Plain Living

“It has made dearest papa quite young again,” she said. “For weeks he has not been able to sleep at night, but used to get up and go wandering up and down the garden. I really began to fear for his reason. And now he seems quite a different man. I am so happy myself at the change for the better, that I cannot feel properly sorry that dear Willoughby is going away from us.”

“He is going among friends, at any rate, Miss Dacre,” said Hubert, pressing the young lady’s hand warmly in the agitation of the moment. “He will be well looked after, rely upon it. I feel certain it will be for everybody’s benefit in the long run.”

“I shall always think that you and that good genius, Mr. Hope, have stood between us and ruin,” said she, and here her bright, steadfast eyes were somewhat dimmed. “If papa does not say all that is in his heart, believe me that we are not ungrateful.”

“Nothing could ever lead me to think that,” said Hubert meeting her eyes with a glance which expressed more than that simple sentence, if freely translated. “Whatever happens, I am more than repaid by your approval.”

By this time Whalebone and Whipcord, harnessed up and having their heads turned homeward, began to exhibit signs of impatience, which caused Linda to call out to Hubert that she was sure Whipcord would throw himself down and break the pole if they didn’t start at once, which appalling contingency cut short the interview, to Hubert’s secret indignation. This expressed itself in letting them out with a will and quitting Wantabalree at the rate of fourteen miles an hour.

Some people would have felt nervous at proceeding along a winding, narrow bush road, well furnished with stumps, at such an express train rate, but the sure hand and steady eye of Hubert Stamford, in combination with the light mouths and regular if speedy movement of the well-matched horses, engendered the most absolute confidence in his driving.

“What do you think of bush life generally, Mr. Hope?” said Laura – after the first rush of the excitable goers had steadied into a twelve-mile-an-hour trot – “and how do you like Wantabalree?”

“I think the Wantabalree people perfect in their own way, worthy to be neighbours of Windāhgil,” he added with a slight inclination of his head. “A man could live there very happily, ‘with one fair spirit to be his minister,’ if Miss Dacre would condescend to the office. It’s a lovely verandah to read in. It would be like the days of Thalaba, while it lasted.”

“And why should it not last?” demanded Laura. “The bush appears to me the place of all others where the feelings and emotions are the most permanent and deep-seated.”

Barrington Hope fixed his eyes upon her as she spoke with a gaze wistful and almost melancholy in its earnestness.

“Can anything endure that is fair, joyous, dreamlike, in this uncertain life of ours?” he said. “Is the ideal existence realised for most of us, or, if so, does it continue? You are more fortunate than I in your experiences, if such is your belief.”

“Surely you have no reason to talk of despondency,” said she, turning towards him her bright face, in which the summer-time seemed idealised. “You, who have made a success in your profession, and whom everybody talks of with – with, I won’t say admiration, it might make you conceited – but high approval.”

“I have done fairly well, I suppose,” he said. “I may take it as the natural consequence of twenty years’ hard, unrelieved work. I have coined my brain, my very heart’s blood, for it; and I will not say but that I have had my reward in a proved success and high consideration. But, at times, a feeling comes over me of unrest and of doubt, well-nigh despair, as to the reality of human happiness – the value of success – against which I can scarcely defend myself.”

“You have been working too hard lately. Reaction has set in. In old days Hubert used to suffer so, occasionally doubting whether life was worth living, &c. But with men it is generally a temporary ailment. You must take life easily for the next few weeks, and, like the old farm labourer in the village church, ‘think about nothing’ – Linda and I must cultivate part-singing, and improve our acquaintance with Wagner, now that we have the benefit of your criticism.”

“It is a passing weakness, I suppose,” he said; “still, you would wonder at its intensity. But I didn’t come here to bore you with my whims and fancies. One thing I shall carry away as a pleasant souvenir – that Hubert and I have been able to lighten the load on poor old Colonel Dacre’s heart.”

“I am charmed beyond measure,” said Laura. “Hubert told me something – though he is such a close creature when he is speaking about himself that I could get next to nothing out of him. Willoughby will be able to get the sheep away to Queensland, I suppose, with ours, and they may not be ruined after all.”

“They will have a struggle, but I really believe the station will pull through with Hubert’s assistance and advice. If anything serious does happen at Wantabalree, it will not be for want of all the aid that an energetic young friend can furnish. I can see as much as that.”

“And so can I,” said Laura; “he could find no better or sweeter reason if he looked for a century.”

Linda and Hubert, according to their wont and usage, were embarked in such an animated argument that it is probable they did not hear this last confidential reference; more especially as – perhaps for the greater convenience of separate converse – the speakers’ voices had become somewhat lowered, and Hubert’s attention was partly taken up with his horses.

The twenty miles were accomplished in less than two hours. The horses in as hard condition upon the now partially-dried summer grasses as if they had been stabled, apparently treated the drive as the merest trifle, trotting off down the paddock, when released from harness, apparently as free from fatigue as if they had not gone a mile.

“I must say your bush horses surprise me,” said Mr. Hope. “They are like Arabs of the desert for speed and hardihood.”

“These two are a little out of the common,” said Hubert; “not plentiful here or anywhere else.”

The merry Christmastide was nearly spent – a season fully enjoyed in those newer Englands, which are growing fast and blooming fair beneath the Southern Cross, in despite of the red summer sun, and brown crisp pastures – a blessed time of rest from toil, “surcease of sorrow,” gathering of friends and kinsfolk. Barrington Hope had thoroughly enjoyed his holiday; more, he averred than on any previous vacation of his life. There had been walks, drives and rides, picnics to the limestone caves in the vicinity, where vast halls were explored by the light of torches, stalactites brought home in triumph, and wondrous depths of gloom and primæval chaos penetrated; fishing parties on the river, where, although the water trickled faintly over the gravelly shallows, the wide reaches were deep and sport-permitting. Occasional visits to Mooramah township, their communication with the outer world, helped to fill up the term, and drive away the dreadful thought, uppermost in the hearts of the Windāhgil family, that Hubert was so soon to leave them for the far north land.

As soon as Christmas was well over the serious work of the year – only interrupted by this “truce of God” – began again with even greater energy; the industrial battle, never long pretermitted in Australia, raged furiously. So there was great mustering on Windāhgil and Wantabalree. Counting of sheep and tar-branding of the same with the travelling “T,” hiring of shepherds and “knock about” men. Purchase of rations, tools, horses, drays, harness, hobbles, “bells, bells, bells” – as Linda quoted – in short, the thousand and one road requisites for a long overland journey.

Towards the end of January Mr. Donald Greenhaugh arrived, riding one serviceable horse, and leading another, whereon, disposed over a pack saddle, was all his worldly wealth deposited. A keen-eyed, mild voiced Scottish-Australian, sun-bronzed, and lean as an Arab, who looked as if the desert sun had dried all superfluous moisture out of his wiry frame, he superintended the preparations at Windāhgil in a quiet, superior sort of way, occasionally offering suggestions, but chiefly leaving Hubert to manage matters as he thought fit. He also found time to go over to Wantabalree, where he remained a week, meeting with apparently greater exercise for his generalship.

At length the great day of departure arrived. The first flock of two thousand took the road through the north Windāhgil gate, followed by a second, at a decent interval, until the whole thirty thousand sheep passed out. Next day the advanced guard of the Wantabalree contingent showed themselves – Greenhaugh having decided to keep a day’s march between them. Forty thousand of these came by. The fat and saleable sheep of both stations had been retained. After these had been sold in the autumnal markets there would be but a small and manageable balance on either station.

The Colonel came as far as Windāhgil, and even a stage further, with his daughter, to see his boy off. They were dreadfully downhearted and saddened in appearance as they called at Windāhgil on their homeward route, but cheered up a little under the attentions of sympathising friends. Hubert had remained behind, not choosing to follow for another week. He was already beginning to assume the air of a large operator and successful explorer. “Greenhaugh can do all that business as well or better than I can,” he said. “It’s no use paying a man and doing the work yourself; I can catch them up easily before they get to Banda.”

“Then we might have had Willoughby for another week,” said Miss Dacre, with a slightly reproachful air.

“I don’t suppose it would have made much difference,” admitted Hubert; “but it is perhaps as well that he made the start with the sheep. He has a larger lot to look after; I don’t know but that it’s as well to have the wrench at once, and get it over – like a double tooth, you know.”

“It’s the most philosophical way to look at it,” said the girl, smiling through her tears, “and no tongue can tell the comfort it has been to us to know that matters are in a comparatively favourable train. I must not weary you with protestations, but papa and I can never adequately express our gratitude.”

“That could be done easily enough,” thought the young man; but he said: “At present it’s only a case of good intentions; we must wait to see how they turn out. How will you and the Colonel get on by yourselves?”

“Better than I at first thought; Willoughby left us our working overseer, who will do excellently to look after a smaller number of sheep. It will just give papa exercise, and occupation to help him to manage them, he says. Laura and Linda must be good neighbours, and perhaps Mr. Stamford will come over now and then and indulge papa with a game of whist.”

“I will undertake everything,” said Hubert, “for our people, but you and the Colonel must reciprocate. If both families make common cause till ‘Johnny comes marching home’ – I mean Willoughby – you will find the time pass more quickly than you anticipate.”

Those last days of a pleasant holiday time, what an element of sadness pervades them. How swiftly they fly! Ah, me! The flowers fade, the sky clouds over as if at the touch of an untoward magician. The land of faery recedes – the region of plain prose, of arduous effort, and heroic but dreary self-abnegation looms painfully near. Much, however, of this sombre aspect of the inevitable is relieved in early youth by the kindly glamour of high hope, and the ardent imagination of the as yet successful aspirant. For him the forest gloom is but the high road to the castle of the enchanted princess; the sternest tourney is more than recompensed by the smiles of his queen of beauty; the burning summer day, the drear winter night, but aids to fortune and accessories to boundless wealth.

So, for Barrington Hope and Hubert Stamford, the tranquil days came and went, scarce tinged with melancholy, till the fateful morn of departure arrived; before noon Windāhgil was left desolate and forsaken of its heroes. Hubert fared forth along the north-west trail, bound for the sea-like plains of the Lower Warroo, where the wild orange flowers bloom on their lonely sand islands, bright with glossy-leaved shrubs; where the emu rears her brood undisturbed under the sad-hued myall, that waves her slender streamers and whispers ghost-like at midnight to the pitiless desert moon.

Mr. Barrington Hope, on the other hand, betook himself by rail to the metropolis, to plunge once more, with the eagerness of a strong swimmer, into the great ocean of speculative finance, which there “heaves and seethes alway.” But before he departed he had transacted a rather important interview, in which Laura Stamford was the person chiefly interested; had, indeed, promised to revisit Windāhgil before the winter ended.

CHAPTER XVII

Local critics were not lacking around Mooramah, as in other places. They failed not to make unfavourable comments upon Hubert’s decided course of action. They were pleased to say “that young man was going too fast” – was leading his father into hazardous speculations; all this new country that such a fuss was made about was too far off to pay interest upon the capital for years and years to come; the Austral Agency Company had better mind what they were about, or they would drop something serious if they went on backing every boy that wanted to take up outside country, instead of making the most of what his family had and helping his parents at home. As for young Dacre, he would most likely get his sheep eaten by the blacks and himself speared, as he knew nothing about the bush, and hardly could tell the difference between a broken-mouthed ewe and a weaner. Besides, the season might “turn round” after all – there was plenty of time for rain yet. Most likely it would come in February, as it had often done before. Travelling sheep was a most expensive game, and you were never done putting your hand in your pocket.”

Thus argued the unambitious, stay-at-home, easy-going section of society which obtains in rural Australia in almost the same proportion and degree that it does in English counties. In the older-settled portions of the land one may discern the same tendency to over-crowding the given area with unnecessary adults, procuring but a bare subsistence, narrowing with each generation as in Britain, where sons of proprietors are too often contented to sink somewhat in the social scale rather than forego the so-called “comforts” of civilised life. The poorly-paid curate, the Irish squireen, “Jock, the Laird’s brother,” and the French hobereau, so cordially hated by the peasantry before the Revolution, are examples of this class.

And, in the older-settled portions of Australia are to be found far too many men of birth and breeding who are contented to abide in the enjoyment of the small amenities of country town life, to sink down to the positions of yeomen, farmers, and tenants, rather than turn their faces to the broad desert as their fathers did before them, and carve out for themselves, even at the cost of peril and privation, a heritage worthy of a race of sea kings and conquerors.

Hubert Stamford did not belong, by any means, to the contented mediocrities. Willoughby Dacre was a kindred spirit. So the two young men fared cheerfully forth across the dusty, thirsty zone, beyond which lay the Promised Land. Hard work and wearisome it was, in a sense, but held nothing to daunt strong men in the full vigour of early manhood. The days were hot, and Willoughby’s English skin peeled off in patches for the first week or two from the exposed portions of his person. But cooler airs came before midnight, and the appetites of both after long days in the saddle were surprising. The sheep, being in good condition at starting, bore the forced marches, which were necessary, fairly well. Donald Greenhaugh seemed to know every creek, water-course, and spring in the whole country. And on one fine day Willoughby pulled up his horse, and in a tone of extreme surprise exclaimed, “Why, there’s grass!” pointing to a fine green tuft of the succulent Bromus Mitchelli. It was even so. They had struck the “rain line,” marked as with a measuring tape. Henceforth all was peace and plenty with the rejoicing flocks, which grew strong and even fat as they fed onward through a land of succulent herbage and full-fed streams.

“Well, Willoughby, old man; what do you think of this?” asked Hubert one evening, as they sat on a log before their tent and watched the converging flocks feeding into camp; marked also the fantastic summits of isolated volcanic peaks which stood like watch-towers amid a grass ocean waving billowy in the breeze. “Do you think we did well to cut the painter? How do you suppose all these sheep would have looked at Windāhgil and Wantabalree?”

“They’ve had no rain yet,” said Willoughby. “In that letter I got at the last township we passed, the governor said there hadn’t been a shower since I left. It’s nearly three months now, and we should hardly have had a sheep to our name by this time.”

“There’ll be some awful losses in the district,” said Hubert. “Men will put off clearing out till too late. My own idea is that this will be a worse drought all down the Warroo than the last one. Our people will make shift to feed the few sheep we have left, thank goodness! And we have enough here to stock more than one run or two either. Windāhgil Downs will carry a hundred thousand sheep if it will ten. All we have to do now is to breed up. That’s plain sailing.”

“I wish we had some Wantabalree Downs ready to take up,” said Willoughby, regretfully. “If we hadn’t those beastly bills yet to pay, we might have done something in that way too.”

“Wait till we’ve settled a bit, and have landed the sheep all safe,” said Hubert. “That will be stage the first. After we ‘see’ that, we must ‘go one better.’ Barrington Hope is a good backer, and outside country is to be had cheap just now.”

Events – in that sort of contrary way which occasionally obtains in this world – went far to justify the bold policy of this confident young man, who quietly ignored his elders, and to confound the wise, represented by the cautious croakers who stayed at home and disparaged him.

There had occurred a drought of crushing severity but three years since, and only one “good” – that is, rainy season had intervened, so rendering it unlikely, and in a sense unreasonable and outrageous, as one exasperated impeacher of Providence averred, that another year of famine should so soon succeed. Nevertheless, the rain came not. The long, hot summer waned. Autumn lingered with sunny days and cold nights. Winter too, with hard frosts, with black wailing winds, that seemed to mourn over the dead earth and its dumbly dying tribes. But no rain! No rain! The havoc which then devastated all the great district watered by the Warroo and its tributaries was piteous, and terrible to behold.

Rich and poor, small and great, owners of stock fared alike. A herd of five thousand head of cattle died on Murragulmerang to the last beast. Eight thousand at Wando. John Stokes, Angus Campbell, Patrick Murphy, struggling farmers, lost every milch cow, every sheep, every horse. They were too short of cash to travel. Their small pastures of a few hundred acres were as dust and ashes. Too careless to provide a stock of hay and straw, selling all when prices were good, and “chancing it,” they lost hoof and horn. Mammoth squatters were short – fifty thousand sheep – seventy thousand – a hundred thousand. Smaller graziers with fifteen or twenty thousand, lost two-thirds, three-fourths, four-fifths, as the case may be. Ruin and desolation overspread the land. Waggon loads of bales stripped from the skins of starved sheep – “dead wool” as it was familiarly called – were seen unseasonably moving along the roads in all directions.

From all this death and destruction Hubert’s family and the Wantabalree people had been preserved, as they now gratefully remembered, by his prompt yet well-considered action. Harold Stamford, as he watched his stud flocks, fairly nourished and thriving from constant change of pasture which the empty paddocks permitted, thanked God in his heart for the son who had always been the mainstay of his father’s house, while the Colonel was never weary of invoking blessings on Hubert’s head, and wishing that it had been his lot to have been presented with a Commission in the Imperial army, in which so bold and cool a subaltern would have been certain to have distinguished himself.

“Better as it is, father,” said Miss Dacre; “he might have sold out and lost his money in a bad station. Except for the honour and glory, I think squatting is the better profession, after all; if Willoughby only turns out successful, I shall think Australia the finest country in the world.”

“We shall have to live in it, my darling, for a long time, as far as I see, so we may as well think so,” said the Colonel. “Suppose we drive over to Windāhgil, and have another rubber of whist? Stamford plays a sound game, though he’s too slow with his trumps; and Laura has quite a talent for it – such a memory too!”

Many games of whist were played. Much quiet interchange of hopes and fears, discussions of small events and occurrences, such as make up the sum of rural daily life, had taken place between the two families ere the famine year ended. It left a trail of ruin, not wholly financial. Old properties had been sold, high hopes laid low, never to arise; strong hearts broken. “Mourning and lamentation and woe” had followed each month, and still Nature showed no sign of relenting pity.

Through all this devastation the life of the dwellers at Windāhgil had been comparatively tranquil; if not demonstratively joyous, yet free from serious mishap or anxiety. The tidings from the far country were eminently satisfactory, and as regular as circumstances would permit.

“Windāhgil Downs” was quoted as one of the crack stations of North Queensland, and in order to devote his whole attention to that principality in embryo, Hubert had sold his share in the first station purchased to Willoughby on long credit. All the Wantabalree sheep were there, and doing splendidly. Mr. Delamere and Willoughby were sworn friends, and whenever Hubert could get a chance to “come in” Delamere would take his place at Windāhgil Downs, and leave Willoughby in charge at the home station. Added to this, Mr. Hope had “taken over” the Wantabalree account, and saw no difficulty in providing for future payment and working expenses.

This was good news in every sense of the word. The Colonel became so exceedingly cheerful and sanguine, that his daughter again asserted that he must be thinking of a stepmother for her. In which behalf she implored Laura and Linda to continue their complaisance towards him, lest he should in despair go farther afield, and so be appropriated by some enterprising “daughter of Heth.”

“That is all very well,” said Linda; “I suppose it’s a quiet way of warning us off. But here we are living in a kind of pastoral nunnery, with no society to speak of, and nothing to do. The atmosphere’s pervaded with bouquet de merino, for though ours are all right, I feel certain I can catch the perfume of Mr. Dawdell’s dead sheep across the river. Now, why shouldn’t I take compassion on the Colonel? I like mature men, and can’t bear boys. I should rather enjoy ordering a superior girl like you about. Wouldn’t it be grand, Laura?”

“I have no doubt Rosalind will grant you her full permission,” said Laura, “if you think such a little chit as you is likely to attract a man like Colonel Dacre.”

“Little chit, indeed!” said Linda, indignantly. “That’s the very reason. It would be my youth, and freshness, and general stupidity (in the ways of the world) that would attract him. Oh, dear! think of the white satin, too! I should look so lovely in white satin with a Honiton lace veil and a train.” Then Linda began to walk up and down the room in a stately manner, which created a burst of laughter and general hilarity.

Now that fortune had taken it into her head to be kind, she, like other personages of her sex, became almost demonstrative in her attentions. Every letter from Queensland contained news of a gratifying and exhilarating nature. Hubert had heard of some “forfeited” country, of which he had informed Willoughby, who, having gone out with the requisite number of sheep, blackfellows, and shepherds, had “taken it up.” He expected in a year or so to sell a portion of it, there being about a thousand square miles altogether, and thus help to clear off the Wantabalree account. As soon as they got it into working order they would sell Delamere and Dacre’s home station, with twenty thousand sheep, and put all their capital into Glastonbury, as Mr. Delamere had chosen to name the new property.