_Quæ amissa, salva._
The parlour of the ‘Woolpack’ was full of men in from their stations
for ‘Land Court Day.’ A babel of talk was toward—mostly ‘shop.’
‘Footrot!’ shouted a small energetic looking man, ‘I’ll tell you how I
cure my sheep! You boil vinegar, and arsenic, and blue-stone up—No,
Polly, I ordered lager. And then—’ ‘Worms,’ my dear fellow, another
was saying, ‘You can’t cure ’em! Don’t tell me! You go and make an
infernal chemist’s shop of your sheep’s stomach, ruin the wool and
constitution; and, after all your trouble, up bobs the little worm
serenely as ever.’ ‘Strike,’ came from another corner of the big room.
‘No fear! No strike this year if we hang together like we mean to do.
I think we’re pretty right in this district, anyhow. Everybody’s
joined, bar M‘Pherson, and he’ll come-to presently. By jingo, here he
is! Touch the bell, Bob, and let’s have ’em again.’ As the speaker
finished, a burly, grey-whiskered man entered with, in his wake,
another person who had evidently been closely pressing his companion
with argument and persuasion, for the latter was saying irritably,—
‘Once for a’, I tell ye, no. I’ll nae join. I’ll just stan’ on my ain
bottom, an’ employ wha I like. When I want my wool aff, aff it comes;
an’ wha takes it aff I dinna care a damn, so it’s taken off to my
satisfaction! Will that do ye?’
‘The gospel of selfishness according to M‘Pherson,’ said a voice from
out the smoke-clouds. ‘The assessment ’d drive him mad.’ ‘Bang went
saxpence!’ sang out someone else, as the Scotch squatter turned
angrily round with a dim idea that he was being baited.
But the older men quietened the youngsters who threatened to break
bounds.
They still hoped—stubborn and untouchable, except by way of his
pocket, though he was—to gain M‘Pherson to the cause.
He was the largest sheepowner in the district, and that was saying a
good deal when the smallest shore 40,000. Palkara shed was one of the
shearing prizes of the colony, and the A.S.[7] Union officials viewed
the defection of its owner with joy.
[Footnote 7: Australian Shearers’.]
‘So I hear you bought the “Duke” down at the sales, Mac?’ said one
presently, as the old man, his wrath subsiding, sipped his whisky and
water.
‘Ay,’ responded he, ‘it was a stiff price to gie, but I’m no
regrettin’ it. He’s a wonnerfu’ fine beast.’
They were sitting with their backs to the open windows, which gave on
to a many-seated crowded verandah, and from this came,—
‘That you may lose him before you’ve had him a week, unless you join
the Association!’
‘If I do, I’ll join, and ask it to help me find him,’ retorted
M‘Pherson angrily into the hot outside night, and would fain have
risen and gone in search of the speaker, but that his friend, whose
name was Park, a neighbouring squatter, pulled him back, saying,—
‘Never mind these youngsters, Mac. They’re getting a bit sprung, I
fancy. It’s no use making a row. When’ll the “Duke” be up?’
‘He’s due here on Tuesday,’ replied the other, ‘an’, if ye’ll be in,
ye can see him. He’s weel worth the lookin’ at. He’ll come by rail to
Burrtown, an’ then by coach on.
Two bachelor brothers, the Blakes, who owned a run not far from
Palkara, were close to the window at which the pair sat.
The younger brother it was who had fired the remark inside about
losing the great ram for which M‘Pherson had just paid 700 guineas.
* * * * *
‘Well, Jack, what passengers to-night?’ asked the overseer of Blake’s
Tara Station, as Cobb & Co.’s coach drew slowly up in the pouring rain
close to the homestead door.
‘Nary one, bar a cussed ole brute of a ram,’ replied the driver, as he
stiffly dismounted, and handed out the mail. ‘I got him at the
railway, and I’ve bin more cautious with him than if he’d bin a Lord
Bishop He’s for M‘Pherson up at Palkara. Hold the light please,
Mr Brown, till I see if the beggar’s all serene.’
‘He’s right enough,’ said the overseer, after a glance at the
aristocrat, resting luxuriously on pillows, half buried in hay, and
with his legs tied by silk handkerchiefs. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘slip
inside and have a snack and a drop of hot grog. I’ll stand by the
horses.’
‘You’re a Christian, Mr Brown,’ remarked the driver gratefully, as he
pulled off his gloves and blew on his numbed fingers. ‘It’s the
coldest rain for this time o’ the year as ever I felt.’
Scarcely had his dripping figure entered the open kitchen door, when,
from behind a clump of bushes, came two figures bearing something
between them. Lifting the ‘Duke’ with scant ceremony out of his couch,
they deposited their burden in his place, and after a few whispered
words to Brown, still at the horses’ heads, disappeared. Presently the
driver returned, and, with a cheery ‘Good-night,’ started the coach
rolling once more through the forty miles of mud and water between
Tara and Combington.
* * * * *
‘Coach in, Edwards?’ asked M‘Pherson the next afternoon as he drove up
to the ‘Woolpack,’ accompanied by his friend Park.
‘Yes, sir. It’s a bit late, though,’ replied the landlord. ‘Roads
terrible heavy after the rain. I had the ram untied an’ put in the
stable, an’ gave him some green stuff.’
‘That’s right, Edwards,’ said the squatter. ‘How does he look after
the trip—pretty well?’