Rolf Boldrewood
In Bad Company and other stories
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: —
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.
