IN BAD COMPANY
AND OTHER STORIES
THE WORKS OF
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
UNIFORM EDITION
_Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._
ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.
A COLONIAL REFORMER.
THE MINER'S RIGHT.
A MODERN BUCCANEER.
NEVERMORE.
THE SQUATTER'S DREAM.
A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.
OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES.
MY RUN HOME.
THE SEALSKIN CLOAK.
THE CROOKED STICK; OR, POLLIE'S PROBATION.
PLAIN LIVING.
A ROMANCE OF CANVAS TOWN.
WAR TO THE KNIFE.
BABES IN THE BUSH.
IN BAD COMPANY, AND OTHER STORIES.
* * * * *
THE SPHINX OF EAGLEHAWK: A TALE OF OLD BENDIGO. Fcap. 8vo. 2s.
THE GHOST CAMP; OR, THE AVENGERS. Cr. 8vo. 6s.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
IN BAD COMPANY
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
AUTHOR OF
'ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,' 'THE MINER'S RIGHT,' 'THE SQUATTER'S DREAM,'
'A COLONIAL REFORMER,' ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1903
_All rights reserved_
_First Edition 1901_
_Re-issue 1903_
CONTENTS
PAGE
IN BAD COMPANY 1
MORGAN THE BUSHRANGER 135
HOW I BECAME A BUTCHER 146
MOONLIGHTING ON THE MACQUARIE 165
AN AUSTRALIAN ROUGHRIDING CONTEST 174
THE MAILMAN'S YARN 182
DEAR DERMOT 190
THE STORY OF AN OLD LOG-BOOK 199
A KANGAROO SHOOT 208
FIVE MEN'S LIVES FOR ONE HORSE 214
REEDY LAKE STATION 220
A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY 234
THE HORSE YOU DON'T SEE NOW 241
HOW I BEGAN TO WRITE 249
A MOUNTAIN FOREST 255
THE FREE SELECTOR—A COMEDIETTA 261
BUSH HOSPITALITY 282
LAPSED GENTLEFOLK 288
SHEARING IN RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES 296
ANCIENT SYDNEY 321
AFTER LONG YEARS 335
IN THE DROVING DAYS 341
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIVE-BORN TYPE 351
MY SCHOOL DAYS 360
SYDNEY FIFTY YEARS AGO 369
OLD TIME THOROUGHBREDS 377
THE FIRST PORT FAIRY HUNT 387
BENDEMEER 398
SPORT IN AUSTRALIA 407
OLD STOCK-RIDERS 415
MOUNT MACEDON 422
WALKS ABROAD 430
FROM TUMUT TO TUMBERUMBA 437
IN THE THROES OF A DROUGHT 444
A SPRING SKETCH 449
NEW YEAR'S DAY 1886 455
A DRY TIME 461
AUSTRALIAN COLLIES 466
IN THE BLOOM OF THE YEAR 474
FALLEN AMONG THIEVES 481
A TRANSFORMATION SCENE 491
IN BUSHRANGING DAYS 501
IN BAD COMPANY
CHAPTER I
Bill Hardwick was as fine a specimen of an Australian as you could find
in a day's march. Active as a cat and strong withal, he was mostly
described as 'a real good all-round chap, that you couldn't put wrong at
any kind of work that a man could be asked to do.'
He could plough and reap, dig and mow, put up fences and huts, break in
horses and drive bullocks; he could milk cows and help in the dairy as
handily as a woman. These and other accomplishments he was known to
possess, and being a steady, sensible fellow, was always welcome when
work was needed and a good man valued. Besides all this he was the
fastest and the best shearer in the district of Tumut, New South Wales,
where he was born, as had been his father and mother before him. So that
he was a true Australian in every sense of the word.
It could not be said that the British race had degenerated as far as he
was concerned. Six feet high, broad-chested, light-flanked, and standing
on his legs like a gamecock, he was always ready to fight or work, run,
ride or swim, in fact to tackle any muscular exercise in the world at
the shortest notice.
Bill had always been temperate, declining to spend his earnings to
enrich the easy-going township publican, whose mode of gaining a living
struck him as being too far removed from that of honest toil. Such being
his principles and mode of life, he had put by a couple of hundred
pounds, and 'taken up a selection.' This means (in Australia) that he
had conditionally purchased three hundred and twenty acres of Crown
Land, had paid up two shillings per acre of the upset price, leaving the
balance of eighteen shillings, to be paid off when convenient. He had
constructed thereon, chiefly with his own hands, a comfortable,
four-roomed cottage, of the 'slab' architecture of the period, and after
fencing in his property and devoting the proceeds of a couple of
shearings to a modest outlay in furniture, had married Jenny Dawson, a
good-looking, well-conducted young woman, whom he had known ever since
he was big enough to crack a stockwhip.
In her way she was as clever and capable; exceptionally well adapted for
the position of a farmer's wife, towards which occupation her birth and
surroundings had tended. She was strong and enduring in her way, as were
her husband and brothers in theirs. She could milk cows and make
excellent butter, wasn't afraid of a turbulent heifer in the dairy herd,
or indisposed to rise before daylight in the winter mornings and drive
in the milkers through the wet or frozen grass. She could catch and
saddle her own riding-horse or drive the spring cart along an
indifferent road to the country town. She knew all about the rearing of
calves, pigs, and poultry; could salt beef and cure bacon—in a general
way attend to all the details of a farm. Her father had acquired a small
grant in the early colonial days, and from its produce and profits
reared a family of healthy boys and girls.
They had not been educated up to the State school standard now
considered necessary for every dweller in town or country, but they
could read and write decently; had also such knowledge of arithmetic as
enabled them to keep their modest accounts. Such having been the early
training of Bill's helpmate, it was a fair augury that, with luck and
good conduct, they were as likely as any young couple of their age to
prosper reasonably, so as eventually to acquire a competence, or even,
as indeed not a few of their old friends and neighbours had done, to
attain to that enviable position generally described as 'making a
fortune.'
For the first few years nothing could have been more promising than the
course of affairs at Chidowla or 'Appletree Flat,' as their homestead
was formerly named, in consequence of the umbrageous growth of the
'angophora' in the meadow by the mountain creek, which bordered their
farm. Bill stayed at home and worked steadily, until he had put in his
crop. He cleared and cultivated a larger piece of ground with each
succeeding year. The seasons were genial, and the rainfall, though
occasionally precarious, did not, during this period, show any
diminution. But annually, before the first spring month came round, Bill
saddled the old mare, and leading a less valuable or perhaps half-broken
young horse, packed his travelling 'swag' upon it and started off for
the shearing. Jenny did not particularly like being left alone for three
months or perhaps four, with no one but the children, for by this time a
sturdy boy and baby girl had been added to the household. But Bill
brought home such a welcome addition to the funds in the shape of the
squatters' cheques, that she hid her uneasiness and discomfort from him,
only hoping, as she said, that some day, if matters went on as they were
going, they would be able to do without the shearing money, and Bill
could afford to stop with his wife and children all the year round. That
was what _she_ would like.
So time went on, till after one more shearing, Bill began to think about
buying the next selection, which an improvident neighbour would shortly
be forced to sell, owing to his drinking habits and too great fondness
for country race meetings.
The soil of the land so handily situated was better than their own, and,
as an adjoining farm, could be managed without additional expense.
The 'improvements' necessary for holding it under the lenient land laws
of New South Wales had been effected.
They were not particularly valuable, but they had been passed by the
Inspector of Conditional Purchases, who was not too hard on a poor man,
if he made his selection his '_bona fide_ home and residence.' This
condition Mr. Dick Donahue certainly had fulfilled as far as locating
his hard-working wife Bridget and half-a-dozen bare-legged, ragged
children thereon, with very little to eat sometimes, while he was acting
as judge at a bush race meeting, or drinking recklessly at the
public-house in the township.
So now the end had come. The place was mortgaged up to its full value
with the bank at Talmorah, the manager of which had refused to advance
another shilling upon it.
The storekeeper, who had a bill of sale over the furniture, horses and
cows, plough, harrow, and winnowing machine, had decided to sell him up.
The butcher and the baker, despairing of getting their bills paid,
declined further orders. Poor Bridget had been lately feeding herself
and the children on milk and potatoes, last year's bacon, and what eggs
the fowls, not too well fed themselves, kindly produced.
Jenny had helped them many a time, from womanly pity. But for her, they
would often have been without the 'damper' bread, which served to fill
up crevices with the hungry brood—not that she expected return or
payment, but as she said, 'How could I see the poor things hungry, while
we have a snug home and all we can eat and drink?'
Then she would mentally compare Bill's industry with Dick's neglect, and
a feeling of wifely pride would thrill her heart as she returned to her
comfortable cottage and put her children, always neatly dressed, to
sleep in their clean cots.
As she sat before the fire, near the trimly-swept hearth, which looked
so pleasant and homely, though there was but a wooden slab chimney
with a stone facing, a vision arose before her of prosperous days when
they would have a ring fence round their own and the Donahues'
farm—perhaps even an 'additional conditional lease,' to be freehold
eventually—afterwards a flock of sheep and who knows what in the years
to come.
'The Donahues, poor things, would have to sell and go away, that was
certain; _they_ couldn't prevent them being sold up—and, of course, Bill
might as well buy it as another. The bank manager, Mr. Calthorpe, would
sell the place, partly on credit, trusting Bill for the remainder, with
security on both farms, because he was sober and industrious. Indeed, he
told Bill so last week. What a thing it was to have a good name! When
she thought of the way other women's husbands "knocked down" their money
after shearing, forty and fifty pounds, even more, in a week's drunken
bout, she felt that she could not be too thankful.
'Now Bill, when shearing was over, generally took a small sum in
cash—just enough to see him home, and paid in the cheque for the
season's shearing to his bank account. It was over sixty pounds last
year, for he sold his spare horse—a thirty-shilling colt out of the
pound, that he had broken in himself—to the overseer, for ten guineas,
and rode home on the old mare, who, being fat and frolicsome after her
spell, "carried him and his swag first-rate."
'As to the two farms, no doubt it would give them all they knew, at
first, to live and pay interest. But other people could do it, and why
shouldn't they? Look at the Mullers! The bark hut they lived in for the
first few years is still there. They kept tools, seed potatoes, odds and
ends in it now. Next, they built a snug four-roomed slab cottage, with
an iron roof. That's used for the kitchen and men's room. For they've
got a fine brick house, with a verandah and grand furniture, and a big
orchard and more land, and a flock of sheep and a dairy and a buggy
and—everything. How I should like a buggy to drive myself and the
children to the township! Wouldn't it be grand? To be sure they're
Germans, and it's well known they work harder and save more than us
natives. But what one man and woman can do, another ought to be able
for, I say!'
And here Jenny shut her mouth with a resolute expression and worked away
at her needle till bedtime. Things were going on comfortably with this
meritorious young couple, and Bill was getting ready to start for the
annual trip 'down the river,' as it was generally described. This was a
region distant three hundred miles from the agricultural district where
the little homestead had been created. The 'down the river' woolsheds
were larger and less strictly managed (so report said) than those of the
more temperate region, which lay near the sources of the great rivers.
In some of them as many as one hundred, two hundred, even three hundred
thousand sheep were annually shorn. And as the fast shearers would do
from a hundred to a hundred and fifty sheep per day, it may be
calculated, at the rate of one pound per hundred, what a nice little
cheque would be coming to every man after a season's shearing. More
particularly if the weather was fine.
Bill was getting ready to start on the following morning when a man
named Janus Stoate arrived, whom he knew pretty well, having more than
once shorn in the same shed with him.
He was a cleverish, talkative fellow, with some ability and more
assurance, qualities which attract steady-going, unimaginative men like
Bill, who at once invited him to stay till the morning, when they could
travel together. Stoate cheerfully assented, and on the morrow they took
the road after breakfast, much to Mrs. Hardwick's annoyance, who did not
care for the arrangement. For, with feminine intuition, she distrusted
Janus Stoate, about whom she and her husband had had arguments.
He was a Londoner—an 'assisted' emigrant, a radical socialist, brought
out at the expense of the colony. For which service he was so little
grateful that he spoke disrespectfully of all the authorities, from the
Governor downward, and indeed, as it seemed to her, of respectable
people of every rank and condition. Now Jenny, besides being naturally
an intelligent young woman, utilised her leisure hours during her
husband's absence, for reading the newspapers, as well as any books she
could get at. She had indeed more brains than he had, which gift she
owed to an Irish grandmother. And though she did by no means attempt to
rule him, her advice was always listened to and considered.
'I wish you were going with some one else,' she said with an air of
vexation. 'It's strange that that Stoate should come, just on your last
evening at home. I don't like him a little bit. He's just artful enough
to persuade you men that he's going to do something great with this
"Australian Shearers' Union" that I see so much about in the newspapers.
I don't believe in him, and so I tell you, Bill!'
'I know you don't like Unions,' he answered, 'but see what they've done
for the working classes! What could we shearers have done without ours?'
'Just what you did before you had anything to do with him and his Union.
Do your work and get paid for it. You got your shearing money all right,
didn't you? Mr. Templemore's cheques, and Mr. Dickson's and Mr. Shand's,
were always paid, weren't they? How should we have got the land and this
home, but for them?'
'Well, but, Jenny, we ought to think about the other workers as well as
ourselves—"Every man should stand by his order," as Stoate says.'
'I don't see that at all. Charity's all very well, but we have our own
business to look after and let other people mind theirs. Order, indeed!
I call it disorder,—and them that work it up will have to pay for it,
mark my words. You look at those children, William Hardwick, that's
where you've got to give your money to, and your wife, and not a lot of
gassing spouters like Janus Stoate, who don't care if their families
starve, while they're drinking and smoking, talking rubbish, and
thinking themselves fine fellows, and what fools you and the rest are to
pay them for it.'
'Well, but the squatters are lowering the price of shearing, Jenny; we
must make a stand against that, surely!'
'And suppose they do. Isn't wool falling, and sheep too? Aren't they
boiling down their ewes, and selling legs of mutton for a shilling
apiece? Why should they go on paying a pound a hundred when everything's
down? When prices rise, shearing'll go up again, and wages too—you know
we can get mutton now for a penny a pound. Doesn't that make a
difference? You men seem to have no sense in you, to talk in that way!'
'Well, but what are we to do? If they go on cutting down wages, there's
no saying what they'll do next.'
'Time enough to think about that when it comes. You take a fair thing,
now that times are bad, it'll help them that's helped you, and when they
get better, shearing and everything else will go up too. You can't get
big wages out of small profits; your friends don't seem to have gumption
enough to see that. I'm ashamed of you, I really am, Bill!'
'Well, I must go now—I daresay the squatters will give in, and there'll
be no row at all.'
'What do you want to have a row for, I should like to know? Haven't you
always been well treated and well fed, and well paid?—and now you want
to turn on them that did it for you, just as if you were one of those
larrikins and spielers, that come up partly for work, and more for
gambling and stealing! I say it's downright ungrateful and foolish
besides—and if you follow all the Union fads, mark my words, you'll live
to rue the day.'
'Well, good-bye, Jenny, I can't stop any longer, you're too set up to be
reasonable.'
'Good-bye, Bill, and don't be going and running risks at another man's
bidding; and if you bring that man here again, as sure as my name's Jane
Hardwick, I'll set the dogs on him.' And here Jenny went into the
cottage, and shut the door with a bang, while Bill rode down the track
to join his companion, feeling distinctly uncomfortable; the more so, as
he reflected that he and Jenny had never parted in this way before.
'You've been a long time saying good-bye,' said that gentleman, with a
sneering accent in his voice; 'that's the worst of bein' married, you
never can follow your own opinions without a lot of barneyin' and
opposition. It's a curious thing that women never seem to be on the side
of progress—they're that narrow-minded, as they don't look ahead of the
day's work.'
'My old woman's more given to look ahead than I am,' said Bill
seriously. 'But, of course, we all know that we must stick together, if
we expect to get anything out of the employers.'
'Yes, yes—by George, you're quite right,' said Stoate, as if Bill had
enunciated an original and brilliant idea. 'What I and the workers want
is to bring the capitalists on their knees—the labour element has never
had its proper share of profits in the past. But we're going to have
things different in the future. How was all the big estates put
together, and them fine houses built, except by _our_ labour? And what
do we get after all, now the work's done? We've never had our fair
share. Don't you see that?' Here he looked at Bill, who could find
nothing to say but—
'I suppose not.'
'Suppose not? We've as much right to be ridin' in our buggies as the man
as just passed us with that slashin' pair. Our labour made the land
valuable—built the houses and put up the fences. Where do _we_ come in,
I ask you?'
'Well, I suppose the men that worked got their wages, didn't they?'
answered Bill. 'There's been a deal of employment the last few years. I
did pretty well out of a fencing contract, I know, and my mate started a
big selection from his share.'
'Yes, yes, I daresay, that's where you fellers make the mistake. If you
get a few pounds slung to you by these capitalists, you don't think of
the other poor chaps walkin' about half starved, begging a meal here and
a night's lodging there. What we ought to go in for is a co-operative
national movement. That's the easiest of all. One man to find the
money.'
'Is it?' Bill could not help saying, interrupting the flood of Stoate's
eloquence. 'I've always found it dashed hard to find a few pounds.'
'I don't mean fellers like us; we work hard—a dashed sight too hard for
all we get. I mean the regular professional capitalist, in a manner of
speakin', that's got his money by buying land, when the Government
oughtn't never to have sold it, if they'd had any savey, or had it left
him by his father, as had robbed the people some other way. Well, he
finds the money, you and I the muscle—and mark you, they can't do
nothin' without _that_—and others, smartish chaps as comes from the
people mostly, finds the brains.'
'And what after that?'
'That's what I'm a-coming to,' answered Stoate pompously. 'When the
sheep's shorn, the fat ones sold, the wheat reaped, and the money put in
the bank, we all divide fair, according to our shares. So much for
interest on capital, so much for labouring work, so much for head work,
so much for light, easy things like clerking, as most any fool can do.'
'That sounds pretty fair,' replied Bill, scratching his head, as he
endeavoured to grasp the complex conditions of the scheme. 'But who's to
boss the whole thing? There must be a boss?'
'Oh, of course, there'll be a council—elected by the people—that is of
course the shareholders in each industrial, co-operative establishment;
they all have votes, you know. The council will do all the bossing.'
'Oh, I see, and all share alike. One man's as good as another, I
suppose.'
'Certainly, all have equal rights; every man willing to work has a right
to have work found for him by the State.'
'But suppose he won't work when it _is_ found for him? You and I have
known plenty of coves like that.'
'Well, of course, there _is_ a difference in men—some haven't the
natural gift, as you may say—don't care for "hard graft," but you must
remember no one'll have to work hard when labour's federated.'
'How'll the work be done, then?'
'Why, you see, every one will have to do four or six hours a day, rich
and poor, young and old, from sixteen to sixty. Before that their
eddication [Mr. Stoate's early environment—his father was a radical
cobbler—had fixed his pronunciation of that important word inexorably],
this eddication, I say (which is the great thing for a worker, and
enables him to hold his own against the employers, who've always had a
monopoly of it), has to be attended to. After sixty, they've to be
pensioned off, not wanted to do no more work. And as Bellamy says in his
_Looking Backward_ (a great book, as all our chaps ought to read)—"If
every one in the State worked their four hours a day, the whole work of
the world could be easy done, and no one the worse for it."'
'That sounds well enough,' said Bill thoughtfully, 'but I'm afraid it
wouldn't wash. A lot of chaps would be trying for the easy parts, and
those that were cast for the rough and tumble wouldn't do it with a
will, or only half and half. And who's to draft 'em off? The fellers
elected to do it would have all the say, and if they had a down on a
chap—perhaps a deal better man than themselves—they could drop him in
for the lowest billets going.'
'That could all be set right in the usual way,' replied Stoate,
pompously mouthing his words as if addressing an imaginary audience.
'Every member of the Association would have the right of appeal to the
Grand Council.'
'And suppose they didn't side with the workin' feller—these talking
chaps, as like as not, would hang together—he'd have to grin and bear
it. He'd be no better than a slave. Worse than things are now. For a man
can get a lawyer, and fight out his case before the P.M., and the other
beaks. They're mostly fair and square—what I've seen of 'em. They've no
interest one way or the other.'
'No more would the Grand Labour Council.'
'Don't know so much about that, working coves are middlin' jealous of
one another. If one chap's been elected to the Council, as you call it,
and another feller opposed him and got beat, there's sure to be bad
blood between them, and the man that's up like enough'll want to rub it
into the man that's down—and there'd be no one to see fair play like the
beaks.'
'Why, you're getting to be a regular "master's man." That's not the way
to talk, if you're goin' to be a Unionist.'
'Oh, I'll follow the Union,' replied Bill, 'if things are going to be
fair and square, not any other way, and so I tell you. But if it's such
a jolly good thing to put your money in a station and share and share
alike with all the other chaps, why don't some of you Union chaps put
your money together?—lots of you could raise a hundred or more if you
didn't drink it. Then you could shear your own sheep, sell your own
wool, and raise your own bread, meat, vegetables—everything. You could
divide the profits at the end of the year, and if running a squatting
station's such a thundering good thing, why you'd all make fortunes in
no time. What do you say to that now?'
'Well, of course, it sounds right enough,' answered Stoate, with less
than his usual readiness. 'There's a lot of things to be considered
about afore you put your money into a big thing like that. You've got to
get the proper sort of partners—men as you know something about, and
that can be depended on for to work steady, and do what they're told.'
'Do what they're told? Why, ain't that the one thing you Union chaps are
fighting the squatters about? They're not to be masters in their own
woolsheds! The shearers and rouseabouts are _not_ to obey the squatters'
overseer, they must work as the Union's delegate tells 'em. What sort of
fake d'ye call that? Suppose I'm harvestin'—my crop's not much now, but
it may be, some day—d'ye mean to say I'm not to talk sharp to my own
men, and say "do this" or "do that"? And a delegate walkin' up and down,
makin' believe to be boss, while I'm payin' for the wages and rations,
and horses and thrashing-machine, and the whole boiling, would I stand
that? No! I'd kick him out of the place, and that dashed soon, I can
tell you!' And here Bill's eyes began to sparkle and his fists to
tighten on the reins as if he itched to 'stand up to his man,' with
steady eye and watchful 'left,' ready for the first chance to 'land' his
adversary.
* * * * *
The sun was scarcely an hour high when the wayfarers came in sight of
the village-appearing group of edifices familiarly known as a 'sheep
station.' The 'men's hut' came first into view—a substantial dwelling,
with horizontal sawn slabs and shingled roof, a stone chimney and a
dining-room. Boasting a cook, moreover, of far from ordinary rank. A
superior building, in fact, to the one which the owner of the station
thought good enough for himself for the first few years of his
occupation of North Yalla-doora.
This was the abiding-place of the resident labourers on the station; men
who received a fixed weekly wage, varying from a pound to twenty-five
shillings per week, with board and lodging additional. The Australian
labourer is catered for on perhaps the most liberal dietary scale in the
world. He is supplied with three meals per diem, of beef or mutton of
the best quality, with bread _à discrétion_, also tea (the ordinary
drink of the country) in unlimited quantity, with milk and vegetables if
procurable. Condiments, sauces, and preserves, if his tastes run that
way, he has to pay for as extras.
They can be procured, also wearing apparel, boots, and all other
necessaries, at the station store; failing that, at the 'township,'
invariably found within easy distance of any large station.
Besides the 'men's hut' comes next in rank the 'shearers' hut,'
dedicated to those important and (at shearing time) exclusive
personages; the sheep-washers', the rouseabouts' huts, all necessary
different establishments; as also the 'travellers' hut,' set apart for
the nomadic labourer or 'swagman,' who sojourning but for a night is by
the unwritten law of Bushland provided with bread and meat, cooking
utensils, water, and firewood _gratis_.
Then, at a certain distance, the woolshed—with half an acre of roofed,
battened yards and pens—the 'big house,' the stable, the horse-yard, the
stock-yard, the milking-yard, with perhaps half-a-dozen additional
nondescript constructions.
It may easily be imagined that such buildings, scattered and disjointed
as they were, had much more the appearance of a village than of a single
establishment owned, managed, and supported by one man (or one firm),
and absolutely subject to his orders and interest.
'Might as well stop here to-night,' said Stoate; 'it's twenty-five mile
to Coolah Creek for to-morrow, and the road heavy in places. Look at it!
There's a bloomin' township to belong to one man, and _us_ travellin'
the country looking for work!'
'It took a lot of labour to put up all the huts and places, not to count
in the shed and yards, you bet,' said his companion, who had been silent
for the last half-hour, 'and many a cheque was drawed afore the last
nail was drove in. I know a chap that's made a small fortune out of Mr.
Templemore's contracts, and that's got a farm to show for it to-day.
What's wrong with that?'
'Why, don't you see? Suppose the State had this first-rate block of
country, cut it up in fair-sized farms, advanced the men the money to
put up their places and crop it the first year, see what a population it
would keep. Keep in comfort, too,' he continued, as he refilled his pipe
and made ready for a leisurely smoke. 'Let me see, there's fifty
thousand acres of freehold on this North Yalla-doora run, besides as
much more leased. Divide that into nice-sized farms, that'd give us a
thousand fifty-acre lots, or five 'underd 'underd-acre ones. See what a
crowd of families that'd keep.'
'And suppose there come a dry season,' queried Bill rather gruffly, 'how
about the families then? I've seen the sheep dyin' by hundreds on this
very place—and the whole forty thousand 'd 'a died in another month if
rain hadn't come. But I'm gettin' full up of this Union racket. Small
farms in a dry country's foolishness. Where are we goin' to camp? Look
at the grass on that flat! And I've seen it like a road.'
'It ain't bad near the creek,' said his companion. 'You can let the
horses go while I go up to the overseer and get a bit of ration.'
'There's no call to do that. See that bag? My old woman's put bread and
beef enough in that for a week anyhow, besides bacon, and tea, and
sugar.'
'That's all right,' answered Stoate airily, 'but we may as well get
fresh mutton for nothing. They always give travellers a pound or two
here, and a pannikin of flour. It comes in handy for cakes.'
'Well, I'm d—d!' said Hardwick, unable to contain his wrathful
astonishment. 'D'ye mean to tell me as you're a-goin' to _beg_ food from
this squatter here and take his charity after abusing him and all
belonging to him and schemin' to ruin 'em? I call it dashed, dirty,
crawling meanness, and for two pins I wouldn't travel the same side of
the road with you, and so I tell you, Janus Stoate.'
There was a snaky glitter in Stoate's small, black eyes as he met for an
instant the bold gaze of the Australian; but, with characteristic
cunning, he turned it off with a half laugh.
'Why, Bill, what hot coffee you're a-gettin', all over a little joke
like this 'ere. Now I feel as I've a right to be fed on the road when I
and my feller-workers bring our labour to the door—in a manner of
speakin'. We've no call to think ourselves under obligation to the
squatters for their "miserable dole," as our Head Centre calls it. It's
only our due when all's said and done.'
'Miserable dole,' growled Bill, now engaged in taking off his pack.
'That's a dashed fine name to give free rations, to the tune of
half-a-dozen sheep a night, and a couple of bags of flour a week, which
I know Tambo did last shearing. A lot of chaps going about the country
askin' for work, and prayin' to God they mayn't find it—and abusin' the
people that feed 'em on top of it all. I wonder the squatters don't stop
feedin' travellers, and that's all about it. I would if I was boss, I
know, except the old men.'
'How about the sheds and the grass when the weather gets dry?' asked
Stoate, with a sidelong glance of spite.
'That's easy enough, if a chap's a d—d scoundrel; but suppose he's
caught and gets five years in Berrima Gaol, he'd wish he'd acted more
like a white man and less like a myall blackfellow. But stoush all this
yabber. You boil the billy, while I get out the grub and hobble the
horses. I feel up to a good square feed.'
So did Mr. Stoate, apparently, as he consumed slice after slice of the
cold corned beef and damper which Jenny had put up neatly in Bill's
'tucker bag,' not disdaining divers hunks of 'brownie,' washed down with
a couple of pints of 'billy tea,' after which he professed that he felt
better, and proceeded to fill and light his pipe with deliberation.
By this time the hobbled horses had betaken themselves through the
abundant pasture of the river flat, and their bells sounding faint and
distant, Bill declared his intention of heading them back, in case they
should try to make off towards the home they had left. He returned in
half an hour, stating that they were in a bend and blocked by a
horseshoe lagoon.
Both men addressed themselves to the task of putting up the small tent
which Bill carried, and bestowed their swags therein, after which Mr.
Stoate proposed that they should go over to the men's hut, and have a
bit of a yarn before they turned in.
Bill remarked that they had to be up at daylight, but supposed that an
hour wouldn't matter. So the wayfarers strolled over to a long building,
not far from the creek bank, which they entered without ceremony. They
found themselves in the presence of about twenty men, in the ordinary
dress of the station hand, viz. tweed or moleskin trousers and Crimean
shirt. Some had coats, but the majority were in their shirt sleeves.
There were mostly of ages between twenty and forty, differing in
nationality, speech, and occupation.
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia were represented. A Frenchman,
two Germans, a coloured man (American), besides a tall, well-made
Australian half-caste, who spoke much the same English as the others,
but had a softer voice, with rather slower intonation.
At one end of the large room was an ample fireplace, with a glowing wood
fire, around which several men were sitting or standing, mostly smoking.
Others were seated at the long, solid dining-table reading, for in one
corner stood some fairly well-filled bookshelves. One man was writing a
letter.
A few were lying in their bunks, rows of which were on either side of
the room. A certain amount of quiet conversation was going on. There was
no loud talking, swearing, or rude behaviour of any sort, and in spite
of the bare walls and plain surroundings an air of comfort pervaded the
whole.
Stoate was greeted by several of the younger men, one of whom was
disposed to be facetious, as he exclaimed—
'Hulloa, my noble agitator, what brings you here? Goin' to call out the
shearers, and play the devil generally, eh? You've come to the wrong
shop at North Yalla-doora—we're all steady-going coves here.'
'I suppose you're game to stand up for your rights, Joe Brace, and not
afraid of getting your wages raised, if the Union does that for you?'
'_If_ it does,' rejoined Joe sarcastically; 'and who's to go bail for
that, I'd like to know? You and your crowd haven't done any great things
so far, except make bad blood between masters and men—when everything
was peace and goodwill before, as the parson says.'
'Well—what's that? Yer can't get nothin' in the world without fightin'
for it—I reckon we're going to have a bit of war for a change. Yes,
_war_, and a dashed good thing too, when men have to take orders from
their feller-men, and be worked like slaves into the bargain.'
'Brayvo, Janus, old man!' replied the other, with mock approval. 'I see
what it's come to. You're to be a delegate with a pot hat and a
watch-chain, and get four pound a week for gassin', while us fools of
fellers does the hard graft. That's your dart, to sit alongside of
Barraker and the rest of the people's try-bunes—ain't them the blokes
that stands up and says, like Ben Willett, as we're trod on, and
starved, and treated worse than nigger slaves?'
'So you are, if you only knew it. Look at all this here country-side in
the hands of two or three men, as sucks your blood, and fattens on it!'
'The boss here ain't too fat, if that's what's the matter, and we're not
a very hungry-lookin' crowd, boys,' said the speaker, looking round.
'We've got good wages, good food, a book or two to read, and a table to
write our letters at. You've been loafin' in Melbourne, Janus, and got
oppressed there—spent all your money, forgot to buy a decent rig-out
(them's last year's boots as you have on), come on the roads to beg from
station to station, and abuse them as feeds you, after your belly's
full. What do _you_ say, Paddy?'
The man whom he addressed folded up the sheet upon which he had been
writing, and rising from the form on which he sat, stood before the
fire, displaying an athletic figure, and determined countenance, lighted
up by a pair of glancing blue eyes, which proclaimed his nationality.
'I say that this strike business is all d—d rot, run by a lot of sneaks
for their own ends. _They're_ the vermin that fatten on the working-men,
that are fools enough to believe their rubbish—not the squatters, who've
mostly worked hard for what they've made, and spent it free enough, more
power to them! Where's there a man on North Yalla-doora that's got
anything to complain of? We're well paid, well fed, well cooked for, eh,
Jack? and as comfortable in our way as the boss is in his. More indeed,
for we've got a shingled roof, and his is box-bark. The travellers'
hut's shingled, so is the rouseabouts'. He's never had time to have his
own place done up, though he lives like a gentleman, as we all know.'
'Yer 'arf a gentleman yerself, ain't yer, _Mister_ O'Kelly?' replied
Stoate sneeringly. 'No wonder yer don't take no interest in the
workers—the men that makes the wealth of this country, and every other.
Yer the makin's of a first-class "scab," and if the chaps here was of my
mind you'd be put out of every hut on the river.' Before the last word
was fully out, O'Kelly made a couple of steps forward with so vengeful a
glare in his blue eyes that Stoate involuntarily drew back—with such
haste also, that he trod on the foot of a man behind him and nearly fell
backward.
'You infernal scoundrel!' he cried; 'dare to take my name into your ugly
mouth again, and I'll kick you from here to the woolshed, and drown you
in the wash-pen afterwards. I've done a man's work in Australia for the
last five years, though I wasn't brought up to it, as some of you know.
I've nothing to say against the men who gave me honest pay for honest
work, and whose salt I've eaten. But skulking crawlers like you are
ruining the country. You're worse than a dingo—_he_ don't beg. You come
here and whine for food, and then try to bite the hand that feeds you.
Didn't I see you at the store to-night, waiting for grub, like the other
travellers?'
'No, yer didn't then,' snarled Stoate.
'Well, I have before this, and more than once. I expect you're loafing
on your mate, who's a decent fellow, and the sooner he parts company
with a hound like you, the better. But this is our hut, and out you go,
or I will, and that's the long and short of it. Come on, Joe!'
'The public's not on for a sermon to-night, Janus, old man,' said the
young fellow before mentioned. 'Paddy's got his monkey up, and it'll be
bloody wars if you don't clear. Yer mate's a cove as we'd like to spend
the evenin' with, but the votin's agin yer, Janus, it raly is.'
'I came in with Stoate,' said Bill, 'and in course I'm here to see it
out with him, man to man. But this is your hut, and not ours, mate, so
we'd better get back to our camp—good-night all!'