A WARM CHRISTMAS DAY.
All through November and part of December, I and our Scotch overseer,
Georgy Kyle, were busy as bees among the sheep. Shearers were very
scarce, and the poor sheep got fearfully "tomahawked" by the new hands,
who had been a very short time from the barracks. Dick, however, my new
acquaintance, turned out a valuable ally, getting through more sheep
and taking off his fleece better than any man in the shed. The
prisoners, of course, would not work effectually without extra wages,
and thus gave a deal of trouble; knowing that there was no fear of my
sending them to the magistrate (fifty miles off) during such a busy
time. However, all evils must come to an end some time or another, and
so did shearing, though it was nearly Christmas before our wool was
pressed and ready for the drays.
Then came a breathing time. So I determined, having heard nothing of
James, to go over and spend my Christmas with the Buckleys, and see how
they were getting on at their new station; and about noon on the day
before Boxing-day, having followed the track made by their drays from
the place I had last parted with them, I reined up on the cliffs above
a noble river, and could see their new huts, scarce a quarter of a mile
off, on the other side of the stream.
They say that Christmas-day is the hottest day in the year in those
countries, but some days in January are, I think, generally hotter.
To-day, however, was as hot as a salamander could wish. All the vast
extent of yellow plain to the eastward quivered beneath a fiery sky,
and every little eminence stood like an island in a lake of mirage.
Used as I had got to this phenomenon, I was often tempted that morning
to turn a few hundred yards from my route, and give my horse a drink at
one of the broad glassy pools that seemed to lie right and left. Once
the faint track I was following headed straight towards one of these
apparent sheets of water, and I was even meditating a bathe, but, lo!
when I was a hundred yards or so off, it began to dwindle and
disappear, and I found nothing but the same endless stretch of grass,
burnt up by the midsummer sun.
For many miles I had distinguished the new huts, placed at the apex of
a great cape of the continent of timber which ran down from the
mountains into the plains. I thought they had chosen a strange place
for their habitation, as there appeared no signs of a watercourse near
it. It was not till I pulled up within a quarter of a mile of my
destination, that I heard a hoarse roar as if from the bowels of the
earth, and found that I was standing on the edge of a glen about four
hundred feet deep, through which a magnificent snow-fed river poured
ceaselessly, here flashing bright among bars of rock, there lying in
dark, deep reaches, under tall, white-stemmed trees.
The scene was so beautiful and novel that I paused and gazed at it.
Across the glen, behind the houses, rolled up a dark mass of timbered
ranges, getting higher and steeper as far as the eye could reach, while
to the north-east the river's course might be traced by the timber that
fringed the water's edge, and sometimes feathered some tributary gully
almost to the level of the flat lofty table-land. On either side of it,
down behind, down folded one over the other, and, bordered by great
forests, led the eye towards the river's source, till the course of the
valley could no longer be distinguished, lost among the distant ranges;
but above where it had disappeared, rose a tall blue peak with streaks
of snow.
I rode down a steep pathway, and crossed a broad gravelly ford. As my
horse stopped to drink, I looked delighted up the vista which opened on
my sight. The river, partly over-shadowed by tall trees, was hurrying
and spouting through upright columns of basalt, which stood in groups
everywhere like the pillars of a ruined city; in some places solitary,
in others, clustered together like fantastic buildings, while a hundred
yards above was an island, dividing the stream, on which, towering
above the variety of low green shrubs which covered it, three noble
fern trees held their plumes aloft, shaking with the concussion of the
falling water.
I crossed the river. A gully, deep at first, but getting rapidly
shallower, led up by a steep ascent to the tableland above, and as I
reached the summit I found myself at Major Buckley's front door. They
had, with good taste, left such trees as stood near the house--a few
deep-shadowed light-woods and black wattles, which formed pretty groups
in what I could see was marked out for a garden. Behind, the land began
to rise, at first, in park-like timbered forest glades, and further
back, closing into dense deep woodlands.
"What a lovely place they will make of this in time!" I said to myself;
but I had not much time for cogitation. A loud, cheerful voice shouted:
"Hamlyn, you are welcome to Baroona!" and close to me I saw the Major,
carrying his son and heir in his arms, advancing to meet me from the
house-door.
"You are welcome to Baroona!" echoed the boy; "and a merry Christmas
and a happy New-year to you!"
I went into the house and was delighted to find what a change a few
weeks of busy, quiet, and HOME had made in the somewhat draggle-tailed
and disconsolate troop that I had parted with on their road. Miss
Thornton, with her black mittens, white apron, and spectacles, had
found herself a cool corner by the empty fire-place, and was stitching
away happily at baby linen. Mrs. Buckley, in the character of a
duchess, was picking raisins, and Mary was helping her; and, as I
entered, laughing loudly, they greeted me kindly with all the old
sacred good wishes of the season.
"I very much pity you, Mr. Hamlyn," said Mrs. Buckley, "at having
outlived the novelty of being scorched to death on Christmas-day. My
dear husband, please refresh me with reading the thermometer!"
"One hundred and nine in the shade," replied the Major, with a chuckle.
"Ah, dear!" said Mrs. Buckley, "If the dear old rheumatic creatures
from the alms-house at Clere could only spend to-morrow with us, how it
would warm their old bones! Fancy how they are crouching before their
little pinched grates just now!"
"Hardly that, Mrs. Buckley," I said laughing; "they are all snug in bed
now. It is three o'clock in the morning, or thereabouts, at home, you
must remember. Miss Thornton, I hope you have got over your journey."
"Yes, and I can laugh at all my mishaps now," she replied; "I have just
got homely and comfortable here, but we must make one more move, and
that will be the last for me. Mary and Mr. Troubridge have taken up
their country to the south-west, and as soon as he has got our house
built, we are going to live there."
"It is not far, I hope," said I.
"A trifle: not more than ten miles," said Miss Thornton; "they call the
place Toonarbin. Mary's run joins the Major's on two sides, and beyond
again, we already have neighbours, the Mayfords. They are on the river
again; but we are on a small creek towards the ranges. I should like to
have been on the river, but they say we are very lucky."
"I am so glad to see you," said Mary; "James Stockbridge said you would
be sure to come; otherwise, we should have sent over for you. What do
you think of my boy?"
She produced him from an inner room. He was certainly a beautiful
child, though very small, and with a certain painful likeness to his
father, which even I could see, and I could not help comparing him
unfavourably, in my own mind, with that noble six-year-old Sam Buckley,
who had come to my knee where I sat, and was looking in my face as if
to make a request.
"What is it, my prince?" I asked.
He blushed, and turned his handsome gray eyes to a silver-handled
riding-whip that I had in my hand "I'll take such care of it," he
whispered, and, having got it, was soon astride of a stick, full gallop
for Banbury Cross.
James and Troubridge came in. To the former I had much to tell that was
highly satisfactory about our shearing; and from the latter I had much
to hear about the state of both the new stations, and the adventures of
a journey he had had back towards Sydney to fetch up his sheep. But
these particulars will be but little interesting to an English reader,
and perhaps still less so to an Australian. I am writing a history of
the people themselves, not of their property. I will only say, once for
all, that the Major's run contained very little short of 60,000 acres
of splendidly grassed plain-land, which he took up originally with
merely a few cattle, and about 3,000 sheep; but which, in a few years,
carried 28,000 sheep comfortably. Mrs. Hawker and Troubridge had quite
as large a run; but a great deal of it was rather worthless forest,
badly grassed; which Tom, in his wisdom, like a great many other new
chums, had thought superior to the bleak plains on account of the
shelter. Yet, notwithstanding this disadvantage, they were never, after
a year or two, with less than 15,000 sheep, and a tolerable head of
cattle. In short, in a very few years, both the Major and Troubridge,
by mere power of accumulation, became very wealthy people.
Christmas morn rose bright; but ere the sun had time to wreak his fury
upon us every soul in the household was abroad, under the shade of the
lightwood trees, to hear the Major read the Litany.
A strange group we were. The Major stood with his back against a
tree-stem, and all his congregation were ranged around him. To his
right stood Miss Thornton, her arms folded placidly before her; and
with her, Mary and Mrs. Buckley, in front of whom sat the two boys:
Sam, the elder, trying to keep Charles, the younger, quiet. Next, going
round the circle, stood the old housekeeper, servant of the Buckleys
for thirty years; who now looked askance off her Prayer-book to see
that the two convict women under her charge were behaving with decorum.
Next, and exactly opposite the Major, were two free servants: one a
broad, brawny, athleticlooking man, with, I thought, not a bad
countenance; and the other a tall, handsome, foolish-looking Devonshire
lad. The round was completed by five convict man-servants, standing
vacantly looking about them; and Tom, James, and myself, who were next
the Major.
The service, which he read in a clear manly voice, was soon over, and
we returned to the house in groups. I threw myself in the way of the
two free servants, and asked,--
"Pray, which of you is William Lee?"--for I had forgotten him.
The short thickset man I had noticed before touched his hat and said
that he was. That touching of the hat is a very rare piece of courtesy
from working men in Australia. The convicts are forced to do it, and so
the free men make it a point of honour not to do so.
"Oh!" said I, "I have got a groom who calls himself Dick. I found him
sorefooted in the bush the day I met the Major. He was trying to pick
you up. He asked me to tell you that he was afraid to cross the range
alone on account of the blacks, or he would have come up with you. He
seemed anxious lest you should think it was his fault."
"Poor chap!" said Lee. "What a faithful little fellow it is! Would it
be asking a liberty if you would take back a letter for me, sir?"
I said, "No; certainly not."
"I am much obliged to you, sir," he said. "I am glad Dick has got with
A GENTLEMAN."
That letter was of some importance to me, though I did not know it till
after, but I may as well say why now. Lee had been a favourite servant
of my father's, and when he got into trouble my father had paid a
counsel to defend him. Lee never forgot this, and this letter to Dick
was shortly to the effect that I was one of the RIGHT SORT, and was to
be taken care of, which injunction Dick obeyed to the very letter,
doing me services for pure good will, which could not have been bought
for a thousand a-year.
After breakfast arose the question, "What is to be done?" Which
Troubridge replied to by saying: "What could any sensible man do such
weather as this, but get into the water and stop there?"
"Shall it be, 'All hands to bathe,' then?" said the Major.
"You won't be without company," said Mrs. Buckley, "for the black
fellows are camped in the bend, and they spend most of their time in
the water such a day as this."
So James and Troubridge started for the river with their towels, the
Major and I promising to follow them immediately, for I wanted to look
at my horse, and the Major had also something to do in the paddock. So
we walked together.
"Major," said I, when we had gone a little way, "do you never feel
anxious about Mary Hawker's husband appearing and giving trouble?"
"Oh, no!" said he. "The man is safe in Van Diemen's Land. Besides, what
could he gain? I, for one, without consulting her, should find means to
pack him off again. There is no fear."
"By the bye, Major," I said, "have you heard from our friend Doctor
Mulhaus since your arrival? I suppose he is at Drumston still?"
"Oh dear, no!" said he. "He is gone back to Germany. He is going to
settle there again. He was so sickened of England when all his friends
left, that he determined to go home. I understood that he had some sort
of patrimony there, on which he will end his days. Wherever he goes,
God go with him, for he is a noble fellow!"
"Amen," I answered. And soon after, having got towels, we proceeded to
the river; making for a long reach a little below where I had crossed
the night before.
"Look there!" said the Major. "There's a bit for one of your painters!
I wish Wilkie or Martin were here."
I agreed with him. Had Etty been on the spot he would have got a hint
for one of his finest pictures; though I can give but little idea of it
in writing, however, let me try. Before us was a long reach of deep,
still water, unbroken by a ripple, so hemmed in on all sides by walls
of deep green black wattle, tea-tree, and delicate silver acacia, that
the water seemed to flow in a deep shoreless rift of the forest, above
which the taller forest trees towered up two hundred feet, hiding the
lofty cliffs, which had here receded a little back from the river.
The picture had a centre, and a strange one. A little ledge of rock ran
out into deep water, and upon it, rising from a heap of light-coloured
clothing, like a white pillar, in the midst of the sombre green
foliage, rose the naked carcass of Thomas Troubridge, Esq., preparing
for a header, while at his feet were grouped three or four black
fellows, one of whom as we watched slid off the rock like an otter. The
reach was covered with black heads belonging to the savages, who were
swimming in all directions, while groups of all ages and both sexes
stood about on the bank in Mother Nature's full dress.
We had a glorious bathe, and then sat on the rock, smoking, talking,
and watching the various manoeuvres of the blacks. An old lady,
apparently about eighty, with a head as white as snow, topping her
black body (a flourbag cobbler, as her tribe would call her), was
punting a canoe along in the shallow water on the opposite side of the
river. She was entirely without clothes, and in spite of her
decrepitude stood upright in the cockleshell, handling it with great
dexterity. When she was a little above us, she made way on her barque,
and shot into the deep water in the middle of the stream, evidently
with the intention of speaking us. As, however, she was just half-way
across, floating helplessly, unable to reach the bottom with the spear
she had used as a puntpole in the shallower water, a mischievous black
imp canted her over, and souse she went into the river. It was amazing
to see how boldly and well the old woman struck out for the shore,
keeping her white head well out of the water; and, having reached dry
land once more, sat down on her haunches, and began scolding with a
volubility and power which would soon have silenced the loudest tongue
in old Billingsgate.
Her anger, so far from wearing out, grew on what fed it; so that her
long-drawn yells, which seemed like parentheses in her jabbering
discourse, were getting each minute more and more acute, and we were
just thinking about moving homewards, when a voice behind us sang out,--
"Hallo, Major! Having a little music, eh? What a sweet song that old
girl is singing! I must write it down from dictation, and translate it,
as Walter Scott used to do with the old wives' ballads in Scotland."
"I have no doubt it would be quite Ossianic--equal to any of the
abusive scenes in Homer. But, my dear Harding, how are you? You are
come to eat your Christmas dinner with us, I hope?"
"That same thing, Major," answered the new comer. "Troubridge and
Stockbridge, how are you? This, I presume, is your partner, Hamlyn?"
We went back to the house. Harding, I found, was half-owner of a
station to the north-east, an Oxford man, a great hand at skylarking,
and an inveterate writer of songs. He was good-looking too, and
gentlemanlike, in fact, a very pleasant companion in every way.
Dinner was to be at six o'clock, in imitation of home hours; but we did
not find the day hang heavy on our hands, there was so much to be
spoken of by all of us. And when that important meal was over we
gathered in the open air in front of the house, bent upon making
Christmas cheer.
"What is your last new song, eh, Harding?" said the Major; "now is the
time to ventilate it."
"I've been too busy shearing for song-writing, Major."
Soon after this we went in, and there we sat till nearly ten o'clock,
laughing, joking, singing, and drinking punch. Mary sat between James
Stockbridge and Tom, and they three spoke together so exclusively and
so low, that the rest of us were quite forgotten. Mary was smiling and
laughing, first at one and then at the other, in her old way, and now
and then as I glanced at her I could hardly help sighing. But I soon
remembered certain resolutions I had made, and tried not to notice the
trio, but to make myself agreeable to the others. Still my eyes
wandered towards them again intuitively. I thought Mary had never
looked so beautiful before. Her complexion was very full, as though she
were blushing at something one of them had said to her, and while I
watched I saw James rise and go to a jug of flowers, and bring back a
wreath of scarlet Kennedia, saying:--
"Do us a favour on Christmas night, Mary; twine this in your hair."
She blushed deeper than before, but she did it, and Tom helped her.
There was no harm in that, you say, for was he not her cousin? But
still I could not help saying to myself, "Oh Mary, Mary, if you were a
widow, how long would you stay so?"
"What a gathering it is, to be sure!" said Mrs. Buckley!--"all the old
Drumstonians who are alive collected under one roof."
"Except the Doctor," said the Major.
"Ah, yes, dear Doctor Mulhaus. I am so sad sometimes to think that we
shall never see him again."
"I miss him more than any one," said the Major. "I have no one to
contradict me now."
"I shall have to take that duty upon me, then," said his wife. "Hark!
there is Lee come back from the sheep station. Yes, that must be his
horse. Call him in and give him a glass of grog. I was sorry to send
him out to-day."
"He is coming to make his report," said Mrs. Buckley; "there is his
heavy tramp outside the door."
The door was opened, and the new comer advanced to where the glare of
the candles fell full upon his face.
Had the Gentleman in Black himself advanced out of the darkness at that
moment, with his blue bag on his arm and his bundle of documents in his
hand, we should not have leapt to our feet and cried out more suddenly
than we did then. For Doctor Mulhaus stood in the middle of the room,
looking around him with a bland smile.