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“There is a tide in the affairs of man |
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.”
“He’s an auld sneck-drawer. I kenned him weel when he hadna sae muckle as a guid pair o’ boots. I wadna gie a foot-rot parin’ for the opinion o’ a hunner like him.”
“He is a stupid old fellow enough,” said Jack; “but those sort of people have an awkward knack of being right, especially where the making of money is concerned. A man can’t be too thick-headed to be a successful money-grubber.”
“It gars one doot o’ the wisdom and maircy of an over-ruling Providence whiles,” assented the old man; “but I’ll no deny that siccan thoughts hae passed through my ain brain when I hae seen the senseless, narrow, meeserable ceephers that were permitted to gather up a’ the guid things o’ this life. But that’s no to say that a man wi’ understanding and pairts suldna learn caution frae adversity, and pass all these creeping tortoise-bodies in the race of life, like the hare, puir beastie, if the auld story-book had given him anither heat.”
“But the hare never gets a chance of a second heat, my old friend,” said Jack, ruefully; “that’s the worst of it; he jumps into a gravel-pit, or a stray greyhound chops him. I think I see my sheep drawing off.”
So the colloquy ended for the time. But Jack doubtless revolved the question suggested by his humble friend, and asked himself whether the returning hope of which he was conscious was the herald of a gleam of fickle Fortune’s favour, or whether it was an ignis fatuus, destined to lure him on to yet more dire misfortune.
“That can hardly be,” he concluded, in soliloquy. “I can’t well be lower, and he that is down need fear no fall, as the old song says.”
But Jack’s hope this time was no ignis fatuus. He had seen the lowest depths of his adversity, and though his spirit had been crushed for a while his moral nature had not suffered. And now that his health was restored he was ready to face his fate as a man should, and struggle once more to get himself a place among other men as soon as he got the chance; and the chance came soon, and in a form which he had not dared to hope.
As he sat one day under a tree watching the sheep which were feeding on a wide spread of country before him, he took a newspaper out of his pocket which had arrived at the hut just as he was starting, and on looking down the column of “local news” his eye met a paragraph which caused the blood to leap in his veins, and filled his mind with a new and sudden hope. It was this—
“We regret to hear that Mr. F. Forestall and his companion, a stockman, name unknown, have been killed by the blacks when they were on their way to take possession of some new land which Mr. Forestall had purchased. The land is again in the market.”
Jack bounded from his seat in a state of feverish excitement. “By Jove! there’s a chance for me yet, but I have not a minute to lose.”
He was impatient to be off at once, but there were the sheep to be driven in and a horse to be got. While he stood thinking what was the best to be done he saw Mr. Hazeham riding up, and suddenly resolved to tell him of his predicament and appeal to him for help.
“Well, what do you want?” said the overseer, “and what do you mean by sitting there reading the lies in that confounded paper and letting your sheep go all over the country?”
“The sheep have rather a spread,” said Jack, quietly, “but you’ll find them all right. They are feeding towards the yard, and have a good way to go yet, but if you have a few minutes to spare I want to speak to you, if you please, and ask your help.”
Mr. Hazeham looked in surprise at “John Smith,” and his astonishment was considerably increased when he heard all Jack had to say. He was good-natured in the main, and not unwilling to help a man who had been a large landed proprietor, and might be again; besides, he was not a little pleased at his own sagacity, for he remembered that he had described Jack to Mr. Delmayne, the proprietor, as looking “like a swell out of luck,” so he promptly replied, “Certainly I will help you, Mr.——”
“Redgrave,” said Jack, reddening.
“Mr. Redgrave, I see there’s no time to lose. You shall have old Scamper, he’s the best horse we’ve got, and never mind about the sheep; a fellow applied this morning, and he’s still at the huts. I shall be at my place in an hour, or less; you come up, and you shall have the horse and your wages, John Smith,” he added with a laugh.
Jack laughed too, and started off as fast as he could go to find the old shepherd.
On his way his thoughts went back to Forestall whom he had never forgiven for his treachery; but death does away with offences, and he only felt pity towards the man who had supplanted him, and who had not even entered into possession of his ill-gotten lands.
“Puir fellow,” said old Jock, when he heard the story, “I expect it was the same black varmints that gave Meester Waldron his death. There’s naething in the way of fichting so deevilish as thae wee pisoned arrows, but I wadna hae ye too much set up. The land may be sold, ye ken.”
“True, but there is a chance, and luck may be in my favour this time.”
“Dinna talk o’ luck, laddie; the Lord has seen fit to chastise your pride, for weel ye wot ye were high-minded ance, and sin’ ye’ve taken your punishment doucely I’m fain to believe that He may see fit to reward you; and,” continued the old man, solemnly lifting his hands, “wherever ye gang, and whatever happens, may the Lord bless ye, and hae ye in His holy keepin’.”
“Good-bye, old fellow,” said Jack, wringing his hand, while his eyes glistened with unwonted dew. “If I succeed you shall hear of me, and you must come to me, and bring the dogs with you.”
Mounted on Scamper, which Jack had bought of Mr. Hazeham, he made the best of his way to the town. His first proceeding was to call at the office of the Minister for Lands: it was possible they might be able to direct him to the agents of Mr. Forestall. Jack was fortunate enough to see the minister himself, who remembered him directly, for he had felt much sympathy with Jack, and had been indignant at the way he had been treated.
“I suppose you are come about that land, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Yes, I am,” said Jack, with a beating heart, and a desperate attempt to speak calmly. “I hope I am not too late. Will you tell me, sir, whether the transfer was quite completed?”
“I am happy to tell you it was not, Mr. Redgrave. The papers were drawn up, but there has been some delay in the office. Poor Forestall was eager to see his possessions, and thought he would conclude the arrangements when he came back. So I suppose we have but to transfer the names, eh?”
“Thank God,” said Jack, fervently, and the sudden revulsion from fear and uncertainty to assurance sent a sudden choke into his throat which prevented his saying any more.
The minister saw his agitation, and talked on in a kindly way, giving him time to recover.
From the minister’s office Jack went to the cattle agents he had seen before, and made the same arrangements as formerly. He had not touched poor Guy’s £300, and that would be enough to get stores, pay wages, and so on.
There was no delay anywhere. Every one in the office knew how Jack had been cheated, and was ready to oblige him; so the papers were ready for him in a very short time, and once more he set out on his travels.