in the creek. Next year we can go in for spouts, and all the rest of it, and I hope we’ll be able to shear in such a shed as the Warroo has never seen yet.”
“It’s a good while to Christmas,” said Jack. “How about the shed if we put more men on? I don’t like make-shifts.”
“Couldn’t possibly be done in the time,” answered Mr. M‘Nab, with prompt decision. “Lambing will keep us pretty busy for two months. We must have shearing over by October, or all this clover-burr that I see about will be in the wool, and out of your pocket to the tune of about threepence a pound. Besides, these sawyers and bush-carpenters can’t be depended upon. They might leave us in the lurch, and then we should neither have one thing nor the other.”
“Very well,” said Jack, “I leave that part of it to you.”
All Mr. M‘Nab’s plans and prophecies had a fashion of succeeding, and verifying themselves to the letter. Apparently he forgot nothing, superintended everything, trusted nobody, and coerced, persuaded, and placed everybody like pawns on a chess-board. His temper was wonderfully under command; he never bullied his underlings, but had a way of assuring them that he was afraid they wouldn’t get on together, supplemented on continued disapproval by a calm order to come in and get their cheque. This system was found to be efficacious. He always kept a spare hand or two, and was thereby enabled to fill up the place of a deserter at a moment’s notice.
Thus, with the aid of M‘Nab and of a good season, John Redgrave, during the first year, prospered exceedingly. His sheep had a capital increase, and nearly eight thousand gamesome, vigorous lambs followed their mothers to the wash-pool. The wool was got off clean, and wonderfully clear of dirt and seed; and just before shearing Mr. M‘Nab exhibited a specimen of his peculiar talents which also brought grist to the mill.
It happened in this wise:—Looking over the papers one evening he descried mention of a lot of store sheep then on their way to town, and on a line of road which would bring them near to Gondaree.
“This lot would suit us very well, Mr. Redgrave,” said he, looking up from his paper, and then taking a careful transcript in his pocket-book of their ages, numbers, and sexes. “Seven thousand altogether—five thousand four and six tooth wethers, with a couple of thousand ewes; if they are good-framed sheep, with decent fleeces, and the ewes not too old, they would pay well to buy on a six months’ bill. We could take the wool off and have them fat on these Bimbalong plains by the time the bill comes due.”
“How about seeing them?” quoth Jack; “they may be Queensland sheep, with wool about half an inch long. They often shear them late on purpose when they are going to start them on the road. ‘They’re a simple people,’ as Sam Slick says, those Queenslanders.”
“Of course I must see them,” answered M‘Nab. “I never buy a pig in a poke; but they will be within a hundred miles of us in a week, and I can ride across and see them, and find out their idea of price. Shearing is always an expensive business, and the same plant and hands will do for double our number of sheep, if we can get them at a price.”
M‘Nab carried out his intention, and, falling across the caravan in an accidental kind of way, extracted full particulars from the owner, a somewhat irascible old fellow, who was convoying in person. He returned with a favourable report. The sheep were good sheep; they had well-grown fleeces, rather coarse; but that did not matter with fattening sheep; they were large and would make good wethers when topped up. The ewes were pretty fair, and not broken-mouthed. They wanted eleven shillings all round, and they were in the hands of Day and Burton, the stock agents.
“Now, I’ve been thinking,” said Mr. M‘Nab, meditatively, “whether it wouldn’t pay for me to run down to Melbourne by the mail—it passes to-morrow morning—and arrange the whole thing with Day and Burton. Writing takes an awful long time. Besides, I might knock sixpence a head off, and that would pay for my coach-fare and time, and a good deal over. Seven thousand sixpences are one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Thirty pounds would take me there and back, inside of three weeks.”
“That will only allow you two days in town,” said Jack, “and you’ll be shaken to death in that beastly mail-cart.”
“Never mind that,” said the burly son of the “black north,” stretching his sinewy frame. “I can stand a deal of killing. Shall I go?”
“Oh, go by all means, if you think you can do any good. I don’t envy you the journey.”
M‘Nab accordingly departed by the mail next morning, leaving Jack to carry on the establishment in his absence, a responsibility which absorbed the whole of his waking hours so completely that he had no time to think of anything but sheep and shepherds, with an occasional dash of dingo. One forenoon, as he was waiting for his midday meal, having ridden many a mile since daylight, he descried a small party approaching on foot which he was puzzled at first to classify. He soon discovered them to be aboriginals. First walked a tall, white-haired old man, carrying a long fish-spear, and but little encumbered with wearing apparel. After him a gin, not by any means of a “suitable age” (as people say in the case of presumably marriageable widowers), then two lean, toothless old beldames of gins staggering under loads of blankets, camp furniture, spare weapons, an iron pot or two, and a few puppies; several half-starved, mangy dogs followed in a string. Finally, the whole party advanced to within a few paces of the hut and sat solemnly down, the old savage sticking his spear into the earth previously with great deliberation.
As the little group sat silently in their places bolt upright, like so many North American Indians, Jack walked down to open proceedings. The principal personage was not without an air of simple dignity, and was very different of aspect from the dissipated and debased beggars which the younger blacks of a tribe but too often become. He was evidently of great age, but Jack could see no means of divining whether seventy years or a hundred and twenty would be the more correct approximation. His dark and furrowed countenance, seamed with innumerable wrinkles, resembled that of a graven image. His hair and beard, curling and abundant, were white as snow. His eye was bright, and as he smiled with childish good humour it was apparent that the climate so fatal to the incisors and bicuspids of the white invader, had spared the larger proportion of his grinders. On Jack’s desiring to know his pleasure, he smiled cheerfully again, and muttering “baal dalain,” motioned to the younger female, as if desiring her to act as interpreter. She was muffled up in a large opossum-rug which concealed the greater part of her face; but as she said a few words in a plaintive tone, and with a great affectation of shyness, Jack looking at her for the first time recognized the brilliant eyes and mischievous countenance of his old acquaintance Wildduck.
“So it’s you?” he exclaimed, much amused, upon which the whole party grinned responsively, the two old women particularly. “And is this your grandfather, and all your grandmothers; and what do you want at Gondaree?”
“This my husband, cooley belonging to me—ole man Jack,” explained Wildduck, with an air of matronly propriety. “Ole man Jack, he wantim you let him stay long a wash-pen shearing time. He look out sheep no drown. Swim fust-rate, that ole man.”
“Well, I’ll see,” replied Jack, who had heard M‘Nab say a black fellow or two would be handy at the wash-pen—the sheep having rather a long swim. “You can go and camp down there by the water. How did you come to marry such an old fellow, eh, Wildduck?”
“My fader give me to him when I picaninny. Ippai and Kapothra, I s’pos. Black fellow always marry likit that. White girl baal marry ole man, eh, Mr. Redgrave?”
“Never; that is, not unless he’s very rich, Wildduck. Here’s a fig of tobacco. Go to the store and get some tea and sugar, and flour.”
Old
