In Bad Company and other stories. Rolf Boldrewood
you see? Suppose the State had this first-rate block of country, cut it up in fair-sized farms, advanced the men the money to put up their places and crop it the first year, see what a population it would keep. Keep in comfort, too,' he continued, as he refilled his pipe and made ready for a leisurely smoke. 'Let me see, there's fifty thousand acres of freehold on this North Yalla-doora run, besides as much more leased. Divide that into nice-sized farms, that'd give us a thousand fifty-acre lots, or five 'underd 'underd-acre ones. See what a crowd of families that'd keep.'
'And suppose there come a dry season,' queried Bill rather gruffly, 'how about the families then? I've seen the sheep dyin' by hundreds on this very place – and the whole forty thousand 'd 'a died in another month if rain hadn't come. But I'm gettin' full up of this Union racket. Small farms in a dry country's foolishness. Where are we goin' to camp? Look at the grass on that flat! And I've seen it like a road.'
'It ain't bad near the creek,' said his companion. 'You can let the horses go while I go up to the overseer and get a bit of ration.'
'There's no call to do that. See that bag? My old woman's put bread and beef enough in that for a week anyhow, besides bacon, and tea, and sugar.'
'That's all right,' answered Stoate airily, 'but we may as well get fresh mutton for nothing. They always give travellers a pound or two here, and a pannikin of flour. It comes in handy for cakes.'
'Well, I'm d – d!' said Hardwick, unable to contain his wrathful astonishment. 'D'ye mean to tell me as you're a-goin' to beg food from this squatter here and take his charity after abusing him and all belonging to him and schemin' to ruin 'em? I call it dashed, dirty, crawling meanness, and for two pins I wouldn't travel the same side of the road with you, and so I tell you, Janus Stoate.'
There was a snaky glitter in Stoate's small, black eyes as he met for an instant the bold gaze of the Australian; but, with characteristic cunning, he turned it off with a half laugh.
'Why, Bill, what hot coffee you're a-gettin', all over a little joke like this 'ere. Now I feel as I've a right to be fed on the road when I and my feller-workers bring our labour to the door – in a manner of speakin'. We've no call to think ourselves under obligation to the squatters for their "miserable dole," as our Head Centre calls it. It's only our due when all's said and done.'
'Miserable dole,' growled Bill, now engaged in taking off his pack. 'That's a dashed fine name to give free rations, to the tune of half-a-dozen sheep a night, and a couple of bags of flour a week, which I know Tambo did last shearing. A lot of chaps going about the country askin' for work, and prayin' to God they mayn't find it – and abusin' the people that feed 'em on top of it all. I wonder the squatters don't stop feedin' travellers, and that's all about it. I would if I was boss, I know, except the old men.'
'How about the sheds and the grass when the weather gets dry?' asked Stoate, with a sidelong glance of spite.
'That's easy enough, if a chap's a d – d scoundrel; but suppose he's caught and gets five years in Berrima Gaol, he'd wish he'd acted more like a white man and less like a myall blackfellow. But stoush all this yabber. You boil the billy, while I get out the grub and hobble the horses. I feel up to a good square feed.'
So did Mr. Stoate, apparently, as he consumed slice after slice of the cold corned beef and damper which Jenny had put up neatly in Bill's 'tucker bag,' not disdaining divers hunks of 'brownie,' washed down with a couple of pints of 'billy tea,' after which he professed that he felt better, and proceeded to fill and light his pipe with deliberation.
By this time the hobbled horses had betaken themselves through the abundant pasture of the river flat, and their bells sounding faint and distant, Bill declared his intention of heading them back, in case they should try to make off towards the home they had left. He returned in half an hour, stating that they were in a bend and blocked by a horseshoe lagoon.
Both men addressed themselves to the task of putting up the small tent which Bill carried, and bestowed their swags therein, after which Mr. Stoate proposed that they should go over to the men's hut, and have a bit of a yarn before they turned in.
Bill remarked that they had to be up at daylight, but supposed that an hour wouldn't matter. So the wayfarers strolled over to a long building, not far from the creek bank, which they entered without ceremony. They found themselves in the presence of about twenty men, in the ordinary dress of the station hand, viz. tweed or moleskin trousers and Crimean shirt. Some had coats, but the majority were in their shirt sleeves. There were mostly of ages between twenty and forty, differing in nationality, speech, and occupation.
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia were represented. A Frenchman, two Germans, a coloured man (American), besides a tall, well-made Australian half-caste, who spoke much the same English as the others, but had a softer voice, with rather slower intonation.
At one end of the large room was an ample fireplace, with a glowing wood fire, around which several men were sitting or standing, mostly smoking. Others were seated at the long, solid dining-table reading, for in one corner stood some fairly well-filled bookshelves. One man was writing a letter.
A few were lying in their bunks, rows of which were on either side of the room. A certain amount of quiet conversation was going on. There was no loud talking, swearing, or rude behaviour of any sort, and in spite of the bare walls and plain surroundings an air of comfort pervaded the whole.
Stoate was greeted by several of the younger men, one of whom was disposed to be facetious, as he exclaimed —
'Hulloa, my noble agitator, what brings you here? Goin' to call out the shearers, and play the devil generally, eh? You've come to the wrong shop at North Yalla-doora – we're all steady-going coves here.'
'I suppose you're game to stand up for your rights, Joe Brace, and not afraid of getting your wages raised, if the Union does that for you?'
'If it does,' rejoined Joe sarcastically; 'and who's to go bail for that, I'd like to know? You and your crowd haven't done any great things so far, except make bad blood between masters and men – when everything was peace and goodwill before, as the parson says.'
'Well – what's that? Yer can't get nothin' in the world without fightin' for it – I reckon we're going to have a bit of war for a change. Yes, war, and a dashed good thing too, when men have to take orders from their feller-men, and be worked like slaves into the bargain.'
'Brayvo, Janus, old man!' replied the other, with mock approval. 'I see what it's come to. You're to be a delegate with a pot hat and a watch-chain, and get four pound a week for gassin', while us fools of fellers does the hard graft. That's your dart, to sit alongside of Barraker and the rest of the people's try-bunes – ain't them the blokes that stands up and says, like Ben Willett, as we're trod on, and starved, and treated worse than nigger slaves?'
'So you are, if you only knew it. Look at all this here country-side in the hands of two or three men, as sucks your blood, and fattens on it!'
'The boss here ain't too fat, if that's what's the matter, and we're not a very hungry-lookin' crowd, boys,' said the speaker, looking round. 'We've got good wages, good food, a book or two to read, and a table to write our letters at. You've been loafin' in Melbourne, Janus, and got oppressed there – spent all your money, forgot to buy a decent rig-out (them's last year's boots as you have on), come on the roads to beg from station to station, and abuse them as feeds you, after your belly's full. What do you say, Paddy?'
The man whom he addressed folded up the sheet upon which he had been writing, and rising from the form on which he sat, stood before the fire, displaying an athletic figure, and determined countenance, lighted up by a pair of glancing blue eyes, which proclaimed his nationality.
'I say that this strike business is all d – d rot, run by a lot of sneaks for their own ends. They're the vermin that fatten on the working-men, that are fools enough to believe their rubbish – not the squatters, who've mostly worked hard for what they've made, and spent it free enough, more power to them! Where's there a man on North Yalla-doora that's got anything to complain of? We're well paid, well fed, well cooked for, eh, Jack? and as comfortable in our way as the boss is in his. More indeed, for we've got a shingled roof, and his is box-bark. The travellers' hut's shingled, so is the rouseabouts'.