The Squatter's Dream

CHAPTER XVIII

“Fickle fortune has deceived me:

She promised fair, and performed but ill.” —Burns.

Events were following in quick succession across John Redgrave’s life, like the presentments of a magic lantern; and it seemed to him at times with a like unreality. But reason, in hours of compulsory attention, proved with cold logic that they were only too harshly true.

A little while, as he could not help owning to himself, and he would be driven forth from the Eden of “the potentiality of wealth” and luxury, into the outer world of dreary fact, poverty, and labour. Fast sped the melancholy, aimless, half-anxious, half-despairing days, following upon the advertisement which took all the pastoral and commercial world into his confidence, and stamped him with the stigma of failure. Thus, one fine day, a stranger, a shrewd-looking personage, redolent of capital, from his felt wide-awake to his substantial boots, arrived by the mail, and presented the credentials which announced him a Mr. Bagemall (Bagemall Brothers and Holdfast) and the purchaser of Gondaree. It was even so. That “well-known, fattening run, highly improved, fenced and subdivided, with 65,794 well-bred, carefully-culled sheep, regularly supplied with the most fashionable Mudgee blood, the last two clips of wool having averaged two shillings and ninepence per lb.,” &c., &c., as per advertisement, had been sold publicly, Messrs. Drawe and Backwell auctioneers. Sold, and for what price? For eight shillings and threepence per head, half cash and half approved bills at short dates!

Well, he had hoped nothing better. In the teeth of such a season, such a panic, such a general loosening of the foundations alike of pastoral and commercial systems, what else was to be expected as the proceeds of a forced sale, with terms equal to cash? The murder was out. The hazard had been played and lost – let the stakes at least be handed over with equanimity.

So Mr. Bagemall was received with all proper hospitality, and courteously entreated, he being apparently bent more upon the refreshment and restoration of the inner man, after a toilsome and eventful journey, than upon information regarding his purchase. He made no inquiries, but smoked his pipe and enjoyed his dinner, talking in a cheery and non-committal manner about the state of politics, and the last European news by the mail. He went early to bed, pleading urgent want of a night’s rest, and postponed the serious part of the visit until the morrow.

When the morning meal and the morning pipe had been satisfactorily disposed of, he displayed a willingness, but no haste, to commence business.

“I suppose we may as well take a look round the place, Mr. Redgrave,” said he; “everything looks well in a general way; nothing like fencing to stand a bad season. Monstrous pity to put such a property in the market just now. Can’t think what the banks are about. Sure to be a change for the better soon, unless rain has ceased to form part of the Australian climate, and then we shall all be in the same boat.”

“I shouldn’t have sold if I could have helped it, you may be sure,” answered Jack; “but the thing is done, and it’s no use thinking about it. The sooner it’s over the better.”

“Just as you please – just as you please,” said the stranger. “You will oblige me by considering me in the light of a guest during my short stay. I must go back the end of the week. I don’t know that I need do anything but count the sheep, in which our friend here (turning to M‘Nab) perhaps will help me. Everything being given in, I sha’n’t bother myself or you by inspecting the station plant. The wash-pen and shed speak for themselves.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jack; “delivering over a station is generally a nuisance, especially as to the smaller matters. I remember being at Yillaree, when Knipstone was giving delivery to old M‘Tavish. They had been squabbling awfully about every pot and kettle and frying-pan, all of which Knipstone had carefully entered – some of them twice over. To complete the inventory he produced a brass candlestick, saying airily, ‘The other one is on the store table.’ ‘Bring it here, then, you rascal,’ roared M‘Tavish. ‘I wouldn’t take your word for a box of matches.’”

“The purchase-money was somewhere about eighty thousand pounds,” remarked Bagemall, who seemed to remember what every station had brought for the last ten years. “A paltry fifty pounds couldn’t have mattered much one way or the other.”

The next morning the counting began in earnest. A couple of thousand four-tooth wethers had been put in the drafting yard, for some reason or other, and with this lot they made a commencement. Now, except to the initiated, this counting of sheep is a bewildering, all but impossible matter. The hurdle or gate, as the case may be, is partially opened and egress permitted in a degree proportioned to the supposed talent of the enumerator. If he be slow, inexperienced, and therefore diffident, a small opening suffices, through which only a couple of sheep can run at a time. Then he begins – two, four, six, eight, and so on, up to twenty. After he gets well into his tens he probably makes some slight miscalculation, and while he is mentally debating whether forty-two or fifty-two be right, three sheep rush out together, the additional one in wild eagerness jumping on to the back of one of the others, and then sprawling, feet up, in front of the gate. The unhappy wight says “sixty” to himself, and, looking doubtfully at the continuous stream of animals, falls hopelessly in arrear and gives up. In such a case the sheep have to be re-yarded, or he has to trust implicitly to the honour of the person in charge, who widens the gate, lets the sheep rush out higgledy-piggledy, as it seems to the tyro, and keeps calling out “hundred” – “hundred” with wonderful and almost suspicious rapidity. Yet, in such a case, there will rarely be one sheep wrong, more or less, in five thousand. Thus, when arrived at the yard, M‘Nab looked inquiringly at the stranger, and took hold of one end of the hurdle.

“Throw it down and let ’em rip,” said Mr. Bagemall. “You and I will count, and Mr. Redgrave will perhaps keep tally.”

Keeping tally, it may be explained, is the notation of the hundreds, by pencil or notched stick, the counter being supposed only to concern himself with the units and tens.

M‘Nab, who was an unrivalled counter, relaxed his features, as recognizing a kindred spirit, and, as the sheep came tearing and tumbling out, after the fashion of strong, hearty, paddocked wethers, he placed his hands in his pockets and reeled off the hundreds, as did Mr. Bagemall, in no time. The operation was soon over. They agreed in the odd number to a sheep. And M‘Nab further remarked that Mr. Bagemall was one of those gifted persons who, by a successive motion of the fingers of both hands, was enabled (quite as a matter of form) to check the tally-keeper as well. Paddock after paddock was duly mustered, driven through their respective gates, and counted back. In a couple of days the operation, combined with the inspection of the whole run, was concluded.

Sitting in the veranda after a longish day’s work, all smoking, and Jack looking regretfully at his garden, which, small and insignificant compared with the exuberant plantation of Marshmead, was very creditable for the Warroo, and indeed was just about to make some small repayment for labour in the way of fruit, Mr. Bagemall remarked —

“I didn’t know you had any blacks about the place. Does this lot belong here?”

“It must be old man Jack and his family,” answered M‘Nab. “I have been wondering what had become of them for ever so long. I heard Wildduck was very ill. Yes, this is our tribe, sir; not a very alarming one, but all that brandy and ball-cartridge have left.”

“What has the old fellow got on his back?” inquired Mr. Bagemall; “the men carry nothing if they can help it.”

“Poor Wildduck,” said Jack, half to himself, “I had forgotten all about her of late, with the allowable selfishness of misfortune. By Jove! it’s she that the old man is carrying. She must be ill indeed.”

The old savage, followed by his aged wives at humble distance, marched on in a stately and solemn manner, until he reached a mound near the garden gate. Here the little procession halted; one of the gins placed an opossum rug upon the earth, and upon this the old man, with great care and tenderness, placed the wasted form of the girl Wildduck. She it was, apparently in the last stage of consumption, as her hollow cheeks testified, and the altered face, now lighted by eyes of unnatural size, brilliant with the fire of death. The three men walked over.

“Ah, Misser Redgrave,” said she, while a dreamy smile passed over her wan countenance, “stockman say you sell Gondaree and go away. Old man Jack carry me from Bimbalong – me must say good-bye.” Here a frightful fit of coughing prevented further speech, while the old man and the gins made expressive pantomime, in acquiescence, and then, seating themselves around, took out sharp-edged flints, and, scooping a preliminary gash on their faces, prepared for a “good cry.” Strangely soon blood and tears were flowing in commingled streams adown their swart countenances. Wildduck lay gasping upon her rug, and from time to time sobbed out her share of the lament for the kind white man who was about to leave their country.

Jack leaned over the ghastly and shrunken form of what had once been the agile and frolicsome Wildduck. The dying girl – for such unquestionably she was – looked up in his face, with death-gleaming and earnest gaze.

“You yan away from Gondaree, Misser Redgrave?” she gasped out. “No come back?”

Jack nodded in assent.

“Me yan away too,” she continued; “Kalingeree close up die, me thinkum; that one grog killum, and too much big one cough, like it white fellow. You tell Miss Maudie, I good girl long time.”

“Poor Wildduck,” said Jack, genuinely moved by the sad spectacle of the poor victim to civilization. “Miss Maudie will be very sorry to hear about you. Can’t you get down to Juandah? I’m sure she would take care of you.”

“Too far that one place, now. Me going to die here. Old man Jack bury me at Bimbalong. My mother sit down there, long o’ waterhole – where you see that big coubah tree. Misser Redgrave!” she said, with sudden earnestness, trying to raise herself; “you tell me one thing?”

“What is it, my poor girl?”

“You tell me” – here she gazed imploringly at him, with a look of dread and doubt piteous to mark in her uplifted face – “where you think I go when I die?”

“Go!” answered Jack, rather confused by this direct appeal to his assumed superior knowledge of the future. “Why, to heaven, I believe, Wildduck. We shall all go there, I hope, some day.”

“I see Miss Maudie there; she go, I know. You go too; you always kind to poor black fellow.”

“I hope and trust we shall all go there some day, if we’re good,” said he, unconsciously recalling his good mother’s early assurances on that head. “Didn’t Miss Maudie tell you so.”

“Miss Maudie tell me about white man’s God – teach me prayer every night – say, ‘Our Father.’ You think God care about poor black girl?”

“Yes, I do; you belong to Him, Wildduck, just the same as white girl. You say prayer to Him. He take care of you, same as Miss Maudie tell you.”

“She tell me she very sorry for poor black girl. She say, why you drink brandy, Wildduck? that wicked. So me try – no use – can’t help it. Black fellow all the same as little child. Big one stupid.”

“White fellow stupid too, Wildduck,” said John Redgrave; “you have been no worse than plenty of others who ought to have known better. But perhaps you won’t die after all.”

“Me die fast enough.” Here the merciless cough for a time completely exhausted her. “I believe to-morrow. You think I jump up white fellow?”

“I can’t say, Wildduck,” answered he. “We shall all be very different from what we are now. You had better cover yourself up and go to sleep.”

“I very tired,” moaned the girl, feebly; “long way we come to-day. You tell new gentleman he be kind to old man Jack. You say good-bye to poor Wildduck.” Here she held out her attenuated hand. It had been always small and slender, as in many cases are those of the women of her race. In the days of her health and vigour, Jack had often noticed the curious delicacy of her hands and feet, and speculated on the causes of such conformation among a people all ignorant of shoe and stocking. But now the small brown fingers and transparent palm were like those of a child. He held them in his own for a second, and then said, “Good-night, Wildduck.”

“Good-bye, Misser Redgrave, good-bye. You tell Miss Maudie, perhaps I see her some day, you too, long big one star.” Here she pointed to the sky. Her eyes filled with tears. Jack turned away. When he looked again, she had covered her face with the rug. But he could hear her sobs, and a low moaning cry.

“Strange, and how hard to understand!” said Jack to himself, as he strode forward in the twilight towards the cottage. “I wonder what the extent of this poor ignorant creature’s moral responsibility may be. What opportunities has she had of comprehending her presence on this mysterious earth? Save a few lessons from Maud, she has never heard the sacred name except as giving power to a careless oath. As to actual wickedness she is a thousand-fold better than half the white sinners of her own sex. Her sufferings have been short. And perhaps she lies a-dying more happily circumstanced than a pauper in the cold walls of a work-house, or a waif in a stifling room in a back slum of any given city. As far as the children of crime, want, and vice are concerned, all cities are much on a par, whether Australian, European, or otherwise.”

The night was boisterous, yet, mingled with the moaning of the blast, Jack fancied that at midnight he heard a cry, long-drawn, wailing, and more shrill than the tones of the wind-harp, or the sighing of the bowed forest.

The pale dawn was still silent, ghostly gray. No herald in roseate tabard had proclaimed the approach of the tyrant sun – lord of that stricken waste – when John Redgrave walked over to the camp. He saw at once, by the attitudes of the group, that they were mourners of the dead. Each sat motionless and mute, gazing with grief-stricken countenances towards the fourth fire – in the equally divided space – by which lay a motionless figure, covered from head to foot with furs. He looked at old man Jack, but he moved not a muscle of his disfigured countenance, while in his eyes, fixed with a strong glare, there was no more speculation than in those of the dead.

The women sat like ebon statues; down their shrivelled breasts and bony arms the dried rivulets of blood made a ghastly blazonry. Jack knew enough of the customs and ceremonies of this fast-fading people to be aware that no speech, or even gesture, was possible during the two first days of mourning. He walked over and raised the covering from the face of the dead girl. Her features, always delicate and regular (for, though rarely, such types unquestionably do exist among most aboriginal Australian tribes), were composed and peaceful. The closed eyes were fringed with lashes of extraordinary length. The heavy waving locks, rudely combed back, were not without artistic effect. The pallor of death bestowed a fairer hue on the clear brown, not coal-black, skin. The lingering shadow of a smile remained upon the scarcely closed lips, which half recalled the arch expression of the merry forest child, dancing in the sunshine like the swaying leaflets. Now, like them in autumn-death, she was lying on the breast of the great earth-mother. One hand pressed her bosom, in the shut fingers of which was a small cross, hung round the neck by a faded ribbon, which he remembered to have been a present from Maud Stangrove. “He whose word infused with life this ill-starred child of clay will He not recall the parted spirit?” thought Jack, as he reverently replaced the fur cloak. “God bless her,” he said, softly.