Plain Living

“These weaners were formerly obliged to come in to the frontage, you remember governor, where they were always mixing with the other sheep. The water dried up regularly about this time. Now they can stay here till next shearing, and I think the country suits them better, too.”

“They are looking uncommonly well,” said Mr. Stamford, running his eye over a flock of fine, well-grown young sheep, which were just moving out to grass after their noonday rest. “They ought to cut a first-rate fleece this year.”

“Yes; and the wool is so clean,” said Hubert. “There is nothing like having your sheep within fences; no running about with dogs and shepherds; they don’t get half the dust and sand into their fleeces. But I’m afraid this is about the last improvement Windāhgil wants doing to it. It’s getting too settled and finished. How I should like to tackle a big, wild, half-stocked run in new country, with no fencing done, and all the water to make!”

“You must bide your time, my boy,” said Mr. Stamford, with a serious face. “It will come some day – in another year or two, perhaps. You mustn’t be in too great a hurry to leave us all. Windāhgil is not such a bad place.”

“On the contrary, it’s getting too good altogether. There’s only half enough work, and next to no management required. Why, you could do all the work yourself, governor, with a steady working overseer!”

“Thank you, my boy, for the compliment,” said Mr. Stamford, taking off his hat.

“Oh, you know what I mean, father! so don’t pretend you don’t. I’m not growing cheeky because things have gone well lately; but really there’s only enough managing to keep you in exercise. It will half break my heart to go away, but what’s the use of settling down on a small comfortable place like this? And how can I feel that I’m doing the best for the family, when I hear of fellows like Persse, and Grantley, and Philipson taking up that new country beyond the Barcoo by the thousand square miles; splendid downs covered with blue grass and Mitchell grass? Grand water, too, when you come upon it. Think what all that country will be worth in a few years.”

“I understand you, my boy,” said the proud father, while a sudden emotion stirred his heart, as he remembered the days of his own youth, when he too had nourished the same high thoughts of adventure and discovery, and had played his part amid the dangers and privations of frontier life. “You can talk it over with Mr. Hope. We’ll see what can be done.”

“I suppose,” said Hubert, after a while, “when you’ve been up a week or ten days, and I’ve talked over everything with mother and the girls, from the regatta to the last new waltz step, I may as well take my holiday. I haven’t had one for three years. I begin to forget what the sea looks like, and I think a month in the ‘big smoke’ and a few new ideas will do me no harm.”

“Have your holiday, by all means, and enjoy it too, my boy. Thank God, it is not a question of money now. I have the fullest belief in the sanitary value, mentally, of a trip to the metropolis now and then.”

“Thank you, father. I’m sure it will brush me up a little; besides, I want to go to the Lands Office for certain reasons. I want, above all, to have a good talk with this Mr. Barrington Hope that I’ve heard so much about.”

“You’ll find him an uncommon sort of person. The more you see of him, the more you’ll like him, I feel certain. He is just the man I should like you to make a friend of. Try and get him to return with you, if he can spare the time.”

After the tea-things were cleared away, and the large, steadfast, satisfactory table was left free for reading, writing, or needlework – for all of which purposes it was equally well adapted – what a season of rational enjoyment set in! The book box had been opened before. The beautiful new uncut volumes, the titles of which were received with exclamations of joy, were placed upon a table. The collection of new music was inspected, Linda going there and then to the piano and dashing off a waltz; making, besides, a running commentary upon half-a-dozen songs which she and Laura were going to learn directly there was a minute to spare. Mr. Stamford took his accustomed chair, and devoted himself to the Sydney Morning Herald. Mrs. Stamford resumed the needlework which is apparently a species of Penelope’s web for all mothers of families, while Hubert and Laura, somewhat apart from the rest, kneeling on their chairs as if they had been children again, made a cursory examination of the new books, exclaiming from time to time at passages or illustrations.

“I feel inclined not to go to Sydney till after I’ve read most of these books,” said Hubert; “only that would make it so late. But it seems a pity to leave such a lot of splendid reading. Certainly there’s the Public Library in Sydney, but I hardly ever go in there, because I find it so hard to get out again. I did stay there once till the lamps were lit. I had gone in for a few minutes after breakfast.”

“What a queer idea!” said Laura, laughing outright. “How strange it must have felt to have lost a whole day in Sydney. Never mind, Hubert! There are a good many young men to whom it would not occur to spend a whole day in a library, public or private. Everything in moderation, though. You must have another station at your back before you can read all day long.”

“Please God, we’ll have that too,” replied he with a cheery smile, “or else the new country will be taken up very fast. I don’t think Windāhgil will see me after next shearing; that is if the governor doesn’t forbid it.”

“You don’t care about breaking our hearts, you naughty boy!” said his sister, pressing her cheek against his, as they looked over the same book. “What are we all to do when you are gone! You don’t think how lonely and miserable the place will be.”

“Are you going to stay here all your life, Laura? If you will, I will. But don’t think I shall not feel the parting bitterly; I quite tremble to think of it. How miserable I was when you were in Sydney! But what is a man to do? A few years of self-denial and hard life now will make things easy for the rest of our days. I am the working head of the family now. Father is not the man he used to be. And if I take life too easily for the next few years, all these great opportunities will be gone, and we shall regret it all the rest of our lives.”

“But the risk!” sighed Laura; “the wild country, blacks, thirst, fever and ague. Every paper brings news of some poor fellow losing his life out there. What should we do if you were taken? Remember how many lives you carry about with you.”

“You set a great value on Hubert Stamford,” he said jokingly, while something in his eyes showed a deeper feeling. “Other people wouldn’t think any great loss had taken place if I dropped. But men still go to sea, though wrecks occur. Think how nice it will be when I return bronzed, and illustrious, a gallant explorer with a whole country-side taken up for ‘Stamford and Son,’ with runs to keep and to sell, and to give away if we like.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be stopped; you are an obstinate boy, though no one would think it. I think I shall take possession of the piano and sing you that lovely ‘Volkslied,’ though I’m afraid my voice is weak after the night journey.”

Laura had taken a few lessons in Sydney, very wisely. Her naturally sweet, pure voice and correct intonation were therefore much aided by her later instruction.

“You have improved,” said her brother. “I never expected you to turn out such a prima donna, though there is a tone in your voice that always makes me wish to cry, as if that would be the height of enjoyment. You brought up a duet for me, didn’t you? Well, we won’t try it to-night. You’re rather tired, I can see. We’ll attack it some morning after breakfast, when we’re fresh.”

From this day forward, life flowed on with uninterrupted felicity for the Windāhgil household. It was nearly a week before the excitement passed away of enjoying all the treasures and novelties brought from the metropolis. The weather even became favourable to the new development of the garden, in which Mr. Stamford and his wife were principally interested. Genial showers refreshed the soil – always inclined to be thirsty in that region – so that Mrs. Stamford’s ferns and flowers, and plants with parti-coloured leaves, as well as her husband’s new varieties of vegetables, shrubs, and fruit trees, all partook of the beneficence of the season.

As for Hubert and his sisters, they rode and drove about by day whenever the weather was favourable; indeed sometimes when it was not. They read steadily at the new books by night, and by that means, and a few visits to old friends in the neighbourhood, filled up every spare moment in a mode of life each day of which was consciously and unaffectedly happy.

In addition to these quasi-pastoral occupations, one day brought the exciting news that a new proprietor – indeed a new family – was about to arrive in the district – now the owner of a sheep station distant from Windāhgil about twenty miles had for some months, indeed since the change of season, cherished hopes of selling out to advantage.

An astute, unscrupulous speculator, he had purchased sheep largely, at low prices, directly the weather broke, had crowded on to Wantabalree all the stock it could hold – and more, had sent the rest of his cheap purchase “on the road.” This means, in Australia, travelling for grass to a distant undefined point in a neighbouring colony whence at any time they could be ordered back; subsisting at free quarters, on other men’s pastures till shearing.

He then offered Wantabalree for sale, at the high market price of the day, describing it as a magnificent pastoral property with a stock of sheep of the highest quality and breeding; puffed up the grass, the improvements, the homestead, the water supply, directly and indirectly, and having done all this, awaited quietly the usual victim provided with cash and deficient in experience.

In Australia, as in other countries probably, it is a fact patent to observers of human nature that the weak points of any particular locality are rarely obtruded upon the incoming proprietor or tenant. He is, in a general way, prone to spend money on a liberal scale for the first two or three years.

The interests of other proprietors are, in a way, identical. Assuming that the newly-arrived purchaser has made an indifferent bargain – that is, has misunderstood wholly the value of his investment, or bought in total ignorance of the peculiar drawbacks of the district, it is rarely that any one volunteers to enlighten him.

Such information, if unfavourable, might tend to depreciate the value of property locally. It was none of their business. Every one had enough to do to look after their own affairs. They might want to sell out themselves some day.

Besides, after all, the seasons might prove wet for years to come, in which case a tide of general prosperity would set in, quite sufficient to float Colonel Dacre’s as well as the other partially stranded argosies of the period.

This was the mode of reasoning which mostly obtained around Mooramah – possibly not wholly unknown in other centres more or less connected with financial operations.

Even an experienced Australian pastoralist may be placed at considerable disadvantage when he comes to inspect station property in a region previously unknown to him. He may under-rate or over-estimate the changes in pasture produced in varying seasons. He may be wholly ignorant of probable or latent disease. Summer’s heat or winter’s cold may surprise him by their diverse results. Such men may make – have indeed made – the most astonishing mistakes in purchasing stations in unfamiliar country. How much more so the wholly inexperienced, newly-arrived buyer from Europe, or Hindustan – ignorant of the very alphabet of pastoral science! He is indeed delivered over as a prey. The net is, in a manner, spread for him. Unless he be clearly warned, and indeed vigorously frightened away from this all-tempting enclosure, he is very apt to be enmeshed. After his entanglement – from which except by the blindest chance he rarely emerges save with despoiled plumage and drooping crest – he can hear from his too reticent neighbours doleful tales of loss and distress, a portion of which information would have been sufficient to deter him from (as he now believes) so suicidal an investment.

To do the Stamfords justice, they were not the sort of people likely to stand by and see an injustice perpetrated without protest. Colonel Dacre, on arriving in the district, had called at Windāhgil, and informing Mr. Stamford that he felt disposed to buy Wantabalree, which was then offered for sale with so many sheep, so much purchased land, &c., had asked his opinion of the policy of the purchase.

Hubert and his father looked at one another for a moment. Then the younger man burst out – “I think it’s a confounded shame that any gentleman coming to a fresh district should be taken in, utterly deceived in a purchase like this one of Wantabalree. It is known to every child within fifty miles that the place is over-stocked by nearly one-half. The reason the run looks so well is that a lot of sheep that were travelling have just been put on. They haven’t had time to eat down the grass yet. If a dry season comes they’ll die like flies.”

“You must be careful in making statements to Mr. Dealerson’s prejudice,” said his father. “We are not on good terms with him. That should be, perhaps, considered by Colonel Dacre. At the same time, I endorse every word you have said.”

“I know I hate the fellow like poison,” said Hubert. “He’s mean and dishonest – and deserves to be had up for false representation to boot; but I would say the same if he were my own brother. The sale of Wantabalree with the stock at present on it, under the advertisement of a fairly-stocked run, is a deception and a robbery. I give Colonel Dacre leave to repeat my words to Mr. Dealerson or his friends.”

“I gather from what you say,” said the Colonel; “that the stock upon Wantabalree is in excess of what it would be safe to depasture in ordinary seasons; that the buyer would probably, in the event of an unfavourable season, be at a disadvantage – ”

“Such a disadvantage that he would lose twenty or thirty thousand sheep to begin with,” replied Hubert; “and even under the most favourable circumstances the place could never carry its present stock.”

“Yet the sheep look very well – are indeed fit for market – as I am informed by the person the agents recommended me to consult.”

“This is the finest season we have had for five years. It is the best time of year also,” said Hubert. “Any run about here would carry double its ordinary stock for a few months – till winter, for instance. If a third more sheep were put on now, say on to this run, neither sheep nor run would exhibit much difference until the autumn was well over.”

“And what would happen then?” asked the Colonel.

“Then they would merely begin to starve – become weak and die – thousand after thousand, while all the survivors would be impoverished and lessened in value.”

“Good Heavens!” said the astonished soldier. “I never imagined such deceit could be practised in a pastoral community. It amounts to obtaining money under false pretences!”

“Not legally,” said Mr. Stamford; “but every word which my son has told you is substantially true. Wantabalree with its present stock is nothing better than a trap skilfully set to catch the unwary purchaser. Mr. Dealerson is, so to speak, an enemy of ours, but I will do Hubert the justice to say that a friend acting similarly would have fared no better at his hands.”

“Well! forewarned is forearmed,” said the colonel. “I feel deeply indebted to you, but your conduct has been in marked contrast to that of all the other residents to whom I have spoken on the subject.”

“Unfortunately, there is too much caution or apathy in matters of this sort,” said Mr. Stamford. “We should have been delighted to have you as a neighbour, believe me, but not at such cost to yourself.”

CHAPTER XII

About a week after this conversation Hubert dropped the local paper he was reading in the evening with such a sudden exclamation that his mother and sisters looked up in mild astonishment.

“‘Well I’m gormed!’ as Dan Peggotty has it!” he said at length. “Nothing will ever surprise me again as long as there is such a crop of fools in the world – no wonder that rogues like Dealerson flourish! After all I said too! Listen to this! headed ‘Important Sale of Station. – We have much pleasure in noticing that our energetic and popular neighbour, Mr. Dealerson, has completed the sale of his well-known station, Wantabalree, with fifty-four thousand six hundred sheep of a superior character, to Colonel Dacre, a gentleman lately arrived from England. Furniture, stores, station, horses and cattle given in. The price is said to be satisfactory.’ Well, the devil helps some people,” said Hubert. “How that poor gentleman could have run into the snare blindfold after the talking to father and I gave him, I can’t make out. Mark my words; he’s a dead man (financially) unless it’s going to rain for years.”

“Dealerson is a very astute man,” remarked Mr. Stamford, musingly. “As a persuasive talker he has few equals. Fine, frank, engaging manner too. Bold and ready-witted; I think I can see how he managed it.”

“Well I can’t see – can’t make it out at all,” said Hubert, “unless he is a mesmerist.”

“No doubt he made the most of being on bad terms with Windāhgil. He would rake up that old story of the disputed sheep; tell it his own way; get that fellow Ospreigh, who always goes about with him, to back him up; also make small concessions such as furniture and working plant; talk about the house and garden – they would be attractive to a new arrival; and if Colonel Dacre is at all impulsive – and I think he is – he has thus landed him. I wonder what the Colonel will think of Dealerson about three years from this time?”

“I’ll tell him what I think of him, the next time we meet in public,” said Hubert, squaring his shoulders, while a dangerous light came into his eyes. “If he could be tempted into giving me the lie, I should like to have the pleasure of thrashing him.”

“Gently, my boy!” said Mr. Stamford; “we must not set up ourselves as the redressers of wrongs for Lower Mooramah, Few people are in a position to discharge the duties of that appointment. I honour your righteous indignation all the same, and trust you will always retain an honest scorn of wrong and wrongdoers.”

“I should hope so,” said Laura. “I can’t imagine Hubert holding his tongue discreetly or passing by on the other side. There are a good many Levites in this part of the world, I am afraid.”

“Oh, my gracious!” said Linda, who was reading a closely-written letter; “think of this! Isn’t his name Colonel John Dacre, late of the 75th Regiment? There is one redeeming feature about the affair, at all events.”

“What can that be?” said Laura and Hubert both together.

“Why! there’s a distressed damsel in the case. If I didn’t know better, I should think Hubert must have heard about her. Listen to this!” And she read aloud: – “‘I hear that you are to have delightful neighbours. I was told that Colonel Dacre was going to settle in your neighbourhood. He has bought Wantabalree station – young Groves told me last night. He is a widower, handsome and middle-aged. But I don’t mean him. He has an only daughter, also a son. Think of that! Jane Robinson met her at Mrs. Preston’s, where she is staying. She says she is most sweet – handsome, though not objectionable in the beauty-girl line, clever, sensible, distinguished-looking, &c. Take care of Hubert, if you don’t want to lose him for good and all.’ That’s from Nellie Conway. Oh! isn’t that lovely?” and here Linda held the letter aloft, and danced for joy.

“I don’t see what difference it makes,” said Hubert, gloomily, “except that there are three people to be ruined instead of one. You girls are always thinking of marriage and giving in marriage.”

“Now don’t be provoking, Hubert,” said Laura, coaxingly; “we know somebody who is not always thinking about cattle and sheep. Now, listen to me. How long will it take for Mr. Dealerson to ruin them?”

“About three years,” said Hubert; “depends on the terms. Of course he’s got all the Colonel’s cash, but he would take long-dated bills rather than let him slip. Say three – three and a half – that’s the very outside month.”

“That means that we are to have the society and companionship of the very nice girl for three or four years,” said Laura; “we can ask her here for the last six months, you know, I really think, Hubert, it won’t turn out such a bad investment for the Colonel after all.”

“You’d better marry him out of pity,” said Hubert; “get father to endorse his bills, and that will effectually finish up the Stamford family as well – stock, lock, and barrel.”

“I’ll complete the tragedy by marrying Mr. Dealerson,” said Linda, “whom I shall afterwards poison, then come on to the stage and repent in white satin in my last agonies, having by mistake taken some out of the same glass. What a charming melodrama! Who says there are no Australian romances possible in real life?”

“No; but nonsense apart,” said Laura, “I intend to make a friend of Miss Dacre; she will be rather lonely. There are no decent people within twenty miles of Wantabalree. You must drive us over to call directly we hear that they have arrived at the station. It is a pleasant house, and the garden is lovely, to give Mr. Dealerson his due.”

“You girls generally manage to persuade everybody to do as you like,” said Hubert, making believe to be sulky still, but putting his arm round Laura’s waist. “It’s a pity you didn’t tackle the Colonel about not buying the beastly place, instead of father and me. He’d have dropped it like a shot most likely.”

“Don’t you worry yourself any more about it,” said Linda. “You have been ‘faithful’ to the Colonel – as Mrs. Christianson always says – and done the honest and disagreeable. Now let it rest.”

“You’re bordering on a Levite,” retorted her brother. “However, it was always the fashionable side.”

About a fortnight after the return of the family party, when most of the books had been read, when all the songs had been sung, when every conceivable incident that had happened in Sydney had been described and dilated on, after every new phase of intellectual growth in the three young minds had been stated and reviewed, Hubert Stamford relinquished his charge of Windāhgil, and departed for the metropolis on his long-expected holiday. Not without tears shed by his female relatives did he leave Windāhgil, that true and sacred home in every sense of the word – a family abiding place consecrated by fervent, unselfish love, which had grown and deepened since childhood’s hour with every opening year. How could they think without a sudden pang of the possibility of an accident – of one of the everyday mischances in this age of rushing, resistless forces harnessed to the car of man’s feverish need – depriving them for ever of the sight of that pleasant face, those frank, kind eyes, that manly form! Such might happen —had happened. Therefore, there were averted heads, fast falling tears, as the signal sounded, and the punctual, pitiless steam-giant bore away the hope of Windāhgil from the little platform at Mooramah.

“Poor, dear Hubert!” said Linda, sneezing violently, and then wiping her eyes; “it seems ridiculous to cry, when he’s going away to enjoy himself so much, and deserves it so well; but, somehow, one can’t help it. There is a great relief in tears. I think they are specially adapted to the feminine temperament, a nice, comforting sort of protest against circumstances. Dear me! how lonely we shall be to-night.”

“I really believe father was afraid he would ‘give way’ too, as Nurse Allen used to say,” said Laura, “and that was the reason he declined to come. Never mind; we shall have a telegram to-morrow. He must have been much more lonely when we departed. Fancy you or me at home, Linda, and all the rest of the family away!”

When Hubert Stamford had got over the first feeling of parting with those whom he loved better than his own life, the change of place and scene which the fast-speeding mail train rapidly furnished commenced to raise his youthful spirits. After all, ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte. Ah, but that first step! Some people never can accomplish it, for things good as well as evil, and a whole world of delights and dangers remain unexplored.