Chapter XXI: Act V (1)

MR. POLYBLOCK (_discovered walking up and down the library_). Well, I don't know as ever I spent a more miserable month. Dulcie don't take no interest in the things as used to amuse her. I don't know what's come to the gal. If I could see my way at all, and thought this young chap was steady and sensible—likely to get on—I might push him; but—a free selector—a half-section, crawling duffer as won't have grass for a milker nor credit for a bag of flour in another year—No! I couldn't think of it. It's enough to make a man turn agin his own flesh and blood. (_Knocking heard._) Who's that?

MAID. A gentleman wants to see you, sir.

MR. POLYBLOCK. Who is it? That chap as was going to buy the Weejoglag store-cattle, p'raps?

_Enter CECIL EGREMONT, dressed in tweeds._

MR. POLYBLOCK. Oh, it's you, Mr. Eggermont! (_Aside_—How well the feller looks! Holds up his head too! Dashed if he ain't a fine, upstanding, good-looking chap when he's turned out decent! He looked more like a shearer when I seen him last.) Well, sir! what can I do for you? Sheep been trespassing, I suppose?

EGREMONT. No, Mr. Polyblock, such is not the case. Nor will it matter to me in future. I have sold my land.

MR. POLYBLOCK. Sold the s'lection! You don't say so! Who to? who to? Mr. Eggermont, why didn't you come to me, if you wanted to part with it? I'd have given you anything in reason.

EGREMONT. You must pardon me for reminding you, Mr. Polyblock, that your manner was not reassuring at our last interview.

MR. POLYBLOCK. Perhaps not—rather hasty, I know. Mustn't mind an old man; but who's got the s'lection?

EGREMONT. I disposed of it to Mr. Allround in the township, from whom I received a cheque, paying me in full for all improvements and loss of time.

MR. POLYBLOCK. Bonus Allround! Good shot! It's all right—you've sold to _me_ through him—he's my agent. I should have been sold, my word! if any other buyer had come in there. And now what are you a-goin' to do? You're a man of capital now, you know!

EGREMONT. I was fortunate enough to have a moderate legacy left me by an uncle just before I went to Sydney. While there, under advice, I invested eight thousand pounds in a run called Banda Plains, on the Queensland border. They tell me it's a good purchase. There are two thousand cattle, besides horses.

MR. POLYBLOCK. Good purchase, sir! It's the best thing in the market. Banda Plains, with only two thousand head of cattle—it's a gift—a reg'lar gift! Your fortune's made.

EGREMONT. It gratifies me to hear you say so, Mr. Polyblock—most deeply, I assure you. And now, sir, perhaps you will reconsider your rather strongly-expressed refusal to me of your daughter's hand?

DULCIE (_who has opened the door softly and stolen into the room_). Oh, dad, you don't want to break your poor Dulcie's heart! I _do_ love him so!

MR. POLYBLOCK (_clearing his throat and speaking in a parliamentary tone of voice_). Ahem! I am not aware, Mr. President, that there's anything in the Land Act or Regulations against the daughter of a M.L.C. marryin' a squatter—a squatter, you observe, Mr. Eggermont. Had the party been a selector; but I won't dwell on a subject too painful to a parent's feelin's. Take her, my boy! And a better gal, tho' I say it—good, game, and good-lookin'—she's all that and more—never——'

DULCIE (_moving up to EGREMONT and placing her hand on his shoulder_). Never gave advice to a struggling free selector. Is that what you were going to say, daddy? Never mind—he had sense enough to take it. Hadn't you, Cecil dear?

MR. POLYBLOCK. Seems to me he's free selected on a pastoral holding to some purpose, you monkey. Is there any clause about that in the new Land Act, I wonder, as they're makin' such a bother about? Anyway, I'm the happiest lessee in the unsettled districts, now this little matter's settled satisfactory. And tell you what, Dulcie (_GAYTERS comes in here—looks rather blank_), I'll send Gayters out to Banda Plains to take delivery and wire into the bullockin' for a bit. It'll do him good—he's been takin' it too easy lately; and as it happens to be Christmas time, we'll get the transfer business put through by the Rev. Mr. Robinson at the township, and, Cecil, my boy! give us your hand (_puts DULCIE'S into it_). There now, you can take up this additional conditional selection. It won't want improvin', that's one thing. Ha! ha! I'm that full of happiness that I can get a joke out of the Land Act—Rum-ty-idity—fol-de-rol (_dances round the room_).

_CECIL puts his arm round DULCIE; they look tenderly into
each other's faces._

CURTAIN FALLS

BUSH HOSPITALITY

In the pioneer period of the pastoral industry, which has since known such phenomenal development and, alas! no less phenomenal declension, the hospitality of the dwellers in the wilderness was proverbially free and unchallenged. But even then there were 'metes and bounds.' Like Colonial society—though apparently 'a free and a fetterless thing'—there were lines of demarcation. These, though unsubstantial and shadowy to superficial observers, were nevertheless discovered by experiment to be strangely hard and fast.

In those Arcadian days the stranger, on arriving at the homestead of a man whom he had never seen, and whose name possibly he had scarcely heard, was warranted by custom, on riding up to the door, in proposing to stay all night. It was the rule of the period. If there was no inn within a dozen miles, it became an unquestioned right.

The owner or manager of the station, if at home, welcomed the stranger with more or less courtesy, according to his disposition, assisting the guest, whom Allah had sent him, to take off his saddle and place it in the verandah of the cottage, to turn out his horse in the paddock, or, in default of that "improvement," to hobble or tether the trusty steed on good pasture.

If the personages referred to were absent, the traveller, unless he happened to be abnormally diffident, informed the cook, hut-keeper, or any station hand whom he might chance to encounter, that he had come to stay all night, turned his horse out, and entering the plainly-furnished abode, made himself as comfortable as circumstances would admit of.

If his host delayed his coming, supper was served. The stranger foraged about among the books and newspapers, and with the aid of tobacco, managed to spend the evening, retiring to rest in the apartment indicated, with perfect cheerfulness and self-possession.

If, as chiefly happened, the hard-worked colonist returned from the quest of lost sheep or strayed cattle before bedtime, he usually expressed himself much gratified by the unexpected companionship, and after a cheery confab about the latest news, politics, prospects (pastoral), and a parting smoke, both retired to the couches where unbroken slumbers were the rule. It was a mutual benefit. The monotonous life of the squatter was cheered by the advent of a fresh face, fresh news and ideas. The weary traveller found frank entertainment for man and beast, company and a guide, possibly, for the morrow's journey.

In these strictly equestrian days (for gentlefolk) no man could carry more than a limited change of apparel in the leather valise strapped to the fore-part of the saddle. Saddlebags were occasionally used, but they were held to be cumbrous. The journeys were rough and protracted. Clean linen has ever been unwillingly dispensed with by the Briton. In that barbaric epoch, Crimean shirts could not be, the quarrel with the Sultan about the mythical keys not having arisen. Paper collars, much more celluloids, were in the future. The only recognised departure from the full-dress white raiment, the 'biled shirt' of the American humorist to come, was the check or 'regatta' shirt.

Now this was a garment of compromise, not disreputably soiled after a couple of days' use. Still its existence as a respectable article of apparel had a limit. When that was reached, the stranger was permitted to levy on the host's wardrobe, if a bachelor, to the extent of one coloured shirt, leaving his own in lieu. This was held to be fair exchange—the alien vestment, when washed, being, if of ordinary texture and age, of equal average value to the one taken; the host doing likewise when on _his_ travels. The chief and perhaps only undesirable result was, that every proprietor on a frequented line of road had a collection of the most varied and cosmopolitan autographs in marking ink, on his shirts, probably ever noticed in one gentleman's wardrobe.

Now this was all very well in the days when Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith were in the free and independent condition of bachelors. They could smoke their pipe unconcernedly with Jackson the cattle-dealer, or Tomkins the working overseer from an out-station, or Binks, who was nobody in particular, or Jinks, who was a cheeky sort of a fellow, but with no harm in him. But all this was changed when Jones or Smith took unto himself a wife. He then desired to have his evenings to himself; and though a gentleman or an agreeable stranger was always welcome, he by no means cared about entertaining half-and-half people, or being bothered with making talk for uncongenial persons all the evening. Yet he did not quite like to send all wayfarers whom he did not know or care about to the 'men's hut.' Some of them doubtless were more at home there, or managed to pass the evening without complaint; still, mistakes were occasionally made. Therefore some kind of intermediate arrangement came to be needed.

When an inn was within a mile or two, the difficulty was removed. No stranger could desire to be entertained at the house of a man he did not know, merely because it was cheaper. If he were mean enough to make the attempt, he received a rebuff—possibly no more than his due. Still, in some instances, the squatter, even if unmarried, dreaded the hotel as the nucleus of a township, and bore the enforced intrusion rather than risk the invasion of his Run.

It became thus one of the unwritten laws of Bushland that, though a bachelor station was fair game, and introductions might be dispensed with, more circumspection must be exercised in the case of the homestead which contained a lady. Even if the hospitality was unrestricted as of yore, the restraint was felt by the more homely of the wayfarers, and a sensible lowering of the average of visitors took place.

And even when there was no such adequate reason, the resident proprietor was occasionally, by nature or on principle, opposed to the indiscriminate entertainment of chance-comers, and cast about for some method of ensuring privacy. The late Mr. Charles Ebden discovered that 'Carlsruhe,' named after a continental reminiscence of travel, was by no means likely to be the 'Charles' Rest' which the name promised. So he made a bold innovation, the fame of which went through the length and breadth of the land: he established a 'visitors' hut.'

There appeared to be no great harm in this—merely a comfortable cottage, wherein the visitor was supplied with an evening meal, bed, and breakfast, all comfortably arranged. His horse would of course be cared for, paddocked, and brought up in the morning. One would fancy this gratuitous entertainment would have been voted sufficient. But the roving pastoralists were dissatisfied. They did not want merely meat and drink—they wanted a welcome: to have speech also with the master of the house. He was suspected of considering himself too good for his surroundings. And so 'Carlsruhe' was gradually avoided—not that the perhaps too fastidious 'Count' Ebden cared a jot.

An amusing _contretemps_ with respect to this novel disposal of guests was that related of the late Sir James Hawthorn. The good old gentleman arrived late one evening at 'Carlsruhe,' naturally concluding that he would receive special consideration. It did not so chance, however, whether from non-recognition—he was not a knight then, but a doctor—or some other cause. Before leaving the visitors' hut in the morning, he left a formal note of thanks for his night's lodging, and enclosed a cheque for a guinea as payment.

But the Colonial Treasurer of the future was equal to the occasion. He made answer by post, in a carefully-worded epistle, acknowledging 'a most extraordinary communication, containing a cheque, for which he was totally unable to conceive any reasonable explanation, and had forwarded to Secretary of the Lunatic Asylum.'

After the changes which turned the homesteads of the larger stations into small villages, the 'big house,' as it came to be called, was no longer expected to accommodate the proprietor, the overseer, and the young gentleman learning Colonial experience, in addition to every wanderer that turned up. The overseer generally had a commodious if, perhaps, plainly-furnished cottage allotted to him. This came to be known as the 'barracks,' and to be used as a convenient abode for strangers and pilgrims, as well as for the storekeeper, the working overseers, and the young gentlemen. Here, in summer, they could sleep on the verandah, smoke and yarn on the same, or, in winter, around the cheerful fire, without danger of disturbing the squatter's domestic arrangements. This of course without prejudice to personal friends or strangers of distinction.

As to the pilgrims, they might be described as 'human warious.' There was first the squatter proper, young, middle-aged, or elderly, on his way from one station to the other, returning from new country or from a journey with fat cattle or sheep. He was of course welcome, being, presumably, ready and willing to repay the accommodation in kind. Then there were overseers and managers, cattle and sheep buyers, agents and drovers. These were pastoral personages, and, of course, to be considered. The dealers, even when roughish in manner, were a power in the land, capable too of drawing cheques to an amount which secured respect. They could not in any case be sent to the men's hut. Tourists, _bona-fide_ travellers, and globe-trotters, having business of some sort, others without any particular aim or destination,—these gentry in the 'barracks' were evidently the 'right men in the right place.'

It must be surmised also that adventurers travelled about among the stations as a pleasant way of seeing the country and spending a few months at free quarters. A man of prepossessing appearance and agreeable manners, 'who wanted to buy a station—a real first-class property, you know,' made his appearance in a certain district just 'after the gold.' He was courteously treated, and shown a variety of stations. He passed a whole summer in the leisurely inspection of sheep and cattle properties, none of which quite suited his taste. He became quite a well-known inhabitant. Many people believed at last that he had so invested, and accepted him as a recognised identity. But he never _did_ buy a station or any stock—eventually contenting himself with a Government billet of a moderate description, under circumstances which proved the presumption of his being a capitalist to have been erroneous.

As a general rule it may be stated that the farther back, the more distant the station, the more liberal and invariable the hospitality. When men went seldom to town, when books and newspapers were scarce, the lonely squatter was well disposed towards any kind of stranger guest above the level of shepherd or stock-rider. He was a change, an animated evening newspaper, and as such intrinsically valuable. His visit, besides, was of a transitory or fleeting nature, so that only his good qualities were apparent.

Even this form of enjoyment was subject to abatement. There was the pilgrim now and then who declined to proceed on his pilgrimage, especially when he fell upon a comfortable bachelor abode, with _cuisine_, library, and liquor reasonably up to date. Not infrequently the pilgrim's steed would stray, which the owner would search for in such a perfunctory manner that it seemed as if years might roll on before he was run in. One really most agreeable and gifted person——he afterwards became Premier in a neighbouring colony—was celebrated as protracting his visits by this device. One morning there appeared in a provincial paper the startling announcement, 'Mr. Blank's horse is found.' It was the making of him. The laughter was so general that he left that colony, and attained in another to political eminence and material prosperity.

Not always, however, was even the _bona-fide_ squatter on his travels made welcome. A friend of mine arrived at a station late in the evening. 'I am Mr. Blake,' he said, 'of Kilrush'—a name well known throughout his own and other districts for generous, unstinted hospitality. The proprietor stood at his door, but offered no welcome.

'How far is it to the next place?' inquired the traveller.

'Sixteen miles; you can't miss the road.'

'Thanks; much obliged.' So he put spurs to his weary steed—he had come far since sunrise—and departed, reaching the station, so obligingly referred to, long after dark on a cold night.

In the following year the same squatter arrived at Kilrush. He was cordially received—invited to stay a day and rest his horse. 'I killed him with kindness,' were my friend's words—relating the affair to me years afterwards—'and when he rode away, did everything possible, short of holding his stirrup for him.

'"Mr. Blake," said he, "you've behaved to me like a gentleman! I am afraid I didn't give you that idea when you called at Bareacres. I feel ashamed of myself, I assure you."

'"So you ought to be," I said, looking him straight in the face. He muttered something and rode away.'

LAPSED GENTLEFOLK

Ah me! who has not known and pitied them in this Australian land of ours? The workman's Paradise! yet all too well adapted for converting the gently-nurtured waif into the resigned labourer, the homeless vagrant. The gradations through which slowly, invisibly, but none the less surely, drifts to lower levels the luckless gentleman adventurer, are fraught with a melancholy interest. How sad it seems to realise that of the hundreds of well-dressed, well-educated, high-hearted youngsters, fresh from pleasant British homes, who every season land on our shores, a certain proportion will, in a few years of Colonial Experience (save the mark!), be transformed into misanthropic shepherds, ragged tramps, or reckless rouseabouts.

One always sees a few in the men's hut at shearing time, owning no higher aspirations than the ordinary station hand, living the rough life of the bush-labourer, relishing coarse tobacco and the coarser jests when the day's work is done, hardly distinguishable in dress, tone, and manner from their ruder comrades. Like them, alas! too prone to end each term's unrelieved labour by an aimless, ruinous drinking-bout.

It is not that the daily toil, the plain fare, and rude companionship would be in any sense degrading, were they used as means to an end. Did the cadet resolve to save all but the cash absolutely required for clothing and other needs, a small capital might easily be acquired, with reasonable credit in proportion, for which a profitable outlet is always to be found. And a knowledge of the rougher side of Australian life is always valuable wherever his lot might be cast.

The real social deterioration accrues when the well-born or well-educated man becomes fatally contented with his humble surroundings; when hope has faded out, when ambition is dead, when repeated trials have landed him in deeper failure; when the conviction is only too well founded that for him no higher position is attainable in this world. Nay, that even if attained, he is no longer fitted to occupy it.

Persons imperfectly acquainted with our social system may say, 'Oh, once a gentleman, always a gentleman!' and so on. From whatever rude environment, he will come forth true to his training, and assume his earlier habitudes as easily as the well-fitting garments which his altered circumstances render necessary.

It is not so, unfortunately. Granted that the exceptional individual emerges from the wreck of his youthful aspirations safe and uninjured, more numerous are they tenfold who reach the shore bleeding and disabled, never to be again but the simulacra of their former selves—hopeless of ever attaining the fair heaven-crowned heights, so near, so tempting of ascent in boyhood; heedless but of the lower pains and pleasures to which they have all unresistingly yielded their future lives.

Much of course depends on the mental fibre of the youngster. If happily constituted, he may defy the most inauspicious surroundings to alter his habits of thought or change his settled purpose in life. One boy, at the roughest station in the 'back blocks,' will save his money and do his work in a cheerfully observant spirit; he will utilise the spare time, of which he has so large a supply, in reading and improving his mind; he will find out all he can about the working of the station, with a view to future operations when he is promoted to partnership or management. To this he resolutely looks forward. He preserves the manners and the principles which he brought from home untarnished; an easy enough matter, since even in the farthest wilds, among the roughest working men in Australia, a true gentleman's mien and tone are always held in respect, which no man loses save by his own act.

Say that he has a few years of hard work and privation, he is sure to rise in life, and eventually, by dint of perseverance and attention to detail, to become the owner of or partner in a station. His character for steadiness, efficiency, and industry becomes known from one end of the district to the other. And if those with whom he is temporarily connected do not advance him, be sure that some neighbouring proprietor in need of an active lieutenant will not lose the opportunity.

The young man of less robust self-denial takes station life after a very different fashion. His fixed idea has been from the first that galloping about on horseback, smoking, shooting, and drinking are the recognised pastoral industries by which fortunes in Australia are made. He does not bother his head about the science of sheep-breeding, or the management of that capricious but profitable animal the merino. He forgets messages. He overrides the station horses. He smokes diligently, talks familiarly and plays cards with the men, from whom he learns to swear profanely and acquires no useful knowledge—on the contrary, much that is evil. On his visits to the village or post-town he learns to drink spirits, and thus lays the foundation of a dangerous habit, which, if not checked, may destroy his after-life. At the end of his two years' experience he is regarded as about on a level with the ordinary rouseabout—hardly as good, certainly no better. On making up his mind to leave for other employment, he is told that he is heartily welcome to please himself.

Occasionally the unsuccessful gentleman, emigrant or colonial, is not distinctly to blame for his fall in social position. He has adopted a bush life, trusting vaguely to be able to get on in one of the numerous ways of which he has heard tell. He tries hard at first for situations suited to his former position in life, finding, however, that no one is in pressing need of an inexperienced youth not brought up to work. Still, if strong and willing, he can earn ordinary wages as a station hand. He learns how to manage the routine work nearly as well as his comrades in the men's hut, and by degrees, not being mentally persistent, he adopts the tone and manner of the men who are his companions—not at once, and not altogether, but after a year or two—to a much greater extent than any one would think possible. In a work of fiction some kindly squatter would free the poor fellow from his rough, or let us say uneducated comrades, but in real life no one would risk the experiment. He may have been deceived before. He would argue that though the waif might be a gentleman by birth, it must have been his own fault in some way that he was in his present position—most likely drank, gambled, or had done something shady; and this would be true in nine cases out of ten. If he introduced Mr. Waif to his family, or took him into his house if a bachelor, he might, of course, behave well for a time, but one fine day, unable to withstand the temptation of an open sideboard, would be found dead drunk or madly intoxicated on his employer's return.

Gradually the unsuccessful one, after a year or two of nomadic life, tramping it from one end of a colony to another, begins to abandon the punctilious habits of his early life. His speech shows signs of degeneration. He talks of people indifferently as 'coves' or 'cards'; _causerie_ with him is 'pitching'; he refrains with difficulty from expletives, and so on. His reading has not been kept up, though, had he cared, it might have been. He is scented unpleasantly with coarse tobacco, occasionally, alas! with the too frequent 'nip' of alcohol. If he by any chance re-enters civilised life, he shows in a dozen ways that he is no longer in touch with it. He makes things uncomfortable for his friends or companions, and is thoroughly convinced that he is out of place himself.

A youngster of this type came to a squatter's station one evening, carrying his 'swag' like any other tramp. The owner knew that he was or had been a gentleman, but apologised, as he had guests, for not asking him into the house. He was too dirty to be quite exact, and neither in raiment nor in other matters was he then fitted for the society of ladies. So he had his supper and bed in the men's hut, smoked his pipe over the fire with the man-cook, and turned in, quite contented with his accommodation.

Sometimes, if fairly industrious and steady, the ex-tramp makes his way to a managership, or even a share in a station, where he recovers a portion of his earlier form. But he is apt to be rough and careless to the end, which his English friends attribute to the necessarily deteriorating influences of colonial life.

Perhaps the saddest sight of all is the broken-down 'swell' of maturer years, carrying his 'swag' along the road, sometimes a solitary 'traveller'—a name that has its own significance in Australia—sometimes in company with other 'sundowners.' He is free of the guild now, unluckily. They neither resent his companionship, nor feel flattered by it; in no way do they alter their mode of speech or action in consequence. It is known that he has 'seen better days,' as the phrase runs. If so, it is nobody's business but his own. A certain amount of reticence characterises Australian bushmen, which is not noticeable among their British comrades. The nomadic habit, and the goldfields' experience—for nearly every able-bodied man in Australia has graduated there—may be held accountable for this trait. Travel is the true civiliser, and in many respects supplies the place of the higher education, teaching reserve, undemonstrativeness, and the patient endurance of privations and dangers which cannot be evaded.

So, though it is generally believed that Jack Somers or Bill Brown _was_ a gentleman (nothing, alas! will ever make or keep him one again), he is treated by the master who employs him, and the station hands or farm labourers who work with him, exactly as the others—neither better nor worse. Generally a smart, intelligent worker, whether a shearer, rouseabout, boundary rider, road hand, what not, during the often protracted periods when he is compulsorily sober. This is secured by giving him no money (the more obvious necessaries can be procured from the station store), until his term of work be completed or his contract finished. Then he gets his cheque, and short work he makes of it. For the nearest bush public-house is to him a barrier fixed and impassable, while there is a pound in his purse.

After all, Australia is perhaps the best country for the fallen swell. A reasonable share of honest work is always open to him, which, from the custom of the country, is not held to be degrading, as it would be in Europe. He could not work in the field in Britain, tend sheep, drive a team, break stones. All these things he can do in Australia with but temporary loss of prestige or social rank. He would find it next to impossible to gain a living in the old country in any form of day labour. Were he even to succeed in doing so, he would be gazed and wondered at by the whole country-side. A man of good family requested me to officially certify his identity for the security of his people at home, who were remitting money to his credit. Roughly dressed was he—had evidently been 'on the wallaby' recently. After telling me his name and birth, he must have thought I looked doubtful, for he said, 'I am the man I say; I'm not the Claimant.' That great personage was then supplying England and Australia with food for conversation. A book lay near me with a Latin quotation on the frontispiece. This I slightly indicated; he at once took the hint and translated it correctly.

'What have you been doing lately?' I inquired. His hands, roughened and gnarled, with no make-believe manual labour, assured me that he had been pretty continuously at work of some sort.

'Well, station work mostly,' he returned answer. 'My last job was cooking for a survey camp.'

'Was it for this that you graduated at Trinity College, Dublin?' was my unspoken thought. That he drank hard between times, poor fellow, was apparent to my experienced eye. He received his money duly, which was, of course, 'blued' like all previous remittances. I exchanged letters with the friends who had written after him. I advised, if they were really anxious for his return, that he should be placed on board ship, but no money given to him till safe on blue water. What historiettes of lapsed gentlefolk in the colonies might be written! The Honourable Blank Blank, long past even the middle passage of station work, who loafs about country towns, taking work as ostler, or even 'boots' at the hotels, ready to drink with any rough, and feebly subsisting upon the reflection of former greatness, until he becomes too useless for even such a position, is locked up for repeated drunkenness, and finally dies in a gutter.

The 'cranky' long-bearded shepherd vegetates on a back-block station, amid desert regions now becoming traditionary, where wire fences are all unknown, or by dingoes rendered ineffectual.

A row of books adorns his solitary hut, a weekly paper, perhaps his sponge and ivory-backed brushes, curious-appearing souvenirs of old days. He talks pleasantly enough to the rare-appearing stranger, who is also a gentleman. The British tourist, if a new arrival, rides off with pity in his heart, possibly with some idea of aiding the hermit to return to his friends in England. If a colonist, he knows better; knows that the old man has his half-yearly or annual 'break-out'; that he can no more inhabit the same dwelling as ardent spirits without utter debasement than fly; that such will be his life, without change or amendment, until he ends it in a Benevolent Asylum, or, more probably, is found dead in his hut. Then from his papers it will be discovered that 'Old Jack' or 'Jindabyne Joe' was, once upon a time, Lieutenant Harry Willoughby Howard of the—th Fusiliers, one of the smartest subalterns in that distinguished and tolerably fast regiment. What brought him here? How fared he so ill in Australia, where blue blood always counts for something, the Radical press notwithstanding? Heigho! These and other questions may be answered some day, or they may never be. The nearest magistrate holds an inquiry, sitting on a bench outside of the lonely hut on the sandhill. The overseer counts out his flock to a fresh hand, and the ex-Fusilier, younger brother of one of the magnates of Blankshire, is carted into the head station and decently buried, with the collie dog as chief mourner, _his_ grief being real and unaffected, and his lamentations for the next few days touchingly audible.

Having a favourite horse to put in harness in the early goldfield days, I betook me to an establishment in Melbourne where a brake was kept. Of course I mounted the box to watch and perhaps assist in the interesting performance. When the brakesman got up—a good-looking middle-aged man with grey whiskers—if he was not a gentleman, and an ex-swell at that, I had never seen one. From his cravat to his well-polished boots—a neat foot, too—from his hat to his accurate dogskin gloves, he was 'good form.' He might have walked straight out of one of Whyte Melville's novels.

His 'hands,' in stable language, were perfection, and as he and the brake-horse between them, with practised adroitness, conducted the drag and my Zohrab, a slashing grey son of Donald Caird, out of the yard and up Lonsdale Street, I felt a measureless pity for the dear old man, who, doubtless failing to score at Bendigo or Sandhurst, had come down to this for a livelihood. Charmed with his conversation and manners, I am afraid I prolonged the lesson unduly, for when we returned my aristocratic friend was urgently required to school other young ones at a guinea per lesson. The proprietor, a vulgar person, expressed his disapproval in language unfit for publication. I remonstrated hotly, but the dependent _emigré_ said no word. I departed sadly, and never saw him more. Melbourne was full of such derelicts in 'the fifties.'

SHEARING IN RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES

'Shearing begins to-morrow!' These apparently simple words were spoken by Hugh Gordon, the manager of Anabanco Station, in the district of Riverina, in the colony of New South Wales, one Monday morning in the month of August. The utterance had its significance to every member of a rather extensive _corps dramatique_, awaiting the industrial drama about to be performed.

A low sandhill, a few years since, had looked out over a sea of grey plains, covered partly with grass, partly with salsiferous bushes and herbs. Three huts built of the trunks of the pine and roofed with the bark of the box-tree, and a skeleton-looking cattle-yard with its high 'gallows' (a rude timber arrangement whereon to hang slaughtered cattle), alone broke the monotony of the plain-ocean. A comparatively small herd of cattle, numbering two or three thousand, found more than sufficient pasturage during the short winter and spring, but were often compelled to migrate to mountain pastures when the precarious water-stores of the 'Run' were dried up. But, at most, half-a-dozen stock-riders and station hands were ever needed for the purpose of managing the herd, so inadequate in number and profitable occupation to this vast area of grazing country.

But a little later, one of the chiefs of the pastoral interest—a shepherd king, so to speak—of shrewdness, energy, and capital—had seen, approved of, and purchased the Crown lease of this waste kingdom. As if by magic, the scene changed. Gangs of navvies appeared, wending their way across the silent plain. Dams were made, wells were dug. Tons of fencing-wire were dropped on the sand by long lines of teams which never ceased arriving. Sheep by thousands and tens of thousands came grazing and cropping up to the erstwhile lonely sandhill—now swarming with blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, fencers, shepherds, bullock-drivers—till the place looked like a fair on the borders of Tartary.

Meanwhile everything was moving with calculated force and cost, under the 'reign of law.' The seeming expense illustrated the economic truth of doing all necessary work at once, rather than by instalments. One hundred men for one day, rather than one man for a hundred days. Results began to demonstrate themselves. Within twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched, priceless water, the wire-fences completed, the shepherds gone, and a hundred and seventy thousand sheep were cropping the herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction—the pastoral Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing. But before the first shot is fired which tells of the battle begun, what raids and skirmishes, what reconnoitring and vedette duty must take place!

First arrives the cook-in-chief to the shearers, with two assistants, to lay in a few provisions for the week's consumption of seventy able-bodied men. Now the cook of a large shearing shed is a highly paid and irresponsible official. He is chosen and provided by the shearers themselves. Payment is generally arranged on the scale of half-a-crown a head weekly from each shearer. For this sum he contracts to provide punctual and effective cooking, paying out of his own pocket as many _marmitons_ as may be needful for that end, and must satisfy the taste of his exacting and fastidious employers.

In the present case he confers with the storekeeper, Mr. de Vere, a young gentleman of aristocratic connections, who is thus gaining an excellent practical knowledge of the working of a large station; and to this end has the store-keeping department entrusted to him during shearing.

He is not, perhaps, quite fit for a croquet party as he stands now, with a flour-scoop in one hand and a pound of tobacco in the other. But he looks like a man at work, also like a gentleman, as he is. 'Jack the Cook' thus addresses him:

'Now, Mr. de Vere, I hope there's not going to be any humbugging about my rations and things. The men are all up in their quarters, and as hungry as free selectors. They've been a-payin' for their rations for ever so long, and of course, now shearin's on, they're good for a little extra.'

'All right, Jack,' returns De Vere good-humouredly; 'your order was weighed out and sent away before breakfast. You must have missed the cart. Here's the list. I'll read it out to you—three bags flour, half a bullock, two bags sugar, a chest of tea, four dozen of pickles, four dozen of jam, two gallons of vinegar, five lbs. pepper, a bag of salt, plates, knives, forks, ovens, frying-pans, saucepans, iron pots, and about a hundred other things. You're to return all the cooking things safe, or _pay for them_, mind that! You don't want anything more, do you? Got enough for a regiment of cavalry, I should think.'

'Well, I don't know, sir. There won't be much left in a week if the weather holds good,' makes answer the chief, as one who thought nothing too stupendous to be accomplished by shearers; 'but I knew I'd forgot something. As I'm here, I'll take a few dozen boxes of sardines, and a case of pickled salmon. The boys likes 'em, and, murder alive! haven't we forgot the plums and currants; a hundredweight of each, Mr. de Vere. They'll be crying out for plum-duff and currant-buns for the afternoon, and bullying the life out of me if I haven't a few trifles like. It's a hard life, surely, a shearers' cook. Well, good-day, sir, you have 'em all down in the book.'

Lest the reader should imagine that the rule of Mr. Gordon at Anabanco was a reign of luxury and that waste which tendeth to penury, let him be aware that shearers in Riverina are paid at a certain rate, usually that of one pound per hundred sheep shorn. They agree, on the other hand, to pay for all supplies consumed by them, at certain prices fixed before the shearing agreement is signed. Hence it is entirely their own affair whether their mess bills are extravagant or economical. They can have everything within the rather wide range of the station store—_pâtés de foie gras_, ortolans, roast ostrich, novels, top-boots, double-barrelled guns, _if they like to pay for them_; with one exception—no wine, no spirits! Neither are they permitted to bring these stimulants 'on to the ground' for their private use. Grog at shearing? Matches in a powder-mill! It's very sad and bad; but our Anglo-Saxon industrial champion cannot be trusted with the fire-water. Navvies, men-of-war's men, soldiers, _and_ shearers—fine fellows all. But though the younger men might only drink in moderation, the majority of the elders are utterly without self-control, once in the front of temptation. And wars, 'wounds without cause,' hot heads, shaking hands, delay, and bad shearing, would be the inevitable result of spirits, _à la discrétion_. So much is this a matter of certainty from experience, that a clause is inserted and cheerfully signed in most shearing agreements, 'that any man getting drunk or bringing spirits on to the station during shearing, loses _the whole of the money_ earned by him.' The men know that the restriction is for their benefit, as well as for the interest of the master, and join in the prohibition heartily.

Let us give a glance at the small army of working-men assembled at Anabanco—one out of hundreds of stations in the colony of New South Wales, ranging from 100,000 sheep downwards. There are seventy shearers; about fifty washers, including the men connected with the steam-engine, boilers, bricklayers, etc.; ten or twelve boundary riders, whose duty it is to ride round the large paddocks, seeing that the fences are intact, and keeping a general look-out over the condition of the sheep; three or four overseers; half-a-dozen young gentlemen acquiring a practical knowledge of sheep-farming, or, as it is generally phrased, 'colonial experience,' a comprehensive expression enough; a score or so of teamsters, with a couple of hundred horses or bullocks waiting for the high-piled wool-bales, which are loaded up and sent away almost as soon as shorn; wool-sorters, pickers-up, pressers, yardsmen, extra shepherds. It may easily be gathered from this outline what an 'army with banners' is arrayed at Anabanco. While statistically inclined, it may be added that the cash due for the shearing alone (less the mess-bill) amounts to £17,000; for the washing (roughly), £400, exclusive of provisions consumed, hutting, wood, water, cooking, etc. Carriage of wool, £1500. Other hands from £30 to £40 per week. All of which disbursements take place within eight to twelve weeks after the shears are in the first sheep.

Tuesday arrives, 'big with fate.' As the sun tinges the far sky-line the shearers are taking a slight refection of coffee and currant-buns, to enable them to withstand the exhausting interval between six A.M. and eight o'clock, when serious breakfast occurs. Shearers diet themselves on the principle that the more they eat the stronger they must be. Digestion, as preliminary to muscular development, is left to take its chance. They certainly do get through a tremendous amount of work. The whole frame is at its utmost tension, early and late. But the preservation of health is due to natural strength of constitution rather than to their profuse and unscientific diet. Half an hour after sunrise Mr. Gordon walks quietly into the vast building which contains the sheep and their shearers—called 'the shed,' _par excellence_. Everything is in perfect cleanliness and order. The floor swept and smooth, with its carefully planed boards of pale yellow aromatic pine. Small tramways, with baskets for the fleeces, run the wool up to the wool-tables, superseding the more general plan of handpicking. At each side of the shed-floor are certain small areas, four or five feet square, such space being found by experience to be sufficient for the postures and gymnastics practised during the shearing of a sheep. Opposite each square is an aperture, communicating with a long, narrow, paled yard, outside of the shed. Through this each man pops his sheep when shorn, where he remains in company with the others shorn by the same hand, until counted out. This being done by the overseer or manager, supplies a check upon hasty, unskilful work. The body of the woolshed, floored with battens placed half an inch apart, is filled with the woolly victims. This enclosure is subdivided into minor pens, of which each fronts the place of two shearers, who catch from it till the pen is empty. When this takes place, a man detailed for the purpose refills it. As there are local advantages, an equal distribution of places is made by lot.

On every subdivision stands a shearer, as Mr. Gordon walks, with an air of calm authority, down the long aisle. Seventy men, chiefly in their prime, the flower of the working-men of the colony, they are variously gathered. England, Ireland, and Scotland are represented in the proportion of one-third of the number; the balance is composed of native-born Australians.

Among these last—of pure Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Celtic descent—are to be seen some of the finest men, physically considered, the race is capable of producing. Taller than their British-born brethren, with softer voices and more regular features, they inherit the powerful frames and unequalled muscular development of the breed. Leading lives chiefly devoted to agriculture, they enjoy larger intervals of leisure than are permissible to the labouring classes of Europe. The climate is mild and favourable to health. They have been accustomed from childhood to abundance of the best food; opportunities of intercolonial travel are common. Hence the Anglo-Australian labourer, without, on the one hand, the sharpened eagerness which marks his Transatlantic cousin, has yet an air of independence and intelligence, combined with a natural grace of movement, unknown to the peasantry of Britain.

An idea is prevalent that the Australians are, as a race, physically inferior to the British. It is asserted that they grow too fast, tend to height and slenderness, and do not possess adequate stamina and muscle. This idea is erroneous. The men reared in the cities on the sea-boards, living sedentary lives in shops or counting-houses, are often pallid and slight of form. Such are they who live under similar conditions all over the world. But those youngsters who have followed the plough on the upland farms, or lived a wilder life on the stations of the far interior; who have had their fill of wheaten bread, chops, and steaks since they could walk, and sniffed up the free bush breezes from infancy, they are _men_—

Stout of heart and ready of hand,
As e'er drove prey from Cumberland

—a business, I may remark, at which many of them would have distinguished themselves.

Take Abraham Lawson, as he stands there in a natural and unstudied attitude, six feet four in his stockings, wide-chested, stalwart, with a face like that of a Greek statue. Take Billy May, fair-haired, mild, insouciant, almost languid, till you see him at work. Then, again, Jack Windsor, handsome, saucy, and wiry as a bull-terrier; like him, with a strong natural inclination for the combat; good for any man of his weight or a trifle over, with the gloves or without.

It is curious to note how the old English practice of settling disputes with nature's weapons has taken root in Australia. It would 'gladden the sullen souls of defunct gladiators' to watch two lads, whose fathers had never trodden Britain's soil, pull off their jackets, and go to work 'hammer and tongs' with the savage silence of the true island type.

It is now seven o'clock. Mr. Gordon moves forward. As he does so, every man leans towards the open door of the pen, in front of which he stands. The bell sounds. With the first stroke each one of the seventy men has sprung upon a sheep; has drawn it out, placed its head across his knee, and is working his shears, as if the 'last man out' was to be flogged. Four minutes—James Steadman, who learned last year, has shorn down one side of his sheep; Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are well down the other side of theirs; when Billy May raises himself with a jerking sigh, and releases his sheep, perfectly clean—shorn from the nose to the heels, through the aperture of his separate enclosure. With the same effort apparently he calls out 'Wool!' and darts upon another sheep. Drawing this second victim across his knee, he buries his shear-point in the long wool of its neck. A moment later (a lithe, eager boy having gathered up fleece number one and tossed it into the tram-basket) he is half-way down its side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossy mat, before you have done wondering whether he did really shear the first sheep, or whether he had not a ready-shorn one in his coat sleeve, like a conjurer. By this time Lawson and Windsor, Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are 'out,' or finished, and the cry of 'Wool! wool!' seems to run continuously up and down the long aisles of the shed, like a single note upon some rude instrument. Now and then the refrain is varied by 'Tar!' being shouted instead, when a piece of skin is snipped off as well as the wool. Great healing properties are attributed to this extract in the shed. And if a shearer slice off a piece of flesh from his own person, as occasionally happens, he gravely anoints it with the universal remedy, and considers that the onus then lies with Providence, there being no more that man can do. Though little time is lost, the men are by no means up to the speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and training. Their nerve and muscle will be then, so to speak, at concert-pitch, while sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity almost magical to the unprofessional observer.

The reader may here be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing. The employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer of the former. To adjust the proportion equitably is one of the incomplete aspirations which torment humanity. Hence the contest—old as human society—between labour and capital.

This is the first day. According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains. It is before the battle—the _salut_, when no hasty word or too demonstrative action can be suffered by the canons of good taste. Red Bill, Flash Jack, Jem the Scooper, and other roaring blades, more famous for expedition than faithful manipulation, are shearing to-day with a painstaking precision, as of men to whom character is everything. Mr. Gordon marches softly up and down, regarding the shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight improvements of style, or expressing unqualified approval, as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn. All goes on well. Nothing is heard but expressions of goodwill and enthusiasm for the general welfare. It is a triumph of the dignity of labour.

One o'clock. Mr. Gordon moved to the bell and sounded it. At the first stroke several men on their way to the pens stopped abruptly, and began to put on their coats. One fellow of an alert nature had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr. Gordon's form in close proximity to the final bell. With a bound like a wild-cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, amidst the laughter and congratulations of his comrades. Another man had his hand on the pen-gate at the same instant, but by the Median law was compelled to return sheepless. He was cheered, but ironically. Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly completed them, the others moving off to the dinner, where the board literally smoked with abundance. An hour passed. The meal was concluded; the smoke was over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons _da capo_. The warm afternoon gradually lengthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty. The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of them, divided into various grades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly, cubically packed and branded.

At six o'clock the bell brought the day's work to a close. The sheep of each man were counted in his presence, and noted down with scrupulous care, the record being written in full and hung up for public inspection in the shed next day. This important ceremony over, master and men, manager, labourers, and supernumeraries betook themselves to their separate abodes, with such avoidance of delay that in five minutes not a soul was left in or near the great building lately so busy and populous, except the boys who were sweeping up the floor. The silence of ages seems to fall and settle upon it.