The Squatter's Dream

CHAPTER XXVI

There is no need to write John Redgrave’s history for the next three years. It was a time of hard and continuous struggle, large successes and exasperating failures; his stock increased largely, but there was great difficulty in transporting droves of cattle to the nearest market; plenty of water for sheep, and no danger of floods or droughts, but it was not easy at such an out-station as this to get sufficient labour in shearing-time, and the great distance the wool had to be conveyed took off much of the profits. Moreover, Jack could not make up his mind that it would be right to bring Maud into such a wilderness, with no neighbours but the blacks, who, though they had shown no hostility to Jack, were not to be trusted. He had written to Maud at first, full of hope and confident of success, and she, dear girl, had been willing to share with him the rudest log hut; but as time went on he felt how impossible it was that he should bring her to be the light of his home before he had made that home fit to receive her.

In his solitary hours, in the silence of his small dwelling-place, he bitterly regretted having left Marshmead. It was possible that he might become a very rich man if he lived to be old, but meantime his youth was going by, and happiness along with it.

But time had good things in store yet for the brave man whose courageous spirit had never suffered more than a temporary depression. On one of his visits to the town of – to buy some of the multitudinous articles required on a large station, he learnt from an old acquaintance who was there on the same errand that Donald McDonald, who had bought Marshmead, had expressed a very strong determination to sell Marshmead and go back to Scotland. His nephew, Mr. Angus McTavish, had long ago bought a very large sheep run, and was reported to be doing wonders. Jack’s heart leaped at the thought of getting back Marshmead, where he had been so happy, so undisturbed by carking care. With a thoughtful brow he began to consider the ways and means. By strict economy and careful management, added to two fairly good years, he had paid off the greater part of the purchase-money, and his sheep had increased so much that, after all his losses, he calculated upon being able to buy Marshmead if only he could get a purchaser for Wondega.

He wrote, accordingly, to Bertie Tunstall, asking him to make inquiries about Marshmead, and authorizing him to buy it if Mr. McDonald was really going to sell.

Pending these negotiations, Jack was restless and excited. The thought of Maud was ever uppermost; she had expressed her willingness to wait, for years if it was necessary. At the same time, rightly judging her love by his own, he felt that she would be happier, as she frankly said, helping to make his home happy than in waiting until everything should be put in order for herself. Yet, again, how could he bring her to Wondega?

An answer came in due time: McDonald would sell, but he considered the improvements he had made on the estate, which turned out to be very slight, and the increase in the cattle would make it worth a great deal more than he had given for it.

However, he was willing to sell the place on the same conditions on which he had bought it – namely, half the money in cash, and the rest in bills at short date. Despatching another letter to Tunstall, directing him to close with the offer, Jack bade adieu to Wondega, a place endeared by no memories of love and friendship, as had been Gondaree and Marshmead, but, on the contrary, made gloomy by having been the scene of Guy Waldron’s death, and his own solitary and uncheered abode during the time of great anxiety and unceasing effort.

There was no difficulty in selling the place; it was different now from the time when the two adventurers first stood on the hill and caught sight of Lake Maud; great droves of sheep pastured on the slopes, a large but rude wool-shed stood in the shelter of some trees, and a modest cottage was built in the open, loop-holed at certain heights in case of an attack from the natives. Some of the land had been fenced in, but there had been no money to spare for rail-fencing, and the rails and posts were of wood, mostly cut, shaped, and put down by Jack himself.

The land sold well, and Jack was enabled to buy back his own old place. On his way back he passed by Gondaree, and could not refrain from stopping and making some inquiries about M‘Nab, who happened to be absent from the station.

The year succeeding his downfall had been unusually favourable to the pastoral interests. High prices for wool and stock, steady rainfall, new country opening, a cessation of wars and rumours of war – all these circumstances had combined to produce and sustain for squatters the most protracted term of triumphant success ever known in the Australias. Those who, without skill or energy, had by good luck purchased when stock were at their lowest, had of course been floated out on the ever-deepening tide into undreamed-of fortune and success. Those who, like Alexander M‘Nab, possessed both, had gone on from one successful enterprise to another with astonishing rapidity. His name, as the managing partner in this district for the great firm of Bagemall Brothers, was constantly quoted as the exemplar of first-class management, luck in speculation, successful shrewdness, and well-deserved advancement. A magistrate, an exhibitor of prize stock, an inventor of improvements in machinery as applied to station uses, a co-proprietor of several of the largest properties in the district, a power in the state, his name was in every man’s mouth. Time and prosperity had mellowed his perhaps originally aggressive propensities, and now he was popular, respected among all classes of men.

John was glad to hear of the prosperity of his old overseer, and pushed on with a light heart to Juandah. He was met with a warm welcome. Mark Stangrove looked more prosperous, a trifle stouter and merrier; the good years had told in his favour. Maud was lovelier than ever, though she was certainly thinner and paler, so John Redgrave thought at first, with a pang of compunction, but after he had been there two or three days he fancied that he must have been mistaken, for the bloom on her cheek and the sparkle in her eye were as beautiful as ever.

“Oh, Maud, my darling,” said Jack, as they stood together in the veranda the evening of his arrival, “what time I have wasted! I go back to Marshmead a poorer man than when I left it, for I am burdened with a debt, and what years I have lost!”

“Don’t regret the past, dear Jack,” said Maud, sliding her little hand into his; “perhaps if you had never left Marshmead you would always have been a little dissatisfied with it; besides, if you had never left it we should not have met.”

“I would bear it all over again if you were the prize at the end, Maud.”

“Once is enough,” said Maud, with an arch glance from her bright eyes.

“And I may have my prize?”

“Yes, when you are ready,” replied Maud, demurely.

“I’m ready now, you saucy girl,” said Jack, laughing, though he winced at the implied reproach in her words, “and I have a great mind to take you at your word, and carry you off to Marshmead at once.”

“Come back when you like, my dear fellow,” said Mark Stangrove, who had just joined them, “and then we’ll see about it.”

The week passed all too quickly, but Jack resolved that it should not be very long before he returned, and certain whispered conferences with Maud settled the time.

As John Redgrave at length reached the homestead, certain changes were strongly apparent. The once trim, orderly, and pleasant place was weed-grown and melancholy of aspect. The stables were tenantless, and bore traces of long disuse. Many of the buildings were roofless, while the materials of others had been used up for the formation of out-houses. Mr. McDonald did not “believe,” as he expressed it, in improvements, nor in having one man or boy about his establishment who could possibly be done without; for this reason probably he made use of the garden as a calf paddock, and Jack’s heart felt acute misery when he saw the trampled flower-beds, the broken fruit-trees, the mutilated shrubs; but McDonald was not a man whom this sort of thing troubled. To have lived in sight of such a daily desecration would have been to some men an intolerable annoyance. He did not care a jot, when duly satisfied by careful inspection that his bank balance was on the right side, that his daily steak and glass of grog were attainable, if every garden in the land had been uprooted. In other than these convictions and satisfactions he had no interest. He rarely rode over the run. He never helped to bring in the calves to brand, or the fat bullocks for market. He was by no means particular about keeping up the purity of the carefully-bred herd. He often permitted his calves to be past the proper age before they were branded, probably by the aid of his neighbour’s stockmen. But with all this apparent neglect, and his whisky-drinking to boot, he kept steadily to his principle of having as little labour to pay and feed as was possible. He did not mind a few strayed or even lost cattle. If a few calves were branded by others he troubled not his head; and yet this obese, unintelligent block made more money than the cleverest man in the whole district. His secret was this, and I present it to aspiring pastoralists: he had no personal expense; he had no debts; therefore he was able to weather out the terrible financial gales when the failure of clever, hard-working men was of daily occurrence.

As Jack got off his horse at the house, Elsie came to the door.

“Eh! but it’s Maister John, it’s my ain bairn,” she cried, “come to bless my auld e’en before I dee; oh, thank the Lord that I hae lived to see this day.”

The old woman flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears.

“My dear old Elsie,” said Jack, kissing her, “I am as glad to be here as you are to see me; and where’s Geordie?”

“Geordie is awa looking after the cattle in the stock, but he’ll be here the nicht. And oh, Maister John, is it you that’s bought the place?”

“Indeed it is, Elsie, and you must tell me what has been done since I left.”

“Eh, but ye must hae your dinner first, my bonny man, and I must see aboot the getting o’t; but bide a wee, I’ll send for Geordie; he’ll tell ye a’.”

Later in the evening John heard from the lips of his two faithful friends what had been done in his absence. Whatever improvements bad been made, and they were very few, were in the direction of the cattle-yards. They were larger than formerly, and that was all; but the stock had increased largely, and were in good condition. As to the lost garden, Jack thought that Maud might like to watch the gradual formation of a new one. He had got out of the habit of thinking that everything should be complete and perfect before Maud came.

After setting men to work at repairs in the stables to begin with, Jack in a few days’ time rode over to pay a visit to his old friend Bertie Tunstall, who could hardly do enough to show his gladness. Jack had so much to say that the two days of his stay hardly sufficed for a recountal of all he had seen, felt, and suffered, since leaving Marshmead. In old times they used to enjoy the circulation of ideas produced and quickened by the mutual intercourse of persons who read habitually and did not permit the wondrous faculty of thought to be entirely absorbed by the cares of every-day life, by the claims of business, by plans and actions tending directly or indirectly to the acquisition and investment of money. It is given to few active professions to afford and to justify as great a degree of leisure for realizing an abstract thought as to that of the Australian squatter. He may manage his property shrewdly and successfully, and still utilize a portion, at either end of the day, for history and chronicle of old, for poetry and politics, for rhyme and reason. He can vary intellectual exercise with hard bodily labour. He may possess, at small additional cost, the latest literary products of the old and new world. He may, after the arrival of each mail-steamer, revel in masterpieces of the thought-giants, fresh from the workshop. When kindred spirits are available within meeting distance, great is the joy of the pioneers, what time the half-wild herds are gathered; the tender oxlets seared with the indelible cipher. Then arises the bustle of the body as each man lauds a favourite author or decries a pet aversion.

Life again flowed on for Jack with the peaceful security and round of accustomed duties which had filled up the days of long ago happily and so completely. Spring ripened into glowing summer with stores of fruit and flowers; with long dreamy days of sunshine tempered by breezes which wandered over marsh and mere, fresh from gentle murmurings with the wandering ocean wave. Again he saw the wild swan lead her brood of cygnets through the deep reed-bordered meres. Again he leaned from his saddle at midday and dipped his broad-leafed hat in the cool marsh waters which plashed pleasantly around his horse’s feet. Once more he rose at dawn to feel the thrice-blessed sense of safety and untroubled possession of the land. Again he mingled with his fellows on terms of absolute equality; nay, more, of slight but acknowledged superiority, as of one who had bought experience, who had struggled with fate and overcome. And in the midst of the priceless sensation of contentment and repose came a fuller tide of thankfulness, a savour of keener relish, born of the unforgotten hardships of the past. Before the summer days had reached their longest John Redgrave brought home his bride.

What need to say that they were happy? The union of two such loving hearts and two such perfect tempers is sure to bring happiness. At the sight of his friend’s lovely wife, and Jack’s perfect delight in her, Bertie Tunstall suddenly found himself a lonely and miserable man. He said his health needed a change, and went off to town, from whence he returned in a few weeks an engaged man, and in due time made another visit to the same place, and brought back a pretty, amiable, loving little wife, who proved to be a great favourite of Maud’s.

According to John Redgrave’s promise, old Jock Harley was not forgotten; a place by the “ingle neuk” was offered him, but he preferred a hut of his own, and a comfortable one was built for him on the hill-side, far away from the house, where he could have his eye on the cattle, though he never took the interest in them which he did in sheep, giving it as his opinion that they were “puir doited beasties, and unco hard to unnerstan’.” The dog Help came with him, and was made a great pet of by all the household.

When John grew prosperous and wealthy he sent home a considerable sum to Guy Waldron’s sisters, the increase of the £300 which had come to him so opportunely when he was in his direst need.

As years passed on, as the clover and rye-grass matted in thick sward over the fens and flats of Marshmead, Jack found his thoughts running much upon the education of the steadily increasing olive-branches that came, and grew, and flourished in that cool, breezy clime.

To the alarm of old Elsie and Geordie, who spoiled the rosy boys and girls to their hearts’ content, Mrs. Redgrave already begins to hint at a residence in the metropolis, solely, of course, for the sake of masters and so on for dear Bertie and Maud.

For many a year John Redgrave’s life and opinions have been before his countrymen and close neighbours, great and small, poor and rich. His active principles have been plain for all men to see. If he buys a thousand acres of the Marshmead Crown lands, he employs no agent, but stands up like a man and bids in person. His motto is “fair and above board.” What he thinks right to do he will perform if he can, maugre land-sharks, agitators, or even his very respectable and slightly democratic farmer neighbours. Every one in the district knows, or believes he knows, nearly every thought of the heart of that transparent kindly nature – of that hearty, jolly and benevolent Squire of Marshmead. But two of his opinions have ever excited remark or called forth curiosity. One is an intense dislike to sheep, under any and all forms of management. The other is a furious and unreasonable hostility to the extensive pastoral region which lies north of the Murray.

His tale is told. I hold it expedient in common fairness to inform my confidential friend, the reader, that the writer is acquainted with more than one Jack who abandoned the substance for the shadow; with more – many more, alas! – than one or two young, brilliant, brave, and beautiful Jacks, who, enthralled by the Circe of new worlds, served henceforth to fill her dungeon-sties, or to wander aimlessly from land to land, till kindly death released from union wasted body and ruined soul. But, alas! not with many who, like John Redgrave, fought their way back to comfort and affluence, after having gone down into the depths of misfortune, – not with many who “suffered and were strong.”