“I deserve to be overseer of a thick run with bad shepherds all my life,” groaned M‘Nab, with an amount of sincerity in his abjectly humiliated voice so ludicrous that Jack, in that hour of misery, could scarcely refrain from smiling. “But let us gallop down to the outlet; it may not have got that far yet.”
They rode hard for the point, some miles down, where the treacherous offshoot re-entered the Warroo. It sometimes happens that, owing to the sinuosities of the watercourses of the interior, horsemen at speed can outstrip the advancing flood-wave, and give timely notice to the dwellers on the banks. Such faint hope had they. By cutting across long detours or bends, and riding harder than was at all consistent with safety to their clover-fed horses, they reached the outlet. Joy of joys, it was “as dry as a bone.”
“Now,” said M‘Nab, driving his horse recklessly down into the hard-baked channel, “if we can only find most of the sheep in this end of the paddock we may beat bad luck and the water yet. Did the dog come, I wonder? The Lord send he did. I saw him with us the first time we pulled up.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Jack; “we’ve ridden too hard for any mortal dog to keep up with us, though Help will come on our tracks if he thinks he’s wanted.”
“Bide a bit – bide a bit,” implored M‘Nab, forgetting his English, and going back to an earlier vernacular in the depth of his earnestness. “The dog’s worth an hour of time and a dozen men to us. Help! Help! here, boy, here!”
He gave out the canine summons in the long-drawn cry peculiar to drovers when seeking to signal their whereabouts to their faithful allies. Jack put his fingers to his mouth and emitted a whistle of such remarkable volume and shrillness that M‘Nab confessed his admiration.
“That will fetch him, sir, if he’s anywhere within a mile. Dash’d if that isn’t him coming now. See him following our tracks. Here, boy!”
As he spoke a magnificent black and tan collie raised his head from the trail and dashed up to Jack’s side, with every expression of delight and proud success.
Mr. Redgrave was one of those men to whom dogs, horses, children, and others attach themselves with blind, unreasoning confidence. Is it amiability? Has mesmerism any share in the strange but actual fascination? There were many far wiser than he unsought and unrecognized by the classes referred to. In his case the fact, uncomplimentary or otherwise, remained fixed and demonstrable. The sheep-dog in question was introduced to him by an aged Scot, who arrived one day at Gondaree followed by a female collie of pure breed and unusual beauty. Jack, always merciful and sympathetic, had comforted the footsore elder, who carried a large bundle upon his back, at which the dog cast ever and anon a wistful glance. Lowering the pack carefully to the ground before he drained the cheering draught, he wiped his lips, and, untying the knapsack, rolled out, to his host’s wild astonishment, five blind puppies!
“Ye ken, sir, the auld slut here just whelpit a week syne, maist unexpectedly to me. I was sair fashed to make my way doon wi’ sax doggies. But I pledged my word to Maister Stangrove to gang back to Juandah before shearing, and I wadna brak my word – no, not for five poond.”
“But are you going to carry the whole litter another fifty miles?”
“Weel, aweel, sir, I’ll not deny it’s a sair trial; but I brocht lassie here from the bonnie holms o’ Ettrick, where my auld bones will never lie. The wee things come of the bluid of Tam Hogg’s grand dog Sirrah. Forbye they’re maist uncommon valuable here. I never askit less than a pund for ilka ane o’ them yet, and siller’s siller, ye ken.”
“I’ll give you a sov,” said Jack, “for the black and tan pup – him with the spot between the eyes. I suppose we could rear him with an old ewe?”
“He’s the king of this lot, but ye shall have the pick of them a’ even withoot the siller, for the kind word and the good deed you’ve done to the auld failed, doited crater that ance called himsel’ Jock Harlaw of Ettrick. May the Lord do so to me and mair, if I forget it.”
The next day the old man came up, and solemnly delivered over the plump, roly-poly dogling, which, being fostered upon an imprisoned ewe, throve and grew into one of the best dogs that ever circumvented that deceitful and wicked quadruped called the sheep, the measure of whose intelligence has ever been consistently underrated.
The judicious reader will comprehend that, even on a fenced run, a good sheep-dog is valuable, and even necessary. The headlong, reckless system of driving, the cruel, needless terrorising under which “shepherded sheep” have for generations suffered in Australia may be as strongly repudiated as ever. But under certain conditions, it is well known to all rulers of sheep stations that there is no moving sheep without the aid and conversation of a dog. Therefore, though much of the occupation of the ordinary half-trained sheep-dog be gone, a really well-bred and highly-trained animal is still prized.
The collie “Help,” then, as he grew up, showed great hereditary aptitude for every kind of knowledge connected with the “working” of sheep. He was passionately fond of Jack, whom he recognized as his real and true master; but he would follow and obey M‘Nab, appearing to know by intuition when work among the sheep was intended. From him, as a man of sheep from earliest youth, he learned all the niceties of the profession. At drafting and yarding he was invaluable. Lifted into a yard crammed with panic-stricken or unwilling sheep, he would run along on their bodies or “go back through them” in a manner wonderful to observe – this last practice being known to all sheep-experts as the only way hitherto invented for prevailing on sheep to run up freely to a gate. He would bark or bite (this last with great discretion) at word of command. He would stay at any part of the yard pointed out to him, and though among the station hands it was commonly, but erroneously, reported that he could “keep a gate,” and had been seen drafting “two ways at once,” still it was so far near the truth that he had many times been posted at the entrance of sub-yards, and had prevented any sheep from entering during the whole duration of the drafting. For the rest, he was affectionate, generous, and brave, a good watch-dog, and no mean antagonist. In his own branch of the profession he was held to be unequalled for sagacity and effectiveness on the whole river.
In the hour of sore need this was the friend and ally, most appropriately named, who appeared on the scene. With a wave of the hand from Jack, he started off, skirting the nearest body of sheep. The well-trained animal, racing round the timid creatures, turned them towards the outlet, and followed the master for further orders. This process was repeated, aided by M‘Nab, until they had gone as far from the outlet of the creek as they dared to do, with any chance of crossing before the flood came down.
“We must rattle them in now,” said M‘Nab. “I’m afraid there is a large lot higher up, but there’s five or six thousand of these, and we must make the best of it.”
As the lots of sheep coalesced on their homeward route, the difficulty of driving and the value of the dog grew more apparent. Large mobs or flocks of sheep are, like all crowds, difficult to move and conduct. By themselves it would have been a slow process; but the dog, gathering from the words and actions of his superiors that something out of the common was being transacted, flew round the great flock, barking, biting, rushing, worrying – driving, in fact, like ten dogs in one. By dint of the wildest exertion on the part of the men, and the tireless efforts of the dog, the great flock of sheep, nearly six thousand, was forced up to the anabranch. Here the leaders unhesitatingly took the as yet dry, unmoistened channel, and in a long string commenced to pour up the opposite bank.
“Give it them at the tail, sir,” shouted M‘Nab, who was at the lead, “go it, Help, good dog – there is not a moment to lose. By George, there comes the flood. Eat ’em up, old man! – give it ’em, good dog!”
There was fortunately one more bend for the flood water to follow round before it reached the outlet. During the short respite Jack and M‘Nab worked at their task till the perspiration poured down their faces – till their voices became hoarse with shouting, and well-nigh failed. Horses and men, dog and sheep, were all in a state of exhaustion and despair when the last mob was ascending the clay bank.
“Two minutes more, and we should have been too late,” said M‘Nab, in a hoarse whisper; “look there!”
As he spoke, a wall of water, several feet in height, and the full breadth of the widest part of the channel, came foaming down, bearing logs, trees, portions of huts and haystacks – every kind of débris– upon its eddying tide. The tired dog crawled up the bank and lay down in the grass. A few of the last sheep turned and stared stolidly at the close wild water. There was a hungry, surging rush, and in another minute the creek was level with the river, and the place where the six thousand sheep had crossed dryshod (and sheep resemble cats very closely in their indisposition to wet their feet) was ten feet under water, and would have floated a river steamer.
Jack returned to the homestead rather comforted by this present bit of success, and hopeful that the sheep left in the river paddock might yet escape. They had no further anxiety about those which they had plucked out of the fire – that is to say, the water – for they were in a secure high and dry paddock, and they were not likely to attempt to swim back again.
It was very provoking to think, however, that only a week previous the whole lot had been absolutely safe if they had been sufficiently cautious to let well alone till after shearing.
On the morrow such a sight met John Redgrave’s eyes as they had not looked upon since he entered into possession of Gondaree. The cottage was built, as has been before related, upon a bluff, and was believed to be impregnable by the highest flood that ever came down the Warroo. When Jack walked into the verandah, and saw by the pale dawn-light the angry waters, deep, turbulent, and wide as his vision went, rushing but a few feet below the floor on which he trod, he felt as if he were at sea, and trusted that the older residents had made no miscalculation. It was certainly a novel experience in that dry and thirsty land to hear the “roar of waters” so closely brought home to one’s bed and board. On the other side of the river, far as the eye could see, the vast flats were as an inland sea, the trees standing in the water like pillars in a vast aqueduct, their stems forming endless colonnades.
This augured badly for his own river-paddock, and, breakfast hastily concluded, he started down to see if any of the sheep were visible from the opposite bank of the anabranch. He managed to get near enough to sweep the flats with a field-glass, and at last made out the greater part of the weaners, huddled together upon a small rise, surrounded by water, and not much above the general level. Here, though cold and hungry, they might remain in safety till the flood fell, if the waters rose no higher. But there lay the danger. The waters surrounded them for a long stretch on every side. Even if they could get near them, nothing would induce young sheep to face a much less expanse of water. The current was too rapid to work any species of raft. If the river continued rising through the night, there would not be a sheep of these three thousand and more alive by daylight.
Jack turned sick at heart with the bare idea. Good heavens! was he to be eternally the sport of circumstance and the victim of disaster? Was there such a thing as Bad Luck, an evil principle, in which he had steadfastly disbelieved, but which he did not doubt in other cases had hunted men to their doom? Could it possibly happen in his own case? How rarely do men accept any of life’s evils as possibilities in their own cases! Here, however, he was again face to face with an unsolved difficulty, a peril imminent, deadly, and well-nigh hopeless of escape. Three thousand some hundreds of beautiful young sheep, with fourteen months’ wool on. Another two thousand pounds gone at one blow! It was enough to make a man hang himself.
He had a long consultation with M‘Nab, who had settled in his own mind that nothing could be done, except drown a man or two, in trying conclusions with such a waste of water, with large logs and uprooted trees whirling madly down the stream, which indeed looked like a lake dislodged from its moorings, and mad for a view of the distant sea.
So he calmly waited the issue, hoping for a fall during the night, and cursing himself, as deeply as a sound Presbyterian could afford to do, for having brought this loss upon his employer by over-greed of grass. The river did not fall. Indeed, it rose so rapidly that on their last visit to the place of observation they could hear the continuous bleating of the hapless sheep – a token that they were alarmed and endangered by the rising tide.
All that night the sound was in Jack’s ears as he listened at intervals, or tossed restlessly on an uneasy bed.
With the earliest dawn he was astir and down at the look-out. There had evidently been a considerable rise during the night. He saw that the water had made a clean breach over the spot occupied by the flock – of the whole number, there was not a solitary sheep to be seen. He would have been saved a few days of anxious expectation – a feeling between utter despair and trembling hope – had he known that his friends at Juandah, that very day, had seen scores of their carcases floating past their windows, but were happily unconscious of their particular ownership.
For nearly a week Jack was inconsolable – he took no interest in the remaining portion of the shearing, which M‘Nab finished with his customary exactness, paying off the shearers, washers, and extra hands, and despatching every pound of wool and every sheepskin as if the last of the clip – like a cow’s milk – was the richest and most valuable.
The floods had rolled away, and the sun shone out hotter than ever upon miles of blackened clover and mud-covered pasturage, entirely ruined for the year by the unseasonable immersion. When they rode over the paddock the sight was pitiable in the extreme. By far the greater proportion of the drowned sheep had been floated away bodily, as the “cruel, crawling tide” rose inch by inch in the darkness, till they were swept from footing. But many were found entangled in drift-wood, carried into large hollow trees – as many as fifteen or twenty, perhaps, in one cluster – black and decomposing, with the wool bleaching in great strips and masses. A miserable sight for John Redgrave, in truth, who, but a fortnight since, had considered that wool almost in his pocket, and every shorn weaner good value for half a sovereign all round. Then the confounded fama clamosa of the affair. The local papers had quick and fast hold of the tale:
“We are deeply grieved to hear that Mr. Redgrave of Gondaree, who has spared no cost in improving that valuable property, has lost ten thousand sheep in the late disastrous flood.” Next week – “We have much pleasure in stating that Mr. Redgrave has had only five thousand sheep drowned, but we had not then learned that his wool-shed and wash-pen, with a portion of the clip, were entirely washed away.” And so on.
The quickest way to escape condolences and local sympathy would be to make tracks for Melbourne. This he accordingly did, having, like the preceding season, had a sufficiency of salt-bush life for a while. Matters in some respects were more favourable to his mental recovery than on his former visit. Wool was up. The season, bar floods, had been good on the whole. Everybody connected with sheep was disposed to be cheerful and make allowances. Most of the people he met had not heard of the trifling overthrow of the remote Warroo, and the incidental “natural selection” of his lamented weaners. Others, who had heard, did not care. The joyous squatters, on the strength of a good twopenny rise in the home market, made light of his sorrows. One man said, laughingly, that he knew of a station, about a thousand miles lower down, which the same flood had treated even more scurvily.
“Wallingford, you know, had overstocked that run of his with store cattle; all the back country dry as a bone; no rain for two years; five or six thousand head of cattle all but starving; poor as crows, give you my word. Everything depending upon the river and the lake flats for the clover, as soon as it was ripe. Well, the flood comes down, smothers his clover; river twenty miles wide for nearly a month; lake overflowed too. Droll predicament, wasn’t it? Quite antipodean. Half the run too dry; t’other half too wet. No rain; clover of course black as your hat when the water went down. Wallingford heaps of bills to meet, too.”
The salient points of humour which Mr. Wallingford’s ingeniously complicated calamities evolved under artistic treatment served indirectly to comfort our victim. The misfortunes of others, especially of the same profession, are soothing, benevolists notwithstanding. Jack felt ashamed of howling over his few sheep, and recollected the still imposing numbers of the last count, and returned to his normal state of contentment with to-day, and rose-coloured anticipation of to-morrow.
His interview with Mr. Mildmay Shrood was pacific and encouraging. That gentleman congratulated him upon the name and fame to which the Gondaree clip had attained, prophesying even greater distinction. He listened with polite sympathy to the account of the loss of the weaners, but observed that such accidents must occasionally happen in wet seasons, and that, as he was informed, the country generally had received immense benefit from the late rains.
“Your clip is one of the best in the whole of Riverina, my dear Redgrave, and your number of sheep – ‘52,000,’ thank you – has on the whole kept up admirably. Management, my dear sir, is everything – everything. Good-morning. Good-morning.”
CHAPTER XIII
“Hope told a flattering tale.”
Thus endorsed, Jack began to consider himself to be as fine a fellow as the rest of the world was bent upon making him out to be. He held up his head as in the old days, when debt and he were strangers, and gave his opinion with imposing decision upon all matters, pastoral, social, and political. He was glad now that he had followed M‘Nab’s advice, and shorn the fat sheep. Their wool told up noticeably in the clip, and he trusted that in the coming autumn he should be able to top the market with the first draft of fat sheep from the glorious salt-bush plains which skirted the lonely Bimbalong.
He received a certain amount of satisfaction from observing how reduced was the list of stores and necessaries with which he had been entrusted by M‘Nab. “Why, it’s next to nothing,” said he, as he looked over it; “one would think we were providing for a cattle station except for next year’s shearing requirements. If we have only another decent year or two, the debt will be wiped off, and hey for Europe!” Then, from that vision of the sea, arose the form – as of a Venus Anadyomene – of Maud Stangrove. Would she share his pilgrimage? How enchanting the thought! How divine the companionship! Together would they wander through the cities of the old world, as through the dream-palaces of his boyish days. Paris, with her mingled splendours and luxuries. Rome, calm and majestic, even amid her ruins, as befitted the Mother of Nations. Venice, with mysterious gondolas still floating adown her sea, which is “her broad, her narrow streets,” which still, as in old days of regal pride, and power, and love, is “her black-marble stair.” Switzerland, with her pure, white-robed, heaven-gazing Alps, receiving their crimson dawn-blush ere beholding the fresh day-birth of a world. Last of all, but how far from least, “Merrie England,” the great land of their fathers – every legendary and historical feature of which had been graven in his mind from earliest childhood. Bound on such a pilgrimage as this, “with one fair spirit for his minister,” how cheerfully would he abandon, for a season, the dull labours and prosaic thoughts with which his later years had been bedimmed! He thought of Maud’s cultured and receptive mind; her keen spirit of observation; her unfailing cheerfulness; and the deep, unselfish tenderness which he had remarked in her home intercourse. Could he but win this peerless creature to himself; could he but provide for this diamond of purest ray serene the costly setting which alone harmonized with its rank among “earth’s precious things,” he told himself that the sayings of cynics about the ills of humanity would be meaningless falsehoods.
This, perhaps, slightly exalted conception of the probabilities of matrimony, combined with the absence of the central figure, around which such roseate clouds softly circled, tended to abridge Mr. Redgrave’s metropolitan sojourn. He made the novel discovery that ordinary modern society was worldly and frivolous – that club viveurs were selfish and dissipated – that his acquaintances, generally, were destitute of ennobling aims; and that it behoved any man, whose soul cherished a lofty purpose, to follow out a sustained plan unswervingly. To this end he determined, rather ungratefully, considering how powerful a tonic his visit had proved, to abandon the vain city, and betake himself incontinently to the majestic desert and to – Maud Stangrove.
He made an abrupt departure, somewhat to the surprise of that very small section of society which troubled itself with his weal or woe, and appeared suddenly before M‘Nab, who, in his turn, was surprised also.
Mr. M‘Nab was not only astonished at his employer’s short stay in Melbourne, but also at his cheerful and animated demeanour.
“The trip has done you a world of good, sir,” he said. “I thought when you went away that it would take you longer to forget our losses.”
“Well, there’s nothing like change of air, and the knowledge of what other people are doing, when you are low. If people spent more money in trains and coaches they would spend less on doctors, I believe. A man who is shut up with his misery broods over it till, like a shepherd, he goes mad some day. When I got to town, I found others had suffered even more heavily, and, of course, that comforted me.”
“And the wool?” inquired M‘Nab.
“Nothing but compliments,” answered Jack. “Never expected to see wool got up like it on the Warroo, and so on. Mr. Shrood prophesied all kinds of triumphs and fancy prices next year. I might have had ten thousand sovereigns to take away in my hat, if I had asked for them. This flood seems to have done a world of damage, and such a trifle as the loss of two or three thousand sheep was voted not worth talking about.”
“It was an awful sacrifice – just a throwing to the fishes of two thousand golden guineas, any way ye look at it,” said, slowly and impressively, the downright M‘Nab. He could never be led to gloss over any shortcomings, losses, or failures, holding them as points in the game of life to be carefully scored, which no player worthy of the name would omit. “You’re welcome to knock half of it off my wages,” he continued, “as I shall always believe that I was to blame for want of care. But I hope we’ll have profits yet that will clear off the score of this and other losses.”
“I am fully confident that we shall, M‘Nab,” said Jack, hopefully; “and I have no notion of making my deficit good out of your screw, though it is manly of you to offer it. You work as hard and do as much as one man can. Whether things go right or wrong, I shall never blame you, be assured. I am free to admit that in your place I should not do half as well. And now, do you want any help for a week or two, for I think I shall ride down to Juandah?”
“I did not expect you back for a month more,” said M‘Nab, smiling to himself; “so I had arranged to do without you, you see. I can get on grandly till we begin to draft the fat sheep for market.”
Thus absolved and conscience-clear, Mr. Redgrave immediately betook himself to Juandah, where he was received with frank and kindly welcome by everybody. It was fortunate that he had gone to Melbourne after the flood-disaster, as he was now able to treat that damaging blow in a much more light and philosophical fashion than would have been possible to him without the aid of his metropolitan experiences.
“It was rather a facer,” he admitted to Stangrove, who had delicately described their grief at seeing the drowned weaners floating past their windows in scores and hundreds, “but when a fellow has a large operation in hand he must look at the progress of the whole enterprise, and not fix his mind upon minor drawbacks. A single vessel doesn’t matter out of the whole convoy of East Indiamen. The loss of the Royal George had no perceptible influence on the rest of the British navy. I shall shear over sixty thousand sheep next year, with luck, and when I sell shall think no more of those poor devils of weaners than you do of the blacks – probably mythical – that Red Rob slew during your minority.”
“With luck – with luck – as you say,” said Stangrove, rather absently. “But, as we agreed before, luck seems necessary to the working out of your plan, which I admit, at present prices, looks feasible enough. But suppose we don’t get our fair share of luck this year, what then? However, we needn’t anticipate evil. Let’s come in and see the ladies.”
“‘So behold you of return,’ as dear old Madame Florac says,” commenced Maud, looking up from The Newcomes. “How truly fortunate you men are, Mr. Redgrave, that you can get away to some decent abode of mankind every now and then under the pretence of business! Now we poor, oppressed women have to give reasons that will bear the most searching investigation before we are allowed to go anywhere. Men only say vaguely ‘must go – important business,’ and take themselves off.”
“Really, Miss Stangrove, I don’t see but that you, in this nice cool room, with nothing to do but to read about Ethel and Barnes, that grand old cat Lady Kew, and the dear old Colonel, are about as well off as any one I have seen in my travels.”
“That’s all nonsense. We endure life here, of course, but look at the delightful change of scene, air, life, people, trees, bread and butter, everything new and fresh that you have had lately. Uniformity is death to some natures. That is why some unhappy individuals of my sex make dismal endings and horrid examples of themselves. Some girl marries the butler, or the stockman, or the music master periodically. Depend upon it, it is nothing but Nature’s protest against the murderous monotony of their daily lives.”
“Maud, Maud,” interposed Mrs. Stangrove, “how can you say such dreadful things? Quite improper, I think. I declare Mr. Redgrave will be shocked and alarmed if you go on so. Really, my dear!”
Jack mildly combated these extreme and unconventional opinions, declaring that some of the most discontented, useless, and life-weary people he had ever seen had enjoyed no end of variety – passed their lives in sight-seeing – been everywhere – and yet were more utterly ennuyés than even Miss Stangrove on the banks of the Warroo.
“Well,” said that young lady, “you see they had only been working out the vanity and vexation of spirit theory, and how dreary a result it was for the Wise King to come to! But I should like ‘to see the folly of it too.’ I think manufacturing one’s own vanity and vexation is more satisfactory than acquiring it second-hand.”
“I wonder if our black friends ever feel bored,” said Jack; “before we came and gave them iron tomahawks it must have taken a fellow a week to chop out a ’possum; so I suppose constant employment conduced to cheerfulness. Still, of late years, food being plentiful, wars traditionary, and travel impossible, game perhaps a trifle scarcer, a sense of impatience of the ‘slow, strong hours’ may have crossed their unused intelligences.”
“It may be, for all we know,” said Mark, who had re-entered and thrown himself upon a sofa, “at the root of the frantic love for ardent spirits which all the younger natives have. The men of a generation or two back, like ‘old man Jack,’ don’t drink. But all the middle-aged and younger ones, more particularly those, by comparison, educated, drink fearfully hard whenever they get the chance.”
“So do all savages,” said Jack; “likewise smoke furiously. Alcohol and tobacco seem particularly attractive to their organizations; and they have no power of moderation. ‘Too much of anything is not good,’ said the Red Indian, ‘but too much rum is just enough.’ That’s their idea – all over the world.”
“I suggest that we have exhausted the subject,” mildly interposed Mrs. Stangrove, “and as it is getting cool we might all go for a drive in the break with Mark and the young horses. Can you take us, my dear?”
This was voted a first-rate suggestion. The evening, comparatively cool only, was approaching. So the ladies apparelled themselves suitably, and as Mark let the half-broken team out, without fear of stone or stump, along the glorious, level, sandy out-station track, the rushing air refreshed their senses, jaded by the long, breezeless midsummer day. It was twilight deepening into night as they returned, a very cheerful and animated party. Maud, with the changeful mood of her sex, declared herself again reconciled to existence, and even conscious of pleasurable anticipation as regarded tea.
Jack was catechised after that refection upon the balls, archery-parties, picnics, races, &c., to which he had been on his late visit to town. Maud sang a new song or two which she had managed to get up, buried alive as she assumed herself to be, and John Redgrave was more deeply enthralled than ever.