Chapter XXII: Act V (2)

Next morning at a rather earlier hour every man is at his post. Business is meant decidedly. Now commences the delicate and difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr. Gordon at his post in the shed nearly from daylight to dark for from eight to ten weeks. During the first day he has formed a sort of gauge of each man's temper and workmanship. For now and henceforth the natural bias of each shearer will appear. Some try to shear too fast, and in their haste shear badly. Some are rough and savage with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times, and, it must be confessed, are provoking enough. Some shear fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but commit the unpardonable offence of 'leaving wool on.' Some are deceitful, shearing carefully when overlooked, but 'racing' and otherwise misbehaving directly the eye of authority is diverted. These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firmly, by the manager of the shed—firmly, because evil would develop and spread ruinously if not checked; quietly, because immense loss might be incurred by a strike. Shearing differs from other work in this wise—it is work _against time_, more especially in Riverina. If the wool be not off the backs of the sheep before November, all sorts of drawbacks and destructions supervene. The spear-shaped grass seeds, specially formed as if in special collusion with the evil one, hasten to bury themselves in the wool and even in the flesh of the tender victims. Dust rises in red clouds from the unmoistened, betrampled meadows, so lately verdurous and flower-spangled. From snowy white to an unlovely bistre turn the carefully-washed fleeces, causing anathemas from overseers and depreciation from brokers. All these losses of temper, trouble, and money become inevitable if shearing be protracted, it may be, beyond a given week.

Hence, as in harvest with a short allowance of fair weather, discipline must be tempered with diplomacy. Lose your temper, and be over particular; off go Billy May, Abraham Lawson, and half-a-dozen of your best men, making a weekly difference of two or three thousand sheep for the remainder of the shearing. Can you not replace them? Not so! Every shed in Riverina will be hard at work during this present month of September and for every hour of October. Till that time not a shearer will come to your gate, except, perhaps, one or two useless, characterless men. Are you to tolerate bad workmanship? Not that either. But try all other means with your men before you resort to harshness; and be _quite_ certain that your sentence is just, and that you can afford the defection.

So our friend Mr. Gordon, wise from tens of thousands of shorn sheep that have been counted out past his steady eye, criticises temperately but watchfully. He reproves sufficiently, but no more, any glaring fault; makes his calculation as to who are really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth; or who shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average. One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they emulate 'the talent,' and so come to grief. Then 'the talent' has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad example, and lure the other men on to 'racing.' This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and general dissatisfaction.

Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary attributes in that captain of industry who has the delicate and responsible task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made him a distinguished person anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. Calm with the consciousness of strength, he was considerate in manner as in nature, until provoked by glaring dishonesty or incivility. Then the lion part of his nature awoke, so that it commonly went ill with the aggressor. As this was matter of public report, he had little occasion to spoil the repose of his bearing. Day succeeds day, and for a fortnight the machinery goes on smoothly and successfully. The sheep arrive at an appointed hour by detachments and regiments at the wash-pen. They depart thence, like good boys on Saturday night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault—entering the shed white and flossy as newly-combed poodles, to emerge on the way back to their pasturage, slim, delicate, agile, with a bright black =A= legibly branded with tar on their paper-white skins.

The Anabanco world—stiffish but undaunted—is turning out of bed one morning. Ha! what sounds are these? and why does the room look so dark? Rain, as I'm alive! 'Hurrah!' says Master Jack Bowles, one of the young gentlemen. He is learning (more or less) practical sheep-farming, preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own. 'Well, this is a change, and I'm not sorry, for one,' quoth Mr. Jack. 'I'm stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won't the shearers growl? No shearing to-day, and perhaps none to-morrow either.' Truth to tell, Mr. Bowles' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom. Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped, 'just as a man was earning a few shillings.' Those who are in top pace and condition don't like it. But to many of the rank and file—working up to and a little beyond their strength—with whom swelled wrists and other protests of nature are becoming apparent, it is a relief. They are glad of the respite. At dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands then are idle for the rest of the day. The shearers dress and avail themselves of various resources. Some go to look at their horses, now in clover or its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetum. Some play cards, others wash or mend their clothes. A large proportion of the Australians, having armed themselves with paper, envelopes, and a shilling's worth of stamps from the store, bethink themselves of neglected or desirable correspondents. Many a letter for Mrs. Leftalone, Wallaroo Creek, or Miss Jane Sweetapple, Honeysuckle Flat, as the case may be, will find its way into the post-bag to-morrow. A pair of the youngsters are having a round or two with the gloves; while to complete the variety of recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are busy in the comparative solitude of that building, at a rehearsal of a tragedy and a farce, with which they intend, the very next rainy day, to astonish the population of Anabanco.

At the home station a truce to labour's 'alarms' is proclaimed, except in the case and person of Mr. De Vere. So far is he from participation in the general holiday, that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers, and 'knockabout men,' who, being let loose, think it would be nice to go and buy something. He therefore grumbles slightly at having no rest like other people.

'That's all very fine,' says Mr. Jack Bowles, who, seated on a case, is smoking a large meerschaum and mildly regarding all things; 'but what have you got to do when we're all _hard at work_ at the shed?' with an air of great importance and responsibility.

'That's right, Mr. Bowles,' chimes in one of the shearers; 'stand up for the shed. I never see a young gentleman work as hard as you do.'

'Bosh!' growls De Vere; 'as if anybody couldn't gallop about from the shed to the wash-pen, and carry messages, and give half of them wrong! Why, Mr. Gordon said the other day he should have to take you off and put on a Chinaman—that he couldn't make more mistakes.'

'All envy and malice and t'other thing, De Vere, because you think I'm rising in the profession,' returns the good-natured Bowles. 'Mr. Gordon's going to send 20,000 sheep, after shearing, to the Lik Lak paddock, and he said I should go in charge.'

'Charge be hanged!' laughs De Vere (with two very bright-patterned Crimean shirts, one in each hand, which he offers to a tall young shearer for inspection). 'There's a well there, and whenever either of the two men, of whom you'll have _charge_, gets sick or runs away, you'll have to work the whim in his place, till another man's sent out, if it's a month.'

This appalling view of station promotion rather startles Mr. Bowles, who applies himself to his meerschaum, amid the ironical comments of the shearers. However, not easily daunted, or 'shut up,' according to the more familiar station phrase, he rejoins, after a brief interval of contemplation, that 'accidents will happen, you know, De Vere, my boy—_apropos_ of which moral sentiment, I'll come and help you in your dry-goods business; and then, look here, if _you_ get ill or run away, I'll have a profession to fall back upon.' This is held to be a Roland of sufficient pungency for De Vere's Oliver. Every one laughed. And the two youngsters betook themselves to a humorous puffing of the miscellaneous contents of the store: tulip beds of gorgeous Crimean shirts, boots, books, tobacco, canvas slippers, pocket-knives, Epsom salts, pipes, pickles, pain-killer, pocket-handkerchiefs, and pills, sardines, saddles, shears, and sauces; in fact, everything which every kind of man might want, and which apparently every man did want, for large and various were the purchases, and great the flow of conversation. Finally, after everything had been severely and accurately debited to the purchasers, the store was cleared and locked up. A store is a necessity of a large station; not by any means because of the profit upon goods sold, but it obviously would be bad economy for old Bill the shepherd, or Barney the bullock-driver, to visit the next township, from ten to twenty miles distant, as the case may be, every time the former wanted a pound of tobacco, or the latter a pair of boots. They might possibly obtain these necessary articles as good in quality, as cheap in price. But there are wolves in that wood, oh, my weak brothers! In every town dwells one of the 'sons of the giant'—the Giant Grog—red-eyed, with steel muscles and iron claws; once in these, which have held many and better men to the death, Barney nor Bill emerges not, save pale, fevered, nerveless, and impecunious. So arose the station store. Barney befits himself with boots without losing his feet; Bill fills his pockets with match-boxes and smokes the pipe of sobriety, virtuous perforce till his carnival, _after_ shearing.

The next day was wet, and threatened broken weather. Matters were not too placid with the shearers. A day or two for rest is all very well, but continuous wet weather means compulsory idleness, and gloom succeeds repose; for not only are all hands losing time and earning no money, but they are, to use the language of the stable, 'eating their heads off' the while. The rather profuse mess and general expenditure, which caused little reflection when they were earning at the rate of two or three hundred a year, became unpleasantly suggestive now that all was going out and nothing coming in. Hence loud and deep rose the anathemas, as the discontented men gazed sadly or wrathfully at the misty sky.

A few days' showery weather having well-nigh driven our shearers to desperation, out comes the sun in all his glory. He is never far away or very faint in Riverina.

All the pens are filled for the morrow; very soon after the earliest sunbeams, the bell sounds its welcome summons, and the whole force tackles to the work with an ardour proportioned to the delay, every man working as if for the ransom of his family from slavery. These men work, spurred on by the double excitement of acquiring social reputation and making money rapidly. Not an instant is lost; not a nerve, limb, or muscle doing less than the hardest taskmaster could flog out of a slave. Occasionally you see a shearer, after finishing his sheep, walk quietly out, and not appearing for a couple of hours, or perhaps not again during the day. Do not put him down as a sluggard; be assured that he has tasked Nature dangerously hard, and has only just given in before she does. Look at that silent, slight youngster, with a bandage round his swollen wrist. Every 'blow' of the shears is agony to him, yet he disdains to give in, and has been working 'in distress' for hours. The pain is great, as you can see by the flush which surges across his brown face, yet he goes on manfully to the last sheep, and endures to the very verge of fainting.

A change in the manner and tone of the shed is apparent towards the end of the day. It is now the ding-dong of the desperate fray, when the blood of the fierce animal man is up, when mortal blows are exchanged, and curses float upwards with the smoke and dust. The ceaseless clicking of the shears—the stern earnestness of the men, toiling with feverish, tireless energy—the constant succession of sheep shorn and let go, caught and commenced—the occasional savage oath or passionate gesture, as a sheep kicked and struggled with perverse, delaying obstinacy—the cuts and stabs, with attendant effusion of blood, both of sheep and shearers—the brief decided tones of Mr. Gordon, in repression or command—all told the spectator that tragic action was introduced into the performance; indeed, one of the minor excitements of shearing was then and there transacted. Mr. Gordon had more than once warned a dark, sullen-looking man that he did not approve of his style of shearing. He was temporarily absent, and on his return found the same man about to let go a sheep, whose appearance, as a shorn wool-bearing quadruped, was painful and discreditable in the extreme.

'Let your sheep go, my man,' said he, in a tone which arrested the attention of the shearers; 'but don't trouble yourself to catch another.'

'Why not?' said the delinquent sulkily.

'You know very well why not!' said Gordon, walking closely up to him, and looking straight at him with eyes that began to glitter. 'You've had fair warning; you've not chosen to take it. Now you can go!'

'I suppose you'll pay a man for the sheep he's shorn?' growled out the ruffian.

'Not one shilling until after shearing. You can come then, if you like,' answered Mr. Gordon with perfect distinctness.

The bully looks savage; but the tall, powerful frame and steady eye were not inviting for personal arbitration of the matter in hand. He puts up his two pairs of shears, takes up his coat, and walks out of the shed. The time was past when Red Bill or Terrible Dick (ruffians whom a sparse labour market rendered necessary evils) would have flung down his shears on the floor and told the manager that if he didn't like that shearing he could shear his —— sheep himself and be hanged to him; or, on refusal of instant payment, would have proposed to bury his shears in the intestines of his employer, by way of adjusting the balance between Capital and Labour. Wild tales are told of woolshed rows. One squatter at least was stabbed mortally with that fatal and too convenient weapon, a shear-blade.

The man thus summarily dealt with could, like most of his companions, shear very well if he took pains. Keeping to a moderate number of sheep, his workmanship could be good; but he must needs try and keep up with Billy May or Abraham Lawson, who can shear from a hundred to a hundred and thirty sheep per day, and do them beautifully. So in 'racing' he works hastily and badly, cuts the skin of his luckless sheep, and leaves wool here and there on them, grievous and exasperating to behold. So sentence of expulsion goes forth fully against him. Having arrayed himself for the road, he makes one more effort for a settlement and some money wherewith to pay for board and lodgings on the road. Only to have a mad carouse at the nearest township, however; after which he will tell a plausible story of his leaving the shed on account of Mr. Gordon's temper, and avail himself of the usual free hospitality of the bush to reach another shed. He addresses Mr. Gordon with an attempt at conciliation and deference:

'It seems very 'ard, sir, as a man can't get the trifle of money coming to him, which I've worked 'ard for.'

'It's very hard you won't try and shear decently,' retorts Mr. Gordon, by no means conciliated. 'Leave the shed!'

Ill-conditioned rascal as he is, he has a mate or travelling-companion in whose breast exists some rough ideas of fidelity. He now takes up the dialogue.

'I suppose if Jim's shearing don't suit, mine won't either.'

'I did not speak to you,' answered Mr. Gordon, as calmly as if he had expected the speech; 'but of course you can go too.' He said this with an air of studied unconcern, as if he would rather like a dozen more men to knock off work. The two men walk out; but the epidemic does not spread; and several take the lesson home and mend their ways accordingly.

The weather is now splendid. Not a cloud specks the bright blue sky. The shearers continue to work at the same express-train pace; fifty bales of wool roll every day from the wool-presses; as fast as they reach that number they are loaded upon one of the numerous drays and waggons which have been waiting for weeks. Tall brown men have been recklessly cutting up hides for the last fortnight, wherewith to lash the bales securely. It is considered safer practice to load wool as soon as may be; fifty bales represent about a thousand pounds sterling. In a building, however secure, should a fire break out, a few hundred bales are easily burned; but once on the dray, this much-dreaded _edax rerum_ in a dry country has little chance. The driver, responsible to the extent of his freight, generally sleeps under his dray; hence both watchman and insulation are provided.

The unrelaxing energy with which work is pushed at this stage is exciting and contagious. At or before daylight every soul in the great establishment is up. The boundary riders are always starting off for a twenty or thirty mile ride, and bringing tens of thousands of sheep to the wash-pen; at that huge lavatory, there is splashing and soaking all day with an army of washers; not a moment is lost from daylight till dark, or used for any purpose save the all-engrossing work and needful food. At nine o'clock P.M. luxurious dreamless sleep obtains, given only to those whose physical powers have been taxed to the utmost, and who can bear without injury the daily tension.

Everything and everybody is in splendid working order, nothing is out of gear. Rapid and regular as a steam-engine the great host of toilers moves onward daily, with a march promising an early completion. Mr. Gordon is not in high spirits, for so cautious and far-seeing a captain rarely feels himself so independent of circumstances as to indulge in that reckless mood, but much satisfied with the prospect. Whew! the afternoon darkens, and the night is given over to waterspouts and hurricanes, as it appears. Next day is raw, gusty, with chill heavy showers, drains to be cut, roofs to be seen to, shorn sheep shivering, washers all playing pitch-and-toss, shearers sulky; everybody but the young gentlemen wearing an injured expression of countenance. 'Looks as if it would rain for a month,' says Long Jack. 'If we hadn't been delayed, might have had the shearing over by this.' Reminded that there are 50,000 sheep yet remaining to be shorn, and that by no possibility could they have been finished; answers, 'He supposes so, always the same, everything sure to go agin the pore man.' The weather does not clear up. Winter seems to have taken thought, and determined to assert his rights even in this land of eternal summer. The shed is filled, and before the sheep so kept dry are shorn, down comes the rain again. Not a full day's shearing for ten days. Then the clouds disappear as if the curtain of a stage had been rolled up, and lo! the golden sun, fervid and impatient to obliterate the track of winter.

On the first day after the recommencement, matters go much as usual. Steady work and little talk; every one is apparently anxious to make up for lost time. But on the second morning after breakfast, when the bell sounds, instead of the usual cheerful dash at the sheep, every man stands silent and motionless in his place. Some one uttered the words 'Roll up!' Then the seventy men converge, and slowly, but with one impulse, walk to the end of the shed, where stands Mr. Gordon.

The concerted action of any large body of men bears with it an element of power which commands respect. The weapons of force and number are theirs; at their option to wield with or without mercy. At one period of Australian colonisation a superintendent in Mr. Gordon's position might have had good ground for uneasiness. Mr. Jack Bowles sees in it an _émeute_ of a democratic and sanguinary nature; regrets deeply his absent revolver, but draws up to his leader, prepared to die by his side. That calm centurion feels no such serious misgivings. He knows there had been dire grumbling among the shearers, in consequence of the weather. He knows of malcontents among them. He is prepared for some sort of demand on their part, and has concluded to make moderate concessions. So, looking cheerfully at the men, he quietly awaits the deputation. As they near him there is some hesitation; then three delegates come to the front. These are old Ben, Abraham Lawson, and Billy May. Ben Thornton had been selected from his age and long experience of the rights and laws of the craft. A weather-beaten, wiry old Englishman, his face and accent, darkened as the former is by the Australian summers of half a century, still retain the trace of his native Devonshire. It is his boast that he had shorn for forty years, and as regularly 'knocked down' (or spent in a single debauch) his shearing money. Lawson represents the small free-holders, being a steady, shrewd fellow, and one of the fastest shearers. Billy May stands for the fashion and 'talent,' being the 'Ringer,' or fastest shearer of the whole assembly, and as such truly admirable and distinguished.

'Well now, men,' quoth Mr. Gordon, cheerily meeting matters half-way, 'what's it all about?' The younger delegates look at old Ben, who, now that it was 'demanded of him to speak the truth,' or such dilution thereof as might seem most favourable to the interests of the shed, found a difficulty, like many wiser men, about his exordium.

'Well, Muster Gordon, look'ee here, sir. The weather's been summat awful, and clean agin' shearin'. We've not been earning our grub, and——'

'So it has,' answered the manager, 'so it has; but can I help the weather? I'm as anxious as you are to have the shearing over quickly. We're both of us of one mind about that, eh?'

'That's right enough, sir,' strikes in Abraham Lawson, feeling that Ben was getting the worst of the argument, and was moreover far less fluent than usual, probably from being deprived of the aid of the customary expletives; 'but we're come to say this, sir, that the season's turned out very wet indeed; we've had a deal of broken time, and the men feel it hard to be paying for a lot of rations, and hardly earning anything. We're shearing the sheep very close and clean. You won't have 'em done no otherways. Not like some sheds where a man can "run" a bit and make up for lost time. Now, we've all come to think this, sir, that if we're to go on shearing the sheep well, and stick to them, so as to get them done before the dust and grass-seed come in, you ought to make us some allowance. We know we've agreed for so much a hundred, and all that. Still, the season's turned out so out-and-out bad, and we hope you'll consider it and make it up to us somehow.'

'Never knew a worse year,' corroborated Billy May, who thought it indispensable to say something; 'haven't made enough, myself, to pay the cook.'

This was not strictly true, at any rate, as to Master Billy's own earnings; he being such a remarkably fast shearer (and good withal), that he had always a respectable sum credited to him for his day's work, even when many of the slower men came off short enough. However, enough had been said to make Mr. Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of Capital to that of Labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits or reserved fund, they knew not, nor cared. This was their stand. And being Englishmen they intended to abide by it.

The manager had considered the situation before it actually arose. He now rapidly took in the remaining points of debate. The shearers had signed a specific agreement for a stipulated rate of payment, irrespective of the weather. By the letter of the law they had no case. Whether they made little or much profit was not his affair. But he was a just and kindly man, as well as reasonably politic. They had shorn well, and the weather had been discouraging. He knew, too, that an abrupt denial might cause a passive mutiny, if not a strike. If they set themselves to thwart him, it was in their power to shear badly, to shear slowly, and to force him to discharge many of them. He might have them fined, perhaps imprisoned by the police court. Meanwhile how could shearing go on? Dust and grass-seeds would soon be upon them. He resolved on a compromise, and spoke out at once in a decided tone, as the men gathered yet more closely around him.

'Look here, all of you! You know well that I'm not bound to find you in good shearing weather. Still, I'm aware that the season has been against you; you have shorn pretty well, so far, though I've had to make examples, and am quite ready to make more. What I am willing to do is this: to every man who works on till the finish, and shears to my satisfaction, I will make a fair allowance in the ration account. That is, I will make no charge for the beef. Does that suit you? There was a chorus of 'All right, sir, we're satisfied.' 'Mr. Gordon always does the fair thing,' etc. And work was immediately resumed with alacrity.

The clerk of the weather, too gracious even in these regions, as far as the absence of rain is concerned, became steadily propitious.

Cloudless skies and a gradually ascending thermometer were the signs that spring was changing into summer. The splendid herbage ripened and dried; patches of bare earth began to be discernible amid the late thick-swarded pastures, dust to rise, and cloud-pillars of sand to float and eddy—the desert genii of the Arab. But the work went on at a high rate of speed, outpacing the fast-coming summer; and before any serious disaster arose, the last flock was 'on the battens,' and amid ironical congratulations the 'cobbler' (or last sheep) was seized, and stripped of his dense and difficult fleece. In ten minutes the vast woolshed, lately echoing with the ceaseless click of the shears, the jests, the songs, the oaths of the rude congregation, was silent and deserted. The floors were swept, the pens closed, the sheep on their way to a distant paddock. Not a soul remains about the building but the pressers, who stay to work at the rapidly lessening piles of fleece in the bins, or a meditative teamster who sits musing on a wool-bale, absorbed in a calculation as to when his load will be made up.

It is sundown, a rather later time of closing than usual, but rendered necessary by the possibility of the grand finale. The younger men troop over to the hut, larking like schoolboys. Abraham Lawson throws a poncho over his broad shoulders, lights his pipe, and strides along, towering above the rest, erect and stately as a guardsman. Considerably more than you or I, reader, would have been, had we shorn a hundred and thirty-four sheep, as he has done to-day. Billy May has shorn a hundred and forty-two, and he puts his hand on the four-foot paling fence of the yard and vaults over it like a deer, preparatory to a swim in the creek. At dinner you will see them all, with fresh Crimeans and jerseys, clean, comfortable, and in grand spirits. Next morning is settling day. The book-keeping department at Anabanco being severely correct, all is in readiness. Each man's tally, or number of sheep shorn, has been entered daily to his credit. His private and personal investments at the store have been as duly debited. The shearers, as a corporation, have been charged with the multifarious items of their rather copious mess-bill. This sum-total is divided by the number of the shearers, the extract being the amount for which each man is liable. This sum varies in its weekly proportion, at different sheds. With an extravagant cook, or cooks, the weekly bill is often alarming. When the men and their functionary study economy, it may be kept reasonably low.

The men have been sitting or standing about the office for half an hour, when Mr. Jack Bowles rushes out and shouts, 'William May.' That young person, excessively clean, attired in a quiet tweed suit, with his hair cut correctly short, advances with an air of calm intrepidity, and faces Mr. Gordon, now seated at a long table, wearing a judicial expression of countenance.

'Well, May! here's your account:—

So many sheep at £1 per 100 £
Cook, so many weeks £
Shearing store account
Private store account
———
———
Total £
======

Is the tally of your sheep right?'

'Oh, I daresay it's all right, Mr. Gordon. I made it so and so; about ten less.'

'Well, well; ours is correct, no doubt. Now, I want to make up a good subscription for the hospital this year. How much will you give? You've done pretty well, I think.'

'Put me down a pound, sir.'

'Very well, that's fair enough. If every one gives what they can afford, you men will always have a place to go to when you're hurt or laid up. See, I put your name down, and you'll see it in the published list. Now, about the shearing, May. I consider that you have done your work excellently well, and behaved well all through. You're a fast shearer, but you shear closely, and don't knock your sheep about. I therefore do not charge you for any part of your meat bill, and I pay you at the rate of half-a-crown a hundred for all your sheep, _over and above_ your agreement. Will that do?'

'Very well indeed, and I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Gordon.'

'Well, good-bye, May. Always call when you're passing, and if any work is going on you'll get your share. Here's your cheque. Send in Lawson.' Exit May in high spirits, having cleared about three pounds per week during the whole time of shearing, and having lived a far from unpleasant life, indeed akin to that of a fighting cock, from the commencement to the end of that period.

Lawson's interview may be described as having similar results. He also was a first-class shearer, though not so artistic as the gifted Billy. Jack Windsor's saucy blue eyes twinkled merrily as he returned to his companions, and incontinently leaped into the saddle on his wild-eyed colt. After these worthies came a shearer named Jackson. He belonged to quite a different class; he could shear well if he pleased, but had a rooted disbelief that honesty was the best policy, and a fixed determination to shear as many sheep as he could get the manager to pass. By dint of close watching, constant reprimand, and occasional 'raddling' (marking badly shorn sheep and refusing to count them), Mr. Gordon had managed to tone him down to average respectability of execution; still he was always uneasily aware that whenever his eye was not upon him, Jackson was doing what he ought not to do, with might and main. He had indeed kept him on from sheer necessity, but he intended none the less to mark his opinion of him.

'Come in, Jackson. Your tally is so and so. Is that right?'

_Jackson._—'I suppose so.'

'Cook and store account, so much; shearing account so much.'

_Jackson._—'And a good deal too.'

'That is your affair,' said Mr. Gordon, sternly enough. 'Now, look here, you're in my opinion a bad shearer and a bad man. You have given me a great deal of trouble, and I should have kicked you out of the shed weeks ago, if I had not been short of men. I shall make a difference between you and those who have tried to do their best; I make you no allowance of any sort; I pay you by the strict agreement; there's your cheque. Now, go!'

Jackson goes out with a very black countenance. He mutters, with an oath, that, if he'd known how he was going to be served 'he'd 'a "blocked" 'em a little more.' He is believed to have been served right, and he secures no sympathy whatever. Working-men of all classes in Australia are shrewd and fair judges generally. If an employer does his best to mete out justice, he is always appreciated and supported by the majority. These few instances will serve as a description of the whole process of settling with the shearers. The horses have been got in. Great catching and saddling-up has taken place all the morning. By the afternoon the whole party are dispersed to the four winds: some, like Abraham Lawson and his friends, to sheds 'higher up,' in a colder climate, where shearing necessarily commences later. From these they will pass to others, until the last flocks in the 'mountain runs' are shorn. Those who have not farms of their own then betake themselves to reaping. Billy May and Jack Windsor are quite as ready to back themselves against time in the wheat-field as on the shearing-floor. Harvest over, they find their pockets inconveniently full, so they commence to visit their friends and repay themselves for their toils by a liberal allowance of rest and recreation.

Old Ben and a few other specimens of the olden time get no further than the nearest public-house. Their cheques are handed to the landlord, and a 'sdubendous and derrible spree' sets in. At the end of a week or ten days, that worthy informs them that they have received liquor to the amount of their cheques—something over a hundred pounds—save the mark! They meekly acquiesce, as is their custom. The landlord generously presents them with a glass of grog each, and they take the road for the next shed.

The shearers being despatched, the sheep-washers, a smaller and less regarded force, file up. They number some forty men. Nothing more than fair bodily strength, willingness, and obedience being required in their case, they are more easy to get and replace than shearers. They are a varied and motley lot. That powerful and rather handsome man is a New Yorker, of Irish parentage. Next to him is a slight, neat, quiet individual. He had been a lieutenant in a line regiment. The lad in the rear was a Sandhurst cadet. Then came two navvies and a New Zealander, five Chinamen, a Frenchman, two Germans, Tin Pot, Jerry, and Wallaby—three aboriginal blacks. There are no invidious distinctions as to caste, colour, or nationality. Every one is a man and a brother at sheep-washing. Wage, one pound per week; wood, water, tents, and food provided. Their accounts are simple: so many weeks, so many pounds; store accounts, so much. Hospital? Well, five shillings. Cheque; good-morning.

The wool-pressers, the fleece-rollers, the fleece-pickers, the yardsmen, the washers' cooks, the hut cooks, the spare shepherds—all these and other supernumeraries, inevitable at shearing-time, having been paid off, the snowstorm of cheques which has been fluttering all day comes to an end. Mr. Gordon and the remaining _sous-officiers_ go to rest that night with much of the mental strain removed, which has been telling on every waking moment for the last two months.

The long train of drays and waggons, with loads varying from twenty to forty-five bales, has been moving off in detachments since the commencement. In a day or two the last of them will have rolled heavily away. The 1400 bales, averaging three and a half hundredweight, are distributed, slow journeying, along the road, which they mark from afar, or standing huge and columnar, like guide tumuli, from Anabanco to the waters of the Murray. Between the two points, a hundred and fifty miles, there is neither a hill nor a stone. All is one vast monotonous sea of plain—at this season a prairie-meadow exuberant of vegetation; in the late summer, or in the occasional and dreaded phenomenon of a _dry winter_, dusty and herbless as a brickfield, for hundreds of miles.

Silence falls on the plains and waters of Anabanco for the next six months. The woolshed, the wash-pen, and all the huts connected with them are lone and voiceless as caravanserais in a city of the plague.

ANCIENT SYDNEY

Our good barque anchored in Launceston harbour in 1831—about the same year, by the way, in which Marcus Clarke's dream-ship, the _Malabar_, ended her eventful voyage to the same port. The writer's father owned and commanded the vessel. Our steerage passengers were of the same class as those of the _Malabar_, being a draft of convicts, in process of deportation to the strange South land, there to undergo experimental discipline, which to some meant probationary industry—the path to a prospective fortune; to others, a slave's dread life, a felon's shameful death.

Ruffians doubtless cursed and caballed among the two hundred prisoners which crowded the lower deck, but they were in a minority. A herd of luckless peasants constituted the main body; found guilty of rick-burning and machine-breaking only—crimes common enough in England, before the repeal of the corn-laws.

Their offences had been but the ignorant, instinctive protest of Labour against Capital; less dangerous far than the organised communism of the present day. Poachers and petty larcenists, with other humble criminals, completed the list. For the most part they were a timid and obedient company, cowed and unresisting, incapable of planning mutiny or revenge. Our family party consisted of two tiny sisters and myself, my mother, and our nursemaid—a resolute, sterling Englishwoman, destined in days to come to be the best friend our childhood could have found in the new world or the old. The ordinary military guard, so many rank and file, with their officers, together with the Surgeon-Superintendent, had been detailed for the duty of ensuring discipline and the safety of the ship.

It may well have been that among the band of exiles were some unjustly sentenced, mixed up accidentally with a crowd of excited rustics engaged in unlawful deeds—wondering spectators rather than actors. Such a victim was probably the unhappy Annetts, a vacant-faced farm labourer, from Essex or Dorset, whose wife, accompanied by their two children, came daily to see him before the ship sailed.

I seem to remember the wretched group, though most probably it was my good nurse's description that imprinted it indelibly on my memory.

There would they sit, hour after hour, bathed in tears—he, with the irons on his limbs and the ugly prison garb; she almost a girl, with traces of rustic beauty, as he was hardly more than a boy—holding each other's hands and weeping silently for hours; then, sobbing in paroxysms of lamentation, both repeatedly declaring his innocence, the children wondering gravely at the strange surroundings, at times mingling their tears with those of their parents. It was a sight to touch the heart of the sternest. Then the last agonised parting, when the fainting woman was carried on shore, when the hopeless outcast watched his native land recede, instinctively aware that he gazed on it for the last time.

Is there such a physiological process as a broken heart? It would seem so, even in this world of lightly-borne sorrows and forgotten joys. He, at least, was not thus fashioned, stolid peasant as he seemed to outward view, untaught, uncared-for, born to the plough and the monotonous labour of the farm animals, which in his undeveloped intelligence he so closely resembled. But their fidelity to the heart's deepest feelings was rooted in his being. He never raised his head afterwards, as the phrase goes. He moved and spoke, went through the ordinary motions of humanity, as in a dream. Day by day he pined and wasted; in little more than a month, from no particular ailment, he died and found burial in that mysterious main which before his sentence he had never seen.

The only other death on board was that of the second mate, a fine young seaman named Keeling. Strange to say, he had a presentiment that drowning would be the manner of his end. He would say as much, on one occasion telling us that he was one of three brothers. Two had been lost at sea. He _knew_ the same fate was in store for him. He even put his head in a bucket of water once, and held it there, 'to see how it felt.' He was strong, active, temperate, and a smart officer. One day, in calm weather, when spearing fish from the dolphin-striker, he lost his balance and fell overboard. The ship had way on, though the breeze was light. He was a good swimmer; a boat was instantly lowered. I believe that my recollection of seeing him rise and fall upon the waves, far astern of the vessel, is accurate. The boat rapidly nears him—swimming strongly and easily supporting himself. It turns for a moment, shutting him out from sight. A man leans over to grasp him. Why do they commence to pull round in circles? Why can we not see the rescued man taken into the boat? After an interval which appears terribly long, the boat comes back to the ship _without him_. At the very moment of rescue a wave drove the boat stem on. The keel struck him on the head. He sank like a stone, never being visible to the boat's crew afterwards. Thus was his doom accomplished.

Though our passengers did not resemble those of the _Malabar_, we boasted a similar military force. The Surgeon-Superintendent was a much-travelled, cultured man. The Major and Subalterns in charge of the detachment were agreeable personages; fortunately they were not required to act in any military capacity beyond causing guards to be strictly kept. Had the prisoners even been other than they were, their chance in rising would have been small, having to deal with one of the most watchful, prompt, and determined men, in the captain of the vessel, that ever trod a plank. It was happily ordered otherwise. The voyage was successful and devoid of adventure. There were neither storms, mutinies, fevers, nor other disasters. And somewhere about the month of August (as we left England in April 1831) we delivered our passengers to the authorities in Launceston, in good order and condition. Our military friends quitted us after our arrival in Sydney, our final destination. My father had visited the port when an officer in the East India Company's service as far back as the year 1820, had been struck with the land's capabilities, and augured well of its future. He resolved to settle therein in the aftertime, did events shape themselves that way. By that voyage our destinies as a family were decided.

The Paris of the South was then a seaside town, numbering not more than thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. Described in station parlance, it was well grassed and lightly stocked. As a matter of fact there was a good deal of grass in the streets, and between Macquarie Place, which was our first location, and the Domain, the little Alderney cow, which had accompanied us on the ship, was able to pick up a good living. She and other vagrom milch kine often eluded the vigilance of the sentry, at the entrance to the Domain, where they revelled in the thick couch-grass; to be turned out at the point of the bayonet when discovered. Much of the city is changed; but much remains unchanged. Our first abode was a moderate-sized house in Macquarie Place. It possessed a second story and a garden, standing next to a tall, narrow building, occupied by Mr. Harrington, an eminent civil servant of the pre-parliamentary régime, later on Griffiths Fanning's office. Messrs. Montefiore, Breillat, and Co. possessed the corner house with its walled enclosure, taking in the angle of Bent Street, with a frontage also to O'Connell Street. The wall, the house, and the store _still_ stand, unaltered in half a century. Mr. Dalgety, then himself a junior clerk, might be seen walking to and fro from the wharves, inspecting cargo, note-book in hand. Think of that, young gentlemen in like positions, and ponder upon the mercantile monarchies which have been (and may still be) reached by perseverance, financial talent, and prudent ambition!

Chief-Justice and Mrs. Forbes, with their family, inhabited a large stone house on the opposite side of the street, also surrounded by a wall. It now forms a portion of the Lands Office buildings. Archdeacon Cowper lived on the other side, now New Pitt Street, a grass plot with two large cedars being in front of the house.

Sydney must have been then not unlike in appearance to one of the larger country towns, Bathurst or Goulburn, save and excepting always its possession of the unrivalled harbour and that fragment of Eden the Botanic Garden. There we children walked in the mornings of our first summer in Sydney. The grateful freshness of the air, the beauty of the overhanging trees, the vision of blue water and white-winged skiffs seen through flower thickets, still remains among my childhood's fairest memories.

At the back of our garden rose a stone wall, which supported the higher level of the allotments fronting O'Connell Street. In a balconied mansion opposite lived Mr. Raymond, the Postmaster-General, with his numerous family of sons and daughters.

How few survive of that merry band of youths and maidens, whom I remember so well! After our debarkation no time was lost in sending me to school. A lady who lived conveniently close, in O'Connell Street, first directed the pothooks and hangers, which, further developed, have since covered so many a printed page. Mr. Walter Lamb and the late Colonel Peel Raymond were among my schoolfellows. At the ripe age of seven, being according to the maternal partiality too far advanced for a dame school, I was promoted to Mr. Cape's Sydney Academy, in King Street, opposite to St. James's Church. Seventy boys more or less were there, not a few of whom have since distinguished themselves 'in arms, in arts, in song.' William Forster, Walter Lamb, Whistler Smith, and Allan Macpherson were among my older comrades. I well remember on the day of my arrival how Forster, actuated by the hatred of injustice which characterised his after-life, fought a sanguinary battle with another oldster who had been oppressing a smaller boy. Sir James Martin was there then, or came soon afterwards. At any rate he was one of the scholars when Mr. Cape, then newly appointed Headmaster of the Sydney College, moved over and took possession of that institution upon its opening day. The Nortons, James and John, were among the pupils, with many others whom I could perhaps recall, but whose names are at present fading in the mists of the past. The Dowlings, Mitchells, David Forbes, Sir John Robertson, Mr. Dalley, with many another, were among the pupils of that most conscientious and earnest teacher. They will always acknowledge, doubtless, their indebtedness to him for a sound classical training, the groundwork of their higher education.

The late Mr. James Laidley was one of the smaller boys at that time. Our fathers had been friends in other lands. I saw Commissary-General Laidley's funeral—a military one—and Dick Webb, the family coachman, leading the dead officer's favourite chestnut mare in the procession.

On the day of my introduction came also a new boy, about the same age. His name was Hugh Ranclaud. We were placed in a class in order to test our reading, and, as the last comers, at the bottom of the class. The lesson commenced; the others went through their allotted portion haltingly, after the fashion of the small boy of the period. When it came to Ranclaud's turn, he commenced in a clear, distinct, properly-punctuated manner, much as if he had been in the habit of performing at penny readings, or acting as curate on occasion. I see (as if it were yesterday) Mr. Cape, who paused to listen, take him by the arm and march him to the head of the class. I was promoted, too, and we soon quitted that class for a higher place in the Division, from that day to be close friends and confidants in literary matters. Eager, voracious readers we both were. He was a poet as well. We used to walk about arm in arm and recite bits out of Walter Scott and Byron. Until we left school and settled in different colonies our friendship remained unbroken.

The first thing I remember after the ceremony of installation was the adjournment to the new cricket-ground granted for our use in that part of Hyde Park then known as the Racecourse, which was opposite to the College, now the Grammar School. Percy and Hamilton Stephen were at the wickets. They, with their cousins James and Frank, Alfred, Consett, and Matthew Henry were among the schoolboys of that period; Prosper and André de Mestre, with, later on, Etty (Etienne), then a little chap, like myself.

We of the old school were much gratified at the superior advantages we now enjoyed in the way of playgrounds. The free use of Hyde Park, then merely fenced and not planted, was granted to us. Below the school building was a large area, divided by a wall from the present labyrinth of terraces built on the Riley Estate, then a furze-covered paddock of pathless wilds, in which we were free to wander.

A chain-gang was at that time employed, under armed warders, in levelling the line of road which leads towards Waverley. One of the prisoners tried to escape and was shot by a warder. We boys went over. There he lay dead in his prison garb, with a red stain across his chest, 'well out of the scrape of being alive and poor,'—only paupers were unknown then, and prisoners, of course, plentiful.

We were near enough to the Domain for the boarders to walk to 'The Fig-tree,' that well-known spot in Wooloomooloo Bay, where so many generations of Sydney boys have learned to swim. The old tree (a wild one) was there long years after, and from the stone wharf, with steps considerately made in Governor Macquarie's time, how many a 'header' has been taken, how many a trembling youngster pitched in by ruthless schoolmates! There was no danger, of course, and among rough-and-ready methods of teaching a useful accomplishment, it is perhaps one of the best. Mr. Cape was a good swimmer, and on the mornings when he accompanied us, these little diversions were not indulged in.

My recollections of him as a headmaster, and, indeed, in every other capacity, is uniformly favourable. He was a strict, occasionally severe, but invariably just ruler. Discriminating too, always ready to assist real workers such as Forster, Martin, George Rowley, and other exceptional performers. But for us of the rank and file, whose scholastic ambition lagged consistently behind our powers, he had neither mercy nor toleration. A thorough disciplinarian, prompt, punctual, unsparing, we knew what we had to expect. The consequence was that a standard of acquirement was reached at a comparatively early age by his scholars which with a less resolute instructor would never have been gained.