LE CHEVALIER BAYARD
It was in a year "before the gold" that I had occasion to ride to
Kalangadoo, across the Adelaide border near Mount Gambier. Kalangadoo
was a cattle station, then the property of the Messrs. Hunter, Alick,
Jemmy, and Frank, who then dwelt there, and led the half-laborious,
half-romantic life which to the cattle-station holder of the day was
allotted. The "Mount Gambier mob," as in colonial parlance described,
was at that time composed of men the majority of whom had attained to
social distinction. Not far off, at Compton, lived Evelyn Sturt, to my
eyes the veritable _fine fleur_ of the squatter type. In that year, let
us say about 1850, he was a very grand-looking fellow--aristocratic,
athletic, adventurous; an explorer, a pioneer, a _preux chevalier_ in
every sense of the word, a leading colonist, with a strong dash of
Bayard about him; popular with the men of his set, and, it is
unnecessary to say, a general favourite with the women.
He had the features, the bold autocratic regard with which the early
romance-writers were wont to depict the Norman Baron, whose part I make
no doubt he would have acted creditably had Fate but arranged his
existence synchronically.
The prejudices of the day being against a younger son's procuring a
competence after the simple and masterful plan of his ancestors, he was
constrained to betake himself with his brethren and kinsfolk to far
countries and unknown seas. And right manfully had he, and they, of whom
more than one name shines brightly on the pages of modern history, dared
the perils of sea and shore, of waste and wilderness.
He had been an explorer, was now a pioneer squatter drawing nearer and
yet nearer to the goal of fortune. He had been rich, he had been poor,
had driven his own bullocks, and been hardly pressed at times. But
whatever the occupation or garb in which he elected to masquerade
temporarily, no one ever looked upon Evelyn Sturt without its being
strongly borne in upon his mind that he saw a gentleman of high degree.
I admired him with a boy's natural feeling of hero-worship. All that I
saw and heard of him heightened the idea. Not less stalwart than
refined,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage.
The hero besides of numerous local legends. He had leaped from a bridge
into a flooded river and rescued a drowning man. He had offered to suck
the poison from the wound of a snake-bitten stock-rider. He had quelled
the boldest bushman in a shearing row. He was chief magistrate,
universal referee, good at all arms, gallant and gay. The modern
exemplar of the good knight and true.
Willie Mitchell was a different type--a more recent importation--tall,
slight, delicate in frame and constitution--cultured and artistic; he
was the nearest approach to the languid swell that in that robust and
natural-mannered epoch we had encountered. He had been enticed to
Australia by one of the Hunters, who, it appeared to us bush-abiding
colonists, were always going "home." They had very properly pointed out
to him that he could obtain a high interest for his money by investing
it in stock, living like a gentleman the while--a point upon which he
was decided. He had recently purchased a small but rich cattle run in
the Mount Gambier district, where the water was subterranean, and the
cattle had to be supplied by troughs.
He afterwards sold this and purchased Langa-willi from Wright and
Montgomery, who never did a bit of good after they sold it, the most
perfect place and homestead in the West. But this by the way.
Why Langa-willi will always be a point of interest in my memory, apart
from other reasons, was that Henry Kingsley lived there the chief part
of a year as a guest of Mitchell's. It was at Langa-willi that _Geoffrey
Hamlyn_, that immortal work, the best Australian novel, and for long the
only one, was written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most
comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated
author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his
host had ridden forth with the overseer to make believe to inspect the
flocks, but in reality to get an appetite for lunch.
I like to think of them spending the evening sociably in their own way,
both rather silent men--Kingsley writing till he had covered the
regulation number of sheets--or finished the chapter, perhaps, where the
bushrangers came to Garoopna; Mitchell, reading steadily, or writing up
his home correspondence; the old housekeeper coming in with the glasses
at ten o'clock, then a tumbler of toddy, a smoke in the verandah, or
over the fire if in winter, and so to bed. Peaceful, unexciting days and
nights, good for Mitchell, who was not over-strong, and for his talented
guest. I suspect that in England, where both abode in later years, they
often looked back with regret to the peerless climate, the calm days,
the restful evenings, spent so far beyond the southern main at
Langa-willi. The surroundings were judiciously utilised by the author as
furnishing that flavour of verisimilitude which added so much to the
charm of his fiction. Baroona, where the Buckleys lived, is the name of
a property not far from Mount Hesse, and Widderin, the name of Sam
Buckley's famous horse, is also that of a hill visible from the plains
of Skipton.
Mr. Mitchell, I may mention, was one of those investors who apparently
have only to buy a place to make money out of it. He did so at the Mount
Gambier station, knowing no more of cattle and their ways, when he
bought it, than of the habits of the alpaca. He then bought Langa-willi,
with 20,000 sheep or so, having the same pleasing ignorance of their
tastes and management; held it till after the gold; never did any work
himself; spent a fair portion of his time at the Melbourne Club. Finally
sold out at a handsome profit with a large stock of sheep, and departed
to England, never to return.
This looks like luck. Doubtless there was an infusion of that most
agreeable ingredient. But I have no doubt either that the mild and
elegant William possessed a reasonable share of prudence, about which,
like his other endowments and accomplishments, he said nothing. His
first introduction to our Port Fairy community was at race time, when he
appeared with the Hunters and Sturt, riding a beautiful little blood
mare called Medora, a safe and easy mount, his long legs curiously near
the ground. There couldn't be, however, a nicer fellow, and Australia
will ever owe him a debt of gratitude for extending the hand of generous
and delicate hospitality to the artist who first worthily illustrated
her free forest life, her adventurous sons and daughters fair.
Charles Mackinnon, erst of Skye--old Charles as he may possibly now be
called, alas! and may not the insidious adjective be applied to others
of his contemporaries?--dwelt hard by with Mr. Watson, his partner. He
yet lives in my memory as the kindest of men. "Kind as a woman" exactly
describes his disposition as exemplified in my case. There were no
women, by the way, thereabouts in those days, except black ones, who
used to fetch in the horses on foot, carry water, and otherwise make
themselves useful.
While at Kalangadoo I was suddenly knocked over by a feverish
attack--an exceptional case with me--then, as now, tolerably tough; but
an hour or two of that kind of thing takes the conceit out of the best
of us. Shivering and burning by turns, with throbbing headache and
nausea, I had to lie down to it, and was very bad all one night. Charles
Mackinnon watched over me in the most patient manner the while. We were
new acquaintances, too. I remember distinctly his appearance next
morning with a bowl of beef-tea, with which I broke a twenty-four hours'
fast.
Finding that I anxiously desired to become possessed of a black boy, he
procured me a small imp, so young and callow that he fell off the quiet
old horse (which Mackinnon also lent me for him to ride home on), and,
sprawling in the midst of the dust, cried piteously. Poor Charlie
Gambier! as I named him--he had the honour of being christened by his
lordship the late Bishop Perry of Melbourne. He was also taught, with
great pains and perseverance, his catechism. He could read his Bible
well. He turned out much the sort of Christian that might have been
expected, deteriorating rapidly after the age of fifteen, and learning
to drink spirits and copy the undesirable white man with painful
accuracy.
John Meredith, a scion of a well-known Tasmanian family, was another
resident within hail of the Mount. A stalwart Australian in good sooth,
6 feet 4 inches, or thereabouts, in his stocking-soles; blue-eyed,
fair-bearded, and about twice as tall as any old-style Cambrian, I
should say, in the somewhat "rangey" country whence his ancestors came.
I had made his acquaintance by riding from Melbourne with him a year or
so before. Having just come over from Tasmania with a faithful retainer
and four horses, thence imported, he was journeying to a run which he
had bought.
He rode an immense black horse, which carried him "like a pony," fifteen
stone and over as his weight probably then was! I well remember
speculating as to how such a horse might be bred--a grand forehand,
clean flat legs, active, powerful, blood-like, a great jumper, and a
good carriage horse.
Let any one try to pick up an animal of this type, no matter what price
he is prepared to give. He will then realise the correctness of my
conviction then, wholly unaltered by after-experience, of his rarity and
value.
The faithful retainer, whose name was William Godbold, was a
grim-looking "old hand," who had, however, risked his life in a
memorable flood in order to save a comrade.
Years after the faithful retainer came to work on my station, and being
looked upon as "such a good man," was permitted to purchase a colt on
credit. He availed himself of the credit (and the colt) by riding him
across the border to Mount Gambier. There was no extradition treaty in
those days. A fawn bay, with a black stripe down his back, a shoulder
cross and mule markings (see Darwin), four years old, fast and sound--I
never was paid for that colt, and "still the memory rankles," trifling
as is the deficit! Many debts have I forgiven. Some, alas! have had to
be forgiven to me. But that colt--"Chilleno" by name, own brother to my
best hack "The Gaucha"--I can't forgive that one.
On my way out and back--it was some four or five days' ride--I stayed at
various stations. It was _de règle_ in those days, and I don't know a
pleasanter ending to a day's ride than meeting a hospitable squatter in
his own house. You have had just work enough to tire you reasonably, to
make you enjoy a cheerful meal, some fresh unstudied talk (people are
twice as confidential in the bush, even with strangers, as they are in
town), a smoke in the verandah, and the sound, peaceful sleep that
follows all. Then the awakening in the lovely fresh bush air, winter or
summer, the feeling is ennobling, invigorating. As he fills his lungs
and expands his breast therewith the wayfarer feels a better and wiser
man. Old Mr. Robertson, a Scottish settler, had a lovely station on the
Wannon. To his homestead travellers chiefly gravitated for reasons which
he summarised somewhat plainly on one occasion.
"Don't think I believe you come to see old Robertson," he said. "In the
summer it's the fruit that fetches you, and in the winter Mary's jam."
Now, Miss Robertson's preserves and conserves were the admiration of the
whole district, while the orchard in the season was a marvel for fruit
of every kind and sort.
I wish I could show those good people and certain conceited gardeners
who persist in pruning and cutting every lower limb of their fruit
trees, the orchard at Wando Vale, as in those days. Great umbrageous
apple trees with long lateral branches trailing on the ground, covered
with fruit of the _finest size_ and _quality_.
The remarkable thing about these apple trees was that they had never
been grafted or pruned. They all came from the seed of a barrel of
decayed apples, and which, being of many different varieties, were, as
the old gentleman expressed it, "each better than the other." That such
is not the general result I am aware, being a bit of a gardener myself,
but it was the fact in this instance, as I saw and tasted the fruit, and
have the word of the owner for it besides, who planted the trees with
his own hands.
Mr. Alfred Arden I remember visiting at Hilgay, as also the late John
Coldham of Grassdale. What a lovely bit of country his was! And is not
all the Wannon the "pick of creation"--Colac, perhaps, excepted? Low
deep-swarded hills, rolling downs, and thickly-timbered slopes, all
wheat land, and forty bushels to the acre at that. Too good for this
wicked world almost! The men who took it up first had hardly sufficient
inducement to exert themselves. There is such a thing as being too well
off. I am aware it is not good for me, above all men, but I should like
to have a try at bearing it again, and risk
His dangerous wealth
With all the woes it brings.