The 'big squatter', as he was called on our side of the country, was Mr.
Falkland. He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony, and
worked his way up by degrees. He had had no money when he first came,
people said; indeed, he often said so himself. He was not proud, at any
rate in that way, for he was not above telling a young fellow that he
should never be downhearted because he hadn't a coat to his back or a
shilling in his pocket, because he, Herbert Falkland, had known what
it was to be without either. 'This was the best country in the whole
world,' he used to say, 'for a gentleman who was poor or a working man.'
The first sort could always make an independence if they were moderately
strong, liked work, and did not drink. There were very few countries
where idle, unsteady people got rich. 'As for the poor man, he was the
real rich man in Australia; high wages, cheap food, lodging, clothing,
travelling. What more did he want? He could save money, live happily,
and die rich, if he wasn't a fool or a rogue. Unfortunately, these last
were highly popular professions; and many people, high and low, belonged
to them here--and everywhere else.'
We were all well up in this kind of talk, because for the last two or
three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always
shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen--and he was a
gentleman, if ever there was one--that takes a deal of notice of his
working hands, particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great
fancy to the first moment he saw him. He didn't care so much about me.
'You're a sulky young dog, Richard Marston,' he used to say. 'I'm not
sure that you'll come to any good; and though I don't like to say all
I hear about your father before you, I'm afraid he doesn't teach you
anything worth knowing. But Jim there's a grand fellow; if he'd been
caught young and weaned from all of your lot, he'd have been an honour
to the land he was born in. He's too good for you all.'
'Every one of you gentlemen wants to be a small God Almighty,' I said
impudently. 'You'd like to break us all in and put us in yokes and bows,
like a lot of working bullocks.'
'You mistake me, my boy, and all the rest of us who are worth calling
men, let alone gentlemen. We are your best friends, and would help you
in every way if you'd only let us.'
'I don't see so much of that.'
'Because you often fight against your own good. We should like to see
you all have farms of your own--to be all well taught and able to make
the best of your lives--not driven to drink, as many of you are, because
you have no notion of any rational amusement, and anything between hard
work and idle dissipation.'
'And suppose you had all this power,' I said--for if I was afraid of
father there wasn't another man living that could overcrow me--'don't
you think you'd know the way to keep all the good things for yourselves?
Hasn't it always been so?'
'I see your argument,' he said, quite quiet and reasonable, just as if I
had been a swell like himself--that was why he was unlike any other man
I ever knew--'and it is a perfectly fair way of putting it. But your
class might, I think, always rely upon there being enough kindness and
wisdom in ours to prevent that state of things. Unfortunately, neither
side trusts the other enough. And now the bell is going to ring, I
think.'
Jim and I stopped at Boree shed till all the sheep were cut out. It pays
well if the weather is pretty fair, and it isn't bad fun when there's
twenty or thirty chaps of the right sort in the shearers' hut; there's
always some fun going on. Shearers work pretty hard, and as they buy
their own rations generally, they can afford to live well. After a hard
day's shearing--that is, from five o'clock in the morning to seven at
night, going best pace all the time, every man working as hard as if he
was at it for his life--one would think a man would be too tired to do
anything. But we were mostly strong and hearty, and at that age a man
takes a deal of killing; so we used to have a little card-playing at
night to pass away the time.
Very few of the fellows had any money to spend. They couldn't get any
either until shearing was over and they were paid off; but they'd get
some one who could write to scribble a lot of I O U's, and they did as
well.
We used to play 'all-fours' and 'loo', and now and then an American
game which some of the fellows had picked up. It was strange how soon we
managed to get into big stakes. I won at first, and then Jim and I began
to lose, and had such a lot of I O U's out that I was afraid we'd have
no money to take home after shearing. Then I began to think what a fool
I'd been to play myself and drag Jim into it, for he didn't want to play
at first.
One day I got a couple of letters from home--one from Aileen and another
in a strange hand. It had come to our little post-office, and Aileen had
sent it on to Boree.
When I opened it there were a few lines, with father's name at the
bottom. He couldn't write, so I made sure that Starlight had written
it for him. He was quite well, it said; and to look out for him about
Christmas time; he might come home then, or send for us; to stop at
Boree if we could get work, and keep a couple of horses in good trim, as
he might want us. A couple of five-pound notes fell out of the letter as
I opened it.
When I looked at them first I felt a kind of fear. I knew what they came
from. And I had a sort of feeling that we should be better without them.
However, the devil was too strong for me. Money's a tempting thing,
whether it's notes or gold, especially when a man's in debt. I had begun
to think the fellows looked a little cool on us the last three or four
nights, as our losses were growing big.
So I gave Jim his share; and after tea, when we sat down again, there
weren't more than a dozen of us that were in the card racket. I flung
down my note, and Jim did his, and told them that we owed to take the
change out of that and hand us over their paper for the balance.
They all stared, for such a thing hadn't been seen since the shearing
began. Shearers, as a rule, come from their homes in the settled
districts very bare. They are not very well supplied with clothes; their
horses are poor and done up; and they very seldom have a note in their
pockets, unless they have managed to sell a spare horse on the journey.
So we were great men for the time, looked at by the others with wonder
and respect. We were fools enough to be pleased with it. Strangely, too,
our luck turned from that minute, and it ended in our winning not only
our own back, but more than as much more from the other men.
I don't think Mr. Falkland liked these goings on. He wouldn't have
allowed cards at all if he could have helped it. He was a man that hated
what was wrong, and didn't value his own interest a pin when it came in
the way. However, the shearing hut was our own, in a manner of speaking,
and as long as we shore clean and kept the shed going the overseer, Mr.
M'Intyre, didn't trouble his head much about our doings in the hut.
He was anxious to get done with the shearing, to get the wool into
the bales before the dust came in, and the grass seed ripened, and the
clover burrs began to fall.
'Why should ye fash yoursel',' I heard him say once to Mr. Falkland,
'aboot these young deevils like the Marstons? They're as good's ready
money in auld Nick's purse. It's bred and born and welded in them. Ye'll
just have the burrs and seeds amang the wool if ye keep losing a smart
shearer for the sake o' a wheen cards and dice; and ye'll mak' nae heed
of convairtin' thae young caterans ony mair than ye'll change a Norroway
falcon into a barn-door chuckie.'
I wonder if what he said was true--if we couldn't help it; if it was in
our blood? It seems like it; and yet it's hard lines to think a fellow
must grow up and get on the cross in spite of himself, and come to the
gallows-foot at last, whether he likes it or not. The parson here isn't
bad at all. He's a man and a gentleman, too; and he's talked and read
to me by the hour. I suppose some of us chaps are like the poor stupid
tribes that the Israelites found in Canaan, only meant to live for a bit
and then to be rubbed out to make room for better people.
When the shearing was nearly over we had a Saturday afternoon to
ourselves. We had finished all the sheep that were in the shed, and old
M'Intyre didn't like to begin a fresh flock. So we got on our horses and
took a ride into the township just for the fun of the thing, and for
a little change. The horses had got quite fresh with the rest and
the spring grass. Their coats were shining, and they all looked very
different from what they did when we first came. Our two were not so
poor when they came, so they looked the best of the lot, and jumped
about in style when we mounted. Ah! only to think of a good horse.
All the men washed themselves and put on clean clothes. Then we had our
dinner and about a dozen of us started off for the town.
Poor old Jim, how well he looked that day! I don't think you could pick
a young fellow anywhere in the countryside that was a patch on him for
good looks and manliness, somewhere about six foot or a little over, as
straight as a rush, with a bright blue eye that was always laughing and
twinkling, and curly dark brown hair. No wonder all the girls used to
think so much of him. He could do anything and everything that a man
could do. He was as strong as a young bull, and as active as a rock
wallaby--and ride! Well, he sat on his horse as if he was born on one.
With his broad shoulders and upright easy seat he was a regular picture
on a good horse.
And he had a good one under him to-day; a big, brown, resolute,
well-bred horse he had got in a swap because the man that had him was
afraid of him. Now that he had got a little flesh on his bones he looked
something quite out of the common. 'A deal too good for a poor man, and
him honest,' as old M'Intyre said.
But Jim turned on him pretty sharp, and said he had got the horse in a
fair deal, and had as much right to a good mount as any one else--super
or squatter, he didn't care who he was.
And Mr. Falkland took Jim's part, and rather made Mr. M'Intyre out in
the wrong for saying what he did. The old man didn't say much more, only
shook his head, saying--
'Ah, ye're a grand laddie, and buirdly, and no that thrawn, either--like
ye, Dick, ye born deevil,' looking at me. 'But I misdoot sair ye'll die
wi' your boots on. There's a smack o' Johnnie Armstrong in the glint o'
yer e'e. Ye'll be to dree yer weird, there's nae help for't.'
'What's all that lingo, Mr. M'Intyre?' called out Jim, all good-natured
again. 'Is it French or Queensland blacks' yabber? Blest if I understand
a word of it. But I didn't want to be nasty, only I am regular shook on
this old moke, I believe, and he's as square as Mr. Falkland's dogcart
horse.'
'Maybe ye bocht him fair eneugh. I'll no deny you. I saw the receipt
mysel'. But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, Fish River
moss-trooping callant win haud o' him? Answer me that, Jeems.'
'That says nothing,' answered Jim. 'I'm not supposed to trace back every
horse in the country and find out all the people that owned him since he
was a foal. He's mine now, and mine he'll be till I get a better one.'
'A contuma-acious and stiff-necked generation,' said the old man,
walking off and shaking his head. 'And yet he's a fine laddie; a gra-and
laddie wad he be with good guidance. It's the Lord's doing, nae doot,
and we daurna fault it; it's wondrous in our een.'
That was the way old Mac always talked. Droll lingo, wasn't it?