From Squire to Squatter Part 30

A deal of the very best land in Australia is covered with woods and forests, and clearing has to be done.

Bob wished his busy little body of a wife to stay behind in Brisbane till he had some kind of a decent crib, as he called it, ready to invite her to.

But Sarah said, "No! Where you go I go. Your crib shall be my crib, Bob, and I shall bake the damper." This was not very poetical language, but there was a good deal of sound sense about Sarah, even if there was but little poetry.

Well, it did seem at first a disheartening kind of wilderness they had come to, but the site for the homesteads had been previously selected, and after a night's rest in their rude tents and waggons, work was commenced. Right joyfully too,--

"Down with them! Down with the lords of the forests."

This was the song of our pioneers. Men shouted and talked, and laughed and joked, saws rasped and axes rang, and all the while duty went merrily on. Birds find beasts, never disturbed before in the solitude of their homes, except by wandering blacks, crowded round--only keeping a safe distance away--and wondered whatever the matter could be. The musical magpies, or laughing jacka.s.ses, said they would soon settle the business; they would frighten those new chums out of their wits, and out of the woods. So they started to do it. They laughed in such loud, discordant, daft tones that at times Archie was obliged to put his fingers in his ears, and guns had to be fired to stop the row. So they were not successful. The c.o.c.katoos tried the same game; they cackled and skraighed like a million mad hens, and rustled and ruffled their plumage, and flapped their wings and flew, but all to no purpose--the work went on.

The beautiful lorries, parrakeets, and budgerigars took little notice of the intruders, but went farther away, deserting half-built nests to build new ones. The bonnie little long-tailed opossum peeped down from his perch on the gums, looking exceedingly wise, and told his wife that not in all his experience had there been such goings on in the forest lands, and that something was sure to follow it; his wife might mark his words for that. The wonga-wongas grumbled dreadfully; but great hawks flew high in the air, swooping round and round against the sun, as they have a habit of doing, and now and then gave vent to a shrill cry which was more of exultation than anything else. "There will be dead bones to pick before long." That is what the hawks thought. Snakes now and then got angrily up, puffed and blew a bit, but immediately decamped into the denser cover.

The dingoes kept their minds to themselves until night fell, and the stars came out; the constellation called the Southern Cross spangled the heaven's dark blue, then the dingoes lifted up their voices and wept; and, oh, such weeping! Whoso has never heard a concert of Australian wild dogs can have no conception of the noise these animals are capable of. Whoso has once heard it, and gone to sleep towards the end of it, will never afterwards complain of the harmless musical reunions of our London cats.

But sleep is often impossible. You have got just to lie in bed and wonder what in the name of mystery they do it for. They seem to quarrel over the key-note, and lose it, and try for it, and get it again, and again go off into a chorus that would "ding doon" Tantallan Castle. And when you do doze off at last, as likely as not, you will dream of howling winds and hungry wolves till it is grey daylight in the morning.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

BURLEY NEW FARM.

There was so much to be done before things could be got "straight" on the new station, that the days and weeks flew by at a wonderful pace. I pity the man or boy who is reduced to the expedient of killing time.

Why if one is only pleasantly and usefully occupied, or engaged in interesting pursuits, time kills itself, and we wonder where it has gone to.

If I were to enter into a minute description of the setting-up of the stock and agricultural farm, chapter after chapter would have to be written, and still I should not have finished. I do not think it would be unprofitable reading either, nor such as one would feel inclined to skip. But as there are a deal of different ways of building and furnis.h.i.+ng new places the plan adopted by the three friends might not be considered the best after all. Besides, improvements are taking place every day even in Bush-life. However, in the free-and-easy life one leads in the Bush one soon learns to feel quite independent of the finer arts of the upholsterer.

In that last sentence I have used the adjective "easy;" but please to observe it is adjoined to another hyphenically, and becomes one with it--"free-and-easy." There is really very little ease in the Bush. Nor does a man want it or care for it--he goes there to work. Loafers had best keep to cities and to city life, and look for their _little_ enjoyments in parks and gardens by day, in smoke-filled billiard-rooms or glaringly-lighted music-halls by night, go to bed at midnight, and make a late breakfast on rusks and soda-water. We citizens of the woods and wilds do not envy them. We go to bed with the birds, or soon after.

We go to sleep, no matter how hard our couches may be; and we do sleep too, and wake with clear heads and clean tongues, and after breakfast feel that nothing in the world will be a comfort to us but work. Yes, men work in the Bush; and, strange to say, though they go there young, they do not appear to grow quickly old. Grey hairs may come, and Nature may do a bit of etching on their brows and around their eyes with the pencil of time, but this does not make an atom of difference to their brains and hearts. These get a trifle tougher, that is all, but no older.

Well, of the three friends I think Archie made the best Bushman, though Bob came next, then Harry, who really had developed his powers of mind and body wonderfully, which only just proves that there is nothing after all, even for a c.o.c.kney, like rubbing shoulders against a rough world.

A dozen times a week at least Archie mentally thanked his father for having taught him to work at home, and for the training he had received in riding to hounds, in tramping over the fields and moors with Branson, in gaining practical knowledge at the barn-yards, and last, though not least, in the good, honest, useful groundwork of education received from his tutor Walton.

There was something else that Archie never failed to feel thankful to heaven for, and that was the education his mother had given him.

Remember this: Archie was but a rough, harum-scarum kind of a British boy at best, and religious teaching might have fallen on his soul as water falls on a duck's back, to use a homely phrase. But as a boy he had lived in an atmosphere of refinement. He constantly breathed it till he became imbued with it; and he received the influence also second-hand, or by reflection, from his brother Rupert and his sister.

Often and often in the Bush, around the log fire of an evening, did Archie speak proudly of that beloved twain to his companions. His language really had, at times, a smack of real, downright innocence about it, as when he said to Bob once: "Mind you, Bob, I never was what you might call good. I said, and do say, my prayers, and all the like of that; but Roup and Elsie were so high above me that, after coming in from a day's work or a day on the hill, it used to be like going into church on a week-day to enter the green parlour. I felt my own mental weakness, and I tried to put off my soul's roughness with my dirty boots in the kitchen."

But Archie was now an excellent superintendent of work. He knew when things were being well done, and he determined they should be. Nothing riled him more than an attempt on the part of any of the men to take advantage of him.

They soon came to know him; not as a tyrant, but simply as one who would have things rightly done, and who knew when they _were_ being rightly done, even if it were only so apparently simple a matter as planting a fence-post; for there is a right way and a wrong way of doing that.

The men spoke of him as the young Boss. Harry being ignored in all matters that required field-knowledge.

"We don't want nary a plumbline," said a man once, "when the young Boss's around. He carries a plumbline in his eye."

Archie never let any man know when he was angry; but they knew afterwards, however, that he had been so from the consequences. Yet with all his strictness he was kind-hearted, and very just. He had the happy gift of being able to put himself in the servant's place while judging betwixt man and master.

Communications were constantly kept up between the station and the railway, by means of waggons, or drays and saddle-horses. Among the servants were several young blacks. These were useful in many ways, and faithful enough; but required keeping in their places. To be in any way familiar with them was to lose their respect, and they were not of much consequence after that. When completed, the homestead itself was certainly not devoid of comfort, though everything was of the homeliest construction; for no large amount of money was spent in getting it up.

A Scotchman would describe it as consisting of "twa b.u.t.ts and a ben,"

with a wing at the back. The capital letter L, laid down longways thus--I will give you some notion of its shape. There were two doors in front, and four windows, and a backdoor in the after wing, also having windows. The wing portion of the house contained the kitchen and general sitting-room; the right hand portion the best rooms, ladies'

room included, but a door and pa.s.sage communicated with these and the kitchen.

This house was wholly built of sawn wood, but finished inside with lath and plaster, and harled outside, so that when roofed over with those slabs of wood, such as we see some old-English church steeples made of, called "s.h.i.+ngles," the building was almost picturesque. All the more so because it was built on high ground, and trees were left around and near it.

The kitchen and wing were _par excellence_ the bachelor apartments, of an evening at all events.

Every thing that was necessary in the way of furnis.h.i.+ng found its way into the homestead of Burley New Farm; but nothing else, with the exception of that of the guests'-room. Of this more anon.

The living-house was completed first; but all the time that this was being built men were very busy on the clearings, and the sites were mapped out for the large wool-shed, with huge adjoining yards, where the sheep at shearing-time would be received and seen to.

There were also the whole paraphernalia and buildings const.i.tuting the cattle and horse-yards, a killing and milking-yard; and behind these were slab huts, roofed with huge pieces of bark, rudely but most artistically fixed, for the men.

These last had fire-places, and though wholly built of wood, there was no danger of fire, the chimneys being of stone.

Most of the yards and outhouses were separate from each other, and the whole steading was built on elevated ground, the store-hut being not far from the main or dwelling-house.

I hardly know what to liken the contents of this store, or the inside of the place itself, to. Not unlike perhaps the half-deck or fore-cabin of a Greenland s.h.i.+p on the day when stores are being doled out to the men.

Or, to come nearer home, if ever the reader has been in a remote and rough part of our own country, say Wales or Scotland, where gangs of navvies have been encamped for a time, at a spot where a new line of railway is being pushed through a gully or glen.

Just take a peep inside. There is a short counter of the rudest description, on which stand scales and weights, measures and knives.

Larger scales stand on the floor, and everywhere around you are heaps of stores, of every useful kind you could possibly name or imagine, and these are best divided into four cla.s.ses--eatables, wearables, luxuries, and tools.

Harry is at home here, and he has managed to infuse a kind of regularity into the place, and takes a sort of pride in knowing where all his wares are stored. The various departments are kept separate. Yonder, for instance, stand the tea, coffee, and cocoa-nibs, and near them the sugar of two kinds, the bags of flour, the cheeses (in boxes), the salt (in casks), soda, soap, and last, but not least, the tobacco and spirits; this last in a place by itself, and well out of harm's way. Then there is oil and candles--by-and-bye they will make these on the farm-- matches--and this brings us to the luxuries--mustard, pepper of various sorts, vinegar, pickles, curry, potted salmon, and meats of many kinds, and bags of rice. Next there is a small store of medicines of the simplest, not to say roughest, sorts, both for man and beast, and rough bandages of flannel and cotton, with a bundle of splints.

Then comes clothing of all kinds--hats, s.h.i.+rts, jackets, boots, shoes, etc. Then tools and cooking utensils; and in a private cupboard, quite away in a corner, the ammunition.

It is unnecessary to add that harness and horse-shoes found a place in this store, or that a desk stood in one corner where account-books were kept, for the men did not invariably pay down on the nail.

I think it said a good deal for Sarah's courage that she came right away down into the Bush with her "little man," and took charge of the cooking department on the station, when it was little, if any, better than simply a camp, with waggons for bedrooms, and a morsel of canvas for gentility's sake.

But please to pop your head inside the kitchen, now that the dwelling-house has been up for some little time. Before you reach the door you will have to do a bit of stepping, for outside nothing is tidied up as yet. Heaps of chips, heaps of stones and sticks and builders' rubbish, are everywhere. Even when you get inside there is a new smell--a limy odour--to greet you in the pa.s.sage, but in the kitchen itself all is order and neatness. A huge dresser stands against the wall just under the window. The legs of it are a bit rough to be sure, but n.o.body here is likely to be hypercritical; and when the dinner-hour arrives, instead of the vegetables, meat, and odds-and-ends that now stand thereon, plates, and even knives and forks, will be neatly placed in a row, and Sarah herself, her cooking ap.r.o.n replaced by a neater and nattier one, will take the head of the table, one of the boys will say a shy kind of grace, and the meal will go merrily on.

On a shelf, slightly raised above the floor, stand rows of clean saucepans, stewpans, and a big, family-looking business of a frying-pan; and on the wall hang bright, s.h.i.+ning dish-covers, and a couple of racks and shelves laden with delf.

A good fire of logs burns on the low hearth, and there, among ashes pulled on one side for the purpose, a genuine "damper" is baking, while from a movable "sway" depends a chain and crook, on which latter hangs a pot. This contains corned beef--very well, call it _salt_ if you please. Anyhow, when Sarah lifts the lid to stick a fork into the boiling mess an odour escapes and pervades the kitchen quite appetising enough to make the teeth of a Bushman water, if he had done anything like a morning's work. There is another pot close by the fire, and in this sweet potatoes are boiling.

It is a warm spring day, and the big window is open to admit the air, else poor Sarah would be feeling rather uncomfortable.

What is "damper"? It is simply a huge, thick cake or loaf, made from extremely well-kneaded dough, and baked in the hot ashes of the hearth.

Like making good oat cakes, before a person can manufacture a "damper"

properly, he must be in a measure to the manner born. There is a deal in the mixing of the dough, and much in the method of firing, and, after all, some people do not care for the article at all, most useful and handy and even edible though it be. But I daresay there are individuals to be found in the world who would turn up their noses at good oat cake.

Ah, well, it is really surprising what the air of the Australian Bush does in the way of increasing one's appet.i.te and destroying fastidiousness.

But it is near the dinner-hour, and right nimbly Sarah serves it up; and she has just time to lave her face and hands, and change her ap.r.o.n, when in comes Bob, followed by Archie and Harry. Before he sits down Bob catches hold of Sarah by both hands, and looks admiringly into her face, and ends by giving her rosy cheek a kiss, which resounds through the kitchen rafters like the sound of a cattle-man's whip.

"I declare, Sarah la.s.s," he says heartily, "you are getting prettier and prettier every day. Now at this very moment your lips and cheeks are as red as peonies, and your eyes sparkle as brightly as a young kangaroo's; and if any man a stone heavier than myself will make bold to say that I did wrong to marry you on a week's courts.h.i.+p, I'll kick him over the river and across the creek. 'For what we are about to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.' Sit in, boys, and fire away. This beef is delightful. I like to see the red juice following the knife; and the sweet potatoes taste well, if they don't look pretty. What, Sarah, too much done? Not a bit o' them."