As the progress of Mr. Banks and his party would necessarily partake of
the nature of caravan movements, Mr. Neuchamp decided, after a few days
of co-operative wayfaring, to go ahead of his impediment. He would thus
be spared the _gêne_ of objectless camp life and needless expenditure
of time. With regard to the value of this latter commodity, he began to
lean to the opinion of Mr. Parklands, and to believe that time was ever
in a colony, if not always a synonym for money, at least a matter of
high consideration. Apart from this method of reasoning, his route
after a while lay through a district which he had never before visited.
And a portion of the locality promised to be interesting to the
observer of men and manners for a novel reason.
He had since found that the owner of the large herd which Mr. Levison
had purchased, as another buyer would have bought a team of bullocks or
a flock of sheep, had been compelled to sell on account of the sudden
influx of miners upon his run. Gold―the healer, the benefactor, the
deliverer, the slayer, the betrayer, the enslaver of mankind in every
age, in every clime―had been discovered in the vicinity of the
long-silent peaceful valleys in which Abel Drifter’s cattle had roamed
for more than a generation. Now all was changed: the green dales were
invaded by noisy crowds, the waters were polluted, the air was thick
with the smoke of camp-fires, maddening with the barking of dogs, the
crashing of falling trees. Droves of hobbled horses attended by
reckless boys, who galloped and wantoned over the sacred camp, filled
the woods with alarm and distraction for the confused, terrified cattle
and their despairing stockmen.
Believing if he hesitated that probably half his herd would wander off
the run and the other half disappear by dying, Mr. Drifter put the
whole herd into his agents’ hands for sale, and, as we have named,
found a prompt purchaser in Mr. Levison. It was this dread alternative
of landmarks, this solemn, dismaying change of the pastoral stage into
that of trade and agriculture, which Mr. Neuchamp had been curiously
eager to behold.
Passing through that division of the great plain-ocean which varied in
very slight degree from his own particular appointment, he entered upon
a wholly different description of country, the characteristic
peculiarities of which were clearly manifest to him. In the place of
the torrid plains and rare watercourses which he had traversed for many
days, he saw green park-like woodlands, pleasantly diversified by the
long-absent hill and dale. Broad and fertile valleys adorned the
landscape, from which many a harvest had been gathered since the first
sod was turned. The houses of the proprietors were in some instances
large and handsome, surrounded by shrubberies and orchards of ancient
growth, or they bore the homely aspect of snug farmhouses, befitting
the homes of sturdy, prosperous yeomen.
Fencing of a substantial and contradictory nature abounded, so that
Ernest was more than once debarred from cross-country travelling, and
forced to adhere to the high road. He noticed that during the morning
and evening hours the air was cool occasionally to keenness. The
magnificent distances to which he had become accustomed between the
homesteads had narrowed to something, if not identical with British
habit, at any rate to far nearer propinquity than he had deemed
possible in Australia. From all these signs and appearances Mr.
Neuchamp decided that he had come upon a new and different phase of
colonisation, and prepared himself to investigate and analyse
accordingly.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘is one of the cheering results of that human
hive-swarming which we call emigration. How many of these
comfortably-placed landholders, enjoying a charming climate, a fertile
soil, and that abundance of elbow-room which every Anglo-Saxon needs,
were peasant labourers, pinched and over-laboured, small farmers, or
impoverished gentry, landless, tradeless, coinless younger sons in
Europe? Here they have found their proper métier. Here they have
repeated history and have peopled a new world, under the Southern
Cross, where the passionate freedom of their forefathers may be handed
down unblemished to the sons of the grandest of races.’
As he travelled this settled region the population necessarily
commenced to show signs of alteration, both as to character and
density. Instead of the sparse, sunburned, nomadic units of the waste,
the more various and pronounced types of agriculture and grazing
industry presented themselves frequently and unmistakably.
Mr. Neuchamp hailed with pleasure the opportunity thus afforded of
conversation and companionship. He saw the neat taxed-cart, with the
farmers’ wives and buxom daughters returning from the weekly market. He
saw the farmer himself mounted upon a stout, not over-refined hackney,
jogging along the road with the bluff confidence inspired by good crops
and good prices. He marked the great fields of maize alternating with
hay and cereals, while the wide-fenced pastures, with the clover,
lucerne, and the prairie-grass of America, were thickly filled with
thriving cattle or the long-woolled sheep, with which his eye had been
familiar in his native country.
‘People in England fancy,’ he thought, pursuing his ordinary train of
thought, ‘that life in Australia is principally devoted to lying under
the shade of tropical forest-trees, and eating peaches or pineapples;
or else that a course of violent and exciting border life is
unremittingly hazarded. How little the average British mind is capable
of comprehending the widely various conditions of colonial life,
necessarily distinct and sharply defined, from the influences of
varying soil, climate, and original settlement, with a hundred other
underlying laws, by these centuries passed into the one concrete idea
of “the colonist.” As reasonable would it be to mingle the attributes
of the Devon or Suffolk peasant―the Celtic Irishman, the Lowland Scot,
the Cockney, and the Highlander, under the general name of Englishman.’
On the day when these truly original ideas had occurred to Mr. Neuchamp
he was riding contentedly along the fenced highway with the intention
of reaching at nightfall the homestead of a landed proprietor of some
mark in his own district, whose acquaintance he had made at the New
Holland Club. He was certain of hospitality and of receiving the
clearest directions as to his route. Within a few miles of his
destination, as he calculated, he encountered a gentleman, on a
well-bred hack, who had just emerged from a lane at right angles with
the road.
He replied to the stranger’s courteous and unaffected greeting with an
inquiry as to the precise distance of Mr. Haughton’s house―if perchance
he happened to be aware of it.
‘I am going within a mile of the entrance gate,’ said the stranger; ‘I
shall be happy to be your guide so far. I shall probably be at
Elmshurst to lunch to-morrow, and should be there to-night―but that I
have to visit a sick parishioner.’
Mr. Neuchamp had partly conjectured from the dress of the gentleman
that he was in holy orders, and of course the point was settled by his
admission.
‘You are then the clergyman of this district?’ said he. ‘You are
fortunate, I should say, in the locality of your labours.’
‘Yes,’ said the stranger, rather absently, ‘there is no fault to be
found with the climate or the scenery, and I have not met in my travels
with a more pleasant and kindly society. There is but one defect, and
that is universal.’
‘And that is, may I ask?’
‘Earnestness, thoroughness,’ said the stranger, fixing his clear sad
eye upon Mr. Neuchamp. ‘If those whose duty it is to provide aid and
comfort for the souls that are like Lazarus, lying at their gates,
leprous and diseased in mind,―if they would but give of their
substance, or better still, a hundred times better, of their time and
energy,―much, how much, could be done for God and for man.’
‘I passed a very neat church and schoolhouse just now,’ affirmed
Ernest; ‘surely matters spiritual are regarded here with interest, and
if the enthusiasm you lament be wanting, when and in what land is it to
be found?’
‘I speak not,’ said the unknown, a glow of fervour lighting up a pale
handsome countenance, and illumining his melancholy dark eyes―‘I speak
not of the mere routine donations which reach respectable uniformity
and stop there. I speak of the want of the spirit that maketh alive,
and in one class not more than in others. The vicarious aid, it is
true, is not sparingly or grudgingly given. But the heart’s tribute―the
life-donation―where is it?’
‘I am sorry that it should be so,’ said Ernest, thinking what a
glorious pastor this zealous missionary would be for his community at
Rainbar, when it was sufficiently grown and established. ‘I am afraid
none of us who are somewhat fully endowed with this world’s goods do a
tenth part as much as we might. But I do not see how matters are to be
mended as the world whirls on its appointed course. Enthusiasm is dead,
and belief will soon follow.’
‘We might all do much―you will excuse my professional tone of
exhortation,’―said this latter-day apostle, ‘by performing our own
distinctly laid down duties personally and rigidly, to arrest the
dreary tendency you refer to―to plant the seeds of a richer and a more
vigorous religious growth. I have not the pleasure of knowing your
name; permit me to present my card. I trust that we shall meet again
under circumstances more favourable for discussion and mutual
acquaintance.’
‘Thanks, I shall only be too happy. I am Mr. Neuchamp, of Rainbar,
where I should be delighted to see you if circumstances ever lead to
your visiting so distant a locality.’
‘I don’t know where my Father’s work may take me; but be assured that I
shall be much gratified by any chance which involves future intercourse
with one of kindred sentiments.’
Mr. Neuchamp gazed at the speaker, and thought he had rarely seen a
more uncommon countenance. Still young, he was perhaps nearer to the
goal of middle age than to the ‘spring of springs’ of early youth. The
outline of the features was aristocratic and refined. His slight but
symmetrical figure, in its careless ease of seat on horseback,
suggested more extended practice in youth than was quite compatible
with his present position. But the eye, mild, searching, calmly
radiant, was the conspicuous feature. It showed the steady unfaltering
regard of one ever willing to attest with his blood the truth of the
doctrines which he held.
‘We pass through these rails,’ said he, ‘and enter this lane, soon
after which my path turns off and I leave you.’
As he pointed to the slip-rails Mr. Neuchamp spurred forward to prevent
his having the trouble to take them down, and practised a manœuvre of
which he was rather proud.
He stooped from his saddle, and, raising the top rail, placed it
carefully upon the second. Then wheeling Osmund for a stride backward,
that accomplished animal leaped easily over, without the slightest
hesitation.
‘Come along, sir,’ said Ernest to the clergyman; ‘it is no height, and
I will put it up.’
‘Thanks, no; you must really excuse me.’
Ernest reiterated his assurances that it was extremely low―no danger,
and so on.
All unmoved by Mr. Neuchamp’s requests and entreaties, the gentleman
with the black coat and gray trousers quietly alighted, saying, ‘You
must excuse me, I do not leap at all.’ He then took down the two lower
rails and, replacing them, gravely remounted.
‘Do you not think,’ said Ernest, ‘considering the large amount of
cross-country work that a clergyman has to do in Australia, that every
gentleman of your profession should practise leaping a little―I mean
sufficiently to get over middle rails, and so on? you might be stopped
by a low fence.’
‘It may be so; there is force in your argument,’ said the unknown, with
a grave sad smile, ‘but I do not care about leaping now, and there is
then only one course open, that of taking down the rails. After all
there are so many necessary gates, I find that I can generally get
about my various duties.’
‘Really,’ persisted Ernest, ‘I hope that you will not think me
impertinent, but in a new country like this surely every one ought to
train himself to encounter the exigencies of his position, and your
seat is so firm that I am sure with a little practice you would soon be
able to get over a moderate leap.’
Ernest thought he saw an approach to a smile flit over the thoughtful
face of his clerical acquaintance.
‘Who knows?’ he said, holding out his hand; ‘I trust we shall meet
again. It may be that we shall be fellow-workers in this good land,
where the harvest is plentiful, but the reapers, alas! few. Good-bye.’
Mr. Neuchamp pursued the path indicated, which led him to a substantial
country-house, of which the well-kept approaches and trim, yet
luxuriant shrubberies told of long and successful occupation. Here he
was warmly welcomed, and Osmund promptly delivered to a neat groom.
‘Very glad to meet you in the country,’ said his host, a frank, stout,
gray-haired, but vigorous-looking man. ‘What do you think of our
district―anything like this on the Lower Darling? I hear you have
settled yourself permanently there.’
‘The two districts are about as similar as the West Riding of Yorkshire
and the Pampas,’ said Ernest. ‘But Rainbar is a very good fattening
country; that is all one can say in its favour just now.’
‘Plenty of room, no diggers, no free selectors,’ replied his host;
‘well, I wish we could say as much here. I am too old to change now;
but I think if I was your age again, I should be inclined to move out
back; let the Grange, and come back to be comfortable here in my old
age. But I think I heard the dinner-bell. Come along.’
Ernest heard it too, and was by no means sorry to comply with the
summons. Dinner-bells, with the accompanying refections of civilised
man, had been rather out of his line of late. He was introduced to the
lady of the house, and her well-dressed, fresh-complexioned,
cheerful-looking daughters, the very sight of whom raised the spirits
of Mr. Neuchamp several degrees.
An active, keen-looking youngster of sixteen made up the family party.
Ernest Neuchamp was approved of by the ladies of the household, as
indeed was generally the case, being one of those sympathetic and
genial persons whom women instinctively take into favour. The
conversation had become general and sprightly pleasant, when, in answer
to a question about his travelling alone, he happened to mention that
he had met, he supposed, the clergyman, not far from their house.
‘There is more than one clergyman in our district,’ said the lady of
the house, ‘but I daresay we shall recognise him from your
description.’
‘He was a gentlemanlike person, rather handsome, indeed,’ continued he.
‘It seems an odd thing, though, that clergymen, as a rule, ride so
indifferently, and especially in a new country like this, where the
necessity of long journeys might have given them practice, one would
think; yet I could not get your friend to follow me over a middle
rail.’
‘What?’ said his host, with a look of altogether inexplicable
astonishment mixed with amusement visible in his face; ‘did you give
him a lesson in riding?’
‘I tried,’ said Ernest; ‘I am sure his horse would have followed mine
if he had mustered up courage, and put him at it. I tried all I knew to
induce him, and said that with a little practice I was sure he would
soon be able to take moderate jumps.’
‘Moderate jumps! oh, Lord!’ said his entertainer; ‘and what answer did
he make?’
‘He smiled gravely, and said, “Who knows?” then bade me good-bye. I
hope he was not offended.’
‘Ha! ha! ha!’ yelled the youngster, exploding helplessly. ‘Oh dear! oh!
I’ll lay anything, papa, it was Mr. Heatherstone. I shall die! I know I
shall. What a jolly sell!’
The girls struggled with their emotions―one hid her face in her
handkerchief. The lady of the house smiled, but tried to look grand,
and reproved her son, who continued to shriek with suppressed laughter,
and finally bolted out of the room, as the safer proceeding.
His host, making desperate efforts at self-control, said, at length, in
a broken voice, ‘My dear fellow! you mustn’t mind these young people.
I’m afraid they are laughing at a little mistake you must have made as
to our clergyman’s degree in equestrianism. But are we sure of our
man―did you learn his name?’
‘He gave me his card,’ said Ernest, now shuddering under the
consciousness of having, perhaps, again buried himself in a pitfall in
this provoking happy hunting-ground, ‘but I never looked at it. Here it
is―“The Rev. Egbert Heatherstone.”’
Here the second young lady broke down, while her mamma laughed
decorously and under protest as it were; and paterfamilias, in an
_almost_ steady voice, thus spoke―
‘You never heard of Heatherstone before, then? No? Well―the man you
were trying to lure over a middle rail was formerly known, that is,
before he entered the Church from strong convictions, as perhaps the
boldest, the most reckless rider in Australia. He has ridden more
steeplechases than you have hairs on your heads, I was going to
say―but, to speak moderately, a larger number than most men living.
Since he became a clergyman, a most sincere and hard-working one, he
has given up sensational riding, and being passionately fond of horses,
mortifies the flesh by abstaining from all that style of thing. You
will excuse us all, I know, for being so rude; but really, you must
admit the joke was irresistible.’
‘I see―I admit―I confess,’ said Ernest, with an air of deepest
penitence. ‘If I could only do penance for my sins of superficial
judgment, it would be such a relief. Do you think the Rev. Egbert has a
trifle of spare sackcloth?’
‘You didn’t notice his seat on horseback?’ asked one of the young
ladies innocently. ‘Doesn’t he look like a horseman? He can’t hide
_that_, or help his hands being so perfect―though I think he tries.’
‘He rode a horse over a three-railed fence once, without saddle or
bridle,’ said the other sister, ‘for a bet; before he was ordained.’
‘He took Ingoldsby, the great steeplechaser, over a three-railed fence
at twelve o’clock at night, and pitch dark too; there was a lantern on
each post though,’ chimed in the sixteen-year-old hero-worshipper of
any reckless deed in saddle or harness.
‘The maddest thing of all that I ever heard of him,’ affirmed papa, in
conclusion, ‘was going across country one evening and taking sixteen
wire fences running. He won his bets, but he had two hardish falls; one
a collar-boner, into the bargain.’
‘I really begin to think,’ said Mr. Neuchamp despairingly, after every
one had transacted a good downright unrestrained chuckle, ‘that I shall
never become fully acclimatised. This is the most peculiar and utterly
unintelligible country ever discovered; or, am I devoid of
understanding to an extent which disables me from ever rating
individuals at their proper value?’
He was eventually consoled, and persuaded into singing second in a duet
whereto the accompaniment was played with much taste and expression by
one of the daughters of the house. He was perfectly at home in this
department of criticism, and after receiving a few compliments upon his
extremely correct performances, he commenced to forget the stupendous
miscalculation into which he had been led with respect to the Reverend
Egbert Heatherstone and his equitation. But it was not forgotten by the
inmates of the house and the inhabitants of the district, among whom it
gradually spread. It always took rank among those glorious jests which,
intelligible to every degree of capacity, float on with undiminished
grandeur from generation to generation; and a stranger who reached that
peaceful district, and was discovered by a delicate course of inquiry
never to have heard that joke, was regarded with affectionate interest,
and had it so carefully administered to him that not one drop of the
_elixir jocosus_ should be wasted in the process.
Leaving the honoured abode of hospitality and domestic happiness, with
its fertile meadows and well-filled stackyards, Mr. Neuchamp pursued
his route quietly, intending to make his way to the property of another
friend, whose place was at no great distance from the goldfield town
near which was the station upon which his cattle were still
depasturing. This stage was rather far for one day. He was considering
whether he might expect to meet with a reasonable inn, and humming a
souvenir of his last night’s concert, when a horseman, coming at a
brisk pace in the opposite direction, met him face to face.
In him he recognised a young squatter whom he had often encountered in
Sydney in various festive scenes, and who had more than once pressed
him to visit his station, if he should find himself in their district.
Ernest knew the station of Baldacre Brothers by reputation to be large
and rich. In fact the brand had a colonial fame. His curiosity was
somewhat aroused to behold the establishment.
Mr. Hardy Baldacre expressed great concern that he should be just
leaving home for a journey when his friend Mr. Neuchamp was coming into
the district, and made many excuses for not turning back―finally asking
Ernest how far he thought of going that night. He mentioned the house
of the brother of Colonel Branksome.
‘Oh! that is too far,’ said Mr. Baldacre; ‘sixty miles, if it is a
yard.’
‘I don’t think I will try to get quite so far,’ said Ernest. ‘Probably
there is some inn which will do as a half-way house.’
‘Oh! you’d better stay at our place,’ said his friend with an
expression of countenance not wholly intelligible to Ernest. ‘It’s
about twenty-five miles from here, straight on the road; you can’t miss
it. You’ll find my brother William at home. Good-bye!’
With this somewhat laconic invitation he put spurs to his horse and
rode forward at a hand gallop, leaving Ernest undecided as to whether
he should accept or decline an invitation not very graciously extended.
By the time, however, that he had got to the end of the rather long
twenty-five miles over a worse road than he had hitherto travelled, he
discovered that there was no other stage available without over-riding
Osmund, so he commenced to look about for the homestead of the Messrs.
Baldacre Brothers of Baredoun.
It was nearly dark when he came to a hut by the side of the road,
situated in a small paddock, the upper rails of the fence of which were
ornamented with sheepskins to an extent which suggested that a new
material for enclosures was being tested. Resolved to make inquiry as
to this mysteriously invisible homestead, Mr. Neuchamp holloaed to the
occupant of the hut in a loud and peremptory manner.
A man in his shirt-sleeves came to the door, not otherwise over-neat,
and smoking a black pipe.
‘Can you tell me where Baredoun is?’ demanded Ernest: ‘it ought to be
somewhere about here, I should think.’
‘This is the place,’ said the shirt-sleeved one coolly.
‘And is _this_ the home station of Baldacre Brothers?’ inquired Ernest,
vainly trying to disguise his astonishment.
‘It’s all that’s of it,’ said the smoker, with an attempt at
jocularity. ‘I’m William Baldacre; won’t you come in and stay the
night? It’s rather late, and there is no place within fifteen miles.’
Ernest stared before him, around, and finally behind, before he
answered the hospitable question. He made a mental calculation as to
whether it was worth while to push Osmund on for fifteen miles over an
unknown road in the dark. Finally, he decided to sacrifice his comfort
for that night to the welfare of the gallant grey, and to accept the
ultra-primitive hospitality of Mr. Baldacre.
‘I met your brother, whom I had the pleasure of knowing,’ he said, ‘a
few miles back. He was good enough to ask me to take up my quarters
here to-night. I shall be very glad to stay with you.’
‘All right,’ said the elder man, a plain and unpolished personage when
compared with his handsome, well-dressed younger brother, who swelled
about the metropolis, by no means as if he had emerged from such a
hovel. ‘Give me your horse; he’ll be safe in this paddock. Ours is
rather a rough shop, but you must make allowances for the bush.’
Sadly and sorrowfully, after he had seen Osmund left free in the small
moderately-grassed paddock, did Mr. Neuchamp follow his host into the
hut. That building consisted of two small rooms. There was an earthen
floor, one or two stools, a small fixed table, far from clean. A bed at
the side of the room offered a more comfortable seat than the stools,
and upon this Ernest deposited his weary bones and disappointed entity,
wondering doubtfully whether sleep would be uninterrupted or otherwise.
The usual meal of corned meat, damper, and milkless tea was brought in
by the hutkeeper of the period, whose moleskins were strictly in
keeping with the prevailing tone of the furniture and apartment. Much
Ernest wondered at the precise mental condition which could suffer two
free agents of legal age, the owners of a proverbially rich and
extensive run, of a well-known highly-bred herd, free from debt and
incumbrances, to live in a state of squalid savagery. He did not
exactly put his questionings into this shape, but his manner had
expressed a patent astonishment, which his host seemed to consider
himself called upon to answer.
‘We haven’t done much in the building way here,’ he remarked
apologetically, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. ‘I daresay we’ll
put up a cottage next year. But the old man never would spend a penny
on the run here. He was snug enough at the old farm down the country,
and somehow I’ve got used to the life, and it does me as well as any
other. Hardy isn’t often at home; he’s half his time in Sydney. So he
manages to hang it out here when he comes to help muster and so on. I
reckon he thinks it saves money, and as he hasn’t to live here _he_
don’t care.’
Ernest felt remorseful after this explanation, very simply delivered,
at his feelings of disgust and disapproval. ‘Suppose,’ he asked
himself, ‘_I_ had been set down here, a raw schoolboy, transplanted
from half-learned tasks to the daily labour, the rude association, the
unbroken loneliness of a distant station, debarred by a penurious old
father from the smallest outlay not immediately connected with the
herd, without books, change, society, or recreation, would it have been
all-impossible that I should have grown into the mould in which my host
is enclosed, or settled down into the resigned, sad-visaged man of
five-and-thirty whom I see before me?’ It _would_ have been impossible
in his case, he thought. Still he could enter sufficiently into the
probabilities of the situation to comprehend the injustice to which the
mental development of the elder brother had been exposed.
‘Good heavens!’ he thought to himself, ‘what short-sighted idiots are
parents who shut up their sons’ lives in a moral dungeon like this! The
abiding in the wilderness is nothing; nay, it has positively beneficial
and ennobling tendencies. But this sordid imprisonment of the mind! No
books, no companions, no ideas; for how can there be a circulation of
ideas if reading, conversation, reflection be wanting?―the whole mind
bent and fettered to the level of the branding pen and the cattle
market―the smallest outlay affording a glimpse of the heaven of Art and
Literature churlishly denied, lest a few broad pieces escape the
all-gathering muck-rake. And when the game is played out, the long
harvest-day over, and the crop garnered, what is the grand result for
which a soul has been starved―a man’s all-wondrous brain-marvel,
miracle of miracles, enchantment before which all magic palls―stunted,
and shrivelled from lack of nutriment and exercise, like a baby-farmed
infant’s body? A few hundreds or thousands, more or less; a sufficiency
of clothes and food; a surety against poverty; and the possibly
fully-developed son of the immortal, “a little lower than the angels,”
remains hopeless, contracted, with the mind of an untaught child plus
an experience of the more obvious forms of dissipation!’
The rude meal concluded, and the pannikins refilled, Ernest, as usual,
felt sufficiently refreshed in spirit to examine his immediate
materials. Mr. Baldacre smoked and talked unreservedly for a couple of
hours; explained the presence of the sheepskins―they had been
butchering for the diggers lately; described some of their pioneer
life, including an adventure with a bushranger, the famous Captain
Belville; and, finally, thought Ernest might like to ‘turn in.’
Mr. Neuchamp looked distrustfully at the rude wooden frame, upon which
sheepskins did duty for a mattress, and a pair of highly uninteresting
blankets represented all other description of bedclothes. He protected
himself against all nocturnal dangers by retaining the larger
proportion of his habiliments, and desperately committed himself to the
uncertainty. At earliest dawn he might have been seen leading Osmund
towards the hut, after which he saddled up with unusual energy and
care. He then betook himself to a grand deep water-hole at no great
distance in the creek, where he swam and disported himself for half an
hour at least, after which he indulged temperately in the pleasures of
the table, as represented by a breakfast which was the facsimile of
supper, and immediately thereafter bade his host good-bye, thanking him
for his entertainment, and bidding farewell to the abode of Baldacre
Brothers for ever.
Mr. Neuchamp smiled to himself when fairly on his way, thinking of the
days of his inexperience, when he believed that all squatters, and
indeed all colonists, lived in precisely the same fashion, and were
characterised by identically the same habitudes and modes of life.
He certainly had been ‘had,’ as Mr. Banks would have said, in the
matter of trusting himself to the primitive establishment of the
Baldacres, who were well known to every one in the district to live
‘like blackfellows,’ as the phrase ran. But neither he nor Osmund had
suffered anything more than slight temporary inconvenience. Mr.
Neuchamp was specially good at recovering, and in half an hour he was
whistling and humming along the road as blithely as ever.
On this particular day he expected to reach, at an early hour, the
abode of another club acquaintance, who had been unaffectedly hearty in
impressing upon him the desirability of making his place his
headquarters if he ever came to their district. At this house he
expected to meet the Indian Officer who had so kindly taken care of his
Arab steed for him and attended to his comforts on board the P. and O.
This distinguished _militaire_ had seen a good deal of service, but
thirty-five years’ exposure to the sun of Hindostan had not quenched
his ardour for sport, spoiled his seat on horseback, or cooled his
devotion to the fair sex. He had been commissioned by the Indian
Government to make large purchases of horses in Australia for remount
service, particularly for artillery and heavy cavalry. He was now on a
tour of inspection through the chief breeding districts, to the end
that the couple of thousand troop horses he was empowered to purchase
and ship might do credit to his judgment. Combining, as he did, a frank
yet polished address with the prestige of military rank, important
services during the Mutiny, consummate knowledge of horseflesh, with a
potentiality of unlimited purchase, Colonel Branksome was at that time,
perhaps, the most popular man in Australia.
It was on the right side of lunch-time when Mr. Neuchamp found himself
opening a neat white gate, at the end of a well-kept drive, which
further conducted him to the front door of a stately mansion, with easy
circumstances and good taste written in every yard of the well-mown
lawn, on every clump of the crowded shrubbery, on the long range of
stabling at no inconvenient distance, even in the neat dress and
respectful manner of the groom who came to take his horse almost as
soon as he had dismounted.
The hall door opened in a spontaneously hospitable manner, and the
host, accompanied by a middle-aged man very carefully attired in
unmistakable mufti, left no doubt on any one’s mind as to his pleasure
in receiving him.
‘Just in time for lunch, Neuchamp! Very glad you’ve found your way to
our district. The Colonel, here, has just been thrashing me at
billiards; let me introduce you: Colonel Branksome―Mr. Neuchamp.’
‘Happy to meet you,’ said the Colonel; ‘find the morning hot? Deuced
nice horse of yours; you haven’t a few like him for sale, have you? I
could take a hundred, and pay well too. But, of course, he’s a
favourite; all the good ones are hereabouts.’
‘I am almost sorry to say that he is,’ said Ernest, ‘since I should
have liked to have helped you to a few horses that would have done
credit to Australia. I believe I have to thank you for an important
service in procuring justice for my Arab on his voyage out.’
‘A mere matter of course,’ said the Colonel. ‘I knew Granby who shipped
him, and the old sheik who sold him; personal friend, and all that;
besides, I can’t see a handsome horse or a pretty woman without taking
the strongest interest in their welfare. Weakness of mine all my life.
Too old to mend now, I’m afraid.’
‘By George! I forgot the lunch,’ said the host, looking at his watch.
‘Come into my dressing-room, Neuchamp. Billy, you know your way.’
In a few minutes, after a temporary toilet, Ernest found himself in a
large cool room, the furniture and arrangements of which betokened no
hint of the considerable distance from the metropolis. Two pretty
girls, whose complexions told of a cooler climate than that of the
coast cities, and drew forth many a compliment from the susceptible
warrior, embellished the well-appointed lunch-table. Here, with cool
wine, delicate viands, and civilised society, Mr. Neuchamp was enabled
utterly to discharge from his mind the unsavoury surroundings of his
previous stage. Before they had finished the repast the eldest son of
the house came in, apologising for his want of punctuality, but laying
the blame upon a large body of miners whom he had been supplying with
rations, and who had detained him until their wants were satisfied.
‘Really!’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘the consumption of meat is becoming
tremendous. Stock must rise directly. I feared that we were all going
to be ruined at first. Now, I see plainly that it will be all the other
way.’
‘So, then, I suppose I must have made a good bargain in conjunction
with Mr. Levison,’ affirmed Ernest tentatively.
‘Oh! you bought the “bar circle” cattle, then?’ said young Branksome.
‘They told me they expected a gentleman to take delivery directly. They
are the best bred cattle in this district. You were lucky to buy them.
‘Poor Drifter,’ said the old gentleman, ‘it was anything but lucky for
_him_ that he was forced to sell them. I told him that he was hasty,
but he was full of visions of their being killed and driven away right
and left by the mining population, and would not hear reason.’
‘The miners are very decent fellows, what I have seen of them,’ said
the son. ‘Of course there will be all sorts among them; but he would
have no greater risk of losing his cattle at their hands than with many
others.’
‘Not so bad as Sepoys, eh, Billy?’ said the host; ‘and yet I suppose
you trusted the villains to the last minute.’
‘Well, I did,’ said the Colonel, ‘and I’m not ashamed to say so; and so
would you if you had seen them fight and die by your side for many a
year as I had done. There were some splendid fellows among them―“true
to their salt” to the last. It was a great chance that I wasn’t shot
down by my own men, like Howard and Weston, and many other commanding
officers.’
‘How did you escape, uncle?’ said one of the young ladies, deeply
interested.
‘Well, I’d been out at daylight with a scratch pack of hounds hunting
jackals. Just as I was coming in, the old havildar (I had saved his
life once) came rushing out: “No go home, sahib,” he said, “men all mad
since chupatties come; shot Captain, sahib, Lieutenant, sahib, Major,
sahib, and his men, sahib, hide away. Ride away, sahib.” And he hung on
to my horse’s rein.
‘“Let me go, you old fool,” I said, “I must go back; the men will hear
_me_. It’s those rascally Brahmins.”
‘“You give life, sahib, you do no good,” he cried out, and, by Jove!
the tears _did_ roll down his face. “I give my life for the Colonel,
sahib, if he please. All no use. Look there!” and he pointed to where a
long line of flame was rising up from my bungalow and stable.
‘“Where’s Lady Jane?” I roared; “you don’t mean to tell me they’ve
taken her? I won’t leave _her_ if I die for it.”
‘“Lukehmeen syce, he very good man, he go away with Lady Jane this
morning; go away to Raneepore. She all safe.”
‘“By Jove,” I said, “that’s good news. If Lady Jane was there now, I
believe I should have gone in among the rascally Pandies with my sword
and revolver, and seen it out.”’
‘How brave of you, Uncle William,’ said one of the girls, her cheeks
glowing and her lips trembling with excitement, as she gazed admiringly
at the Colonel’s hawk nose and bright blue eyes, which nearly matched
his turquoise ring. ‘And did the poor lady escape altogether?’
‘Lady?’ said the latter-day Paladin, in tones of astonishment. ‘Lady
Jane was a thoroughbred English mare that I’d just given three hundred
for, worse luck, for I never did see her again, or any of my goods and
chattels, from that day to this.’
‘And what did you do then, uncle?’ said the other sister, the humane
sympathiser with Lady Jane being too much astonished and discomposed to
continue the examination.
‘I was on my old Arab, Roostoom, luckily,’ said the Colonel, ‘a horse
known all over India. When I saw there was nothing for it, I turned his
head straight across country for Delhi, and after missing a few shots,
rode one hundred and thirty miles before I stopped. Next morning I fell
in with a troop of irregular horse of Jacob’s, and stayed with them
till we entered Delhi together at the Cashmere gate. I say, we have
squared accounts with the Pandies; and I thought we were going to ride
over to the diggings after lunch.’
Accordingly, about three o’clock, behold the whole party, including the
two young ladies and Mr. Neuchamp, mounted and cantering along the
extremely well-marked road which led to the mining township of Turonia.
The young ladies rode with grace and spirit upon well-groomed,
well-bred horses, drawing forth many encomiums from the horse-loving
and gallant Colonel, who said that their steeds would fetch a thousand
rupees in Calcutta, and the young ladies receive half a dozen proposals
of marriage the very first day they appeared on the Maidan.
The young ladies, in return, declared that there was only one man in
the district to be compared to their uncle; and as he sat with easy
military seat upon a strikingly handsome thoroughbred bay, with a star,
the whole affair, from the well-brushed hat to lower spur-leather,
‘exquisite as a piece of lace,’ he justified their appreciation. As
they neared the widely-extended collection of huts, shafts, heaps of
mullock, and imposing structures of weatherboard and iron, thronged
with a stalwart army, ten thousand strong, of bronzed and bearded
gold-miners, they were joined by a semi-military-looking personage,
dressed in uniform not all devoid of gold lace, and followed by a
highly efficient-looking, well-mounted trooper.
‘Ha! Stanley,’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘well met; how do you do? This is my
friend, Mr. Frank Stanley, the Commissioner of the goldfield. Allow me
to introduce you to him. Are your subjects peaceable enough to venture
among; and how does the escort get on?’
‘I will answer for my diggers,’ said Mr. Stanley, bowing to the young
ladies, ‘being the most genuinely polite people in the world,
especially to ladies; and the escort was a little over ten thousand
ounces last week.’
‘You don’t say so?’ said Mr. Branksome; ‘three thousand ounces more
than last week. Why, how much do you intend to get at by the end of the
year?’
‘Several, rich leads have been discovered lately,’ said the
Commissioner, with a slight air of importance. ‘If they find a deeper
deposit below the basalt, as many of the experienced miners think
likely, we shall eclipse California.’
‘How very interesting,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, much excited by proximity to
a novel and recent development of colonial industry; ‘I suppose you
find great difficulty in managing such an immense and disorderly
concourse.’
‘If they were disorderly we simply could not manage them,’ said the
representative of the Queen’s Government. ‘We have about an average of
one constable to a thousand men. Moral force, applied with discretion
and firmness, suffices for all purposes of rule and coercion. Besides,
the miners, as a rule, are well-educated men, and such populations are
always manageable.’
‘Why so?’ inquired Ernest. ‘I should have thought that they were easily
led away by designing persons.’
‘The contrary is the case,’ said the experienced proconsul. ‘Without
stating that there are always among the miners gentlemen and graduates
of the university, a considerable proportion consists of well-educated,
travelled, sagacious men. These leaven the mass; and having strong
convictions themselves upon all subjects, they are amenable to
argument―to logic―which comprehends justice. It is an ignorant
population which follows the demagogue like sheep; it is the
uncultivated mind which is at the mercy of every specious lie which is
offered to it.’
‘Then crime is rare,’ said Ernest, ‘and offences against life and
property uncommon?’
‘Taking the numbers, one may aver, with safety, that crime is
exceedingly infrequent. At the same time I cannot deny that the police
charges are tolerably numerous. But in case of serious offences we have
the main body of miners on the side of law and order, and the criminal
rarely eludes the arm of the law.’
By this time they had neared the outskirts of the town, and Ernest was
much pleased with the many neat cottages, surrounded by trim gardens,
which they passed. Among these stood an exceedingly small but
faultlessly neat dwelling, surrounded by a garden filled with
vegetables, the profuse growth of which was due to a small stream of
water which had been ingeniously led from the neighbouring hills. The
owner, whose attire, though suitable for working, was marked by the
exceptional neatness which pervaded the establishment, leaned upon his
spade and gazed calmly upon the _cortège_ as it passed along the
winding forest track.
‘How pleasant a sight it is,’ said Ernest, ‘to see one man, at least,
superior to the mad thirst for gold which is common to this eager
population. How contentedly that gardener devotes himself to the
occupation in which he has probably passed his former life, and which,
without holding out any splendid prize, no doubt provides him with a
certain and ample subsistence.’
‘I should say,’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘that your recluse has probably
lost his all at a gold venture, and is from circumstances compelled to
rusticate, literally, until he makes a fresh start.’
The Goldfields Commissioner smiled, but made no remark, as he rode
close up to the palings of the garden and reined in his horse.
The gardener left his work and advanced to the fence, apparently to
hold converse with the important official―a man at that time possessed
of enormous power and irresponsible control.
‘Hallo, De Bracy!’ said the latter, ‘how are you getting on? Weather
too hot for the green peas? Asparagus pretty forward?’
‘Shocking weather, altogether,’ said the horticulturist, advancing to
the barrier and shaking hands with the Commissioner. ‘If it were not
for my irrigation I should be ruined and undone. Splendid thing,
water!’
The Colonel and Ernest, with the young ladies, had by this time ridden
close up, and were regarding the somewhat exceptional ‘grower,’ whose
sunburnt hands exhibited much delicacy of shape and careful treatment,
while his extremely handsome face and figure told unmistakably of long
acquaintance with the _haute volée_ of the world’s best society.
‘Are you going to the bachelors’ ball to-morrow night?’ asked the
Commissioner. ‘Great muster, and no end of young ladies.’
‘Well, I may look in for an hour if I can get these cauliflowers
properly earthed up in time,’ said this anomalous member at once of the
gay and workaday world. ‘You know the season is so forward that I dare
not give them another hour.’
‘Great God!’ said the Colonel, ‘why, it’s De Bracy! Why, Brian, old
boy, what, in the name of all that is impossible, brings you here?’
Ernest turned at the exclamation, and saw that the Colonel’s bold
features had changed, and were working like those of a man who sees
some visitant from the silent land―is confronted by an unreal presence
that stirs his inmost soul and curdles the very life blood.
The young ladies stand, pale with surprise.
‘Oh, it’s you, Billy Branks,’ said the provider of esculents. ‘Come
down from India? Nearly as hot here, eh? Well, I lost all my money in
mining enterprises; the finest substitute for unlimited loo I ever fell
across. And having absolutely nothing, and being far from the land of
friends, bill discounters, and outfitters, why, I took to gardening.
_Il faut vivre_, you know; and I was always fond of dabbling in amateur
handicrafts.’
‘Splendid life, beautiful weather, not too cold; shouldn’t mind it a
bit; make heaps of money, I’m sure!’ said the Colonel incoherently.
‘But oh! Brian, old fellow, I never thought I should see you _working_
for your living.’
‘Why not, my dear boy?’ said the philosopher of the spade coolly. ‘What
does the old Roman poet say―_furcae amor honestus est et liber_―stick
to your knife and fork, and all that. Horace has no doubt on the
subject. This is my Sabine farm, and there is the Fons Bandusiae, for a
time―glad to say―at any rate, for a time―the pre-remittance stage. It’s
safer than billiards, and more creditable than whist―as a livelihood.’
‘True, by Jove!’ said the Colonel, ‘most honourable and all that. But
the fellows at the Rag would never believe it, if I go back and tell
them that I saw Brian de Bracy growing vegetables and living by it, by
gad.’
‘Tell ’em every word of it, Billy, old boy,’ said the wholly unabashed
and true descendant of Adam, squaring his shoulders and displaying his
symmetrical figure. ‘Tell some of them to come out and try their luck
here. It will do them a lot of good, make men of them, and keep them
away from the bones.’
‘Certainly, certainly,’ assented the Colonel, hopelessly confused.
‘Most likely they’ll all come. Charming climate, splendid salad, and so
on. Well, good-bye, old man. Sorry to see you looking so well. Oh lord!
why didn’t the French Count kill you instead of your winging him, in
that row about Ferraris, and stop this. Good gad!’
So saying, the warm-hearted warrior wrenched away his horse’s head and
departed along the homeward track, inconsolable for at least a quarter
of an hour, at the expiration of which time he unburdened his soul to
the nearest niece as follows:―
‘Awful thing! poor Brian, wasn’t it? By gad, when I first recognised
him, thought I should have fallen off my horse. Last time I saw him he
was coming out of the Travellers’, in London, with a duke on one arm
and the commander-in-chief on the other. Awful fuss always made about
him. No swell within miles of him―at Ascot, Goodwood, and so on. Women
reg’lar fought about him―handsomest man of his day. Shoot, ride, fence,
everything, better than the best of the amateurs. And now, what’s he
down to? By gad! it makes a baby of me.’ And the honest, kindly veteran
looked as if a cambric handkerchief would have afforded him great
comfort and relief under the circumstances.
‘Never mind, uncle,’ said the sympathising maiden, ‘you’ll see him at
the ball to-morrow night, and I’ll dance with him―not that there’s much
charity in that. You know how nicely he looks at night. There won’t be
a man there to be compared with him.’
‘Of course I’ll go,’ said the Colonel, recovering himself as became a
soldier, ‘and you may look me out a nice girl or two for a waltz. I
don’t _think_ I ever went to a ball at a diggings before.’