Here Mr. Shrood, who had in his earlier days been a staunch theatre-goer, waved his wine glass, and, putting himself in the attitude of “first robber,” scowled furiously at his wife.
That sensible matron first threw her arms round his neck, and told him. not to be a goose, and then, after arranging her ruff, rang the bell for lunch, to which Mr. Shrood, having by this time, like a wise man, got Jack’s stony face and gloomy eyes out of his thoughts, did reasonable justice.
Mr. Redgrave, with his customary hopefulness, recovered from the first misery of his position sufficiently to go about to all likely places, and to test the money-market most exhaustively, as to the accommodation needed for a squatter with an undeniable property and a heavy mortgage. His agents, Drawe and Backwell, were first applied to. They had nothing to learn, as his relations with them had always been of a confidential nature, since the old, the good old days of Marshmead. They had always given him good advice, which he did not always want, and money, which he always did. They had always helped him to the limit of safety, and would have done anything in reason for him now; but, like many others, they were not able. Their capital and reserve fund were strained to the fullest extent. Times and the seasons were so bad that no one without the resources of the Count of Monte Christo, combined with the business talents of a Rothschild, could have done the pastoral community much good in that year. They had a smoke over it in the back office; but nothing, in the shape of relief, was found to be practicable.
“You see, old fellow,” said Backwell, who, as old squatter himself, understood every move in the game, “we could find four or five thousand pounds for you, but what good would that be? You would have to sell twenty thousand of your best sheep to meet the acceptances, and, of course, the bank won’t stand your reducing the stock much. Then—though that would have been a good payment to account a year or two back—they won’t thank you for it now. They want the whole of their advances to you, and less won’t do. There are plenty more in the same boat. People say they are shaky themselves. They have some fearfully heavy accounts—old Blockstrop and others—we all know. They can’t afford to show any mercy, and they won’t. What stock will come to, unless the drought breaks up, no man can say. We are not what I should call a very solvent firm at present; and so I tell you. They must have some fellows to sell stock, you know, or we should have a note to settle our little account in quick sticks. Let me drive you out to St. Ninian’s to-night, and we’ll have a taste of the sea-breeze, and look at Drawe’s dahlias; they’re all he has to live for now, he says.”
CHAPTER XVII.
“But dreary though the moments fleet,
O let me think we yet shall meet.”—Burns.
Jack came back next morning rather “picked-up” after Mrs. Backwell’s kindly talk, and Drawe’s dahlias, and a stroll by the “loud-sounding sea,” which looked to him as if it belonged in its glory and freshness to another world which he should soon quit and never revisit. He was sufficiently invigorated to try all the banks—the Denominational, the London Bartered, the Polynesian, the Irish, Welsh, and Cornish, the Occidental, the Alexandra, the United, and so on. It was of no avail. At the majority he was informed that the bank was not prepared to take up fresh squatting accounts at present. At some he was requested to call after the next Board day; but the answer, varied and euphemized, was “No,” in all cases. Then he tried the mercantile firms, the old-standing English or Australian houses, which, in spite of the assumed supposed American domination in all things in the colony of Victoria, had held the lead, and kept their pride of place since the pre-auriferous days. With them, and the great wool-dealing firms, the same answer only could be obtained. They would advance anything in reason upon the coming clip, or on any given number of sheep, at market rates; but, as to “taking-up” a fresh account of that magnitude, they were “not prepared.”
Tired out, disappointed, and disheartened, Jack left town, after writing a brief note to Mr. Shrood, intimating that the bank might sell Gondaree as soon as that remorseless corporation pleased. He recommended Messrs. Drawe and Backwell as auctioneers; they knew the property well, and would probably get as much for it as any other firm.
Then was the wearisome return journey commenced. In former days there had always been some glimmer of hope or expectation wherewith to gild the excessive neutral tints of the landscape. Now there was no hope, and the expectation was evil. He would have likened himself to an Indian chief going back to deliver himself up to the torture. At Gondaree was the stake to which he would have to be attached on arrival. The fire would be lighted, and the roasting would begin and continue till he should receive the coup de grâce, by being tacitly directed to leave his own station, and go forth into the wilderness—a beggar and a broken man.