‘There is something fascinating, it must be confessed, about this bush life,’ he soliloquised. ‘I don’t wonder at youngsters running away to the bush, as long ago they did to sea. What a man, what a hero, a lad feels himself to be mounted upon a good horse behind a trampling drove like this. Sometimes, even at Charley Banks’s age, he may be the owner of such a lot, and the lord of an estate of a hundred thousand acres (leasehold), where almost every one he sees belongs to his employment or dependency. The very numbers of the stock create a sense of responsibility and grandeur. There are three hundred and fifty head in this draft, not a large one. What would they think in England of seeing five hundred fat cattle in one drove, or even a thousand, like the one we met one day. “Where are these fine cattle from?” I remember saying to the stockman in charge. “From Yānga,” said he, with an air of perfect explanation, as who should say from London or Liverpool. All well-informed persons, to his mind, must be acquainted by report, at least, with Yānga.’
Mr. Neuchamp’s musings came to an end as he perceived that he was no longer needed, and must return, unless he proposed to spend the night away from home without adequate cause, so he paced back ruefully to Rainbar, which fully presented the aspect of a lodge in the wilderness bereft of the cheerful converse of Mr. Banks, the versatile activity of Mr. Windsor, and even the open countenance and expansive grin of Piambook.
He had now before him the cheerful prospect of at least two months’ entire solitude, not merely comparative, like an artist in a remote Rhineland or Norwegian village, but absolute, unrelieved, impossible of improvement, save by accident, as that of the keeper of a lighthouse.
It may be a matter of justifiable curiosity among those who have never led the eremitical lives which, ‘for a season, and for that reason,’ the proud pastoralist is occasionally compelled to endure, how, in this lone Chorasmian waste, Mr. Neuchamp contrived to spend his time. Something after this fashion, if I, who write, may transcribe a page of long ago, when the ‘fever called living’ was more recently induced.
He rose early, which, in the bush, means at or before sunrise. Glorious, in good sooth, is the early morn in the Australian wilds. Cool, clear, invigorating to the inmost nerve. Cloudless for the most part, and, before the mid-day sun asserts his might, perfect as a poet’s dream of the serene untempested heavens of the isles of the blest. Granted that, at cattle stations in the far interior, it is very difficult to know what to do in the way of work, recreation, or exercise, when you are up. Some original thinkers have partly solved the problem by habitually lying in bed until they had just time to dress for breakfast.
But not of such mould was Ernest Neuchamp. He had already assured himself of profitable occupation for all the time that should intervene between leaving his couch and taking the cold bath which preceded dressing for the day. He had determined that the garden at Rainbar should be one of the chief modes of reformation of bush habitudes upon which he was bent.
To this end he had, as early as such loading could be procured, ordered from town great stores of fruit-trees and plants befitting advanced horticulture, besides all manner of vegetable seeds, with a small assortment of flowers and shrubs.
He had caused to be trenched, and laid out in proper beds, a flat near the river through which the waters of that stream were led for purposes of irrigation. In this promising spot, in despite of the powerful sun-rays, the growth of all vegetation had been rapid and successful. He had therefore secured that perennial source of interest which a well-kept garden supplies to him who is fortunate enough to possess a taste for horticulture. In it he found a sufficiency of light labour for all the spare time which he could devote to it. Daily did he congratulate himself upon having in the wilderness one of the purest pleasures known to mankind—one which increases rather than fades with the lapse of years, and which richly repays both in result and occupation any outlay in its earlier stages.
He had therefore no difficulty in finding adequate scope for his energies during the early or the later unoccupied hours of the day. The chance wayfarer descried him in a rough serviceable suit, delving, weeding, or seed sowing in the fresh hours of the morning, or towards the coolness of the evening shadows. After a morning hour or more thus spent, he saw that his stock-horse for the day’s ride was caught, saddled, and left ready for use. Then he proceeded to his bath, transacted in a rough but sufficient bathroom, composed of slabs, and, fully attired for the day, sat down with appetite to the breakfast which the old hutkeeper had, somewhere about eight o’clock, provided for him.
He had succeeded in arranging the transit of a very fair library, comprising his favourite standard authors, with whom, including a regular instalment of magazines, he held converse during the principal part of the breakfast hour.