“John Smith,” said Jack, steadily.
“Uncommon fine name too. Well, Smith, you can go out along with Scotch Jock to-morrow morning, and take the 1,800 flock; he has 2,200 in his. I’ll send your rations out after you, and will come and count you to-morrow fortnight. Come in now and take your pannikin of flour for to-night. He knows the travellers’ hut. Here, you other fellows, come in and get your grub.”
He who of old boasted himself equal to either fortune enunciated a great idea. But how different, often, is the practical application to the theory fresh from the philosopher’s workshop!
CHAPTER XXV.
“There is a tide in the affairs of man
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”—Shakespeare.
The “travellers’ hut” is an institution peculiar to divers of the outlying and interior districts of Australia. It is the outcome of experience and cogitation, the final compromise between the claims of labour and capital, as to the measure of hospitality to be extended to workmen errant. Given the fact that a certain number of labourers will appear at the majority of stations, almost every day of the year, demanding one night’s food and lodging, how to entertain them? Were they suffered to eat and drink at discretion of the food supplied the permanent employés, abuses would arise. Said employés would be always requiring fresh supplies, having “just been eaten out” by the wayfarers. Also disputes as to the labour of cooking. It might happen that the more provident and unscrupulous guests would occasionally carry away with them food sufficient to place them “beyond the reach of want” on the following day, or, so wayward is ungrateful man, might levy upon the garments and personal property of the station servants after they had gone forth to their work. Such examples were not wholly wanting before the establishment of that juste milieu, the “travellers’ hut.” There, an iron pot, a kettle, a bucket, and firewood are generally provided. Each traveller receives at the station store a pint of flour and a pound of meat. These simple but sufficing materials he may prepare for himself at the travellers’ hut in any fashion that commends itself to his palate. On the following day, if not employed, it is incumbent upon him to move on to the next establishment.
Jack smoked his pipe over the fire in the caravanserai aforesaid, after a meal of fried meat and cakes browned, or rather blacked, in the frying-pan which had previously prepared the meat. Old Jock performed this duty cheerfully, and not without a certain rude skill. He produced from his kit a small bag containing a modicum of tea and sugar, which just sufficed for a pint each of the universal and precious bush beverage, causing them to be looked upon with envy by their less fortunate companions. Tired out by the day’s journey, Jack had scarcely energy to consume his share of the food, and but for the pannikin of tea, indifferent enough, but still a wonderful restorative in all “open air” life and labour, could not have essayed even so much exertion. At another time he would have been amused by the rude mirth and reckless jests of his associates. But this night he sat silent and gloomy, hardly able to realize his existence amid conditions so astonishingly altered.
“You’re rather down on your luck, young man,” observed a stout but not athletic individual, smoking an exceedingly black pipe, full of the worst possible tobacco; “you’ve made too long a stage, that’s about it. I’m blowed if I’d knock myself up, at this time of year, for all the squatters in the blessed country.”
“No fear of you doin’ that, Towney,” said a wiry-looking young fellow with light hair and a brickdust complexion, which defied the climate to change its colour by a single shade, “at this time of year, or any other, I should say. How fur have you come?”