‘How do you know?’ quoth Charley Banks. ‘It’s half luck, seems to me. I know an old cove that only branded his cattle once about every two years, and he made more money than all the district put together. Neuchamp’s a good sort of notion about a horse, and he don’t drink. I’ll lay six to two he ain’t broke next year, nor the year after.’
Garrandilla was not a fenced run. It was in the pre-wire-bearing stage, preceding that daring and wondrous economy of labour. At the period of which this veracious chronicle treats, the older pastoral tenants were wont to speak with distrust of the new-fangled idea of turning large numbers of valuable sheep ‘loose—literally loose, by George—night and day’ in securely fenced but unguarded enclosures.
One thing was certain, they had made their money mainly by the exercise of certain qualities, among which were numbered, beside industry and energy, a talent for organisation scarcely inferior to that required by a general of division. At Garrandilla the twenty or thirty flocks, averaging two thousand each, were marshalled, counted, gathered, dispersed, with the punctuality, exactness, and discipline of a battalion on field duty. Were all these rare endowments, these valuable habits, to be henceforth of no avail? Were the sheep to be just turned loose and seen from time to time like a lot of store cattle? Were experienced shepherds, skilled overseers, henceforth to be unnecessary? And would any young inexperienced individual who had brains enough to know a dingo from a collie, or to see a hole in a fence when such hiatus was present, do equally as well to look after five or ten thousand sheep in a paddock, as the oldest shepherd, under the orders of the smartest manager in the land? These were serious and important questions. Mr. Jedwood was not a man given to hurried outlay. The process of building up his fortune had been hard, anxious, and gradual. He had no idea of reversing the process in any possible casting down of that edifice. Therefore, with the aforesaid twenty or thirty shepherds, ration-carriers, etc., it did not admit of doubt as to there being plenty of work at Garrandilla. Of a truth the work was unceasing from daylight on Monday morning till dark, or later, on Saturday night. Indeed Sunday was often spent by Mr. Doubletides in weighing out rations, and making out a few of the men’s accounts, as a species of rest from his labours not unbefitting the day.
The process of general management was somewhat in this wise. Each of the young men had certain flocks placed in his charge; these he was expected to count at least once a week. He had a small sheep-book or journal in which the name of every shepherd, with the number of his flock, was entered upon a separate page, as thus: ‘John Hogan, 14th May; 4-tooth wethers; No. 2380; dead, 5; added, 14; taken out, 52—total, 2337.’
A similar account was kept of every flock upon the station, which was expected to be verified by a count at any moment. This counting it was de rigueur to perform early in the morning. As the shepherd usually left the yard or fold soon after sunrise, and many of the flocks were ten or fifteen miles from the head station, it followed that the young gentleman who counted a distant flock had to quit his couch at an exceedingly early hour.
Then the ration-carriers, who were always conveying provisions, water, wood, all things necessary to the shepherds, required in their turn supervision.
Nothing but the hardest bodily labours and unsleeping apprehensive vigilance kept this small army in good order and efficiency. If a shepherd lost his flock, there was mounting hot haste and terrific excitement till the sheep were found; Mr. Jedwood riding and aiding personally in the quest as if ruin was awaiting the non-arrival of the flock, to pounce down upon him and his.
There was no denying that the management of Garrandilla was very successful upon the whole. The fat sheep were eagerly competed for by dealers and others directly it was known that they were in the market. The wool brought a good though not extreme price in the home or colonial markets. The station accounts were kept by the storekeeper with the strict accuracy of those in a merchant’s office. There was no waste, no untidiness, no delay, no dawdling of any kind. The men were well though not extravagantly lodged and fed, after the manner of the country. They received the ordinary wages, sometimes a shade above them. Whatever they drew from the station-store was accurately debited to them, and they received a cheque for the exact amount of the balance upon the day of their departure. What they did with the said cheque—whether they spent it in forty-eight hours at the nearest inn, whether they kept their money for the purpose of buying land, whether they put it into the savings bank, or gambled it away—was a thing unknown to Mr. Jedwood, and concerning which he never troubled himself to inquire.
When Mr. Neuchamp, in the ardour of his unquenched philanthropy, questioned him about these things, he declared that he had no great opinion of station-hands as a class, that most of them were d——d rascals, and that as long as they did his work and received the pay agreed upon he really did not care two straws what became of them.
Ernest felt this to be a very doubtful position, as between master and men, and further required to know whether, if he, Mr. Jedwood, took measures to locate a few of his best men with their families upon the frontage to the river, he would not secure an attached tenantry, and be always certain of a better and readily available class of labour.