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“A little cloud as big as a man’s hand.” |
IT is not half a bad thing to “be laid up,” as it is called, for a reasonable and moderate fraction of one’s life—more especially if a “bright particular star” is impelled to beam softly and brilliantly upon one in consequence. Jack, after the inflammation, which gave him “fits” the first day or two, had subsided, began to enjoy himself after a subdued fashion. Though food was restricted by the despotic doctor, and liquor, other than tea, altogether interdicted, there was no embargo laid upon tobacco. Mr. Redgrave, therefore, used to get over the window which “gave” into the garden, and have many a soothing and delightful pipe in the afternoons and the long, clear, bright nights.
He was, I firmly believe, perfectly well able to read; but he pretended that it made his head ache, so Maud fell into the trap and volunteered to read Macaulay’s Essays, the Saturday Review, Macmillan’s Magazine, Market Harborough, and even some choice bits from Tennyson and Browning. What pleasant mornings these were! Stangrove was out; Mrs. Jane deep in housekeeping and nursery details; so these two people were able for a brief season to taste uninterruptedly the charm of pure intellectual enjoyment, unalloyed by the jar of small duties or the regretful sense of unperformed work. Convalescence, that regal state and condition, evades all ordinary responsibilities. It is above duty, blame, arithmetic and grammar—the scourges and penances of this toiling pilgrimage we call life. It was joy unspeakable to lie back with half-closed eyes and hear Maud’s fresh, clear young voice ringing out in accents of love, or laughter, or denunciation, or sounding strangely unnatural in the bitterness of the Saturday’s sarcasms.
There was much reviewing of reviewers too, poetizing upon poets; philosophizing upon philosophers. Arguments and comments were plentifully superinduced by the variety of texts. A week on board ship is equal to a year on land—a day’s tending of an invalid involves a feeling of dominancy and ownership, which renders the experience equal in completeness to a week on shipboard. According to this scale of reckoning, Maud Stangrove and John Redgrave had protracted opportunities of knowing each other’s characters, amounting in all to such duration of time as fully justified them in contracting that morally indissoluble betrothal called an “engagement.” This unlimited liability they actually had the temerity to enter into, and in the usual solemn manner sign, seal, and ratify, before John Redgrave left Juandah, perfectly recovered and unutterably happy.
He, of course, immediately acquainted Stangrove with the stupendous and miraculous fact, which that unimaginative personage received with his usual coolness.
“Maud is of age,” he remarked, “and is fully entitled to choose for herself. She could not have chosen a better fellow; but I wish that confounded mortgage of yours was sold for sewing guards, or whatever the women buy obsolete deeds for. I was quite startled by seeing ‘Know all men by these presents’ glaring at me on Jane’s work-table the other day. I hate the look even of one; it’s like the skin of a dead serpent.”
“Pooh! pooh!” said Jack, “you don’t think the trifle of debt I owe upon 60,000 sheep—which they will be and more by lambing time—worth thinking seriously about. Why, Mildmay Shrood told me when I was down——”
“Just what he wished you to believe, I dare say. He’s a good fellow, as men of money go, I grant you; but he would put his thumb or his foot on you if the money market fell with as little compunction as I feel for this fellow here.” And Mark trod savagely upon a large brown flat insect, which was making its way in a blundering, purblind fashion from a decayed log to the wood-pile.
“I’m sorry that I can’t show as clear a sheet as I could have done once upon a time, old fellow,” said Jack. “But, on the other hand, nothing venture nothing have. If things turn out as I expect, please God, Maud shall have everything in the wide world that she can frame a wish for.”
“And if not—you must pardon me for looking on the dark side of things—I have so much more often seen that colour come up——”
“If not,” said Jack, “if not—I will never ask her or any woman to share my poverty. Our engagement must remain as it is till I can tell with some show of accuracy how things are likely to go. You may trust me not to hurry her.”
“I trust you in that and in far more important matters,” returned Mark, as he wrung his hand. “Henceforth you are our brother, save in name—let things go as they will—but I must do my best for Maud.”
“Do you think I shall place a single obstacle in your way? If I thought I could not add some colour and richness to her life, which—pardon me—it lacks here, I would turn away now and never see her face more.”
. . . . .
When Jack returned to his home and his duties he displayed an amount of interest in the statistics and general progress of the station which amazed and delighted Mr. M‘Nab. That energetic personage had been toiling away by himself since the news, much exaggerated, of Mr. Redgrave’s adventure with his ordinary conscientious regularity. Everything was in apple-pie order. The minimization of labour had been carried out almost to a fault, as Jack thought, when he had to unsaddle and feed his own horse, and, Mr. M‘Nab being absent, and Monsieur Dubois gone for a load of wood, the place looked desolate enough after the home-like, old-fashioned Juandah. However, Jack comforted himself with thinking that this was the straight road to clearing off the mortgage—to a triumphant sale of a fully stocked run, and to the final possession of a “kingdom by the sea,” or beyond sea, in which Maud Stangrove should reign, when “the happy princess followed him.”
Day after day he accompanied M‘Nab in long rides from one end of the run to the other. With him he counted the sheep wherever such counting might be necessary. He took his turn at weighing of rations, and in every way worked with hand and head as hard (so M‘Nab, with grim humour, asserted) as if he had been his own overseer.
In the rare intervals of leisure, when that embodiment of concentrativeness permitted his thoughts to dwell upon any subject other than sheep, he could not avoid the inference that the proprietor of Gondaree was a changed man. Up to this turning-point of his life John Redgrave had been content to work fairly, sometimes fiercely, with head or hand; but, in any case, to accept success or failure with undisturbed serenity. Now it was otherwise. He examined searchingly the whole working of the establishment, and satisfied himself, much to M‘Nab’s gratification, of the condition and well-being of each division of the stock, of the plant, and machinery of the place. He went carefully through the account-books, and verified the debits and credits, with an accuracy which his lieutenant had not believed to be in him, as he afterwards said. He compiled a statement of the financial position of Gondaree, which, after various testings and corrections, was agreed between them to be arithmetically, mathematically, indisputably exact. He had fully decided to sell. The sheep were in fine condition, severely culled, and originally well chosen. The run was of the best possible quality, in full working order, and capable of yet greater development. He could not imagine its fetching less than the highest market price. At that time such a run, so stocked, so improved, was held to be good value for twenty-five shillings per head. It was not impossible or even unlikely that two competing buyers might run it up to twenty-seven and sixpence. The lesser price would pay off the mortgage—he had no other debts in the world—and leave him, say, forty or fifty thousand pounds.
This was the account current he had ciphered out many and many a time. It was written upon sheets of paper, large and small, upon blotting-pads, upon stray leaves of journals, and pretty well engraven upon a less perishable, more retentive, material—the heart of John Redgrave.
Something in this wise were the figures:—
| 10,000 fat sheep, now ready for market at, say, 15s. | £7,500 | |
| 50,000 sheep, with station, stores, furniture, implements, horses, drays, &c., all given in at, say, 25s. | £62,500 | |
| ———— | ||
| £70,000 | ||
| Mortgage due Bank of N. Holland | £25,000 | |
| Interest, commission, incidentals, and expenses overlooked, say | £5,000 | |
| ——— | £30,000 | |
| ——— | ||
| £40,000 | ||
As far as any one could make out, judging from the present prices, Gondaree was as safe to sell at this estimate as Mr. Stangrove’s fast, handsome buggy horses—young, sound, and a dead match—were to bring fifty pounds in any sale-yard in the colonies. Here was a magnificent surplus. Say, forty thousand pounds. That was enough, surely. A large proportion would of course remain on mortgage, and, as he would receive one-third or one-half cash, it could not be better placed, receiving, as he would, eight per cent. interest, the ordinary tariff between squatter and squatter. Should he not sell before shearing, and realize this Aladdin’s Palace, into which the Princess was ready to step, at once and without delay?
He could not exactly afford the train of slaves, with diamonds as big as pigeons’ eggs, and rubies and emeralds to match; but on three or four thousand a year a decent approximation to rational luxury might be reached. Should he decide at once, and, as with poor, dear, old, despised little Marshmead, scribble off the fatal advertisement and abide the issue?
He took up his pen. But why do so few people sell out mining shares, railway debentures, seductive scrip of all sorts, at exactly the maximum of profit? He wavered. Then he concluded to reap the profit of the last, really the last shearing; wait till the 20,000 lambs were fit to count, and thus make sure—of course it was a moral certainty—of an additional twenty thousand pounds. Prices would keep up at least another couple of years—that would be long enough for him.
So he decided to see his shearing over, and to have everything fit to deliver, at a week’s notice, by the time the coming crop of lambs should be weanable and countable. While this great resolve was maturing, the fiercely bright summer days, each about sixteen hours long, were gliding by. The stars burned nightly in the unclouded heavens, in which so pure was the atmosphere, so free from the slightest hint of mist or storm, that the most distant denizen of the thought-untravelled stellar waste shone golden-clear. Even in the sultry monotony of that changeless sea-like desert summer is not endless. Autumn, with an earlier twilight, a keener breath of early morn, a shorter, scarce less burning day, advanced, followed with slow but firm step the fading summer-time.
. . . . .
“So the fat sheep are drafted, tar-branded, and fairly on the road at last,” said Mr. Redgrave, after a week’s tolerably sharp work. “They look very prime. I hope they will meet as good a market as they deserve.”
“Never a better lot left the Warroo,” said M‘Nab; “the wethers are very even, and extraordinary weights. Better sheep I never handled. The drover is a good steady fellow; and I’ll catch them up before they get near the train.”
“The season has been dry the last month or two,” remarked Jack; “after those unlucky floods one felt as if it never would be too dry again; but it looks like it now for all that.”
“The feed is not so good as it might be on the road, they say,” agreed M‘Nab; “but six weeks’ steady driving will take them to the train; and they will lose very little condition in that time. If we don’t top the market we ought to do.”
Within a few weeks after this conversation Jack found himself sole denizen of Gondaree, M‘Nab having taken himself off by the mail, allowing just sufficient time for him to catch the sheep and organize the order in which they should be “trained” for the Melbourne market. With the first mail after his departure, Jack discovered to his great vexation that a sudden and serious fall had taken place in fat stock. The season had, without any great demonstration of dryness, been consistently free from rain. It was cool and breezy—a hopeful condition, Jack thought. It was a very bad sign with the older residents.
It has been remarked, by persons of lengthened Australian experience, that the sudden fluctuations in price which have occurred with a curious periodicity since there has been stock enough in the colonies to found theories upon, have usually as little warning as the alarm of fire in a theatre. One person, scenting the coming danger, rises and steals quietly out, a few more follow with ill-concealed haste, then with sudden terror starts up every creature in the building, and the resistless agony of the panic is in full operation.
So, apparently, is it with those mighty and disastrous changes in the value of live stock, which have ever, in the history of Australia, pulled men’s houses about their ears, like those of cards. They have whelmed alike the grizzled pioneer after a life of toil, the youthful capitalist in the first year of his first purchase, the hoary merchant, and the gambling speculator in one tidal wave of ruin. Before such an under-current sets in the apparent dearth of stock, in a land full of sheep and cattle, from Cooktown to the county of Cumberland, is curiously noticeable. Nobody will sell their oldest ewes, their most decrepit cows; it pays so much better to hold on. Bills, when times and credit are good, are renewed (with, of course, interest added), and every financial accommodation is resorted to rather than that the sanguine stockholder should be compelled to slay the goose which (in his opinion) is so prolific of the golden eggs, in the guise of wool and increase.
So the game goes on, until some fine day the money-market tightens, after its deadly, unforeseen, boa-constrictor fashion. The ominous cry of fire, or its financial synonym, is raised. A few wary or fortunate operators “get out;” but for the rank and file, who have been trusting to continuous good luck, high prices, and a “change in the climate for the better,” the stampede of the panic is their only portion. In all lost battles of life, more than once has it chanced that “the brave in that trampling multitude had a fearful death to die.”
Similar storm-signals now smote upon Jack’s unaccustomed ear.
“We are sorry to note that all our correspondents speak of continued absence of rain in their particular localities. A drought is beginning to arouse the fears of stockholders, and prices of fat and store stock have fallen rapidly.” Such was the utterance of the Warroo Watchman.
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This was the letter from his town agents, to whom he had entrusted the sale of the much-considered fat sheep:— “Dear Sir,—If you haven’t started your fat sheep, keep them back till you hear again from us. “Market glutted—all stock down.
“Yours faithfully, |
This looked bad. What a nuisance it was! For the last two years he couldn’t have gone wrong, at whatever time he had despatched them; a fair average price had been always obtainable; and now, just when everything was marked out, the whole arrangements incapable of failure in any way—here the confounded demand breaks down, and upsets all a man’s calculations!
Something after this fashion ran Jack’s thoughts. What should he do? Bringing the sheep back again was expensive, undignified, and would by no means aid in decreasing the debt, which had lately become rather a bête noir in his daily imaginings. The Warroo was not sufficiently advanced for the telegraph, or he might have held converse with the ready-witted M‘Nab, who would have been certain to strike out the most favourable line of action. He had nothing for it but to write to Drawe and Backwell, to say that he had sent forward the sheep; that they must communicate with M‘Nab, in charge, and do the best they could under the circumstances.
Up to this period of the enterprise John Redgrave, in despite of the episodes of the wool-shed and the flood, had suffered from no anxiety as to the ultimate success of the great venture. The prices of wool and sheep, store, fat, ewes and lambs, culls—everything that could be counted and could run out of a yard—had been firm and adamantine, as the bullion in the vaults of the Bank of England. Every sort, kind, and condition of sheep was worth half-a-sovereign, two to a pound, minimum; one pound a head with station; without, ten shillings.
Now there seemed a danger of the citadel being undermined, of the great fabric of investment and adventure—built up by a free expenditure of capital and energy during the last five years—melting away like an iceberg before the south wind. With such a thaw—resolving into primitive elements the gilded temple—down would go the fame and fortune of John Redgrave, and, for aught he cared, down might go his life, and stilled for ever might be those restless heart-beats. Thus, when by a sudden intuitive forecast the shadow of misfortune fell athwart the sunlight of his soul, did he for an instant feel the dull agony of despair—thus spoke he to his saddened spirit.
With the first mail that was due after M‘Nab’s departure, allowing him time to reach the sheep, came a letter, as thus— “Sheep-market is bad—decidedly bad, with no hope of getting better. I can keep the sheep about Echuca till I get your answer. Shall I send them on, or return? My advice is to sell at all hazards.”
Jack returned answer that he was to do whatever he thought best, and to use his own discretion unreservedly.
The sheep were sold accordingly. They brought eight shillings and tenpence all round, which just returned, clear of all expenses, eight shillings net. A magnificent price truly, and a terrible come-down from the fourteen or fifteen shillings which had been the regular price, for years past, of large, aged, prime sheep, as were the Gondaree lot.
M‘Nab was back in remarkably quick time after this untoward outcome of so much care and forethought, and planning and contriving.
“The sheep were beautifully driven; I never saw a lot better looked after; they showed first-rate in the yards at Newmarket. All the drovers, butchers, and agents said there hadn’t been a lot in like them this season. They topped the market, but what sort of a market was it?—rushed and glutted with all kinds of half-fat stock, going for nothing. And cattle down too—regular store prices; a most miserable sight.”
“And what’s said about wool and stations?” inquired Jack.
“That there’s going to be the devil to pay; there’s a tremendous commercial panic in England. Discount up to war figures. The great dissenting bankers—Underend, Burney & Co.—gone for any sum you like to mention. Run on the Bank of England. Panic on the Stock Exchange. The end of the world, as far as accommodation is concerned!”
“By Jove!” said Jack, “could anything have been more unlucky? I wish to heavens that I had sold out three months since, though that might only have landed some other unlucky beggar in the same fix. There’s no chance of selling now at any price?”
“Sell!” answered M‘Nab, and here he looked kindly and almost pitifully at Jack, on whose face there was a dark and troubled look, such as he had never seen there in bygone mishaps. “There won’t be a station sold for the next three years, except at prices which will leave the owners the clothes they wear, and not a half-crown to put in the breeches-pocket either.”
“What in the world shall I do?” groaned Jack. “I would have given much to have cleared out after shearing.”
“Well, sir,” said M‘Nab, sitting down and putting on a calm, argumentative look, “let us look at the matter both ways. No doubt the outlook is gloomy; but here we have the place and the stock. There’s not a station in the colonies that can be worked at a less annual expense. Surely we can carry on and pay interest on the mortgage till times come round.”
“Perhaps,” said Jack, disconsolately. “But suppose times don’t come round; and suppose the Bank presses for their money?”
“The times will change and improve,” said M‘Nab, impressively, “as surely as the sun will shine after the next stormy day, whenever that may be. And as for the Bank, they seldom push any customer in whom they have confidence, and who has a real good property at his back.”
“I trust so. But how in the world shall I ever grub on for three or four years more in this infernal wilderness, waiting for better seasons, and a rise in the market, which, for all we know, may never come?”
“My dear sir,” said M‘Nab, “nothing but patience and doggedness ever did any good in stock matters yet. It’s the men that stick to their runs and their cattle and sheep, in spite of losses and danger, and discouragement and misery, that have always come out in the end with the tremendous profits that from time to time have always been realized in Australia, and will again. Look at old Ruggie M‘Alister, coming back to his place one day, after counting out his two flocks to a person sent up to take charge by his agents, finding the place burnt down, the hut robbed, the cook speared, and a big black fellow swimming the Murray with his best double-barrelled gun in his mouth. There was cause for despair for ye, if ye like!”
“And what did your friend do?”
“Shot the black fellow with his carbine; dived for the double-barrel. Lived under a dray with the bailiff till after shearing; got the run out of debt, and is worth ten thousand a year, and has a villa near Melbourne this minute.”
“I could have done that once,” answered Jack; “but whether I am growing old, or have only one supply of energy, which is exhausted, I know not; I can’t face the idea of all the work, and daily drudgery, and endless monotony—over again—over again!”
“There’s nothing else to be done, sir. You’ll think better of it to-morrow. And you needn’t bother about my salary. We’ll work together, and I’ll never ask you for a penny of it till better times come.”
Next day, as was his custom, Jack did not find the storm-signals so unmistakable or portentous. As M‘Nab had very properly pointed out, there were still the first-class, fully-improved run, the sixty thousand sheep. The clip would be large and well got up, in spite of the fall in the value of the carcase.
Underend, Burneys, might totter and fall, crushing under the ruins of a long-decayed house, tunnelled and worm-eaten with usury, the trusting friend, the confiding public; but unless mankind and womenkind abandoned those garments, delicate, indispensable, and universally suitable from India to the Pole, the demand for wool, like that for gold, might slacken, but could not cease. This confounded American war would come to an end. Why the deuce could they not put off this insane, suicidal contest for a year or two? The season would improve—even that was against a man. It looked drier, and yet more dry, every day he got up. Whereas, at Marshmead—ah! why, why did he ever leave that lovely (though flattish—but never mind), cool, green, regularly raining Eden? “Sad was the hour and luckless was the day”—as Hassan the camel-driver said. But if he had never left it he would never have seen Maud. “So, after all, it is Kismet. The will of Allah must be done!”
With this rather unorthodox consolation Jack ended his soliloquy, and prepared to march sternly along the path of duty, though the flowerets lay withered by the wayside, the surges of the shoreless sea of Ruin sounded sullenly in his ears, and though the illuminating image of Maud Stangrove, smiling welcome with eyes and brow, was hidden by mists and storm-rack.
. . . . .
All things went on much as usual; but it was like the routine of a household in which there has been a death. Jack’s favourite of all the Lares and Penates had always been Hope. Her image was not shattered; but the light and colour had faded from the serenely glowing lineaments. The calm eyes that had looked forth over every marvel of earth and sea and sky—resting on the far mountains, illumined by golden gleams from the Eternal Throne—were now rayless.
Hope-inspired, John Redgrave was and had proved himself capable of bodily and mental labour of no mean order—of self-denial severe and enduring. But severed from the probability of attainment of success, of eventual triumph, he was prone to a state of feeling as of the cheetah that has missed the prey, and after a succession of lightning-like bounds retires sullenly to hood and keeper.
As soon as he could assure himself that he was in a proper and befitting state of mind, he rode down to Juandah, making the journey in a very different tone and temper from the last. He did not find that his altered prospects had made his friends less cordial; on the contrary, it seemed to him that never before was he so manifestly the bien-venu as on this occasion. Maud sang and played, and talked cheerily, and with a slight preference for the minor key, which harmonized with the sore and bruised spirit of the guest. Mrs. Stangrove, too, exerted herself to the extent of sprightliness wonderful to behold. When a man is suffering in mind, body, or estate, the sympathy of sincere, unworldly women—and all women are unworldly with those they love—is soothing, tender, and inexpressively healing. As the dark-souled physician in the Fair Maid of Perth was enabled by the perfection of his art to apply to the severed hand of the knight the unguent which stilled his raging torment at a touch, so the sweet eyes and the soft tones of Maud Stangrove cooled and composed his fevered soul. Mark Stangrove, also, was unusually genial, even hilarious.
“This insatiable Warroo is going to have another dig at us,” he said. “We have just not escaped a flood, and now we are in for a drought. That means a few years more of the mill for us. Well, we’re all in the same boat; we must stick to the oars, keep a good look out, and weather it out together.”
“A good look out!” echoed Jack. “I see nothing but rocks and breakers.”
“Come, come, old fellow; a capful of wind, or even a heavy gale, doesn’t mean total wreck always. We shall, of course, have to take in sail, throw cargo over, and all that. Seriously, things are going to be bad in more ways than one. I’m not altogether taken by surprise; I’ve seen it before; but I don’t wish to crow over you for all that. I think in some ways you are better off than I am.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Why, though I am a good deal under-stocked, this drought will put me ever so much about. I shall lose a lot of my lambs and calves, have to travel all the sheep, and, generally, be compelled to spend money and lose stock right and left till rain comes again.”
“You can afford it,” said Jack, “and I can’t; it will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. A long drought means unsaleable stock—which means increase of debt, interest, and principal—which means ruin.”
“You go too fast, my dear fellow. I used to tell you that you were going to be rich rather more quickly than I fancied probable; and now you are determined to be ruined with equal rapidity. I must tell Maud to read you a sermon upon patience and perseverance.”
“I deserve no quarter from her or from you either,” professed Jack, who was now en pénitence all round, “for dragging her into this uncertain, anxious life of mine.”
“Well, accidents will happen, you know. I blame those rascally bushrangers and your gun-shot wound for it all; no woman can nurse any fellow, under a hundred, without appropriating him. But I’ll take care that you are not married till you are something more than a bank overseer, which is a different thing from a bank manager, you know.”
“Hang all banks and bank officials, from the board of directors to the junior messenger,” fulminated Jack, “though, as they only sell money to fools like me, who choose to buy, they are scarcely to blame either. And now, old fellow, as I’ve relieved my mind, we’ll go in and be civil to the ladies. Even if times are bad, one must not quite forget to be a gentleman. Thank you, once and for all, old fellow, for your true kindness.”
After this Jack put away his Skeleton gently, though firmly, into his closet, and, turning the key, compelled him there to abide, only permitting him to come out and sit by the fire with him occasionally when no one was present, or to walk cheerfully round the room when he was dressing in the morning—or to wake him before earliest dawn and whisper in his ear till he rose desperately at the first faint streak of day. But these being the regularly allotted periods and interviews, lawfully to be claimed and recognized by all well-bred skeletons and their proprietors, Jack could not with any conscience grumble.
He explained the whole state of affairs to Maud, who, to his surprise, took it coolly, and, like Mark, said “that things might not turn out so badly. That every one agreed that his station was very well managed, and that probably he might overrate the probability of loss. That, whether or no, she knew he would fight it out manfully—and that she would wait—oh, yes! years upon years—as long as he would promise to think of her, and for her, now and then.”
So they parted, Jack thinking how difficult it was to understand women. He would have sworn that the fiery girl, whose petulances had so often amused him, would have been as deeply disappointed, as intolerant of the delay, as himself. And now here she was calmly looking forward to years of stocking-mending and child-nursing on the Warroo before they could be married, as if she had never dreamed of a higher life, to be realized in a few short months.
John Redgrave had never experienced, and therefore had not realized, the most deeply-rooted attribute of woman’s manifold nature—the capacity for self-sacrifice. Rarely can he who is blessed with her first pure love overtax its wondrous endurance—its angelic tenderness.
With right down hard work, as with the conscientious performance of military duty, in the trenches or otherwise, before the enemy, much of the darker portion of the spirit’s gloom disappears. Man is a working animal—civilization notwithstanding; and an undecided mental condition, combined with bodily inaction, has ever produced the direst forms of misery to which our kind is subjected here below.
So day after day saw Jack and his faithful subject fully occupied from dawn to sunset in the ordinary routine of station work. The personal labour devolving upon each was tolerably severe, but the exact number of hands allotted to the place by the inexorable M‘Nab was rigidly adhered to, and not an extra boy even would he hear of until the inevitable month before shearing, when all ordinary labour laws must perforce be suspended.
The four boundary-riders, all active, steady men, young or in the prime of life, well-paid and well-housed, did their duty regularly and efficiently. It was part of M‘Nab’s creed that, if you kept a man at all you should pay him well, and otherwise minister to his well-being. In cheap labour there was no economy; and for anything like indifferently-performed work he had a dislike almost amounting to abhorrence. He and Jack transacted all the business that of right appertained to the home station. They by turns convoyed the increasingly numerous and hungry flocks of travelling sheep; took out the rations; laid the poisoned meat, which, spread over the run in cartloads, was daily returning an equivalent in dead eagles, dogs, and dingoes; counted the sheep regularly; and all this time there was not a sheep-skin unaccounted for—not a nail or a rail out of order in the whole establishment.
So fared all things until the time for shearing drew nigh. Jack felt quite delighted at the first engagement of washers, the first appearance of three or four shearers, with their big swags and low-conditioned horses, having journeyed from far land where winter was not wholly obsolete as a potentate, and did not stand for a mere section of the year between autumn and spring. The changed appearance of the long-silent huts was pleasant to his eye; the daily increase of strange voices and unembarrassed, careless talk; the giving out of rations; the arrangement of the steam-engine; the arrival of teamsters—all these things heralded the cheerful, toilsome, jostling shearing-time, half festive, half burdensome, yet still combining the pains and pleasures of harvest.