Plain Living

“We shall feel dear Hubert’s absence deeply, bitterly, I grant,” said the fond mother; “but he is animated by the very natural desire of all high-spirited young men to improve the fortunes of the family, and to distinguish himself in a career which is open to all.”

“But the danger, mother!” said Laura, in a low voice; “you remember poor young Talbot, whom the blacks killed last month, and Mr. Haldane, who died of fever. Suppose – oh! suppose – ”

“Suppose the house fell down and killed, us all,” said Mr. Stamford, rather testily, for the purpose of hiding his own inward disquiet, which, though not expressed, was as deeply felt as that of his wife and daughters. “It’s no use talking in that way, as if a young man had never gone out into the world before. Boys go to sea and into the army every day of the year. People must make up their minds to it. It is a grand opportunity, Mr. Hope says, and may not occur again.”

“I shall hate Mr. Hope,” said Linda, “if he has induced Hubert to go into this speculation along with some one no one knows, into a country which half the people, it seems to me, never come back from. But I suppose those mercantile men don’t care.”

“You mustn’t be unjust, Linda,” interposed Laura. “Whatever Mr. Hope has done has been in Hubert’s interest, we may feel sure. He has always been most friendly to the family. And you must remember that Hubert has been lately always pining to go to Queensland, and talking about wasting his life here in this old settled district.”

“What’s the use of being miserable if you can’t be unjust to some one?” retorted Linda. “If you felt as deeply as I do, Laura, you wouldn’t talk in that cold-blooded way. I can see the whole thing. Mr. Hope and his company are anxious to establish a great station property out in Queensland, or Kimberley, or King George’s Sound, or wherever it is, and they have pitched upon poor Hubert as a likely victim for the sacrifice. That’s the whole thing! They’re regular Molochs, and Mr. Hope is the officiating High Priest – nothing else. I wonder how he’d look with a garland of oak leaves, like the Druid in Norma?” Here Linda’s feelings, brought to a climax by a smile which she detected on Laura’s countenance at her mélange of metaphors, became too much for her, and pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, she retreated to her bedroom.

All the high contracting parties having sent in unqualified assent, it but remained for Mr. Hope to introduce the young men to each other – the representatives of the Parent Land and that Greater Britain which has now in the South and West attained such vast proportions; also to reduce to writing the terms of an agreement by which the two men bound themselves to work together for their joint benefit as graziers, explorers, stock and station proprietors for the fixed term of five years.

Mr. Delamere was to place to the credit of the new firm of Delamere and Stamford the sum of ten thousand pounds, which would be amply sufficient for the purchase of stock, the taking up, or even securing at second-hand, the requisite areas of Crown lands in new or partially settled country.

Hubert Stamford, on the other hand, “did agree and contract to personally manage and conduct the details of the joint concern – to superintend the management of stock, the hiring of station hands, the purchase of stores, and whatever work, either of exploration, travel, or management, might be found necessary, for which he was, in consideration of such personal knowledge and experience of the management of stock and stations by him acquired, to be placed and held to be the possessor of one-third share of the said property and of the profits of said stock and stations.”

These provisions and declarations were embodied in an agreement, which was drawn up by the company’s solicitor and submitted by him to Mr. Worthington for inspection and approval.

That gentleman, as instructed, wrote to Mr. Stamford, senior, who, it would appear, made some subsequent communication to him, inasmuch as Mr Hope received a letter signed Worthington, Wardell and Co., which briefly but clearly stated that his friend and client, Mr. Stamford, of Windāhgil, approved generally of the terms of the agreement entered into by his son and Mr. Delamere, and that he was quite willing that he should enter into such an arrangement, and that Mr. Hope, of the Austral Agency Company, had his full confidence and trust. But that he desired his son to place a proportionate sum of ready money to the credit of the firm, and not to enter it wholly upon the outlay of another. And therefore that he had placed in Mr. Worthington’s hands securities to the value of five thousand pounds, which sum they were ready to pay over on Mr. Hope’s order to that effect.

Upon the receipt of this letter, Mr. Hope at once proposed that the share of the profits to which Mr. Hubert Stamford was entitled under the agreement should be altered to one half, inasmuch as his superior knowledge and experience would be in value to the interest of the other moiety of the ten thousand pounds to be advanced by Mr. Delamere, and would thus equalise matters. This was at once agreed to, on the part of Mr. Delamere and the Melbourne manager of the company acting in his interests, upon which the agreement was “signed, sealed, and delivered.”

Nothing now remained but for Hubert to pay a farewell visit to Windāhgil, for the purpose of settling up what personal business he might have, to take leave of the family, and then to journey into a far country after the fashion of the princes, prodigals, and younger sons of historic ages.

Place and time being appointed for the newly-joined partners to meet and take ship for their destination, Hubert Stamford commenced all requisite preparation for a start homewards.

He had no further heart for the pleasures of Sydney – the ordinary distractions of a young man palled upon him. He felt like a general whose army is about to march for the imminent battle – like a soldier picked for a forlorn hope, or an advanced guard. The meaner pleasures revolted him. Balls and picnics, theatres and concerts, were but the straws and débris of life’s ocean. The argosy which carried his fortunes was about to sail with canvas spread and streamers flying. Would she return gold-laden, or would the cold ocean engulf her as so many other fairer barks which, “youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm,” had sailed away through the ingens aequor, and returned nevermore? Was it to be so with him?

Might it be a proved success, a wider experience with the praise of all men, the joyful tears and triumph of those who loved him? Or that other thing? Who could tell? He could only resolve to do and to dare worthily, whatever might befall, for their dear sakes.

Miss Dacre, with her father and brother, had left town for Wantabalree, being anxious to be settled in their new abode. The Colonel, distrusting more deeply day by day the wisdom of his purchase, had become restless and uneasy; he wanted to see with his own eyes how things went on, and to justify himself, if possible, for the investment, at which more than one disinterested critic had shaken his head. Willoughby Dacre, an ardent inexperienced youngster, who thought Australian squatter life made up wholly of galloping about on horseback, and lying under shady trees eating tropical fruits, was also impatient to be in the thick of the half-Arab life he pictured to himself.

Rosalind Dacre, though the chief doubter and dissentient, was yet eager to see with her own eyes this land of promise, which was, according to Hubert, to fail so woefully in performance, and also to put in practice her own ideas of “the gentle life” as possible in Australia; at the same time to comfort her father and aid in the household management.

For all these reasons the Dacre family had departed; and Hubert, calling at their hotel, found to his surprise and slight dissatisfaction, that they had gone the day before, a note of the Colonel’s alone remaining en souvenir, in which he thanked him for his well-meant, valuable advice, and trusted they would meet in the neighbourhood of their respective stations.

For some unexplained reason Hubert read this trivial note several times, and then tearing it up in a reflective manner, walked slowly towards his own hostelry.

“When do you think of leaving, Hubert?” said Mr. Hope, as they were talking over districts and markets, land laws and tenures, railways and syndicates, all more or less bearing on the great pastoral central idea. “When shall you go home?”

“On Friday, I think. I am getting tired of town, and everything is fully arranged.”

“Everything is settled that needs settling, and nothing more can be done until you young men manage to get pretty far back, and make your first deal in new country. It’s a gloriously exciting, adventurous kind of life, this starting to take up new country. I often wish I’d taken to it myself in youth, instead of this branch of the business.”

“Living in town seems a pleasant life enough,” said Hubert. “You have all sorts of things that we people in the bush have to do without.”

“And we need them all,” said the elder man. “This office life is one eternal grind, month after month, year after year. But I don’t wish to complain. I suppose all men get ‘hypped’ sometimes.”

“I never do,” laughed Hubert; “the day’s never long enough for me; but I suppose I soon should if I lived all the year round in town. It’s being so much in the open air that saves one. But why don’t you clear out to Windāhgil for a change? Come home with me. The governor and my mother are always expecting you to send them word you’re coming.”

“I wish to heaven I could,” said the man of the city, looking enviously at Hubert’s cheery countenance and unworn features; “but I can’t find the time at present. However, I promise to turn up at Mooramah – isn’t that your railway town? – some time before Christmas. I shall count the days till I can, I assure you.”

“I shall be away then, I am sorry to say,” said Hubert. “I should like to have taken you all over the old place. There are one or two decent views, and rides and drives no end. However, the girls and the young brothers know them as well as I do; you must get them to do the honours. Oh! I forgot, too – you can drive them over to the Dacres’. But you mustn’t put it off too long. Still, they can’t be ruined within a year or eighteen months, anyhow.”

“And perhaps not then,” said Mr. Hope, with a smile. “Friends might intervene judiciously, you know. It won’t be Mr. Dealerson’s fault if they pull through, however.”

“No, hang him! However, there must be Dealersons in the world, I suppose. They act as a kind of foil to honest men, and serve as transparencies to show roguery in all its glory. Well, good-bye till then. We may meet before Delamere and I start for the ‘Never-Never’ country.”

When Hubert Stamford beheld his sisters and his younger brother, who had driven to Mooramah to meet him, he felt more like a stranger and pilgrim than he ever expected to feel in that familiar spot. He was there with them, but not of them, as it were. He was to stay a month or so at Windāhgil – only a month at the dear old place where he had lived ever since he could remember anything; he was to go over all the familiar scenes once more, and then – to leave it, certainly for years, perhaps for ever. After the first warm greeting the girls looked inquiringly at him; the tears came into Laura’s eyes. “Oh, how happy we are to see you, our own dear Hubert; but to think you are going away so soon nearly breaks my heart!” she said.

“He looks wonderfully well. Town life – not too much – always refines people,” said Linda, with an air of tender criticism; “but I think there’s a hard look about his eyes. I suppose it’s making up his mind to this grand new speculation.”

“You see exactly the same Hubert Stamford that went away, you little analysing duffer, but is it my fault that I have had to move with the rest of the world? Do you want me to stay at home and become a superior sort of ‘cockatoo,’ and are you and Laura – if it is to come to that – prepared to remain at Windāhgil for the rest of your lives?”

“I wish I could,” groaned Laura; “but as you say, we must move with the rest of the world. Still these separations are heart-breaking. You needn’t mind us overmuch, dear; but we are women, remember, and you must let us have our cry out. It does us good, and relieves the overcharged heart.”

“Very well, I consent. But you must manage it all to-day. To-morrow must be sunshine, and only blue sky appear till I depart. But there’s a whole month or more yet. Think of that! We can be ever so happy all that time. Now, to change the subject. Have you seen anything of the Dacres?”

“That means Miss Dacre, I suppose,” said Linda. “Oh, yes; we went to call almost directly we heard they were up. Said we thought they might want something. That was how we described our curiosity.”

“And what do you think of her?”

“She’s a dear, sweet creature, and Laura and I have agreed that if you don’t fall in love with her, your taste isn’t as good as we believed it to be.”

“She’s very nice,” said Hubert, with society nonchalance; “but I’ve got something else to do besides falling in love for the next three or four years. Besides, she mightn’t condescend to a humble colonist like me. But tell me, Laura, what was there about her that you were struck with chiefly?”

“Several things,” said Laura, reflectively. “She is a high-caste, cultured girl in every respect, though she is so fresh, and natural, and plain in all her ways, that people who are always looking out for the airs and graces of the Lady Clara Vere de Vere species might be disappointed in her.”

“All that I can understand and generally agree with,” said Hubert. “What next?”

“She is awfully energetic,” continued Laura. “Of course, there are plenty of girls in this country that are, but she never seems to have any notion of repose from the time she gets up, which is early, till bed-time. She reads and writes and does her housekeeping, and walks, and rides and drives, and what she calls visits the poor (oh, there is quite a good story about that, which I must tell you!), all with unvarying industry.”

“She is a newly imported broom,” said Hubert, “and naturally sweeps with effectiveness. It will slow down a little with time. But it’s a fault on the right side. Tell us the story, Laura dear.”

CHAPTER XIV

“Well,” said Laura, putting on a Scheherazade expression of countenance, “it appears that Miss Dacre, having been used to be good to the poor of the village near where they lived in England, could not get on without them. Much to her surprise, she found them scarce in the neighbourhood of Wantabalree. Mr. Dealerson did not ‘believe in’ poor people, and generally ‘fed out,’ ‘blocked,’ or bought out small holders. At length, in one of her rides, she came upon an old couple living in a miserable hut, the man feeble and half-blind, both apparently destitute; their one little girl was barefooted and in rags. They told a pitiful story of having been deceived in the matter of a free selection – which, of course, she couldn’t understand – and deserted by their children. Charmed by their evident poverty and artless expressions of gratitude, she gave them what silver she had, and promised them employment.”

“Her intention was good,” said Hubert. “I can guess the kind of people they were; but it speaks well for her kindness of heart.”

“Nothing could be kinder, I am sure; but I grieve to say, she rushed into a declamation (she confessed) about the hardness of colonists’ hearts – who would let so deserving a couple almost die of hunger in a land of plenty.”

“As to that,” said Hubert, “very few people suffer from hunger in Australia, except when they decline work. Even then, they manage to live on their friends. How did the story end?”

“Well, she formed a plan for persuading these delightful poor to migrate to Wantabalree, where they were to be fed and furnished with light work. Fortunately for her peace of mind, when she told her father and brother, they made inquiries among the neighbours. Then they found out that the old man was one of the most artful and successful sheep-stealers in the district, and had even been tried for graver crimes. The money she gave him he invested in rum, under the influence of which he beat his wife and turned his little daughter out of doors.”

“And what effect had this discovery on her philanthropy, for of course it was old Jimmy Doolan – a man the police have been trying to get hold of for years – as slippery as a fox and as savage as a wolf?”

“She had to recant; to admit that perhaps, on the whole, the characters of people were known and appreciated by those amongst whom they lived. Still, she said there was a want of systematic benevolence in the neighbourhood, and that she would rather be deceived occasionally, than sink into a state of cold indifferentism towards her fellow creatures.”

“It’s really quite pathetic,” said Hubert. “One feels drawn towards a girl of such tendencies as if she were a nice child. It seems hard that a few years of colonial experience should deprive her of such tender illusions.”

“I don’t think anything will tone her down into anything uninteresting, if you mean that,” said Linda; “she has too much high principle and refinement.”

“She will learn to act judiciously in time, as mother does, for instance,” said Laura. “She’s always bestowing father’s substance upon some poor creature or other; but she finds out the right sort of people, and the proper when and where.”

Before long a return visit occurred from Wantabalree, from which place Willoughby Dacre drove his sister to Windāhgil about a week after the conversation above recorded.

The brother and sister made their appearance in a vehicle of unpretending appearance, being, indeed, no other than the spring-cart which was “given in” ostentatiously by Mr. Dealerson, along with furniture and other station requisites. Willoughby, having managed to rig up leading harness, had accomplished a tandem with two of the best-looking horses on the station, so that the turn-out was not wholly plebeian.

Much mutual delight was expressed by the girls, and various experiences interchanged which had occurred since their last meeting. The young men went off together to put up the horses, and took advantage of the opportunity to have a little sheep-talk.

“How are you getting on so far?” said Hubert. “Shaking down a bit, I suppose. Does your father approve of bush life?”

“Oh, he finds himself most comfortable,” answered Willoughby. “He has a snug morning room with a fire, and plenty of books and papers. He says he never expected to enjoy himself so much in the bush. He takes a great interest in the garden too. The fruit trees and vines are really something to look at.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Hubert. “The house and grounds, stabling and out-offices are about the best in the district. Well, I hope you’ll all live there many years to enjoy them.”

“I hope so too,” said Willoughby; “but excuse me if I say that you don’t seem to expect it. Now, why is it that, as everything is so good in its way, the sheep well-bred, everybody says, and looking so well now, that you regard the investment as a bad one? You are not alone in that opinion either, though the other neighbours don’t speak so honestly.”

“My prophecy of evil may not come off, after all. This is an uncertain country as to weather, and weather with us is everything. But if the rain holds off, you’ll see what I mean. You have about two-thirds too many sheep on the run. That is all.”

“What can we do?”

“Well, nothing just at present. In a general way, sell off surplus stock as soon as you can do so profitably. But in a dry season everybody wishes to sell, and few care to buy except at the lowest prices. However, I’ll put you up to the likeliest dodges when the time comes.”

“Thanks very much. I can’t help feeling anxious from time to time when I think that our all is embarked in this undertaking. I thought it was so safe and solid, and never dreamed that there could be such a swindle worked when all looked fair outside. The governor was rash, I must say. It’s a way of his. But we must fight our way out of the scrape, now we’re in it.”

“That’s the only thing to be done, and not to lose heart. There are always chances and changes with stock in Australia. Fortunes are always to be made.”

“And to be lost, it seems. You are just going to invest in Queensland, I hear. Isn’t that a long way off?”

“It’s never too far off if the country’s good,” said Hubert. “Runs are cheap there now, but they are always rising in value. I intend to send a lot of our Windāhgil sheep out there as soon as we get settled.”

“If we hadn’t spent all our money,” said the young Englishman regretfully, “we might have bought a run there too. However, it can’t be helped, as we said before. I shall be glad to hear from you when you get there.”

“Any information I can give shall be at your service, as well as all possible assistance,” said Hubert, warmly. “Always depend upon that. But it’s early in the day to talk about such things. We shall see more clearly what to do as the occasion arises. And now, we had better join the ladies.”

It was settled after a rather animated discussion that the visitors were not to return to Wantabalree that night. In vain they pleaded household tasks, station exigencies, the anxiety which Colonel Dacre was certain to experience at their absence. All these reasons were treated as mere excuses. There couldn’t be much housekeeping for one person, especially as they had, for a wonder, a decent cook. The station could wait, the less work done among the sheep at present, the better; while it was extracted in cross-examination that Colonel Dacre had told them that if they did not return, he should conclude they had stayed at Windāhgil. So the truce was definitely arranged, the horses turned into the river paddock, the young men went out for a drive in Hubert’s buggy to inspect a dam “at the back,” concerning which young Dacre had expressed some interest, while the three girls, after a ramble in the garden, settled down to a good steady afternoon’s needlework and an exhaustive discussion of bush life, and Australian matters generally.

“What a famous, light-running, easy trap this is of yours!” said Dacre, as they spun over the smooth, sandy bush track, Whalebone and Whipcord, an exceptionally fast pair of horses, slipping along at half-speed.

“Yes,” said Hubert. “It’s the best thing of the kind that’s made, I believe. I bought this to take out with me to the new country. I think it is economical to have a vehicle of this sort. There are many bits of station work that a buggy comes in for, and you save horseflesh. I wonder you don’t get one for your sister.”

“Well, we found the tax-cart at the station, and Rosalind’s such a terrific economist that she wouldn’t hear of us buying a carriage, as she calls it, for her. But I really must go in for a buggy, if it’s only on the governor’s account. He’s not so young as he was, and riding knocks him about, I can see. But how fast your horses are! I didn’t think Australian horses went in for trotting much. None of ours do.”

“Australian horses (and men and women too, as I think I have mentioned before),” remarked Hubert with suspicious mildness, “resemble those in other parts of the world, though the contrary is asserted. Some are good, others bad. Some of them – the horses, I now allude to – can trot. Others cannot. This pair, for instance” – (here he tightened his reins, and in some imperceptible fashion gave a signal, which they answered to by putting up their heads and bursting into sixteen miles an hour) – “can do a mile in very fair time for non-professionals.”

“So I see,” replied the young Englishman. “I wish I was not so hasty in forming impressions; however, I shall be cured of that in time. But it is awfully trying to hold your tongue when everything is new and exciting, and to talk cautiously is foreign to the Dacre nature.”

“‘Experientia does it,’ as we used to say at school,” laughed Hubert. “You’ll be chaffing new arrivals in a couple of years yourself. The regulation period is about that time, and I don’t think you’ll take so long as some people.”

“That’s a compliment to my general intelligence,” said Dacre. “I suppose I ought to feel grateful. But one can’t help a slight feeling of soreness, you know, that after being regularly educated for a colonial life, as I was, and coached in all the necessary carpentering, blacksmithing, agriculture, and so on, I should find myself so utterly ignorant and helpless here.”