Moreover there was occasionally trials of speed, of bottom, of horsemanship, in thus tracking the half wild cattle to their fastnesses, in which Osmund distinguished himself, and which were more akin to the noble sport of hunting than anything which Ernest had met with in Australia. The driving of the great herd into the stockyard, the drafting, the roping, the branding, the cutting out, all these were novelties and excitements of a very high order, as they then appeared to the ardent mind of Mr. Neuchamp.
So keenly did he appreciate the general work among the cattle, that upon a recommendation from Mr. Doubletides, who thought all time not absolutely devoted to sheep and wool thoroughly wasted, he was promoted to be a kind of cattle overseer. Then from time to time, in company with Jack Windsor, for whose services he formally petitioned, he was despatched on short but pleasant missions to the cattle station when any particular duty of an outpost nature was required to be done.
Then the friends were in their glory. Jack Windsor had been brought up on a cattle station, and had a strong preference for them as stock over sheep. He always took care to provide an ample commissariat in case of accidents, while Mr. Neuchamp armed himself against the perils of a long evening or two at the hut of the cattle manager by bringing a book. Thus fully accoutred they would start off amid the congratulations of Barrington and Charley Banks for a week’s perfect happiness.
Why Mr. Neuchamp esteemed himself to be favoured by fate in being especially selected for this department, was chiefly on this account—that it opened a prospect of change and comparative mental leisure. I have described my hero carelessly and faintly, but the judicious reader will ere this have discovered that Ernest was essentially less disposed to action than contemplation. Not that he disliked or avoided work, but he liked it in large quantities rather than in small, with spaces for consideration and preparation duly interspersed.
For instance, at Garrandilla it was one constant succession of calls and appointments and engagements. ‘Would Mr. Neuchamp get something out of the store? Would he make out So-and-so’s account? Would he go down and draft So-and-so’s flock? Would he be sure to be up before daylight and count the sheep at the Rocky Springs? Mr. Jedwood was returning from the farthest back station, and would he lead a fresh horse to meet him at the fifteen-mile hut? Would he take out a fortnight’s rations to old Bob, and be sure to bring in all the sheep-shears? Would he calculate the number of cubic yards in the Yellow Dam, just completed, and check the storekeeper’s account with the contractor?’ and so on.
Now, all these things Ernest could do, and did do—as did his fellow-cadets—still the endless small succession troubled him. Small wonder, then, that a feeling of relief and satisfaction possessed him when he got the route for Warbrok, and he and Jack packed up their effects and necessaries for a week’s comfortable, steady, solitary work among the cattle, where no complications existed, and where they saw no one but a couple of stockmen and old Mr. Hasbene, the manager, from the time they left Garrandilla till they returned.
In the long days of tracking the outlying ‘mobs’ or small subdivisions of the main herd, in the unrelieved wandering through ‘the merry greenwood,’ with its store of nature’s wonders—hidden watercourses, mimic waterfalls, rare ferns, plants, and flowers, strange birds and stranger beasts—Ernest felt the new delight and enjoyment of a born naturalist. Then the sharp gallops, ‘when they wheeled the wild scrub cattle at the yard,’ were exciting and novel.
The evening, too, spent in the rude but snug building that had served the cattle overseer—a laconic but humorous old man who had once been a prosperous squatter—for a habitation for many a year, story-telling, reading, or dozing before a glowing fire, were pleasant enough in their way.
In the ordinary yard work—drafting, branding, roping, throwing, etc.—Mr. Neuchamp felt a strong and increasing interest. When they returned to the merino metropolis of Garrandilla, old Mr. Hasbene expressed his regret emphatically, while Jack Windsor loudly lamented the necessity of going back to school.
‘Sheep’s all very well,’ that gentleman would observe, ‘but my heart ain’t never been with them like the cattle. There’s too much of the shopkeeping pen-and-ink racket about ’em for me. Look at our storekeeper, he’s writin’ away all day, and sometimes half the night, to keep all the station accounts square. There’s Mr. Doubletides, he’s always away before daylight, and home at all hours of the night. There’s some blessed flock for ever away or having to be counted, or drafted, or shifted, or tar-branded, or sold, or delivered; and it’s the same story all the year round. There’s no rest and no easy time with sheep, work as hard as you will. Of course the wool’s a fine thing, but give me a mob of a couple or three hundred head of fat cattle on the road for market with a good horse under ye and a fourteen-foot whip in your hand. That’s a job worth talking about—a couple of thousand pounds on legs in front of ye—and precious hard work in a dark night, sometimes, to keep it from cuttin’ right off and leavin’ ye with your finger in your mouth.’