The Squatter's Dream

CHAPTER XXV

“There is a tide in the affairs of man

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” —Shakespeare.

The “travellers’ hut” is an institution peculiar to divers of the outlying and interior districts of Australia. It is the outcome of experience and cogitation, the final compromise between the claims of labour and capital, as to the measure of hospitality to be extended to workmen errant. Given the fact that a certain number of labourers will appear at the majority of stations, almost every day of the year, demanding one night’s food and lodging, how to entertain them? Were they suffered to eat and drink at discretion of the food supplied the permanent employés, abuses would arise. Said employés would be always requiring fresh supplies, having “just been eaten out” by the wayfarers. Also disputes as to the labour of cooking. It might happen that the more provident and unscrupulous guests would occasionally carry away with them food sufficient to place them “beyond the reach of want” on the following day, or, so wayward is ungrateful man, might levy upon the garments and personal property of the station servants after they had gone forth to their work. Such examples were not wholly wanting before the establishment of that juste milieu, the “travellers’ hut.” There, an iron pot, a kettle, a bucket, and firewood are generally provided. Each traveller receives at the station store a pint of flour and a pound of meat. These simple but sufficing materials he may prepare for himself at the travellers’ hut in any fashion that commends itself to his palate. On the following day, if not employed, it is incumbent upon him to move on to the next establishment.

Jack smoked his pipe over the fire in the caravanserai aforesaid, after a meal of fried meat and cakes browned, or rather blacked, in the frying-pan which had previously prepared the meat. Old Jock performed this duty cheerfully, and not without a certain rude skill. He produced from his kit a small bag containing a modicum of tea and sugar, which just sufficed for a pint each of the universal and precious bush beverage, causing them to be looked upon with envy by their less fortunate companions. Tired out by the day’s journey, Jack had scarcely energy to consume his share of the food, and but for the pannikin of tea, indifferent enough, but still a wonderful restorative in all “open air” life and labour, could not have essayed even so much exertion. At another time he would have been amused by the rude mirth and reckless jests of his associates. But this night he sat silent and gloomy, hardly able to realize his existence amid conditions so astonishingly altered.

“You’re rather down on your luck, young man,” observed a stout but not athletic individual, smoking an exceedingly black pipe, full of the worst possible tobacco; “you’ve made too long a stage, that’s about it. I’m blowed if I’d knock myself up, at this time of year, for all the squatters in the blessed country.”

“No fear of you doin’ that, Towney,” said a wiry-looking young fellow with light hair and a brickdust complexion, which defied the climate to change its colour by a single shade, “at this time of year, or any other, I should say. How fur have you come?”

“A good five mile,” quoth the unabashed Towney, “and quite enough too. I walked a bit, and smoked a bit, you see. Blest if I didn’t think I should finish my baccy before the blessed old sun went down.”

“Well, I’m full up of looking for work,” said the younger man. “There’s no improvements goin’ on in this slow place, or I could soon get in hut-buildin’, or dam-makin’, or diggin’ post holes. I ain’t like you, Towney, able to coast about without a job of work from shearin’ to shearin’. If the coves knowed you as well as I do they’d let you starve a bit, and try how you like that.”

An ugly look came into the eyes of the man as he said slowly, “There might be a shed burnt, accidental-like, if they tried that game. You remember Gondaree, Bill, and the flash super? I wonder how he and his boss looked that Sunday mornin’.”

Bill, an elderly, clean-shaved individual, the yellowness of whose physiognomy favoured the hypothesis of prison discipline having been applied (ineffectually) for his reformation, gave a chuckle of satisfaction as he replied —

“Well, it happened most unfortunate. I ’ope it didn’t ill-convenience ’em that shearin’. I hear as M‘Nab (he’s boss now, and they’ve bought the next run) has got the best travellers’ hut on the river. Anybody heard who they’ve shopped for those hawkers at Bandra?” continued Bill, who seemed to have got into a cheerful line of anecdote, running parallel with the Police Gazette.

“Why, what happened them?” asked the fiery-faced young man.

“Oh, not much,” affably returned Bill; “there wasn’t much of ’em found, only a heap of bones, about the size of shillings. Some chaps had rubbed ’em out and burned ’em.”

“What for?” inquired the sun-scorched proprietor of the prize freckles.

“Well, they was supposed to be good for a hundred or so. However, they put it away so artful that no one but the police was able to collar it; and the fellows got nothin’ but a trifle of slops and a fiver.”

“It’s my belief,” asserted the young man with the high colour, concluding the conversation, “that you and Towney are a pair of scoundrels as would cut the throat of your own father for a note. And for two pins I’d hammer the pair of ye, and kick yer out of the hut to sleep under a gum-tree. It’s dogs like you, too, as give working-men a bad name, and makes the squatters harder upon the lot of us than they would be. I’m goin’ to turn in.”

The men thus discourteously entreated looked sullenly and viciously at the speaker, but a low sound of approval from the half-dozen other men showed that the house was with him. Besides which, the wiry, athletic bushman was evidently in good training, and had the great advantage of youth and unbroken health on his side. So when he stepped forward with his head up and a slight gesture of the left hand, as of one not wholly devoid of scientific attainment, the pair of ruffians turned off the affair with a forced laugh; after which the whole of the company sought their sleeping compartments or bunks, with but little of the delay resulting from an elaborate toilette de nuit.

The next day found Jack and his companion in possession of the Dog-trap out-station hut, and of two flocks of sheep, duly counted over to them by the overseer. Two brush-yards constructed on the side of a rocky hill, and half full of dry sheep manure, a guano-like accumulation of years, completed the improvements.

A month’s ration for the two men (64lbs. of flour, 16lbs. sugar, and 2lbs. tea) was deposited upon the earthen floor by the ration-carrier, who arrived in a spring-cart about the same time as themselves.

“Now, my men,” said the overseer, after counting the sheep and entering them in his pocket-book, “you’re all right for a month. You can kill a sheep every other week, and salt down what you can’t keep fresh. Smith, you’ll have to stir them long legs of yours after your wethers; they’re only four-tooth sheep, and devils to walk, I believe. Keep your sheep-skins and send ’em in by the cart, or I’ll charge you half-a-crown apiece for ’em. You can settle among yourselves which way you’ll run your flocks; though I suppose you’ll quarrel, and not speak to each other, like all the rest of the shepherds, before half your time is out. If you lose any sheep, one of you come in and report. Good-morning.”

With which exhortation Mr. Hazeham rode off, either by nature not “a man of much blandishment,” or not caring, on principle, to waste courtesy on shepherds.

“So here we maun sojourn for sax months,” remarked old Jock, as they sat at their evening meal, after having yarded their flocks, killed a sheep, swept and garnished their hut, and made such approximation to comfort as their means permitted. “I dinna ken but what we may gang along ducely and comfortably. Ye were wise to write and order the weekly paper. It will give us the haill news that’s going and many an hour’s guid wholesome occupation, while the sheep are in camp or at the water. We’ll maybe get a book or two from the station library.”

“I expect you’ll have most of the reading for a while,” answered ‘Mr. Smith.’ “What’s the use of knowing that every one is better off than one’s self? One comfort is that this flock keeps me going, and I shall sleep at night in consequence.”

“Ye’ll no find them rin sae muckle after a week or twa’s guid shepherding. There’s a braw ‘turn out’ here – both sides frae the hut; once ye get to ken the ways o’ your flock, ye’ll be like the guid shepherd in the Holy Book, and they’ll be mair like to follow ye, man, than to keep rin-rinning awa’ after every bit of green feed.”

In spite of Jack’s gloomy air, and refusal to take comfort, or acknowledge interest in life, matters slowly improved. The hut was not so bad, clean-swept and daily tended by the neat handed Harlaw, who had constituted himself cook, steward, and butler to the establishment. The country was open, thus minimizing the labour of looking after the flocks, which, left a good deal to themselves, as is the fashion of experienced shepherds, mended and fattened apace. The atmosphere of the interior, cool and fresh, “a nipping and an eager air,” soon commenced to work improvement in the general health of the two Arcadians.

John Redgrave had considerately written and ordered one of the excellently conducted weekly papers of the colony, which duly arrived, directed to “Mr. John Smith, Jimburah, viâ Walthamstowe,” such being the imposing name of their post town. The weekly journals of Australia, arranged something after the pattern of The Field, are, we may confidently assert, in certain respects the most creditable specimens of newspaper literature known to the English-speaking world. Comprising, as they do, fairly-written leading articles, tales and sketches, essays political, pastoral and agricultural information, travel, biography, records and descriptions of all the nobler sports and athletic feats of communities hereditarily addicted to such recreations, plus the ordinary news of the day, they are hailed as a boon by all who have sufficient intellectual development to feel the want of at least occasional mental pabulum. Alike to the country gentleman and farmer, the lonely stockman, the plodding drover, or the solitary shepherd, they are at once a necessity and a benefit, occasionally a priceless luxury.

So it came to pass that after a few weeks had glided on, unmarked but by no means slowly, and the fate-guided comrades had settled down to a placid endurance bordering upon enjoyment of their damper, mutton, quart-pot tea, and negro-head, Jack began to look forward to his paper, and to digest the contents of it, from the stock advertisements to the list of new books, unattainable, alas! with a relish which surprised himself. The regular exercise, the healthful, pure atmosphere, the absence of anxiety, the sound sleep, and natural appetite had produced their ordinary effects, had thoroughly recruited his bodily and mental powers. In despite of himself, so to speak, and of the persistence with which he would declare that he was irrevocably ruined, his mental thermometer rose perceptibly. He experienced once more a sensation (and there is no more complete test of high bodily health) which he had rarely enjoyed since the blessed days of Marshmead. He felt the childlike lightness of spirit, on awakening with the dawn, which more than all things denotes an uninjured and perfect physique, a nervous system in normal and flawless condition. Wonderful is the self-attuning power of the “harp of a thousand strings,” the divinely-fashioned instrument upon which, alas! angelic melodies alternate with demon wailings; and the fiend-chorus from the lowest inferno is mysteriously permitted to drown the seraphic tones which would fain uplift the aspirations of man to his celestial home.

With braced sinews, freshly-toned nerves, and veins refilled with pure and unfevered blood, John Redgrave appeared so manifestly an altered man that his humble mentor could not refrain from approving comment.

“Eh, ma certie, but ye’re just improvin’ and gainin’ strength, like the vara sheep, the puir dumb craters, just uncommon. There’s a glint o’ your e’e, and a lift o’ your heed, and a swing o’ your walk that tell me ye’re castin’ awa’ the black shadow – the Lord be praised for it, and for a’ His mercies. I’ll live to see you ance mair in your rightful place amang men, and ye’ll give old Jock a corner in your kitchen, or a lodge gate to keep, when he’s too auld and failed to work, and hasna strength left for as much as to drink.”

“You have a right to a share of whatever I may have in time to come,” said Jack, with comparative cheerfulness. “But I have lost the habit of hoping. I do feel wonderfully better; and if I could look forward to anything but to some fresh strange trick of destiny I should feel again like the man I once was, who had the heart to dare and the hand to back a bold adventure. But I doubt my luck, as I have had good reason to do; and I believe old Blockham was not far wrong when he said that there were some men (and he took me to be one of them) who, with whatever apparent prospects, never did any good.”