Mr. Neuchamp, though a foe to excess, did not disdain a moderate allowance of ‘old spirits’ from time to time. He was particularly led on this eventful night to bear himself in a sociable and sympathetic manner. There was no chance of work being done or thought of till morning light. So he drew up his chair, filled his glass, and looked fixedly at the calm features of Aymer Brandon, who, much pressed and entreated, at length commenced his tale of years long past.
‘We had taken up Tthoondula, Will Lorton and I, only the year before, and we had fixed to commence our first shearing on the 20th of August. It was the 15th, so no time could be wasted. Small parties of shearers were camped by the edge of the long black gum-shrouded lagoon which had given its name to the run. No one could have imagined that the dark deep water was in reality transparently clear. The sombre hue produced by the illusion of a mud stratum, and the swart shadows cast by the huge eucalypti which lined its banks, caused one involuntarily to recall “the dark tarn of Auber,” while as the pall of swift-speeding night fell heavily o’er the scene, it needed but little fancy to re-create the “ghoul-haunted wood and of Weir.” Slowly on that eve dropped the sun behind the rugged “divide” which separates the Paroo and Warrego, leaving the rosy-lipped hills smiling adieu till the morrow. The frown on the face of the mulga-studded lowlands deepened, and the wrinkles harshly marked by many a tributary creek bore witness to its sorrow for the dying day.
‘The weather was simply perfect. We anticipated a successful shearing. The mornings were crisp as lettuces, the succeeding portion of the day exhilarating to the degree of making conscious existence a pleasure of the highest order. Summer, with a register of 120 in the shade, would have been forgotten but for the dry harsh wool and the sand banks on the sheep’s back. We were in high spirits nevertheless. If the wool was worth little we were separated by a thousand miles from our bills. Our bankers could only get at us by letter, and we were spared the discontent patent on the faces of those officials when the balance is on the wrong side of the ledger.
‘By Jove, when I think of those early days, Sparks, how sanguine we must all have been to see anything but ruin, writ large, in such investments. The only sheep one could buy were very indifferent as to the quality, size, and constitution. They had been lambed twice a year for the purpose of stocking up new country, and it was chiefly on paper that the splendid frontages looked in any manner or shape tempting. The calculation had been based on Riverina scales of labour, outlay, and profit. Once on the ground the “dead horse” stood confessed. How often have you and I seen a healthy, high-couraged youngster start out for these fascinating territories of limitless mulga-downs, full-freighted with hope, flattery, coin, and courage—friendship, with delusive crayon, sketching golden futures, cautious capital proffering loans with both hands. At the end of five years returns a subdued, bronzed, resolved-looking man, with signs of dust from the road of Time “upon brow and beard.” His pecuniary correspondents, who, to say truth, have not come off scatheless, scowl upon him. But his “own people” and his true old friends receive the scarred and desert-worn Crusader with loving words and open arms. With these tarries he, till again the trumpet peals for another tilt with the veiled antagonist of the future.’
‘Devilish fine, old man. You’re a most sentimental buffer after the second tumbler. Can’t be licked, in fact—but how about the nigger? I wonder you had the heart to shoot him—two poetical cusses like you and Lorton. Why didn’t you give him a moral pocketankercher?’
‘I appeal to Mr. Neuchamp for protection from your coarse attacks,’ quoth Aymer with mock dignity. ‘Perhaps, after all, this incident is of trifling interest.’
‘My dear Mr. Brandon,’ cried out Ernest, terrified at the idea of losing a tragedy, ‘I sincerely trust that you will not think of withdrawing your promise to give us this deeply interesting tale. I feel painfully curious to hear the sequel.’
Thus adjured, and with a withering look at Parklands, Mr. Brandon proceeded.
‘We devoted the next few days at Tthoondula to fixing the spade-press—that friendly adjunct to the pioneer-squatter’s humble woolshed, and topping up the brush yard at the equally primitive washpool. I decided upon taking charge of the shed, leaving the lavatory to my partner.
‘It would be difficult to choose the easier task. Will was to command a lot of half-tamed naked Myalls, as yet hardly to be trusted, reprisals being still freely indulged in on that frontier territory between the blacks and itinerant station hands. The shearers were composed of the human scum always to be found floating near the border of civilisation, like the rubbish forced before an advancing flood. It was no unusual occurrence to have the full complement of men in the morning, and in the afternoon, upon the unexpected arrival of an inspector of police, the shearing board would be deserted. All but a brace “cachéd” in the mulga. They showed up in the inverse proportion, of course, to the fact of their being “wanted.” Not that the native police troubled themselves much about them. But a criminal hides from a policeman instinctively, as doth the young wood-duck from the sportsman. All this makes the management of this class of men the more difficult, as, if you sack them in your righteous wrath, you can by no possibility get others.’