Rolf Boldrewood
Babes in the Bush
Mr. Crackemup was a man of delicate ideas, so he euphemised the maternal probabilities.
‘Any one buying this choice lot, with butter at a shilling, and cheese not to be bought, buys a fortune. I will sell a “run out” of twenty head, with the option of taking the lot. “Fifteen shillings a head” – nonsense; one pound, twenty-two and six, twenty-five-thank you, miss; thirty shillings, thirty-five, thirty-seven and six-thank you, sir. One pound seventeen and sixpence, once; one pound seventeen and sixpence, twice; for the third and last time, one pound seventeen shillings and sixpence. Gone! What name shall I say, sir? “Howard Effingham, Warbrok Chase.” Twenty head. Thank you, sir.’
At this critical moment the voice of Dick Evans was heard by Wilfred, in close proximity to his ear: ‘Collar the lot, sir; they’re dirt cheap; soon be in full milk. Don’t let ’em go.’
‘I believe,’ said Wilfred, raising his voice, ‘that I have the option of taking the whole.’
‘Quite correct, sir; but if I might advise – ’
‘I take the lot,’ said Wilfred decisively.
And though there was a murmur from the crowd, and one stalwart dame said, ‘That’s not fair, thin; I med sure I’d get a pen of springers myself,’ the auctioneer confirmed his right, and the dairy lot became his property.
It turned out, as is often the case, that the first offered stock were the most moderate in price. Many of the buyers had been holding back, thinking they would go in lots of twenty, and that better bargains might be obtained. When they found that the stranger had carried off all the best dairy cows, their disappointment was great.
‘Serves you right, boys,’ was heard in the big voice of the proprietor; ‘if you had bid up like men, instead of keeping dark, you’d have choked the cove off taking the lot. Serves you all dashed well right.’
The remaining lots of cattle consisted of weaners, two and three-year-old steers and heifers. Of fat cattle the herd had been pretty well ‘scraped,’ as Donnelly called it, before the sale. For most of these the bidding was so brisk and spirited that Wilfred thought himself lucky in securing forty steers at twenty-five shillings, which completed his drove, and were placed in the yard with the cows.
Then came the horses; nearly a hundred all told – mares, colts, fillies, yearlings, with aged or other riding-horses. These last Donnelly excused himself for selling by the statement that if he took them to Monaro half of them would be lost trying to get back to where they had been bred, and that between stock-riders and cattle-stealers his chance of regaining them would be small.
‘There they are,’ he said; ‘there’s some as good blood among them as ever was inside a horse-skin. They’re there to be sold.’
The spirit of speculation was now aroused in Wilfred, or he would not have bought, as he did, half-a-dozen of the best mares, picking them by make and shape, and a general look of breeding. They were middle-sized animals, more like Arabs than the offspring of English thoroughbreds, but with a look of caste and quality, their legs and feet being faultless, their heads good, and shoulders fair. They fell to a bid of less than ten pounds each, and with foals at foot, Wilfred thought they could not be dear.
‘Them’s the old Gratis lot,’ said Mr. Donnelly. ‘I bought ’em from Mr. Busfield when they was fillies. You haven’t made a bad pick for a new hand, sir. I wish you luck with ’em.’
‘I hope so,’ said Wilfred. ‘If you breed horses at all, they may as well be good ones.’ As he turned away he caught the query from a bystander —
‘Why, you ain’t going to sell old Barragon?’
‘Yes, I am,’ said Mick, who was evidently not a man of sentiment; ‘all fences in the country wouldn’t keep him away from these parts. He’s in mostly runs near the lake, and eats more of that gentleman’s grass than mine. He don’t owe me nothin’.’
‘You buy that horse, sir,’ said Dick, who was acting the part of a moral Mephistopheles. ‘He’s as old as Mick, very near, and as great a dodger after cattle. But you can’t throw him down, and the beast don’t live that can get away from him on a camp.’
Wilfred turned and beheld a very old, grey horse cornered off, and standing with his ears laid back, listening apparently to Mr. Crackemup’s commendations.
‘Here you have, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Donnelly’s favourite riding-horse Barragon, an animal, he informs me, that has done some of the most wonderful feats ever credited to a horse in any country – some exploits, indeed, which he scarcely likes to tell of. [‘I’ll be bound he don’t,’ drawled out a long, brown-faced bystander.] You have heard the reasons assigned for disposing of him here, rather than, as of course he would prefer to do, still keeping him attached to the fortunes of the family. His instinct is so strong, his intelligence so great, ladies and gentlemen, that he would unerringly find his way back from the farthest point of the Monaro district. What shall I say for him?’
‘May as well have him, sir,’ said his counsellor. ‘He’ll go cheap. He’ll always stick to the lake; and if any one else gets him, they’ll be wanting us to run him in, half the time.’
Wilfred looked at the horse. The type was one to which he had not been accustomed – neither a roadster, a hunter, a hackney, nor a harness horse – he was sui generis, the true Australian stock-horse, now rarely seen, and seldom up to the feats and performances of which grizzled veterans of the stock-whip love to tell.
No one with an eye for a horse could look at the war-worn screw without interest. A long, low horse, partaking more of the Arab type than the English, he possessed the shapes which make for endurance, and more than ordinary speed. The head was lean and well shaped, with a well-opened, still bright eye. The neck was arched, though not long; but the shoulder, to a lover of horses, was truly magnificent. Muscular, fairly high in the wither, and remarkably oblique, it permitted the freest action possible, while the rider who sat behind such a formation might enjoy a feeling of security far beyond the average. Battered and worn, no doubt, were the necessary supports, by cruelly protracted performances of headlong speed and wayfaring. Yet the flat cannon-bones, the iron hoofs, the tough tendons, had withstood the woeful hardships to which they had been subjected, with less damage than might have been expected. The knees slightly bent forward, the strained ligaments, showed partial unsoundness, yet was there no tangible ‘break down.’ What must such a horse have been in his colthood – in his prime?
A sudden feeling of pity arose in Wilfred’s heart as he ran his eye critically over the scarred veteran. At a small price he would, no doubt, be a good investment, old as he was. He would be reasonably useful; and as a matter of charity one might do worse alms before Heaven than save one of the most gallant of God’s creatures from closing his existence in toil and suffering. Mick’s neighbours not being more sentimental than himself, Wilfred found himself the purchaser of the historical courser at a price considerably under five pounds.
‘By George! I’m glad you’ve got him, mister,’ said Mr. Donnelly, with vicarious generosity. ‘I’m not rich enough to pension him, and the money he’s fetched, put into a cow, will be something handsome in ten years. But he’s a long ways from broke down yet; and you’ll have your money’s worth out of him, with luck, before he kicks the bucket. You’d better ride him home, and I’ll send my boy Jack with you as far as Benmohr. He’ll lead Bob Jones’s moke, that you rode here, and leave him in Argyll and Hamilton’s paddock till he’s sent for. You’d as well get off with your mob, if you want to get to Benmohr before dark.’
Wilfred recognised the soundness of this advice, and in a few minutes afterwards found himself upon Barragon. While Dick Evans promptly let out the cattle, Jack Donnelly, a brown-faced young centaur, riding a half-broken colt, and leading his late mount, commanded two eager cattle dogs to ‘fetch ’em up.’ The drove went off at a smart pace, and in five minutes they were out of sight of the yard, the farm, and the crowd, jogging freely along a well-marked track, which Dick stated to be the road to Benmohr.
This cheerful pace was, however, not kept up. The steers at the ‘head’ of the drove were inclined to go even too fast. It was necessary to restrain their ardour. The cows and calves became slow, obstinate, and disposed to spread, needing all the shouting of Dick and young Donnelly, as well as the personal violence of the latter’s dogs, to keep them going. Wilfred rejoiced that he had obeyed the impulse to possess himself of old Barragon, when he found with what ease and comfort he was carried by the trained stock-horse in these embarrassing circumstances. Finally the weather changed, and it commenced to rain in the face of the cortège. Dick once or twice alluded to the uncertainty which would exist as to their getting all the cattle again if anything occurred to cause their loss this night. Lastly, just as matters began to look dark, Wilfred descried Benmohr.
The ‘semi-detached’ cottage which did duty as a spare bedroom had an earthen floor, and was not an ornate apartment; still, a blazing fire gave it an air of comfort after the chill evening air. Needful toilet requisites were provided, and the manifest cleanliness of the bed and belongings guaranteed a sound night’s rest.
Upon entering the cottage, along a raised stone causeway, pointed out by Mr. Hamilton, Wilfred found his former acquaintance Mr. Argyll, and Mr. Churbett, with a neighbour, who was introduced as Mr. Forbes. The table was already laid, and furnished with exceeding neatness for the evening meal. A glowing fire burned in the ample stone chimney, and as the three gentlemen rose to greet him, Wilfred thought he had never seen a more successful union of plainness of living, with the fullest measure of comfort.
‘You have made the port just in time,’ remarked Argyll; ‘the rain is coming down heavily, and the night is as black as a wolf’s throat. You seem to have bought largely at Donnelly’s sale.’
‘All the dairy cows and heifers, and a few steers for fattening,’ answered Wilfred. ‘I suppose we might have had some trouble in collecting them if they had got away from us to-night.’
‘So much that you might have never seen half of them again,’ said Mr. Churbett promptly. ‘You would have been hunting for them for weeks, and picked them up “in twos and threes and mobs of one,” as I did my Tumut store cattle, that broke away the first night I got them home.’
Wilfred felt in a condition to do ample justice to the roast chicken and home-cured ham, and even essayed a shaving of the goodly round of beef, which graced one end of the table. After concluding with coffee, glorified with delicious cream, Wilfred, as they formed a circle round the fire, came to the conclusion, either that it was the best dinner he had eaten in the whole course of his life, or else that he had never been quite so hungry before.
In despite of Mrs. Teviot’s admonitions, none of the party sought their couches much before midnight. There was a rubber of whist – perhaps two. There was much general conversation afterwards, including literary discussion. One of the features of the apartment was a well-filled bookcase. Finally, when Mr. Hamilton escorted Wilfred to his chamber, he said, ‘You needn’t bother about getting up early to-morrow. Trust old Dick to have the cattle away at sunrise; he and the boy can drive them easily now, till you overtake them. We breakfast about nine o’clock, and Fred Churbett will keep you company in lying up.’
The night was murky and drizzling; the morning would probably resemble it. Wilfred was tired. He knew that Dick would be up and away with the dawn. He himself wished to consult his new friends about points of practice germane to his present position. On the whole he thought he could safely take Mr. Hamilton’s advice.
His slumbers that night, in bed-linen fragrant as Ailie Dinmont’s, were deep and dreamless. Surely it could not have been morning, it was so dark, and still raining, when he heard knocking at a window, and a voice thrice repeat the words, ‘Maister Hamilton, are ye awauk?’ but the words melted away – a luxurious drowsiness overpowered his senses. The rain’s measured fall and tinkling plash changed into the mill-wheel dash of his childhood’s wonder in Surrey. When he awoke, the sky was dark, but there was the indefinable sensation that it was not very early. So he dressed, and beholding a large old pair of ‘clodhoppers’ standing temptingly near, he bestowed himself in them and cautiously made towards the milking-yard. He looked across to the enclosure where his cattle had been during the previous night. It was a smooth and apparently deep sea of liquid mud, so sincerely churned had it been during the wet night. He felt grieved for the discomfort of the poor cattle, but relieved to know that they had been hours before on the grass, and were well on their way to Warbrok Chase.
At the milking-yard he saw a sight which had never before met his eyes. The morning’s work had apparently been just completed. Argyll was walking towards the dairy, a pisé building with thick, earthen walls. He carried two immense cans full to the brim with milk. Hamilton was wading through the yard behind about sixty cows and calves, which were stolidly ploughing through a lake of liquid mud. As they quitted the rough stone causeway, they appeared to drop with reluctance into a species of slough. An elderly Scot, approaching the type of Andrew Cargill, was labouring, nearly knee-deep, solemnly after. He and Mr. Hamilton were splashed from head to foot; it would have been a delicate task to recognise either. The latter, coming to a pool of water, deliberately walked in, thus purifying both boot and lower leg.
‘Muddy work, this milking in wet weather,’ said he calmly, scraping a piece of caked mud about the size of a cheese-plate from the breast of his serge shirt. ‘It would need to pay well, for it is exceedingly disagreeable.’
‘Very much so, indeed, I should think,’ assented Wilfred, rather shocked. ‘I had no idea that dairy work on a large scale could be so unpleasant.’
‘Ours is perhaps more mud-larking than most people’s,’ said Mr. Hamilton reflectively, ‘chiefly from the richness of the soil, so we endure it. But you must look into the cheese-room – the bright side of the affair financially.’
Wilfred was much impressed with the dairy, a substantial, thatched edifice, having a verandah on four sides. The pisé walls – nearly two feet thick – were of earth, rammed in a wooden frame after a certain formula.
‘Here is the best building on the station,’ said his guide. ‘We reared this noble pile ourselves, in the days of our colonial inexperience, entirely by the directions contained in a book, with the aid of old Wullie and our emigrant labourers. After we became more “Australian” and “less nice” we took to slabs. It was quicker work, but our architecture suffered.’
In one portion of this building were rows of milk-vessels, while ranged on shelves one above another, and occupying three sides of the building, were hundreds of fair, round, orthodox-looking cheeses, varying in colour from pale yellow to orange. They presented an appearance more akin to a midland county farm than an Australian cattle-station.
‘There, you see the compensation for early rising, wet feet, and mud-plastering. We have a ready sale for twice as many cheeses as Mrs. Teviot can turn out, at a very paying price. Her double Stiltons are famed for their richness and maturity. We pay a large part of the station expenses in this way; besides, what is of more importance, improving the cattle, by keeping the herd quiet and promoting their aptitude to fatten.’
‘You have no sheep, I think?’ inquired Wilfred.
‘No; but we breed horses on rather a large scale. I must show you my pet, Camerton, by and by. Now I must dress for breakfast, for which I daresay you are quite ready.’
After a reasonable interval the partners appeared neatly attired, though still in garments adapted for station work. It was an exceedingly cheerful meal, the proverbial Scottish breakfast, admitted to be unsurpassable – devilled chicken and grilled bones, alternated with the incomparable round of beef, which had excited Wilfred’s admiration on the preceding day. Piles of boiled eggs, and such a jug of cream! fresh butter, short-cake, and the unfailing oatmeal porridge completed the fare, to which Wilfred, after his observations and inquiries, felt himself fully qualified to do justice.
‘Well, Charles,’ said Mr. Churbett, desisting from a sustained attack upon the toast and eggs, ‘how do you feel after your day’s work? What an awful number of hours you have been up and doing! That’s what makes you so frightfully arrogant. It’s the comparison of yourself with ordinary mortals like me, for instance, who lie in bed.’
‘You certainly do take it easy, Master Fred,’ returned Hamilton, ‘to an extent I cannot hope to imitate. Every man to his taste, you know. You have a well-grassed, well-watered, open country at The She-oaks; once get your cattle there and they are no trouble to look after. Nature has done so much that I am afraid – as in South America – man does very little.’
‘Shows his sense,’ asserted Mr. Churbett calmly. ‘Don’t you be imposed upon, Effingham, by these people here; they have a mania for bodily labour, and all sorts of unsuitable employment. I didn’t come out to Australia to be a navvy or a ploughman; I could have found similar situations at home. I go in for the true pastoral life – an Arab steed, a tent, cool claret, and a calm supervision of other men’s labours.’
‘Did the Sheik Ibrahim drink claret, or go to the theatre, leaving his flocks and herds to the Bedaween?’ said Mr. Forbes. ‘Some people appear to be able to combine the pleasures of all religions with the duties of none.’
‘Smart antithesis, James,’ said Churbett approvingly. ‘I’ll take another cup of tea, please, to keep. I’m going to read Sydney Smith in the verandah after breakfast. Yes, I am proud of that theatre exploit. Few people would have nerve for it.’
‘You would have needed all your nerve if you had found a hundred and fifty fat cattle scattered and gone next morning,’ said Mr. Forbes, a quietly sarcastic personage.
‘But they were not gone, my dear fellow; what’s the use of absurd suppositions? We got back before daylight. Not a beast had left the camp. Now there are a great many people who would never have thought of doing that.’
‘I should say not,’ said Hamilton. ‘Fred, your natural advantages will be the death of you yet. Come with me, Effingham, if you want to see the dam and the old horse. They are our show exhibits, and we are rather proud of them.’
Walking through the garden to the lower end of the slope upon which the homestead of Benmohr was built, Wilfred saw that the course of the creek, dignified with the name of a river, had been arrested by a wide and solid embankment, half-way up the broad breast of which a sheet of deep, clear water came, while for a greater distance than the eye could reach along its winding course was a far-stretching reservoir, lake-like, reed-bordered, and half-covered with wild-fowl.
‘Here you see our greatest difficulty, Effingham, and our greatest triumph. When we took up this run a shallow stream ran in winter and spring, but in summer it was invariably dry. This exposed us to expense, even loss. So we resolved to construct a dam. We did so, at some cost in hired labour; a spring flood washed it away. Next year we tried again, and the same result followed. Then the neighbours pitied and “I told you so’d” us to such an extent that we felt that dam must be made and rendered permanent. We had six months’ work at it last summer; during most of the time I did navvy work, wheeling my barrow up and down a plank like the others. It was a stiff job. I invented additions, and faced it with stone. That fine sheet of water is the result of it; I believe it will stand now till the millennium, or the alteration of the land laws.’
‘I quite envy you,’ said Wilfred. ‘A conflict with natural forces is always exciting. I am quite of your opinion; the great advantage of this Australian life is that a man enjoys the permission of society to work with his hands as well as his head.’
Leaving the water for an isolated wooden building in the neighbourhood of the offices, Mr. Hamilton opened the upper half of a stable-door and discovered to view a noble, dark chestnut thoroughbred in magnificent condition.
‘Here is one of my daily tasks,’ said he, removing the gallant animal’s sheet and patting his neck. ‘In this case it is a labour of love, as I am passionately fond of horses, and have a theory of my own about breeding which I am trying to carry out. Isn’t he a beauty?’
Wilfred, looking at the satin skin of the grand animal before him, thought he had rarely seen his equal.
‘You observe,’ said Hamilton, ‘in this sire, if I mistake not, characteristics not often seen in English studs. Camerton combines the perfect symmetry, the beauty and matchless constitution of the desert Arab with the size and bone of the English thoroughbred.’
‘He does give me that idea, precisely,’ said Wilfred. ‘Wonderful make and shape. His back rib has the cask-like roundness of the true Arab; and what legs and feet! Looking at him you see an enlarged Arab.’
‘His grand-dam was a daughter of The Sheik, an Arab of the purest Seglawee strain of the Nejed, imported from India many years ago by a cavalry officer, whose charger he was. He has besides the Whisker, Gratis, and Emigrant blood. In him we have at once the horse of the new and of the old world – the size and strength of the Camerton type, the symmetry of the Arab, and such legs and feet as might have served Abdjar, the steed of Antar.’
When they re-entered the cottage they saw Mr. Churbett, who had intended to go home that morning, but finding the witty Canon such pleasant reading, thought he would start in the afternoon, finally making up his mind to stay another day and leave punctually after breakfast. There was nothing to do – he observed – and no one to talk to, when he did get home, so there was the less reason for haste.
‘You had better stay, Fred, and go with me to Yass,’ suggested Argyll. ‘I am going there next week, and I daresay you have some business there.’
‘I believe I have; indeed, I know that I have been putting off something old Billy Rockley blew me up about last month, and I’ll go in with you and get it over. But I won’t stay now. I’ll go to-morrow, or my stock-rider will think I’m lost and take to embezzling my bullocks, instead of stealing my neighbour’s calves, which is his duty to do. One must keep up discipline.’
After lunch Wilfred mounted his ancient charger and departed along the track to Warbrok, Mr. Churbett volunteering to show him the way past divers snares for the unwary, yclept ‘turn-off’ roads.
‘These two fellows,’ said he, ‘have no end of what they call duties to perform before nightfall, and can’t be spared of course; but I can spare myself easily, and give Duellist exercise besides.’
Presently Mr. Churbett, who was a very neat figure, having assumed breeches and boots, appeared mounted upon a magnificent bay horse, the finest hackney, in appearance, which Wilfred had yet seen. A bright bay with black points, showing no white but a star in the centre of his broad forehead; he stood at least fifteen hands three inches in height, with all the appearance of high caste and courage. As they started he showed signs of impatience, and then, arching his neck, set off at a remarkably fast walk, which caused Barragon’s stock-horse jog to appear slow and ungraceful.
‘What a glorious hackney!’ said Wilfred, half enviously. ‘Did you breed him?’
‘No, don’t breed horses; too much expense and bother. Fools breed – that is, enthusiasts – and wise men buy. He’s a Wanderer, bred by Rowan of Pechelbah. Got him rather cheap about six months ago; gave five-and-twenty pounds for him. The man that did breed him, of course, couldn’t afford to ride him; thought he had others as good at home, which I take leave to doubt.’
‘I should think so! What a price for a horse of his figure – five years old, you say, and clean thoroughbred. A gift! Is he fast?’
‘Pretty well. I shall run him for the Maiden Plate at Yass Races. And now, do you see that turn-off road? Well, don’t turn off; by and by you will come to another; follow it, and you will have no further chance of losing your way. I’ll say good-afternoon.’
His amusing friend turned, and as Duellist’s hoofs died away in the distance, Wilfred took the old horse by the head and sent him along at a hand-gallop, only halting occasionally until, just as the dusk was impending, the far-gleaming waters of the lake came into view. Dick had arrived hours before, and had all his charge secured in the now creditable stock-yard. The absentee was welcomed with enthusiasm by the whole family, who appeared to think he had been away for months, to judge by the warmth of their greetings.
