Rolf Boldrewood - The Squatter's Dream

On mentioning this to Mr. M‘Nab, he said —

“Well, the fact is that the grass got very dry, and some fellow put a fire-stick into it. Then we have had a great number of travelling sheep through lately, and they have fed their mile pretty bare. The season has been very dry so far. I sincerely trust we shall get rain soon.”

“We may,” said Jack. “But when once these dry years set in, they say you never know when it may rain again. But how do the sheep look?”

“Couldn’t possibly look better,” answered M‘Nab, decisively. “There is any quantity of feed and water at the back, and I have not troubled the frontage much. I am glad ye sent the wire up. We were nearly stopped, as it came just as the posts were in. I have got one line of the lambing paddock nearly finished, and we shall have that part of the play over before long. No more shepherds and ‘motherers’ to pay in that humbugging way next year.”

“And how are the other things getting on?” inquired Jack.

“Well, the cottage is nearly fit to go into. Your bedroom is finished and ready for you. I had a garden fenced in, and put on a Chinaman with a pump to grow some vegetables – for we were all half-way to a little scurvy. The wool-shed is getting along, though the carpenters went on the spree at Bochara for a fortnight. In fact, all is doing well generally, and I think you’ll say the sheep are improved.”

Jack lost no time in establishing himself in his bedroom in the new cottage, which he had judiciously caused to be built of “pise,” or rammed earth, by this means saving the cartage of material, for the soil was dug out immediately in front of the building, and securing coolness, solidity, and thickness of wall, none of which conditions are to be found in weather-board or slab buildings. Brick or stone was not, of course, to be thought of, owing to the absence of lime, and the tremendous expense of such materials. The heat was terrific. But when Jack found himself the tenant of a cool, spacious apartment, with his books, a writing-table, and a little decent furniture, the rest of the cottage including a fair-sized sitting-room, with walls of reasonable altitude, he did not despair of being able to support life for the few years required for the process of making a fortune. The river, fringed by the graceful though dark-hued casuarinas, was pleasant enough to look on, as it rippled on over pools and sandy shallows, immediately below his verandah. And beyond all expression was it glorious to bathe in by early morn or sultry eve.

The garden, though far, far different from the lost Eden of Marshmead, with its crowding crops, glossy shrubs, and heavily-laden fruit trees, was still a source of interest and pleasure. Under the unwearied labour and water-carrying of Ah Sing, rows of vegetables appeared, grateful to the eye, and were ravenously devoured by the employés of the station, whom a constant course of mutton, damper, and tea – tea, damper, and mutton – had led to, as M‘Nab said truly, the border-land of one of the most awful diseases that scourge humanity. Never before had a cabbage been grown at Gondaree, and the older residents looked with a kind of awe at Ah Sing as he watered his rows of succulent vegetables, toilsomely and regularly, in the long hot mornings and breezeless afternoons.

“My word, John,” said Jingaree, who had ridden over from Jook-jook one day on no particular business, but to look at the wonderful improvements which afforded the staple subject of conversation that summer on the Warroo, “you’re working this garden-racket fust chop. I’ve been here eight year, and never see a green thing except marsh-mallers and Warrigal cabbage. How ever do you make ’em come like that?”

“Plenty water, plenty dung, plenty work, welly good cabbagee,” said Ah Sing, sententiously. “Why you not grow melon, tater, ladishee?”

“I don’t say we mightn’t,” said Jingaree, half soliloquizing, “but it’s too hot in these parts to be carrying water all day long like a Chow. Give us one of them cabbages, John.”

“You takee two,” quoth the liberal celestial. “Mr. Mackinab, he say, give um shepherdy all about. You shepherdy?”

“You be hanged!” growled the insulted stockman. “Do I look like a slouchin’, ’possum-eating, billy-carrying crawler of a shepherd? I’ve had a horse under me ever since I was big enough to know Jingaree mountain from a haystack, and a horse I’ll have as long as I can carry a stock-whip. However, I don’t suppose you meant any offence, John. Hand over the cabbages. Blest if I couldn’t eat ’em raw without a mossel of salt.”

“Here tomala – welly good tomala,” said the pacific Chinaman, appalled at the unexpected wrath of the stranger. “Welly good cabbagee, good-bye.”

Jack being comfortably placed in his cottage, took a leisurely look through his accounts. He was rather astonished, and a little shocked, to find what a sum he had got through for all the various necessaries of his position. – Stores, wages, contract payments, wire, blacksmith, carpenters, sawyers, bricklayers (for the wash-pen and the cottage chimneys). – Cheque, cheque, there seemed no end to the outflow of cash – and a good deal more was to come, or rather to go, before next lambing, washing, and shearing were concluded. He mentioned his ideas on the subject to Mr. M‘Nab.

That financier frankly admitted that the outlay was large, positively but not relatively. “You understand, sir,” he said, “that much of this money will not have to be spent twice. Once have your fences up, and breed up, or buy, till you have stocked your run, and you are at the point where the largest amount of profit, the wool and the surplus sheep, is met by the minimum of expenditure. No labour will be wanted but three or four boundary riders. The wool, I think, will be well got up, and ought to sell well.”

“I dare say,” said Jack, “I dare say. It’s no use stopping half way, but really, the money does seem to run out as from a sieve. However, it will be as cheap to shear 40,000 sheep as twenty. So I shall decide to stock up as soon as the fences are finished.”

This point being settled, Mr. M‘Nab pushed on his projects and operations with unflagging energy. He worked all day and half the night, and seemed to know neither weariness nor fatigue of mind or body. He had all the calculations of all the different contracts at his fingers’ ends, and never permitted to cool any of the multifarious irons which he had in the fire.

He kept the different parties of teamsters, fencers, splitters, carpenters, sawyers, dam-makers, well-sinkers, all in hand, going smoothly and without delay, hitch, or dissatisfaction. He provided for their rations being taken to them, kept all the accounts accurately, and if there was so much as a sheepskin not returned, as per agreement, the defaulter was regularly charged with it. Incidentally, and besides all this work, sufficient for two ordinary men, he administered the shepherds and their charge – now amounting to nearly 30,000 sheep. Jack’s admiration of his manager did not slacken or change. “By Jove!” he said to himself, occasionally, “that fellow M‘Nab is fit to be a general of division. He never leaves anything to chance, and he seems to foresee everything and to arrange the cure before the ailment is announced.”

The cottage being now finished, Jack began to find life not only endurable, but almost enjoyable. He had got up a remnant of his library, and with some English papers, and the excellent weeklies of the colonies, he found that he had quite as much mental pabulum as he had leisure to consume. The sheep were looking famously well. The lambs were nearly as big in appearance as their mothers. The store sheep had fattened, and would be fit for the butcher as soon as their fleeces were off. The shepherds, for a wonder, gave no trouble, the ground being open, and their flocks strong; all was going well. The wool-shed was progressing towards completion; the wash-pen would follow suit, and be ready for the spouts, with all the latest improvements, which were even now on the road. Unto Jack, as he smoked in the verandah at night, gazing on the bright blue starry sky, listening to the rippling river, came freshly once more the beatific vision of a completely-fenced and fully-stocked run, paying splendidly, and ultimately taken off his hands at a profit, which should satisfy pride and compensate privation.