‘By George, Jack, you’re a regular bullocky boy,’ said old Mr. Hasbene; ‘you had better get Mr. Neuchamp here to put you on as stockman when he buys a cattle station, as I expect he will when he leaves us. If I was a young man I’d go with him myself, for I see he’s got a real turn for the roans and reds, and there’s nothing like ’em.’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Ernest. ‘I have a great fancy for a cattle run; and I must say, I think Jack is right about the sheep. They are a great deal too much trouble, especially with shepherds. I came away from England to lead a quiet life in the wilderness, to have a little leisure and time to think, and not to be hurried from one engagement to another like a Liverpool cotton broker or a stock exchange speculator.’
‘I don’t say there isn’t money made by sheep,’ remarked Mr. Hasbene, ’but cattle, to my mind, have always been the most gentlemanly stock. A man does his work; it’s sharp sometimes; but then he has it over. He knows what he’s about, and hasn’t to be always “hurried up” like a Yankee dry goods clerk. I wouldn’t change lives with Jedwood for all the world. I live like a gentleman in my small quiet way, but I’ll be hanged if he does.’
‘Quite right, Mr. Hasbene,’ said Ernest. ’The characteristics of “the gentle life,” in my estimation, are occasional strenuous, useful, and dignified exertion, seconded by unquestioned leisure, more or less embellished by letters with the aid of the arts and sciences. All this keenness to amass money, land, flocks, and herds, is merely the trading instinct pushed to excess, whether the owner lives in a street, in a city, or a hut on a plain. However, we must be off. Good-bye.‘ Away they went at the rapid pace so dear to unthinking youth, all heedless of the capital of human as of equine bone and sinew, secure of a vast endowment to their credit in the future, good for endless drafts and extravagant cheques, while the grizzled senior rode back to his lonely lodge to contest, as best might be, with three months’ loneliness, three months’ absence of human face, of human speech, laughter, or tears. It was not a gay life, certainly, but such as it was, he had lived and outlived twenty odd years of it. In all human probability—he was failing now—he would remain there until he died. So best—where else should he go? Geoffrey Hasbene had once possessed money, friends, a good station, a fair position. But indifferent luck, combined with an easy, careless, liberal disposition, had caused his property to drift away from him. For a time he had suffered some of the evils of neglect and of poverty. Then this prospect of employment was offered and thankfully accepted, and for many years he had been exercising for another the qualities of vigilance and economy that, in the long past years, would have gathered and secured a fortune for himself.
The season wore on. The mild Australian winter, far different from the stern season that Mr. Neuchamp had associated with that name, changed almost imperceptibly into glowing spring—into burning summer.
The ordinary work of the station advanced. Men came and went; were hired, verbally; retained, paid off, and so on, with an undeviating regularity that savoured of machinery.
With spring came all the bustle of washing and shearing. Herds of men arrived at Garrandilla, and were employed as sheepwashers, shearers, extra shepherds, watchmen, engineers, fleece-rollers, and people to do anything that may be required and nothing in particular. Much Ernest marvelled at the apparently profuse and reckless manner in which men were engaged at high wages, until it occurred to him one evening to reckon up, with the assistance of Malcolm Grahame, the probable value of the wool crop. Then he admitted that a few hands or a few pounds, more or less, were not much to be considered in view of such a large quantity of so high-priced and so promptly convertible a commodity.
The general tone of the establishment was altered. Mr. Windsor had completed his colt-breaking business, and having enrolled himself as a shearer, was living in a state of luxurious freedom from any kind of work, and waiting with twenty or thirty other gentlemen, apparently of independent means, the important tocsin which tells of the commencement of shearing.
Barrington and Grahame were galloping about all day long, from the shed to the wash-pen, looking important and mysterious, while Mr. Banks was permanently located at the latter place, and evidently considered himself as in a great degree responsible for the reputation of the Garrandilla clip in the forthcoming wool sales.
For Ernest, to his great satisfaction, employment had been found at the cattle station, an unusual number of fat stock having been sold and delivered at this particular season, so that he and Jack Windsor had been mustering and drafting and partly delivering the said beeves, until it was time for the latter gentleman to take his place among the braves, who, when on the war-path, on the far plains of the north-west, are, sometimes inaccurately enough, styled and designated shearers.