Chapter Twenty Four.
A New Arrival.
Winslow made months of a stay in the Bush, and his services were of great value to the young squatters. The improvements he suggested were many and various, and he was careful to see them carried out.
Dams were made, and huge reservoirs were dug; for, as Winslow said, their trials were all before them, and a droughty season might mean financial ruin to them.
“Nevertheless,” he added one day, addressing Bob, “I feel sure of you; and to prove this I don’t mind knocking down a cheque or two to the tune of a thou or three or five if you want them.
“I’ll take bank interest,” he added, “not a penny more.”
Bob thanked him, and consulted the others that evening. True, Archie’s aristocratic pride popped up every now and then, but it was kept well under by the others.
“Besides, don’t you see, Johnnie,” said Harry, “this isn’t a gift. Winslow is a business man, and he knows well what he is about.”
“And,” added Bob, “the fencing isn’t finished yet. We have all those workmen’s mouths to fill, and the sooner the work is done the better.”
“Then the sheep are to come in a year or so, and it all runs away with money, Johnnie. Our fortunes are to be made. There is money on the ground to be gathered up, and all that Winslow proposes is holding the candle to us till we fill our pockets.”
“It is very kind of him,” said Archie, “but—”
“Well,” said Bob, “I know where your ‘buts’ will end if you are not careful. You will give offence to Mr Winslow, and he’ll just turn on his heel and never see us again.”
“Do you think so?”
“Think so? Yes, Archie, I’m sure of it. A better-hearted man doesn’t live, rough and all as he is; and he has set his mind to doing the right thing for us all for your sake, lad, and so I say, think twice before you throw cold water over that big, warm heart of his.”
“Well,” said Archie, “when you put it in that light, I can see matters clearly. I wouldn’t offend my good old Uncle Ramsay’s friend for all the world. I’m sorry I ever appeared bluff with him. So you can let him do as he pleases.”
And so Winslow did to a great extent.
Nor do I blame Bob and Harry for accepting his friendly assistance. Better far to be beholden to a private individual, who is both earnest and sincere, than to a money-lending company, who will charge double interest, and make you feel that your soul is not your own.
Better still, I grant you, to wait and work and plod; but this life is almost too short for much waiting, and after all, one half of the world hangs on to the skirts of the other half, and that other half is all the more evenly balanced in consequence.
I would not, however, have my young readers misunderstand me. What I maintain is this, that although a poor man cannot leave this country in the expectation that anybody or any company will be found to advance the needful to set him up in the business of a squatter, still, when he has worked hard for a time, beginning at the lowermost ring of the ladder, and saved enough to get a selection, and a few cattle and sheep, then, if he needs assistance to heave ahead a bit, he will—if everything is right and square—have no difficulty in finding it.
So things went cheerily on at Burley New Farm. And at last Winslow and Etheldene took their departure, promising to come again.
“So far, lads,” said Winslow, as he mounted his horse, “there hasn’t been a hitch nowheres. But mind keep two hands at the wheel.”
Mr Winslow’s grammar was not of the best, and his sentences generally had a smack of the briny about them, which, however, did not detract from their graphicness.
“Tip us your flippers, boys,” he added, “and let us be off. But I’m just as happy as if I were a father to the lot of you.”
Gentleman Craig shook hands with Mr Winslow. He had already helped Etheldene into her saddle.
Archie was standing by her, the bridle of his own nag Tell thrown carelessly over his arm; for good-byes were being said quite a mile from the farm.
“I’ll count the days, Etheldene, till you come again,” said Archie. “The place will not seem the same without you.”
Craig stood respectfully aside till Archie had bade her adieu, then, with his broad hat down by his side, he advanced. He took her hand and kissed it.
“Good-bye, Baby,” he said.
There were tears in Etheldene’s eyes as she rode away. Big Winslow took off his hat, waved it over his head, and gave voice to a splendid specimen of a British cheer, which, I daresay, relieved his feelings as much as it startled the lories. The “boys” were not slow in returning that cheer. Then away rode the Winslows, and presently the grey-stemmed gum trees swallowed them up.
Two whole years passed by. So quickly, too, because they had not been idle years. Quite the reverse of that, for every day brought its own duties with it, and there was always something new to be thought about or done.
One event had taken place which, in Bob’s eyes, eclipsed all the others—a little baby squatter saw the light of day. But I should not have used the word eclipsed. Little “Putty-face,” as Harry most irreverently called her, did not eclipse anything; on the contrary, everything grew brighter on her arrival, and she was hailed queen of the station. The news spread abroad like wildfire, and people came from far and near to look at the wee thing, just as if a baby had never been born in the Bush before.
Findlayson dug the child with his forefinger in the cheek, and nodded and “a-goo-ed” to it, and it smiled back, and slobbered and grinned and jumped. Findlayson then declared it to be the wisest “wee vision o’ a thing the warld ever saw.” Sarah was delighted, so was the nurse—a young sonsy Scotch lass brought to the station on purpose to attend to baby.
“But,” said Findlayson, “what about bapteezin’ the blessed wee vision.”
“Oh,” said Bob, “I’ve thought of that! Craig and I are going to Brisbane with stock, and we’ll import a parson.”
It so happened that a young missionary was on his way to spread the glad tidings among the blacks, and it did not need much coaxing on Bob’s part to get him to make a détour, and spend a week at Burley New Farm. So this was the imported parson.
But being in Brisbane, Bob thought he must import something else, which showed what a mindful father he was.
He had a look round, and a glance in at all the shop windows in Queen Street, finally he entered an emporium that took his fancy.
“Ahem!” said Bob. “I want a few toys.”
“Yes, sir. About what age, sir?”
“The newest and best you have.”
“I didn’t refer to the age of the toys,” said the urbane shopkeeper, with the ghost of a smile in his eye. “I should have said, Toys suitable for what age?”
“For every age,” replied Bob boldly.
The shopkeeper then took the liberty of remarking that his visitor must surely be blessed with a quiverful.
“I’ve only the one little girl,” said Bob. “She fills the book as yet. But, you see, we’re far away in the Bush, and baby will grow out of gum-rings and rattles, won’t she, into dolls and dung-carts? D’ye see? D’ye understand?”
“Perfectly.”
It ended in Bob importing not only the parson in a dray, but a box of toys as big as a sea-chest, and only Bob himself could have told you all that was in it. That box would have stocked a toyshop itself and Harry and Archie had the grandest of fun unpacking it, and both laughed till they had to elevate their arms in the air to get the stitches out of their sides.
The amusing part of it was that innocent Bob had bought such a lot of each species.
A brown paper parcel, for example, was marked “1 gross: gum-rings.”
“That was a job lot,” said Bob, explaining. “I got them at a reduction, as the fellow said. Besides, if she has one in each hand, and another in her mouth, it will keep her out of mischief for a month or two to begin with.”
There was no mistake about it, baby was set up; for a time, at all events.
Not only did visitors—rough and smooth, but mostly rough—come from afar, but letters of congratulation also. Winslow said in a letter that Etheldene was dying to come and see “the vision,” and so was he, though not quite so bad. “Only,” he added, “as soon Eth is finished we’ll both run up. Eth is going to Melbourne to be finished, and I think a year will do the job.”
“Whatever does he mean,” said stalwart Bob, “by finishing Eth, and doing the job?”
“Why, you great big brush turkey,” said Sarah, “he means finishing her edication, in coorse!”
“Oh, I see now!” said Bob. “To be sure; quite right. I say, Sarah, we’ll have to send ‘the vision’ to a slap-up lady’s school one of these days, won’t us?”
“Bob,” replied Sarah severely, “tell that lazy black chap, Jumper, to dig some potatoes.”
“I’m off, Sarah! I’m off!”
Both Harry and Archie had by this time become perfect in all a squatter’s art.
Both had grown hard and hardy, and I am not sure that Harry was not now quite as bold a rider as Archie himself, albeit he was a Cockney born, albeit he had had to rub himself after that first ride of his on Scallowa, the “Eider Duck.”
Well, then, both he and Archie were perfectly au fait at cattle work in all its branches, and only those who have lived on and had some interest in farming have an idea what a vast amount of practical work breeding cattle includes. One has really to be Jack-of-all-trades, and a veterinary surgeon into the bargain. Moreover, if he be master, and not merely foreman, there are books to be kept; so he must be a good accountant, and a good caterer, and always have his weather eye lifting, and keeping a long lookout for probable changes in the markets.
But things had prospered well at Burley New Station. One chief reason of this was that the seasons had been good, and that there was every prospect that the colony of Queensland was to be one of the most respected and favourite in the little island.
For most of his information on the management of sheep, Archie and his companions were indebted to the head stockman, Gentleman Craig. He had indeed been a Godsend, and proved himself a blessing to the station. It is but fair to add that he had sacredly and sternly kept the vow he had registered that night.
He did not deny that it had been difficult for him to do so; in fact he often referred to his own weakness when talking to Archie, whose education made him a great favourite and the constant companion of Craig.
“But you don’t feel any the worse for having completely changed your habits, do you?” said Archie one day.
Craig’s reply was a remarkable one, and one that should be borne in mind by those teetotallers who look upon inebriety as simply a species of moral aberration, and utterly ignore the physiology of the disease.
“To tell you the truth, Mr Broadbent, I am both better and worse. I am better physically; I am in harder, more robust, muscular health; I’m as strong in the arms as a kicking kangaroo. I eat well, I sleep fairly well, and am fit in every way. But I feel as if I had passed through the vale of the shadow of death, and it had left some of its darkness on and in my soul. I feel as if the cure had mentally taken a deal out of me; and when I meet, at Brisbane or other towns, men who offer me drink I feel mean and downcast, because I have to refuse it, and because I dared not even take it as food and medicine. No one can give up habits of life that have become second nature without mental injury, if not bodily. And I’m more and more convinced every month that intemperance is a disease of periodicity, just like gout and rheumatism.”
“You have cravings at certain times, then?”
“Yes; but that isn’t the worst. The worst is that periodically in my dreams I have gone back to my old ways, and think I am living once again in the fool’s paradise of the inebriate; singing wild songs, drinking recklessly, talking recklessly, and looking upon life as but a brief unreality, and upon time as a thing only to be drowned in the wine-cup. Yes, but when I awake from these pleasantly-dreadful dreams, I thank God fervidly I have been but dreaming.”
Archie sighed, and no more was said on the subject.
Letters came from home about once a month, but they came to Archie only. Yet, though Bob had never a friend to write to him from Northumbria, nor Harry one in Whitechapel, the advent of a packet from home gave genuine joy to all hands.
Archie’s letters from home were read first by Archie himself, away out under the shade of a tree as likely as not. Then they were read to his chums, including Sarah and Diana.
Diana was the baby.
But they were not finished with even then. No; for they were hauled out and perused night after night for maybe a week, and then periodically for perhaps another fortnight. There was something new to talk about found in them each time; something suggesting pleasant conversation.
Archie was often even amused at “his dear old dad’s” remarks and advice. He gave as many hints, and planned as many improvements, as though he had been a settler all his life, and knew everything there was any need to know about the soil and the climate.
He believed—i.e., the old Squire believed—that if he were only out among them, he would show even the natives (white men born in the Bush) a thing or two.
Yes, it was amusing; and after filling about ten or twelve closely-written pages on suggested improvements, he was sure to finish up somewhat as follows in the postscript:
“But after all, Archie, my dear boy, you must be very careful in all you do. Never go like a bull at a gate, lad. Don’t forget that I—even I—was not altogether successful at Burley Old Farm.”
“Bless that postscript,” Archie would say; “mother comes in there.”
“Does she now?” Sarah would remark, looking interested.
“Ay, that she does. You see father just writes all he likes first—blows off steam as it were; and mother reads it, and quietly dictates a postscript.”
Then there were Elsie’s letters and Rupert’s, to say nothing of a note from old Kate and a crumpled little enclosure from Branson. Well, in addition to letters, there was always a bundle of papers, every inch of which was read—even the advertisements, and every paragraph of which brought back to Archie and Bob memories of the dear old land they were never likely to forget.