For the first few months after Mr. Neuchamp had commenced to sit upon
the throne of Rainbar, there was a large amount of station work to do,
which, at the instigation of Mr. Banks and Jack Windsor, was pushed on
with and completed. There were any number of calves to be branded,
outlying cattle to be got in, the herd generally to be mustered and
made to ‘go to camp’ properly, as well as many other things necessary
on a cattle station newly purchased, and which had not been, let us
say, very exactly administered for some years past.
‘It’s my belief there’s some of these LP cattle at every station within
a hundred miles of Rainbar,’ said Mr. Windsor one day, as he and Mr.
Banks returned from a neighbour’s muster, with a goodly number of cows,
unbranded calves, and pen-branded bullocks. ‘It was these last store
cattle they got that seems to have scattered and made out all over the
country. They say it came on very dry after they were turned out. Their
horses was that weak they couldn’t ride after ’em, so they had to let
them go their own way.’
‘Indeed,’ said Ernest sympathisingly; ‘they must have lost great
quantities, or did they come back again?’
‘They wouldn’t come back, because they didn’t know the run well enough
to care about it over much. But they weren’t teetotally lost, ‘cause
they’ve stuck at every herd they came to, and in course of time we’ll
have ’em all at home again.’
‘You are sure they will not be lost?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ affirmed Mr. Windsor. ‘A brand, once well put on, is
like a direction on a letter. People may steal the letter, or kill the
beast. But every one who don’t go in for them tricks will help the
owner of a stray beast to get him, if his brand is readable, just as
he’d give you a letter addressed to you, if he was to pick it up on the
road.’
‘What will you do with these strayed cattle, then, when we get them
home?’
‘We must let them go again; there’s nothing else for it. And I’ll wager
half of them will just turn and walk back again.’
‘I have been thinking,’ said Ernest meditatingly, ‘that if we had a
large paddock put up here, it would do capitally to keep strayed stock
in, and for the horses. Surely it would save time.’
Jack admitted that an enclosure of the kind would be very handy for the
class of cattle referred to, so Mr. Neuchamp at once made a note of a
ton or two of wire for the purpose. Thus simply and unobtrusively was
the ‘Improvement Idea’ initiated at Rainbar. Once admitted, it grew and
enlarged into vast and even alarming proportions.
How many an ingenuous pastoralist has for years wandered innocently by
the charmed ocean-strand of Arcady the Blessed, leading the careless,
untroubled life which belongs of right to all true Arcadians, ignorant
alike of want or luxury, of debt, of anxious thought for the morrow!
When, lo! in a luckless hour, unhallowed desire has urged him to the
opening of the sealed, the forbidden casket which contained the
Genie―‘Improvement.’
The baleful Djinn, accursed of Solomon and many succeeding wise men,
towers aloft, darkening the summer sky, and finally demanding the life
of his deliverer. In the Eastern tale, the threatened victim cajoled
the monster into re-entrance and brazen bondage. Rarely, alas! does the
modern enfranchiser of the Demon succeed in enforcing retrenchment and
safety!
Mr. Neuchamp had a general idea, based upon Paul Frankston’s parting
instructions, Mr. Levison’s warning words, ‘Don’t you waste your
money,’ and even the half-careless hints of Brandon and Parklands, that
his course as a squatter was to be guided by economy. At the outset,
therefore, he merely ordered articles and implements absolutely
necessary. He devoted his spare time to the task of instilling some
glimmering rays of intellectual light into the unused but not opaque
intelligence of Charley Banks. Finding that the boy had a strong taste
for voyages and travels, he provided him with books of that particular
department, and gradually had the satisfaction of seeing the lad settle
down of an evening to steady reading, instead of to the eternal pipe,
with perhaps an excursion to the kitchen and a not wholly improving
gossip with Jack Windsor.
He drew him out, and invited him to the discussion of principles of
action derived from the lives of his favourite heroes. He encouraged
him to digest a certain daily quantity of ‘stiff’ or improving
literature, and arranged that the more humorous celebrities of the day
were not wanting. He sketched a combination of reading and reflection,
with the hard personal exertion and keen practical attention to detail
which the youngster loved. He drew his attention to distinguished
persons who combined excellence in both classes of attainment; and he
demonstrated how poor and mean a goal is that of material success,
unrelieved by mental progress or spiritual enlightenment.
But when all the calves were branded up, so completely that no more
work, in that direction, could be done until more calves were
born,―when all the stragglers were got in, and there were no musters to
attend; as the days grew longer, the sun hotter, the whole routine more
uniform and monotonous,―life commenced to be burdensome to Ernest
Neuchamp. Then the fascinating idea of works and enterprises of a new
and reproductive nature, like the temptation of a hermit in the
Thebaid, arose with resistless might.
‘After all,’ he argued, ‘if he were able, by his own contrivance and
invention, to anticipate fortune for a few years, instead of dragging
out endlessly a life, perchance meant for better things, was he not
practising economy in the truest form?’
Such, after certain mental conflicts and long calculations, was the
question which he answered to himself in the affirmative. From that
hour he ceased to struggle with what appeared to be either a matter of
destiny or the prompting of an enlightened self-interest, according to
the mood in which he found himself when considering this momentous
question.
The first operation foreign to the primitive, not to say barbarous,
simplicity of the Rainbar establishment was the putting up of the
paddock, at least double the size which Mr. Windsor had suggested, for
the safe keeping of straggling cattle. _Ce n’est que le premier pas qui
coûte._ After that ‘improvement’ was completed and paid for by the
crisp new orders out of the book furnished to Ernest by his agents,
Messrs. Oldstile and Crampton, a highly unimaginative and trustworthy
firm recommended by Paul, a new four-roomed cottage, of horizontal
timbers, arose on the bank of the lagoon, to the great amazement of
Piambook and Boinmaroo.
By this time a considerable number of the bush labourers of the period
had found their way to Rainbar. Rumour, which disdains not the far
interior, but indeed seems to be additionally sonorous in the remoter
haunts of man, had sounded her trumpet-blast far and wide with
reference to Ernest Neuchamp’s acts and assets. The former were summed
up ‘as going in for no end of improvements,’ and the latter were
confidently credited with unlimited resources.
The next project possessed the merits of grandeur of conception and
perfect novelty, at least in the neighbourhood of Rainbar, the
inhabitants whereof might have been numbered among the most pious
communities in the world, from their consistent dependence upon
Providence, had their morals in other respects borne investigation.
Mr. Neuchamp had noticed that the Back Lake, as it was called, had
evidently been filled recently by the overflow of the river, the waters
of which had been conducted by a tortuous but plainly defined channel.
The level of this inland sea, for it was of great extent, had lowered
considerably since his occupation. In the event of a dry season it
would doubtless become dry. Assuming this to take place, the cattle
habitually watering there would be thrown upon the world―would be
reduced to betake themselves to the ‘frontage.’ ‘Great inconvenience,
perhaps loss,’ so said Charley Banks and Windsor, ‘would result.’
Then again, about ten miles from the Back Lake was another titular
lake, dry at present, but with well-defined banks, bearing traces of
having once been filled with water. This was called the Outer Lake. It
was surrounded by splendid plains, but was only available for the stock
during a short period in winter. This natural basin Mr. Neuchamp boldly
proposed to fill from the Back Lake, after he had replenished that
reservoir from the unfailing waters of the Great River.
After a careful examination and survey, he came to the conclusion that
by deepening and cutting the curves of the ‘blind creek,’ or natural
channel along which the waters of the flooded river had always reached
the Back Lake, he could ensure the filling of that great basin in an
ordinary season. Secondly, by a straight and not particularly wide or
deep cutting connecting the two lakes, the outer basin could be filled
as regularly and completely as the inner. Noting the levels, and
computing the probable expense―considerably under its ultimate
amount―Mr. Neuchamp retired to bed at an unusually late hour. But he
carried with him the proud consciousness that he was destined to become
the Lesseps of the Lower Darling. He slept heavily, but his dreams were
troubled. At one moment Piambook approached, anxious to decorate his
bosom with one of the brazen crescents which adorn the breast of
confiding aboriginal royalty. At another, a group of officials and
improbably well-dressed pioneer squatters gathered around him, with
approving glances and well-filled bumpers of champagne. Then Hartley
Selmore smilingly proposed the health of the most original and
successful engineer of the age, while Antonia Frankston gave the signal
to raise a floodgate, which permitted the impatient waters to connect
the farthest Australias.
Ernest had no sooner ‘ciphered out’ this fascinating project, than he
found ready to his hand a considerable body of labourers, who in one
way or another had been employed in putting up the cottage and the
paddock. More strength was speedily available, as the report gained
rapidly in sensation, until nearly all the peripatetic labour of the
land had heard tell of the newly-arrived proprietor of Rainbar. He was
impatient, it was said, to fence, dig wells, make dams, and cut canals,
in all directions. So the able-bodied swagsmen hasted towards Rainbar,
with the frantic fear of being too late which characterises the
stampede for a ‘new rush’ among a mining population. Mr. Banks and Jack
Windsor, and above all Piambook and Boinmaroo, were wildly astonished
at the unfailing stream of tramps, of all sorts, sizes, and capacities,
that poured in.
The blacks began to think that the King of England had made up his mind
to take away Rainbar from Mr. Noojim, and that this was the vanguard of
an army sent up to enter into possession.
Charley and Jack Windsor, sharing the prejudices of old-fashioned
squatters against ‘too many hands about the place,’ looked grave.
Indeed the latter ventured upon a mild remonstrance, as he sent man
after man to work at the canal. Rations began to be served out in such
quantities, that Charley Banks, who was storekeeper, had little else to
do but to distribute. He stated his conviction that the flour would
soon be gone if the drain continued. ‘Then,’ he supposed, ‘they would
have to live upon beef and pumpkins until the next drays came up.
Getting through work was all very well, but this was making the pace
_rather_ strong.’
‘Don’t you think, sir, excuse me,’ said Jack one day, when a bag of
flour and half of the last bullock had been served out in one forenoon,
‘that we’re getting rather too many knock-about men for a small station
like this? It ain’t my place, I know, to meddle with your ways of
managing, and so on; but I’ve been on many a station, and I’ve never
seen half, or quarter the muster we’ve got here lately.’
‘I shall always be willing to hear and consider your opinion, Jack,’
said his master, with that philosophic urbanity which distinguished
him; ‘you are a shrewd, sensible fellow, and, I know, faithful to my
interest. But you _must_ see that the cost of employing one man for
fifty days, or fifty men for one day, is precisely similar. Excepting
always that you save forty-nine days in time by the latter
arrangement.’
‘Well, that’s right enough, sir; but, somehow, none of the gentlemen I
know as has made money out of their stations never liked to see a lot
of men being fed and paid and kept about the station, except for
shearing or such like.’
‘But don’t you think the canal will be a splendid thing for the run, if
we can get the river water to Outer Lake?’
‘Well, sir, if it does, all very well, but somehow I don’t seem to be
quite sure that it will; and if cattle keeps low, where’s the money to
come from?’
‘Whether cattle sell cheaply or otherwise, if we can get five thousand
pounds’ worth of water for five hundred, it pays well to lay out the
money.’
‘Ah well, sir, I can’t say for that. But I think you might give it a
thought whether these chaps are likely to do much of a day’s work at
this cutting, or whatever you call it. As long as they have their grub
and their wages they’ll hang it out, one again the other―regular
Government stroke, as we say in this country.’
‘But how can I arrange it otherwise?’ inquired Ernest anxiously.
‘Give it ’em by piecework,’ replied Mr. Windsor confidently. ‘You
watch, now, how much half a dozen of the best of ’em does in a day.
Measure it when you’re by yourself; then run it off what it comes to at
the wages and rations you pay. After that you can let it to ’em at so
much a foot, or so much a rod, for them to “find themselves” out of the
contract price.’
This very shrewd practical suggestion was, after consultation with Mr.
Banks, finally adopted. The small army of excavators was informed that
henceforth the pay would be at the rate of so much per cubic foot; that
their rations, of whatever quantity, would be debited to them, as they
would have to ‘find themselves.’ And that no departure from this scale
of payment and charges would be permitted. After some grumbling, a
little scheming, and a few departures, matters went on quietly. Mr.
Neuchamp surveyed with satisfaction, week by week, the smooth-edged
channel crossing the endless plain, destined, if all went well, to turn
back-country into frontage, and so revolutionise custom and compel
fortune.
After this great achievement was fairly on the road to completion, Mr.
Neuchamp turned his mind to the dignified and fascinating science of
horse-breeding. He had, in the comparative solitude of Rainbar, been
revolving this vitally important question, dear to every descendant of
Britons in every quarter of the globe. He had been pained and grieved,
of late, to observe that so few among the countless droves of equine
forms with which the land was overrun were worthy the name of horses.
They bore no approximation to the gallant, delicate-limbed desert steed
of Arabia―as little to the stately, swift, and powerful animal that the
science of English breeders has evoked from the questionable coursers
of the past.
He looked around, inhaling the dry, pure, exhilarating breeze, and
marked the wide expanse of sandy levels. He felt the fervid rays of the
true desert sun. ‘This,’ he exclaimed, ‘this is the climate, this the
soil, the land, for the ancient royal desert blood, and no other. Here
one might rear a race of gallant steeds, that would sweep tireless on
from dawn to midnight.’
He recalled the magnificent performance of the two aged but
high-descended mares, so wondrously described in the passage of the
_Talisman_, when the Hakeem bears away his guest through the desert
from the pursuit of the Templars. He thought with disgust of the sudden
collapse, after only a couple of miles of sharp going, that his cob had
treated him to, when the blue bullock thirsted for his blood. And
vowing that, in days to come, no proprietor of Rainbar should suffer
probability of so ignominious a doom, he was confirmed in his
resolution to acclimatise a race of Australian Arabs at Rainbar, which,
glorious in the present, should live in the future unsurpassable and
immortal.
He ultimately arrived at the conclusion that it became the solemn duty
of every man, placed by Providence in the enviable position of a
pastoral proprietor, to do his best to provide the good land, to which
he owed so much, with some lasting benefit or substantial legacy.
Mr. Neuchamp’s bequest to the tutelary deity of Australia―plus the most
improved shorthorns, which he was determined to promote, with his
heart’s blood if necessary―was to take the shape of a stud of Arab
horses. In imagination, he saw them caracoling over saltbush plains and
sand ridges, tossing their small expressive heads, waving their flowing
manes and tails, while their clean, flat, everlasting legs and iron
hoofs would be patent and admirable to every one who had sense enough
to know an Angora goat from a deerhound. In the event of remounts,
which were continually required for the Indian army, an entire regiment
might be supplied from Rainbar in days to come.
Mr. Neuchamp gave the reins to this Arabian imagination, until he began
to be oppressed with the crowds of princes and magnates of the earth,
who came suing for the inestimable privilege of a charger from the
Rainbar stud. Then he closed the day-dream. But the idea was fully
developed, and he wrote to his agents to order a high-caste Arab sire,
to be sent down at once from India. He then made arrangements for a
number of well-bred brood mares, wherewith to make a commencement of
the great Rainbar Austral-Arab stud.
The summer had come to an end; the autumn had fairly set in, when the
time for mustering fat cattle arrived. That portion of the economy of a
cattle station, so suggestive of coin, was safe to be attended to. This
was perhaps the pleasantest description of work which had happened
during the period of Mr. Neuchamp’s proprietorship of Rainbar.
Under the apparent leadership of Charley Banks, with the aid of Jack
Windsor, the neighbouring stockmen went forth on the war-paths, and the
cattle were duly mustered upon the Main camp, the Sandy camp, the Wild
Horse camp, and finally at the Back Lake camp. No yarding took place.
The fat cattle were to be duly separated, after approved custom, known
as ‘cutting out,’ at each camp.
A muster for ‘cutting out’ is a novel and exciting scene for the
stranger tourist. A cattle ‘camp’ is a rendezvous, used by a
subdivision of a herd of cattle for purposes apparently of friendly
gathering, converse, and social recreation―a Bovine Club. Sometimes the
needful bare space, covering from an acre to half a dozen, is situated
under shady trees; sometimes by the side of a river, marsh, or
water-hole; sometimes on a naked sandridge, shadeless, waterless, alike
destitute apparently of beauty and convenience.
The system of camp, with the aid of which the greater part of the work
of every cattle station is carried on, would appear to have originated
in the earliest days of colonial cattle-herding, the instinctive
tendency of all cattle permitted to rove at will within certain limits
being to assemble daily, generally as the heat commences to become
oppressive, at a given spot, affording for the most part shade and
water. Towards the decline of day the friends or acquaintances
separate, each moving slowly on to its particular feeding-ground. A
peculiarity of bush cattle, partly instinctive, partly the result of
training, is to run to camp upon hearing alarming noises, or being
disturbed at their feeding-grounds. Cattle in their natural state are
exceedingly timid. Nothing is more common than for two or three hundred
head, feeding at the outskirt of a large run, to start off in sudden
alarm at the flight of birds, the sight of blacks, or the stampede of a
mob of wild horses. At a moment’s notice they are off at full speed,
which they keep up without ‘crying crack,’ as the stockmen say, until
panting, and with heaving flanks, they can halt and ‘round’ up in the
beloved camp.
Of this peculiarity advantage has been taken by stockmen, finding it a
great aid to management, and a substitute for expensive stockyards and
troublesome yard drafting. Thus one of the first things which an
experienced stockman does when he is forming a cattle station, by
herding the cattle upon it for the first occupation, is to regulate the
camp. If he perceives that the cattle, after being turned loose, and no
longer ‘tailed’ or followed daily as a shepherd does sheep of their own
accord, ‘take to,’ or agree to prefer, certain suitable localities for
camp, he wisely does not interfere. He merely observes and visits from
time to time, but, traversing daily the outskirts of their beat, or by
cracking his whip or using his dogs, rouses and alarms them, so
training them to ‘run to camp.’ After a few months of this exercise he
is moderately sure that on any given day he will find at a certain hour
the larger proportion of each subdivision of the herd at one proper
camp, and that almost every straggler will find its way to some
rendezvous of the sort. If the camp be unsuitably placed, the stockman
shoots a beast of no value, and leaves it upon the spot which he
selects for a camp. He then makes a practice of driving the adjacent
cattle to the spot two or three times a week. They are attracted by the
decomposing carcass, around which they paw, roar, and trample, after
the manner of their kind. Gradually the space immediately around is
rendered bare. The cattle become familiarised to it as a daily lounge.
They commence to run towards it, and of their own accord, and then the
camp is formed.
Such is their origin and nature of formation. The advantage is patent.
The driving of cattle, especially of a large herd, into a yard is
always a troublesome, costly, and injurious process. The larger and
fiercer cattle horn, crush, and sometimes fatally injure the weaker.
Calves are hurt. Occasionally valuable cows are injured; even the
strongest and fattest animals are not improved by the cruel goring and
ceaseless crushing to which they are exposed during days or nights in
the yard.
In camp-work there is little or no chance of oppression or hurt. After
an hour’s ‘beating up,’ and ringing of whips, streams of cattle are
seen pouring in from every point of the compass towards, let us say,
the main camp. Generally situated at no great distance from the
stockyard, this is supposed to be the central and principal
trysting-place. From one side comes a long string of comparatively
sober and peaceful cattle, comprising a goodly number of cows and
calves. They trot leisurely, perhaps merely walk, until they reach the
bare mound by the side of the long reed-covered lagoon, shaded by
venerable white gums. There they halt or walk peacefully round and
round. But stop―now far and faint more whips resound, which from time
to time one hears like a tapping-bird or the snapping of dried sticks.
Only the half-Indian sense of the bush-reared stockmen could say with
certainty that these sounds were the volleying detonations of the
mighty stockwhip, that terrible weapon in the hands of an Australian
bushman. The sounds are louder, nearer, less ambiguous; the muffled
lowing of a great concourse of cattle comes down the wind, mingled with
shouts, yells, and strange cries. At length the herd gradually come―
Nearer still, and yet more near,
The trampling and the hum,
when suddenly there is a shout of ‘There they come,’ and a long line of
magnificent bullocks, fiercely excited, breaks through the adjoining
timber. On they come at a swinging trot, heads down, eyes glaring, in
some instances tongues out, heading straight for the camp. Behind them
is a great herd of mixed cattle, of which they are the advanced guard.
There are so many of them that the ‘tail’ or rear is not at present
visible. From the increasing whip volleys, the barking of dogs, and the
shouts and cries of men, it would appear that the ‘tail’ is not
actuated by the same lofty feelings of pride and courage which mark the
‘head’ of the column that has just dashed into camp in such
distinguished fashion.
‘My word!’ said Charley Banks, ‘that’s something like a mob! What a lot
of rattling bullocks, shaking fat too; this is my sort of cattle run;
everything fat, from the calves upwards; as long as there’s plenty of
rain, there’s no fear of the feed running short, and my opinion is that
there’s room for twice as many cattle as we’ve got―and more than that,
if there was water at the back.’
‘And I feel confident,’ answered Mr. Neuchamp, who was surveying with
an eye of satisfaction his camp full of well-conditioned cattle, ‘that
in less than two years there will be water all the way from the river
to the Outer Lake. That will be something like an improvement, as you
Australians call everything from a bark hut to a five-hundred guinea
wash-pen.’
‘I hope so,’ said Mr. Banks, without any great show of enthusiasm. ‘But
improvements cost a deal of money, and my old uncle used to say that
the money ought to come first, in station management, and the
improvements afterwards. He made plenty, but he never would go into
debt, even for his wool bales. He used to lecture me for buying so much
as a pair of hobbles without paying cash.’
‘The principle is sound, no doubt,’ replied Ernest thoughtfully. ‘But
it may be pushed too far; I think many of the older pioneers might have
made all the money they did in half the time if they had only had
sufficient foresight to organise plans of reproductive outlay, certain
to pay cent per cent upon any money which they might have expended, or
even borrowed at reasonable interest, for their construction.’
‘Old Nunkey used to say that reasonable interest had a knack of growing
into unreasonable interest if you didn’t pay up half-yearly, which
people often found something to prevent their doing,’ said the prudent
youngster. ‘Of course, I don’t know much about spending money―I never
had any to speak of; but there’s nothing beats a certainty, _I_ think.’
Here ‘the tail’ of the large lot of cattle of which ‘the head’ was so
sensational and satisfactory, made their appearance, much gratified at
being permitted to round up on the camp and mingle with the main
multitude, with which they exchanged pushes, greetings, and
salutations. Behind them rode Jack Windsor, accompanied by a band of
picked volunteers, who, with him, had done an immense amount of outpost
duty since sunrise.
It was considered reasonable to devote half an hour to rest and
refreshment, which comprehended the calming down of the somewhat
excited cattle, and a smoke for the stockmen. After this a disposition
of forces was made. Certain moderate performers were told off to
encircle and keep within the camp limits the main body of the cattle,
while ‘the equestrian talent’ was selected to carry out the more
dashing and delicate duty of ‘cutting out.’ And few tasks had a more
difficult appearance than to divide the fierce and wild-eyed bullocks
from the mixed medley of a thousand head of cattle of all ages and
sizes which crowded the camp.
First, Jack Windsor and a friendly centaur―part and parcel of a violent
black mare―ran out half a dozen quiet cattle, placing them in charge of
three other men, at about two hundred yards’ distance from the camp.
Then he, Charley Banks, and half a dozen of the best mounted men went
in to the herd, and commenced to run out, singly or in pairs, such fat
cattle as were up to the marketable standard.
Mr. Neuchamp for a while confined himself to riding usefully but
unromantically round the cattle on the camp, preventing them from
flowing out in unnecessary directions, and making off when the
entertainment commenced to flag. He watched bullock after bullock being
edged out by the trained horsemen to the rim of the camp, then suddenly
forced into the open by the sure and sudden whip, which, silently
raised, appeared to drop upon every portion of any given animal at
once. As the roused animal commenced to stretch out into a gallop, to
halt suddenly, to attempt to wheel in his tracks, it was a sight worth
seeing to note the swift, wary, duplicate motion of the stock-horse,
the watchful alertness with which the stock-rider reined his horse,
urged, restrained, or checkmated the doomed bullock.
As Mr. Neuchamp gazed he came to the conclusion that the emigrant
Briton, if young and active, might attain considerable ability in
stock-riding. But as for the lithe instinctive swaying grace with which
horse and rider moved alike in desperate rush or wondrous whirl, it was
unapproachable by any one ‘not to the manner born.’ One hour, two
hours, passed, and still the same rapid and continuous selection of
beeves went on. The once small drove of ‘cut-out cattle’ looked
important and respectable. Then the bold idea struck Ernest that he too
might as well do a little ‘cutting out.’ It was more exciting than
pacing soberly round the mixed herd on the camp. Besides, it did not
look difficult. He had only his hunting-whip with him. But he thought
that the stockwhips were sometimes unnecessarily used; cattle he still
believed were capable of being acted upon by gentleness and unvarying
quietude of behaviour. So, taking Osmund by the head, who had had a
certain amount of cattle driving at Garrandilla, and was handy enough,
Mr. Neuchamp rode soberly through the herd to select a fat beast and
distinguish himself in turn. Most probably he would have covered
himself with glory, but it occasionally happens in this world that Fate
seems to exercise all her ill intentions upon the knight even _before_
he is fairly in the lists at the tournament. Surely no evil hap is so
sore to bear as this. ‘Had I but a chance,’ says the stout champion,
‘had I but lifted sword and held shield, I care not though Guy of
Warwick were in the _mêlée_; but to be made captive ere the battlefield
be reached, or one trumpet blast sounded in mine ear, that indeed is
the utmost malice of destiny.’
Ernest, carefully guiding his steed through the third rank of staring
or timid cattle, did not notice an old black cow with one horn sticking
out from her head, who was regarding him with a fixed and gloomy stare.
Her nerves had been much tried since she came into camp. She had felt
more than one savage cut of the stockwhip in acknowledgment of her
ferocious demeanour and well-known character. She had been horned in
the ribs and otherwise maltreated by ungenerous bullocks, who took that
mode of requesting her to get out of the way. Her naturally morose
temper had given way. She was perhaps unconsciously hungering and
thirsting for the chance of avenging her wrongs.
As Mr. Neuchamp essayed to pass her with a view to getting out a noble
red bullock of about eleven hundred-weight, standing like a small
elephant among the cattle, an uneasy steer on the farther side gave the
black cow a vicious poke in the flank. This was the match required for
the combustion. With a short bellow she sprang forward, and marking
Ernest, not far out of her track, immediately went for him. Had he been
in open ground he might have ‘cleared’ in time. But the closely-packed
cattle embarrassed him. Had one of the stockmen been similarly placed
he would with one of these same disapproved-of stockwhips have half
blinded, and wholly checked, the cow by a ceaseless rain of precise and
painful lashes across the face. But having neither whip nor elbow-room,
Mr. Neuchamp was compelled to adopt the drifting policy. He tried
ineffectually to outride this old black demon, whose ferocity did not
require a stockyard, and then struck forcibly at her with the
hunting-whip; but it was not long enough to reach her before she came
to close quarters. When it did it had not the blinding fire of the
properly-wielded twelve-stranded intimidator. He felt a sudden shock as
the savage head struck violently against Osmund’s shoulder. He held the
excited horse together as he staggered, and the furious animal passed
on. But he felt faint as he glanced at the straight horn of the old
witch, which was stained a bright crimson, and looking downward saw a
stream of blood spouting thickly from his favourite’s shoulder.
He leaped down in an instant, and seeing a deep stab in the centre of
poor Osmund’s shoulder, used his handkerchief for a plug, eventually
managing to stanch the wound. As stiffness set in, the good horse began
to limp. Jack Windsor being called over, a consultation was immediately
held, when it was decided that the grey had got a nasty hurt, but that
no danger was imminent, and that he would be as well as ever in a
month. Much relieved by this verdict, Ernest sent the invalid home by
Piambook, with strict instructions to go at the slowest of all possible
walks, while he took possession of that gentleman’s stock-horse
himself.
When Mr. Neuchamp, with his friends, servants, and allies, reached his
castle gate, otherwise the stockyard slip-rails, that night, he rode
behind three hundred head of as fine fat bullocks of _his own_ as ever
were sent to the Sydney market. The first draft of fat cattle! Grand
transaction! ‘What would Courtenay say,’ he thought, ‘if he saw me in
possession of a magnificent drove of cattle like this, all my own and
just about to be turned into cash? Let me see, I expect to send away
this year five or six such drafts. That will be―let me see―how much at
£3 or even £3:10s. per head’―and then Mr. Neuchamp fell to calculating
the number of calves he should brand this year―and the next, if the
cattle went on increasing―the number of cattle he should send off,―and
generally piling up Alnaschar’s basket to the greatest elevation which
that tempting but insecure receptacle of riches would permit.
The fat cattle were duly despatched to market under the charge of
Charley Banks and Jack Windsor, Piambook accompanying them for the
first fifty miles, to return when they might be supposed to be
‘steadied’ more or less to the road.
Mr. Neuchamp himself rode by them on the first day, and his heart
swelled as the drove of grand-looking bullocks, all ‘rolling fat,’ as
became a Rainbar draft, after a few fruitless dashes for return and
liberty, paced quietly though with subdued swiftness along the
far-stretching trail that did duty for the highway.
‘There is something fascinating, it must be confessed, about this bush
life,’ he soliloquised. ‘I don’t wonder at youngsters running away to
the bush, as long ago they did to sea. What a man, what a hero, a lad
feels himself to be mounted upon a good horse behind a trampling drove
like this. Sometimes, even at Charley Banks’s age, he may be the owner
of such a lot, and the lord of an estate of a hundred thousand acres
(leasehold), where almost every one he sees belongs to his employment
or dependency. The very numbers of the stock create a sense of
responsibility and grandeur. There are three hundred and fifty head in
this draft, not a large one. What would they think in England of seeing
five hundred fat cattle in one drove, or even a thousand, like the one
we met one day. “Where are these fine cattle from?” I remember saying
to the stockman in charge. “From Yānga,” said he, with an air of
perfect explanation, as who should say from London or Liverpool. All
well-informed persons, to his mind, must be acquainted by report, at
least, with Yānga.’
Mr. Neuchamp’s musings came to an end as he perceived that he was no
longer needed, and must return, unless he proposed to spend the night
away from home without adequate cause, so he paced back ruefully to
Rainbar, which fully presented the aspect of a lodge in the wilderness
bereft of the cheerful converse of Mr. Banks, the versatile activity of
Mr. Windsor, and even the open countenance and expansive grin of
Piambook.
He had now before him the cheerful prospect of at least two months’
entire solitude, not merely comparative, like an artist in a remote
Rhineland or Norwegian village, but absolute, unrelieved, impossible of
improvement, save by accident, as that of the keeper of a lighthouse.
It may be a matter of justifiable curiosity among those who have never
led the eremitical lives which, ‘for a season, and for that reason,’
the proud pastoralist is occasionally compelled to endure, how, in this
lone Chorasmian waste, Mr. Neuchamp contrived to spend his time.
Something after this fashion, if I, who write, may transcribe a page of
long ago, when the ‘fever called living’ was more recently induced.
He rose early, which, in the bush, means at or before sunrise.
Glorious, in good sooth, is the early morn in the Australian wilds.
Cool, clear, invigorating to the inmost nerve. Cloudless for the most
part, and, before the mid-day sun asserts his might, perfect as a
poet’s dream of the serene untempested heavens of the isles of the
blest. Granted that, at cattle stations in the far interior, it is
_very_ difficult to know what to do in the way of work, recreation, or
exercise, when you are up. Some original thinkers have partly solved
the problem by habitually lying in bed until they had just time to
dress for breakfast.
But not of such mould was Ernest Neuchamp. He had already assured
himself of profitable occupation for all the time that should intervene
between leaving his couch and taking the cold bath which preceded
dressing for the day. He had determined that the garden at Rainbar
should be one of the chief modes of reformation of bush habitudes upon
which he was bent.
To this end he had, as early as such loading could be procured, ordered
from town great stores of fruit-trees and plants befitting advanced
horticulture, besides all manner of vegetable seeds, with a small
assortment of flowers and shrubs.
He had caused to be trenched, and laid out in proper beds, a flat near
the river through which the waters of that stream were led for purposes
of irrigation. In this promising spot, in despite of the powerful
sun-rays, the growth of all vegetation had been rapid and successful.
He had therefore secured that perennial source of interest which a
well-kept garden supplies to him who is fortunate enough to possess a
taste for horticulture. In it he found a sufficiency of light labour
for all the spare time which he could devote to it. Daily did he
congratulate himself upon having in the wilderness one of the purest
pleasures known to mankind―one which increases rather than fades with
the lapse of years, and which richly repays both in result and
occupation any outlay in its earlier stages.
He had therefore no difficulty in finding adequate scope for his
energies during the early or the later unoccupied hours of the day. The
chance wayfarer descried him in a rough serviceable suit, delving,
weeding, or seed sowing in the fresh hours of the morning, or towards
the coolness of the evening shadows. After a morning hour or more thus
spent, he saw that his stock-horse for the day’s ride was caught,
saddled, and left ready for use. Then he proceeded to his bath,
transacted in a rough but sufficient bathroom, composed of slabs, and,
fully attired for the day, sat down with appetite to the breakfast
which the old hutkeeper had, somewhere about eight o’clock, provided
for him.
He had succeeded in arranging the transit of a very fair library,
comprising his favourite standard authors, with whom, including a
regular instalment of magazines, he held converse during the principal
part of the breakfast hour.
That pleasant prelude to the day’s occupation over, he mounted his
horse, and, accompanied by Boinmaroo or Piambook, set out upon his
daily series of ‘travels and sketches’ through the somewhat extensive
territory of Rainbar. Cattle stations are honourably distinguished by
presenting some sort of work, if not always very onerous or important,
to the attention of an active proprietor, all day long and every day.
There was a little branding to be done. A few head of cattle needed to
be run home, and regulated in some fashion. A bullock was required for
killing. Stragglers were captured and deposited in the paddock,
weaners, milkers―what not.
In fact, so engrossing and interesting became the management of the
herd, and the exploration of every hole and corner of the run, that,
joined to the overlooking of the men working at the canal, the sun was
generally low before Ernest and his attendant returned, with a
consciousness of having done more or less a day’s work, and with a
remarkably good appetite for the corned beef, damper, and tea which
composed his chief meal, and indeed all other refections.
In the evening he was again free to enjoy, without fear of
interruption, the intensified delight of the lonely scholar, whose
books to ‘him a kingdom’ are. His correspondence became more voluminous
and grateful than he had ever known it to be heretofore, and when the
hour arrived for repose, Ernest Neuchamp retired, secure of dreamless
sleep and of that cheerful awakening with the dawn known only to the
sharer of ‘respectable pleasures and respectable labours.’
Such, day by day, was the free untroubled life of Ernest Neuchamp at
that stage of his fortunes when, untroubled by care or consuming
anxiety, with gay hope in the future, tranquil enjoyment of the
present, youth told itself a hundred times each day that the present
was fairer than the fairest mortal mistress; while age and care stood
dimly gazing afar off, nor ventured to enter the paradise which is
rarely sacred from their intrusion when the downward slope of the days
of the years of our pilgrimage begins to be travelled. So pleasant is
the flowing ascent to the mist-shrouded pinnacle of the moments known
as success. There, for we behold it in no other spot on earth, we
fondly deem that happiness abides. If that haunting presence, unearthly
bright, there displays her charms who shall say? Let those who have
reached the spot whence can be descried the kingdoms of the earth and
the glory of them declare!
The days, the weeks, passed smoothly, swiftly away, until at length
Charley Banks and Mr. Windsor return, in high spirits, the cattle
having ‘topped the market,’ and sold extremely well. With the exception
of occasional branding and taking heed that the cattle who wandered
about ‘on parole,’ and were not restrained by any fences, did not go
away from the run altogether and irrecoverably, there was little
indispensable work to do. The selection and delivery of the fat cattle
was the most difficult of their station operations. It had been
demonstrated that this could be successfully transacted by the present
staff.
After the gallant drovers returned, a fortnight was spent in looking
through the herd generally. This done, there did not appear to be any
possibility of fresh work for two or three months; in fact, not until
it was time to make another draft of fat cattle.
‘I see now,’ said Ernest, to that constant and sympathetic confidant,
himself, ‘the mistake of the pioneer settlers of the Australian
interior; they narrowed their mental vision to the mere actual facts of
their positions; they discarded change and resisted enterprise. Now the
obvious course which would occur to any man of intelligence and
forethought, anchored for years of his life in a primeval waste such as
this, would be to develop his property to the fullest extent compatible
with his pecuniary safety. Then, at the first favourable turn of the
market, he might sell out to advantage, free either to repurchase a
cheap unimproved property, or to betake himself to the intellectual
elysium of the Old World―that abode of art, science, literature,
classical glory, perfected luxury.’ Here Mr. Neuchamp checked himself
with an involuntary sigh, and sternly pursued his original line of
thought.
‘Instead of which,’ as the country Justice said, ‘they went on year
after year, in one dull endless round of life, subsisting
metaphysically upon the bark and green-hide substitutes for all that
men, in other places, hold dear; without society, without books,
without expectation of quitting their desert life, what wonder that
when middle life is reached, ere Fortune smiles on the lone hermit of
the waste, she should find him with tastes obliterated, sympathies
wasted from long disuse―with the whole general mental endowments
hopelessly deteriorated? How different might be the lot of an ardent
and instructed man,’ pursued the enthusiast―‘zealous to make the most
of the light that was in him; keen to aid the advancement of his kind,
to help the tardy progress of virtue and human truth. With the
materials ready to his hand, he might complete pastoral experiments yet
undreamed of, raise the moral tone of his employees, and through them
of the land generally, render his homestead the headquarters of
philosophical experiment and liberal life and culture collaterally with
these lofty aims: such a man might place his future prosperity on a
firm basis.’
There are some persons who possess the enviable power of being able to
raise the most imposing imaginative structures upon any pedestal of
assured stability, no matter of what size. The satisfactory sum which
the first draft of fat cattle from Rainbar had realised provided Mr.
Neuchamp with such a prosperous future, by the simple process of
multiplying their numbers and periodical result, that he felt himself
now to be fully justified in undertaking any number of reproductive
enterprises.