at length found vent in these memorable words —
'You're very flash, Bill Hardwick, with your fresh 'oss and yer packer. S'pose you think you've left me in a hole, all for a few words on these blarsted, hungry, grinding squatters; but I've seen better coves'n you straightened afore to-day. And by – ! I'll be even with yer before the year's out, as sure as my name's Janus Stoate!'
After which pious resolve, Mr. Stoate jogged sullenly onward to the head station, where his sense of the dignity of labour did not prevent him from joining a crowd of men, who were in turn receiving the ordinary bush dole – viz. a pound or two of fresh beef or mutton, in addition to a pint pannikin of flour. As there were at least forty or fifty men who received these components of two substantial meals – supper and breakfast – it may be guessed what a daily contribution the squatter was required to make toward the support of the nomadic labourer of the period.
With respect to that universally recognised Australian institution, the 'travellers' hut,' to which Mr. Stoate betook himself, on receiving his free supper and breakfast materials, an explanation may not be out of place. In the good old times, 'before the war,' in the pre-union days, and when owing to the smaller size of pastoral properties the hands required were necessarily fewer, the chance labourer was made free of the 'men's hut.' In those Arcadian days the men's cook prepared his meals, and he sat at meat with the permanent employés.
This was all very well, when one or two casual guests at the outside were wont to arrive in an evening. But when, in consequence of the growth of population, and the increase of stock, the units were turned into scores, with a possibility of hundreds, the free hospitality had to be restricted.
Complaints were made by the permanent hands that the pilgrim was in the habit of picking up unconsidered trifles, when the men had gone to work after breakfast, and absconding with the same. The cook, too, expostulated, inasmuch as the 'traveller,' after availing himself copiously of the meals set before him, generally took the precaution of loading himself with 'cooked food' sufficient for the next day or two, whereby he, the cook, was kept baking and boiling all day and half the night, in addition to his ordinary work.
For some or all of these reasons, the 'travellers' hut' was decided upon. A roomy and substantial structure, placed near the creek or dam, as the case might be, at a certain distance from the other buildings, to which all future travellers not being gentlefolk, coming with introductions to the overseer's quarters, or 'the big house,' were relegated. 'Bunks' or sleeping-places, a table, and stools were mostly provided; also a load of firewood, an axe, a frying-pan, bucket, and iron pot.
Wayfarers henceforth came under the obligation to cook for themselves. The frying of chops, the boiling of beef and the baking of cakes – operations, with which every bushman is familiar, not being considered to be hardships worth speaking of. The stock of firewood was kept up, it being found that, in default, the uninvited guests felt no delicacy in burning the interior fittings, or even the doors and window frames. To this sanctuary, Mr. Stoate, in place of his former comfortable camp with Hardwick, was fain to betake himself. It was half a mile 'down the creek,' and he cursed freely at being told by the overseer that he must turn out his horse in the 'strangers' paddock,' another half-mile farther, and on no account to put him into the homestead horse-paddock.
'I'm not going to have all the feed ate up that I've saved for the station horses,' said that functionary, in decided tones, 'and so I tell you. You shearers and rouseabouts think it's nothing, I suppose, to find grass for a hundred or two horses, and a mob of bullocks big enough to stock a small run. But you'll have to pay for your grass one of these fine days, if you don't mind your eye.'
'D'ye think a man's to walk all over the bloomin' bush, lookin' for work and carrying oats and hay with him, if he's got a moke?' growled Stoate. 'The squatters have got all the blessed country, and they grudge a pore man a mouthful of food, and every blade of grass his horse eats.'
'A poor man!' said the overseer. 'What sort of a poor man d'ye call yourself, Stoate? Your cheque last year, what with fencing and shearing, was over forty pounds for three months' work. You've neither wife, chick nor child (not in this country, anyhow). What have you done with your money? Spent it in town; now you come up here crawling and begging for the bread you eat, and doing all the harm you can to the men you're living on. Why don't you keep a pound or two for the road, like Bill Hardwick and other chaps? Then you needn't be beholden to any one; and if you like to talk rot to the men that are fools enough to trust you, that's their look-out. But to come here and to every station along the river begging for food and trying to harm the men you're living on is mean, d – d mean, and treacherous to boot. If the boss was of my way of thinking, he'd never let you inside a shed of his, or pay you another pound for shearing, and now you know my mind, – take your grub.'
And then Mr. Macdonald, an athletic Australian Scot, who towered above the short though wiry Londoner as does a mastiff above a lurcher, poured the pannikin of flour into the 'tucker bag' which Stoate held out, and cutting off a lump of fat mutton tossed it contemptuously at him.
Stoate caught the meat before it fell, and looked at the overseer with evil passions writ plain in his sullen face and snaky eye, as he said: 'You might come to be sorry for this some day, boss, big as you are!'
'Yes, you sneaking hound, I know what that means. But I've got old Harry Bower (who used to shepherd here long ago, before he turned bushranger) as night-watchman at the shed, in case some of you dogs that disgrace the Shearers' Union take a fancy to light it up. He was a man when he took to the bush. You'd do it and fellows like you, only you haven't the pluck. He's got a double-barrelled gun, and swears by his God he'll use it if he catches any curs sneaking about the shed after dark. The grass is too green to burn for a month or two, but if I come across you near a bush fire, after shearing, I'll shoot you like a crow. So take that with you – and do your worst.'
Mr. Macdonald, though a born Australian, had inherited, it will be seen, the characteristic 'perfervidum ingenium.'
It seemed imprudent of him to speak so openly before the crowd of shearers and 'bona-fide travellers,' so called. But a bold, declared policy is sometimes more diplomatic than a halting, opportunist one. The men knew that war was declared, given certain acts of aggression or intimidation on their part. Severe sentences would unquestionably follow – if convictions were secured before the courts. On the whole, though they did not fear him, they respected him more for his openness and decided action.
'He's a man that hits out straight from the shoulder,' said one young fellow. 'I like that sort. You know where you have 'em. I don't hold with all this Union racket. It does more harm than good, to my mind. The most of these delegates is reg'lar blatherskites, as I wouldn't trust to carry a pound note across the street. Pretty coves to make laws for the likes of us.'
'I'm dashed sorry I ever had any truck with this Union crowd,' said his mate, as they walked away. 'I'd never no call to complain, as I know. If I didn't like a man's ways in his shed, I didn't shear there. There's plenty more. I don't fancy free men like us shearers bein' under one man's thumb, and him lookin' out for himself all the time. It's too much of the monkey for me, and I'm not goin' to stand it after this season, no matter what comes of it.'
The minor troubles having been surmounted, the roll-call read over, the rouseabouts settled and contented – each man in receipt of twenty-five shillings per week, with everything found on a scale of liberality, not to say profuseness, huts, cooks, wood and water, beef and mutton, tea and sugar, vegetables – everything reasonable and unreasonable, in fact, that the heart of bushman could desire.
The shearers, in number nearly a hundred, were apparently placated by being allowed to shear for the first time at Tandara under 'Union Rules,' a copy of which was posted up in a prominent part of the shed, setting forth that on certain points of dispute, if such should arise, the Delegate, that important, dignified personage, should have the power of joint decision with the shed manager.
