‘Well, they’ve got a middling lot of quiet cattle for one thing; they’re regular crawlers, but none the worse for that if grass ever grows again. Then they’ve got, what with their selections and pre-emptives, a tidy slice, and of not the worst part, of Rainbar run. And as there was a friend of mine that a small place like that would suit, and the cattle and the few sheep, at a price—at a price,’ he continued, with slow earnestness—‘why—I’ll ask for another cup of tea—I had an hour’s mighty hard dealing, and bought the whole jimbang right out.’
‘Indeed!’ said Ernest, gratified in one sense, but slightly alarmed at the idea of a second pastoral proprietor being introduced into the sacred demesne of Rainbar; ‘but they have to fulfil their residence condition, haven’t they, according to the Land Act?’
‘Of course I made that all right,’ affirmed the senior colonist. ‘They’re bound down to reside till their time is up, and they don’t get the balance of their money till they can convey, all square and legal. They didn’t know me, as luck would have it, and I dropped to their being very eager to sell out. These kind of chaps never look ahead beyond their noses, whereby I had ’em pretty well at my own price, for cash—cash, you know. A fine thing is cash, when you take care of it, and bring it out like an ace. It takes all before it.’
‘What did you give for the cattle?’ asked Ernest, with melancholy interest.
‘Well, these small holders always believe the end of the world’s come when they find themselves landed in a real crusher of a dry season. They think the weather is bound to keep set fair for a lifetime. I showed ’em how their cattle was falling off, and at last they offered the lot all round at eight and sixpence—no calves given in, except regular staggering Bobs. And so my friend has the run, and the stock, and the pre-empts all in his own hands. He’ll do well out of ’em, or I’m much mistaken.’
‘And does your friend propose to come and live here?’
‘Well, he might, and he might not. I think I’ll take another egg—fine things eggs in a dry season. I expect your fowls live on grasshoppers pretty much. You see, if he could get two or three fellows as he could depend on to take up some more of the best bits of the bends, leaving a slice here and a slice there—so as it’s not worth any one else’s while to come in, because they’d have no pre-emptive worth talking of—he’d be able to keep all that angle pretty well to himself, and I believe it will keep well on it a thousand head of cattle some day.’
‘I’m afraid it will spoil the sale of the run,’ said Ernest, with some diffidence; ‘not that it will matter to me much, as I shall have to sell out whether or no, and at present prices there will be little if anything left. You will have to take your cattle back if they’re not paid for.’
‘Well, I don’t say but what it might spoil the sale of the run, especially if my friend was to be wide awake and take up his fresh selections with judgment. And don’t you think, now,’ Mr. Levison interrogated, fixing his clear gray eyes full upon Ernest’s countenance, ‘as it was a blind trick of yours to go and bring these chaps here, like a lot of catarrhed sheep, all among your own stock, just to make it hot for yourself and crab the sale of the run, supposing you wanted to sell?’
Mr. Neuchamp had in his hours of remorse and repentance sufficiently gone over the ground of his errors and miscalculations, so as to be very fully convinced of the folly of this his most indefensible proceeding. He had been thirsting for the words of the oracle. Now that the hollow sounds came from Dodona’s oak, he liked not their purport. The spirit of his ancestors, temporarily oppressed by misfortune, awoke in his breast, and he thus made answer: ‘My dear sir, I am most willing to own that I have in this matter acted unwisely. And the more I see of this great but perplexing country, the more ready I am to admit that extreme caution is necessary in many transactions where such need does not appear on the surface. But I have acted in this, and in all other stages of my Australian career, upon the principle of attempting to do good to my fellow-creatures, and of raising the standard of human happiness and culture. Such motives I hold to be the true foundation of every instructed, christianised, and, therefore, permanent community. Want of success may have attended my efforts to carry out these ideas; but of such efforts and endeavours, whatever may be the result, I trust I shall never feel ashamed!’