That pleasant prelude to the day’s occupation over, he mounted his horse, and, accompanied by Boinmaroo or Piambook, set out upon his daily series of ‘travels and sketches’ through the somewhat extensive territory of Rainbar. Cattle stations are honourably distinguished by presenting some sort of work, if not always very onerous or important, to the attention of an active proprietor, all day long and every day. There was a little branding to be done. A few head of cattle needed to be run home, and regulated in some fashion. A bullock was required for killing. Stragglers were captured and deposited in the paddock, weaners, milkers—what not.
In fact, so engrossing and interesting became the management of the herd, and the exploration of every hole and corner of the run, that, joined to the overlooking of the men working at the canal, the sun was generally low before Ernest and his attendant returned, with a consciousness of having done more or less a day’s work, and with a remarkably good appetite for the corned beef, damper, and tea which composed his chief meal, and indeed all other refections.
In the evening he was again free to enjoy, without fear of interruption, the intensified delight of the lonely scholar, whose books to ‘him a kingdom’ are. His correspondence became more voluminous and grateful than he had ever known it to be heretofore, and when the hour arrived for repose, Ernest Neuchamp retired, secure of dreamless sleep and of that cheerful awakening with the dawn known only to the sharer of ‘respectable pleasures and respectable labours.’
Such, day by day, was the free untroubled life of Ernest Neuchamp at that stage of his fortunes when, untroubled by care or consuming anxiety, with gay hope in the future, tranquil enjoyment of the present, youth told itself a hundred times each day that the present was fairer than the fairest mortal mistress; while age and care stood dimly gazing afar off, nor ventured to enter the paradise which is rarely sacred from their intrusion when the downward slope of the days of the years of our pilgrimage begins to be travelled. So pleasant is the flowing ascent to the mist-shrouded pinnacle of the moments known as success. There, for we behold it in no other spot on earth, we fondly deem that happiness abides. If that haunting presence, unearthly bright, there displays her charms who shall say? Let those who have reached the spot whence can be descried the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them declare!
The days, the weeks, passed smoothly, swiftly away, until at length Charley Banks and Mr. Windsor return, in high spirits, the cattle having ‘topped the market,’ and sold extremely well. With the exception of occasional branding and taking heed that the cattle who wandered about ‘on parole,’ and were not restrained by any fences, did not go away from the run altogether and irrecoverably, there was little indispensable work to do. The selection and delivery of the fat cattle was the most difficult of their station operations. It had been demonstrated that this could be successfully transacted by the present staff.
After the gallant drovers returned, a fortnight was spent in looking through the herd generally. This done, there did not appear to be any possibility of fresh work for two or three months; in fact, not until it was time to make another draft of fat cattle.
‘I see now,’ said Ernest, to that constant and sympathetic confidant, himself, ‘the mistake of the pioneer settlers of the Australian interior; they narrowed their mental vision to the mere actual facts of their positions; they discarded change and resisted enterprise. Now the obvious course which would occur to any man of intelligence and forethought, anchored for years of his life in a primeval waste such as this, would be to develop his property to the fullest extent compatible with his pecuniary safety. Then, at the first favourable turn of the market, he might sell out to advantage, free either to repurchase a cheap unimproved property, or to betake himself to the intellectual elysium of the Old World—that abode of art, science, literature, classical glory, perfected luxury.’ Here Mr. Neuchamp checked himself with an involuntary sigh, and sternly pursued his original line of thought.
‘Instead of which,’ as the country Justice said, ‘they went on year after year, in one dull endless round of life, subsisting metaphysically upon the bark and green-hide substitutes for all that men, in other places, hold dear; without society, without books, without expectation of quitting their desert life, what wonder that when middle life is reached, ere Fortune smiles on the lone hermit of the waste, she should find him with tastes obliterated, sympathies wasted from long disuse—with the whole general mental endowments hopelessly deteriorated? How different might be the lot of an ardent and instructed man,’ pursued the enthusiast—‘zealous to make the most of the light that was in him; keen to aid the advancement of his kind, to help the tardy progress of virtue and human truth. With the materials ready to his hand, he might complete pastoral experiments yet undreamed of, raise the moral tone of his employees, and through them of the land generally, render his homestead the headquarters of philosophical experiment and liberal life and culture collaterally with these lofty aims: such a man might place his future prosperity on a firm basis.’
There are some persons who possess the enviable power of being able to raise the most imposing imaginative structures upon any pedestal of assured stability, no matter of what size. The satisfactory sum which the first draft of fat cattle from Rainbar had realised provided Mr. Neuchamp with such a prosperous future, by the simple process of multiplying their numbers and periodical result, that he felt himself now to be fully justified in undertaking any number of reproductive enterprises.