In Bad Company and other stories

'Well, a many do, but I am not much with pick and shovel. I'm gettin' old now, and I can't a-bear cookin'. Now, I was as comfortable as could be in Geelong, a-workin' steady at my trade. I was just a-thinkin' what a fool I was to come away, surelye!'

'What is your trade?'

'Well, master, I'm a butcher!'

There must be good angels. One doubts sometimes. But how otherwise could this man, an unimaginative Englishman, lately arrived, not easy of adaptation to strange surroundings, have been conveyed to this precise spot, planté là, that I might stumble against him in my need? I could have clasped him in my arms.

But I said, with assumed indifference, 'Well, I want a man for a week or two to do slaughtering. You can have five shillings a day, and come home with us now, if you like.'

'Thank ye, master, that I'll do, and main thankful I be.'

When we reached the fallen tree, which, like a South Sea cocoa-palm, supplied nearly all our wants (being fuel, fireplace, house, furniture, and one side of our stock-yard), the cattle were in, the camp kettle was boiling, and Charley, standing proudly by the fire, received my congratulations. Our professional comforted himself internally. We regarded the past with satisfaction and the future with hope, and were soon restoring our taxed energies with unbroken slumber.

Next day we slew two kine, ably assisted by our new man, who, however, looked rather blank at the absence of so many trade accessories. Our bough-constructed 'shop' on the flat became a place of fashionable resort, and the conversion of cows into coin became easy and methodical. Having real work to do, I donned suitable garments, and as I stood forth in blue serge and jack-boots, wielding my blood-stained axe or gory knife, few of the busy diggers doubted my having been bred to the craft. One or two jokes sprang from this slight misapprehension.

'Ah! if you was at 'ome now, and 'ad yer big cleaver, yer'd knock it off smarter, wouldn't yer now?' This was a criticism upon my repeated attempts to sever an obstinate bone with a gapped American axe.

On the first day of my butcherhood I had bethought me of the cuisine of my old friend the Commissioner, which I essayed to improve by the gift of a sirloin. Placing the exotic in a gunny-bag, I rode up to the camp, and said to the blue-coated warder, 'Take this joint of beef to Mr. Sturt with my compliments.' I had no sooner completed the sentence than I saw an expression upon the face of the man-at-arms which reminded me of my condition in life. Gazing at me with supercilious surprise, he called languidly to a brother gendarme, 'Jones, take this here to the Commissioner with the butcher's compliments!' For one moment I looked 'cells and contempt of court' at the obtuse myrmidon who failed to recognize the disguised magistrate; but the humour of the incident presenting itself, I burst into a fit of laughter which further mystified him, and departed.

I was now settled in business. I diverted a large share of the trade previously monopolised by my rivals, who now bitterly regretted not having disposed of me by purchase. Every night I went up to the Government camp with my bag of coin, which I delivered over for safe keeping. As many friends were located there, with them I generally spent my evenings, which were of a joyous and sociable character. The conditions were favourable. Most of us were young; we were all making money tolerably fast, with the agreeable probability, for some time to come, of making it even faster.

The exodus from Melbourne was exhaustive. There, daily to be seen in red shirt and thick but very neat boots, stood the handsome doctor of 'our street' by the cradle, for which he had abandoned patients and practice. Next to him, with constant care lowering the ever-recurring shaft-bucket, was a rising barrister. Hotel servants, tradespeople, farmers, market-gardeners, civilians, cab-drivers, barbers, even the tragic and the comic muse, had enrolled themselves among the players at this theatre, where the popular drama of 'Golden Hazard' was having a run till further notice. The ranks of the 50th Regiment were thinned by desertions in spite of the utmost vigilance; while the ships in the bay were likely to be reduced to the condition of the world's fleet in Campbell's Last Man.

Pitiable the while was the position of the squatters, especially of those who held sheep. On a cattle station the proprietor or manager, with the assistance of a boy or two, can do much. It is not so with sheep. Particularly was it not so in those pre-fencing days. In vain the sheep-owner doubles his men's wages and removes apparent discontent. He tries to think that matters will go on pretty well till shearing. One night comes a traveller, a wretch with a bag of gold. Next morning a shepherd is missing, and so on.

We gave a little festa one evening in honour of a friend who had sold his share in the claim and wisely gone back to follow his profession in town. The conversation had a philosophical turn, and it was debated whether or no the country would come well out of the ordeal to which, particularly on account of its uneducated classes, it was being subjected. Some one expressed an opinion adverse to the result upon national morality and progress.

'I hold a directly opposite conviction,' said Jack Freshland. 'So do all the men who, like me, have seen order produced from chaos in California. "Scum of the universe" was a complimentary description of her population. "Hell upon earth" was a weak metaphor explanatory of her social state. Look at her now – self-regenerate, orderly, honestly progressive in every phase of industry. I don't say that you run no chance of being shot; accidents will happen when fellows' belts and coat pockets are full of loaded revolvers, whisky being cheap. But you run far less chance of being robbed than in London or Paris. When I came away you might leave your valuables scattered about your tent for days. No one dared to touch them. I don't know whether we shall come to ear-marking pilferers and hanging horse-stealers, but this is an Anglo-Saxon population, and in some way, I will stake my existence, order will be preserved.'

'Talking of horse-stealers, I found Fred Charbett's "Grey Surrey" the other day,' said Moore O'Donnell, 'in rather queer company.'

'That's the horse he won the Ladies' Bag at the Port Western Races with,' I cried out eagerly, 'a tremendous mile horse, but no stayer. Had he a large D brand?'

'He had then; and a large S – if that stands for sore back – that ye could see a mile off.'

'He is a flat-ribbed horse,' I explained, 'and any one with a bad saddle might give him a back in a day that a week couldn't cure. How glad old Fred will be to see him again! Who is the ruffian that has him now?'

'One Moore O'Donnell. Maybe ye wouldn't mind putting your interrogation in another form, Mr. Boldrewood, if it's agreeable to ye?'

'A thousand pardons, really – but I didn't understand that you had taken possession of him.'

We all laughed at this, and Jack Freshland said, 'Come, Moore, you old humbug, tell us how you stole the poor fellow's horse. It's all very well for Boldrewood to back you up with his alphabetical evidence. I don't believe half of it. You'll be up before the beak if you don't mind.'

'Give me the laste drop of that whisky,' said O'Donnell, stretching his long legs, 'and I'll tell you all how I compounded a felony, for there is the laste flavour of that about the transaction. I was mooning about looking for old "Paleface," when, after a great walk, I came upon the villain in company with a strange grey, also in hobbles. You know what a hot brute mine is: the stranger was about the same. Neither would dream of allowing me to catch him. So, after a long chase, I arrived at home, exhausted and demoralised, with just sufficient strength left to put them into the bullock yard. I refreshed myself from the whisky-jar, and after lunch and a smoke, feeling better, I strolled out to look at the grey. I thought we had been introduced. Of course, there he was, the great Surrey, no less. The last time we met, I had seen a sheet pulled off with pride by a neat groom, just before Fred took him down to the races. Here he was, dog-poor, rough-coated, and with a back fit to make one sick; D on the shoulder, 2B under the mane. Identification complete. "Such is life," thought I. "Just as one's in fine hard condition, with all the world before you, and lots of money and friends, you get stolen, or come to grief, grass-feeding, and an incurable sore back!"'

'Rather a mixed metaphor, if I may be allowed a friendly criticism,' said a dark-haired, quiet youngster named Weston, who had been reading for the bar 'before the gold,' as people distinguished the former and the latter days. 'I don't quite follow who lost the money, or did you or the horse suffer from the sore back?'

'Go to blazes with your special pleading,' shouted O'Donnell. 'Can't a man make the smallest moral reflection among ye, a lot of profligate divils, but he must be fixed to logical exactness, as if he was up for his "little go"? Ye've no poetry in ye, Weston, divil a bit. It's a fatal defect at the bar. Take my advice in time, or I wash my hands of your future prospects. And now hear me out, or I'll stop, and the secret will be buried with me.'

'Go on, Moore; you won't be the last of your line, will you?'

'How do you know, sir? None of your Saxon sneers. The O'Donnell! Ha! ye villain, I'm up to you this time. Next day, as big a ruffian as ever ye seen came up to the tent and asked me "what I meant by stealin' a poor man's 'oss." "See here now," says I, "the stealing's all the other way, it strikes me. He belongs to a friend of mine, who would never have sold him. He may have strayed and got into pound, and you may have bought him out, or you may – pardon me – have stolen him yourself."

'"I bought him off Jem Baggs, as got him out of Burnbank Pound," replied he doggedly.

'"That may be true. I think not, myself. This is what I am going to do. The horse is in my possession, and there he will remain. You can either take him, if you are man enough (and I pointed this remark with the butt of my revolver), or you can summon me before the Bench, or take this £5 note for your claim. Which will you do?" He held out his dirty paw for the fiver with a grin, as he said, "All right, you can 'ave 'im for the fiver. He ain't much in a cart, anyhow."'

'Hurrah!' sung out half-a-dozen voices together. 'How glad old Fred will be to see him again. What did you do with him? Hasn't Bill Sikes re-stolen him yet?'

'I sent him back by a stock-rider next day. He is safe at "The Gums" by this time. I'm dry, though. You wouldn't think it, now! Pass the whisky.'

'I say,' said Maxwell, 'there's a feller which is a poet in this company. Wasn't that a ballad, Aubrey, that you pulled out of your pocket just now, among all those tailors' bills, or licences, or whatever they were? Let's have it.'

This was addressed to a fair-haired youngster who was arguing with great interest and eagerness the relative fattening merits of shorthorns and Herefords.

'Well, it's something in the scribbling line. If you want it, you must read it though; I'll be hanged if I will. Writing it has been quite bother enough.'

'Well,' said Maxwell, 'it's not every fellow who can read, or spell either, for the matter of that. I'll read it myself, sir; perhaps you may find the effect heightened. Now listen, you fellows; a little sentiment won't do none of us any harm. What's it called? H – m!

A VISION OF GOLD

'I see a lone stream rolling downThrough valleys green, by ridges brown,Of hills that bear no name;The dawn's full blush in crimson flakesIs traced on palest blue, as breaksThe morn in orient flame.'I see – whence comes that eager gaze?Why rein the steed in wild amaze?The water's hue is gold;Golden its wavelets foam and glideThrough tenderest green – to ocean-tideThe fairy streamlet rolled.'Forward, Hope, forward! truest steed,Of tireless hoof and desert speed,Up the weird water bound,Till echoing far and sounding deep,I hear old Ocean's hoarse voice sweepO'er this enchanted ground.'The sea! Wild fancy! Many a mileOf changeful Nature's frown and smile,Ere stand we on the shore;And yet that murmur, hoarse and deep,None save the ocean surges keep —It is the cradles' roar!'Onward! I pass the grassy hillAround whose base the waters stillShimmer in golden foam,Oh! wanderer of the voiceless wild,Of this far southern land the child,How changed thy quiet home!'For, close as bees in countless hive,Like emmet-hosts that tireless strive,Swarmed, toiled, a vast strange crowd;Haggard each face's features seem,Bright, fever-bright, each eye's wild gleam;Nor cry, nor accent loud.'But each man delved, or rocked, or boreAs if salvation with the oreOf the mine-monarch lay;Gold strung each arm to giant might,Gold flashed before the aching sight,Gold turned the night to day.'Where Eblis reigns o'er boundless gloom,And in his halls of endless doomLost souls for ever roam,They wander (says the Eastern tale),Nor ever startles moan or wailDespair's eternal home.'Less silent scarce than that pale host,They toiled as if each moment lostWere the red life-drop spilt;While heavy, rough, and darkly bright,In every shape rolled to the lightMan's hope, and pride, and guilt.'All ranks, all ages, every landHad sent her conscripts forth to standIn the gold-seekers' rank;The bushman, bronzed, with sinewy limb,The pale-faced son of trade, e'en himWho knew the fetters' clank.* * * * *''Tis night; her jewelled mantle fillsThe busy valley, the dun hills,'Tis a battle-host's repose;A thousand watch-fires redly gleam,Where ceaseless fusillades would seemTo warn approaching foes.'The night is older. On the swardStretched, I behold the heavens broadWhen, a Shape rises dim;Then clearer, fuller, I descryBy the swart brow, the star-bright eye,The gnome king's presence grim.'He stands upon a time-worn block;His dark form shrouds the snowy rock,As cypress marble tomb;Nor fierce, yet wild and sad his mien,His cloud-black tresses wave and stream,His deep tones break the gloom.'"Son of a tribe accurst, of thoseWhose greed has broken our reposeOf the long ages dead;Think not for naught our ancient raceQuit olden haunts, the sacred placeOf toils for ever fled.'"List while I tell of days to come,When men shall wish the hammers dumbThat ring so ceaseless now —That every arm were palsy-tied,Nor ever wet on grey hillsideWas the gold-seeker's brow.'"I see the old world's human tideSet southward on the Ocean wide,I see a wood of masts;While crime and want, disease and death,By rolling wave and storm-wind's breathAre on these fair shores cast.'"I see the murderer's barrel gleam,I hear the victim's hopeless screamRing through these sylvan wastes:While each base son of elder lands,Each witless dastard, in vast bands,To the gold city hastes.'"Disease shall claim her ready toll,Flushed vice and brutal crime the doleOf life shall ne'er deny;Disease and death shall walk your streets,While staggering idiocy greetsThe horror-stricken eye!'"All men shall roll in the gold mire,The height, the depth, of man's desire,Till come the famine years;Then all the land shall curse the dayWhen first they rifled the dull clay,With deep remorseful tears.'"Fell want shall wake to fearful lifeThe fettered demons; civil strifeRears high a gory hand;I see a blood-splashed barricade,While dimly lights the twilight gladeThe soldier's flashing brand.'"But thou, son of the forest free!Thou art not, wert not foe to me,Frank tamer of the wild!Thou hast not sought the sunless homeWhere darkly delves the toiling gnome,The mid-earth's swarthy child.'"Then be thou ever, as of yore,A dweller in the woods and o'erFresh plains thy herds shall roam;Join not the vain and reckless crowd,Who swell the city's pageant proud,But prize thy forest home."'He said; and with an eldritch screamThe gnome king vanished, and my dream —Day's waking hour returned.Yet still the wild tones echoed clear,Half chimed with truth in reason's ear,And my heart inly burned!'

'Well done, Maxwell, old fellow; didn't think you could read so well! I haven't been asleep above two or three times. I enjoyed it awfully. Particular down on us. Your underground friend, though, prophesies war, famine, and mixed immigration! Cheerful cuss!'

'Mr. Aubrey, will ye oblige me by coming before the curtain. It's proud I am to know ye. I have seen worse, sir, let me tell ye, in the pages of the Dublin University Magazine, where the name of Moore O'Donnell is not entirely unknown. I would like to repate to ye a short ode of my own on – '

'Rush oh! at Cockfighter's Flat,' burst in a new man – Markham – impetuously. 'That's all the talk now, my boys! They say the gold's thicker than the wash, shallow sinking, and lots of water. Jackson just told me; he's off there to-morrow to buy gold and go to Melbourne with it. I'm away, then. Any of you chaps join me?'

'I don't mind taking a look,' said Maxwell. 'I've half a mind to turn gold-buyer myself. It's a paying game.'

'It's an awfully risky one,' said Freshland. 'A man takes his life in his hand once he's known to carry gold. I know a fellow who started from here for Melbourne a fortnight since, and has never turned up.'

'Perhaps he's bolted,' suggested a cynic.

'Perhaps so,' answered Freshland carelessly; 'but if so, his wife, from her looks, they tell me, is not in the secret. I'm afraid it's the old story,' continued he, gazing mournfully into space. 'I know well how it's done. I can see it all as I sit here. A fellow goes stepping along the road through the Black Forest, whistling cheerfully and thinking of the ounces he has in his belt, or of what has gone down by the escort, of a piano for his wife, of the children who will have grown so, of the pleasant Christmas they will spend together, when, just where the creek crosses the road, One-eyed Dick and Derwent Bill step suddenly out.'

'"Morning, mates," says he, "fine weather after the rain."

'"Thundering fine," growls the one-eyed ruffian. "This yere's a fine day for us, anyhow. Done well at the Point, young chap?" As they talk they attempt grim jocularity, but their eyes, cold, sinister, watchful, betray their intent as they close upon him.

'"For the love of God, for my wife and children's sake, spare my life!" gasps the poor fellow; "you shall have every shilling I have in the world."

'"We ain't a-going to hurt ye. Just come off the road a bit, will yer?" says the crafty brute. Pah! I can't bear to think of it. Next summer some bullock-driver finds a skeleton lashed to a tree, in the thickest part of the scrub.'

'I say, Freshland,' I pleaded, 'don't. I've got a couple of miles to walk in the dark to-night. I think I'd rather hear that kind of story by daylight. But I must be off now. We tradesmen, you know! Good-bye.'

I walked back through scattered tents and darksome trees, moaning in the midnight, as the breeze swept through them. I was unable to banish Freshland's horrible tale from my mind, and was decidedly relieved when the yard of our encampment loomed into view. The cattle were lying down, Ben was smoking his pipe on guard, all was safe. Murderers and burglars were exercising their talents elsewhere. I was soon in a land where the mystery of permitted evil troubled me not.

My career at Ballarat was, however, drawing to a close. While we were transacting our al fresco breakfast, a 'real butcher' made his appearance with proposals for the purchase of my remaining cattle, and the collateral advantages of stock-in-trade, plant, and goodwill. 'Why had I not come to him in the first instance?' he asked with good-humoured surprise. Some accident had prevented me hearing of him. Mr. Garth laughed, and said he was in a small way compared to the others, with whom I had disagreed. I may say here, that it would be hard to pass through the populous, wealthy, energetic city of Ballarat now, without hearing much about Mr. Garth, owner of farms, mills, hotels, mining companies, what not.

I was pleased with his frank, liberal way of dealing, and augured favourably of his future career. He was the ideal purchaser, at any rate. He adopted, without a word of dissent, my prices, terms, and conditions.

With the conclusion of breakfast the whole affair was arranged. The cattle-edifices, tools of trade, and journeyman butcher were delivered as per agreement; Charley was sent for the horses, Ben was ordered to pack, the route was given, and in an hour we had turned our backs upon Ballarat.

I sent Ben and Charley back to the station, presenting the former with a coveted brown filly, and the latter with a white cow, as good-conduct badges. They reached home safely, after a journey of a couple of hundred miles, a 'big drink' indulged in by Master Ben on the road notwithstanding.

For myself, I went to Melbourne, having business in that deserted village. I had much difficulty in getting my hair cut, by the only surviving barber. The site of my shanty and block now trembles under the traffic of a busy street. The 'lost camp' at Wendouree Lake is valuable suburban property. Steamers run there. Why did I not buy it? If I had taken that, and one or two other trifling long shots, I might have been living in London like Maxwell, or in Paris like Freshland, if a stray Prussian bullet has not interfered with his matchless digestion. However, why regret these or any seeming errors of the past? They are but a few more added to the roll of opportunities, gone with our heedless youth, and with the hours of that 'distant Paradise,' lost for evermore.

MOONLIGHTING ON THE MACQUARIE

There are different kinds of work connected with the management of cattle-stations in the far bush of New South Wales. Some of them strike the stranger as being curious. At any rate, most people have not heard of them before, or if they have, don't know much. Something depends upon finding the cattle which you are required to manage. Didn't Mrs. Glass say, before yarning about hare soup, 'First catch your hare'? Right she was! If you'll come with me to the Wilgah brakes, 'Hell's Cages,' and 'Devil's Snuff-boxes' of the Lower Macquarie, you will see the pull of the 'first catch' arrangement. Don't suppose for a moment that ours is a neglected herd. If you were to see the stud animals – chiefly Devons and Herefords, for we found that the 'active reds' could pace out many a mile from the frontage in a dry season, and be back at their watering-place while a soft shorthorn would be thinking about it, and, of course, losing flesh. As I was saying, if you saw our 'Whitefaces' and 'Devon Dumplings,' you wouldn't think that. But those M'Warrigals, that we bought the place from long ago, were careless beggars; thought more of their neighbours' calves – some people say – than minding their own business and doing their proper station work. Now the back of the run is scrubby in parts, and the cattle there are 'outlaws' that increase and multiply. They get joined by other refugees and breakaways – brutes with no principle whatever. We seldom see them, as they have got a nasty habit of feeding at night, like tigers and lions and other wild animals. When we do see them – by day – they break away, scatter, and charge. All the horses and dogs in the country wouldn't get them.

What are we to do? There are some famous bullocks among them – rather coarse, perhaps, but rolling fat – ugly with fat, as the stock-riders say. And as cattle are a first-class price just now, and the feed grand all the way to market, there's no use talking; we must have a shy at them. It won't do for me, a native-born Australian, and manager of my father's best cattle-station, to be beaten by anything that ever wore a hide. Have 'em we must. The new paddock is just finished. We are going to muster the other side of the run – the quiet side – the day after to-morrow, and if we can make a good haul out of these 'scrub danglers' we shall have together as fine a lot of fat cattle as ever left the Macquarie.

And how are we going to do it? There are half-a-dozen as good hands on this Milgai Run, including the black boys Johnny Smoker and Gundai, as ever rode stock-horse or followed a beast. And yet, if we rode after this lot for a month we shouldn't get more than a couple of dozen, tear our clothes to rags, stake our horses, and get knocked off in the Wilgah scrubs – after all get next to no cattle – that's what I look at. Still, there is a way – and only one way – that we may fetch 'em by, and perhaps in one night. I'm going to tell you about it. We must moonlight 'em.