As if to aggravate the Strike leaders, and all connected with that beneficent institution, the weather had been miraculously fine. No spring storms had come out of the cloudless sky, not so much as a 'Darling River shower'—four drops upon five acres,' in the vernacular—had sprinkled the red dust of the plain, to give the delegate the excuse to declare the sheep too wet to shear, and so lose a day. Nothing, in fact, happened. And on the noontide hour of the fourth day succeeding the week, Tandara shed 'cut out.' The 'cobbler,' the last sheep—a bad one to shear, and so considerately left for 'some one else,' by every man who picked out of the large middle pen—was lifted aloft by Stanford, amid the jeers of the men, now preparing with stiff backs and aching sinews to surrender their task for a full week at any rate, before they 'struck' the next shed, lower down the river.
'I could shear him,' said he, regarding the closely wrinkled 'boardy' fleece, 'if he was covered with bloomin' pin-wire. My word! isn't it a pity that Greenwell didn't turn up afore? Eh, Mr. Delegate? D'ye think the Union'll guillotine us, same as they did chaps at the French Revolution? I'm off to Launceston in case of accidents. My cheque'll keep me for the rest of the summer, in a country that is a country—not a God-forsaken dust-heap like this.' Thus speaking, and shearing all the while, with punctilious precision, Mr. Stanford trimmed the 'cobbler' with a great affectation of anxiety, and dismissing him down the shoot of the pen with a harmless kick, said, 'Good-bye, and God bless you, old man; you make eighty-nine—not a bad forenoon's work.'
'Come along, men, down to the office,' said Macdonald, 'your money's ready for you—the storekeeper and I were up pretty nigh all night getting the accounts made out. You'll enjoy your dinners all the better for having your money in your pockets. The rouseabouts and shed hands can come in the afternoon. They won't want to leave before morning.'
'Who's that coming along the Wagga road on a grey horse?' said a sharp-eyed young shearer. 'By Jing! I believe it's Greenwell. Whatever can have kep' him, Mr. Stoate?'
'Never mind him,' said Macdonald. 'John Anderson, this is your account; look it over. £45:10:6. You'll take a cheque; here it is—sign the book. I'll take you all by the alphabet.'
As the men stood round the little room at the side of the big store, that served for the station office, the traveller on the grey horse rode slowly towards them.
The men were in a merry humour. Their keen eyes had recognised horse and rider afar off. It was the messenger who had so signally failed in coming up to time. He was received with a storm of ironical cheers and derisive exclamations.
'Halloa, George—where yer been? To Sydney and back? Got warrants for us all? To think as we should ha' cut out, and you on the road with an order from the Head Centre in your pocket! Come along, Mr. Delegate, and talk straight to him.'
These and the like specimens of humorous conversation were shouted at the unlucky emissary, who, as he came up and wearily dismounted, evidently knew that an explanation would be demanded of him.
Stoate walked out with a solemn and dignified air to meet him. 'Well done, Mr. Delegate, give it to him from the shoulder. He's a jolly telegraph, ain't he? Why, Joe Kearney the sprinter could have run all the way and beat him, hands down.'
'Will you oblige me by statin' the cause of your delay on a mission of importance to the Union and your feller-workers?'
'Now then, George, speak up—give us the straight griffin. What was it? Honour bright; did yer join a circus? Was there a good-looking girl in the way? And you a married man. For shame of you!'
Between the awful visage of Mr. Stoate and the running fire of chaff from his mates, Greenwell looked rather nonplussed.
However, girding himself for the contest, he mustered up courage, and thus delivered himself.
'Well, boys, the long and short of it is, I was took ill at Junee, on the return journey, and after stayin' a day, just as I was startin' back, some old mates of mine, as had just cut out at Hangin' Rock, come along, and—well, the truth's the truth, we all got on a bit of a spree. Now the murder's out, and you can make the best of it. I don't see as there's anything broke, so far.'
'Anything broke,' retorted Stoate indignantly. 'Hasn't the shed been cut out, in direct disobedience of orders, and the Union treated with contempt?'
'We're just gettin' our cheques,' called out a young fellow at the back of the crowd. 'Jolly awkward, ain't it? But I'll get over it, and so'll Dick Dawson.'
When the weighty matter of the payment was over, and the men were finishing their 'wash and brush up,' getting up their horses and settling their packs, one of the older men approached Stanford, who was quietly proceeding with his preparations, and thus addressed him—
'Now, Jim, you knowed that chap afore, didn't yer? Hadn't yer no notion as he might get on a "tear," with money in his pocket, and half nothin' to do like?'
Mr. Stanford made no verbal answer, but drawing himself up to the full height of his exalted stature, looked down into the interrogator's face, with an expression of great solemnity. It is just possible that he may have observed a slight deflection in the corner of his left eye, as he relaxed the severity of his countenance, while he observed resignedly, 'Well, it might have been worse; I've got the boss's cheque for £57:14s., and a few notes for the road in my pocket, this blessed minute.'
'Mine's a shade more'n that,' replied 'Long Jim,' with deliberation. '"All's well that ends well" 's a good motter. I've done enough for this season, I reckon. I had a fairish fencing contract in the winter. It'll be time enough to think about the "dignity of labour" and the "ethics of war" (wasn't that what the Head Centre called 'em?) afore next shearin' comes round. I'm off to a cooler shop across the Straits.'
The shearing at Tandara having ended satisfactorily to the shearer, the sheep-washers, the rouseabouts, the boundary riders, the overseers, to every one connected with the establishment in fact, from the 'ringer' to the tar-boy, all of whose wages and accounts were paid up to the last hour of the last day, in fact to every one except Mr. Janus Stoate, whose remuneration was in the future, a great silence commenced to settle down upon the place so lately resounding with the 'language used, and the clamour of men and dogs.' The high-piled waggons, drawn by bullock teams of from twelve to twenty, and horse teams of nearly the same number, had rolled away. The shed labourers had walked off with swags on their backs. The shearers, many of whom had two horses, poor in condition when they came, but now sleek and spirited, had ridden off with money in both pockets, full of glee and playful as schoolboys. The great shed, empty save for a few bales of sheepskins, was carefully locked up, as were also the shearers' and the other huts. Even Bower, the grim night-guardian of the woolshed, liberally remunerated, had left for Melbourne by Cobb and Co.'s coach. There, among other recreations and city joys, he betook himself to the Wax-works in Bourke Street.
As with hair and beard trimmed, newly apparelled from top to toe, he wandered around, looking at the effigies of former friends and acquaintances, now, alas, cut off in their prime, or immersed in the dungeon of the period for such venial irregularities as burglary, highway robbery, manslaughter, and the like, his gaze became fixed, his footsteps arrested. He stands before the waxen, life-like presentment of a grizzled elderly man, in rough bush habiliments, his hat a ruin, his clothes ragged and torn, his boots disreputable. A double-barrelled gun rests on his shoulder, while above his head is a placard, on which in large letters could seen by the staring spectator—
'Harry Bower, the Celebrated Bushranger.'
Cut to the heart, not so much by the heartless publicity of the affair as by the disgraceful attempt to brand him as a dirty disreputable-looking
