Plain Living

CHAPTER XVI

Before the Windāhgil party returned on the following day a council of war was held, at the conclusion of which the Colonel’s face assumed a very different expression from that which it habitually wore. The four men met in his study, where the accounts, assets, and liabilities were laid before the financial authority, who scanned them with keen and practised eye.

After what appeared to the others, and especially to Willoughby and his father, an astonishingly short examination, he raised his head and asked these pertinent questions: “I see your next bill, £12,437 14s. 10d., falls due in March,” he said. “After that, there is nothing more to be met but station expenses for another year, against which there will, of course, be the wool clip. You have 54,786 sheep, more or less, on the run. Is that so?”

“Half of which are to die this winter, Hubert says. Oh, yes – they’re all in the paddocks,” replied the younger Dacre, in a tone of reckless despair, while the Colonel’s face set with steadfast resolve, yet showed by the twitching of his lips how severe was the repression of feeling – how tense the strain of anxiety.

“Never mind about that just yet,” said Barrington Hope. “We’ll see into the available assets first. About this next bill, Colonel; how do you propose to meet it?”

“By the sale of sheep, I suppose. There is no other way. And if this drought comes to pass I am informed they will be next to valueless. How is the next one – of equal amount, and another still, to be paid? In such a case I see nothing but ruin staring me in the face. Good God! that I should have brought my poor children to such a pass!”

Here the brave soldier, who had fought with cheerful courage on more than one battle-field, when comrades lay dead and dying around him – who had been the first man across the breach when the rebel artillery were mowing down his regiment like swathes of meadow grass at Delhi, appeared quite unmanned.

“It will never do to give up the fight before the end of the day, Colonel,” said Mr. Hope, gently. “As a military man, you must know that reserves may come up at any moment. I will promise to give you a decided answer at the end of our colloquy. But we must move according to the rules of war.”

“You must pardon me, my dear sir,” said the Colonel, with a faint smile. “I trust not to embarrass the court again; but the fact is, I am a child in commercial affairs, and the probable loss of my children’s whole fortune touches me too acutely.”

“Have you any advice to offer, Hubert?” queried Hope. “I understand we are all here on terms of friendly equality.”

“Yes, I have,” said the young man, with an air of decision. “You can judge of its value. All the Windāhgil sheep, with the exception of a couple of flocks of studs, start for our Queensland country in January. The dry belt likely to be affected by the coming drought is a narrow one not more than two hundred miles wide, and as the sheep are fairly strong now, though they won’t remain so, they should cross that with trifling loss. Donald Greenhaugh, a first-class man, has agreed to go in charge. Sheep are sheep over there now for stocking up new country, and we can sell to advantage what we do not want for Windāhgil Downs. The larger the number sent in one overland journey like this, the smaller the expense of droving per head. I propose that Wantabalree should be cleared in the same way. Willoughby can go in charge of his own sheep, and we can share the expense.”

“I see nothing to prevent your idea from being carried out,” said Mr. Hope. “I am aware that sheep of good quality, as the Wantabalree sheep proverbially are, are scarce, and saleable at high rates, in the new country. The main thing will be to have a first-class road overseer.”

“Greenhaugh has been out with an exploring party over all that country,” said Hubert; “and as a head drover is worth his weight in gold. A sober, steady fellow, too, and a good hand with men. No better bushman anywhere.”

“I’m ready to start next week,” said Willoughby, with the fire of ardent youth in his kindling eye. “I never expected to have such a chance. But – ” and here his face became grave and thoughtful – “what do you say, father? Will you and Rosalind be able to get on without me?”

“We must try, my boy. The time will pass heavily, I doubt not; but,” and here he walked over to Hubert, and put his hand on his firm shoulder, “your father did not grudge you in the path of honourable ambition, nor can I be more selfish. God bless you both, my boys! and bring you safe back once more to gladden our hearts. It seems to me as if Providence had decided this issue, and that I have little hand in it.”

“I wish now to understand, Colonel Dacre,” said Hope; “if, upon their arrival in Queensland, you will place 20,000 sheep in our hands for sale – at such prices as may be then ruling – and whether by the terms of your mortgage to Mr. Dealerson – who has of course, taken care to tie you up as tightly as he could – you have the power of disposing of so many.”

“It so happens that I have permission to reduce the stock – I believe that’s the expression – by just such a number,” said the Colonel more cheerfully; “and I most willingly invest you with the power of disposing of them.”

“Then I will take upon myself to state that the Austral Agency Company will guarantee to take up your bill next coming due, and to provide you with funds to carry you over the next shearing, when we may perhaps make a more complete and satisfactory arrangement.”

The Colonel gazed at Mr. Hope with an expression as of one not fully realising the effect of the words he heard with his outward ears. Then suddenly stepping forward, he stretched out his hand, and taking that of the younger man wrung it silently.

He retreated to his chair, where he sat down with an expression of relief too deep for words. He then left, apparently, all further transactions of the interview in the hands of the “coming race.”

They began to go into detail a little, as if about un fait accompli, Hubert, more particularly, talking rapidly, in order to cover any appearance of awkwardness on the part of his hosts.

“You know,” he said, “that by doing this travelling business, we ‘hedge,’ so to speak, instead of standing to lose on the double event of a dry season and a panic in the money market, more than any of us can afford. If the weather breaks in February, of course we needn’t have started, but we can’t lose anything, as our sheep will be regularly run after when we get them over, and at high prices too. They talk of maiden ewes being worth a pound from the shears, and anything else fifteen shillings, while if it holds dry for three or four months here, sheep will have to be given away, or next thing to it.”

“I suppose I shall have to hire a lot of shepherds,” said Willoughby; “that will be a nuisance, won’t it?”

“If I were you I’d leave all that to Greenhaugh; he’s accustomed to these fellows, and knows how to talk to them on the road, which you don’t. You’d better, ostensibly, be second in command of the expedition. You won’t have much responsibility, and will be able to pick up heaps of experience. All you will have to find will be your own horses. He’ll arrange everything else and keep the accounts of rations and wages, which you and I can settle when you get there.”

“I suppose there’s a strong probability of a drought setting in,” said Mr. Hope; “if not, you will be rather premature.”

“The more I see of the weather signs, the more certain I am that we are on the edge of another drought, perhaps worse than the last,” said Hubert. “You’ll see that a great many people will hang on, expecting it to break up; then, making sure of getting the ‘tail end’ of the tropical rains, and generally trusting to the doctrine of chances until their sheep get too weak to travel, and then – ”

“And what then?” asked Willoughby. “I haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing a dry season as yet.”

Hubert smiled grimly. “You will thank your stars the Wantabalree sheep cleared out in time. You would never have forgotten it as long as you lived. Some squatters will lose half their stock, some two-thirds, some even more. A man told me he lost a hundred thousand sheep in the last drought. But he could afford it.”

“If it’s going to be so bad, what will your governor and mine do with the sheep we leave behind, for we must leave some.”

“They will have all the grass and water to themselves, which will give them a chance, and then, if it gets very cruel, they must cut scrub and oak for them.”

“Cut the trees down!” said Willoughby, with astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!”

“You’ll find out everything in time,” said Hubert. “‘The brave old oak’ has an antipodean signification here. I don’t know what we should do without him in a dry time. I’ve known sheep kept in good condition that hadn’t seen grass for eighteen months.”

Before the drive back, which took place after lunch, in the midst of pathetic leave-takings between the Windāhgil girls and Miss Dacre, the latter young lady took an opportunity of expressing to Hubert her sincere gratitude for his organisation of the opportune alliance which was, so to speak, to raise the siege of Wantabalree.

“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.