two or three weeks of town life, into which he managed to compress as many dinners, dances, talks, flirtations, rides, drives, new books, and new friends, as would have lasted any moderate man a year, he would virtuously resolve to go home to Marshmead. After beginning to sternly resolve and prepare on Monday morning, he generally went on resolving and preparing till Saturday, at some hour of which fatal day he would depart, telling himself that he had had enough town for six months.
In a few days he would be back at Marshmead. Then a new period of enjoyment commenced, as he woke in the pure fresh bush air – his window I need not state was always open at night – and heard the fluty carols of the black and white birds which “proclaim the dawn,” and the lowing of the dairy herd being fetched up by Geordie, who was a preternaturally early riser.
A stage or two on the town side of his station lived Bertram Tunstall, a great friend of his, whose homestead he always made the day before reaching home. They were great cronies.
Tunstall was an extremely well-educated man, and had a far better head than Jack, whom he would occasionally lecture for want of method, punctuality, and general heedlessness of the morrow. Jack had more life and energy than his friend, to whom, however, he generally deferred in important matters. They had a sincere liking and respect for one another, and never had any shadow of coldness fallen upon their friendship. When either man went to town it would have been accounted most unfriendly if he had not within the week, or on his way home, visited the other, and given him the benefit of his new ideas and experiences.
Jack accordingly rode up to the “Lightwoods” half an hour before sunset, and seeing his friend sitting in the verandah reading, raised a wild shout and galloped up to the garden gate.
“Well, Bertie, old boy, how serene and peaceful we look. No wonder those ruffianly agricultural agitators think we squatters never do any work, and ought to have our runs taken away and given to the poor. Why, all looks as quiet as if everything was done and thought about till next Christmas, and as if you had been reading steadily in that chair since I saw you last.”
“Even a demagogue, Jack, would hesitate to believe that because a man read occasionally he didn’t work at all. I wish they would read more, by the way; then they wouldn’t be so illogical. But I really haven’t much to do just now, except in the garden. I’m a store-cattle man, you know, and my lot being well broken in – ”
“You’ve only to sit in the verandah and read till they get fat. That’s the worst of our life. There isn’t enough for a man of energy to do – and upon my word, old fellow, I’m getting tired of it.”
“Tired of what?” asked his friend, rather wonderingly; “tired of your life, or tired of your bread and butter, because the butter is too abundant? Oh, I see, we are just returned from town, where we met a young lady who – ”
“Not at all; not that I didn’t meet a very nice girl – ”
“You always do. If you went to Patagonia, you’d say, ‘’Pon my word I met a very nice girl there, considering – her hair wasn’t very greasy, she had good eyes and teeth, and her skin – her skins, I mean – had not such a bad odour when you got used to it.’ You’re such a very tolerant fellow.”
“You be hanged; but this Ellen Middleton really was a nice girl, capital figure, nice face, good expression you know, and reads – so few girls read at all nowadays.”
“I believe they read just as much as or more than ever; only when a fellow takes a girl for good and all, to last him for forty or fifty years, if he live so long, she’d need to be a very nice girl indeed, as you say.”
“Don’t talk in that utilitarian way; one would think you had no heart; but it does seem an awful risk, doesn’t it? Suppose one got taken in, as you do sometimes about horses ‘incurably lame,’ or ‘no heart,’ like that brute Bolivar I gave such a price for. What a splendid thing it would be if one were only a Turk, and could marry every year and believe one was acting most religiously and devoutly.”
“Come, Jack, who is talking unprofitably now? Something’s gone wrong with you evidently. Here comes dinner.”
After dinner the friends sat and smoked in the broad verandah, and looked out over the undulating grassy downs, timbered like a park, and at the blue starry night.
“I really was in earnest,” said Jack, “when I talked about being tired of the sort of life you and I, and all the fellows in this district, are leading just now.”
“Were you though?” asked his friend; “what’s amiss with it?”
“Well, we are wasting our time, I consider, with these small cattle stations. No one has room for more than two or three thousand head of cattle. And what are they?”
“Only a pleasant livelihood,” answered his friend, “including books, quiet, fresh air, exercise, variety, a dignified occupation, and perfect independence, plus one or two thousand a year income. It’s not much, I grant you; but I’m a moderate man, and I feel almost contented.”
“What’s a couple of thousand a year in a country like this?” broke in Jack, impetuously, “while those sheep-holding fellows in Riverina are making their five or ten upon country only half or a quarter stocked. They have only to breed up, and there they are, with fifty or a hundred thousand sheep. Sheep, with the run given in, will always be worth a pound ahead, whatever way the country goes.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Tunstall; “though I have never been across the Murray, and don’t intend to go, as far as I know. As for sheep, I hate them, and I hate shepherds, lazy crawling wretches! they and the sheep are just fit to torment one another. Besides, how do you know these great profits are made? You’re not much of an accountant, Jack, excuse me.”
“I didn’t think you were so prejudiced,” quoth Jack, with dignity. “I can cipher fast enough when it’s worth while. Besides, better heads than mine are in the spec. You know Foreland, Marsalay, the Milmans, and Hugh Brass, all longheaded men! They are buying up unstocked country or cattle runs, and putting on ewes by the ten thousand.”
“Better heads than yours may lie as low, my dear Jack; though I don’t mean to say you have a bad head by any means. And as to the account-keeping you can do that very reasonably, like most other things —when you try, when you try, old man. But you don’t often try, you careless, easygoing beggar that you are, except when you are excited – as you are now – by something in the way of natural history – a mare’s nest, so to speak.”
“This mare’s nest will have golden eggs in it then. Theodorus Sharpe told me that he made as much in one year from the station he bought out there as he had done in half-a-dozen while he was wasting his life (that was his expression) down here.”
“Has the benevolent Theodorus any unstocked back country to dispose of?” asked Tunstall, quietly.
“Well, he has one place to sell – a regular bargain,” said Jack, rather hesitatingly, “but we didn’t make any special agreement about it. I am to go out and see the country for myself.”
“And suppose you do like it, and believe a good deal more of what Theodorus Sharpe tells you than I should like to do, what then?”
“Why then I shall sell Marshmead, buy a large block of country, and put on breeding sheep.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be considered perfectly Eastern hospitality to call a man a perfect fool in one’s own house. But, Jack, if you do this thing I shall think so. You may quarrel with me if you like.”
