Linda began to look out of the window at least two miles from the
Mooramah railway station. A few seconds before the train stopped,
she discovered Hubert on the platform.
Waving his hand to her, he was at the window in a moment, receiving,
indeed, personal tokens of welcome long before the guard could open
the door and collect the tickets.
“Oh! I _am_ so glad to see you again, dearest, dearest Hubert,”
exclaimed Linda. “You have no idea how nice and large Mooramah
looks. I am sure I shall never stir away from dear old Windāhgil for
a year. I don’t feel proud at all, do you, Laura? I am sure we are
both immensely improved, though. Don’t you think so, Hubert?”
“You must wait till you are at home again, and I can turn you round
and examine you both carefully,” said Hubert; “there are too many
people here at present. I think mother looks splendid, and the
governor gets younger every time he sees Sydney. I shall have to go
soon, or our ages will be reversed.”
“Poor, dear old Hubert!” said Laura, looking at her brother’s
sun-burnt face, and spare, muscular figure; “I’m sure you’ve been
working yourself to death while we were away, with nobody to stop
you. Never mind, we’ll soon make a difference—if we don’t talk you
to death the first week.”
“I can hear all you’ve got to say,” said Hubert; “but just now let
us get the luggage counted and ready for Jerry to put in the spring
cart; then we’ll rattle home in the buggy. Don’t the old horses look
well?”
“Splendid!” said Linda. “They have beautiful coats too, which I did
not expect. They’re not quite so aristocratic in demeanour as Mr.
Grandison’s carriage horses, but they can trot about double as fast,
I daresay.”
“They look very different to what they did this time last year,”
said Hubert, running his eye over the middle-sized, well-bred, wiry
pair. “Do you remember poor old Whalebone tumbling down—Whipcord was
nearly as bad—as we were driving to church, from sheer weakness?”
“Oh! yes,” said Linda; “we had to tie up the pole of the buggy with
our pocket-handkerchiefs; poor old dear! He looks as if he could
pull one’s arms off now.”
Once fairly off behind the fourteen-mile-an-hour buggy horses,
spinning along the smooth bush road—the best wheel track in the
world in good weather and in a dry country, that is, its normal
state—the spirits of the party rose several degrees. Mr. Stamford
and his wife were calmly happy at the idea of returning to their
quiet home life, having had enough of the excitement of city and
suburb for a while. The girls were continually exclaiming, as each
new turn of the road brought them within sight of well-remembered
spots and familiar points of the landscape, while Hubert, much too
happy to talk, kept looking at his relatives, one by one, with an
air of intense, overflowing affection.
“It’s worth all the loneliness to have you back again,” he said,
patting his mother’s cheek; “but it was horribly dismal for a time.
I felt as if I could have left the run in charge of the
boundary-riders, only for shame, and run down to Sydney myself.
Fortunately, Laura wrote so regularly that I seemed to know what you
were doing and saving, as well as almost everything you thought.”
“I wrote too, I’m sure,” said Linda, with an injured air.
“Well, you were more spasmodic. Though I was very glad to get your
letters too. I acquired a deal of information about the ‘Queen’s
Navee,’ in which department I was weak. However, I suppose it’s as
well to know everything.”
“I’m sure you are most ungrateful,” pouted Linda, “If you only knew
how hard it is to write!”
“Oh, ho! quoting from Lord Sandwich’s lines:—
‘To all you ladies now on land
We men at sea indite,
But first I’d have you understand
How hard it is to write.’”
“You are too clever altogether, Hubert,” said Linda, with rather a
conscious laugh. “You must have been taking lessons in mind-reading,
or some such stuff, in our absence. But oh! there are some of the
Windāhgil sheep. How well they look! I’d almost forgotten there were
such dear creatures in the world.”
“If it were not for them and their fleeces there would not be any
trips to Sydney, or bachelors’ balls, or picnics,” said Mr.
Stamford; “so keep up a proper respect for the merino interest, and
all belonging to it.”
“They never looked better than they do now,” said Hubert; “the
season has been a trifle dry since you left, but I think they are
all the better for it. And did not the wool bring a capital price?”
he continued. “I see you sold it all in Sydney—two and a penny, and
two and threepence for the hogget bales. The wash-pen was paid for
over and over again. However, I have a plan in my head for getting
it up better still next year.”
“That’s right, my boy,” said his father; “stick well to your
business and it will stick to you—a homely proverb, but full of
wisdom. How does the garden look?”
“Not so bad. I had it made pretty decent for mother to look at. I
kept all the new plants watered—they’ve grown splendidly, and I
managed, with a little help, to get up a ‘bush house’ in case mother
brought up any new ferns, or _Coleus_ novelties.”
“The very thing I am wishing for, my dear boy,” said his mother. “I
was just wondering how I could manage; I did get a few pot plants
and ferns.”
“A few!” said Mr. Stamford, making believe to frown. “You showed a
correct estimate of your mother’s probable weakness, however,
Hubert. I don’t know that you could have spent your leisure time
more profitably.”
“Home, sweet home!” sang Linda, as they drove up to the well-known
white gate. “How lovely the garden looks, and everything about the
dear old place is flourishing; even the turkeys have grown up since
we left. I feel as if I could go round and kiss everything—the very
posts of the verandah. That is the advantage of going away. I really
think it is one’s duty to do so; it makes you value your home so
when you come back.”
“I shall have no curiosity about the great world for a year at
least,” said Laura. “It will take us nearly that time to read all
the new books; and to properly enjoy the garden, I am going to have
a fernery of my own. I bought the _Fern World_ out of my own money,
and somebody—I forget who it was—promised to send me some rare New
Zealand and South Sea Island ferns. After all, the pleasures of
country life are the best, I really do believe; they are so calm and
peaceful and yet satisfying.”
That first meal, lunch or dinner, as it might happen to be, in the
old familiar room, was an unmixed delight to all. The two servants,
having just returned, had exerted themselves to prepare a somewhat
_recherché_ repast for the family, to whom they were attached, and
whose return they hailed with honest expressions of welcome. The
cookery and arrangements generally met with special commendation,
while in the intervals of talking, laughing, and sudden exclamations
of delight, Linda repeated her conviction that she had never enjoyed
eating and drinking so much since she left Windāhgil.
Immediately after this necessary performance, Hubert and Mr.
Stamford betook themselves to one of the outlying portions of the
run, where the son was anxious for his father to behold the success
of a new dam lately constructed. This piece of engineering had
“thrown back” the water of a creek nearly two miles, thus affording
permanent sustenance for a large flock of sheep.
“These weaners were formerly obliged to come in to the frontage, you
remember governor, where they were always mixing with the other
sheep. The water dried up regularly about this time. Now they can
stay here till next shearing, and I think the country suits them
better, too.”
“They are looking uncommonly well,” said Mr. Stamford, running his
eye over a flock of fine, well-grown young sheep, which were just
moving out to grass after their noonday rest. “They ought to cut a
first-rate fleece this year.”
“Yes; and the wool is so clean,” said Hubert. “There is nothing like
having your sheep within fences; no running about with dogs and
shepherds; they don’t get half the dust and sand into their fleeces.
But I’m afraid this is about the last improvement Windāhgil wants
doing to it. It’s getting too settled and finished. How I should
like to tackle a big, wild, half-stocked run in new country, with no
fencing done, and all the water to make!”
“You must bide your time, my boy,” said Mr. Stamford, with a serious
face. “It will come some day—in another year or two, perhaps. You
mustn’t be in too great a hurry to leave us all. Windāhgil is not
such a bad place.”
“On the contrary, it’s getting too good altogether. There’s only
half enough work, and next to no management required. Why, you could
do all the work yourself, governor, with a steady working overseer!”
“Thank you, my boy, for the compliment,” said Mr. Stamford, taking
off his hat.
“Oh, you know what I mean, father! so don’t pretend you don’t. I’m
not growing cheeky because things have gone well lately; but really
there’s only enough managing to keep you in exercise. It will half
break my heart to go away, but what’s the use of settling down on a
small comfortable place like this? And how can I feel that I’m doing
the best for the family, when I hear of fellows like Persse, and
Grantley, and Philipson taking up that new country beyond the Barcoo
by the thousand square miles; splendid downs covered with blue grass
and Mitchell grass? Grand water, too, when you come upon it. Think
what all that country will be worth in a few years.”
“I understand you, my boy,” said the proud father, while a sudden
emotion stirred his heart, as he remembered the days of his own
youth, when he too had nourished the same high thoughts of adventure
and discovery, and had played his part amid the dangers and
privations of frontier life. “You can talk it over with Mr. Hope.
We’ll see what can be done.”
“I suppose,” said Hubert, after a while, “when you’ve been up a week
or ten days, and I’ve talked over everything with mother and the
girls, from the regatta to the last new waltz step, I may as well
take my holiday. I haven’t had one for three years. I begin to
forget what the sea looks like, and I think a month in the ‘big
smoke’ and a few new ideas will do me no harm.”
“Have your holiday, by all means, and enjoy it too, my boy. Thank
God, it is not a question of money now. I have the fullest belief in
the sanitary value, mentally, of a trip to the metropolis now and
then.”
“Thank you, father. I’m sure it will brush me up a little; besides,
I want to go to the Lands Office for certain reasons. I want, above
all, to have a good talk with this Mr. Barrington Hope that I’ve
heard so much about.”
“You’ll find him an uncommon sort of person. The more you see of
him, the more you’ll like him, I feel certain. He is just the man I
should like you to make a friend of. Try and get him to return with
you, if he can spare the time.”
After the tea-things were cleared away, and the large, steadfast,
satisfactory table was left free for reading, writing, or
needlework—for all of which purposes it was equally well
adapted—what a season of rational enjoyment set in! The book box had
been opened before. The beautiful new uncut volumes, the titles of
which were received with exclamations of joy, were placed upon a
table. The collection of new music was inspected, Linda going there
and then to the piano and dashing off a waltz; making, besides, a
running commentary upon half-a-dozen songs which she and Laura were
going to learn directly there was a minute to spare. Mr. Stamford
took his accustomed chair, and devoted himself to the _Sydney
Morning Herald_. Mrs. Stamford resumed the needlework which is
apparently a species of Penelope’s web for all mothers of families,
while Hubert and Laura, somewhat apart from the rest, kneeling on
their chairs as if they had been children again, made a cursory
examination of the new books, exclaiming from time to time at
passages or illustrations.
“I feel inclined not to go to Sydney till after I’ve read most of
these books,” said Hubert; “only that would make it so late. But it
seems a pity to leave such a lot of splendid reading. Certainly
there’s the Public Library in Sydney, but I hardly ever go in there,
because I find it so hard to get out again. I did stay there once
till the lamps were lit. I had gone in for a few minutes after
breakfast.”
“What a queer idea!” said Laura, laughing outright. “How strange it
must have felt to have lost a whole day in Sydney. Never mind,
Hubert! There are a good many young men to whom it would not occur
to spend a whole day in a library, public or private. Everything in
moderation, though. You must have another station at your back
before you can read all day long.”
“Please God, we’ll have that too,” replied he with a cheery smile,
“or else the new country will be taken up very fast. I don’t think
Windāhgil will see me after next shearing; that is if the governor
doesn’t forbid it.”
“You don’t care about breaking our hearts, you naughty boy!” said
his sister, pressing her cheek against his, as they looked over the
same book. “What are we all to do when you are gone! You don’t think
how lonely and miserable the place will be.”
“Are you going to stay here all your life, Laura? If you will, I
will. But don’t think I shall not feel the parting bitterly; I quite
tremble to think of it. How miserable I was when you were in Sydney!
But what is a man to do? A few years of self-denial and hard life
now will make things easy for the rest of our days. I am the working
head of the family now. Father is not the man he used to be. And if
I take life too easily for the next few years, all these great
opportunities will be gone, and we shall regret it all the rest of
our lives.”
“But the risk!” sighed Laura; “the wild country, blacks, thirst,
fever and ague. Every paper brings news of some poor fellow losing
his life out there. What should we do if you were taken? Remember
how many lives you carry about with you.”
“You set a great value on Hubert Stamford,” he said jokingly, while
something in his eyes showed a deeper feeling. “Other people
wouldn’t think any great loss had taken place if I dropped. But men
still go to sea, though wrecks occur. Think how nice it will be when
I return bronzed, and illustrious, a gallant explorer with a whole
country-side taken up for ‘Stamford and Son,’ with runs to keep and
to sell, and to give away if we like.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be stopped; you are an obstinate boy, though
no one would think it. I think I shall take possession of the piano
and sing you that lovely ‘Volkslied,’ though I’m afraid my voice is
weak after the night journey.”
Laura had taken a few lessons in Sydney, very wisely. Her naturally
sweet, pure voice and correct intonation were therefore much aided
by her later instruction.
“You _have_ improved,” said her brother. “I never expected you to
turn out such a _prima donna_, though there is a tone in your voice
that always makes me wish to cry, as if that would be the height of
enjoyment. You brought up a duet for me, didn’t you? Well, we won’t
try it to-night. You’re rather tired, I can see. We’ll attack it
some morning after breakfast, when we’re fresh.”
From this day forward, life flowed on with uninterrupted felicity
for the Windāhgil household. It was nearly a week before the
excitement passed away of enjoying all the treasures and novelties
brought from the metropolis. The weather even became favourable to
the new development of the garden, in which Mr. Stamford and his
wife were principally interested. Genial showers refreshed the
soil—always inclined to be thirsty in that region—so that Mrs.
Stamford’s ferns and flowers, and plants with parti-coloured leaves,
as well as her husband’s new varieties of vegetables, shrubs, and
fruit trees, all partook of the beneficence of the season.
As for Hubert and his sisters, they rode and drove about by day
whenever the weather was favourable; indeed sometimes when it was
not. They read steadily at the new books by night, and by that
means, and a few visits to old friends in the neighbourhood, filled
up every spare moment in a mode of life each day of which was
consciously and unaffectedly happy.
In addition to these quasi-pastoral occupations, one day brought the
exciting news that a new proprietor—indeed a new family—was about to
arrive in the district—now the owner of a sheep station distant from
Windāhgil about twenty miles had for some months, indeed since the
change of season, cherished hopes of selling out to advantage.
An astute, unscrupulous speculator, he had purchased sheep largely,
at low prices, directly the weather broke, had crowded on to
Wantabalree all the stock it could hold—and more, had sent the rest
of his cheap purchase “on the road.” This means, in Australia,
travelling for grass to a distant undefined point in a neighbouring
colony whence at any time they could be ordered back; subsisting at
free quarters, on other men’s pastures till shearing.
He then offered Wantabalree for sale, at the high market price of
the day, describing it as a magnificent pastoral property with a
stock of sheep of the highest quality and breeding; puffed up the
grass, the improvements, the homestead, the water supply, directly
and indirectly, and having done all this, awaited quietly the usual
victim provided with cash and deficient in experience.
In Australia, as in other countries probably, it is a fact patent to
observers of human nature that the weak points of any particular
locality are rarely obtruded upon the incoming proprietor or tenant.
He is, in a general way, prone to spend money on a liberal scale for
the first two or three years.
The interests of other proprietors are, in a way, identical.
Assuming that the newly-arrived purchaser has made an indifferent
bargain—that is, has misunderstood wholly the value of his
investment, or bought in total ignorance of the peculiar drawbacks
of the district, it is rarely that any one volunteers to enlighten
him.
Such information, if unfavourable, might tend to depreciate the
value of property locally. It was none of their business. Every one
had enough to do to look after their own affairs. They might want to
sell out themselves some day.
Besides, after all, the seasons might prove wet for years to come,
in which case a tide of general prosperity would set in, quite
sufficient to float Colonel Dacre’s as well as the other partially
stranded argosies of the period.
This was the mode of reasoning which mostly obtained around
Mooramah—possibly not wholly unknown in other centres more or less
connected with financial operations.
Even an experienced Australian pastoralist may be placed at
considerable disadvantage when he comes to inspect station property
in a region previously unknown to him. He may under-rate or
over-estimate the changes in pasture produced in varying seasons. He
may be wholly ignorant of probable or latent disease. Summer’s heat
or winter’s cold may surprise him by their diverse results. Such men
may make—have indeed made—the most astonishing mistakes in
purchasing stations in unfamiliar country. How much more so the
wholly inexperienced, newly-arrived buyer from Europe, or
Hindustan—ignorant of the very alphabet of pastoral science! He is
indeed delivered over as a prey. The net is, in a manner, spread for
him. Unless he be clearly warned, and indeed vigorously frightened
away from this all-tempting enclosure, he is very apt to be
enmeshed. After his entanglement—from which except by the blindest
chance he rarely emerges save with despoiled plumage and drooping
crest—he can hear from his too reticent neighbours doleful tales of
loss and distress, a portion of which information would have been
sufficient to deter him from (as he now believes) so suicidal an
investment.
To do the Stamfords justice, they were not the sort of people likely
to stand by and see an injustice perpetrated without protest.
Colonel Dacre, on arriving in the district, had called at Windāhgil,
and informing Mr. Stamford that he felt disposed to buy Wantabalree,
which was then offered for sale with so many sheep, so much
purchased land, &c., had asked his opinion of the policy of the
purchase.
Hubert and his father looked at one another for a moment. Then the
younger man burst out—“I think it’s a confounded shame that any
gentleman coming to a fresh district should be taken in, utterly
deceived in a purchase like this one of Wantabalree. It is known to
every child within fifty miles that the place is over-stocked by
nearly one-half. The reason the run looks so well is that a lot of
sheep that were travelling have just been put on. They haven’t had
time to eat down the grass yet. If a dry season comes they’ll die
like flies.”
“You must be careful in making statements to Mr. Dealerson’s
prejudice,” said his father. “We are not on good terms with him.
That should be, perhaps, considered by Colonel Dacre. At the same
time, I endorse every word you have said.”
“I know I hate the fellow like poison,” said Hubert. “He’s mean and
dishonest—and deserves to be had up for false representation to
boot; but I would say the same if he were my own brother. The sale
of Wantabalree with the stock at present on it, under the
advertisement of a fairly-stocked run, is a deception and a robbery.
I give Colonel Dacre leave to repeat my words to Mr. Dealerson or
his friends.”
“I gather from what you say,” said the Colonel; “that the stock upon
Wantabalree is in excess of what it would be safe to depasture in
ordinary seasons; that the buyer would probably, in the event of an
unfavourable season, be at a disadvantage—--”
“Such a disadvantage that he would lose twenty or thirty thousand
sheep to begin with,” replied Hubert; “and even under the most
favourable circumstances the place could never carry its present
stock.”
“Yet the sheep look very well—are indeed fit for market—as I am
informed by the person the agents recommended me to consult.”
“This is the finest season we have had for five years. It is the
best time of year also,” said Hubert. “Any run about here would
carry double its ordinary stock for a few months—till winter, for
instance. If a third more sheep were put on now, say on to this run,
neither sheep nor run would exhibit much difference until the autumn
was well over.”
“And what would happen then?” asked the Colonel.
“Then they would merely begin to starve—become weak and die—thousand
after thousand, while all the survivors would be impoverished and
lessened in value.”
“Good Heavens!” said the astonished soldier. “I never imagined such
deceit could be practised in a pastoral community. It amounts to
obtaining money under false pretences!”
“Not legally,” said Mr. Stamford; “but every word which my son has
told you is substantially true. Wantabalree with its present stock
is nothing better than a trap skilfully set to catch the unwary
purchaser. Mr. Dealerson is, so to speak, an enemy of ours, but I
will do Hubert the justice to say that a friend acting similarly
would have fared no better at his hands.”
“Well! forewarned is forearmed,” said the colonel. “I feel deeply
indebted to you, but your conduct has been in marked contrast to
that of all the other residents to whom I have spoken on the
subject.”
“Unfortunately, there is too much caution or apathy in matters of
this sort,” said Mr. Stamford. “We should have been delighted to
have you as a neighbour, believe me, but not at such cost to
yourself.”