In Bad Company and other stories

Besides the salt-bush country, plains chiefly, and a large dry lake, there was an important section of the run known as 'The Reed-beds,' which I was anxious to visit. This tract lay between Lake Boga, a large fresh-water lake on one side, the Murrabit, an anabranch, and the south bank of the Murray. In order to ride over this it was arranged that we should camp at the hut of a shepherd, known as 'Towney,' on Pental Island, thence explore the reed-beds and see the remaining sheep on the morrow.

Pental Island, formed by the Murrabit, a deep wide stream, which leaves the main river channel and re-enters lower down, we found to be a long, narrow strip of land, having sound salt-bush ridges in the centre, with reed-beds on either side. Crossing by a rude but sufficient bridge, we discovered Mr. 'Towney' living an Alexander Selkirk sort of life, monarch of all he surveyed, and with full charge of some ten or twelve thousand sheep turned loose. The bridge being closed with hurdles, they could not get away. His only duty was to see that no enterprising dingo swam over from Murray Downs on the opposite side and ravaged the flock.

The night was cloudless and starlit, lovely in all aspects, as are chiefly those of the Riverina – an absolutely perfect winter climate. The strange surroundings, the calm river, the untroubled hush of the scene, the chops, damper, and tea, all freshly prepared by Towney, were enjoyable enough. After a talk by the fire, for the night air was cool, and a smoke, we lay down on rugs and blankets and slept till dawn. Our entertainer was dejected because he had not a Murray cod to offer us. 'If we had only come last week.' 'Tis ever thus.

That day's ride showed me the reed-beds in the light of sound, green, quickly-fattening pastures. At one angle of the Murrabit, on my run – for my run, indeed, it was destined to be – there were two flocks of sheep, five thousand in all, of which the shepherds and hut-keeper inhabited the same hut. It was managed thus. One flock was camped on the northern side of the bridge, one on the other. The hut-keeper, long disestablished, but then considered an indispensable functionary, cooked for both shepherds. £30 a year with rations was the wage for the shepherds; £25 for the hut-keeper.

Then there was a frontage of, perhaps, a mile and a half to the southern end of Lake Boga. This noble fresh-water lake, having shelving, sandy shores, is filled by the rising of the Murray. On the bluff, to the right of the road to Swan Hill, was a curious non-Australian cottage, built by Moravian missionaries, and situated upon a reserve granted to them by the Government of Victoria. These worthy personages, becoming discouraged at the slow conversion of the heathen, or deeming the locale unsuitable, sold their right and interest to Messrs. Ebden and Keene. I decided to place the head station close by, and there, I suppose, it is at the present day.

A picturesque spot enough. Northward the eye ranged over the broad, clear waters of the lake, now calm in the bright sunshine, now lashed into quite respectable waves by a gale. Eastward, over a wide expanse of reed-bed, dead level and brightly green, you traced the winding course of the great river by the huge eucalypti which lined its banks. Around was the unending plain, on which the salt-bushes grew to an unusual size, while across the main road to Melbourne, fenced off by the horse-paddock of the future, was a cape of pine-scrub, affording pleasing contrast to the wide, bare landscape.

We returned to Reedy Lake that evening, and before I slept was the contract signed, accepting price and terms; signed in high hope, and apparently with a fair prospect of doubling the capital invested, as had done many another. Had I but known that this particular indenture, freely translated, should have run thus: —

'I hereby bind myself to take the Murrabit Run and stock at the price agreed, and to lose in consequence every farthing I have ever made, within five years from this date.

'(Signed) R. Boldrewood.'

Why can't one perceive such results and consequences now and then? Why are so many of the important contracts and irrevocable promises of life entered into during one's most sanguine, least reflective period? Will these questions ever be answered, and where? Still, were the veil lifted, what dread apparitions might we not behold! 'Tis more mercifully arranged, be sure.

Thus we entered with a light heart into this Sedan business, much undervaluing our Prussians. After visiting Melbourne, it was arranged that delivery of stock and station should be taken within a specified time.

I didn't know much about sheep then; what a grim jest it reads like now! I had leisure for reflection on the subject in the aftertime. I judged it well to leave the apportioning of the flocks to my host and entertainer. He did far better for me than I could have done myself. I had every reason to be satisfied with the quality of the sixteen thousand instruments of my ruin. There was a noble flock of fat wethers, three thousand strong; for the rest, 'dry' ewes, breeders, weaners, two-tooths, were all good of their sort. After engaging one of the overseers, a shrewd, practical personage, I considered the establishment of my reputation as a successful wool-grower to be merely a question of time.

The Fiend is believed to back gamblers at an early stage of their career. It looked as if His Eminence gave my dice a good shake pour commencer. The first sale was brilliant: the whole cast of fat sheep to one buyer (at the rate of £1 each for wethers, and 15s. for ewes) – over six thousand in all. They were drafted, paid for, and on their way to Melbourne in the afternoon of the day on which the buyer arrived. The lambing was good; the wool sold at a paying price, considering the primitive style of washing. Next year, of course, all this would be altered. Meanwhile I surveyed the imprint 'R.B.' over Murrabit on the wool-bales with great satisfaction.

'But surely,' says the practical reader, 'things were going well; season, prices, increase satisfactory. How did the fellow manage to make a mull of it?' There were reasons. The cost of a run bought 'bare' is unavoidably great. Huts, yards, woolshed, homestead, paddock, brushyards, lambers, washers, shearers, all cost money – are necessary, but expensive. The cheque stream was always flowing with a steady current, it seemed to me. Fat stock, too, the great source of profit in that district, gradually declined in price. Interest and commission, which amounted to 12½ per cent or more, in one way and another, gradually told up. In 1861 an unprecedented fall took place in cattle, such as had not been felt 'since the gold.' Beeves fell to the price of stores. Buyers could not meet their engagements. The purchaser of my cattle-station in Western Victoria was among these. He was compelled to return it upon my hands after losing his cash deposit. Thus seriously hampered, the finale was that I 'came out' without either station or a shilling in the world. What was worse, having caused others to suffer through my indebtedness.

The Murrabit was then sold, well improved, though not fenced, with twenty thousand good sheep on it, at £1: 5s. per head – £25,000 – nearly the same price at which I had purchased; but with four thousand more sheep, and costly improvements added, including a woolshed which had cost £500. The new purchaser paid £10,000 down, and I was sorry to hear afterwards lost everything in about the time it had taken me to perform the same feat. But he had, I believe, the expense of fencing – an economical luxury then so impossible for a squatter to deny himself. In addition to this, that terrible synonym of ruin, sheep-scab, broke out in the district, and in time among the Murrabit sheep. This, of course, necessitated endless expenditure in labour, dressing-yards, dips, and what not. No further explanation is needed by the experienced as to why my equally unlucky successor went under.

Talking of scab – now a tradition in Australia – it was then plentiful in Victoria, with the exception of certain favoured districts, among which the trans-Loddon country was numbered. Now in the days when Theophilus was king, foreseeing the ruin of the district (or chiefly, perhaps, to Ebden and Keene) which would ensue should the disease get a footing, he fought against its introduction, either by carelessness or greed, with all the vigilant energy of his nature.

There are men of contemplation, of science, of culture, of action. My experience has been that these qualities are but rarely united in the same individual. This may be the reason why 'Government by Talk' often breaks down disastrously – the man who can talk best being helpless and distracted when responsible action is imminent. This by the way, however. Mr. Keene did not dissipate his intelligence in the consideration of abstract theories. He never, probably, in his life saw three courses open to him. But in war time he struck hard and promptly. In most cases there was no need to strike twice.

Touching the scab pestilence, this is how he 'saved his country.' Primarily he put pressure upon his neighbours, until they formed themselves into a league, offensive and defensive. They did not trust to the Government official, presumably at times overworked, but they paid a private Inspector £200 a year, furnishing him also with serviceable horses and free quarters.

This gentleman – Mr. Smith, let us call him – an active young Australian, kept the sharpest look-out on all sheep approaching the borders of the 'Keene country.' He summoned the persons in charge if they made the least infraction of the Act, examined the flock most carefully for appearances of disease, and generally made life so unpleasant, not to say dangerous, for the persons in charge, that they took the first chance of altering their route. If there was the faintest room for doubt, down came Keene, breathing threats and slaughter. And only after the most rigid, prolonged inspection were they allowed to pass muster. Why persons selfishly desired to carry disease into a clean district may be thus explained. Store sheep – especially if doubtful as to perfect cleanliness – were low in price in Western Victoria. Near to or across the New South Wales border they were always high. If, therefore, they could be driven to the Murray, the profits were considerable. No doubt such were made, at the risk of those proprietors through whose stations they passed. A single sheep left behind from such a flock, after weeks likely to 'break out' with the dire disease, might infect a district. Mr. Keene had fully determined that 'these accursed gains' should not be made at his expense.

One day he received notice from Mr. Smith that a lot of five thousand sheep of suspicious antecedents was approaching his kingdom. They were owned by a dealing squatter, who, having country both clean and doubtful, made it a pretext for travelling sheep, picked up in small numbers. 'From information received' just ere they had entered the clean country, Mr. Keene appeared with a strong force, with which he took possession of them under a warrant, obtained on oath that they were presumably scabby, had them examined by the Government official, who found the fatal acarus, obtained the necessary authority, cut their throats, and burned the five thousand to the last sheep.

After this holocaust, remembered to this day, it became unfashionable to travel sheep near the Reedy Lake country. He 'who bare rule over all that land' rested temporarily from his labours. They were not light either, as may be inferred from a statement of one of his overseers to me that about that time, from ceaseless work in the saddle, anxiety, and worry, he had reduced himself to an absolute skeleton, and from emaciation could hardly sit on his horse. Nothing, perhaps, but such unrelenting watch and ward could have saved the district from infection. But he won the fight, and for years after, not, indeed, until Theophilus I. was safe in another hemisphere, did marauders of the class he so harried and vexed dare to cross the Loddon northwards. As soon as the normal state of carelessness and 'nobody's business' set in (Mr. Smith having been discontinued), the event foreseen by him took place. The district became infected, and Reedy Lake itself, Murrabit, and other runs, all suffered untold loss and injury. Rabbits came in to complete the desolation. What with Pental Island being advertised to be let by tender in farms, dingoes abounding in the mallee, free selectors swarming from Lake Charm to the Murray, irrigation even being practised near Kerang, if Mr. Keene could return to the country where once he could ride for forty miles on end requiring any man he met to state what he was doing there, he would find himself a stranger in a strange land. Without doubt he would take the first steamer back to England, hastening to lose sight and memory of a land so altered and be-devilled since the reign of the shepherd kings. Of this dynasty I hold 'Theophilus the First' to have been a more puissant potentate during his illustrious reign than many of the occupants of old-world thrones.