From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

“Indeed, Bob, we will not. If I go to the Bush – and now I’ve half a mind to – I’ll work like a New Hollander.”

“Bravo! You’re a chip o’ the old block. Well, we can arrange that. We’ll hire you. Will that do, my proud young son of a proud old sire?”

“Yes; you can hire me.”

“Well, we’ll pay so much for your hands, and so much for your head and brains.”

Archie laughed.

“And,” continued Bob, “I’m sure that Sarah will do the very best for the three of us.”

“Sarah! Why, what do you mean, Bob?”

“Only this, lad: Sarah has promised to become my little wife.”

The girl had just entered.

“Haven’t you, Sarah?”

“Hain’t I what?”

“Promised to marry me.”

“Well, Mister Archie Broadbent, now I comes to think on’t, I believes I ’ave. You know, mister, you wouldn’t never ’ave married me.”

“No, Sarah.”

“Well, and I’m perfectly sick o’ toilin’ up and down these stairs. That’s ’ow it is, sir.”

“Well, Sarah,” said Archie, “bring us some more nice tea, and I’ll forgive you for this once, but you mustn’t do it any more.”

It was late ere Bob and Harry went away. Archie lay back at once, and when, a few minutes after, the ex-policeman’s wife came in to see how he was, she found him sound and fast.

Archie was back again at Burley Old Farm, that is why he smiled in his dreams.

“So I’m going to be a hired man in the bush,” he said to himself next morning. “That’s a turn in the kaleidoscope of fortune.”

However, as the reader will see, it did not quite come to this with Archie Broadbent.

Chapter Sixteen

A Miner’s Marriage

It was the cool season in Sydney. In other words, it was winter just commencing; so, what with balmy air and beauty everywhere around, no wonder Archie soon got well. He had the kindest treatment too, and he had youth and hope.

He could now write home to his parents and Elsie a long, cheerful letter without any twinge of conscience. He was going to begin work soon in downright earnest, and get straight away from city life, and all its allurements; he wondered, he said, it had not occurred to him to do this before, only it was not too late to mend even yet. He hated city life now quite as much as he had previously loved it, and been enamoured of it.

It never rains but it pours, and on the very day after he posted his packet to Burley he received a registered letter from his uncle. It contained a bill of exchange for fifty pounds. Archie blushed scarlet when he saw it.

Now had this letter and its contents been from his father, knowing all he did of the straits at home, he would have sent the money back. But his uncle evidently knew whom he had to deal with; for he assured Archie in his letter that it was a loan, not a gift. He might want it he said, and he really would be obliging him by accepting it. He – Uncle Ramsay – knew what the world was, and so on and so forth, and the letter ended by requesting Archie to say nothing about it to his parents at present.

“Dear old boy,” said Archie half aloud, and tears of gratitude sprang to his eyes. “How thoughtful and kind! Well, it’ll be a loan, and I’ll pray every night that God may spare him till I get home to shake his honest brown paw, and thrust the fifty pounds back into it. No, it would be really unkind to refuse it.”

He went straight away – walking on feathers – to Bob’s hotel. He found him and Harry sitting out on the balcony drinking sherbet. He took a seat beside them.

“I’m in clover, boys,” he cried exultingly, as he handed the cash to Bob to look at.

“So you are,” said Bob, reading the figures. “Well, this is what my old mother would call a Godsend. I always said your Uncle Ramsay was as good as they make ’em.”

“It looks a lot of money to me at present,” said Archie. “I’ll have all that to begin life with; for I have still a few pounds left to pay my landlady, and to buy a blanket or two.”

“Well, as to what you’ll buy, Archie,” said Bob Cooper, “if you don’t mind leaving that to us, we will manage all, cheaper and better than you could; for we’re old on the job.”

“Oh! I will with pleasure, only – ”

“I know all about that. You’ll settle up. Well, we’re all going to be settlers. Eh? See the joke?”

“Bob doesn’t often say funny things,” said Harry; “so it must be a fine thing to be going to get married.”

“Ay, lad, and I’m going to do it properly. Worst of it is, Archie, I don’t know anybody to invite. Oh, we must have a dinner! Bother breakfasts, and hang honeymoons. No, no; a run round Sydney will suit Sarah better than a year o’ honeymooning nonsense. Then we’ll all go off in the boat to Brisbane. That’ll be a honeymoon and a half in itself. Hurrah! Won’t we all be so happy! I feel sure Sarah’s a jewel.”

“How long did you know her, Bob, before you asked her the momentous question?”

“Asked her what!”

“To marry you.”

“Oh, only a week! La! that’s long enough. I could see she was true blue, and as soft as rain. Bless her heart! I say, Archie, who’ll we ask?”

“Well, I know a few good fellows – ”

“Right. Let us have them. What’s their names?”

Out came Bob’s notebook, and down went a dozen names.

“That’ll be ample,” said Archie.

“Well,” Bob acquiesced with a sigh, “I suppose it must. Now we’re going to be spliced by special licence, Sarah and I. None of your doing things by half. And Harry there is going to order the cabs and carriages, and favours and music, and the parson, and everything firstchop.”

The idea of “ordering the parson” struck Archie as somewhat incongruous; but Bob had his own way of saying things, and it was evident he would have his own way in doing things too for once.

“And,” continued Bob, “the ex-policeman’s wife and I are going to buy the bonnie things to-morrow. And as for the ‘bobby’ himself, we’ll have to send him away for the day. He is too fond of one thing, and would spoil the splore.”

Next day sure enough Bob did start off with the “bobby’s” wife to buy the bonnie things. A tall, handsome fellow Bob looked too; and the tailor having done his best, he was altogether a dandy. He would persist in giving his mother, as he called her, his arm on the street, and the appearance of the pair of them caused a good many people to look after them and smile.

However, the “bonnie things” were bought, and it was well he had someone to look after him, else he would have spent money uselessly as well as freely. Only, as Bob said, “It was but one day in his life, why shouldn’t he make the best of it?”

He insisted on making his mother a present of a nice little gold watch. No, he wouldn’t let her have a silver one, and it should be “set with blue-stones.” He would have that one, and no other.

“Too expensive? No, indeed!” he cried. “Make out the bill, master, and I’ll knock down my cheque. Hurrah! one doesn’t get married every morning, and it isn’t everybody who gets a girl like Sarah when he does get spliced! So there!”

Archie had told Bob and Harry of his first dinner at the hotel, and how kind and considerate in every way the waiter had been, and how he had often gone back there to have a talk.

“It is there then, and nowhere else,” said Bob, “we’ll have our wedding dinner.”

Archie would not gainsay this; and nothing would satisfy the lucky miner but chartering a whole flat for a week.

“That’s the way we’ll do it,” he said; “and now look here, as long as the week lasts, any of your friends can drop into breakfast, dinner, or supper. We are going to do the thing proper, if we sell our best jackets to help to pay the bill. What say, old chummie?”

“Certainly,” said Harry; “and if ever I’m fool enough to get married, I’ll do the same kind o’ thing.”

A happy thought occurred to Archie the day before the marriage.

“How much loose cash have you, Bob?”

“I dunno,” said Bob, diving his hands into both his capacious pockets – each were big enough to hold a rabbit – and making a wonderful rattling.

“I reckon I’ve enough for to-morrow. It seems deep enough.”

“Well, my friend, hand over.”

“What!” cried Bob, “you want me to bail up?”

“Bail up!”

“You’re a downright bushranger, Archie. However, I suppose I must obey.”

Then he emptied his pockets into a pile on the table – gold, silver, copper, all in the same heap. Archie counted and made a note of all, put part away in a box, locked it, gave Bob back a few coins, mostly silver, and stowed the rest in his purse.

“Now,” said Archie, “be a good old boy, Bob; and if you want any more money, just ask nicely, and perhaps you’ll have it.”

There was a rattling thunder-storm that night, which died away at last far beyond the hills, and next morning broke bright, and cool, and clear.

A more lovely marriage morning surely never yet was seen.

And in due time the carriages rolled up to the church door, horses and men bedecked in favours, and right merry was the peal that rang forth from Saint James’s.

Sarah did not make by any means an uninteresting bride. She had not over-dressed, so that showed she possessed good taste.

As for the stalwart Northumbrian, big-bearded Bob, he really was splendid. He was all a man, I can assure you, and bore himself as such in spite of the fact that his black broadcloth coat was rather wrinkly in places, and that his white kid gloves had burst at the sides.

There was a glorious glitter of love and pride in his dark blue eyes as he towered beside Sarah at the altar, and he made the responses in tones that rang through all the church.

After the ceremony and vestry business Bob gave a sigh of relief, and squeezed Sarah’s hand till she blushed.

The carriage was waiting, and a pretty bit of a mob too. And before Bob jumped in he said, “Now, Harry, for the bag.”

As he spoke he gave a look of triumph towards Archie, as much as to say, “See how I have sold you.”

Harry handed him a bag of silver coins.

“Stand by, you boys, for a scramble,” shouted Bob in a voice that almost brought down the church.

“Coo-ee!”

And out flew handful after handful, here, there, and everywhere, till the sack was empty.

When the carriages got clear away at last, there was a ringing cheer went up from the crowd that really did everybody’s heart good to hear.

Of course the bridegroom stood up and waved his hat back, and when at last he subsided:

“Och!” he sighed, “that is the correct way to get married. I’ve got all their good wishes, and they’re worth their weight in gold, let alone silver.”

The carriages all headed away for the heights of North Shore, and on to the top of the bay, from whence such a glorious panorama was spread out before them as one seldom witnesses. The city itself was a sight; but there were the hills, and rocks, and woods, and the grand coast line, and last, though not least, the blue sea itself.

The breakfast was al fresco. It really was a luncheon, and it would have done credit to the wedding of a Highland laird or lord, let alone a miner and quondam poacher. But Australia is a queer place. Bob’s money at all events had been honestly come by, and everybody hailed him king of the day. He knew he was king, and simply did as he pleased. Here is one example of his abounding liberality. Before starting back for town that day he turned to Archie, as a prince might turn:

“Archie, chummie,” he said.

“You see those boys?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they all look cheeky.”

“Very much so, Bob.”

“And I dearly love a cheeky boy. Scatter a handful of coins among them, and see that there be one or two yellow ones in the lot.”

“What nonsense!” cried Archie; “what extravagant folly, Bob!”

“All right,” said Bob quietly. “I’ve no money, but – ” He pulled out his splendid gold hunter.

“What are you going to do?”

“Why, let them scramble for the watch.”

“No, no, Bob; I’ll throw the coins.”

“You have to,” said Bob, sitting down, laughing.

The dinner, and the dance afterwards, were completely successful. There was no over-crowding, and no stuck-up-ness, as Bob called it. Everybody did what he pleased, and all were as happy and jolly as the night was long.

Bob did not go away on any particular honeymoon. He told Sarah they would have their honeymoon out when they went to the Bush.

Meanwhile, day after day, for a week, the miner bridegroom kept open house for Archie’s friends; and every morning some delightful trip was arranged, which, faithfully carried out, brought everyone hungry and happy back to dinner.

There is more beauty of scenery to be seen around Sydney in winter than would take volumes to describe by pen, and acres of canvas to depict; and, after all, both author and artist would have to admit that they had not done justice to their subject.

Now that he had really found friends – humble though they might be considered in England – life to Archie, which before his accident was very grey and hopeless, became bright and clear again. He had a present, and he believed he had a future. He saw new beauties everywhere around him, even in the city; and the people themselves, who in his lonely days seemed to him so grasping, grim, and heartless, began to look pleasant in his eyes. This only proves that we have happiness within our reach if we only let it come to us, and it never will while we sit and sulk, or walk around and growl.

Bob, with his young wife and Archie and Harry, made many a pilgrimage all round the city, and up and through the sternly rugged and grand scenery among the Blue Mountains. Nor was it all wild and stern, for valleys were visited, whose beauty far excelled anything else Archie had ever seen on earth, or could have dreamt of even. Sky, wood, hill, water, and wild flowers all combined to form scenes of loveliness that were entrancing at this sweet season of the year.

Twenty times a day at least Archie was heard saying to himself, “Oh, how I wish sister and Rupert were here!”

Then there were delightful afternoons spent in rowing about the bay.

I really think Bob was taking the proper way to enjoy himself after all. He had made up his mind to spend a certain sum of money on seeing all that was worth seeing, and he set himself to do so in a thoroughly business way. Well, if a person has got to do nothing, the best plan is to do it pleasantly.

So he would hire one of the biggest, broadest-beamed boats he could find, with two men to row. They would land here and there in the course of the afternoon, and towards sunset get well out into the centre of the bay. This was the time for enjoyment. The lovely chain of houses, the woods, and mansions half hid in a cloudland of soft greens and hazy blues; the far-off hills, the red setting sun, the painted sky, and the water itself casting reflections of all above.

Then slowly homewards, the chains of lights springing up here, there, and everywhere as the gloaming began to deepen into night.

If seeing and enjoying such scenes as these with a contented mind, a good appetite, and the certainty of an excellent dinner on their return, did not constitute genuine happiness, then I do not know from personal experience what that feeling is.

But the time flew by. Preparations had to be made to leave this fascinating city, and one day Archie proposed that Bob and he should visit Winslow in his suburban villa.

Chapter Seventeen

Mr Winslow in a Different Light

“You’ll find him a rough stick,” said Archie.

“What, rougher than me or Harry?” said Bob.

“Well, as you’ve put the question I’ll answer you pat. I don’t consider either you or Harry particularly rough. If you’re rough you’re right, Bob, and it is really wonderful what a difference mixing with the world has done for both of you; and if you knew a little more of the rudiments of English grammar, you would pass at a pinch.”

“Thank ye,” said Bob.

“You’ve got a bit of the bur-r-r of Northumbria in your brogue, but I do believe people like it, and Harry isn’t half the Cockney he used to be. But, Bob, this man – I wish I could say gentleman – Winslow never was, and never could be, anything but a shell-back. He puts me in mind of the warty old lobsters one sees crawling in and out among the rocks away down at the point yonder.

“But, oh!” added Archie, “what a little angel the daughter is! Of course she is only a baby. And what a lovely name – Etheldene! Isn’t it sweet, Bob?”

“I don’t know about the sweetness; there is a good mouthful of it, anyhow.”

“Off you go, Bob, and dress. Have you darned those holes in your gloves?”

“No; bought a new pair.”

“Just like your extravagance. Be off!”

Bob Cooper took extra pains with his dressing to-day, and when he appeared at last before his little wife Sarah, she turned him round and round and round three times, partly for luck, and partly to look at him with genuine pride up and down.

“My eye,” she said at last, “you does look stunning! Not a pin in sight, nor a string sticking out anywheres. You’re going to see a young lady, I suppose; but Sarah ain’t jealous of her little man. She likes to see him admired.”

“Yes,” said Bob, laughing; “you’ve hit the nail straight on the head; I am going to see a young lady. She is fourteen year old, I think. But bless your little bobbing bit o’ a heart, lass, it isn’t for her I’m dressed. No; I’m going with t’ young Squire. He may be all the same as us out here, and lets me call him Archie. But what are they out here, after all? Why, only a set o’ whitewashed heathens. No, I must dress for the company I’m in.”

“And the very young lady – ?”

“Is a Miss Winslow. I think t’ young Squire is kind o’ gone on her, though she is only a baby. Well, good-bye, lass.”

“Good-bye, little man.”

Etheldene ran with smiles and outstretched arms to meet Archie, but drew back when she noticed the immense bearded stranger.

“It’s only Bob,” said Archie. “Is your father in?”

“Yes, and we’re all going to have tea out here under the trees.”

The “all” was not a very large number; only Etheldene’s governess and father, herself, and a girl playmate.

Poor Etheldene’s mother had died in the Bush when she was little more than a baby. The rough life had hardly suited her. And this child had been such a little bushranger from her earliest days that her present appearance, her extreme beauty and gentleness, made another of those wonderful puzzles for which Australia is notorious.

Probably Etheldene knew more about the blacks, with their strange customs and manners, their curious rites and superstitions, and more about the home life of wallabies, kangaroos, dingoes, birds, insects, and every thing that grew wild, than many a professed naturalist; but she had her own names, or names given by blacks, to the trees and to the wild flowers.

While Etheldene, somewhat timidly it must be confessed, was leading big Bob round the gardens and lawns by the hand as if he were a kind of exaggerated schoolboy, and showing him all her pets – animate and inanimate – her ferns and flowers and birds, Winslow himself came upon the scene with the Morning Herald in his hand. He was dressed – if dressing it could be called – in the same careless manner Archie had last seen him. It must be confessed, however, that this semi-negligent style seemed to suit him. Archie wondered if ever he had worn a necktie in his life, and how he would look in a dress suit. He lounged up with careless ease, and stuck out his great spade of a hand.

Archie remembered he was Etheldene’s father, and shook it.

“Well, youngster, how are you? Bobbish, eh? Ah, I see Ethie has got in tow with a new chum. Your friend? Is he now? Well, that’s the sort of man I like. He’s bound to do well in this country. You ain’t a bad sort yourself, lad; but nothing to that, no more than a young turkey is to an emu. Well, sit down.”

Mr Winslow flung himself on the grass. It might be rather damp, but he dared not trust his weight and bulk on a lawn-chair.

“So your friend’s going to the Bush, and going to take you with him, eh?”

Archie’s proud soul rebelled against this way of talking, but he said nothing. It was evident that Mr Winslow looked upon him as a boy.

“Well, I hope you’ll do right both of you. What prospects have you?”

Archie told him how high his hopes were, and how exalted his notions.

“Them’s your sentiments, eh? Then my advice is this: Pitch ’em all overboard – the whole jing-bang of them. Your high-flown notions sink you English greenhorns. Now, when I all but offered you a position under me – ”

“Under your gardener,” said Archie, smiling. “Well, it’s all the same. I didn’t mean to insult your father’s son. I wanted to know if you had the grit and the go in you.”

“I think I’ve both, sir. Father – Squire Broadbent – ”

“Squire Fiddlestick!”

“Sir!”

“Go on, lad, never mind me. Your father – ”

“My father brought me up to work.”

“Tossing hay, I suppose, raking flower-beds and such. Well, you’ll find all this different in Australian Bush-life; it is sink or swim there.”

“Well, I’m going to swim.”

“Bravo, boy!”

“And now, sir, do you mean to tell me that brains go for nothing in this land of contrariety?”

“No,” cried Winslow, “no, lad. Goodness forbid I should give you that impression. If I had only the gift of the gab, and were a good writer, I’d send stuff to this paper,” (here he struck the sheet that lay on the grass) “that would show men how I felt, and I’d be a member of the legislature in a year’s time. But this is what I say, lad, Brains without legs and arms, and a healthy stomach, are no good here, or very little. We want the two combined; but if either are to be left out, why leave out the brains. There is many an English youth of gentle birth and good education that would make wealth and honour too in this new land of ours, if he could pocket his pride, don a workman’s jacket, and put his shoulder to the wheel. That’s it, d’ye see?”

“I think I do.”

“That’s right. Now tell me about your uncle. Dear old man! We never had a cross word all the time I sailed with him.”

Archie did tell him all, everything, and even gave him his last letter to read.

By-and-by Etheldene came back, still leading her exaggerated schoolboy.

“Sit down, Mr Cooper, on the grass. That’s the style.”

“Well,” cried Archie, laughing, “if everybody is going to squat on the grass, so shall I.”

Even Etheldene laughed at this; and when the governess came, and servants with the tea, they found a very happy family indeed.

After due introductions, Winslow continued talking to Bob.

“That’s it, you see, Mr Cooper; and I’m right glad you’ve come to me for advice. What I don’t know about settling in Bushland isn’t worth knowing, though I say it myself. There are plenty long-headed fellows that have risen to riches very quickly, but I believe, lad, the same men would have made money in their own country. They are the geniuses of finance; fellows with four eyes in their head, and that can look two ways at once. But they are the exception, and the ordinary man needn’t expect such luck, because he won’t get it.

“Now there’s yourself, Mr Cooper, and your friend that I haven’t seen; you’ve made a lucky dive at the fields, and you’re tired of gold-digging. I don’t blame you. You want to turn farmer in earnest. On a small scale you are a capitalist. Well, mind, you’re going to play a game, in which the very first movement may settle you for good or evil.

“Go to Brisbane. Don’t believe the chaps here. Go straight away up, and take time a bit, and look round. Don’t buy a pig in a poke. Hundreds do. There’s a lot of people whose interest is to sell A1 claims, and a shoal of greenhorns with capital who want to buy. Now listen. Maybe not one of these have any experience. They see speculation in each other’s eyes; and if one makes a grab, the other will try to be before him, and very likely the one that lays hold is hoisted. Let me put it in another way. Hang a hook, with a nice piece of pork on it, overboard where there are sharks. Everyone would like the pork, but everyone is shy and suspicious. Suddenly a shark, with more speculation in his eye than the others, prepares for a rush, and rather than he shall have it all the rest do just the same, and the lucky one gets hoisted. It’s that way with catching capitalists. So I say again, Look before you leap. Don’t run after bargains. They may be good, but – This young fellow here has some knowledge of English farming. Well, that is good in its way, very good; and he has plenty of muscle, and is willing to work, that is better. If he were all alone, I’d tell him to go away to the Bush and shear sheep, build fences, and drive cattle for eighteen months, and keep his eyes wide open, and his ears too, and he’d get some insight into business. As it is, you’re all going together, and you’ll all have a look at things. You’ll see what sort of stock the country is suited for – sheep, or cattle, or both; if it is exposed, or wet, or day, or forest, or all together. And you’ll find out if it be healthy for men and stock, and not ‘sour’ for either; and also you’ll consider what markets are open to you. For there’d be small use in rearing stock you couldn’t sell. See?”