest. When they
returned to the merino metropolis of Garrandilla, old Mr. Hasbene
expressed his regret emphatically, while Jack Windsor loudly lamented
the necessity of going back to school.
‘Sheep’s all very well,’ that gentleman would observe, ‘but my heart
ain’t never been with them like the cattle. There’s too much of
the shopkeeping pen-and-ink racket about ’em for me. Look at our
storekeeper, he’s writin’ away all day, and sometimes half the night,
to keep all the station accounts square. There’s Mr. Doubletides,
he’s always away before daylight, and home at all hours of the night.
There’s some blessed flock for ever away or having to be counted,
or drafted, or shifted, or tar-branded, or sold, or delivered; and
it’s the same story all the year round. There’s no rest and no easy
time with sheep, work as hard as you will. Of course the wool’s a
fine thing, but give me a mob of a couple or three hundred head of
fat cattle on the road for market with a good horse under ye and a
fourteen-foot whip in your hand. That’s a job worth talking about—a
couple of thousand pounds on legs in front of ye—and precious hard
work in a dark night, sometimes, to keep it from cuttin’ right off and
leavin’ ye with your finger in your mouth.’
‘By George, Jack, you’re a regular bullocky boy,’ said old Mr. Hasbene;
‘you had better get Mr. Neuchamp here to put you on as stockman when he
buys a cattle station, as I expect he will when he leaves us. If I was
a young man I’d go with him myself, for I see he’s got a real turn for
the roans and reds, and there’s nothing like ’em.’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Ernest. ‘I have a great fancy for a cattle
run; and I must say, I think Jack is right about the sheep. They are
a great deal too much trouble, especially with shepherds. I came away
from England to lead a quiet life in the wilderness, to have a little
leisure and time to think, and not to be hurried from one engagement to
another like a Liverpool cotton broker or a stock exchange speculator.’
‘I don’t say there isn’t money made by sheep,’ remarked Mr. Hasbene,
’but cattle, to my mind, have always been the most gentlemanly stock.
A man does his work; it’s sharp sometimes; but then he has it over.
He knows what he’s about, and hasn’t to be always “hurried up” like a
Yankee dry goods clerk. I wouldn’t change lives with Jedwood for all
the world. I live like a gentleman in my small quiet way, but I’ll be
hanged if he does.’
‘Quite right, Mr. Hasbene,’ said Ernest. ’The characteristics of “the
gentle life,” in my estimation, are occasional strenuous, useful, and
dignified exertion, seconded by unquestioned leisure, more or less
embellished by letters with the aid of the arts and sciences. All this
keenness to amass money, land, flocks, and herds, is merely the trading
instinct pushed to excess, whether the owner lives in a street, in a
city, or a hut on a plain. However, we must be off. Good-bye.‘ Away
they went at the rapid pace so dear to unthinking youth, all heedless
of the capital of human as of equine bone and sinew, secure of a vast
endowment to their credit in the future, good for endless drafts and
extravagant cheques, while the grizzled senior rode back to his lonely
lodge to contest, as best might be, with three months’ loneliness,
three months’ absence of human face, of human speech, laughter, or
tears. It was not a gay life, certainly, but such as it was, he had
lived and outlived twenty odd years of it. In all human probability—he
was failing now—he would remain there until he died. So best—where
else should he go? Geoffrey Hasbene had once possessed money, friends,
a good station, a fair position. But indifferent luck, combined with
an easy, careless, liberal disposition, had caused his property to
drift away from him. For a time he had suffered some of the evils of
neglect and of poverty. Then this prospect of employment was offered
and thankfully accepted, and for many years he had been exercising for
another the qualities of vigilance and economy that, in the long past
years, would have gathered and secured a fortune for himself.
The season wore on. The mild Australian winter, far different from the
stern season that Mr. Neuchamp had associated with that name, changed
almost imperceptibly into glowing spring—into burning summer.
The ordinary work of the station advanced. Men came and went; were
hired, verbally; retained, paid off, and so on, with an undeviating
regularity that savoured of machinery.
With spring came all the bustle of washing and shearing. Herds of men
arrived at Garrandilla, and were employed as sheepwashers, shearers,
extra shepherds, watchmen, engineers, fleece-rollers, and people to do
anything that may be required and nothing in particular. Much Ernest
marvelled at the apparently profuse and reckless manner in which men
were engaged at high wages, until it occurred to him one evening to
reckon up, with the assistance of Malcolm Grahame, the probable value
of the wool crop. Then he admitted that a few hands or a few pounds,
more or less, were not much to be considered in view of such a large
quantity of so high-priced and so promptly convertible a commodity.
The general tone of the establishment was altered. Mr. Windsor had
completed his colt-breaking business, and having enrolled himself as a
shearer, was living in a state of luxurious freedom from any kind of
work, and waiting with twenty or thirty other gentlemen, apparently of
independent means, the important tocsin which tells of the commencement
of shearing.
Barrington and Grahame were galloping about all day long, from the shed
to the wash-pen, looking important and mysterious, while Mr. Banks
was permanently located at the latter place, and evidently considered
himself as in a great degree responsible for the reputation of the
Garrandilla clip in the forthcoming wool sales.
For Ernest, to his great satisfaction, employment had been found at
the cattle station, an unusual number of fat stock having been sold
and delivered at this particular season, so that he and Jack Windsor
had been mustering and drafting and partly delivering the said beeves,
until it was time for the latter gentleman to take his place among the
braves, who, when on the war-path, on the far plains of the north-west,
are, sometimes inaccurately enough, styled and designated shearers.
Thus it came to pass that Ernest grew to consider himself more
immediately connected with the ‘cattle side of the run’ than the sheep
ditto, and insensibly began to imbibe those prejudices in favour
of one description of stock, which, though not capable of logical
justification, are often found to be sufficiently powerful to influence
a man’s whole life.
At last, after many minor combats and skirmishes, a strike among the
sheepwashers, a demand for more pay from the shearers, a short supply
of carriers, a threatened superfluity of clover-burr and grass seed—the
great shearing campaign was completed.
The men were paid off; the teams wool-laden departed; the shepherds
returned to their homes—save the mark; Mr. Jedwood departed for town;
and for a little space it really seemed as if the genius of bustle
would revisit Garrandilla—‘nevermore.’
Mr. Jedwood had told Ernest, before leaving, that if he particularly
wished to visit town before he returned he was fully at liberty to do
so, as Mr. Doubletides would be able to manage all there was to do for
the next three months, with the other youngsters, or even without them.
Before he left town, Ernest would have scouted the idea of leaving
Garrandilla under a full twelvemonths. But circumstances, it is said,
constantly alter and affect cases.
The circumstances were—extreme heat; waveless uniformity, not to say
monotony, of existence; the lack of fresh companionship; and finally,
a strong, impetuous, sudden desire for civilised life, coupled with an
undefined, unrecognised longing for the criticisms of Antonia Frankston
upon his new and thrilling experiences.