Mrs. Regan—'You'd better clear out and do it, then. The P.M.'s a-comin' from Wagga on Friday, and he'll give yer three months' "hard," like as not. Ask the pleece for yer character.'
Township individual—'D—n you and the pleece too! A pore man gets no show between the traps and squatters in this bloomin' country. Wish I'd never seen it!'
This was by the way of interlude, serving to relieve the monotony of the situation. I could eat, drink, smoke, and sleep, but the injured leg—worse than broken—I could not put to the ground. Nor had I company of any kind, save that of old Jack and Mrs. Regan, for a whole month. So, casting about for occupation, I bethought myself that I might write something for an English magazine. The subject pitched upon was a kangaroo drive or battue, then common in Western Victoria, which I had lately quitted. The kangaroo had become so numerous that they were eating the squatters out of house and home. Something had to be done; so they were driven into yards in great numbers and killed. This severe mode of dealing with the too prolific marsupial, in whole battalions, I judged correctly, would be among the 'things not generally known' to the British public.
I sat down and wrote a twelve-page article, describing a grand muster for the purpose at a station about twenty miles from Port Fairy, and seven miles from my own place, Squattlesea Mere.
The first time I went to Melbourne I posted it, with the aid of my good friend, the late Mr. Mullen, to the editor of the Cornhill Magazine, and thought no more about the matter. A few days after the adventure, my neighbour, Adam M'Neill, of North Yanko, hearing of my invalid state, rode over and carried me off to his hospitable home. I had to be lifted on my horse, but after a month's rest and recreation was well enough to return to pastoral duties. I was lame, however, for quite a year afterwards, and narrowly escaped injuring the other ankle, which began to show signs of over-work. About the time of my full recovery, I received a new Cornhill Magazine, and a note from Messrs. Smith and Elder, forwarding a draft, which, added to the honour and glory of seeing my article flourishing in a first-class London magazine, afforded me much joy and satisfaction. The English review notices were also cheering. I thereupon dashed off a second sketch, entitled 'Shearing in Riverina,' which I despatched to the same address. The striking presentment of seventy shearers, all going their hardest, was a novelty also to the British public.
The constant clash that the shear-blades make
When the fastest shearers are making play
(as Mr. 'Banjo' Paterson has it, in 'The Two Devines,' more than twenty years later), could not but challenge attention. This also was accepted. I received a cheque in due course, which came at a time when such remittances commenced to have more interest for me than had been the case for some years past.
The station was sold in the adverse pastoral period of '68-'69, through drought, debt, financial 'dismalness of sorts'; but 'that is another story.' Christmas time found me in Sydney, where it straightway began to rain with unreasonable persistency (as I thought), now it could do me no good; never left off (more or less) for five years. The which, in plenteousness of pasture and high prices for wool and stock, were the most fortunate seasons for squatters since the 'fifties,' with their accompanying goldfields prosperity.
The last station having been sold, there was no chance of repairing hard fortune by pastoral investment. 'Finis Poloniæ.' During my temporary sojourn in Sydney I fell across a friend to whom in other days I had rendered a service. He suggested that I might turn to profitable use a facile pen and some gift of observation. My friend, who had filled various parts in the drama of life, some of them not undistinguished, was now a professional journalist. He introduced me to his chief, the late Mr. Samuel Bennett, proprietor of the Sydney Town and Country Journal. That gentleman, whom I remember gratefully for his kind and sensible advice, gave me a commission for certain sketches of bush life—a series of which appeared from time to time. For him I wrote my first tale, The Fencing of Wanderoona, succeeding which, The Squatter's Dream, and others, since published in England, appeared in the weekly paper referred to.