Rolf Boldrewood
Babes in the Bush
‘Don’t be so frightened, mother,’ said the younger son. ‘I won’t go running after risks and dangers. Why, it’s ten to one nobody gets hurt. There are only blacks; and there’s no water to drown us, that’s one consolation.’
When did generous youth perceive the possibility of danger until forced upon him by sudden stroke of fate? ‘Whom the gods love die young’ is true in one sense, inasmuch as they escape the melancholy anticipations which cloud the joys of maturer life. For them trains never collide, nor coaches upset; sword-strokes are parried, and bullets go wide; ships founder not; disease is only for the feeble; they are but the old who die!
Wilfred more truly understood the matron’s tender dread, and her reasons.
‘Don’t fret, my darling mother,’ he said as he clasped her hand, ‘I’ll look after Guy. You know he obeys me cheerfully, so far; and you know I am pretty careful. I will see he does nothing rash, and he will be always under my eye.’
‘Remember, dear, I trust him to you,’ said Mrs. Effingham, returning her son’s fond clasp, but not wholly reassured, being of the opinion that what Wilfred considered careful avoidance of danger other people characterised as unflinching though not impetuous determination to get through or over any given obstacle.
Off at last! The tearful breakfast is over. The long string of cattle has poured out of the mustering paddock gates, followed by Hubert Warleigh, with Duncan Cargill and Selden, who were permitted to help drive during the first stage; Mr. O’More, in cords and top-boots, with a hunting-crop in his hand, wisely declining a stock-whip for the present. His horse bears a cavalry headstall bridle, with a sliding bridoon rein – ‘handy for feeding purposes,’ he says. He has yet to learn that, after a week’s cattle-driving, most horses may be trusted to graze with the reins beneath their feet, which they will by no means tread upon or run off with.
A couple of brown-faced youngsters, natives of Yass, have been hired, as road hands and to be generally useful, for the term of one year. These young persons are grave and silent of demeanour; have been ‘among cattle’ all their lives, and no exception can be taken to their horsemanship. They afford an endless fund of amusement to O’More, who forces them into conversation on various topics, and tries to imitate their soft-voiced, drawling monotone.
Dick Evans drives the horse-dray, destined to go no farther than the Snowy River, after which the camp equipment will be carried on pack-horses, the road being closed to wheels. They are now being driven with the cattle, accoutred with their pack-saddles and light loads to accustom them to the exercise.
Dick has had a characteristic parting with Mrs. Evans, who saw him prepare to depart without outward show of emotion.
‘Now mind you behave yourself, Evans, while you’re away, and don’t be running off to New Zealand, or the Islands, or anywheres.’
‘All right, old woman,’ said Dick, cracking his whip. ‘You’ll be so precious fond of me when I come back that we shan’t have a row for a year afterwards.’
‘No fear; not if you was to stop away five year!’ retorted his spouse, with decision. ‘Take care as I don’t marry again afore you come back, if you hang it out too long.’
‘Marry away and don’t mind me, old woman,’ returned the philosophical Dick; ‘I shan’t interfere with the pore feller. Leave us the old mare, that’s all. A good ’oss, that you can’t put wrong in saddle or harness, ain’t met with every day.’
Here Mrs. Evans, seeing a smile on the faces of the listeners, began to think she was occupying an undignified position. Putting her apron to her eyes, with a feeble effort at wiping a few tears away, she solemnly told her incorrigible mate that she hoped God would change the wicked old heart of him, as wasn’t thankful for a good wife, as had cooked and worked for him, and been dragged about the country all these years, and now to be told she was worse than a brute beast! Here real tears came.
‘The mare can hold her tongue, at any rate,’ quoth Dick; ‘and where’s the woman you can say as much of, barrin’ Mrs. Wilson of Ours, as was born deaf and dumb? But come, I didn’t mean to fret ye, and me on the march. Give us a buss, old woman! Now we part all reg’lar and military like. You know women’s not allowed with the rigiment in war time. Mind you take care of the missus and the young ladies, and keep a civil tongue in your head.’
With this farewell exhortation and reconciliation Dick shook off his spouse, and walked briskly away by the side of the team. The cattle, glad to feel themselves unchecked, struck briskly along the track. Wilfred and Guy came up at a hand-gallop, and took their places behind the drove. The first act of the migratory drama was commenced, with all the actors in their places.
The first day’s stage was arranged to reach only to a stock-yard near Benmohr. It was a longish day’s drive, but, being the first day from home, all the more likely to steady the cattle. Having got so far, and secured them inside the rails, with Dick and his team camped by the dam, Wilfred left Guy in charge and rode over, with O’More and Hubert Warleigh, to spend a last civilised evening at Benmohr. It was necessary for the latter, now recognised as the responsible leader of the expedition, to give Argyll, Hamilton, and the others instructions as to the route.
A fair-sized party was assembled around that hospitable board. All the men present had been actuated by the same feelings, apparently, as themselves, viz. with a trustworthy person in charge of the camp, they might as well enjoy themselves once more at dear, jolly, old Benmohr.
‘Hech! sae ye’re here to look at a body ance mair, Maister Effingham; and whatten garred you to list Maister O’More, and him juist frae hame, puir laddie, to gang awa’ and be killed by thae wild blacks?’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t mind my being rubbed out, Mrs. Teviot,’ said Hubert. ‘It’s only gentlemen from England that are valuable. Imported stock, eh?’
‘Noo, Maister Hubert, ye ken weel I wad be wae eneugh if onything happened to yer ain sell, though ye hae nae mither to greet for ye, mair’s the peety, puir lady! But your hands can aye keep your heed; and they say ye can haud ane o’ thae narrow shields and throw a spear as weel’s ony o’ the blacks. They’ll no catch you napping; but this young gentleman will maybe rin into ambushes and sic-like, like a bird into the net o’ the fowler.’
‘Then we must pull him out again,’ said Hubert gravely. ‘I hope you are not going to be rash, Mr. O’More. See how you will be missed.’
‘I am aware, as I have not had the good fortune to live much in Australia,’ said Gerald, ‘that I must be made of sugar or salt, warranted to melt at the first wetting. But my hands have kept my head in an Irish fair, before now; and I think half-a-dozen shillelahs at once must be nearly as bad as a blackfellow’s club.’
‘They are deuced quick with the boomerang and nullah,’ said Hubert; ‘you can hardly see the cursed things before they are on to you.’
‘And a barbed spear is worse than all the blackthorns in Tipperary,’ said Wilfred; ‘so look out and don’t cast a gloom over the party by your early death. Mrs. Teviot, give me a parting kiss and your blessing, for that is the dinner-bell.’
‘Maister Effingham!’ said the old dame, in accents of such unfeigned surprise and disapproval that all three men burst out laughing. ‘Eh, ye’re jist laughin’ at the auld woman, ye bad laddie; but ye ken weel that ye hae my blessing; and may the mercy and guidance o’ the Lord God of Israel bring ye a’ safe hame to your freends and relations – my gentlemen and a’, as I’m prayin’ for’t – and a bonnie day it will be when we see ye a’ back again – no forgetten that daft Neil Barrington, that gies me as muckle trouble as the hail o’ ye pitten thegither.’
At the conclusion of this farewell ceremony with Mrs. Teviot, who indeed took a most maternal interest in the whole company, they hied themselves at once to the dining-room.
‘So you are to join our party, Mr. O’More?’ said Hamilton. ‘You could not have come at a better time to understand our bush life.’
‘Awfully glad of the chance, I assure you,’ said that gentleman. ‘It was the hope of something of the sort that brought me out. If this affair had not been on, I should have fancied I had been induced to come to a new country under false pretences.’
‘Why so?’ asked Forbes.
‘Because you are all so unpardonably civilised. I expected to sit upon wooden stools and eat biscuits and beef, to sleep in the open air, and to be returning fire with my pistols as I came up from the wharf. Instead of which (I will take turkey, if you please) I find myself here, at The Chase, and half-a-dozen other houses in the lap of luxury.’
‘Oh, come!’ said Forbes deprecatingly, ‘are you not flavouring the compliment a little too strongly?’
‘I think Mr. O’More comes from the Emerald Isle,’ said Ardmillan. ‘May I ask if you have ever kissed the Blarney stone?’
‘Of course; all Irishmen make a point of it. It abates their naturally severe tendencies. But joking apart, all you people live as well as most of us in the old country. Wilfred here can bear me out. If claret was a little more fashionable, I don’t see a pin to choose.’
‘There will be a change of fare when we’re on the road,’ said Fred Churbett. ‘Who knows when we shall see pale ale again? The thought is anguish; and those confounded pack-horses carry so little.’
‘But think of the way we shall enjoy club breakfasts, clean shirts, evening parties, and all that, when we do get back,’ said Neil Barrington. ‘We shall be like sailors after a three years’ cruise. I must say I always envied them.’
‘I think, if the company is unanimous,’ said Hamilton, ‘that we might as well have a serious talk about the route. Captain Warleigh, as we must now call him, will be off early to-morrow, so the greater reason for proceeding to business.’
‘I was going to remind you all,’ said Hubert, ‘that we ought to agree about our plans. It’s plain sailing across Monaro, though the feed is bad until we come to the Snowy River. Of course, we all go on to-morrow.’
‘Which way?’ asked Hamilton.
‘Past Bungendore, Queanbeyan, and Micalago. We cross the Bredbo and the Eumeralla higher up, and go by the Jew’s flat, and Coolamatong.’
‘We shall follow in a couple of days,’ said Argyll.
‘And I in three,’ said Forbes.
‘You needn’t follow in a string, unless you like,’ said their guide; ‘the feed will be cut up if one mob after the other goes over it. All the stock-riders hereabouts know the Monaro country, so you can travel either right or left of me, as long as you fetch up at Buckley’s Crossing, of the Snowy River.’
‘What sort of a ford is it?’ inquired one of the D’Oyleys.
‘It’s always a swim with the Snowy,’ said the captain, ‘summer and winter, and a cold one too, as I can witness. But the grass is better, though rough, after you cross, and we have an old acquaintance waiting there to join the party. He knows the country well.’
‘Who the deuce is he?’ said Argyll. ‘We shall be well off for guides.’
‘Not more than you will want, perhaps,’ said the leader. ‘We’re not over Wahgulmerang yet. But the man is old Tom Glendinning – and a better bushman never saddled a horse. He has been living for some time at one of the farthest out stations, Ingebyra, and wants to join us. He asked me not to mention his name till we had actually started.’
‘So,’ said Wilfred reflectively, ‘the old fellow is determined to make his latter days adventurous. I see no objection, do you, Argyll? He and his history will be probably buried among the forests of this new country we are going to explore.’
‘It cannot matter in any way,’ answered Argyll. ‘He will, as you say, most likely never return to this locality.’
‘Many of the old hands have histories, if it comes to that,’ said Hubert, ‘and very queer ones too. But they have paid the price for their sins, and old Tom won’t have time to commit many more – if shooting an odd blackfellow or two doesn’t count.’
‘Have we any more general instructions to receive?’ inquired Hamilton, who was, perhaps, the most practical-minded of the party.
‘Only these: we must all be well armed. Pistols are handy, and a rifle or a double barrel is necessary for every man of the party. We may have no fighting to do; but blacks are plentiful, big fellows, and fierce too. We must be able to defend ourselves and more, or not a man will come back alive. After we cross the Snowy River, I shall halt till you all come up; then we can join the smaller mobs of cattle, so as to be close together in case of trouble. Everything will have to be packed from the Snowy; so it will be as well not to take more than is required.’
‘You are fully prepared for all the privations of the road, Mr. O’More?’ asked Argyll. ‘They may strike you as severe after your late life at headquarters.’
‘That is the very reason, my dear fellow. You surely haven’t forgotten that when you were at home you fancied all Australian life to be transacted in the wilderness. I expected the wilderness; I demand the desert. With anything short of the wildest waste I shall be disappointed.’
‘That’s the way to take it,’ said Fred Churbett. ‘I had all those feelings myself when I arrived, but I was betrayed into comfort when I bought The She-oaks, and have hardly gone nearer to roughing it than a trip to the Tumut for store cattle.’
There was a laugh at this, Fred’s tendency to comfort being proverbial; though, to do him justice, he was capable of considerable exertion when roused and set going.
‘Is this Eldorado of yours near the coast, Warleigh?’ inquired Forbes. ‘If so, there will be sure to be good agricultural land, and some kind of a township will spring up.’
‘I believe there’s a passage from the lakes to the sea, near which would be a grand site for a township. I hadn’t time to look it out. It gave me all I knew to get back.’
‘What does any one want a town for?’ growled Argyll. ‘Next thing, people will be talking about farms. Enough to make one ill. Are we going to risk our lives and shed our blood, possibly, for the benefit of storekeepers and farmers, to spoil the runs after we have won them?’
‘Don’t be so insanely conservative, Argyll,’ said Forbes. ‘Even a farmer is a man and a brother. We shall want some one to buy our raw products and import stores. We might as well give Rockley the office if we found a settlement. He would do us no harm.’
Here there was a chorus of approbation.
‘Of course I except Rockley – as good a fellow as ever lived. But he holds peculiar views upon the land question, and might induce others to come over on that confounded farming pretence, which is the ruin of Australia.’
‘The country I can show you, if we reach it, is large enough to hold all your stock and their increase for the next twenty years, with half-a-dozen towns as big as Yass.’
‘If this be the case, the sooner we get there the better,’ said Hamilton. ‘You start in earnest to-morrow, and we shall follow the day after. I shall keep nearly parallel with you. Ardmillan comes next, then Churbett, lastly the D’Oyleys. We shall be the largest party, as to stock, men, and horses, that has gone out for many a day.’
‘All the more reason why we should make our mark,’ said O’More. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for five hundred pounds. I might have stayed in Ireland for a century without anything of the kind happening. I feel like Raymond of Antioch, or Godfrey of Bouillon. I suppose we shan’t meet to drink success to the undertaking every night.’
‘This is the last night we shall have that opportunity,’ said Argyll. ‘Here come the toddy tumblers. The night is chilly, but it will be more so next week, when we are on watch or lying under canvas in a teetotal camp.’
‘We can always manage a good fire, unless we are in blacks’ country,’ said Hubert; ‘that is one comfort; there’s any amount of timber; and you can keep yourselves jolly in a long night by carrying firewood.’
Long before daylight Hubert Warleigh arose and awakened Wilfred. Their horses had been placed so as to be easily procurable, and no delay took place. The stars were in the sky. A faint, clear line in the east yet told of the coming dawn, as the friends rode forth from Benmohr gate and took the track to the scene of the last night’s camp.
When they reached the spot the sun had risen, and no one was on the ground but Dick Evans, who was in a leisurely way packing up the camp equipage, including the tent and cooking utensils.
‘Here’s the breakfast, Mr. Wilfred,’ he said cheerily; ‘the cattle’s on ahead. I kept back the corned beef, and here’s bread and a billy of tea. You can go to work, while I finish packing. I’ll catch up easy by dinner-time, though the cattle’s sure to rip along the first few days.’
‘This is a grand institution,’ said Gerald. ‘I wouldn’t say a toothful of whisky would be out of place, and the air so fresh; but sure “I feel as if I could lape over a house this minute,” as I heard a Connemara parlour-maid say once.’
‘Nothing is more appetising,’ said Wilfred, ‘than a genuine Australian bush meal. A slice or two of meat, a slice of fresh damper, and a pot of tea. You may travel on it from one end of the continent to another.’
‘He was a great man that invented that same,’ said O’More. ‘Would there be a little more tay in the canteen? Beef and bread his unaided intellect might have compassed; but the tay, even to think of that same in the middle of the meal, required inspiration. When ye think of the portableness of it too. It was a great idea entirely!’
‘Bushmen take it morning, noon, and night,’ said Warleigh. ‘The doctors say it’s not good for us – gives us heartburn, and so on. But if any one will go bail for a man who drinks brandy and water, I’d stand the risk on tea.’
‘So I suspect. Even whisky, they do say, gets into the head sometimes. I suppose you never knew a man to kill his wife, or burn his house, or lame his child for life, under the influence of tay?’
An hour’s riding brought them to the cattle, which had just been permitted ‘to spread out on a bit of rough feed,’ as the young man at the side next them expressed it. A marshy creek flat had still remaining an array of ragged tussocks and rushy growths, uninviting in ordinary seasons, but now welcome to the hungry cattle. They found Guy sitting on his horse in a leisurely manner, and keeping a sharp look-out on the cattle.
‘What sort of a night had you?’ said Wilfred. ‘Were they contented?’
‘Oh, pretty fair. They roared and walked round at first; then they all lay down and took it easy. Old Dick roused us out and gave us our breakfast before dawn. We had the horses hobbled short, and were on the road with the first streak of light. This is the first stop we have made.’
‘That’s the way,’ said Hubert. ‘Nothing like an early start; it gives the cattle all the better chance. Some of these are very low in condition. When we get over the Snowy, they’ll do better.’
‘Shall we have a regular camp to-night,’ asked Guy, ‘and watch the cattle?’
‘Of course,’ said Hubert; ‘no more yarding. It is the right thing after the first day from home.’
‘And how long will the watches be?’ asked Guy, with some interest. ‘If I sleep as soundly as I did last night, I shan’t be much good.’
‘Oh, you’ll soon come to your work. Boys always sleep sound at first, but you’ll be able to do your four hours without winking before we’ve been a week on the road.’
The ordinary cattle-droving life and times ensued from this stage forward. They passed by degrees through the wooded, hilly country which lies between Yass and Queanbeyan, all of which was so entirely denuded of grass as to be tolerably uninteresting.
By day the work was tedious and monotonous, as the hungry cattle were difficult to drive, and the scanty pasture rendered it necessary to take advantage of every possible excuse for saving them fatigue.
At night matters were more cheerful. After dark, when the cattle were hemmed in – they were tired enough to rest peacefully – Guy had many a pleasant talk by the glowing watch-fires. This entertainment came, after enjoying the evening meal, with a zest which only youth and open-air journeying combined can furnish.
As for Gerald O’More, he examined and praised and enjoyed everything. He liked the long, slow, apparently aimless day’s travel, the bivouac of the night, the humours of the drovers. He ‘foregathered’ with all kinds of queer people who visited the camp, and learned their histories. He felt much disappointed that there were no wild beasts except the native dog and native bear (koala), neither of which had sufficient confidence in themselves to assume the offensive.
The next week was one of sufficient activity to satisfy all the ardent spirits of the party. In the first place, the cattle had to be driven across the river, the which they resisted with great vehemence, never before having seen a stream of the same magnitude. However, by the aid of an unlimited quantity of whip-cracking, dogging, yelling, and shouting, the stronger division of the herd was forced and hustled into the deep, swift current. Here they bravely struck out for the opposite side, and in a swaying, serpentine line, followed by the weaker cattle, struggled with the current until they reached and safely ascended the farther bank.
