CHAPTER XVIII.
A STATION SKETCH.
“The proper quarry of mankind is man.”
T is about eight o’clock P.M., at Borbong head-station, which lies at some fifty miles’ distance from Murdaro, and the evening meal being over, half-a-dozen men are settling down to enjoy an after-dinner smoke in that sanctum of Government House, the boss’s “den.”
Most of the bronzed, manly figures before us are dressed in white linen and one wears the long top-boots and spurs of a sub-lieutenant in the N.M. Constabulary. Three of the other men are passing travellers, and although quite unknown to the hospitable manager of the run, till a couple of hours since, are made none the less welcome on that account, after the laudably generous custom that obtains on the better class “up-country” stations.
One of these strangers is the new manager of Hanga run, who is on his way northwards to take charge of his new scene of labours, and the other two are mining speculators up from Brisbane to look at a new find of silver in the neighbourhood.
“Now, gentlemen, make yourselves at home,” observes Mr. Browne, in the loud, resonant voice of one who is accustomed to give outdoor commands. “Here are some cigars that ain’t bad. You’ll have to excuse me for a bit, but I’ll be back by the time you’ve filled your glasses. I just want to see about the horses for to-morrow.” Mr. Browne retires, being followed from the door by a battalion of enormous cats, who, with tails erect, stalk noiselessly after their master, whose sole hobby is breeding animals and training them to perform all kinds of unfeline feats.
The manager’s guests proceed to make themselves comfortable upon various seats about the rather roughly furnished room, and an observant eye might have noticed that the older frequenters of the house studiously avoid the neighbourhood of a certain chintz-covered sofa standing near the door, which is known to them as the favourite roosting-place of their host’s strange pets.
The room in which the smokers are assembled has no ceiling, and the rafters of the thatched roof can dimly be descried in the gloom overhead. Upon the log walls, which are scantily covered with a mutilated covering of scrim, a few coloured almanacs and pictures from the illustrated papers have been pasted. A dusty, little-used bookcase and a well-supplied gun-rack—fit emblems of the unequal amount of influence exerted by peace and war in the locality—occupy two opposite corners of the room by the door, which, hanging upon green-hide hinges, has evidently at some time or other formed parts of various packing cases. This is the “den,” otherwise the sitting-room and office, of Mr. Browne,—where that splendid specimen of humanity writes his diaries, does his obtuse calculations as handicapper for the neighbouring Jockey Club, and pays his hands,—and the absence of a ceiling is not without certain advantages, as may be perceived after a number of guests have been loading the air for the best part of a warm summer night with fragrant clouds of incense in honour of the Genius of Bachelordom.
“Wonderful lot of cats about the place!” exclaims one of the mining speculators, moving suddenly off the aforementioned chintz-covered sofa, and proceeding to stamp and shake himself as if he had come in contact with a lively ant-hill. “I’ve always admired Henry the Third of France because he hated cats.”