In Bad Company and other stories. Rolf Boldrewood
freely interchanged. One Unionist found dead was believed to be one of the attacking party.
The 'Shearers' War' languished for a time, but was still smouldering three years afterwards, as on the 4th of August 1894 the Cambridge Downs woolshed was burnt. This was a very expensive building, in keeping with the size and value of the station, where artesian bores had been put down, and artificial lakes filled from the subterranean water-flow. Money had been liberally, lavishly spent in these and other well-considered improvements, aids to the working of the great industrial enterprise evolved from the brain of one man, and having supported hundreds of labourers and artisans for years past. In the great solitudes where the emu and kangaroo or the roving cattle herds alone found sustenance, the blacksmith's forge now glowed, the carpenter's hammer rang, the ploughman walked afield beside his team, the 'lowing herd wound slowly o'er the lea,' recalling to many an exiled Briton his village home.
The 'big house,' the squire-proprietor's abode, rose, garden-and grove-encircled, amid the cottages and humbler homes which it protected – a mansion in close resemblance, allowing for altered conditions and more spacious surroundings, to homes of the Motherland, which all loved so well. At what cost of head and hand, of toil, and danger, and hardship, ay, even of blood, let the headstones in the little shaded graveyard tell! And now, when long years, the best years of early manhood, had been expended freely, ungrudgingly in the conflict with Nature, was the workman, the junior partner in the enterprise, well paid, well fed and housed during the doubtful campaign, the loss of which could smite to ruin the senior, to lay his rash destroying hand upon the beneficent structure he had helped to raise?
Pulling down in suicidal mania, at the bidding of a secret caucus, the industrial temple, which so surely would whelm him and his fellows in its ruins!
Ayrshire Downs woolshed followed suit. At Murweh, the roll of shearers was about to be called, and fifty thousand sheep were ready for the shears, when it was set on fire and burned – all the preparations for shearing rendered useless. A makeshift woolshed would probably be run up, which meant loss of time – hasty indifferent work, a few thousand pounds loss and damage inevitable. At Combe-Marten a station hand was shot, and several prisoners committed to take their trial at Rockhampton. The woolshed at Errangalla was burned to the ground.
The Netallie shed, with eighty thousand sheep in readiness, was attempted to be set on fire – kerosene having been profusely exhibited for the purpose – but, with all the goodwill (or rather bad) in the world, the plot miscarried. After a riot at Netallie a large force of Unionists attempted, but failed, to abduct the free labourers.
At Grasmere woolshed the police were compelled to use firearms. Shortly before 9 P.M. a hundred Unionists came to Grasmere, and gathered at the men's huts, saying that they were armed and determined to bring out the free labourers. Sergeant M'Donagh said they could not be allowed to do so. He was felled to the ground, and the door of the free labourers' hut smashed in with a battering-ram. Shots were exchanged between the police and the Unionists. Two of the latter were wounded. One free labourer fired with a revolver. The attacking party then retired, taking the wounded men with them.
The police overtook them, and, taking charge of the wounded men, conveyed them to Wilcannia Hospital in a buggy. One was shot in the left breast; the other near the same spot. The bullet travelled to the back, near the spine. From the size of the bullet it would appear to have been fired by a free labourer, the police navy revolvers carrying a larger bullet.
Unaware of the extreme length to which 'the ethics of war' (to use a phrase grandiloquently applied in one of Mr. Stead's harangues) had been pushed, Bill Hardwick and his comrades rode gay and unheeding 'down the river.'
They were within a dozen miles of Moorara, and had travelled late in order to get to the station that evening, as shearing had commenced. An unwonted sight presented itself. Before them lay a large encampment, from which many voices made themselves heard, and around which were fires in all directions. 'Hulloa!' said one of the men, 'what's all this? Have they moved the station up, or what is it? Have the men got to camp here because of the grass, and ride to Moorara and back, like boys going to school?'
'By Jove! it's a Union Camp,' said Bill; 'we'd better look out. They're a rough lot here by all accounts. They might go for us if they hear we've dropped the A.S.U. – for a bit.'
'I don't see as they can do much,' said a grey-haired man, one of the best shearers in the shed. 'We've come last from a Union shed. We've no call to say more nor that till we get to Moorara.'
'That's all right,' said a younger man, who, like Hardwick, was a selector on the Upper Waters, 'but that sweep Janus Stoate might have wired to the delegate here and put us away. Anyhow, we'll soon see.'
'Who goes there?' suddenly demanded a voice from the pine scrub. 'Who are you, and where from?'
'Who are you, if it comes to that?' answered Bill. 'Is this here an army, and are you goin' to take the bloomin' country, that a man can't ride down the river on his own business?'
'We'll soon learn yer,' said the man who had challenged. 'Where are yer from last?'
'From Tandara. It's a Union shed, I believe, and we shore under Union Rules.'
'We know all about that. What's yer name – is it William Hardwick?'
'I never was called anything else,' answered Bill, who, now that he had got his monkey up (as he would have said), cared for nothing and nobody.
'Well, yer accused by the delegate, as was in charge of that shed, of disobedience of orders; also of conspiring to bring the Union into contempt, and of being on the way, with others, to shear at a non-Union shed against the interests of the Australian Workers' Federated Union. What d'ye say in reply to the charge?'
'Go to the devil,' said Bill, at the same time spurring his horse. But the strange man jumped at his bridle-rein, and though Bill got in a right-hander, before he could get loose, armed men broke out of the pine clump, and, rifle in hand, forced the party to dismount.
'Tie their hands,' said the leader. 'We'll show the bally "scabs" what it is to pal in with the squatters, as have ground down the workers long enough. March 'em up to the camp and bring 'em afore the Committee.'
'This is a jolly fine state of things,' said one of the younger men of Bill's party. 'I used to believe this was a free country. One would think we was horse-stealers or bushrangers. Are ye goin' to hang us, mate?'
'You hold yer gab, youngster, or it'll be the worse for you. We'll straighten yer a bit, afore yer goes shearin' again in the wrong shed,' said a man behind him, sourly, at the same time giving him a blow on the back with the butt-end of a rifle.
'By – ! if my hands was loose, I'd give yer something to remember Dan Doolan by, yer cowardly, sneakin', underhand dog, crawlin' after fellers like Stoate, keepin' honest men out o' work, and spendin' it on spoutin' loafers. Well, we'll see who comes out on top, anyhow,' upon which Mr. Dan Doolan relapsed into silence – being 'full up,' as he would have expressed it, of 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people,' in its logical outcome.
Arrived at the camp, they were surrounded by a crowd of men, looking less like workmen of any kind than an array of freebooters. Nearly all had arms. Others had apparently put them by for the night. They affected a raffish, semi-military rig, and evidently regarded themselves as revolutionists; which, in point of fact, they were. Not as yet, perhaps, ripe for a policy of plunder and bloodshed, but within measurable distance of it – needing but an accidental contest with the police or a well-defended station (and there were such) to be irrevocably committed to it.
A great show of form and ceremony was aimed at, as Bill and his companions in captivity were brought before half-a-dozen serious-looking individuals, seated before a table outside of a tent of larger than average size. One man was in the centre, and was addressed as Mr. President.
'Have you brought the suspected individuals, mentioned in the communication received by the Committee this morning, before us?'
'Yes, Mr. President. Here they are. We found them close by the camp, a-ridin' towards Moorara.'
'What are their names?'
The apprehending personage read out from a telegraph form the names of William Hardwick,