Rolf Boldrewood
In Bad Company and other stories
IN THE BLOOM OF THE YEAR
The first week of December! And seeing that we are in the realm of Australia, in the district of Riverina, where the season has been wet, which is 'dry country' English for triumphantly prosperous, also that vegetable growth is at its acme, we regard our title as fully justified.
All plant-life is now profusely, riotously luxuriant. A drenching winter, following a wet autumn, preceded a late, showery spring; thus, and because of which, the pastures and cornfields, the orchards and gardens, are rich with verdure and promise to a degree unknown since the proverbial year of 1870.
Some few sultry days have we had, but the true Australian summer has not, so far, appeared in its lurid, wasting splendour. Hardly a ripening tinge is yet visible on the wide-waving prairies, the bespangled meadows, the shaded forest lawns. Wild flowers of every shape and hue – blue and scarlet, pink and orange, white and yellow, perfumed or scentless – glorify the landscape.
As we drive along, this balmy, breezy, sun-bright day, through the champaign, which lies anear and around an inland country town, let us (if haply it may tend to dispel some small portion of the ignorance of our British friends as to the 'bush of Australia') put on record the 'scenes and sounds of a far clime' in this season of the year.
The wheat crops, standing strong and level for leagues around, as high, generally, as the rail fence which protects them, have not as yet been assailed; but the reaper and binder has made many a foray into the hayfields. Here we notice one of the results of machinery. In the majority of instances the oats, though green of hue, are in sheaves and stooks. The time-honoured spring romance of fragrant haycocks is hastening to its doom, inasmuch as the greater portion of the oat-crop saved is intended to be reduced into chaff, as being more portable or saleable in that form. It is obviously better economy, by using the reaper and string-binder, to have it arranged mechanically in sheaves and hand-placed in stooks. It is then more convenient for loading, stacking, and the final operation of the chaff-cutter. Most of these sheaves are six feet and over in height. Heavy-headed, too, withal. We were informed that four tons of chaff to the acre is not an uncommon yield this year. The lambs, which are running with their mothers in the great enclosures, wire-fenced and ring-barked as to timber, through which the high road passes, are wonderfully well-grown and healthy-looking. The percentage, averaging from eighty to ninety, is exceptionally high, when it is considered that the expense of tendance is nominal. From five to seven thousand ewes – even more sometimes – are running in each paddock, unwatched and untended till marking-time, thence to the shearing, which is also the weaning period. This year the shepherd-kings have a right royal time of it, though not more than sufficient to compensate them for the losses and crosses of the last decade. Apropos of this woolly people, here approaches an aged shepherd. He is mounted, so that he has received his cheque. Solvent and resolved, he is journeying to the town, on pleasure bent, of a rational nature let us hope. The flies of mid-day are troublesome, but he has a net-veil round his weather-beaten face; so has the steady veteran steed. The collie, following dutifully, is unprotected from flies, but accoutred with a wire muzzle – not, as the young lady from the city supposed, to prevent his biting the sheep, but lest he should swallow the innocent-seeming morsel of meat by the wayside, intended for vagrom canines, and containing the deadly crystals of strychnine. Certes, with plenteousness the land runs o'er, this gracious year of our Lord 1887. The cattle lounging about the roads – the roads, like the fields, knee-deep in thick green grass – with their shining coats and plump bodies, testify to the bounty of the season. The birds call and twitter. The skylark, faint reflex as he is of his English compeer, yet mounts skyward and sings his shorter lay rejoicingly. The wild-duck, gladsome and unharmed, swims in the meres which here and there divide the river meadows. The fat beeves in the paddock ruminate contemplatively, or recline around some patriarchal tree. All nature is joyous; the animated portion 'rich in spirits and health,' the vegetable contingent spreading forth and burgeoning in unchecked development. As we pass Bungāwannāh, one of the large estates, formerly squattages, which alternate with the farms and smaller pastoral holdings, a fallow doe with her fawn starts up from the long grass, gazing at us with startled but mildly-timid eye. They are outliers from a herd of nearly a hundred, which have increased from a few head placed there by a former proprietor.
In this our Centennial year it must be conceded that Australia is a land of varied products. We pass orchards where the apples are reddening fast, where apricots are turning pink, and the green fig slowly filling its luscious sphere. We note the vivid green of the many-acred vineyards, now in long rows, giving an air of formal regularity to the cultivated portion of the foreground. Then we descry the dark green and gold of an orangery, hard by the river-bank – in this year a most profitable possession to the proprietor.
Amid this abundance we miss one figure sufficiently familiar to the traveller in other lands, or the European resident, viz. 'the poor man.' He may be somewhere about, but we do not encounter him. He does not solicit alms, at any rate. His nearest counterpart is the swagman or pedestrian labourer. He is differentiated from the shearer and the 'rouseabout' (the shearing-shed casual labourer), who travel, the former invariably, the latter occasionally, on horseback. But the humble dependant upon the aristocratic squatter or prosperous farmer is a well-fed, fairly well-dressed personage, who affords himself an unlimited allowance of tobacco. Say that he elects to journey afoot in an equestrian country, he needs pity or charity from no man.
When one thinks of England, with its three hundred souls to the square mile, one cannot but be thankful, in spite of the ignorant, insolent diatribes of the Ben Tillett agitator class, for the condition of the labouring classes in this favoured country. They are at a premium, and will be for years to come, while tens of thousands of acres of arable land are awaiting the hands which shall clear and plant them. Meanwhile, a small annual rent is obtained for the State by means of purely pastoral possession – a form of occupation destined to be surely, if slowly, superseded by agriculture, when demanded by the needs of a more developed epoch and a denser population.
This particular district has for many years been settled after a fashion which permits of moderate-sized holdings. For a lengthened period, therefore, have the exotic trees and shrubs, which even the humblest farms boast, grown and flourished. The tall, columnar poplars, the wavy, tremulous aspens, the umbrageous elms, are large of girth, stately of height, and broad of shade. They are to be seen around the farm-house, or near the mansion which peeps out amid wood and meadow. Here a row of stately elms borders the roadside, affording a grateful shade to the weary wayfarer. The season has been exceptionally humid, as when
Low thunders bring the mellow rain
Which makes thee broad and deep.
Yet the oak is not so common. Slow of growth, he does not seem to assimilate himself to all soils, although in a few localities he may be observed doing no discredit to his British comrades. The lime, the Oriental plane, the ash, the willow, and the sycamore proclaim the generous nature of the soil and climate which they have reached, so far across the foam. Besides these are the noble Paulownia imperialis, majestic with gigantic leaves and purple-scented flowers; the catalpa and even the magnolia, beauteous and fragrant – a botanic miracle. The olive grows rapidly, forgetting oft in eagerness to add branch to branch to mature the fruit, which will one day furnish a valuable export.
All these with others in this last season are spreading their green pennants to the summer breeze – grateful in shade to the traveller wearied and adust; beautiful to the eye of the lover of all plant-life; 'things of beauty and of joy for ever,' even to those whose sense of harmonious landscape-arrangement is rudimentary and undeveloped.
We halt for an instant on the verdant level, hard by the little creek whose waters, this gracious year, run yet with musical monotone, to watch the drivers of these high-piled waggons, who are even now unloosing their teams. There are five waggons, which, with wheels of the adamantine iron-bark eucalyptus, are warranted to carry the heaviest loads procurable; and heavy loads they are. Forty bales of wool in each, or thereabouts. Sixty or seventy horses in the five teams, all 'grade' Clydesdales or Suffolks, and averaging in value from £25 to £35 each. The 200 bales of wool are worth, say at £20 each, £4000; £1500 for the team horses; £300 for the waggons. A not inconsiderable total of values. Stay! In haste we have forgotten the sixty sets of harness and the tarpaulins, – £5000 or £6000 in all. A large property to be in the hands of five young fellows hardly known to the proprietor of the freight. It is fortunate that there are no robber barons at this time of day to demand tribute, or land pirates and buccaneers, except those who collect the intercolonial protective duties.
The hare which runs across the road in front of us is an introduced, imported animal, like the deer we saw a while back. He is becoming numerous, but, unlike his cousin and comrade, 'Brer Rabbit,' has not been disastrously destructive. The settlers eat him at present. 'Brer Rabbit' in some districts has commenced to reverse the process.
Among the manifold natural beauties of the season we must by no means omit the hedgerows; in beauteous blossom these, and though, perhaps, chiefly too wild and luxuriant, yet affording pleasing contrast to the bare utilitarianism of rail and wire fence, and the monotony of the barked, murdered woods. Various are they, ranging from the dark green of the hawthorn, lovely with sweet souvenir bloom of long-past English springs, to the pink flower-masses of the quince, the crimson showers of the rose-hedges, and the yellow hair of the Acacia armata; while high, towering, thorny, impervious, with brightest glittering greenery, grows the Osage orange – a transatlantic importation, which in some respects is the most effective green wall known, being a species of live barbed wire, with an agreeable appearance of leafage, yet exuding a bitter juice, which prevents its mutilation by live stock. All these, interspersed occasionally with the sweetbriar, the scent and wild-rose flower of which almost atone for its predatory habits, its illegal occupation of Crown Lands. In one instance an economical or patriotic farmer had permitted the fast-growing eucalyptus saplings to interlace his 'drop' fence – an effective and not wholly unpicturesque road border.
From time to time amid the larger enclosures we came across a half-forlorn, half-picturesque patch 'where once a garden smiled.' A roofless cottage, a score of elms and poplars, with straggling rose-bushes abloom among the thistles, mark the abandoned homestead. In the 'distressful country' these would be the signs of an eviction. Here, when Michael or Patrick unhouses himself, he does so with a comfortable cheque in his pocket and the wherewithal to 'take up' a larger holding, perhaps six hundred and forty acres, or even in the central district, two thousand five hundred, by the payment in cash to the Crown – of how much does the reader unlearned in the New South Wales land laws believe? Two shillings per acre! The remaining balance of eighteen shillings per acre to be paid in twenty years, with interest at five per cent, or ninepence per acre annually! The neighbouring landholder has bought out honest Pat or Donald, or François or Wilhelm, as the case may be – several nationalities being here represented – giving him a handsome profit in cash for his labour and outlay. The fences are then pulled down, the roof falls in, the elms, the poplars, with a few peach-trees and roses, alone remain to tell the tale of the deserted homestead. As we pass one of these, a grand cloth-of-gold bush, six feet and more in height, hanging over a fence, tempts us with its fragrant clusters. We choose a lovely bud and an opening flower, with its curiously-blended shades of gold and faintest pink, and, much moralising, go our way.
In the good old days, when there was no salvation outside of vast pastoral holdings, when small freeholds were considered not only inexpedient but immoral, this was held to be a waterless region, unfit for the habitation of man, away from the river frontage. Now near every farm appears a dam or other successful method of conserving water. The homesteads, too, are well built, and substantial for the most part, standing in neatly-kept gardens and fruitful orchards. Milch kine graze in the fields or stroll about the grassy roadways, sleek-skinned, well-bred, and profitable-looking.
No indications save those of comfortable living and easy-going rural prosperity present themselves. Buggies or tax-carts with active horses, driven mostly by farmers' wives or daughters, trot briskly along the high-road to the town, going to or returning from their marketing. Occasionally a girl on horseback canters by, sometimes escorted, often without cavalier or attendant. The road-maintenance man jogs by in his covered cart, filling up ruts with metal here and there, or clearing a drain where the storm-water runs too impetuously. In all this savage land which I have described in detail, there are no lions or tigers, no bushrangers, no Indians. In fact, but for a few varieties of vegetation, one might fancy oneself back again in rural England.
FALLEN AMONG THIEVES
In the spring of 1867 I had occasion to travel from my station, Bundidgaree, near Narandera, on the Murrumbidgee River, to the historic town of Wagga Wagga, the residence of Mr. Arthur Orton, whose claim to the Tichborne title and estates was then agitating Britain and her Colonies. An elderly nurse returning to her home was to accompany me in an American buggy. The roads were good; the weather fine; the horse high in condition, exceptional as to pace and courage. Yet was the situation doubtful, even complicated. The road was risky, the head-station lonely and unprotected. A gang of bushrangers, under a leader popularly known as 'Blue-cap,' was at the time I mention within twenty or thirty miles of Narandera. There was a strong probability that I should encounter them, or that they would visit the station during my absence. Either hap was disagreeable, not to say dangerous. I left home with mingled feelings. But circumstances were obdurate. I had to go. The outlaws, five in number, were 'back-block natives,' all young men with the exception of a middle-aged personage known as 'The Doctor.' He was credited with having 'done time,' that is, served a sentence of imprisonment, which apparently had not led to reformation, as he was looked upon as the most dangerous member of the band. Not as yet committed to acts of bloodshed, they had exchanged shots with Mr. Waller of Kooba – a station below Narandera – who had surprised them while encamped upon his Run. He was a determined man and a well-known sportsman. The story was that he nearly shot 'Blue-cap,' that gentleman having slipped behind a stock-yard post, which received the breast-high bullet. The honours of war remained with the squatter, however, whose party forced the robbers to retreat across the river, leaving (like the Boers) horses, saddles, and swags behind. It was not known when I started whether they had gone up or down the river. Meanwhile, the pair of police troopers who protected the district of Narandera, a region about a hundred miles square, were 'in pursuit.'
The question of carrying arms had to be dealt with. I thought at first of a double-barrelled gun and revolver. But the idea of an effective defence against five well-mounted, well-armed men, the while embarrassed with a frightened woman and two spirited horses, did not seem feasible. I finally decided to trust to the probability of not meeting the evil-doers at all, and to go unarmed rather than to carry arms which I could not use effectively. The journey to Wagga, about fifty-five miles, was accomplished safely. Making an early start next day, about three-fourths of the return trip was over when I came opposite to Berrembed, the homestead of my neighbour Mr. Lupton. I was walking the horses over a curious formation of small mounds, provincially known as 'dead men's graves,' when I became aware of three horsemen coming along the road towards me.
My first thought was, 'Here they are-bushrangers!' my second, 'It cannot be the gang – these are too young; and I don't see the "Doctor."' The foremost rider, enveloped in a poncho, decided the question by throwing it back and presenting a revolver, at the same time calling out in what he meant to be a tone of intimidation, 'Bail up. Stop and get out. If yer move to get a pistol I'll blow yer brains out.' By the time he had come to the end of this unlawful demand, he had ridden close up, and held the revolver, into the barrel of which I could see, and also that it was on full cock, unpleasantly close to my head. He was a bush-bred cub, hardly of age, who had but little practice, evidently, in the highwayman line, for his hand trembled and his face was pale under the sun-bronzed skin.
Thus I felt (like Mickey Free's father) somewhat perturbed, as, if I tried to bolt, he might shoot me on purpose, and if I stayed where I was, he might shoot me by accident. Meanwhile, I secured the reins to the lamp iron, and got down in a leisurely manner. 'I have no arms,' I said, as I stood by the off-side horse – the celebrated Steamer; 'there's no hurry. I can't well run away.'
'Give up yer money,' he said gruffly.
'I haven't any.'
'That be hanged! A man like you don't travel without money.'
'I generally have some, but I paid a bill at Martin's (naming an inn a few miles nearer Wagga) and it cleaned me out.'
'Hand out them watches, then!'
He saw by the appearance of my waistcoat that I had more than one. I had brought back a watch belonging to a relative from Wagga, where it had been sent for repair. They were both gold watches of some value.
As he sat on his horse, I being on foot, he kept his bridle-reins and the levelled revolver in one hand, and reached down to me for the spoil. As he did so, I looked him in the eye, thinking that a strong, active man might have pulled him off his horse, grabbed the revolver, and shot one if not both of his comrades. I had no intention of trying the double event myself, but I know a man or two who would have chanced it with such a youthful depredator.
What I said was, 'You don't often get two gold watches from one man.'
'No. I know we don't. Turn out that portmanteau.'
'There's only a suit of clothes and my hair brushes. You don't want them.'
At this stage of the intercourse, old Steamer, an impatient though singularly good-tempered animal, moved on, as of one proclaiming, 'This foolery has lasted long enough.' I walked to his head and soothed him, upon which one of the subordinates said civilly, 'I'll hold your horse, Mr. Boldrewood.'
I looked at him with surprise, and saw for the first time that he was Mr. Lupton's stock-rider, and the other 'road agent' the son of that gentleman. The mystery was explained. They were pressed men. We were within sight of the home station. The rest of the gang were helping themselves to the proprietor's best horses in the stock-yard when they saw me coming along the road. So they had detailed this youth for my capture, and ordered the two others to go with him to 'make a show' in case of the traveller resisting.
However, the interview was nearly at an end. The first robber dismissed me with a brief 'You may go now.' I drove off slowly, not desiring to show haste, in case the capricious devil which abides in this particular breed might prompt him to call me back. He did so indeed, but it was only to say, 'Show us yer pipe. You might have a good 'un.' I exhibited an old briar-root, at which he waved his hand disdainfully, and going off at a gallop, made for the homestead with his attendants on either side, like the wicked Landgrave in Burger's ballad.
I drove in leisurely fashion until they were out of sight, when I let my horses out at their usual 'travelling' pace of twelve miles an hour, or a trifle over, and was not long before I 'reached my cattle-gate.'
While the 'momentous question' was in the stage of discussion I had been anxious and troubled – so to speak, afraid. Not for my personal safety. I did not think any bushranger in the district would slay me in cold blood. We were popular in our neighbourhood, for though I was the Chairman of the Narandera Bench when the Police Magistrate of Wagga, Mr. Baylis, was absent, and as such officially a terror to evil-doers, my wife had endeared herself to our humbler neighbours by acts of charity and womanly sympathy in cases of sickness or other sore need. But what I was afraid of, tremulously indeed, was lest the outlaws should 'commandeer' one or both of my horses. Eumeralla, a fine upstanding grey, bred at Squattlesea Mere, good in saddle and harness, and carried a lady, was most valuable, while Steamer, who died after twenty years of priceless service, was simply invaluable. I was only saved from this disastrous loss by the fact that Mr. Lupton's stock-yard (he was absent from home – perhaps fortunately) was full of good station hacks, and as his stud was of high reputation in the district, his loss on that occasion proved my salvation. What had happened at Berrembed was simply this. The bushrangers, with Mr. 'Blue-cap' in command, arrived in the early afternoon unexpectedly. There were few men about the place. The overseer and Mr. Lupton were away. Mrs. Lupton, the governess and the children, with the eldest son, a boy of sixteen, and the stock-rider, were at home. The master of the house had firmly expressed his intention to defend his home, and to that end had sent to Melbourne for a magazine-rifle, capable (it was said) of discharging sixteen cartridges in quick-firing time. The gang, hearing of this preparation, had sworn to pay him out for it at an early visit. In his absence they behaved well, assuring the lady of the house that 'she need not be apprehensive; they only wanted horses and the new repeating-rifle,' which last they demanded at once. She was not frightened – a native-born Australian, come of a Border family, she was not timorous, and had presence of mind enough to deny knowledge of the rifle. The leader was better informed. 'That won't do, Mrs. Lupton. Master Johnnie shot a bullock with it last Saturday. Better give it up. These chaps might turn rusty. They're quiet enough now.' The lady yielded to force majeure. The governess was sent to bring the rifle from the shower-bath, where it had been placed, and the bushrangers rode off. One of the men, after roaming through the house, appeared with the baby in his arms, which he had taken from the nurse, alleging that 'it reminded him of his happy home.' This was intended as a joke, and no harm came to the infant, who did not seem to object to a change of nurses. No pillage took place other than that of the rifle and a remount all round. Besides losing their horses and saddles at Kooba, and being reduced to an infantry force, having to cross the river ignominiously upon a sheep-wash temporary bridge, they had another mischance. They called at Brookong Station on Mr. Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh. Here they treated themselves to grog, in which they vainly tried to make Mr. Fetherstonhaugh join them, and finally went off across country. Near the Urangeline Creek they were startled by the galloping of a body of horsemen in pursuit (as they thought), and racing desperately away, rode into the Urangeline, then in half flood. The others got out, but the 'Doctor,' parting company with his horse, was unfortunately drowned, thus cheating the hangman, and not improbably preventing the commission of bloodshed, into which his evil influence might have led his less-hardened comrades. They were next heard of near Narandera, as to which my wife had a sensational visit from a person in the confidence of the police.
On the morning of my departure she was told by the maidservant that a man outside wished to speak to her. He would not come in, or dismount from his horse. Rather surprised, but being, like our neighbour Mrs. Lupton, Australian born, and not afraid of men or horses or anything in a general way, she walked up to the horseman, who sat in his saddle in the middle of the courtyard, formed by a dining-room and kitchen on one side and store on the other. He was not anxious to be overheard, as he leaned forward and in an agitated voice said that he had been sent by the Senior Constable of Police at Narandera to inform her that the bushrangers had recrossed the river, and might be expected to visit the station on that or the following day. If there were arms in the house she was advised to conceal them for fear of irritating the bushrangers; that the police could not come themselves, as they were following up the tracks in another direction.
This was not cheering news. But action was taken promptly. The armoury consisted of a two-grooved rifle, carrying a bullet of such size that, unlike the 'Mauser,' there was no fear of its penetrating a vital organ without causing instant death. I used to make good practice from an upper chamber at any mark within a hundred and twenty or thirty yards' distance. There was also an effective double-barrel, with a couple of revolvers. A young relative of the family lived with us and helped with the management. We could have made a decent defence probably after warning given. But in nineteen out of twenty cases no warning is given, or, as in this case, too late to be of service.
It so happened that a wool-bale had been suspended in an outer room, into which broken fleece, pieces picked up on the Run, was placed from time to time. Under the wool, therefore, the guns were hidden for the present.
When I returned from Wagga after my adventure I was naturally anxious to hear if the bushrangers had called in my absence. My first words to the châtelaine were, 'Have you seen the bushrangers?'
Answer – 'No. Have you?'
'Well – ahem – I – have!'
Then the story was told in full.
This band, compared with the career and exploits of other gentlemen of the road, hardly rose above the amateur level. They were taken by a sergeant of police and his troopers on the Lachlan. He came unexpectedly one morning, and marching towards them with a determined air, called upon them in the Queen's name to surrender. 'Blue-cap' levelled his rifle. 'What!' roared the sergeant in a voice of thunder. He had known of him when he was a stock-rider, indifferently honest. 'You d – d scoundrel! Would you shoot me?'
Whether the idea of the awful crime in the provincial mind, implied in resisting much less attempting the life of such a magnate, overbore the remains of his courage (they were pretty sick of the outlaw business), or that he shrank from deliberate murder, cannot be told; at any rate, they were disarmed, handcuffed, and conducted to the nearest lock-up – magazine-rifle and all. Brought in due course before a bench of magistrates, they were committed to take their trial at the next ensuing Court of Assize, to be holden at Wagga Wagga.
I had occasion to visit the 'Place of Crows' (aboriginal name of Wagga Wagga) some weeks after. The Assizes were coming on, and armed with the police magistrate's order, I interviewed the captives.
When the cell door was opened, and my friend of the poncho and revolver stood revealed, 'quanto mutatus ab illo Hectore!' – 'the plume, the helm, the charger gone' – we looked on each other with very different expressions.
'Well, young man,' said I with careless raillery.
He grinned, as who should say 'Met afore.'
'Better have stuck to the mail-driving,' I continued.
'It's too late to think of that now,' he made answer; 'but I wish I'd broken my leg the day I started this bloomin' racket. It was all through the "Doctor" as they called him. He led us chaps into it, simple, with those yarns of his. Anyway, he's dead and gone now. Serve him dashed well right – and me too for being a fool! I was earning good money, and had no call to turn out. And this is what it's done for me. What d'yer think we're goin' to get? They won't hang us?'
'No,' said I; 'you'll get a dozen years' gaol. Luckily you didn't kill any one, so the chief can let you off light. If you behave yourselves you'll be all out again before the end of your sentence.'
'I'll behave all right – no fear!' he replied. 'I'm full up of this "cross" work.'
With the leader, 'Captain Blue-cap,' I had a more lengthened interview. Not a bad-looking young fellow, of the stock-rider type, it seemed inexplicable that he should have preferred the life of a hunted outlaw to that of the well-paid, well-fed, easy-going life of a stock-rider. A gentleman's life, so to speak: independent, with change and variety in fair proportion, three or four good horses always at command, and receiving an amount of consideration far above that of any other employé under the rank of overseer; to whose orders, if the proprietor of the station was resident, he did not always hold himself bound to attend. And now – here he was, a fettered captive in the dungeon of the period, awaiting trial, certain of ten years' penal servitude, and not without fear of five years additional, before he walked out a free man again.
