The home of the half-wild herds of cattle and horses is frequently

mountainous, thickly-wooded, and rocky. Amid these declivitous

fastnesses in which they are reared, the outliers of the herd acquire

speed, wind, and activity, which must be known to be believed. Through

these interlaced and thick-growing woodlands, down the rocky ridge,

across the treacherous morass, away go the cattle or the wild horses at

a pace apt to take them out of sight and hearing in remarkably short

time. The ordinary horseman, able to hold his own fairly well on road or

turf, even in the hunting field, here finds himself hopelessly at fault.

Not wanting in pluck, he does his best for a mile or more. But he knocks

his knee against one tree, his shoulder against another, and narrowly

escapes dashing his brains out by reason of a low-lying branch, which

knocks off his hat, and might easily—he reflects—have performed the same

office for the head which it covered. He realises the disability under

which he labours by reason of not being able to calculate his distance

from the unyielding timber in front, beside, around; at the same time to

distinguish the route of the fast-vanishing 'mob' (_Anglice_, drove),

while all his skill and strength are required to control a stock-horse,

if such a mount has been provided for him, which clambers along

hillsides and tears down the same with the sure-footedness of a mule,

while he leaves the full responsibility of directing his headlong career

to his rider. When at the end of several miles the visitor pulls up, he

is entirely out of the hunt. Neither men, horses, dogs, nor cattle are

within sight and hearing. He is not accustomed to tracking, nor perhaps

is the ground favourable to such practice. Nothing is left for him but

to follow on as nearly as may be in the direction of the riders,

fortunate if, some hours after, he is hunted up by a man sent in search

of him, or, more fortunate still, has left all path-finding to his

horse, and joyfully recognises the homestead, which comes into sight

much sooner than he expected.

In contrast to this exploit, behold the sons of the waste under the same

circumstances. Riding along with apparent carelessness, several pairs of

sharp eyes are piercing the forest glades in every part of the

foreground. One man has descried the outline of a group of slowly-moving

forms, or it may be but a single beast, high up a hillside in the gorge

of a mountain-range, the depths of a narrow brook, traversed ravine—it

matters not. It is the herd they are seeking, or a section of it. The

quick-eyed scout gives a low whistle, perhaps holds up his hand; the

signal is understood. Bridle-reins are gathered up. No word is spoken,

but each man has his horse in hand as they move slowly towards the

grazing or stationary outliers. A few minutes bring them nearer, within

perhaps good wheeling distance, when a sentinel gets view or winds them,

and the whole troop is off like a shot. Each horse, but a minute since

stumbling along at a 'stockman's jog' or a go-as-you-please walk, starts

into top speed as if for a mile heat. The men, taking a 'bee-line,' ride

straight for the fast-vanishing cattle, as if there was not a tree or a

rock within miles. How they do it is a never-ending marvel to the

uninitiated. But they will not only keep with the outlaws, but out-pace

and out-general them; wheeling them at critical places, racing ahead and

rounding them up; eventually, with mingled force and diplomacy, hustling

them across a country without track, road, or apparently natural

features, till dead-beat and defeated they are landed in the high,

secure stock-yard, from which some of their number at least will never

emerge alive.

THE MAILMAN'S YARN

AN OWER TRUE TALE

'Rum things happen in the bush, you take my word for it,' suddenly broke

out Dan M'Elroy as we were sitting smoking round a camp fire, far back

in the 'Never Never' one night. The whole tract of country west of the

Barcoo was under water that summer. We were all stuck hard and fast,

about fifty miles from Sandringham, waiting for the creeks and cowalls

to go down. They weren't small ones either—twenty feet deep in some

places and half a mile wide. There were a dozen teamsters with

wool-waggons, Jim and me and two black boys with four hundred head of

fat cattle from Marndoo. A police trooper bringing down a horse-stealer

for trial, committed by the Bench there, made up the party. The prisoner

was made comfortable—only chained to a log for safety. Here we were,

waiting, waiting, and had to make the best of it. We walked about in the

daylight, and did a bit of shooting. We'd put up a bough yard for the

cattle, more for the exercise than anything else; and to make the time

pass we'd taken to telling yarns. Some of them were that curious I wish

I hadn't forgotten 'em. But this one that Dan told that night I shall

remember to my dying day. He was the mail contractor between St. George

and Bolivar Run, a weather-beaten Bathurst native, as hard as iron-bark,

who'd have contracted to run the mail from the Red Sea to Jordan in

spite of all the Arabs if they'd made it worth his while. He was afraid

of nothing and nobody. In his time he had been speared by blacks, shot

at by bushrangers, fished for dead out of flooded creeks, besides being

'given up' in fever, ague, and sunstroke in exploring of mail routes

through the 'Never Never' country. Hairbreadth escapes were daily bread

to him. He seemed to thrive on 'em, but this one must have been out of

the common way.

He looked round over the great plain, where we could see the glimmer of

water on every side by the light of the low moon, just showing, red and

goblin-like. A murmuring wind began to whisper and sob among the stunted

myall, swaying the long streamers as if they were mourning for the dead.

It felt colder, though we'd piled up the logs on the fire lately, when

he filled his pipe and said: 'We'll turn in after this, but you may as

well take it to sleep on. It was nigh twenty year ago it happened, yet

it comes back to me now as fresh as I saw it that cursed night. You

chaps remember,' he said, taking a good steady draw at his pipe, by way

of starting it and the yarn at the same time,—'you remember, as I told

you, I was running a horse mail between Marlborough Point and Waranah,

somewhere about '68. A different season from this, I tell you. No rain

for about eighteen months, and when the autumn came in dry, with the

nights long and cold, the sheep began to die faster than you could count

'em. I had a fairish contract, and though the mail was a heavy one, I

was able to manage it by riding one horse and leading a packer. A

terrible long day's ride it was—three times a week—eighty-five mile. Of

course I had a change of horses, but I didn't get in till eleven or

twelve at night to Waranah. The frosty nights had set in, and sometimes,

between being half-frozen and dead-tired, I could hardly sit on my

horse. It was getting on in June, and still no rain, only the frosts

getting sharper and sharper, when I came along to a sandhill by the side

of a billabong of the Murrumbidgee, about ten miles from Waranah. There

was a big water-hole there; it was a favourite camping place between the

township and Baranco station. I was later than usual, and it was about

midnight when I got to this point. Through a weak horse as had knocked

up I'd had to walk five miles. I was nigh perished with the cold; hungry

too, for I'd had no time to stop and get a feed; and as I'd been in the

saddle since long before daylight, you may guess I was pretty well

tuckered out. A particular spot, too, when you come to think of it. The

sand-ridge ran back from the water-hole a good way (there was a big

kurrajong-tree beside it, I remember), and spread out near upon a mile

till you got into a fair-sized plain. The ridge—that's the way of 'em in

dry country—was covered as thick as they could stand with pine-scrub. An

old cattle-track ran right through to the plain, where they used to come

to water in the old days when Baranco was a cattle-run. I was dozing on

my horse, dog-tired and stiff with the cold, when I came to the

water-hole at the foot of this sandhill. I always used to pull up there

and have a smoke; so I stopped and looked round about, in a half-sleepy,

dazed kind of way. I felt for my box of matches, and I'm dashed if they

weren't gone—shot out, I expect—for I'd been working my passage and been

jumbled about more than enough. That put the cap on. I felt as if I'd

drop off the horse there and then. I never was one for drinking, and I

didn't carry a flask. How I'd get on the next couple of hours I couldn't

think.

'All of a sudden a streak of light came through the darkness of the

pine-scrub to the left of me. It got broader and broader. It wasn't the

moon, I knew, for that wouldn't show till nigh-hand daylight. It must be

a fire. Somebody camping, of course; but why they didn't stop by the

water, the regular place, with good feed and open ground all round them,

I couldn't make out. I was off like a shot, and hung up my horses to the

kurrajong tree, which stood handy. It was too thick to ride through the

pine saplings, and I thought the walk would freshen me up. I started off

quite jolly with the notion of the grand warm I should have at the fire,

and the pipeful of baccy I'd be able to borrow. It was a big fire I saw

as I stumbled along, getting nearer and nearer the head of an old-man

pine, the branches as dry as timber, and would burn like matchwood. I

could see three men standing round it. As I got nearer I was just going

to halloo out, partly for fun and partly for devilment, when the wind

blew the flame round, and made one of the men, who was poking a pole

into the fire, shift and turn his face towards me. Mind! I was in the

dark shadow of the pines. The glare of the fire lit up his face and

those of the two other men as clear as day.

'The man's face, as it turned towards where I was standing, had such a

hellish expression, that I stopped dead and drew behind an overhanging

"balah" that grew among the pines. He seemed to be listening. Another

man with an axe in his hand said something to him, when he walked a few

steps down the track towards me and stopped. My God, what a face it was!

No devil out of hell could have looked more fiendish than he did. It was

like no human face I'd ever seen. I began to think I was asleep, and

dreaming of a story in a book.

'They were not more than twenty yards from where I stood. My heart beat

that loud I was afraid they'd hear it. My hair stood on end, if any

one's ever did, while as the tall, dark man began to poke the fire

again, and pushed something further into it that was _not a log of

wood_, I deuced near fainted, and beads of perspiration rolled down my

forehead and face. What did I see that caused every drop of blood in my

veins to turn to ice? What the strange man stirred in the fire, making

the sparks to fly all round among the red glowing embers, was a

_corpse_! There was no mistaking the dreadful shape. One arm stuck out.

The legs were there, the skull blackened and featureless, and, Heavenly

Father! beyond and in the middle of the heap of glowing embers lay

another shape huddled together, and showing no angle of limb or bone.

The other man, with a broom of boughs tied together, was busy sweeping

in all the pieces of charcoal, so as to prevent the flame from spreading

through the tall, dry grass. At a short distance I could make out a

tilted cart, such as hawkers use in the bush. "By——!" said the man with

the pole, "I'll swear I heard a stick crack. Any traveller as come to

the water-hole and followed the track up, 'll have to be rubbed out, and

no two ways about it. It will be our lives against his!"

'"Haven't we had blood enough for one day?" says the other man. "By

George! when I think of these two poor chaps' faces, just afore you

dropped 'em with the axe, I'd give all we've made ten times over to have

'em alive again."

'"You always was a snivelling beggar," says the tall man. "If you'd had

your back scratched at Port Arthur half as often as me, you'd think no

more of a man's life than a wild dog's. I believe it must 'a been one or

a wallaby as made the stir."

'I've faced a trifle of danger, and seen some "close calls" in my time,

but nothing came near that half-hour I spent there till I could make

myself steady enough to stir. I couldn't sit; I was too done to stand;

so there I had to crouch down and wait till I got the chance to go back

on my tracks.

'All the time they kept pushing the bodies into the centre of the fire,

without stopping, as they got smaller and smaller. Two of the men were

at this dreadful work, while the third was sweeping round every edge of

the fire. At last the two men I first saw, sat down on a log close handy

and began to smoke. Now was my chance. I crawled from my tree and crept

along the cattle-track till I come to where my horses were standing. I

mounted one, somehow, and took the other's bridle. I rode steady enough

for a while, and then, hustling the poor brutes into a hand-gallop, kept

along the road to Waranah till I reached the gate at the boundary of the

run. Even then I felt as if I was hardly safe. I looked round and could

almost see witches and devils following me through the air, and waving

ghosts' arms in every bough of the stunted trees through which the road

wound.

'When I saw the lights of the little township, I was that glad that I

shouted and sang all the way up to the hotel where the mail was

delivered. I had a strange sort of feeling in my head as I rode up to

the door. Then I reeled in my saddle; everything was dark. I remembered

no more till at the end of a week I found myself in bed recovering from

fever.

'I suppose I'd been sickening for it before. What with hot days, cold

nights, and drinking water out of swamps and dry holes that were half

mud and half—pah! something you don't like to think of—the wonder is we

bushmen don't get it oftener. Anyhow I was down that time, and next

morning it seems they had the doctor to me. He was a clever man and a

gentleman, too, my word! He fetched me round after a month, but I was

off my head the first week, and kept raving (so they told me afterwards)

about men being knocked on the head and burned, hawkers' carts, and

Derwenters, and the big water-hole by Budgell Creek.

'They thought it was all madness and nonsense at first, and took no

notice, till one afternoon Mr. Belton, the overseer of Baranco, comes

riding into town, all of a flurry, wanting to see the police and the

magistrate, Mr. Waterton. This was what he had to say:—

'There had been some heavy lots of travelling sheep passing through the

station, and he was keeping along with them for fear they might miss the

road and not find it again till they'd ate off a mile or two of his best

grass. All of a sudden a mob of the Baranco weaners ran across a plain

and nearly boxed with 'em. Mr. Belton gallops for his life—I expect he

swore a bit, too—and was just in time to head 'em off into the

pine-scrub by the sandhill. They took the old cattle-track over towards

the water-hole, he following them up, till all of a sudden he comes

plump on a hawker's cart!

'This pulled him up short. He let the sheep run on to the frontage and

got off his horse. He knew the Colemans' cart. They always stayed a

night at Baranco. When they passed, _a week since_, they were to make

Waranah that night. What the deuce were they doing here? Hang the

fellows! were they spelling their horses? Feed was scarce. No! they were

not the men to do that. Honest, straight-going chaps they'd always been.

'He walked over to the cart. Something wrong surely! The big slop-chest

was open. The cash-box, with lock smashed, was empty. Boots, clothes,

tobacco, which they always had of the best, lying scattered about. Where

were the poor fellows themselves? If they had been robbed, why hadn't

they gone to the police at Waranah and complained? Whoever had done this

must have camped here in the middle of the scrub. Then there'd been a

fire over by the big pine-stump—an "old man" fire too. Wonder they

hadn't set a light to the dry grass? No rain for the half-year to speak

of. No; they had been too jolly careful. Swept in the twigs and ashes

all round. Curious fire for bushmen to make too—big enough to roast an

ox. He stares at the ashes; then gropes among them with his hand. My

God! What are these small pieces of bone? Why, the place is full of

them. And this? and this? A metal button, a metal buckle—one, two,

three—twelve in all.

'It comes back to him now that three travellers left the Baranco men's

hut the same morning as the Colemans—one a tall, dark, grey-haired old

hand, with a scar across his face. He gets his horse with a long sort of

half-whistle and half-groan and rides slow, in a study like, toward the

township. The next day the magistrate, Mr. Waterton (he's a squatter,

but sits most times when the Police Magistrate isn't on hand), goes out

with the Sergeant of Police and the best part of the townspeople of

Waranah. He holds an Inquiry. The doctor attended and gave evidence that

he had no doubt whatever that the bones formed part of human skeletons.

The surface of the fire was raked over, and a lot of metal buttons and

buckles—as many as would be used for two pairs of trousers—with other

remains of clothing, were found. A verdict of "wilful murder against

some person or persons unknown" was returned.

'On the second day after the murder three men crossed the Murray River

pretty high up, near a public-house. Their ways were suspicious. One of

them fired off a revolver. They had on new suits of clothes, new boots

with elastic sides, and no end of tobacco of a queer brand—not known in

those parts. Large swags too! The boss of the crowd was a tall, dark

man, with a scar and grey hair. He was the man who fired the revolver

and used wild language. The police from Crowlands picked up the trail so

far. If they had followed hard on, like the Avenger of Blood (as the

feller says in the play), they might have run down the murderin' dogs.

But the publican had a bad memory. _He couldn't remember_ seeing any

out-of-the-way travellers cross the river that week. So the police

turned back, and lost the scent for good and all.

'A queer enough thing about the matter was, that directly after the

Inquiry was published, a telegram was sent from the poor fellows'

friends to the sergeant at Waranah. He was to look under the lid of the

big slop-chest and he'd find a false top that slid back—very neat made,

so that people mostly wouldn't notice it. Behind this was a drawer, and

in it notes and cheques. They never kept more than a fiver or so in the

cash-box, and told the secret to their relatives before leaving town.

Sure enough the sergeant finds the secret-drawer, and in it, after being

in the open bush nearly a fortnight, £90 odd in notes and good cheques,

which of course he sent to their friends. The villains only got £4 and a

fit-out of clothes and tobacco. The police never could get wind of these

wretches for years after. However, they dropped on the man with the

scar, whose name was Campbell. He was sworn to as the man who left

Baranco with the other two on the day of the murder, as the man as had

new clothes and tobacco (such as nobody but the Colemans sold in the

district) two days after. It was proved that they were all hard up and

ragged when they left Baranco. The evidence was in dribs and drabs. But

they pieced it together, bit by bit. It was good enough to hang him, and

hang him they did. I swore to him as the man I saw at the fire that

terrible night. And now, mates, I'll turn in. There's no fear of being

burned to bits here, is there? Good-night all!'

DEAR DERMOT

Somehow the days of my youth seem to have been inextricably mixed up

with horses. How I loved them, to be sure!—thought of them by day,

dreamed of them by night. Books and girls might temporarily enter into

competition as objects of engrossing interest; but the noble animal must

have had possession of my thoughts for a large proportion of the waking

hours.

From boyhood the proprietor of studs more or less extensive, I was quick

to discern excellence in other people's favourites. My mind was stored,

my imagination fired, besides, with tales of equestrian feats, performed

chiefly by Arab chiefs and other heroes of old-world romance. In a

chronic state of expectancy, I was always ready to do honour to the

legendary steed, so rarely encountered, alas! save in the bounteous

realm of fiction.

When, therefore, I _did_ fall across 'the courser of the poets,' or his

simulacrum, I was prepared to secure him at a fancy price; holding that

if I could recoup the outlay by selling a pair of average horses of my

own breeding, the luxury of possessing a paragon would be cheaply

purchased.

And would it not be? Albeit there are multitudes of people to whom one

horse, save the mark, is much like another. For them, the highest joy,

the transcendent sensation of being carried by 'the sweetest hack in the

world,' exists not. But to him who recognises and appreciates the speed,

the spirit, the smoothness, and the safety of the 'wonderful' hackney,

there are few outdoor pleasures possessing similar flavour.

It is more than half a century, sad to relate, since I first took bridle

in hand. During that time I have ridden races on 'the flat,' over 'the

sticks,' and have backed for the first time a score or more of

wholly-untried colts. I have tested hundreds of saddle-horses, over

every variety of road, at all sorts of distances, in all ranges of

climate, and after this extended experience I unhesitatingly pronounce

Dermot, son of Cornborough, to be in nearly all respects the finest

example of the blood hackney which I ever mounted. The 'sweetest,' etc.,

he certainly was. Almost too good for this wicked world.

The birth of this unrivalled steed was mainly due to one of the magnates

of the earlier Victorian era, himself an example of the strangeness of

that destiny which shapes our ends in life. A member of a family of

financial aristocrats, domiciled in London and Paris, with which

capitals our friend was equally familiar, Mr. Adolphus Goldsmith

scarcely dreamed in youth of 'colonial experience.'

But something went wrong with the finance arrangements of his near

relatives. A crisis culminated, and the necessity arose for Goldsmith

(_fils_) applying himself to the stern realities of life. He had

previously performed the strictly ornamental duties of a young man about

town. But with a cool perception of the situation, characteristic of the

man, and a steadfast determination to conquer adverse fate, the whilom

_élégant_ of the Bois de Boulogne and the Row looked over the map of the

world, picked his colony, giving the _pas_ to Victoria, the then

fashionable El Dorado for younger sons and _vauriens_, converted the

remnant of his fortune into letters of credit, and sailed for Port

Phillip.

As an Englishman by birth and rearing as well as adoption, Mr. Goldsmith

had sported park hacks and ridden to hounds in his day. He possessed the

Englishman's love for horses. Visions, therefore, arose of improving the

breed in the new country which he was about to patronise, and

incidentally devoting himself to agricultural pursuits.

Distrusting, however, his suitability for the necessary purchases and

arrangements, he sensibly cast about for a coadjutor, fully instructed

in bucolic lore, to whom he might confide details.

He was successful beyond expectation, inasmuch as he induced Mr. Hatsell

Garrard, a gentleman farmer from the midland counties (whose love of all

genuine sport had, combined with a run of bad seasons, probably rendered

rent-paying temporarily arduous), to accompany him as General Manager to

Australia. And whoso recalls his fresh-coloured countenance, his

pleasant smile, his shrewd blue eye, his neat rig and bridle-hand,

reproduces out of memory's storehouse the ideal yeoman from 'Merrie

England.'

Mr. Garrard promptly demonstrated a knowledge of his business by

purchasing Cornborough, son of Tramp, a grandson of the immortal

Whalebone. For this sole achievement he deserves a statue, and in that

Pantheon which future Victorians may rear for the founders of their

prosperity and glory, the square-built, genuinely English figure of Mr.

Garrard should find a place. What a responsibility was cast upon him

when you come to think of it! How easily might he have chosen an equally

blue-blooded, but leggy, rickety, pernicious weed, such as has so often

been foisted upon unwary breeders.

Instead of which, he enriched us with the noble, whole-coloured, brown

horse, choke-full of the best blood in England, of medium height, but

perfect in symmetry, soundness, faultless in wind and limb, temper and

courage, fated to be the long-remembered sire of racers, hacks, and

harness horses of the highest class—to be honoured in life, regretted,

ay, sincerely mourned, in death. For on his unexpected demise, his

disconsolate owner was discovered in such a state of prostration and

grief that every one thought his wife must be dead, or, at any rate,

some relative near and dear.

Truly, the squatter of the 'forties' was from one reason or another a

man _sui generis_, with whom the present pastoral era furnishes few

parallels. Mr. Goldsmith, in addition to other accomplishments (did he

not challenge Charles Macknight to a bout at single-stick, duly fought

out within the precincts of the Melbourne Club?) was a musical

connoisseur and no mean performer. When the comfortable cottage at

Trawalla was completed, albeit stone-paved and bark-roofed, the

drawing-room contained a handsome piano, to which, after dinner, the

proprietor mostly betook himself. There, in operatic reminiscences and

compositions of impromptu merit, he was wont to wander from the realms

of reality to a dreamworld of sweet sounds and brighter souvenirs. How

one envied him the delicious distraction!

So the Trawalla estate had birth and beginning. It was a first-class

'run' in those simpler times; well watered, with picturesque

alternations of hill and dale, plain and forest. The 'shepherded' sheep

had unfailing pasture and ample range. There were no fences in those

days, excepting around the horse-paddock.

Temptations to over-stocking were fewer, and chiefly—in default of

boundary—took the form of an invasion of some neighbour's territory, a

trespass which his shepherds were prompt to resent. Thus, the natural

grasses were but moderately fed down, and, with the autumn rains

unfailing in _that_ district, assumed a richly verdurous garb, scarcely

so frequent in the wire-fenced decades. I do not recall the name of the

deserving but less fortunate pioneer, the first or second occupant of

this desirable holding, from whom Mr. Goldsmith purchased the

'right-of-run,' with probably a mere handful of stock. With cash in

hand, he was doubtless enabled to make an advantageous purchase, and

thus enter upon his predecessor's labours; once more, as it turned out,

to place his foot on fortune's ladder.

Far from London and Paris, Ascot and Goodwood, as he found himself, the

erstwhile man about town was not wholly debarred from congenial society.

William Gottreaux, another musical enthusiast, was at Lilaree; Hastings

Cunningham at Mount Emu; Donald and Hamilton, Philip Russell, and other

gentleman pioneers within an easy ride. He became a member of the

Melbourne Club, then in Collins Street, upon the site of the Bank of

Victoria. The late Sir Redmond Barry was his early and intimate friend.

(I took charge of a small package of tobacco, on my homeward voyage,

from the Judge, as it seems that particular brand was not procurable in

Paris.) When things were settled at Trawalla and the stock manifestly

improving, with Cornborough in a snug loose-box, and the sheep

increasing fast, the owner of Trawalla found a reasonable amount of

recreation, as comprised in frequent sojourns at the Melbourne Club, and

the enjoyment of the metropolitan society of the day, quite compatible

with the effective supervision of the station.

Thus, on the advancing tide of Victorian prosperity, then steadily

sweeping onward, unknown to us all, Trawalla and its owner were floated

on to fortune—a gently gliding, agreeable, and satisfactory process. The

sheep multiplied, the fleece acquired name and repute—one _couldn't_

grow bad wool in that country, however hard you might try. Cornborough

became a peer of the Godolphin Arabian in all men's eyes, and the A.G.

brand, on beeve-or horse-hide, an accredited symbol of excellence. A

purchase of waste land at St. Kilda, made solely, as he informed me, in

order to qualify as a legislator, turned out a most profitable

investment.

Swiftly the golden period arrived when, after the first years of doubt

and uncertainty, it became apparent to holders of station property that

nothing prevented them from clearing out at a highly satisfactory price,

and leaving the conflicting elements of dear labour, high prices, and a

heterogeneous population, to settle themselves as best they might. Mr.

Goldsmith, now free to return to Europe, seriously considered the claims

of the Rue de Bellechasse, Faubourg St. Germain, as contrasted with

Collins Street and the Melbourne Club.

It may be that the owner of Trawalla would have decided upon continuous

occupation, with a view to founding an estate, if his sons, who visited

Victoria in 1851, had exhibited any aptitude for the life of Australian

country gentlemen. But Messrs. Edward and Alfred Goldsmith, who had been

educated chiefly in Paris, when they visited their father in 1851, did

not take kindly to his adopted country. Cultured, polished young men,

yet decidedly more French than English, Parisians to their finger-nails

in all their tastes and habitudes, they grieved and irritated their

Australianised parent.

Chiefly they lacked the adventurous spirit which would have enabled them

to behold, mentally, the grand possibilities of a colonial possession.

All their sympathies were with their lost Eden, the Paris which they had

quitted. In Victoria they beheld nothing but the distasteful privations

of a new country, hardly redeemed from primeval _sauvagerie_. The roads

were rough, the beds hard, the cookery—'Ah, mon Dieu!—lamentable,

indescribable.'

It was a good time to sell, and though the Trawalla estate of to-day

represents a considerably larger sum than Mr. Simson gave for the run

and stock, perhaps our old friend was not so far out when he decided to

let well alone and retire upon a fair competency.

To that end the stud was sentenced to sale and dispersion; many a

descendant of the lamented Cornborough went to enrich the paddocks of

friends and well-wishers. I think Mr. Hastings Cunningham bought the

greater number of the brood mares and young stock, at an average rate

per head.

Now, Dermot was the old gentleman's hack. (Was he old, or, perhaps, only

about forty-five? We were decided then as to the time of life when decay

of all the faculties was presumed to set in.) I many a time and oft

admired the swell, dark bay, striding along the South Yarra tracks with

aristocratic elegance, or, more becomingly arrayed, carrying a lady in

the front of a joyous riding-party. His owner was _un galant uomo_, and

the gentle yet spirited steed was always at the service of his lady

friends.

So when, one day at the club, he suggested to me to buy Dermot—more than

one lady's horse being required in our family at that time, and only

fifty pounds named as the price—I promptly closed.

Dead and buried is he years agone; but I still recall, with memory's

aid, the dark bay horse, blood-like, symmetrical, beauteous in form as

aristocratic in bearing. 'Hasn't he the terrifyin' head on him?' queried

an Irish sympathiser, somewhat incongruously, as he gazed with rapt air

and admiring eyes at the tapering muzzle, large, soft eyes, and Arab

frontal.

Delicate, deer-like, strictly Eastern was the head referred to,

beautifully set on a perfectly-arched neck, which again joined oblique,

truly perfect shoulders. Their mechanism must have been such, inasmuch

as never did I know any living horse with such liberty of forehand

action.

Walking or cantering down an incline, shut but your eyes, and you were

unable to tell by bodily sensation whether you were on level ground or

otherwise. He 'pulled up' in a way different from any other horse.

Apparently, he put out his legs, and, lo! you were again at a walk. No

prop, shake, or jar was perceptible. It was a magical transformation. An

invalid recovering from a fever could have ridden him a day's journey.

No one could fall off him in fact.

He who had no peer was born

amid the green forest parks of Trawalla, at no great distance from

Buninyong, or the historic goldfield of Ballarat.

His sire, Cornborough, than whom no better horse ever left England, was

a brown horse, like The Premier and Rory O'More; like them,

middle-sized, symmetrical rather than powerful. Among the early cracks

that owed their speed and courage to him were Cornet, Bessie Bedlam,

Beeswing, Ballarat, The Margravine (dam of Lord Clyde), with many

others, now half forgotten. Cornet was, I think, the first of his

progeny trained. He ran away with most of the two-year-old stakes of the

day, to be ever after known as a fast horse and a good stayer. I

remember his beating Macknight's St. George at Port Fairy, in a match

for £100, and winning various other stakes and prizes. His half-sister,

Mr. Austin's Bessie Bedlam, was one of the most beautiful race-horses

ever saddled. I well remember her running in old days, and can see her

now, stepping along daintily with her head up, like an antelope. She won

many a race, and was successful as a stud matron after turf triumphs

were over. Beeswing was also good, but not equal to her. Ballarat was a

great raking, handsome chestnut mare, bred by Dick Scott, a stock-rider

of Mr. Goldsmith's. She must have had a good turn of speed, inasmuch as

she won the All-aged Stakes in Melbourne, as a three-year old. The

Cornboroughs, like the Premiers, were remarkable for their temperate

dispositions. They had abundance of courage, but no tendency to vice of

any kind.

On his dam's side Dermot boasted Peter Fin (Imp) as grandsire, and other

good running blood. His pedigree was incomplete, thus leaving him open

to a suspicion of being not quite thoroughbred. But the stain—the 'blot

on the scutcheon,' if such there was—showed neither by outward sign nor

inward quality.

Then, as to paces. He walked magnificently, holding up his head in a

lofty and dignified manner; his mouth of the lightest—velvet to any

touch of bit—but withal firm. He had always been ridden with a double

bridle, and showed no provincial distaste to bit and bridoon. If

required to quicken his pace from a fast but true walk, he could adopt a

rapid amble, so causing any ordinary stepper to trot briskly. And then

his canter—how shall I describe it? Springy, long-striding, yet

floating, improving his speed at will to a hand-gallop if you merely

shook the reins, and as readily, smoothly subsiding at the lightest

sustained pull.

With such a horse under you it seemed as if one could go on for ever.

Mile after mile fled away, and still there was no abatement in the

wonderful living mechanism of which the spring and elasticity seemed

exhaustless. The sensation was so exquisite that you dreaded to

terminate it. When at length you drew rein, it was, so to speak, with

the tears in your eyes.

Then the safety of this miraculous performance. You were on a horse that

never was known to shy or bolt, and that _could not_ fall down. Nature

had otherwise provided. With such a balance of forehand, he may have at

rare intervals struck his hoof against root or stone, clod or other

obstacle, but trip, blunder, fall—these were words and deeds wholly

outside of his being. With legs of iron, and hoofs that matched them

well, never once did I know Dermot to be lame during all the years of

our acquaintance.

Fortunately for me, and for society generally, he was not quite fast

enough for promotion to a racing stable. He was thus enabled to elude

the turf dangers and so pass his life in a sphere where he was loved and

respected as he deserved.

With regard to his stamina. I rode him a distance of seventy miles one

day, being anxious to get home, during the last ten miles of which he

waltzed along with precisely the same air and manner as in the

morning—with thirteen stone up, too. In addition to other qualities, he

was an uncommonly good feeder: would clear his rack conscientiously, and

eat all the oats you would give him. I never knew him to be tired, or

met any one that had heard of his being seen in that condition.

His graceful, high-bred air, his large, mild eye and intelligent

expression, warranted one in crediting him with the perfect temper which

indeed he possessed. So temperate was he, that the lady whose palfrey he

habitually was (as such, beyond all earthly competition) was in the

habit of sending him along occasionally at top speed in company,

confident in her ability to stop him whenever she had the inclination.

He was utterly free from vice, either in the stable or out of it. But,

if uniformly gentle, he was always gay and free—that most difficult

combination to secure in a lady's horse. An angel enclosed in

horse-hide, such was 'Dear Dermot.' The doctrine of metempsychosis alone

can account for such a consensus of virtues—an equine prodigy, a wonder

and a miracle. Generations may roll by before such another hackney

treads Australian turf. We are not of the school which decries the

horses, the men also, of the present day. There are, there must be now,

as good horses, as gallant youths, as ever new or old lands produced.

But Dermot—may he rest in peace!—was a _very_ exceptional composition.

And I must be pardoned for doubting whether, as a high-caste

saddle-horse, I shall ever again see his equal.

THE STORY OF AN OLD LOG-BOOK

Notwithstanding our share in New Guinea and the debateable land of the

New Hebrides, besides the proposed cession of Santa Cruz, the Sydney of

'the thirties' wore the look of being more in touch with the South Sea

Islands and the Oceanic realm generally, than at present. The wharves

were redolent of the wild life of The Islands and the mysterious land of

the Maori. Weather-beaten sailing-vessels showed a sprinkling of swarthy

recruits, whose dark faces, half strange, half fierce, were mingled with

those of their British crews. Hull and rigging bore silent testimony to

the wrath of wind and wave. There were whale-ships returning in twelve

months with a full cargo of sperm oil, or half empty after a three

years' cruise, as the adventure turned out.

Schoolboys were fond of loitering about among them, wondering at the

harpoons, lances, and keen-edged 'whale spades,' at the masses of

whalebone and spermaceti, or the carved and ornamental whales' teeth, of

which Jack always had a store.

In the forecastle of one ship might be seen the tattooed lineaments and

grim visage of a Maori; from another would peer forth the mild,

wondering gaze of a Fijian. Bows and arrows (the latter presumably

poisoned), spears, clubs, and wondrous carved idols were the principal

curios, nearly always procurable.

The whale fishery was at that time a leading industry. Sperm oil figured

noticeably among the first items of our export trade. Merchants made

advances for the outfit and all necessaries of the adventure, trusting

in many instances for repayment to the skill, courage, and good faith of

the commander. No doubt losses were incurred, but the lottery was

tempting. The profits must have been considerable. Sperm oil, before the

discovery of gas or petroleum, was worth eighty or ninety pounds per

ton. A large 'right whale' was good for eighty barrels, eight barrels

going to the tun. He was a fish worth landing. To get back to the ship,

even after hours of hard pulling and the chance of a stove boat, towing

a monster worth nearly £1000, was exciting enough.

The crew, like shearers of the present day, were proverbially hard to

manage. They did not receive wages, but a share in the net profits—a

'lay,' as it was called. The ship was, in fact, a floating co-operative

society. This did not prevent them—for human nature is weak—from

committing acts distinctly opposed to the spirit as well as the letter

of the agreement. They got drunk when they had the chance. They

occasionally mutinied. They resisted the mate and defied the captain.

They proposed to take savage maidens for their dusky brides, and to live

lives devoid of care in The Islands. It strikes landsmen as a curiously

dangerous and anxious position for a captain, who had to confront a

score or two of reckless seamen with the aid only of the officers of the

ship. Yet it was done. The peril dared, the ship saved, and order

restored time after time, by the resolute exercise of one strong will

and the half-instinctive yielding of the seamen to the mysterious power

of legal authority.

Before me as I write are the well-kept and regularly-entered pages of a

whale-ship's log-book, the record of a voyage from Sydney harbour over

the Southern main, which bears date as far back as April 1833. In that

year again sailed the stout barque, which had done so well her part in

bringing us safely to this far new land. Her course lay through the

coral reefs and Eden-seeming islands of the Great South Sea; along the

storm-swept coast of New Zealand; among the cannibals of New Ireland and

New Britain; among the as yet half-unknown region of the Solomon Islands

and Bougainville Group. As to the dangers of such a voyage, one incident

of the strange races that people these isles of Eden is sufficiently

dramatic. A boat's crew had pulled over to an inviting looking beach

within the coral ring for the purpose of watering. As the boat touched

the beach, stem on, one of the crew sprang ashore with the painter in

his hand. A cry escaped him and the crew simultaneously, as he sank to

his neck in a concealed pit, a veritable _trou-de-loup_. He hung on to

the rope fortunately, and so pulled himself up and into the boat again.

Not a native was in sight. But the treacherous pitfalls being probed and

laid bare, the intention was manifest. A line of holes was discovered in

the sands, nine or ten feet in depth, cone-shaped and sloping to a

narrow point, where were placed sharp-pointed, hard-wood stakes, the

ends having been charred and scraped. Sharp as lance-heads, they would

have disabled any seaman luckless enough to fall in, especially in

latitudes where Jack prefers to go barefooted. Forewarned, walking

warily, and 'prospecting' any dangerous-looking spot, they succeeded in

unmasking all or nearly all of these man-traps, into which the ambushed

natives expected them to fall. They were ingeniously constructed: the

top covered with a light frame of twigs and grass, sand being sprinkled

over all. Any ordinary crew would have been deceived.

When they reached the village they found the property of a boat's crew,

who had been surprised or betrayed. One piece of evidence after another

came to light. Last of all, the oars, on the blades of which were marks

of blood-stained fingers closed in the last grasp which the ill-fated

mariner was to give.

Righteous indignation succeeded this gruesome discovery. A wholesale

burning of the town and canoes was ordered. A shower of arrows was sent

after the departing boat, as the murder isle was quitted with a distinct

sense of relief. It is not improbable that similar experiences have been

repeated during the last few years. In those days the 'labour trade' did

not exist, and to 'black-birding' was no scale of profit attached.

There is a pathetic simplicity about this unvarnished record of perilous

adventure, after the close of half a century. One looks reverently upon

the yellow pages which photograph so minutely the daily life of the

floating microcosm. The course, the winds, the storms, the calms, the

days of failure and good fortune! The huge sea-beast harpooned and half

slain, yet cunning to 'sound' deeply enough to pay out all the line, or,

the iron 'drawing,' finally to elude capture altogether. Then again what

a day of triumph when the hieroglyph show six whales killed and 'got

safely alongside.' Midnight saw the boilers still bubbling and hissing;

the tired crew with four-and-twenty hours' severe work before them,

after, perhaps, half a day's hard pulling in the exciting chase.

Then out of the endless waste of waters rises the lovely shape of the

fairy isle. 'Mountain, and valley, and woodland'—a paradisal climate; a

friendly, graceful, simple race, reverencing the stranger whites, with

their big canoe and loud reverberating fire-weapons; or, on the other

hand, sullen and ferocious cannibals, sending flights of poisoned arrows

from their thickets, or surrounding the ship with a swarm of canoes,

full of hostile savages, eager to climb her deck to slay and plunder

unchecked.

It is characteristic, perhaps, of the greater simplicity of manners, and

steadfast inculcation of the religious observances of that era, that on

board the ship referred to, Divine service was regularly performed on

each recurring Sunday. If whales were sighted, however, the boats were

lowered; and on one Sunday afternoon two whales were killed. It was

obviously a part of the unwritten code of salt-water law that whales

were not to be allowed to escape under _any_ circumstances, upon

whatever days they were sighted by the look-out man. As it was tolerably

certain that the ship would be more than once in jeopardy from hostile

attacks, a few guns and carronades were mounted; boarding-nettings were

not, I presume, overlooked. The old Ironsides' maxim, 'Trust in

Providence and keep your powder dry,' was in effect a strictly observed

precaution.

How strange it seems to think of the altered conditions made by the

passing away of a generation or two! Cold is now the hand which traced

the lines I view; stilled the hot blood and eager soul of him who

commanded the ship—a born leader of men if such there ever was.

Of the crew that toiled early and late at sea, through sun and

storm,—that drank and caroused and fought and gambled on shore when

occasion served,—how small the chance that any one now survives!

With reference to the Solomon Group, which has been visited by many a

vessel since the barque safely steered her course through shoal and

reef, insidious currents and treacherous calm, matters seem to have been

much about the same as at present. At some islands the natives were

simple and friendly; at others, sullen and treacherous, ready at all

times for an attack if feasible; merciless and unsparing when the hour

came.

To refer to the Log-book.

'_Monday, July 22, 1833._—At Bougainville; several canoes came off,

trading for cocoa-nuts and tortoise-shell.

'_Monday, July 29._—Beating along the coast of New Georgia. Canoes came

off; traded for cocoa-nuts and tortoise-shell. Shipped Henry Spratt, who

left the _Cadmus_ last season. [A bad bargain, as future events showed.]

'_August 8._—Sent the boats ashore at Sir Charles Hardy's island. At 7

P.M. boats returned, having purchased from the natives, who were very

friendly, a quantity of cocoa-nuts and a pig. Discovered an extensive

harbour on the west side.

'_September 4._—Sent boats ashore at New Ireland; natives particularly

friendly.

'_Saturday, October 5._—Bore away for the harbour of Santa Cruz. At 2

P.M. cast anchor in thirty fathoms, one mile from shore. There an

adventure befell which altered existing relations.

'_Sunday, October 6._—Sent casks on shore and got them filled with

water. Next day got two rafts of water off, and some wood. Purchased a

quantity of yams from the natives.

'_Tuesday, October 8._—Hands employed in wooding, watering, and stowing

away the holds. The natives made an attack on the men while watering,

and wounded one man with an arrow. Brought off natives' canoes, and made

an attack on their town, which was vigorously contested. Another of the

ship's company severely wounded. All hands employed getting ready for

sea.

'_Wednesday, October 9._—At 4 A.M. began to get under weigh. Discharged

the guns at hostile village. Men in canoes shot their arrows at the

ship. Volley returned.

'_October 19_, 1 P.M.—Henry Stephens, seaman, died of tetanus, in

consequence of a wound inflicted by a native of Santa Cruz with an

arrow. The burial-service read over him before the ship's company.

Strong winds and high seas at midnight.

His midnight requiem, mariner's fitting dirge,

Sung by wild winds and wilder ocean surge.

The author of _The Western Pacific and New Guinea_ (Mr. H. H. Romilly)

states in that most interesting work, that in September 1883 a

Commission was appointed by M. Pallu de la Barrière, then Governor of

New Caledonia, to inquire into the nature of the arrows, commonly

reported to be poisoned, so much in use among the natives of the

surrounding islands.

The conclusions arrived at (Mr. Romilly states) by the Commission are

only what were to be expected. 'It has long been known to me, and to

many other men in the Pacific who have studied the question, that the

so-called poison was, if not exactly a harmless composition, certainly

not a deadly one. Of course, ninety per cent of the white men trading in

the Pacific believe, and will continue to believe, in the fatal effects

of poisoned arrows. The Santa Cruz arrow, usually considered the most

deadly, is very small, commonly about two feet in length, while the New

Hebrides arrows are much heavier, capable of inflicting a mortal wound

on the spot. Carteret, more than a hundred years ago, was attacked by

the natives of Santa Cruz. Of the ten men hit, three died from the

severe nature of their wounds. No mention is made of tetanus. If any of

his men had died from so remarkable and terrible a disease, Carteret

could hardly have failed to mention the fact.'

With all due respect and deference to Mr. Romilly, we must take the

liberty of siding in opinion with the 'ninety per cent of white men

trading in the Pacific,' and believe that the arrows _are_ poisoned—are

deadly and fatal, even when only a scratch is produced. The deaths of

the unknown sailor, Henry Stephens, sixty-seven years ago, and of the

late lamented Commodore Goodenough recently, _both from tetanus_, surely

constitute a marvellous coincidence. It is hard to believe that nervous

predisposition was the proximate cause of tetanus in two persons so

widely dissimilar in mind, station, and education. Carteret's three

seamen possibly died from the same seizure; though, having many other

things to attend to, the ancient mariner failed to record the fact.

In addition to the excitement of killing and losing their whales, being

wrecked on a coral reef or hit with poisoned arrows, our mariners were

fated not to run short of dramatic action in the shape of mutiny.

This was how it arose and how it was quelled:—

'_Thursday, September 1883, off New Ireland._—At 4 P.M. calm, the ship

being close under the land and driving rapidly, with a strong current,

farther inshore. The captain ordered the starboard bow boat to be

lowered for the purpose of towing the vessel's head round in such a

position that the current might take her on the starboard bow, and cause

her to drift off shore. The boat was consequently lowered, and the mate

ordered Henry Spratt to take the place of one of the boat's crew, who

was at that moment on the foretop-gallant masthead looking out for

whales. Spratt refused to do so, saying that he didn't belong to any

boat, and that it was his watch below. He continued to disobey the

repeated orders of the mate till the matter was noticed by the captain,

who called out, "Make that man go in the boat," when he at length did

so, but in an unwilling manner and muttering something which was not

distinctly heard.

'On the boat being hoisted up, the captain addressed Spratt in the most

temperate manner on the subject of his insubordination, and warned him

as to his future conduct.

'Spratt became insulting in his manner and remarks, and ended by defying

his superior officers and forcibly resisting the mate's attempt to bring

him from the poop to the main deck for the purpose of being put in

irons. While the irons were preparing, he bolted forward, and evading

every attempt to secure him, stowed himself below in the forecastle. The

crew evincing a strong disposition to support this outrageous conduct,

the captain armed himself and his officers, and ordered the chief mate

to bring Spratt from below. He refused peremptorily, and struck the mate

several blows, attempting to overpower him and gain possession of his

sword. After receiving two or three blows with the flat of the sword, he

was, with the assistance of the third mate, conveyed on deck and made

fast to the main-rigging.

'While the prisoner was being made fast, the greater part of the crew

came aft in the most mutinous and tumultuous manner, exclaiming against

his being flogged, and questioning the captain's right to do so.

'They were ordered forward, and some of them (Murray in particular)

showing a disposition to disobey and force themselves aft, the captain

found it necessary to strike them with the flat of his sword, and to

draw a rope across the deck parallel with the mainmast, warning the crew

to pass it at their peril.

'The captain then, calling his officers around him, instituted a trial,

and the whole of Spratt's conduct being calmly considered, he was

unanimously sentenced to three dozen lashes.

'One dozen was immediately inflicted, and the prisoner was then asked if

he repented of his misconduct, and would faithfully promise obedience

for the remainder of the period that he should be permitted to remain on

board. This promise being given, and the greatest contrition being

expressed, he was unbound, and the remainder of his sentence commuted.

As, however, he was considered a dangerous character, orders were issued

that he should be treated as a prisoner (having the liberty of the deck

abaft the mainmast) till he could be landed at New Georgia (the island

from which he shipped), or elsewhere, if he thought fit.'

This _émeute_, which might have ended easily enough in a second Mutiny

of the _Bounty_,—or as _did_ happen when the crew of a whale-ship threw

the captain overboard on the coast of New Zealand,—having been quelled

by the use of strong measures promptly applied, the ordinary course of

events went on uninterruptedly. On September 8 (Sunday, as it happened)

two whales were killed. The canoes came off and hailed as usual. A

violent gale seems to have come on directly the boiling was finished.

They were alternately running under close-reefed topsails, wearing ship

every four hours, being at 5 P.M. close under the high land under Cape

St. Mary. Pumps going every watch, sea very high, ship labouring

heavily—then close to Ford's Group. The gale lasted from Monday to the

following Friday at midnight. One fancies that from the 'captain bold'

downwards, they must have had 'quite a picnic of it.'

Spratt was what is known to South Sea mariners as a 'beach-comber'—one

of a proverbially troublesome class of seamen. He had, probably, left

the _Cadmus_ for no good reason. However, the treatment seems to have

cured him, as on September 1 we find the entry:—'Returned Spratt to his

duty at his own request, he having promised the utmost civility,

attention, and obedience. Fresh breeze and head sea till midnight,' etc.

On Saturday, April 27, 1833, the good teak-built barque cleared the

Sydney Heads, outward bound, and on Saturday, May 10, 1834, at 4 P.M.,

saw the heads of Port Jackson, and at midnight entered, with light winds

from north-east.

'_Sunday, May 11, 1834._—Calm; the boats towing the ship up harbour.

Pilot came on board. [They had come in without one—such a trifling bit

of navigation, after scraping coral reefs by the score and being close

inshore, with strong current setting in, not being worth considering.]

At 5 P.M. came to anchor abreast of batteries. Most of the hands went

ashore.'

And here, as 'Our Jack's come home again,' let us conclude this story of

an old Log-book.

A KANGAROO SHOOT

Another month has passed. The calendar shows that the midwinter is over,

and still the much-dreaded New England cold season has not asserted

itself. Such weather as we have had in this last week of June has been

mild and reassuring. Certes, there have been days when the western blast

bit shrewdly keen, and ordinary garments afforded scant protection. In

the coming spring there may be wrathful gales, sleet and hail—snow,

even. We must not 'hollo till we are out of the wood.'

In the meantime it is not displeasing to see a trifle of mud

again—marshes filling with their complement of water; to hear the

bittern boom and the wild drake quack in the reed-bordered pool,—sights

and sounds to which I have been a stranger for years and years.

The showers have refreshed the long-dry fallows, and a goodly breadth of

wheat is now looking green and well-coloured. But to-day I marked three

ploughs in one field, availing of the favourable state of tilth. The

ordinary processes of a country neighbourhood are in full swing. Loads

of hay, top-heavy and fragrant, meet you from time to time upon the

metalled highway. A pony-carriage passes, much as it might do in the

narrow lanes of Hertfordshire or Essex. The straggling briar and

hawthorn hedges have been trimmed lately. All things savour strongly of

the old land, from which the district takes its name. As in England, the

guns are now in use and request; and amid my peregrinations it chances

that I fall upon a custom of the country, which is partly of the nature

of work and partly of play.

Yes, it is a kangaroo drive or battue—a measure rendered necessary by

the persistent multiplication of these primeval forms, and their

tendency to eat and destroy grass, out of all proportion to the value of

their skins.

To this gathering I am bidden, and gratefully promise to keep tryst,

divining that certain of the neighbours and notables will attend, with

wives and daughters in sufficient abundance to warrant a dance after the

sterner duties of the day.

And while on the subject of sport and recreation, how little is there

worthy of the name in the country districts of Australia. Fishing is

there none, or bait fishing at the best; hunting is a tradition of our

forefathers; shooting, an infrequent pleasure. Since the introduction of

the railway many of the ordinary travelling roads have been practically

deserted. The well-tried friend or the agreeable stranger no longer

halts before the hospitable homestead; months may pass before any social

recreation takes place in the sequestered country homes which were wont

to be so joyous. But just at the exact period when such resources were

strained, the too prolific marsupial has come to the rescue. He it is

who now poses as the rescuer of distressed damsels, and _ennuyées

châtelaines_, wearying of solitary sweetness as of old; and yet he is

classed by reckless utilitarians and prosaic legislators as a noxious

animal! Behold us, then, a score of horsemen gaily sallying forth from a

station of the olden time,—one of those happy, hospitable dwellings,

where, whatever might be the concourse of guests, there was always room

for one more,—well mounted, and mostly well armed with the deadly

chokebore of the period. The day is cloudy and overcast; but no

particular inconvenience is apprehended. The majority of the party are

of an age lightly to regard wind or weather. The conversation is free

and sportive. Compliments, more or less equivocal, are exchanged as to

shooting or horsemanship, and a good deal of schoolboy frolic obtains.

Dark hints are thrown out as to enthusiastic sportsmen who blaze away

regardless of their 'duty to their neighbour,' and harrowing details

given of the last victim at a former 'shoot.'

As we listen to these 'tales for the marines,' uncomfortable thoughts

will suggest themselves. We recall the grisly incident in _The

Interpreter_; when at a 'wild-schutz' the Prince de Vochsal's bullet

glides off a tree-stem and finds a home in Victor De Rohan's gallant

breast. Might such a _contretemps_ occur to-day? Such things are always

on the cards. May not even the rightful possessor of this susceptible

heart be widowed ere this very eve, and the callow Boldrewoods be

rendered nestless? No matter! One can but die once. It won't be quite so

hot as Tel-el-kebir. Even there survivors returned. So we shake up our

well-tried steed, shoulder the double-barrel, and ruffle it with the

rest, serene in confidence as to the doctrine of chances.

And now after three or four miles' brisk riding o'er hill and dale—the

country in these parts may certainly be described as undulating—we come

upon a line of recently 'blazed' trees. These are half-way between a

ravine or gully, and the crest of a range, to which it runs parallel. As

the first man reaches a marked tree, he takes his station, the next in

line halting as he comes to the succeeding one. The distances between

are perhaps seventy or eighty yards, and each man stands sheltered on

one side of his tree-trunk. The number of guns may be some ten or

fifteen. The beaters, horsemen also, have gone forward some time since,

and our present attitude is one of expectation.

In about ten minutes a sound as of galloping hoofs is heard upon the

western side, of ringing stockwhips, shouts and yells, then nearer still

the measured 'thud, thud' which tells of the full-grown marsupial. Bang

goes a gun at the end of the line; the battle has begun. A curious

excitement commences to stir the blood. It is not so much unlike the

real thing. And a line of skirmishers in close quarters with an enemy's

vedette would be posted like us, and perhaps similarly affected by the

first crackling fire of musketry. Two more shots right and left nearer

to our position; then half-a-dozen. A volley in our immediate

neighbourhood raises expectation and excitement to the highest pitch.

'May Allah protect us! There is but one Prophet,' we have but time to

ejaculate, and lo! the marsupial tyrant of our flocks and herds is upon

us in force. Here they come, straight for our tree, seven or eight of

all sizes, from the innocent 'joey' to the grim ancient, 'the old man,'

in the irreverent vernacular of the colonists.

Now is our time. We step bravely from behind our tree and bang into the

patriarch's head and shoulders, as for one moment he arrests his mad

career in wild astonishment at our sudden apparition.

He staggers, but does not fall. _Habet_, doubtless; but the

half-instinctive muscular system enables him to carry off the balance of

a cartridge of double B.

As the affrighted flock dashes by, we wheel and accommodate the next

largest with a broadside. It is more effective; a smashed hind-leg

brings down the fur-bearing 'noxious animal,' which lies helpless and

wistful, with large, deer-like eyes. A smart fusilade to the left

reveals that the fugitives have fallen among foes in that direction.

The small arms being silent, we quit our trees, each man scalps his

victims, giving the _coup-de-grâce_ to such of the wounded as need a

quietus. No quarter is given—neither age nor sex is spared. Even the

infants, those tender weaklings the 'joeys,' are not saved. It is the

horrible necessity of war—a war for existence. As thus: If the kangaroo

are allowed to live and multiply, our sheep will starve. We can't live

if they don't. Ergo, it is our life and welfare against Marsupial

Bill's, and he, being of the inferior race, must go under.

One wonders whether this doctrine will be applied in the future to

inferior races of men. As the good country of the world gets taken up, I

fear me pressure will be brought to bear by the all-absorbing

Anglo-Saxons, Teutons, and Slavs upon the weaker races. Wars of

extermination have been waged ere now in the history of the world. They

may be yet revived, for all we can predicate from existing facts.

As we go down the line the scalps are collected in a bag. We are thus

enabled to compare notes as to success. One gentleman has five kangaroos

lying around him; he is not certain either whether an active neighbour

has not done him out of a scalp. The collecting business having been

completed, a move is made for the horses, hung up out of danger, and

another paddock is 'driven' with approximate results.

A good morning's work has been done, and a sufficiency of bodily

exercise taken by one o'clock, at which time a move is made towards a

creek flat, where on the site of a deserted sheep-station, with yards

proper, of the olden time, a substantial picnic lunch is spread.

Appetites of a superior description seem to be universal, and a season

of hearty enjoyment succeeds to that of action.

The spot itself might well have stood for the locality sketched in

Lindsay Gordon's unpublished poem. Strange that the poetic gift should

enable the possessor to invest with ideal grace a subject so apparently

prosaic and homely as a deserted shepherd's hut.

Can this be where the hovel stood?

Of old I knew the spot right well;

One post is left of all the wood,

Three stones lie where the chimney fell.

Rank growth of ferns has well-nigh shut

From sight the ruin of the hut;

There stands the tree where once I cut

The M that interlaced the L.

What more is left to tell?

As we were converging towards this spot before lunch, the smart shot of

the gathering was made. A forester kangaroo, demoralised by the abnormal

events of the day, came dashing up towards the party. He wheeled and

fled as we met, and a snap shot but staggered him. Then one of the party

dropped the reins on his horse's neck, and with a long shot rolled him

over, dead as a rabbit.

A succession of 'drives' make a partial clearance of each paddock, all

being taken in turn. The short winter day, accented by heavy showers in

the afternoon, begins to darken as we ride homewards, damp but

hilarious. The day had been successful on the whole. Plenty of fun,

reasonable sport, manly exercise, and a fair bag. Nearly a hundred legal

'raisings' of 'h'ar' prove that the average has been over ten head per

gun. Dry clothes, blazing fires, a warm welcome and sympathetic

greetings, await us on arrival. The advantage of bearing trifling

discomfort, to be compensated by unwonted luxury, presents itself to

every logical mind. The dinner was a high festival, where mirth reigned

supreme; while the ball in the evening—for had not all dames and

demoiselles within twenty miles been impressed for the occasion?—fitly

concluded the day's work with a revel of exceptional joyousness.

If there be a moral connected with this 'study in Black and White' it

must be that while most people (excepting the advocates for the

abolition of capital punishment) admit that it is a good and lawful deed

to clear the 'noxious' marsupial off the face of the earth, we trust

that the process will not be so swift as to bring speedily to an end

such enjoyable gatherings,—these sociable murder parties, wherein

business and pleasure are happily conjoined, as in the battue at which I

had the happiness to be present.

FIVE MEN'S LIVES FOR ONE HORSE

'Yes; it does seem a goodish price to pay for a half-bred mare—worth ten

pound at the outside,' said old Bill, the cook for the rouseabouts at

Jergoolah Station, one wet evening, as the men gathered round the fire

after supper, with their pipes in their mouths. It had been wet for

three days, so there was no shearing. Very little work for the other men

either—half a hundred strong—as the wet-fleeced sheep were best left

alone. The shearers were sulky of course. They were eating (and paying

for) their own rations. But the ordinary 'pound-a-week men,' whose

board, with lodging, was provided for them gratis, were philosophically

indifferent to the state of the weather.

'I don't care if it rains till Christmas,' remarked a dissipated-looking

youth, who had successfully finished a game of euchre with a dirty pack

of cards and an equally unclean companion. 'It's no odds to us, so

long's the creeks don't rise and block us goin' to the big smoke to blue

our cheques. I don't hold with too much fine weather at shearin' time.'

'Why not?' asked his late antagonist, staring gloomily at the cards, as

if he held them responsible for his losses.

'Why not?' repeated the first speaker; ''cause there's no fun in

watchin' of bloomin' shearers makin' their pound and thirty bob a day

while we can't raise a mag over three-and-six—at it all hours like so

many workin' bullocks, and turned out the minute shearin's over, like a

lot of unclaimed strangers after a cattle muster.'

'Why did ye come here at all?' asked a tall, broad-shouldered

'corn-stalk' from the neighbourhood of Penrith; 'nobody asked yer. There

was plenty for the work afore you struck in. It's you town larrikins

that spoil the sheds—blackguardin' and gamblin' and growlin' from

daylight till dark. If I was the boss I'd set bait for ye, same's the

dingoes.'

'You shut up and go home to yer pumpkin patch,' retorted the

card-player, with sudden animation. 'You Sydney-siders think no one can

work stock but yourselves. You've no right this side of the

Murrumbidgee, if it comes to that; and I'd make one of a crowd to start

you back where you come from, and all your blackleg lot.'

'Put up your hands, you spieler!' said the New South Wales man, making

one long stride towards the light-weight, who, standing easily on guard,

appeared in no way anxious to decline the combat.

'Come, none of that, you Nepean chap,' said a good-humoured,

authoritative voice; 'no scrappin' till shearin's over, or I'll stop

your pay. Besides, it's a daylight start to-morrow morning. I've a

paddock to clear, and the glass is rising. The weather's going to take

up.' This was the second overseer, whose word was law until the

'cobbler' was shorn, and the last man with the last sheep left the shed

amid derisive cheers. After a little subdued 'growling,' the combatants,

there being no grog to inflame their angry passions, subsided.

'What's that old Bill was sayin' about horses and men's lives? I heard

it from outside,' demanded the centurion. 'Any duffing going on?'

'Why, Joe Downey passed the remark,' made answer a wiry-looking 'old

hand,' then engaged in mending one of his boots so neatly that he might

have passed for a journeyman shoemaker, had it not been an open secret

that he had learned the trade within the walls of a gaol, 'that if a man

was to "shake" a horse here and ride him into Queensland, he'd never be

copped.'

'Oh, he wouldn't, eh? And why did Bill get his hair off?'

'Well, Bill he says, "You're a d—d young fool," says he. "I've seen

smarter men than you lose their lives over a ten-pound 'oss—yes, and

bring better men to the same end."'

'But he said something about five men,' persisted the overseer. 'What

did he mean by that?'

'What did I mean by that?' said the old man, who had now drawn nearer,

in stern and strident tones. 'Why, what I say. It's God's truth, as I

stand here, and the whole five of 'em's now in their graves—as fine a

lot of men, too, as ever you see—all along of one blasted mare, worth

about two fivers, and be hanged to her!'

The old man's speech had a sort of rude eloquence born of earnestness,

which chained the attention of the variously composed crowd; and when

Mr. Macdonald, the overseer, said, 'Come, Bill, let's have it. It's a

lost day, and we may as well hear your yarn as anything else before

turn-in time,' the old man, thus adjured, took his pipe out of his

mouth, and seating himself upon a three-legged stool, prepared to

deliver himself of a singular and tragic experience.

William James, chiefly referred to as 'old Bill,' was a true type of the

veritable 'old hand' of pre-auriferous Australia. Concerning an early

voyage to Tasmania he was reticent. He referred to the period

ambiguously as 'them old times,' when he related tales of mystery and

fear, such as could have only found place under the _régime_ of forced

colonisation. No hirsute ornament adorned his countenance. Deeply

wrinkled, but ever clean-shaved, it was a face furrowed and graven, as

with a life-record of the darker passions and such various suffering as

the human animal alone can endure and live. Out of this furnace of

tribulation old Bill had emerged, in a manner purified and reformed. He

gave one the impression of a retired pirate—convinced of the defects of

the profession, but regretful of its pleasing episodes. Considered as a

bush labourer, a more useful individual to a colony did not live. Bill

could do everything well, and do twice as much of it as the less

indurated industrialist of a later day. Hardy, resourceful, tireless,

true to his salt, old Bill had often been considered by the sanguine or

inexperienced employer an invaluable servant. And so in truth he was,

until the fatal day arrived when the 'cheque fever' assailed him. Then,

alas! 'he was neither to hand nor to bind.' No reason, interest, promise

or principle had power to restrain him from the mad debauch, when for

days—perhaps for weeks—all semblance of manhood was lost.

However, he was now in the healthful stage of constant work—well fed,

paid and sheltered. Cooking was one of his many accomplishments: in it

he excelled. While, despite his age, his courage and determination

sufficed to keep the turbulent 'rouseabouts' in order. In his leisure

hours he was prone to improve the occasion by demonstrating the folly of

colliding with the law—its certain victory, its terrible penalties. And

of the gloomy sequel to a solitary act was the present story.

'I mind,' he began—pushing back the grey hair which he wore long and

carefully brushed—'when I was workin' on a run near the Queensland

border. It's many a long year ago—but that says nothin'; some of you

chaps is as young and foolish as this Jack Danvers as I'm a-goin' to

tell ye about. Well, some of us was startin' a bit of a spree like,

after shearin'; we'd all got tidy cheques; some was goin' one way and

some another. Jack and his mate to Queensland, where they expected a big

job of work. Just as we was a-saddlin' up—some of us had one neddy, some

two—a mob of horses comes by. I knew who they belonged to—a squatter not

far off. Among 'em was a fine lump of a brown filly, three year old,

half bred, but with good action.

'"That's a good filly," says Jack—he'd had a few glasses—"she could be

roped handy in the old cattle-yard near the crick. Lead easy too, 'long

with the other mokes."

'"Don't be a darned fool, Jack," says I; "there'll be a bloomin' row

over her, you take it from me. She's safe to be missed, and you'll be

tracked up. D—n it all, man," says I, "what's a ten-pound filly for a

man to lose his liberty over? If it was a big touch it might be

different."

'"You're a fine cove to preach," says he, quite savage. The grog had got

into his head, I could see. "Mind your own —— business." I heard his

mate (he was a rank bad 'un) say something to him, and they rode away

steady; but the same road that the "mob" had gone. I went off with some

other chaps as wer' inside having a last drink, and thought no more

about Jack Danvers and the brown filly till nigh a year after. Then it

come out. The filly'd been spotted, working in a team, by the man that

bred her. The carrier bought her square and honest; had a receipt from a

storekeeper. They found the storekeeper in Queensland; he'd bought her

from another man. "What sort of a man?"—"Why, a tall, good-looking chap,

like a flash shearer." Word went to the police at Warwillah. It was Jack

Danvers of course; they'd suspected him and his mate all the time.

'Well, Jack was nabbed, tho' he was out on a Queensland diggin' far

enough away. But they sent up his description from the shed we'd left

together, and he was brought down in irons, as he'd made a fight of it.

The storekeeper swore to him positive as the man that had sold him the

brown J.D. filly—old Jerry Dawson's she was. The jury found him guilty

and he got three years.

'Now I'm on to the part of the play when the "ante-up" comes in. You

mind me, you young fellers, it _always does_ sooner or later. He'd no

call to shake that filly. I said so then, and I say so now. And what

come'd of it? Listen and I'll tell you—_Death_ in five chapters—and so

simple, all along of an unbroke filly!

'Now Jack wa'n't the man to stop inside of prison walls if he could help

it. He and another chap make a rush one day, knock over the warder and

collar his revolver. Another warder comes out to help; Jack shoots him

dead, and they clear. _Man's life number one._ Big reward offered. They

stick up a roadside inn next. Somebody gave 'em away. Police waitin' on

'em as they walk in—dead of night. Soon's they see the police, Jack

shoots the innkeeper, poor devil! thought he'd sold 'em. _Man's life

number two._ Jack and his mate and the police bang away at each other at

close quarters—trooper wounded—Jack shot dead—mate wounded, dies next

day. _Men's lives number four._

'Who gave the office to the police and collared the blood-money? Friend

of Jack's, a pal. Five hundred quid was too much for him. What became of

_him_? Job leaked out somehow—friends and family dropped him. The money

did him no good. Took to drinking straight ahead, and died in the

horrors within the year. _Men's lives number five._

'Yes; he was the fifth man to go down. Two pound apiece their lives

fetched! They're in their graves because Jack Danvers was a d—d fool,

and when he was young, strong, good-looking and well-liked, must go and

duff a man's mare out of sheer foolishness. He didn't see what was to

come of it, or he'd 'a cut off his right hand first. But that's the way

of it. We don't see them things till it's _too late_. But mark my words,

you young chaps as has got all the world before you—take a fool's

advice. _It don't pay to "go on the cross"_—never did; and there's no

one has cause to know it better than old Bill James.'

'By George!' said the overseer, 'that's the best yarn I have heard for a

year. And if the parson preaches a better sermon when he holds service

in the woolshed next Sunday, I'll be surprised.'

REEDY LAKE STATION

The Post-office clock in Bourke Street, Melbourne, is about to strike

six, in the month of June 1858. At this 'everlastingly early hour A.M.

in the morning' (as remarked by Mr. Chuckster), I am the box-passenger

of Cobb's coach, _en route_ for Bendigo. The team of greys stand

motionless, save for a faint attempt to paw on the part of the near-side

leader. The first stroke vibrates on high. Mr. Jackson, with an

exclamation, tightens his 'lines.' The six greys plunge at their

collars, and we are off.

There was no Spencer Street terminus in those days. We were truly

thankful to King Cobb. I, for one, was glad to get over a hundred miles

of indifferent road in a day—winter weather, too. We did not grumble so

comprehensively as latter-day travellers.

Remembered yet, how, when we came to the long hill at Keilorbridge, the

driver let his horses out when half-way down. The pace that we went 'was

a caution to see.' The wheel-spokes flew round, invisible to the naked

eye. The coach rocked in a manner to appal the nervous. The horses lay

down to it as if they were starting for a Scurry Stakes. But it was a

good piece of macadam, and we were half-way up to the next hill before

any one had time to think seriously of the danger.

Nobody, of course, would have dared to have addressed the driver upon

the subject. In those flush days, when both day and night coaches loaded

well, when fares were high and profits phenomenal, he was an autocrat

not to be lightly approached. It almost took two people to manage a

communication—one to bear the message from the other. Silent or laconic,

master of his work in a marvellous degree, he usually resented light

converse, advice infuriated him, and sympathy was outrage.

The roads were bad, even dangerous in places. Muddy creeks, bush-tracks,

sidelings, washed-out crossings, increased the responsibilities and

tried the tempers of these pioneer sons of Nimshi. Men of mark they

mostly were. Americans to a man in that day, though subsequently

native-born Australians, acclimatised Irishmen, and other recruits of

merit, began to show up in the ranks.

I remember the astonishment of a newly-arrived traveller at seeing

Carter, a gigantic, fair-bearded Canadian, coming along a baddish road

one wet day, with seven horses and a huge coach, containing about fifty

Chinamen. How he swayed the heavy reins with practised ease, his three

leaders at a hand-gallop; how he piloted his immense vehicle through

stumps and ruts, by creek and hillside, with accuracy almost miraculous

to the uninitiated.

Mr. Carter was not a 'man of much blandishment.' I recall the occasion,

when a spring having gone wrong, he was, with the assistance of a

stalwart passenger, silently repairing damage. A frivolous insider

commenced to condole and offer suggestions in a weakly voluble way. 'Go

to h—l,' was the abrupt rejoinder, which so astonished the well-meaning

person, that he retreated into the coach like a rabbit into a burrow,

and was silent for hours afterwards.

One always had the consciousness, however, that whatever could be done

by mortal man, would be accomplished by them. Accidents might happen,

but they belonged to the category of the inevitable.

One dark night, near Sawpit Gully, a tire came off. Al. Hamilton (poor

fellow! he was killed by an upset in New South Wales afterwards) was off

in a minute; found his way to the smith's house; had him back in an

inconceivably short time; left word for us to get the fire lighted and

blown up—it was cold, and we thought that great fun; and before another

man would have finished swearing at the road, the darkness, and things

in general, the hammer was clinking on the red-hot tire, the welding was

progressing, and in three-quarters of an hour we were bowling along much

as before. We had time to make up, and did it too. But suppose the

blacksmith would not work? Not work! He was Cobb and Co.'s man—that is,

he did all their 'stage' repairs. Well he knew that the night must be to

him even as the day when their humblest vehicle on the road needed his

aid. As a firm they went strictly by results and took no excuses. If a

man upset his coach and did damage once, he was shifted to another part

of the line. If he repeated the accident, he was dismissed. There was no

appeal, and the managing body did not trouble about evidence after the

first time. If he was negligent, it served him right. If he was unlucky,

that was worse.

The journey to Bendigo was accomplished at the rate of nine miles an

hour, stoppages included. It was midwinter. The roads were deep in

places. It was therefore good-going, punctual relays, and carefully

economised time, which combined to land us at Hefferman's Hotel before

darkness had set in. As usual a crowd had collected to enjoy the great

event of the day.

Bendigo was in that year a very lively town, with a population roused to

daily excitement by fortunes made or lost. Gold was shovelled up like

sugar in bankers' scoops, and good money sent after bad in reckless

enterprise, or restored a hundredfold in lucky ventures.

Here I was to undergo a new experience in company with Her Majesty's

Mails.

As I rather impatiently lingered outside of Hefferman's after breakfast

next morning, an unpretending tax-cart, to which were harnessed a pair

of queer, unmatched screws, drove up to the door. 'German Charlie'—his

other name I never knew—driver and contractor, informed me that I was

the only passenger, lifted my valise, and the talismanic words 'Reedy

Creek' being pronounced, vowed to drop me at the door. He had always

parcels for Mr. Keene. This gentleman's name he pronounced with bated

breath, in a tone of deepest veneration.

Beyond all doubt would I be landed there early on the morrow.

I mounted the Whitechapel, saw my overcoat and valise in safely, and,

not without involuntary distrust, committed myself to Charlie's tender

mercies. He gave a shout, he raised his whip—the off-side horse made a

wild plunge; the near-side one, blind of one eye, refused to budge. Our

fate hung on the balance apparently, when a man from the crowd quietly

led off the unwilling near-side, and we dashed away gloriously. The pace

was exceptional, but it was evidently inexpedient to slacken speed. We

flew down the main street, and turned northward, along a narrow track,

perilously near to yawning shafts, across unsafe bridges, over race

channels; along corduroy roads, or none at all, our headlong course was

pursued. The sludge-invaded level of Meyer's Flat is passed. Bullock

Creek is reached, all ignorant of reservoirs and weirs, and a relay of

horses driven in from the bush is demanded.

A smart boy of fourteen had the fresh team, three in number, ready for

us in the yard. He felt it necessary to warn us. They 'were not good

starters, that was a fact.' The statement was strictly correct. One

horse was badly collar-galled, one a rank jib. The leader certainly had

a notion of bolting; his efforts in that direction were, however,

neutralised by the masterly inactivity of his companions. After much

pushing, persuasion, and profane language, we effected a departure.

That the pace was kept up afterwards may be believed. Sometimes the

harness gave way, but as the shaft and outrigger horses were by this

time well warmed, they did not object to again urge on their wild

career.

We stopped at the 'Durham Ox Inn' that night, then a solitary lodge in

the wilderness, a single building of brick, visible afar off on the

sea-like plain, which stretched to the verge of the horizon. Woods

Brothers and Kirk had at that time, if I mistake not, just concluded to

purchase Pental Island from Ebden and Keene, but were debating as to

price. The pasture seemed short and sparse, after the deep, rich western

sward, but overtaking a 'mob' of Messrs. Booth and Argyle's cattle

farther on, I felt satisfied as to its fattening qualities. Each cow,

calf, steer, and yearling in the lot was positively heaped and cushioned

with fat. They looked like stall-fed oxen. And this in June! I thought I

saw then what the country could do. I was correct in my deduction,

always supposing the important factor of _rain_ not to be absent. Of

this, in my inexperience, I took no heed. In my favoured district there

was always a plentiful supply; sometimes, indeed, more than was

agreeable or necessary.

Kerang was passed; Tragowel skirted; Mount Hope, then in the occupation

of Messrs. Griffith and Greene, reared its granite mass a few miles to

the south. As Sir Thomas Mitchell stood there, gazing over the

illimitable prairie, rich with giant herbage and interspersed but with

belts and copses of timber, planted by Nature's hand, the veteran

explorer exclaimed with a burst of enthusiasm, 'Australia Felix! This is

indeed Australia Felix!'

Steady stocking and an occasional dry season had somewhat modified the

standard of the nutritive grasses and salsolaceous plants, at this point

advantageously mingled. But that the country was superlative in a

pastoral point of view may be gathered from the fact that, upon my first

visit to the homestead a few weeks afterwards, I saw five thousand

weaners—the whole crop of lambs for the previous year—_shepherded in one

flock_. Very fine young sheep they were, and in excellent condition. Of

course it was on a plain, but, unless the pasturage had been

exceptional, no shepherd could have kept such a number together.

Later in the afternoon my Teutonic conductor, who had been going for the

last twenty miles like the dark horseman in Burger's ballad, pulled up

at Reedy Lake Head Station. There dwelt the resident partner and

autocrat of his district, Mr. Theophilus Keene.

I saw a slight, fair man with an aquiline nose, a steady grey eye, and

an abundant beard, who came out of a neat two-roomed slab hut and

greeted me with polished courtesy. 'He was extremely glad to see me. He

had looked forward to my coming this week in terms of a letter he had

received from Messrs. Ryan and Hammond, but, indeed, had hardly expected

that I would trust myself to their mail.'

Mr. Keene, whom I saw then for the first time, was probably verging on

middle age, though active and youthful in appearance, above the middle

height, yet not tall—of a figure inclined indeed to spareness. He

impressed me with the idea that he was no commonplace individual.

He carried nothing of the bushman about his appearance, at home or in

town, being careful and _soigné_ as to his apparel, formal and somewhat

courtly in his address. He scarcely gave one the idea of a dweller in

the waste; yet the roughest experiences of overlanding squatter-life, of

a leader of the rude station and road hands, had been his. He looked

more like a dandy Civil Servant of the upper grades. Yet he was more

than a pioneer and manager—an astute diplomatist, a clever

correspondent, an accurate accountant. The books of the Reedy Lake

Station were kept as neatly as those of a counting-house. The overseer's

sheep-books, ration accounts, and road expenses were audited as

correctly as if in an office. The great station-machine revolved easily,

and, though unaided by inventions which have smoothed the path of

latter-day pastoralists, was a striking illustration of successful

administration.

This large and important sheep property, as it was held to be in those

primeval times, had considerably over 150,000 sheep on its books. Reedy

Lake stood for the whole, but Quambatook, Murrabit, Lake Boga, Liegar,

Pental Island and other runs were also comprised within its boundaries.

These were separate communities, and were, upon the subdivision of the

property, sold as such. These were worked under the supervision of

overseers and sub-managers, each of whom had to render account to Mr.

Keene—a strict one, too—of every sheep counted out to the shepherds of

the division in his charge.

Mr. Ebden, erstwhile Treasurer of Victoria and for some years a member

of Parliament, was the senior partner. He had sagaciously secured Mr.

Keene, then wasting his powers on the Lower Murray, by offering him a

third share of the property, with the position of resident partner and

General Manager. Mr. Ebden, residing in Melbourne, arranged the

financial portion of the affairs, while Mr. Keene was the executive

chief, with almost irresponsible powers, which he used unreservedly—no

doubt about that.

This was the day, let it be premised, of 'shepherding,' pure and simple.

There were, in that district at least, no wire fences, no great

enclosures, no gates, no tanks. Improvements, both great and small, were

looked upon as superfluous forms of expensiveness. To keep the shepherds

in order, to provide them with rations and other necessaries, to see

that they neither lost the sheep nor denied them reasonable range,—these

were the chief duties of those in authority. And tolerably anxious and

engrossing occupation they afforded.

Thus the great Reedy Lake Head Station, always mentioned with awe, north

of the Loddon, was not calculated to strike the stranger with amazement

on account of its buildings and constructions, formed on the edge of the

fresh-water lake from which it took its name. The station comprised Mr.

Keene's two-roomed hut aforesaid; also a larger one, where the

overseers, young gentlemen, and strangers abode—known as The Barracks;

the kitchen, a detached building; the men's huts, on the shore of the

lake, at some considerable distance; an inexpensive, old-fashioned

woolshed might be discerned among the 'old-man salt-bush' nearly a mile

away; a hundred acre horse-paddock, surrounded by a two-railed sapling

fence; a stock-yard—_voilà tout_; there was, of course, a store. These

were all the buildings thought necessary for the management of £150,000

worth of sheep in that day. How different would be the appearance of

such a property now!

The special errand upon which I had journeyed thus far was to inspect

and, upon approval, to accept an offer in writing, which I carried with

me, of the Murrabit Station, one of the subdivisions of the Reedy Lake

property, having upon it sixteen thousand sheep and _no improvements

whatever_, except the shepherds' huts and a hundred hurdles. The price

was £24,000—one-third equal to cash, the remainder by bills extending

over three years.

The tide of investment had set in strongly in the direction of sheep

properties, near or across the Murray. I had followed the fashion for

the purpose, presumably, of making the usual fortune more rapidly than

through the old-fashioned medium of cattle. To this end it was arranged

that Mr. Keene and I, with one of the overseers whom I had known

previously, should on the morrow ride over and inspect the Murrabit

country and stock, lying some twenty miles distant from Reedy Lake.

It is held to be bad form in Bushland to mount an intending purchaser

badly. It is unnecessary to say that it was not done in this case. No

detail was omitted to produce a state of cheerful self-complacency,

suited to the distinguished rôle of guest and buyer. When Mr. Keene's

famous pony Billy, an animal whose fame was heralded in two colonies,

and from the Loddon to the Murrumbidgee, was led forth, I felt I was

indeed the favoured guest. He certainly was 'the horse you don't see

now,' or, if so, very very rarely. Neat as to forehand, with a round rib

and powerful quarter, fast, easy, and up to weight, he was difficult to

match. The area from Kerang northwards was known as 'salt-bush' country.

But little grass showed except on the edges of watercourses. Bare

patches of red sandy loam between the salsolaceous plants did not lead

the early explorers to consider it first-rate pasturage. Varieties,

however, were plentiful, from the 'old-man salt-bush,' seven to ten feet

high, to the dwarf-growing but fattening plants on the plain. The

cotton-bush, too, known to indicate first-class fattening country, was

plentiful. Perhaps the best testimony to the quality of the herbage,

however, and which I was sufficiently experienced to appreciate, was the

uniform high health and condition of every flock of sheep that we saw.

Nothing could be finer than their general appearance, as indeed is

always the case in reasonably-stocked salt-bush country; no foot-rot, no

fluke, and, _absit omen_, no sheep-scab. This dire disease was then,

unhappily, common in Western Victoria. It had been a fair season.

Everything was fit to bear inspection. The wether flock looked like

donkeys for size, the breeding ewes were fit for market, the weaners

precociously fat and well-grown. Nothing could look better than the

whole array.

Besides the salt-bush country, plains chiefly, and a large dry lake,

there was an important section of the run known as 'The Reed-beds,'

which I was anxious to visit. This tract lay between Lake Boga, a large

fresh-water lake on one side, the Murrabit, an anabranch, and the south

bank of the Murray. In order to ride over this it was arranged that we

should camp at the hut of a shepherd, known as 'Towney,' on Pental

Island, thence explore the reed-beds and see the remaining sheep on the

morrow.

Pental Island, formed by the Murrabit, a deep wide stream, which leaves

the main river channel and re-enters lower down, we found to be a long,

narrow strip of land, having sound salt-bush ridges in the centre, with

reed-beds on either side. Crossing by a rude but sufficient bridge, we

discovered Mr. 'Towney' living an Alexander Selkirk sort of life,

monarch of all he surveyed, and with full charge of some ten or twelve

thousand sheep turned loose. The bridge being closed with hurdles, they

could not get away. His only duty was to see that no enterprising dingo

swam over from Murray Downs on the opposite side and ravaged the flock.

The night was cloudless and starlit, lovely in all aspects, as are

chiefly those of the Riverina—an absolutely perfect winter climate. The

strange surroundings, the calm river, the untroubled hush of the scene,

the chops, damper, and tea, all freshly prepared by Towney, were

enjoyable enough. After a talk by the fire, for the night air was cool,

and a smoke, we lay down on rugs and blankets and slept till dawn. Our

entertainer was dejected because he had not a Murray cod to offer us.

'If we had only come last week.' 'Tis ever thus.

That day's ride showed me the reed-beds in the light of sound, green,

quickly-fattening pastures. At one angle of the Murrabit, on _my_

run—for my run, indeed, it was destined to be—there were two flocks of

sheep, five thousand in all, of which the shepherds and hut-keeper

inhabited the same hut. It was managed thus. One flock was camped on the

northern side of the bridge, one on the other. The hut-keeper, long

disestablished, but then considered an indispensable functionary, cooked

for both shepherds. £30 a year with rations was the wage for the

shepherds; £25 for the hut-keeper.

Then there was a frontage of, perhaps, a mile and a half to the southern

end of Lake Boga. This noble fresh-water lake, having shelving, sandy

shores, is filled by the rising of the Murray. On the bluff, to the

right of the road to Swan Hill, was a curious non-Australian cottage,

built by Moravian missionaries, and situated upon a reserve granted to

them by the Government of Victoria. These worthy personages, becoming

discouraged at the slow conversion of the heathen, or deeming the

_locale_ unsuitable, sold their right and interest to Messrs. Ebden and

Keene. I decided to place the head station close by, and there, I

suppose, it is at the present day.

A picturesque spot enough. Northward the eye ranged over the broad,

clear waters of the lake, now calm in the bright sunshine, now lashed

into quite respectable waves by a gale. Eastward, over a wide expanse of

reed-bed, dead level and brightly green, you traced the winding course

of the great river by the huge eucalypti which lined its banks. Around

was the unending plain, on which the salt-bushes grew to an unusual

size, while across the main road to Melbourne, fenced off by the

horse-paddock of the future, was a cape of pine-scrub, affording

pleasing contrast to the wide, bare landscape.

We returned to Reedy Lake that evening, and before I slept was the

contract signed, accepting price and terms; signed in high hope, and

apparently with a fair prospect of doubling the capital invested, as had

done many another. Had I but known that this particular indenture,

freely translated, _should have run thus_:—

* * * * *

'I hereby bind myself to take the Murrabit Run and stock at the price

agreed, and to lose in consequence every farthing I have ever made,

within five years from this date.

'(Signed) R. BOLDREWOOD.'

* * * * *

Why can't one perceive such results and consequences now and then? Why

are so many of the important contracts and irrevocable promises of life

entered into during one's most sanguine, least reflective period? Will

these questions ever be answered, and where? Still, were the veil

lifted, what dread apparitions might we not behold! 'Tis more mercifully

arranged, be sure.

Thus we entered with a light heart into this Sedan business, much

undervaluing our Prussians. After visiting Melbourne, it was arranged

that delivery of stock and station should be taken within a specified

time.

I didn't know much about sheep then; what a grim jest it reads like

_now_! I had leisure for reflection on the subject in the aftertime. I

judged it well to leave the apportioning of the flocks to my host and

entertainer. He did far better for me than I could have done myself. I

had every reason to be satisfied with the quality of the sixteen

thousand instruments of my ruin. There was a noble flock of fat wethers,

three thousand strong; for the rest, 'dry' ewes, breeders, weaners,

two-tooths, were all good of their sort. After engaging one of the

overseers, a shrewd, practical personage, I considered the establishment

of my reputation as a successful wool-grower to be merely a question of

time.

The Fiend is believed to back gamblers at an early stage of their

career. It looked as if His Eminence gave my dice a good shake _pour

commencer_. The first sale was brilliant: the whole cast of fat sheep to

one buyer (at the rate of £1 each for wethers, and 15s. for ewes)—over

six thousand in all. They were drafted, paid for, and on their way to

Melbourne in the afternoon of the day on which the buyer arrived. The

lambing was good; the wool sold at a paying price, considering the

primitive style of washing. Next year, of course, all this would be

altered. Meanwhile I surveyed the imprint 'R.B.' over Murrabit on the

wool-bales with great satisfaction.

'But surely,' says the practical reader, 'things were going well;

season, prices, increase satisfactory. How did the fellow manage to make

a mull of it?' There _were_ reasons. The cost of a run bought 'bare' is

unavoidably great. Huts, yards, woolshed, homestead, paddock,

brushyards, lambers, washers, shearers, all cost money—are necessary,

but expensive. The cheque stream was always flowing with a steady

current, it seemed to me. Fat stock, too, the great source of profit in

that district, gradually declined in price. Interest and commission,

which amounted to 12½ per cent or more, in one way and another,

gradually told up. In 1861 an unprecedented fall took place in cattle,

such as had not been felt 'since the gold.' Beeves fell to the price of

stores. Buyers could not meet their engagements. The purchaser of my

cattle-station in Western Victoria was among these. He was compelled to

return it upon my hands after losing his cash deposit. Thus seriously

hampered, the finale was that I 'came out' without either station or a

shilling in the world. What was worse, having caused others to suffer

through my indebtedness.

The Murrabit was then sold, well improved, though not fenced, with

twenty thousand good sheep on it, at £1: 5s. per head—£25,000—nearly the

same price at which I had purchased; but with four thousand more sheep,

and costly improvements added, including a woolshed which had cost £500.

The new purchaser paid £10,000 down, and I was sorry to hear afterwards

lost everything in about the time it had taken me to perform the same

feat. But he had, I believe, the expense of fencing—an economical luxury

then so impossible for a squatter to deny himself. In addition to this,

that terrible synonym of ruin, sheep-scab, broke out in the district,

and in time among the Murrabit sheep. This, of course, necessitated

endless expenditure in labour, dressing-yards, dips, and what not. No

further explanation is needed by the experienced as to why my equally

unlucky successor went under.

Talking of scab—now a tradition in Australia—it was then plentiful in

Victoria, with the exception of certain favoured districts, among which

the trans-Loddon country was numbered. Now in the days when Theophilus

was king, foreseeing the ruin of the district (or chiefly, perhaps, to

Ebden and Keene) which would ensue should the disease get a footing, he

fought against its introduction, either by carelessness or greed, with

all the vigilant energy of his nature.

There are men of contemplation, of science, of culture, of action. My

experience has been that these qualities are but rarely united in the

same individual. This may be the reason why 'Government by Talk' often

breaks down disastrously—the man who can talk best being helpless and

distracted when responsible action is imminent. This by the way,

however. Mr. Keene did not dissipate his intelligence in the

consideration of abstract theories. He never, probably, in his life saw

three courses open to him. But in war time he struck hard and promptly.

In most cases there was no need to strike twice.

Touching the scab pestilence, this is how he 'saved his country.'

Primarily he put pressure upon his neighbours, until they formed

themselves into a league, offensive and defensive. They did not trust to

the Government official, presumably at times overworked, but they paid a

private Inspector £200 a year, furnishing him also with serviceable

horses and free quarters.

This gentleman—Mr. Smith, let us call him—an active young Australian,

kept the sharpest look-out on all sheep approaching the borders of the

'Keene country.' He summoned the persons in charge if they made the

least infraction of the Act, examined the flock most carefully for

appearances of disease, and generally made life so unpleasant, not to

say dangerous, for the persons in charge, that they took the first

chance of altering their route. If there was the faintest room for

doubt, down came Keene, breathing threats and slaughter. And only after

the most rigid, prolonged inspection were they allowed to pass muster.

Why persons selfishly desired to carry disease into a clean district may

be thus explained. Store sheep—especially if doubtful as to perfect

cleanliness—were low in price in Western Victoria. Near to or across the

New South Wales border they were always high. If, therefore, they could

be driven to the Murray, the profits were considerable. No doubt such

were made, at the risk of those proprietors through whose stations they

passed. A _single sheep_ left behind from such a flock, after weeks

likely to 'break out' with the dire disease, might infect a district.

Mr. Keene had fully determined that 'these accursed gains' should not be

made at _his_ expense.

One day he received notice from Mr. Smith that a lot of five thousand

sheep of suspicious antecedents was approaching his kingdom. They were

owned by a dealing squatter, who, having country both clean and

doubtful, made it a pretext for travelling sheep, picked up in small

numbers. 'From information received' just ere they had entered the clean

country, Mr. Keene appeared with a strong force, with which he took

possession of them under a warrant, obtained on oath that they were

presumably scabby, had them examined by the Government official, who

found the fatal acarus, obtained the necessary authority, _cut their

throats, and burned the five thousand to the last sheep_.

After this holocaust, remembered to this day, it became unfashionable to

travel sheep near the Reedy Lake country. He 'who bare rule over all

that land' rested temporarily from his labours. They were not light

either, as may be inferred from a statement of one of his overseers to

me that about that time, from ceaseless work in the saddle, anxiety, and

worry, he had reduced himself to an absolute skeleton, and from

emaciation could hardly sit on his horse. Nothing, perhaps, but such

unrelenting watch and ward could have saved the district from infection.

But he won the fight, and for years after, not, indeed, until Theophilus

I. was safe in another hemisphere, did marauders of the class he so

harried and vexed dare to cross the Loddon northwards. As soon as the

normal state of carelessness and 'nobody's business' set in (Mr. Smith

having been discontinued), the event foreseen by him took place. The

district became infected, and Reedy Lake itself, Murrabit, and other

runs, all suffered untold loss and injury. Rabbits came in to complete

the desolation. What with Pental Island being advertised to be let by

tender in farms, dingoes abounding in the mallee, free selectors

swarming from Lake Charm to the Murray, irrigation even being practised

near Kerang, if Mr. Keene could return to the country where once he

could ride for forty miles on end requiring any man he met to state what

he was doing there, he would find himself a stranger in a strange land.

Without doubt he would take the first steamer back to England, hastening

to lose sight and memory of a land so altered and be-devilled since the

reign of the shepherd kings. Of this dynasty I hold 'Theophilus the

First' to have been a more puissant potentate during his illustrious

reign than many of the occupants of old-world thrones.

A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY

It is difficult for the inhabitants of settled districts in Australia,

where the villages, surrounded by farms or grazing estates, are now as

well ordered as in rural England, to realise the nature of outrages

which, in earlier colonial days, not infrequently affrighted these

sylvan shades. It is well, however, occasionally to recall the sterner

conditions under which our pioneers lived. The half-explored wilds saw

strange things, when _émeutes_ with murder and robbery thrown in

compelled decisive action. In the year 1836 immense areas in the

interior, described officially as 'Waste Lands of the Crown,' were

occupied by graziers under pastoral licenses. Caution was exercised in

the granting of these desirable privileges. It was required by the

Government of the day that only persons of approved good character

should receive them. Being merely permissive, they were liable to be

withdrawn from the holders for immoral or dishonest conduct. When it is

considered that the men employed in guarding the flocks and herds in

these limitless solitudes were, in the great majority of cases,

prisoners of the Crown, or 'ticket-of-leave' men, whose

partially-expired sentences entitled them to quasi-freedom, it is not

surprising that horse-and cattle-stealing, highway robbery,

ill-treatment of aboriginals, and even darker crimes were rife.

The labourers of the day were composed of three classes, officially

described as free, bond, and 'free by servitude.' This last designation,

obscure only to the newly-arrived colonist, meant that the individual

thus privileged had served his full term of imprisonment, or such

proportion of it as entitled him to freedom under certain restrictions.

He was permitted to come and go, to work for any master who chose to

employ him (and most valuable servants many of them were), to accept the

wages of the period, and generally to comport himself as a 'free man.'

But he was restricted to a specified district, compelled at fixed

periods to report himself to the police authorities, and he went in fear

lest at any time through misconduct or evil report his 'ticket-of-leave'

might be withdrawn, in which case he was sent back to penal servitude.

The alternative was terrible. The man who the week before had been

riding a mettled stock-horse amid the plains and forests of the

interior, or peacefully following his flocks, with food, lodging, and

social privileges, found himself virtually a slave in a chain-gang,

dragging his heavy fetters to and fro in hard, distasteful labour. This

deposition from partial comfort and social equality, though possibly

caused by his own misconduct, occasionally resulted from the report of a

vindictive overseer, or betrayal by a comrade. It may be imagined,

therefore, what vows of vengeance were registered by the sullen convict,

what bloody expiation was often exacted.

Taking into consideration the ludicrous disproportion of the police

furnished by the Government of the day to the area 'protected'—say a

couple of troopers for a thinly-populated district about the size of

Scotland—it seems truly astonishing that malefactors should have been

brought to justice at all. Even more so that armed and desperate felons

should have been followed up and arrested within comparatively short

distances of the scene of their misdeeds.

It says much for the alertness and discipline of the mounted police

force of the day that in by far the greater number of these outrages the

criminals were tracked and secured; more, indeed, for the active

co-operation and public spirit of the country gentlemen of the land, who

were invariably ready to render aid in carrying out the law at the risk

of their lives, and, occasionally, to the manifest injury of their

property.

Circumstances have placed in my hands the record of a murder which, in

careful premeditation, as well as in the satanic malignity with which

the details were carried out, seems pre-eminent amid the dark chronicles

of guilt.

More than sixty years ago Mr. Thursby, a well-known magistrate and

proprietor, residing upon his station, which was distant two hundred and

fifty miles from Sydney, was awakened before daylight, when a note to

this effect from the constable in charge at the nearest police-station

was delivered to him:—

'Last night the lock-up was entered by armed men, and two prisoners

removed. One man knocked at the door, stating that he was a constable

with a prisoner in charge. I opened it; when two men rushed in, one of

whom, presenting a pistol at me, ordered me into a corner, and covered

my head with a blanket. I heard the door unlocked. When I freed myself

the cell was empty.'

Upon receipt of this information, Mr. Thursby despatched a report to the

Officer in charge of Police at Murphy's Plains, distant eighty-five

miles. Taking with him the manager of a neighbouring station, and the

special constable quartered there (a custom of the day), Mr. Thursby

started in pursuit of the outlaws. Their tracks were not hard to follow

in the dew of early morn, but near Major Hewitt's station, seven miles

distant, they became indistinct. After losing much time the station was

reached, and here a black boy was fortunately procured. With his aid the

trail was regained, and followed over rough, mountainous country. Mr.

Jones, the manager who had accompanied the party, informed Mr. Thursby

that five of the convict servants assigned to the owner had run away

previously—'taken to the bush.' They had committed depredations, and had

been unsuccessfully followed by the mounted police, whose horses, after

coming more than eighty miles, were fagged. However, two of them

surrendered themselves next day. One man (Driscoll) was suspected of

having spoken incautiously of the leader's doings (a man named Gore),

who had vowed vengeance accordingly. Driscoll had been placed in the

lock-up, along with Woods, a suspicious character, who said he was a

native of Windsor, New South Wales. Gore and the other men were still at

large.

After leading the party for some distance through the ranges, the black

boy halted, and pointing to a thin thread of smoke, barely perceptible,

said, 'There 'moke!' When they came to the fire from which it proceeded,

what a spectacle presented itself! On the smouldering embers was a human

body, bound and _partially roasted_. It lay on its back, with legs and

arms drawn up. The middle portion of the body was burned to a cinder,

leaving the upper and lower extremities perfect. Mr. Thursby recognised

the features of the man called Woods, who had been imprisoned the day

before. The black boy was so horrified that he became useless as a

tracker, and as the day was far advanced, Mr. Thursby had the body

removed to Engleroi, a station not more than a mile distant.

Here fresh information was furnished. The tragedy deepened. Before

daylight on the previous morning, Driscoll had knocked at the door of

the shepherd's hut, breathless and half insane with terror, imploring

them for the love of God to admit him as 'he was a murdered man.'

Nothing more could be elicited from the shepherds, though it since

appeared that they could have named one of the murderers. Fear of the

'Vehmgericht' of the day doubtless restrained them—fear of that terrible

secret tribunal, administered by the convicts as a body, which in

defiance of the law's severest penalties tried, sentenced, and in many

cases _executed_, the objects of their resentment. The party decided

later on to proceed to Mr. FitzGorman's head station, and on the way

arrested and took with them the hut-keeper of the out-station. They did

not know at the time (as was since proved) that he was one of the

murderers.

On leaving the lock-up, the men had stolen the constable's blue cloth

suit, and being informed at Tongah that a man in blue clothes had been

met with, a few miles down the Taramba River, Mr. Thursby rode forward

with the black boy, leaving the hut-keeper secured, to await his return.

Some time was lost, as the tracks were not picked up at once, but on

reaching Mr. FitzGorman's station, forty miles distant, at midnight, the

man in blue clothes was discovered, housed for the night. He was at once

secured. On being questioned, he said his name was Burns, and that he

was looking for work. He produced a certificate, which did not impose

upon his captor, who knew it to belong to the constable, who, being a

ticket-of-leave man, required to hold such a document. In his bundle,

when searched, several articles taken from the lock-up were found. Gore

the bushranger and murderer stood confessed.

Mr. Thursby was at that time ignorant that the second murderer was

already in his hands, but determined to follow up the pursuit, caused

Gore to be mounted on one of the station horses, and rode back with as

much speed as might be to Tongah. Suspecting the hut-keeper (whose name

was Walker) of being in some way an accomplice of Gore, Mr. Thursby had

both men lodged in the lock-up. Still unrelaxing in pursuit, and

believing that the second murderer might be one of the three runaways

from Major Hewitt's station, Mr. Thursby raised the country-side, and

took such energetic measures that on the following day they were

apprehended.

By this time the shepherds, gaining confidence from the capture of the

outlaws, of whose vengeance they went in fear, commenced to make

disclosures. The constable identified the hut-keeper (Walker) as the man

who, at the point of the pistol, ordered him to stand in the lock-up.

Driscoll knew him and Gore as the two men who removed him and Woods from

the lock-up. He then went on to state that, after being hurried along

for several miles after leaving the lock-up, they halted in a lonely

place, where Gore ordered them to make a fire. When it was kindled to a

blaze, Gore tied them back to back and blindfolded them. At this time

Walker held the pistol. Driscoll heard a shot, when Woods dropped on the

fire, dragging him with him. The bandage falling from his eyes, Walker

struck him twice on the head with his pistol. In his agony, getting his

hands free he ran for his life. He was followed for a considerable

distance, but eventually escaped to Engleroi. Half an hour afterwards,

Gore came up in search of him. What must have been the feelings of the

hunted wretch, so lately a bound victim on his self-made funeral pile,

when the armed desperado, who made so little of human life, reappeared?

However, he contented himself with compelling Driscoll and the

shepherds, among whom he was, to swear under tremendous penalties not to

disclose the fact of his presence there.

Gore and Walker were brought before the nearest Bench of Magistrates and

committed for trial at the next ensuing Assize Court.

There was not sufficient evidence, though a strong presumption, that the

other runaways were implicated in the cold-blooded murder. It appeared

to have been chiefly arranged by Gore and Walker—the former in order to

be revenged on Driscoll, and the latter to get rid of Woods, who had

threatened to give evidence against him for robbery and other misdeeds.

No doubt their intention was to murder both men, destroying all evidence

by burning their bodies. Driscoll had the good fortune to escape, and

was thus enabled to give the necessary evidence at their trial. But

though not directly implicated in the graver crime, the remaining three

bushrangers—for such they were—lay under the charge of being associated

with Gore in committing depredations which had alarmed the neighbourhood

for the last six or seven weeks. They had not wandered far from the

scene of their freebooting, and after eluding the police on several

occasions, remained to be delivered up to justice by a party of

civilians—headed, it is true, by an experienced and determined

personage, exceptionally well mounted from one of the most famous studs

in New South Wales. In that day the bushranger, desperate and ruthless

though he may have been, was at a disadvantage compared to his modern

imitator. He was mostly on foot. Horses were scarce and valuable. There

were few stopping-places, except the stations of the squatters, where an

armed, suspicious-looking stranger was either questioned or arrested.

'Shanties' had hardly commenced to plant centres of contagion in the

'lone Chorasmian waste.' The 'Shadow of Death Hotel' was in the

future—fortunately for all sorts and conditions of men.

It is a curious coincidence, showing at once the just view taken of the

circumstances of the locality and the means proper to lead to the

extinction of 'gang robbery' (as the East India Company's servants

termed the industry), that Mr. Thursby had just forwarded to the

Legislative Council an estimate of the cost of a proposed Court of Petty

Sessions at Wassalis. He also 'most respectfully begged to submit for

the consideration of His Excellency the Governor a suggestion that a

mounted police force would be advantageously stationed there, as well

for the protection of the district as for the purpose of connecting the

detachments of police at Murphy's Plains and Curban.'

'Many a year is in its grave' since the incidents here recorded

affrighted the dwellers in the lonely bush.

It is satisfactory to note that Wassalis was promoted to be a place

where a Court of Petty Sessions is holden.

Walker and Gore, being found guilty, were sentenced to death, doubtless

by Sir Francis Forbes, the Chief Justice of the day—indeed the first

Chief Justice of Australia. They confessed their guilt in gaol, and were

duly hanged—let us hope repenting of their crimes. The brother of the

magistrate whose courage and energy led to their arrest, frequently

visited them in gaol, where they confessed everything. The constable, on

recommendation, was promoted. The police station at Wassalis is now

organised and equipped with good horses, smart men, revolver at belt and

carbine on thigh. Telegraphs in every direction are available for giving

or receiving information; but it is doubtful whether armed and desperate

felons, red-handed with the blood of their fellow-men, were ever more

closely followed up, more quickly brought to justice, than the murderers

of Woods.

THE HORSE YOU DON'T SEE NOW

Many years ago I was summoned to attend the couch of a dear relative

believed to be _in extremis_. The messenger arrived at my club with a

buggy, drawn by a dark bay horse. The distance to be driven to Toorak

was under four miles—the road good. I have a dislike to being driven.

Those who have handled the reins much in their time will understand the

feeling. Taking them mechanically from the man, I drew the whip across

the bay horse. The light touch sent him down Collins Street East, over

Prince's Bridge, and through the toll-bar gate at an exceptionally rapid

pace. This I did not remark at the time, being absorbed in sorrowful

anticipation.

During the anxious week which followed I drove about the turn-out—a

hired one—daily; now for this or that doctor, anon for nurse or

attendant. Then the beloved sufferer commenced to amend, to recover; so

that, without impropriety, my thoughts became imperceptibly disengaged

from her, to concentrate themselves upon the dark bay horse. For that he

was no ordinary livery-stable hack was evident to a judge. _Imprimis_,

very fast. Had I not passed everything on the road, except a

professional trotter, that had not, indeed, so much the best of it?

Quiet, too. He would stand unwatched, though naturally impatient. He

never tripped, never seemed to 'give' on the hard, blue metal; was

staunch up-hill and steady down. Needed no whip, yet took it kindly,

neither switching his tail angrily nor making as if ready to smash all

and sundry, like ill-mannered horses. Utterly faultless did he seem. But

experience in matters equine leads to distrust. Hired out per day from a

livery-stable keeper, I could hardly believe _that_ to be the case.

All the same I felt strongly moved to buy him on the chance of his

belonging to the select tribe of exceptional performers, not to be

passed over by so dear a lover of horseflesh as myself. Moreover, I

possessed, curious to relate, a 'dead match' for him—another bay horse

of equally lavish action, high courage, and recent accidental

introduction. The temptation was great.

'I will buy him,' said I to myself, 'if he is for sale, and also if——'

here I pulled up, got down in the road, and carefully looked him over

from head to tail. He stepped quietly. I can see him now, moving his

impatient head gently back and forward like a horse 'weaving'—a trick he

had under all circumstances. Years afterwards he performed similarly to

the astonishment of a bushranger in Riverina, whose revolver was pointed

at the writer's head the while, less anxious indeed for his personal

safety than that old Steamer—such was his appropriate name—should march

on, and, having a nervous running mate, smash the buggy.

To return, however. This was the result of my inspection. Item, one

broken knee; item, seven years old—within mark decidedly; legs sound and

clean, but just beginning to 'knuckle' above the pasterns.