As John Redgrave at length reached the homestead, certain changes were strongly apparent. The once trim, orderly, and pleasant place was weed-grown and melancholy of aspect. The stables were tenantless, and bore traces of long disuse. Many of the buildings were roofless, while the materials of others had been used up for the formation of out-houses. Mr. McDonald did not “believe,” as he expressed it, in improvements, nor in having one man or boy about his establishment who could possibly be done without; for this reason probably he made use of the garden as a calf paddock, and Jack’s heart felt acute misery when he saw the trampled flower-beds, the broken fruit-trees, the mutilated shrubs; but McDonald was not a man whom this sort of thing troubled. To have lived in sight of such a daily desecration would have been to some men an intolerable annoyance. He did not care a jot, when duly satisfied by careful inspection that his bank balance was on the right side, that his daily steak and glass of grog were attainable, if every garden in the land had been uprooted. In other than these convictions and satisfactions he had no interest. He rarely rode over the run. He never helped to bring in the calves to brand, or the fat bullocks for market. He was by no means particular about keeping up the purity of the carefully-bred herd. He often permitted his calves to be past the proper age before they were branded, probably by the aid of his neighbour’s stockmen. But with all this apparent neglect, and his whisky-drinking to boot, he kept steadily to his principle of having as little labour to pay and feed as was possible. He did not mind a few strayed or even lost cattle. If a few calves were branded by others he troubled not his head; and yet this obese, unintelligent block made more money than the cleverest man in the whole district. His secret was this, and I present it to aspiring pastoralists: he had no personal expense; he had no debts; therefore he was able to weather out the terrible financial gales when the failure of clever, hard-working men was of daily occurrence.
As Jack got off his horse at the house, Elsie came to the door.
“Eh! but it’s Maister John, it’s my ain bairn,” she cried, “come to bless my auld e’en before I dee; oh, thank the Lord that I hae lived to see this day.”
The old woman flung her arms round his neck and burst into tears.
“My dear old Elsie,” said Jack, kissing her, “I am as glad to be here as you are to see me; and where’s Geordie?”
“Geordie is awa looking after the cattle in the stock, but he’ll be here the nicht. And oh, Maister John, is it you that’s bought the place?”
“Indeed it is, Elsie, and you must tell me what has been done since I left.”
“Eh, but ye must hae your dinner first, my bonny man, and I must see aboot the getting o’t; but bide a wee, I’ll send for Geordie; he’ll tell ye a’.”
Later in the evening John heard from the lips of his two faithful friends what had been done in his absence. Whatever improvements bad been made, and they were very few, were in the direction of the cattle-yards. They were larger than formerly, and that was all; but the stock had increased largely, and were in good condition. As to the lost garden, Jack thought that Maud might like to watch the gradual formation of a new one. He had got out of the habit of thinking that everything should be complete and perfect before Maud came.
After setting men to work at repairs in the stables to begin with, Jack in a few days’ time rode over to pay a visit to his old friend Bertie Tunstall, who could hardly do enough to show his gladness. Jack had so much to say that the two days of his stay hardly sufficed for a recountal of all he had seen, felt, and suffered, since leaving Marshmead. In old times they used to enjoy the circulation of ideas produced and quickened by the mutual intercourse of persons who read habitually and did not permit the wondrous faculty of thought to be entirely absorbed by the cares of every-day life, by the claims of business, by plans and actions tending directly or indirectly to the acquisition and investment of money. It is given to few active professions to afford and to justify as great a degree of leisure for realizing an abstract thought as to that of the Australian squatter. He may manage his property shrewdly and successfully, and still utilize a portion, at either end of the day, for history and chronicle of old, for poetry and politics, for rhyme and reason. He can vary intellectual exercise with hard bodily labour. He may possess, at small additional cost, the latest literary products of the old and new world. He may, after the arrival of each mail-steamer, revel in masterpieces of the thought-giants, fresh from the workshop. When kindred spirits are available within meeting distance, great is the joy of the pioneers, what time the half-wild herds are gathered; the tender oxlets seared with the indelible cipher. Then arises the bustle of the body as each man lauds a favourite author or decries a pet aversion.