Chapter IX (4)

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.