The weather was perfect; there was just enough rain, not more than was needed to “freshen up” the pasture from time to time. There were ten thousand fat sheep; the lambing had commenced, and prospects were splendid.
Better than all, the reactionary reign of economy directly proceeding from M‘Nab’s well-calculated outlay had set in. With forty-two thousand “countable” sheep and twenty thousand lambing ewes, “in full blast,” there were but the four boundary riders, M‘Nab, the cook, and Ah Sing, plus the shed workmen. “This was something like,” Jack said to himself. “Fancy the small army I should have billeted upon me if I were like Stangrove, and had the same proportion of hands to employ. The very thought of it is madness, or insolvency—which comes to the same thing.”
“I really believe we could do with even fewer hands upon a pinch,” said M‘Nab. “Ah Sing is of course a luxury, though a justifiable one. The boundary-riders come in for their own rations, so a ration-carrier is unnecessary. The two that live at the homestead cook for themselves. There is next to no work in the store till shearing; you or I can give out anything that is wanted. The cook chops his own wood, and fetches it in once a week; water is at the door. If it were not for having to convoy travelling sheep, one man could watch and the rest go to sleep till shearing. There are no dingoes, and we have no township near us to breed tame dogs. Next year we must have thirty thousand lambing-sheep by hook or by crook, and then you may put Gondaree into the market with sixty thousand sheep as soon after as you please.”
“What about these ten thousand fat sheep?” said Jack. “Isn’t it time we were thinking of drafting and sending them on the road?”
“If I were you, Mr. Redgrave, I would not sell them, unless you were obliged, till after shearing. They are worth from twelve to fourteen shillings all round in Melbourne, let us say. Well, the wethers will cut six shillings’ worth of wool, and the ewes five. It would pay you to shear them and sell them as store sheep.”
“That’s all very well; but if you don’t sell at the proper time I always notice that it ends in keeping them for another year; by which you lose interest, and risk a fall in the market.”
“Not much chance of sheep falling below ten shillings,” rejoined M‘Nab. “We can send them in very prime about March. We may just as soon make one expense of the shearing.”
“Well,” yielded Jack, “I dare say it won’t make much difference. We shall have it—the clip—and if they only fetch ten shillings there will be a profit of five and twenty per cent. They don’t cost anything for shepherding, that’s one comfort.”
So matters wore on till July. To complete the astonishing success and enjoyment of the situation, Jack received a letter from Stangrove, to say that he was going to drive over, and would bring the ladies for a day’s visit to Gondaree.
Jack’s cup well-nigh overflowed. To think of having her actually in the cottage, under his very roof—to have the happiness of beholding her walking about the garden and homestead, criticising everything, as she would be sure to do. Perhaps even appreciating, with that clear intellect of hers, the scope and breadth of the system of management, of his life pleasures even. Could she be won to take an interest, then what delirious, immeasurable joy!