The Squatter’s Dream

Chapter XIX

Rolf Boldrewood

ON the following morning John Redgrave quitted for ever the place in which he had spent five of the best years of his life, all his capital, and, measured by expenditure of emotional force, as much brain-tissue as would have lasted him to the age of Methuselah at quiet, steady-going Marshmead. He had packed and labelled his personal belongings, which were to be sent to Melbourne by the wool-drays. They would reach their destination long ere he needed them, doubtless. He mounted his favourite hackney, leading another, upon the saddle of which was strapped a compact valise. The boundary-riders had come in, apparently for no reason in particular. But it had leaked out that the master was to clear out for good on that day. They were all about the stable-yard as he came out of the garden gate, attended by M‘Nab.

They made haste to anticipate him, and one of them led out the half-Arab gray, while another held his stirrup, and a third the led horse.

“We want to say, sir,” said the foremost man, “that we are all sorry as things have turned out the way they have. All the country about here feels the same. You’ve always acted the gentleman to every man in your employ since you’ve been on the river; and every man as knows himself respects you for it. We wish you good luck, sir, wherever you go.”

Jack tried to say a word or two, but the words wouldn’t come. Something in his throat intercepted speech, much as was the case when he last said good-bye to his mother after the holidays. He shook hands with M‘Nab and with the men all round. Mounting his horse, and taking the led horse by the lengthened rein, he rode slowly away along the Bimbalong track. The men raised a cheer, he waved his hand in response, and the small world of Gondaree went on much as usual, like the waters of a pond after the widening circles caused by a transient interruption.

After riding at a foot-pace for an hour, Jack began to press on a little, intending to put a fair day’s journey at nightfall between him and his late home. Turning in his saddle for a moment, to take a last look at the well-known landscape, with the winding, dark-hued line of the river timber cutting the sky-line, he saw that he was followed by the dog ‘Help.’ This astute quadruped, who, as Jack was wont to assert, “knew in a general way as much as other folks,” had evidently considered the question of his master’s departure, and had adopted his line of action. Aware from experience that if he exhibited an intention to go anywhere, or do anything, not comprehended in instructions connected with sheep, he was liable to be chained up till further orders, he had taken good care to keep out of the way at Jack’s leave-taking. His master had no intention of taking him with him, but had wished to pat him for the last time, and great whistling and calling had taken place in consequence. “But Gelert was not there.”

As the dog, therefore, upon Jack’s discovering him, came sidling forward, wagging his tail apologetically, and bearing in his honest eyes an expression partly of joy and partly of confession of wrong-doing, Jack felt a sensation of satisfaction more considerable than some people would have thought the occasion warranted.

“So you’ve come after me, you old rascal,” said he—upon which Help, divining that he was forgiven, set up a joyous bark, and careered wildly over the plain. “Do you know that you are not showing as much sense as I gave you credit for, in leaving a rich master to follow a poor one? You’re only a provincial, it seems, not a dog of the world at all. However, as you have come, we must make the best of it. Come to heel—do you hear, sir?—and we must get a muzzle at the first store we come to.”

The Bimbalong boundary, now a long line of wire fence, with egress only by a neat gate on the track, was reached in due time. Here Jack’s memory, unbidden, recalled the day of their first muster of the cattle—the glorious day, the abundant herbage, the free gallop after the half-wild herd, in which poor Wildduck had distinguished herself; and, fairer than all, the glowing hope which had invested the unaccustomed scene with brightest colours. How different was the aspect of the spot now! The bare pastures, the prosaic fence-line—the Great Enterprise carried through to the point of conspicuous failure; the reckless, joyous child of these lone wastes lying in her grave, under the whispering streamers of the great coubah tree yonder. And is every hope as cold and dead as she? He was faring forth a wanderer, a beggar. Better, perhaps, thought he, in the bitterness of his spirit, that I had dropped to the bushranger’s bullet. Better to have fallen in the front of the battle than to have survived to grace the triumph and wear the chain.

The landless and dispossessed proprietor rode steadily on along the well-marked but unfrequented track which led “back”—that is, into the indifferently-watered, sparsely-stocked, and thinly-populated region which stretched endless at the rear of the great leading streams. In this desolate country, compared with which the frontage properties on the Warroo, slightly suburban as they might be deemed, were as fertile farms, lay grand possibilities—the Eldorado which always accompanies the unknown. Here were still tenantless, as wandering stockmen had told, enormous plains to which those on the Warroo were as river flats, fantastic, isolated ranges, full of strange metallic deposits and presumably rich ores. Immense water-holes, approaching the character of lakes, where curious tribes of aboriginals hunted, some of which were entirely bald, others bowed in the limbs from the continuous chase of the emu and kangaroo. From time to time Jack had listened to these tales of Herodotus; had, with some trouble, verified the localities indicated, and seen a pioneer or two who had explored this terra incognita.

Full of eager anticipation of the new untrodden land, in which wonders and miracles might still survive, leading to fortune by a triumphant short cut—a new run with limitless plains and hidden lakes, a copper mine, a gold mine, a silver mine, a navigable river—all these were possible in the unknown land, waiting only for some adventurer with purse as empty and need as desperate as his owner. Lulled by these glorious phantasies, John Redgrave gradually recovered his spirits—they were elastic, it must be confessed; and as the horses, poor but plucky, like their master, stepped cheerily along the level trail, he caught himself more than once humming a half-forgotten air. He had proposed to himself to make for a small township about forty miles distant, the inhabitants of which were composed in equal proportions of horse-stealers, persons “wanted,” and others, these last lacking only the courage, not the inclination, to turn bushrangers. Gurran—this was the name of this delectable settlement—of course boasted of two public-houses.

About an hour before sundown Jack calculated that he was about ten miles from his destination. He had of course not been pressing his horses, and had plodded steadily on without haste, but without halt, since the morning. He could not, as he calculated, reach Gurran by Sundown, but an hour’s travelling along the smooth, broad trail by the clear starlight would be pleasant enough. He did not want, Heaven knows, to get to the beastly hole too early. A simple meal, hunger sweetened, a smoke by the fire, and then to bed, with a daylight start next morning. Such were his intentions.

As he thought over and arranged these “short views of life,” he became aware that the sky was overclouded. Clouds were by no means rare on the Warroo, but no one had been in the habit of connecting them with rain for many a month past. And so Jack rode on carelessly, while the sky grew blacker, the air more still and warm, bank after bank rose in the south, and at length—no, surely, it never can be, by Jove! it is—a drop of rain!

“I shouldn’t wonder, now I think of it,” said Jack, sardonically, “if it were to rain cats and dogs, just when I am regularly cleaned out. A month ago it might have made a difference.” He unfastened an overcoat which he threw over himself, and as the rain commenced in a gentle but continuous drizzle (he knew the sign) paced gloomily forward.

His cynical anticipations were but too literally fulfilled. At first light and almost misty, then a steady downpour, in twenty minutes it was half a shower-bath, half a water-spout. Every shred of Jack’s clothing was soaked and resoaked, till the feeling was as if he were clad in wet brown paper. The horses slipped, and boggled, and stumbled, and laboured in the black soil plain which alternated with the sand, and which has the peculiar and vexatious quality of balling, or gathering on hoof or wheel, when thoroughly moistened. The air changed, the temperature was lowered, the night became dark, so that Jack more than once lost his way. The thunder pealed, and the lightning in vivid flashes from time to time showed a watery waste, with creeks running, and all the usual Australian superabundance of water immediately succeeding the utter absence of even a drop to drink. It was nine o’clock when, tired, soaked to the skin, with beaten horses, and temper seriously damaged, John Redgrave pulled up before the “Stock-horse Inn” at Gurran. The person who kept the poison-shop came out, with his pipe in his mouth, and, seeing a traveller, expressed mild surprise, but did not volunteer advice or assistance.

“Have you any hostler here?” demanded Jack, with pardonable acerbity.

“Well, there is a chap, but he’s on the burst just now, as one might say. Are you going to stop?”

“Yes, of course,” said Jack; “why don’t you look a little more lively! If you were as wet and cold as I am you’d know what I want.”

“I should want a jolly good nip to begin with,” said the unmoved landlord; “but you can let your horses go, and put your saddles and swags in the ferendah, can’t ye?”

“Haven’t you got a stable?” asked Jack, furious at this reception after such a ride.

“Well, there’s a stable at the back, but the door’s off, and there’s nothing in it.”

“No corn? no chaff?”

“No—there ain’t nothin’. How am I to get it up here?”

“And what is there for my horses to eat, if I let them go?”

“Well, there’s a bit of picking down by the crick. It’s all our horses has to live on.”

Jack reflected for a while; then, considering that the other inn couldn’t possibly be worse than this, and might be better, he concluded to try it, and telling the astonished innkeeper that he was an uncivil brute, and deserved to lose his license, he headed straight for the light of the rival hostelry.

Here he met with a decided welcome and abundant civility. His horses were unsaddled, and put into a building which, if rude, possessed the essentials of equine comfort. And when he found himself before a good fire in a small parlour adorned with wonderful prints, with a glass of hot grog in possession, and a supper of eggs and bacon in prospect, he felt that there were extenuating circumstances in the lot even of that ill-fated and persecuted individual John Redgrave, late of Gondaree.

He awoke next morning early, and, dressing hastily, went straight to the stable, which to his exceeding wrath and despair he found empty. The badly-fastened door was open; there was no means of knowing at what hour the nags had escaped or been taken out. Here was a pleasant state of matters; all the misery of the position, intensified by the state of his nerves, rushed upon him. He knew well what a nest of robbers he was among. If not stolen, the horses had been “planted” or concealed until a reward, consonant with the ideas of the thieves, was forthcoming. He would do anything rather than go back to Gondaree. He had a few pounds left, and he could, at worst, buy a mustang of the neighbourhood and pursue his journey. Turning back sullenly to the inn, he saw his host ride up, who stated that he had been out since daybreak after the absentees without success, but that he had sent a young man after them, who, if this here rain didn’t wash out the tracks, would find ’em “if they was above ground.” With this meagre consolation Jack proceeded to attack his uninviting breakfast.

The rain was still falling; the dismal, dusty, thinly-timbered flat, which stretched for miles in unbroken dulness, with a shallow, unmeaning, dry creek winding tortuously through, was now converted into a sea of black mud. Jack knew that in a week it would be carpeted with green, as would indeed be the whole of Gondaree, and the Warroo generally. He groaned as he thought that all this “unearned increment” would be of not a shilling’s-worth of value to him. Mr. Bagemall and Mr. M‘Nab would reap the benefit of it—it was a clear fifty per cent. upon the price of every sheep on the place to begin with. Gregory Hardbake would be on the way down from the mountains rejoicing. All the world would be joyful and prosperous, while he was left on his beam-ends, a stranded wreck, and not even allowed to pursue his lonely voyage in peace. It was hard; but Fate should break, not bend, him. His friends, if he had any left, should see that. All that day he was compelled to pace up and down the narrow verandah of the melancholy wooden box, comforted by the assurances of the host that his ’osses would be safe to be got within the week, that the “young man as was after ’em” had never been known to miss finding such runaways. Unless—added he, meditatively—they’ve gone and made back to where they came from.

However, that night the much-vaunted “young man,” a long-legged, brown-faced, long-haired son of the soil, of the worst type of pound-haunting, gully-raking bush native, returned without the horses. When Jack, in the course of the evening, mentioned that thirty shillings for each horse would be forthcoming on delivery, he brightened up, and declared his determination to have another try next morning.

As Jack, about noon on the following day, was observing gloomily that the rain had stopped, to his intense delight the young man before eulogized was observed approaching, driving the lost horses before him. Perhaps no sense of gratification is keener for the moment than that of the traveller in Australia, who in a strange, possibly evil-reputed locality recovers the favourite steed. The agonizing anxiety, the too probable fear of total loss, the delay, expense, and inconvenience of remount—all these doubts and dreads vanish at the moment when the well-known outline appears. Like wrathful passengers upon reaching the end of the voyage, all previous offences are condoned. The despotic captain, the surly second officer, become almost popular, and a general amnesty is proclaimed.

So, as old Pacha, with his high shoulder and flea-bitten grey skin, followed by his companion, walked into the stable yard, about two panels square of rickety round rails, Jack thought the much-suspected “young man” not such a bad fellow after all. He perhaps reciprocated the compliment after receiving the reward, though his conscience ought to have troubled him if, as is too probable, he had “shifted” Jack’s horses the first night, and left them at a convenient distance from the inn on the second.

Their owner concluded not to tempt misfortune further.

Saddling up promptly, he once more took the road, glad to leave behind Gurran and all its belongings.

That night John Redgrave reached a station where, of course, he was hospitably received, and where he rested secure from the machinations of persons to whom fresh horses and “clean-skinned” cattle presented an irresistible temptation.

Keeping a northerly course, he gradually passed the boundaries of the comparatively settled country, and entered the legendary and half-explored region that skirted the great desert of his dreams. Here rose, like polar meteors, fresh gleams of hope irradiating the sunless cloud-land in which his spirit had dwelt of late—glimpses of that garden of the Hesperides—anew discovery—fortunate isles—a land of gold and gems, were on the cards. Like the garden of old, there was the Dragon—a dragon to be fought or circumvented, as circumstances might direct.

Did he lose the faint track which led between the solitary outposts of the pioneers, there was the certainty of death by thirst. A few days’ anxious wandering, twenty-four hours of delirious agony, and the bones of John Redgrave and his weary steeds would lie blanching on the endless plains and sand-ridges, until the next lost wayfarer or questing tracker fell across them.

Did he escape the famine-fiend, were there not the prowling patient human wolves of the melancholy waste ready to surround and do to death that enemy of all primeval man, the wandering, insatiable white man? Little, however, did John Redgrave reck of Scylla and Charybdis. The barque must float him onward and still onward to fortune and to fame, or must lie deep amid ocean’s treasures, or a stranded wreck upon the inhospitable shore. He was in no mood to be frightened at aught which other men had dared. With the demon of poverty astern, what to him was the terrible deep, fanned by the wildest storm that ever blew? Still he pressed onward; not heedlessly, but with wary patience, as beseemed an experienced bushman, whose life might depend upon the strength and speed of the good horse between his knees. The influence of the great drought in this unstocked country became fainter and less unfavourable. The gray tufted grasses and salsolaceous bushes, uncropped by stock, remained nutritive and uninjured year after rainless year in that strange Australian desert. Their strength untaxed by the moderate journeys, old Pacha and his companion, with the wonderful hardihood of Australian horses, improved in condition.

Now it chanced that at one of the most distant stations, of which the proprietor had been able to say, like Othere, “no man lies north of me,” Jack picked up a partner, who volunteered to join in his adventure, sharing equally in the expenses of the modest outfit and in the profits, such as they might be. Guy Waldron was a big, ruddy-faced, jovial young Englishman, scarce a year from his father’s hall in Oxfordshire. An insuperable disgust for the slow gradation of English fortune-making, combined with the true dare-devil Norse temperament, had driven him forth with his younger son’s portion to make or mar a colonial career. The two men took to one another with sudden strength of liking.

The quiet resolution and utter disdain of danger which Jack exhibited after a course of highly discouraging anecdotes volunteered by Mr. Blockham, the proprietor of Outer Back Mullah, attracted the younger son.

“I am horribly tired,” he said to Jack, “of doing colonial experience with this old buffer. It’s tremendously hard work and no pay, and, as I’ve been here for a year, I fancy we’re quits. I know as much bullock as I’m likely to learn for the next five years. I got a tip from home the other day. What do you say if I go run-hunting with you? You’re just the sort of mate I should like, and I believe there is some grand country to the north-west, in spite of what old Blockham says.”

Jack looked at the cheerful, pleasant youngster, full of mirth, and with the eager blood of generous youth, unworn and sorrow free, coursing through every vein. Much as he hungered after congenial fellowship in his lonely quest, he yet spoke warningly.

“It’s a risky game enough, Waldron, you know. I’d say, if you take my advice, stay where you are for another year. You’ll get your money out then, and be sure of investing it properly. You have a little to learn yet, excuse me, like all new arrivals.”

“Oh, yes, I dare say, that’s all very prudent, and so on. There are new chums and new chums. Look at my arms, old fellow.”

Here he rolled up his jersey and showed his muscular fore-arm, bronzed and well-nigh blackened by exposure to the unrespecting sun.

“I’ve not had my coat on much, as you see. I can ride, brand, leg-rope, split, fence, milk, and draft with any man we’ve ever had here. A year or two more Jackerooing would only mean the consumption of so many more figs of negro-head, in my case. No! take me or leave me, as you like, but I’m off exploring on my own hook if you don’t.”

“In that case,” assented Jack, “we may as well hunt in couples. We can back up one another if the niggers are as bad and the water as scarce as your friend says.”

“He be hanged!” said the impetuous youth. “He’s not a bad old chap, but he tells awful yarns, and, like all old hands, he thinks nobody knows anything but himself.”

“Then it’s settled. Can you get a couple of horses?”

“Yes, and a stunning black boy. The young scamp is awfully fond of me, and as a tracker he’s a regular out-and-outer. By Jove! won’t it be jolly—Redgrave and Waldron, the intrepid explorers! I feel as if we could go to Carpentaria.”

Jack smiled at the boy’s joyous readiness for the battle. Once he had been as wild in delight at feast or foray; but those days had gone.

“We must wait till we come back,” said he, gravely, “before we begin to arrange the fashion of the chaplet. If the black boy is plucky, and really wants to go with us, bring him by all means.”

Mr. Waldron, for whom remittances had lately arrived, spent the next day in getting in his horses, packing his effects, the half of which were condemned by Jack as being overweight, and questioning and lecturing the boy Doorival as to his special “call” for the enterprise. This sable waif was not the particular property of any one, so he was permitted to risk his valueless life without remark or remonstrance. He had been captured in a somewhat indiscriminate reprisal upon a wild tribe by a neighbour of Mr. Blockham’s, with his foot sticking out of a hollow log, in which, like a dingo puppy, he had instinctively hidden. Dragged forth by that member, he had been chained up till he grew tame, and well flogged from time to time till further “civilized.” After a few years of this stern training he had become sufficiently civilized to run away, and had arrived at Outer Back Mullah some months since, a shade more than half dead with fear and thirst. Travelling through hostile country, where his kidney fat wouldn’t have been worth an hour’s purchase after discovery by his countrymen, he had had necessarily but little leisure and less refreshment. Guy Waldron had taken him in hand as he would a bull-terrier pup, and, finding him game and sharp, had adopted him as personal retainer. On the third morning after the treaty, therefore, Doorival appeared on an elderly but well-conditioned screw, leading a pack-horse, and showing in his roving black eyes and gleaming teeth the strongest satisfaction at his promotion.

Mr. Blockham did by no means disguise his sentiments when he bade farewell to his quondam pupil and his adventurous guest.

“Well, Waldron, good-bye. I wish you both luck, I’m sure; but I’m blest if I don’t believe a warrigal will be picking some of your bones before this day six months. I’ve no opinion of exploring; I don’t believe in running after new country; let other fellows, if they’re fools enough, do all that bullocking. Wise men buy their work afterwards—and cheap enough too. I didn’t take up Outer Back Mullah; quite the contrary. I gave a chap two hundred pounds for it, and where’s he now?”

“Somebody must find the runs,” said Guy, “and a good run, with permanent water, or say a dozen or twenty blocks, are worth more than two hundred or two thousand pounds either.”

“That’s all very well,” returned the cynical senior; “but how do you know there’s any country where you’re going, let alone water? Besides, excuse me, sir, but you’re a-goin’ with a man that’s been unlucky, by his own word, with everything he’s touched before. I don’t believe in a man as is unlucky. I’ve seen a deal of life, and I never go in with one of that sort; not if I know it. No offence to you, sir.” This to Jack. “You can’t help it, I know. As for you, you young black bilber, what are you grinnin’ and lookin’ so pleased at? You’ll wish old Driver was a lickin’ ye with the dog-chain again, when some of them myalls gets round ye a little before daylight.”

The little expedition set forth, maugre the boding utterances of Mr. Blockham. The equipment was not costly, but it was sufficient; and two of the party at least had a “letter of credit” good for all the drafts which they were likely to draw upon it for some time to come.

What says the wise, sad humorist?—

“Our youth! our youth! that spring of springs, It surely is one of the blessedest things         By Nature ever invented. When the rich are happy in spite of their wealth, When the poor are rich in spirits and health,         And all with their lot contented.”

Guy Waldron, full of hope, and thirsting for wild life and adventure, rode side by side with Jack, carolling as he went, like Taillefer singing the song of Rollo in the fore-front of the Battle of Hastings.

Doorival followed at a short distance, accompanied by the dog Help, whom he had managed to propitiate, and to whom he from time to time addressed all kinds of pretended inquiries and suggestions.

“By Jove!” said Guy, “I feel quite a new man now I’ve got away from that confounded dull place, and that dismal old growler Blockham. He’s like the man in Marcus Clarke’s ballad, who ‘Did nothing but swear and smoke.’ It’s a luxury to have a Christian to talk to again. Talk of Englishmen!—Doorival’s a king to him.”

“It’s all luck,” said Jack; “even in this rather distant region you might have found a chum who got the periodicals by every mail, and went in for decent reading at odd times.”

“That’s true enough,” said the representative of “Young England,” “for I went over one day to get our mail—sixty-mile ride too—and Haughton’s cousin had just come down from India, such a jolly chap he was too—had been in Cashmere lately, and told us no end of yarns. But I was fool enough to think all squatters were alike, and let my agents send me anywhere they liked.”

“Well, you’ll know better next time,” said Jack, “after we’ve discovered this new country, and sold a few blocks to buy a couple of thousand store cattle with. You can pick up an Indian swell, or any sort of partner you fancy, if that works out.”

“You’ll suit me down to the ground, old fellow,” said Mr. Waldron, enthusiastically. “We’re in ‘for better for worse,’ as they say in the christening service, or the matrimonial questions and answers, or whatever it is.”

“It doesn’t concern us at present,” said Jack, gravely. “Possibly you’ll be better informed on that subject likewise, some day. In the meantime, how long shall we be getting through this cursed scrub?”

“I believe we shall have a week of it, if old Blockham is to be believed. He always used to swear that the scrub on this side of Mullah was more than a hundred miles thick, and that beyond that was a sandy desert, which ran right into the middle of the continent.”

“Probably his geographical information was defective,” answered Jack. “He is evidently one of that order of pioneers whose watchword is ‘no good country beyond me.’ We must keep a due north-west course, take our chance of water, and if Australia keeps true to her past character the worse country we pass through the better our chance of dropping on to something astoundingly good.”

“You think so really?” asked Waldron.

“Sure of it—look at the Won-won country, the Matyara, and half-a-dozen other choice districts I could name. The first explorers must have been perfectly desperate with the awful jungles and barren tracts they had to pass through. Then one fine morning a fellow climbs up the last iron-bark range, or tears his garments in pushing through the last thicket, and lo! the Promised Land lies stretched out before him.”

“By George! you raise a fellow’s spirits awfully,” said Guy. “I suppose you have been in this funny country ever so many years?”

“I wasn’t born in it, if that is what you mean,” answered his companion; “but I have been in Australia ever since I could speak; so I have had the benefit of sufficient colonial experience at any rate.”

Thus conversing, sometimes idly enough, at times with a strong tinge of earnestness, the day wore on. At sundown they reached a fairly commodious spot, and there they made their simple dispositions for passing the night.

Here Mr. Doorival began to demonstrate his quality, and to establish the soundness of the reasoning which led to his being promoted to his present position. He it was who discovered the water, made the fire, helped to unpack the cooking utensils, and to hobble out the horses—the whole under the watchful eye of the dog Help, who lay under a bush and watched the proceedings with great interest.

One horse was tethered, so as to be at hand in case of need; the others were permitted to range within moderate bounds. Only a small fire was made, as, once within the boundaries of the real wild blacks, it would be hazardous to run the chance of attracting them to the camp. And it was thought en règle. The nights were mild, as rarely in that region is it otherwise, the occasional storms and fierce rainfalls excepted.

After the evening meal and the postcœnal smoke, each one wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down separately, and at some distance from the fire; so in case of attack their antagonists would be less likely to surround them, or to discover the precise locality from which the deadly discharge of the white man’s firearms might be expected. Help deserted his youthful acquaintance of the day, and, curling himself up beside his master, dozed all watchfully, as is the manner of his kind.