From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

“But,” he added, “though I did not find the streets paved with gold, I found the genuine ore on a housetop, or near it, in a girl called Sarah.”

“What, Archie Broadbent, you don’t mean to say you’re married?”

“No; but Bob is.”

“What Bob? Here, waiter, bring us drinks – the best and coolest you have in the house. Now, lad, you’ve got to begin at the beginning of your story, and run right through to the end. Spin it off like a man. I’ll put my legs on a chair, smoke, and listen.”

So Archie did as he was told, and very much interested was Captain Vesey.

“And now, captain, you must promise to run down, and see us all in the Bush. We’re a jolly nice family party, I can assure you.”

“I promise, my boy, right heartily. I hope to be back in Brisbane in six months. Expect to see me then.”

They dined together, and spent the evening talking of old times, and planning all that they would do when they met.

Next day they parted.

The end of this spring was remarkable for floods. Never before had our heroes seen such storms of rain, often accompanied with thunder and lightning. Archie happened to be out in the forest when it first came on.

It had been a hot, still, sulphurous morning, which caused even the pet kangaroo to lie panting on his side. Then a wind came puffing and roaring through the trees in uncertain gusts, shaking the hanging curtains of climbing plants, rustling and rasping among the sidelong leaved giant gums, tearing down tree ferns and lovely orchids, and scattering the scented bloom of the wattle in every direction.

With the wind came the clouds, and a darkness that could be felt.

Then down died the fitful breeze, and loud and long roared and rattled the thunder, while the blinding lightning seemed everywhere. It rushed down the darkness in rivers like blood, it glanced and glimmered on the pools of water, and zigzagged through the trees. From the awful hurtling of the thunder one would have thought every trunk and stem were being rent and riven in pieces.

Tell – the horse – seemed uneasy, so Archie made for home. The rain had come on long before he reached the creek, but the stream was still fordable.

But see! He is but half-way across when, in the interval between the thunder peals, he can hear a steady rumbling roar away up the creek and gulley, but coming closer and closer every moment.

On, on, on, good Tell! Splash through that stream quicker than ever you went before, or far down the country to-morrow morning two swollen corpses will be seen floating on the floods!

Bewildered by the dashing rain, and the mist that rose on every side, Archie and his trusty steed had but reached high ground when down came the bore.

A terrible sight, though but dimly seen. Fully five feet high, it seemed to carry everything before it. Alas! for flocks and herds. Archie could see white bodies and black, tumbling and trundling along in the rolling “spate.”

The floods continued for days. And when they abated then losses could be reckoned. Though dead cattle and sheep now lay in dozens about the flat lands near the creek, only a small percentage of them belonged to Burley.

Higher up Findlayson had suffered, and many wild cattle helped to swell the death bill.

But it was bad enough.

However, our young squatters were not the men to sit down to cry over spilt milk.

The damage was repaired, and the broken dams were made new again. And these last were sadly wanted before the summer went past. For it was unusually hot, the sun rising in a cloudless sky, blazing down all day steadily, and setting without even a ray being intercepted by a cloud.

Bush fires were not now infrequent. While travelling in a distant part of the selection, far to the west, in company with Craig, whom he had come to visit, they were witnesses to a fire of this sort that had caught a distant forest. Neither pen nor pencil could do justice to such a scene. Luckily it was separated from the Burley estate by a deep ravine. One of the strangest sights in connection with it was the wild stampede of the panic-stricken kangaroos and bush horses.

To work in the fields was now to work indeed. Bob’s complexion and Archie’s were “improved” to a kind of brick-red hue, and even Harry got wondrously tanned.

There was certainly a great saving in clothes that year, for excepting light, broad-brimmed hats, and shirts and trousers, nothing else was worn by the men.

But the gardens were cool in the evening, in spite of the midday glare of the sun, and it was delightful to sit out in the open for an hour or two and think and talk of the old country; while the rich perfume of flowers hung warm in the air, and the holy stars shimmered and blinked in the dark blue of the sky.

Chapter Twenty Six
“I’ll Write a Letter Home.”

The summer wore away, autumn came, the harvest was made good, and in spite of the drought it turned out well; for the paddocks chosen for agricultural produce seldom lacked moisture, lying as they did on the low lands near the creek, and on rich ground reclaimed from the scrub.

Our Bushmen were congratulating themselves on the success of their farming; for the banking account of all three was building itself, so to speak, slowly, but surely.

Archie was now quite as wealthy as either of his companions; for his speculations, instigated by his friend Winslow, had turned out well; so his stock had increased tenfold, and he had taken more pasture to the westward and north, near where Bob’s and Harry’s sheep now were; for Craig’s advice had been acted on.

None too soon though; for early in the winter an old shepherd arrived in haste at the homesteading to report an outbreak of inflammatory catarrh among the flocks still left on the lower pastures.

The events that quickly followed put Archie in mind of the “dark days” at Burley Old Farm, when fat beasts were dying in twos and threes day after day. Sheep affected with this strange ailment lived but a day or two, and the only thing to do was to kill them on the very first symptoms of the ailment appearing. They were then just worth the price of their hides and tallow.

Considering the amount of extra work entailed, and the number of extra hands to be hired, and the bustle and stir and anxiety caused by the outbreak, it is doubtful if it would not have been better to bury them as they fell, skin and all.

This was one of the calamities which Winslow had pointed out to Archie as likely to occur. But it was stamped out at last. The sheep that remained were sent away to far-off pastures; being kept quite separate, however, from the other flocks. So the cloud passed away, and the squatters could breathe freely again, and hope for a good lambing season, when winter passed away, and spring time came once more.

“Bob,” said Archie one evening, as they all sat round the hearth before retiring to bed, “that fire looks awfully cosy, doesn’t it? And all the house is clean and quiet – oh, so quiet and delightful that I really wonder anyone could live in a city or anywhere near the roar and din of railway trains! Then our farm is thriving far beyond anything we could have dared to expect. We are positively getting rich quickly, if, indeed, we are not rich already. And whether it be winter or summer, the weather is fine, glorious sometimes. Indeed, it is like a foretaste of heaven, Bob, in my humble opinion, to get up early and wander out of doors.”

“Well,” said Bob, “small reason to be ashamed to say that, my boy.”

“Hold on, Bob, I’m coming to the part I’m ashamed of; just you smoke your pipe and keep quiet. Well, so much in love am I with the new country that I’m beginning to forget the old. Of course I’ll always – always be a true Englishman, and I’d go back to-morrow to lay down my life for the dear old land if it was in danger. But it isn’t, it doesn’t want us, it doesn’t need us; it is full to overflowing, and I daresay they can do without any of us. But, Bob, there is my dear old father, mother, Elsie, and Rupert. Now, if it were only possible to have them here. But I know my father is wedded to Burley, and his life’s dream is to show his neighbours a thing or two. I know too that if he starts machinery again he will be irretrievably lost.”

Archie paused, and the kangaroo looked up into his face as much as to say, “Go on, I’m all attention.”

“Well, Bob, if I make a pile here and go home, I’ll just get as fond of Burley as I was when a boy, and I may lose my pile too. It seems selfish to speak so, but there is no necessity for it. So I mean to try to get father to emigrate. Do you think such a thing is possible, Bob?”

“It’s the same with men as with trees, Archie. You must loosen the ground about them, root by root must be carefully taken up if you want to transplant them, and you must take so much of the old earth with them that they hardly know they are being moved. Sarah, bring the coffee. As for my own part, Archie, I am going back; but it is only just to see the old cottage, the dear old woods, and – and my mother’s grave.”

“Yes,” said Archie, thoughtfully. “Well, root by root you said, didn’t you?”

“Ay, root by root.”

“Then I’m going to begin. Rupert and Elsie will be the first roots. Roup isn’t over strong yet. This country will make a man of him. Bob and you, Harry, can go to bed as soon as you like. I’m going out to think and walk about a bit. Stick another log or two on the fire, and as soon as you have all turned in I’ll write a letter home. I’ll begin the uprooting, though it does seem cruel to snap old ties.”

“Well,” said Harry, “thank goodness, I’ve got no ties to snap. And I think with you, Archie, that the old country isn’t a patch on the new. Just think o’ the London fogs. You mind them, Sarah.”

“I does, ’Arry.”

“And the snow.”

“And the slush, ’Arry.”

“And the drizzle.”

“And the kitchen beetles, boy. It would take a fat little lot to make me go back out o’ the sunshine. Here’s the coffee.”

“Keep mine hot, Sarah.”

Away went Archie out into the night, out under the stars, out in the falling dew, and his kangaroo went jumping and hopping after him.

The sky was very bright and clear to-night, though fleece-shaped, snow-white clouds lay low on the horizon, and the moon was rising through the distant woods, giving the appearance of some gigantic fire as its beams glared red among the topmost branches.

There was the distant howling or yelling of dingoes, and the low, half-frightened bleat of sheep, and there was the rippling murmur of the stream not far off, but all else was still.

It was two hours before Archie found his way back. The kangaroo saw him to the door, then went off to curl up in the shed till the hot beams of the morning sun should lure him forth to breakfast.

And all alone sat Archie, by the kitchen table, writing a letter home by the light of candles made on the steading.

It was very still now in the house – only the ticking of the clock, the occasional whirr of some insect flying against the window, anxious to come into the light and warmth and scratching of the young man’s pen.

Surely the dog knew that Archie was writing home, for presently he got slowly up from his corner and came and leant his head on his master’s knee, in that wise and kindly way collies have of showing their thoughts and feelings. Archie must leave off writing for a moment to smooth and pet the honest “bawsent” head.

Now it would be very easy for us to peep over Archie’s shoulder and read what he was writing, but that would be rude; anything rather than rudeness and impoliteness. Rather, for instance, let us take a voyage across the wide, terribly wide ocean, to pay a visit to Burley Old Farm, and wait till the letter comes.

“I wonder,” said Elsie with a gentle sigh, and a long look at the fire, “when we may expect to hear from Archie again. Dear me, what a long, long time it is since he went away! Let me see, Rupert, it is going on for six years, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Archie must be quite a man by now.”

“He’s all right,” said the Squire.

“That he is, I know,” said Uncle Ramsay.

“He’s in God’s good hands,” said the mother, but her glasses were so moist she had to take them off to wipe them; “he is in God’s good hands, and all we can do now is to pray for him.”

Two little taps at the green-parlour door and enter the maid, not looking much older, and not less smart, than when last we saw her.

“If you please, sir, there’s a gentleman in the study as would like to see you.”

“Oh,” she added, with a little start, “here he comes!”

And there he came certainly.

“God bless all here!” he cried heartily.

“What,” exclaimed the Squire, jumping up and holding out his hand, “my dear old friend Venturesome Vesey!”

“Yes, Yankee Charlie, and right glad I am to see you.”

“My wife and children, Vesey. Though you and I have often met in town since my marriage, you’ve never seen them before. My brother, whom you know.”

Vesey was not long in making himself one of the family circle, and he gave his promise to stay at Burley Old Farm for a week at least.

Rupert and Elsie took to him at once. How could they help it? a sailor and gentleman, and a man of the world to boot. Besides, coming directly from Archie.

“I just popped into the house the very morning after he had written the letter I now hand to you,” said Captain Vesey. “He had an idea it would be safer for me to bring it. Well, here it is; and I’m going straight away out to the garden to smoke a pipe under the moon while you read it. Friend as I am of Archie’s, you must have the letter all to yourselves;” and away went Vesey.

“Send for old Kate and Branson,” cried the Squire, and they accordingly marched in all expectancy.

Then the father unfolded the letter with as much reverence almost as if it had been Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

Every eye was fixed upon him as he slowly read it. Even Bounder, the great Newfoundland, knew something unusual was up, and sat by Elsie all the time.

Archie’s Letter Home.

“My dearest Mother, – It is to you I write first, because I know that a proposal I have to make will ‘take you aback,’ as my friend Winslow would say. I may as well tell you what it is at once, because, if I don’t, your beloved impatience will cause you to skip all the other parts of the letter till you come to it. Now then, my own old mummy, wipe your spectacles all ready, catch hold of the arm of your chair firmly, and tell Elsie to ‘stand by’ – another expression of Winslow’s – the smelling-salts bottle. Are you all ready? Heave oh! then. I’m going to ask you to let Rupert and Elsie come out to me here.

“Have you fainted, mummy? Not a bit of it; you’re my own brave mother! And don’t you see that this will be only the beginning of the end? And a bright, happy end, mother, I’m looking forward to its being. It will be the reunion of us all once more; and if we do not live quite under one roof, as in the dear old days at Burley Old Farm, we will live in happy juxtaposition.

“‘What!’ you cry, ‘deprive me of my children?’ It is for your children’s good, mummy. Take Rupert first. He is not strong now, but he is young. If he comes at once to this glorious land of ours, on which I am quite enthusiastic, he will get as hardy as a New Hollander in six months’ time. Wouldn’t you like to see him with roses on his face, mother, and a brow as brown as a postage stamp? Send him out. Would you like him to have a frame of iron, with muscles as tough as a mainstay? Send him out. Would you like him to be as full of health as an egg is full of meat? and so happy that he would have to get up at nights to sing? Then send him here.

“Take poor me next. You’ve no notion how homesick I am; I’m dying to see some of you. I am making money fast, and I love my dear, free, jolly life; but for all that, there are times that I would give up everything I possess – health, and hopes of wealth – for sake of one glance at your dear faces, and one run round Burley Old Farm with father.”

This part of Archie’s letter told home. There were tears in Mrs Broadbent’s motherly eyes; and old Kate was heard to murmur, “Dear, bonnie laddie!” and put her apron to her face.

“Then,” the letter continued, “there is Elsie. It would do her good to come too, because – bless the lassie! – she takes her happiness at second-hand; and knowing that she was a comfort to us boys, and made everything cheery and nice, would cause her to be as jolly as the summer’s day is long or a gum tree high. Then, mother, we three should work together with only one intent – that of getting you and father both out, and old Kate and Branson too.

“As for you, dad, I know you will do what is right; and see how good it would be for us all to let Roup and Elsie come. Then you must remember that when we got things a bit straighter, we would expect you and mother to follow. You, dear dad, would have full scope here for your inventive genius, and improvements that are thrown away in England could be turned to profit out here.

“We would not go like a bull at a gate at anything, father; but what we do want here is machinery, easily worked, for cutting up and dealing with wood; for cutting up ground, and for destroying tree stumps; and last, but not least, we want wells, and a complete system of irrigation for some lands, that shall make us independent to a great extent of the sparsely-failing rains of some seasons. Of course you could tell us something about sheep disease and cattle plague, and I’m not sure you couldn’t help us to turn the wild horses to account, with which some parts of the interior swarm.”

Squire Broadbent paused here to exclaim, as he slapped his thigh with his open palm:

“By Saint Andrews, brother, Archie is a chip of the old block! He’s a true Broadbent, I can tell you. He appreciates the brains of his father too. Heads are what are wanted out there; genius to set the mill a-going. As for this country – pah! it’s played out. Yes, my children, you shall go, and your father will follow.”

“My dear Elsie and Rupert,” the letter went on, “how I should love to have you both out here. I have not asked you before, because I wanted to have everything in a thriving condition first; but now that everything is so, it wants but you two to help me on, and in a year or two – Hurrah! for dad and the mum!

“Yes, Elsie, your house is all prepared. I said nothing about this before. I’ve been, like the duck-bill, working silently out of sight – out of your sight I mean. But there it is, the finest house in all the district, a perfect mansion; walls as thick as Burley Old Tower – that’s for coolness in summer. Lined inside with cedar – that’s for cosiness in winter. Big hall in it, and all the rooms just facsimile of our own house at home, or as near to them as the climate will admit.

“But mind you, Elsie, I’m not going to have you banished to the Bush wilds altogether. No, lassie, no; we will have a mansion – a real mansion – in Sydney or Brisbane as well, and the house at Burley New Farm will be our country residence.

“I know I’ll have your answer by another mail, and it will put new life into us all to know you are coming. Then I will start right away to furnish our house. Our walls shall be polished, pictures shall be hung, and mirrors everywhere; the floors shall glitter like beetles’ wings, and couches and skins be all about. I’m rather lame at house description, but you, Elsie, shall finish the furnishing, and put in the nicknacks yourself.

“I’m writing here in the stillness of night, with our doggie’s head upon my knee. All have gone to bed – black and white – in the house and round the Station. But I’ve just come in from a long walk in the moonlight. I went out to be alone and think about you; and what a glorious night, Rupert! We have no such nights in England. Though it is winter, it is warm and balmy. It is a delight to walk at night either in summer or winter. Oh, I do wish I could describe to you my garden as it is in spring and early summer! That is, you know, our garden that is going to be. I had the garden laid out and planted long before the house was put up, and now my chief delight is to keep it up. You know, as I told you before, I went to Melbourne with the Winslows. Well, we went round everywhere, and saw everything; we sailed on the lovely river, and I was struck with the wonderful beauty of the gardens, and determined ours should be something like it. And when the orange blossom is out, and the fragrant verbenas, and a thousand other half-wild flowers, with ferns, ferns, ferns everywhere, and a fountain playing in the shadiest nook – this was an idea of Harry’s – you would think you were in fairyland or dreamland, or ‘through the looking-glass,’ or somewhere; anyhow, you would be entranced.

“But to-night, when I walked there, the house – our house you know – looked desolate and dreary, and my heart gave a big superstitious thud when I heard what I thought was a footstep on the verandah, but it was only a frog as big as your hat.

“That verandah cost me and Harry many a ramble into the scrub and forest, but now it is something worth seeing, with its wealth of climbing flowering plants, its hanging ferns, and its clustering marvellous orchids.

“Yes, the house looks lonely; looks haunted almost; only, of course, ghosts never come near a new house. But, dear Elsie, how lovely it will look when we are living in it! when light streams out from the open casement windows! when warmth and music are there! Oh, come soon, come soon! You see I’m still impulsive.

“You, Elsie, love pets. I daresay Bounder will come with you. Poor Scallowa! I was sorry to hear of his sad death. But we can have all kinds of pets here. We have many. To begin with, there is little Diana, she is queen of the station, and likely to be; she is everybody’s favourite. Then there are the collies, and the kangaroo. He is quite a darling fellow, and goes everywhere with me.

“Our laughing jackass is improving every day. He looks excessively wise when you talk to him, and if touched up with the end of a brush of turkey’s feathers, which we keep for the purpose, he goes off into such fits of mad hilarious, mocking, ringing laughter that somebody has got to pick him up, cage and all, and make all haste out of the house with him.

“We have also a pet bear; that is Harry’s. But don’t jump. It is no bigger than a cat, and far tamer. It is a most wonderful little rascal to climb ever you saw. Koala we call him, which is his native name, and he is never tired of exploring the roof and rafters; but when he wants to go to sleep, he will tie himself round Sarah’s waist, with his back downwards, and go off as sound as a top.

 

“We have lots of cats and a cockatoo, who is an exceedingly mischievous one, and who spends most of his life in the garden. He can talk, and dance, and sing as well. And he is a caution to snakes, I can tell you. I don’t want to frighten you though. We never see the ‘tiger’ snake, or hardly ever, and I think the rest are harmless. I know the swagsmen, and the sundowners too, often kill the carpet snake, and roast and eat it when they have no other sort of fresh meat. I have tasted it, and I can tell you, Rupert, it is better than roasted rabbit.

“I’m going to have a flying squirrel. The first time I saw these creatures was at night among the trees, and they startled me – great shadowy things sailing like black kites from bough to bough.

“Kangaroos are cautions. We spend many and many a good day hunting them. If we did not kill them they would eat us up, or eat the sheep’s fodder up, and that would be all the same.

“Gentleman Craig has strange views about most things; he believes in Darwin, and a deal that isn’t Darwin; but he says kangaroos first got or acquired their monster hindlegs, and their sturdy tails, from sitting up looking over the high grass, and cropping the leaves of bushes. He says that Australia is two millions of years old at the very least.

“I must say I like Craig very much. He is so noble and handsome. What a splendid soldier he would have made! But with all his grandeur of looks – I cannot call it anything else – there is an air of pensiveness and melancholy about him that is never absent. Even when he smiles it is a sad smile. Ah! Rupert, his story is a very strange one; but he is young yet, only twenty-six, and he is now doing well. He lives by himself, with just one shepherd under him, on the very confines of civilisation. I often fear the blacks will bail up his hut some day, and mumkill him, and we should all be sorry. Craig is saving money, and I believe will be a squatter himself one of these days. Etheldene is very fond of him. Sometimes I am downright jealous and nasty about it, because I would like you, Rupert, to have Etheldene for a wife. And she knows all about the black fellows, and can speak their language. Well, you see, Rupert, you could go and preach to and convert them; for they are not half so bad as they are painted. The white men often use them most cruelly, and think no more of shooting them than I should of killing an old man kangaroo.

“When I began this letter, dearest Elsie and old Roup, I meant to tell you such a lot I find I shall have no chance of doing – all about the grand trees, the wild and beautiful scenery, the birds and beasts and insects, but I should have to write for a week to do it. So pray forgive my rambling letter, and come and see it all for yourself.

“Come you must, else – let me see now what I shall threaten. Oh, I have it; I won’t ever return! But if you do come, then in a few years we’ll all go back together, and bring out dad and the dear mummy.

“I can’t see to write any more. No, the lights are just as bright as when I commenced; but when I think of dad and the mum, my eyes will get filled with moisture. So there!

“God bless you all, all, from the mum and dad all the way down to Kate, Branson, and Bounder.

“Archie Broadbent, C.O.B.

“P.S. – Do you know what C.O.B. means? It means Chip of the Old Block. Hurrah!”