Jack’s doubts and misgivings were written upon his open brow for twenty-four hours, but after that period they disappeared like morning mists. He awoke to a healthier tone of feeling, and determined to combat difficulty with renewed vigour and unshaken firmness.
“After all, I have not borrowed more than one good clip, and a little cutting down of the stock will set all right,” said he to himself. “Where would Brass, Marsailly, and all these other great guns have been if they had boggled at a few thousands at the beginning? Next year’s clip will be something like; and I never heard of any one but old Exmore that had two wool-sheds burned running. He put up a stone and iron edifice then, and told them to see what they could make of that. There was no grass-seed in his country though. Well, there is nothing like a start from town for clearing out the blues. I wonder how fellows ever manage to live there all the year round.”
These encouraging reflections occurred to the ingenuous mind of Mr. Redgrave as he was speeding over the first hundred miles of rail which expedite the traveller pleasantly on the road to the Great Desert. Facilis descensus Averni—which means that it is very easy to “settle one’s self” in life—the “downtrain” being furnished with “palace-cars” of Pullman’s patent, and gradients on the most seductive system of sliding scale.
Again the long gray plains. Again the night—one disjointed nightmare, where excessive jolts dislocated the most evil witch-wanderings, multiplying them, like the lower forms of life, by the severance. Then the long, scorching day, the intolerable flies, and lo! Steamboat Point. Gondaree, in all its arid, unrelieved glare and grandeur once more—Mr. M‘Nab weighing sheepskins to a carrier, with as much earnestness as if he expected half-a-crown a pound for them. Everything much as usual. Ah Sing in the garden, watering cauliflowers. When Redgrave caught the last glimpse of him as he left for town he was watering cabbages. Everything very dry. No relief, no shade. The cottage looked very small: the surroundings stiff and bare. “My eyes are out of focus just now,” said Jack to himself. “I must keep quiet till the vision accommodates itself to the landscape; otherwise I shall hurt M‘Nab’s feelings.”
“Well, how are you?” said Jack, heartily, as that person, having despatched his carrier, walked towards him. “You look very thriving, only dry; rather dry, don’t you think?”
“Well, we have hardly had a drop of rain since you started. Might be just a shower. But everything is doing capitally. We are rather short-handed; I sent away every soul but the cook, the Chinaman, and four boundary-riders directly you left, and we are now, thanks to the fencing, quite independent of labour till shearing-time.”
“How in the world do you get on?” inquired Jack, quite charmed, yet half afraid of M‘Nab’s sudden eviction.
“Nothing can be simpler. The dogs were well poisoned before the fences were finished. There’s no road through the back of the run, thank goodness. We haven’t any bother about wells because of Bimbalong. I count every paddock once a month, and that’s about all there is to do.”
“And who looks after the store?” inquired Jack.
“I do, of course,” said M‘Nab; “there is very little to give out, you’ll mind. Two of the boundary-riders live at home here, and the other two at a hut at Bimbalong. Now you’ve come there will be hardly enough work to keep us going.”