In Bad Company and other stories

When we migrated to Port Phillip in 1840, a special permit was obtained from the Governor in Council to take down our servants – eight men and two women. The men went overland with the stock, and of course remained till their tickets-of-leave were due. But the women, our fellow-passengers by sea, married soon after they got to Melbourne. It was a 'rush,' in the latter-day goldfields' idiom, and women were at a premium. We might have refused our royal permission to this, but were not hard-hearted enough to do so. We were thus left desolate and servantless, a condition in life much less common in those days than it is now, I grieve to say, speaking as a householder. The men on the whole behaved well. George Stevenson, a clever mechanic and gardener from the north of Ireland, was drowned while crossing the Yarra at Heidelberg by night – a shanty being the fatal temptation. The groom died in the Benevolent Asylum at Melbourne, after many a year of faithful service to us and others. All our men but one got their tickets-of-leave, and drifted away out of ken. But while on the question, I may here record my opinion, that these men and their class generally did an immense deal of indispensable work in the earlier decades of the colony. They were, on the whole, when fairly treated, well behaved. They rarely shirked their work, were often touchingly attached to the families wherein they had done their enforced servitude, and after their virtual freedom was gained, mostly led industrious and reputable lives.

AFTER LONG YEARS

'This is the place; stand still, my steed, let me review the scene!' Quite correct, this is the place, though so changed that I hardly recognise the homestead which I built when I 'took up the Run' still known as 'Squattlesea Mere,' so many a year ago. Can it be possible that half a century should have passed – fleeted by like a dream – as a tale that is told – and that I should again stand here, looking at the work of my hands in that old time, whereof the memory is so fresh? The huts, the stock-yards, the cottage wherein we dwelt in peaceful contentment, nearly all are there, though much decayed and showing manifest signs of old Time —edax rerum– with his slow but sure attrition. The fruit trees in the garden, planted with my own hands, are of great age and size, and still bearing abundantly in a soil and climate so favourable to their growth. I find it almost impossible to realise that in June 1844, being then a stripling of eighteen, I should have established this 'lodge in the wilderness,' now developed into a fair-sized freehold, besides supporting a number of families in comfort and respectability on the selected portions.

Well do I remember the dark night when I reached this very spot, on a tired horse, having ridden from Grasmere on the Merrai that day, nearly fifty miles, without food for man or beast. The black marauders of the period held revel on a cape of the lava-bestrewn land which jutted out upon the marsh, near the Native Dog's Well. I had stumbled on to their camp, not seeing it until I was amid their dimly-burning fires. Relations were strained between us, and as they were then engaged in banqueting upon one of my milch cows (name Matilda), there is no saying what might have happened to the chronicler if my colt, a great-grandson of Skeleton (own brother to Drone), had not responded to the spur.

The overseer and I, arming ourselves, rode to the scene of the entertainment next morning, which presented an appearance much resembling the locality in Robinson Crusoe's island after the savages had finished their repast. Portions of the murdered milker were visible, also her orphaned calf, lowing in lament after his kind. But our sable neighbours had vanished.

I drove over the identical spot last week. How different its aspect! Drained and fenced – the black soil of the fen showing by depth and colour what crops it is destined to grow – a wire fence, a dog-leg ditto, all sorts of queer enclosures. Only the volcanic trap ridges remain unchanged, and the 'Blue Alsatian Mountains,' as typified by Mount Eeles and Mount Napier, which seem to 'watch and wait alway.'

Yes. The landscape has an altered appearance. What we used to call 'the smooth side' of the Eumeralla – as differentiated from the 'stones' of Mount Eeles, then, as now, rough enough in all conscience – has since our day been almost wholly denuded of timber. The handsome, umbrageous, blackwood trees (Acacia melanoxylon), which marked and shaded the 'islands' in the great mere, are dead and gone.

The marsh lands, then divided into islands, flats, and reed-beds, now present one apparently dead level, less picturesque, but more profitable, as fields of oats and barley are now to be seen where the 'wild drake quacked and the bittern boomed.'

Yon broad arterial drain is responsible for this transformation. More complete reticulation will in time turn the ancient fen, I doubt not, into one of the most productive agricultural areas in the Port Fairy district.

Still, with the increase of population and the onward march of civilisation, one natural enemy of the grazier comes forward as another is displaced. The dingo and kangaroo, with our poor relations, the aborigines, have mostly disappeared. But the rabbit in countless multitudes has arrived and come to stay; while the hero of our nursery tales and I wot not of what mediæval legends, Master Reynard, the fox, has found the climate suit his constitution. He raids the good-wife's turkeys, not wholly neglecting lambs, much as he might have done in the midland counties of England. Charles Kingsley's father (he tells us) took him into the garden one night to hear a fox bark, believing that the breed would soon be extinct in England; but he has held his own so far in the old country, and as I was told of a vixen with six cubs discovered in a log at Snaky Creek last week, I doubt whether we should not be able to re-export him, like the hares and rabbits, if a demand sprang up for the Australian Reynard.

Squattlesea Mere was certainly a good place for game. Snipe were plentiful, and might be shot, so to speak, from the parlour window. Wild ducks, geese, turkeys, quail, and the beautiful bronze-wing pigeon also. The kangaroo was then in the land, and helped our larder (notably with his tail, which made excellent soup), and an occasional dish of steak or hashed wallaby. The flesh tasted something between lean beef and veal, not at all a bad substitute for salt junk, when well cooked. A couple of hundred rabbits at least must have crossed the road, running eastward, in two or three miles, as we drove along this morning.

How such a sight would have astonished us formerly! Hares, too, from time to time. Our kangaroo dogs were then nearly as fast as the pure greyhounds now so plentiful on every estate, and what good sport we should have had! Driving by coach between the towns of Hamilton and Macarthur, I observed with satisfaction that the old stations survived in the form of respectable, though not overgrown, freehold estates. And although the owners are no longer the same, they still bear their old names, and are thus distinguished from the smaller-sized arable and grazing farms which have occupied the remaining areas.

'Monivae' (the first in order along the Macarthur road), from which I have more than once seen Acheson Ffrench driving his four-in-hand, now boasts a mansion and excellent fencing. The old cottage, however, yet stands, surrounded by the station buildings, where the merry girls and boys grew up, and where we used to be glad to be asked to stop for a night in the 'dear dead days beyond recall.' Werongurt too, where John Cox held sway, where the first orchard was planted, where the choice Herefords roamed at will, where The Caliph and The Don were located, may still be recognised. There the rye-grass and clover – in after-years destined to overspread the land – were introduced; and more wonderful still, where the first swing-gate for drafting cattle was put up in 1842 or 1843 (pace Mr. Lockhart Morton). At the thriving township of Macarthur I had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with my old friend Mr. Joe Twist, formerly the crack stock-rider of the Port Fairy district.

At a little distance on the old Port Fairy road to Hamilton, now left untouched by the present railway, is Lyne, once the station of Messrs. Lang and Elms. At Macarthur, where I again beheld the deep, unruffled waters of the Eumeralla, still exists a compact freehold, running back to Mount Eeles and the volcanic country, which is now, I am afraid, an extensive rabbit preserve. This is known as Eumeralla West, at present in the occupation of Mr. John Learmonth, in whose hands it presents a thriving well-managed appearance. On the other side of the river is Eumeralla East, cut off from the original run by an authoritative decision of Mr. Commissioner Fyans, and now in the possession of Mr. Staughton.

Dunmore alone – once a show station for the quality of its sheep, cattle, and horses – has suffered a melancholy change. The last of the three partners, Messrs. Campbell, Macknight, and Irvine, strong in youthful hope and sanguine trust in fortune when I first knew the district, died but a few months since.

'Tis a saddening task to run over the list of the companions of one's youth and to note how the summons of death, the warning, the unsparing hand of time, has thinned or menaced their ranks.

Poor dear old Dunmore! How many a jolly muster have we shared in there! How many a loving 'look through' the stud – how many a race had we talked over with the first owners! It was taken up only a year or two before Squattlesea Mere. What dances and picnics, rides and drives, had we there joined in! What musters of well-bred bullocks, fat and high-priced, had we escorted from Paradise Camp when 'Long John Mooney' reigned as king of the cattle-dealers! And now, to think of all this greatness departed! The pity of it! No herd of cattle, no stud – Traveller and Clifton, The Premier, Tramp, Triton and Trackdeer, St. George, The Margravine, Lord of Clyde, Mormon – all dead and gone! Equine shadows and phantoms of the 'brave days of old.'

Hospitably received by the present proprietor of Squattlesea Mere, with whom I had much in common, as we had shared the changing seasons and varying profits of the Riverina in the sixties, I stayed a day at the old place. Once more I slept in the old chamber, sat at the table in the parlour where so many a cheerful evening had been passed by the young people who then formed our family circle, and for whom for a decade it was so safe and healthy a shelter. Again I heard the roll of the surges, as they beat in days of old on the shore. Again I felt as I rose at sunrise the fresh, pure air of early morn, and wondered if I should have the horses run into the stock-yard to pick out those wanted for the day's work.

Tempora mutantur, indeed. Where are now the overseer, the groom, the stock-rider, who, well mounted, and high-mettled as their steeds, were wont to fare forth with me for a long day's muster of 'the lower end of the run'? Where, indeed? Frank, the groom, most patient and cool-couraged of rough-riders – good alike on camp or road – is dead. The trusty overseer, who could ride all day and night at a pinch, or stride through the Mount Eeles rocks for hours at a time, now walks with a stick and is restricted to a buggy with a quiet horse for locomotion. And the gay Irish stock-rider, who took so kindly to the trade, though not to 'the manner born,' would, I fear me, distinctly decline to sit in the saddle for ten hours of a winter's day, wet to the waist and splashed to the eyes, as many a time and oft was our custom.

There is no doubt we are Rip Van Winkle. All the intervening life which has passed like a dream and left so few traces, must be in the nature of a magic slumber.

We could think so, were it not for certain changes we wot of.

The knight has been to the wars, and though shrewdly wounded, has escaped with life, and once more beholds the walls of the old keep. It sadly recalls the ballad —

Hawk, hound and steed roam masterless,His serving-men grow grey,His roofs are mossed – 'tis thirty yearsSince the warrior went away.

My next stage was past Orford, on the Shaw River, locally known in that olden time 'before the gold' as the 'Crossing Place,' now a township with inhabitants. The brothers Horan, my faithful servitors, were the principal business men there, after the Free Selector's Act of Sir Gavan Duffy altered the pastoral proprietary so materially.

One kept the hotel, The Horse and Jockey, built and first opened by the Dunmore stud-groom, Baker. He trained Triton, Tramp, Trackdeer, and other Tr-named descendants of Traveller. A good jock and finished horseman in his day, but grown too heavy for the trade, he took to the general stud business, and subsided into hotel-keeping. Death, the inexorable, had claimed Mr. Michael Horan, but his widow still holds the license, with a goodly number of young people, mostly settled in life, to uphold the family name and fame.

Mr. Patrick Horan owns the general store which supplies the wants of the township, but the hardships of bush life have told on the once active and athletic frame, and though the dark blue eyes are still bright and clear, the white beard and faded lineaments might well accompany an older man. However, men can't live for ever, even in the cool and temperate clime of Port Fairy.

Pat and I are still in the land of the living. For that, and the moderate enjoyment of life, let us be duly thankful; and though neither of us, I venture to say, will ride buck-jumpers any more, or follow the fast-receding herd through the forest thickets, some reasonable recreation may yet be meted out to us in our 'declining days.'

Melancholy-sounding phrase! But triste or otherwise the reality has arrived. And we must make the best of it.

IN THE DROVING DAYS

It is midwinter. The season has been severe, the rainfall heavy and continuous, almost without parallel. The floods are out and the whole country is generally spoken of as being 'under water.' We are on the road from Goulburn, New South Wales, to Gippsland with a thousand head of store cattle. We have crossed the high bare downs of the historical district of Monaro, rich in tales of wonderful feats of stock-riding, performed by 'the old hands,' and repeated by one generation of stock-riders after another. The Snowy River, rushing savagely over granite boulders, is in sight, and we hail that turbulent stream as a midway stage in our long, tedious, and adventurous journey.

Now there is cattle-droving and cattle-droving. When loitering in early summer-time over rich or level country the expedition is an idyll. The cattle follow one another without pressing, feeding as they go. The horses lounge along or are driven among the cattle, some of the men always preferring to be on foot. The dogs are easy in their minds, the whips are at rest. Around the camp-fires at night are heard sounds of careless merriment; the air seems charged with exhilaration, and all is couleur de rose. This sort of business is occasionally the rule for weeks, causing the unreflecting newcomer to exclaim, 'Is this the overlanding of which we have heard so much? Why, any fellow could do this.'

Quite another style of travelling was that which we had experienced for weeks and which was even now becoming intensified. When the country travelled through is rough, thickly timbered, or mountainous; when ceaseless rain floods the rivers and soaks the baggage; when the horses and cattle are enfeebled and therefore prone to straggle, ordinary difficulties are increased fourfold. Everybody is required to be at the fullest stretch of exertion, with both head and hand, from daylight till dark – occasionally for all night as well. Horses become lame or die; losses occur among the cattle; the person in charge has a tendency to become gruff, even abusive; hard work, anxiety, and perhaps short commons are frequently inscribed on this, the reverse side of the shield. Such is the prospect which we shrewdly suspect lies before us as we halt the drove nearly a mile from the formidable ice-fed stream, 'rolling red from brae to brae,' and prepare for a swim over.

Our party consists of eight mounted men, exclusive of a cook or tent-keeper, and a boy, hardy, knowing, and, it might be added, impudent beyond his years. The leader is Mr. Harold Lodbroke, an Australian of English descent; he has managed cattle from his youth up, and these are not the first thousand head that he has personally conducted from one side of the country to the other.

Mr. Elms, the second in command, is an Englishman who has plainly, by some peculiar arrangement of circumstances, been 'born out of his native country.' In speech, in manner, in the fifteen stone which he walks, in the square-built, clever cob which he rides, he is as conspicuously English as his name 'John Meadows Elms' would lead you to suppose. Nevertheless he is a 'Campbelltown native' – (why were so many of the early Australians born in that curious old-fashioned village in New South Wales?) – and he knows, I feel persuaded, not only what any cow or bullock would do under given circumstances, but what they would think.

James Dickson (otherwise Monaro Jim) and his mate, whom he introduced at their hiring as 'a young man from the big Tindaree,' are stock-riders of the ordinary run of Australian bush natives. They are given to long hair, tight breeches, tobacco, and profane swearing; it is possible they may be 'everything that is bad,' but bad riders – their worst enemy could find no fault in that respect. They require to be kept well in hand, but as they will receive no payment until the completion of the journey, it is probable they will do their work well.

Mr. Jones (of England) is a young gentleman recently arrived, who has joined the partly mainly for the sport and to add to his colonial experience – of this last commodity he is likely to gain on this expedition perhaps a little more than accords with amusement; but he is plucky and energetic, so he will most likely come well through, with a fair allowance of grumbling, as befits his nation.

Some preparation for the wilderness is now progressing, this being the last outpost of civilisation. Whips are looked to, and 'crackers' are at a premium; every horse has his shoes examined in anticipation of rocky passes and absence of blacksmiths. 'You won't find no shoes on the Black Mountain,' says Monaro Jim to Mr. Jones, 'and you'd look well leading that chestnut mare fifty mile.' At this cheerful way of putting things, Mr. Jones has a close overhaul of his charger's feet and makes at once for the smithy. Flour and beef are laid in, spare boots, and, above all, full supplies of tobacco are secured by the men, and lastly the pack-saddles, provisions, tent, and general property are ferried across the river in a rough sort of punt. It is now mid-day, dinner is ready, and after due observance of that ceremony, every one mounts and real work begins.

Harold Lodbroke on The Dromedary, a long brown horse, not far from thoroughbred, plain enough, but with legs of iron and a constitution to match, slides in among the cattle, followed by Monaro Jim and his mate. They bring on separately, or as they would say 'cut off,' three or four hundred of the vanguard; the rest of the party close up behind these and they are brought briskly towards the river. There is a steep but sandy bank, below which is the river shore. The cattle see this and hesitate; at a shout from the leader, every whip and every voice is raised simultaneously; the half-wild, half-fierce bullocks dash forward like a herd of deer. Down the bank they go, dropping over and breaking down the overhanging bank as they are forced on by the maddened animals in the rear. Harold jumps The Dromedary over the crumbling ledge, and, making a drop leap of three or four feet, lands right among their undecided lead. Swinging his twelve-foot stockwhip and yelling like a Sioux Indian, he forces half-a-dozen bullocks into the foaming water. The next moment they are struggling with the deep, violent stream, heading straight for the further shore and followed by all the rest. Other detachments are brought down, which readily follow their comrades, and in little more than an hour the whole expedition is safe on the right side of the treacherous Snowy River. We do not purpose to camp after the usual fashion to-night; no watching is thought necessary, we can see for some ten miles in every direction, the cattle are not likely to re-swim that pleasant rivulet, so the order goes forth, 'Let 'em rip.' They graze peacefully in the gathering darkness, a fire is made of drift-wood, the tent is pitched, and that day at least is successfully over. I have often thought that a nearer approach to perfect contentment, and therefore to happiness, is more frequently realised 'on the road' than under any other circumstances of life's travel. Everything conduces to those 'short views' which Sydney Smith recommended. The hours spent in the saddle or at the watch-fire tend to a pleasant weariness of mind and body. Health and spirits are at a high register, owing to a freshness of the atmosphere and the regularity of muscular action. A certain amount of anxiety is felt for the success of the daily enterprise, and when that is reached in the crossing of a dangerous river, or by the attainment of a favourable camp, the needs of our nature seem fully if temporarily gratified. Let the morrow provide for itself. The abstract incompleteness appears to diminish, almost to disappear in the illimitable distance, and we smoke our meerschaum by the watch-fire, or sink into well-earned repose, in the luxurious enjoyment of that unbroken slumber which is born of toil and toil alone.

So, one by one, we lie down to rest with the lulling sound in our ears of the turbulent, rock-strewn river. The réveillé is sounded at 5.30; there is no possibility of daylight for more than an hour, but breakfast can be cooked and eaten before dawn, whereas horses cannot be profitably searched for without some manner of daylight. The day breaks, cold and discouraging. The rain, which had poured steadily during the latter part of the night, causes us to congratulate ourselves that we are on the right bank of old Snowy, now rising fast. The faintly chiming bells, which every other horse of the twenty-three composing our 'caballada' wore, warn us of their whereabouts. We see, as the mist lifts, long lines of the cattle at various distances, but within easy reach of the camp. The horses, now driven in by the boy, Sydney Ben, and the 'young man from the Tindaree,' arrive. The cattle are soon put together. It seems improbable that any stragglers had left the main body. Mr. Elms, after looking through them, gives it as his deliberate opinion that he didn't miss any of the 'walk-about mob.' We take the trail that faces the dark woods and frowning ranges of the south, and the grand array moves on. It would be hard to find a more bitter day, except on a Russian steppe in a snowstorm. The unsheltered, stony downs over which we pass seem to invite the whirlwinds of sleet which ever and anon sweep over them. The cattle refuse to face their course from time to time, only to be forced on as regularly in the very teeth of the blast. The stage is comparatively long, so we toil on, drenched to the skin and cold to the very marrow, in spite of oilskins and wraps. Still 'the day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,' and nightfall find us at the appointed halting-place. We do not propose to 'chance' the cattle to-night, so a camp is made. First of all the drove is permitted to graze peaceably to the particular spot selected. This is either a dry knoll or the angle of a creek, fence, or whatever boundary may help to confine the cattle at night and lessen the labour of watching. This being accomplished, they are gradually driven up into such a compass as gives room for comfort without undue extension of line. Fires are as quickly as possible lighted around them. The horses are unsaddled, hobbled, 'belled,' and turned loose. For all night purposes cattle can be managed on foot, always excepting when they have been recently brought from their native pastures, in which case a relay of fresh 'night horses' is always kept ready for a rush or other emergency. Regular watches now are allotted to the different members of the party, changing, of course, every night. On this occasion Mr. Jones, who is on the first watch, is informed by the cook that his tea is ready, a piece of information which he receives with the keenest gratification. He seats himself between the tent and the camp-fire upon his rolled up gutta-percha ground-sheet and bedding, and thinks he never enjoyed anything so much in his life as the boiled corned beef, fresh damper, and quart-pot tea. Monaro Jim, who is his companion on watch, is also partaking after a deliberate and satisfying fashion, volunteering from time to time his impressions about the weather, the road, and the state of the cattle.