CHAPTER XVI THE ROMANCE OF A FREEHOLD

In a recent advertisement in the Australasian I observed public notice to be given that "the rich agricultural lands of the Kangatong estate, near Port Fairy, would be subdivided at an early date, and sold in farms to suit purchasers." What changes time doth bring! When I first saw the ground referred to, then known as "Cox's Heifer Station," how could one divine the transformation it was fated to undergo? As little in 1844 was prevision possible of the separate sale notices in which it would figure as the years rolled on. It epitomises the history of the district, perhaps of the colony.

First of all, "that well-known fattening station known as Kangatong, with choice herd of cattle, stock-horses given in," etc. Then, "that fully improved, fenced, and subdivided sheep property, of which the wool is so favourably known to Melbourne buyers." Again, "that valuable pastoral estate of Kangatong, comprising 35,000 (let us say) acres of freehold"; and now, lastly, "those rich agricultural lands, divided into farms to suit purchasers."

All these progressive wonders were to be evolved from the lone primeval waste upon which a solitary horseman then gazed in the autumn of 1844. And the wand of the squatter-sorcerer was to do it all. I might then have seen lakelets glittering in the sun, orchards and cornfields, barns and stables, mansion and offices, a village in itself, the spacious wool-shed and the scientific wash-pen, had I possessed the prophetic eye. But Fate held her secrets closely then as now. Only the vast eucalyptus forest, stretching unbroken to the horizon, waved its sombre banners before me. Only the scarce-trodden meadows of the waste lay unfed, untouched around me. I beheld a pastoral paradise without so much as a first inhabitant, and at which the very beasts of the field had hardly arrived. It was a spectacle sufficiently solemn to have awed a democrat, to have imbued even the Arch-Anti——, well, Anti-Capitalist, with some respectful consideration for pioneers, whether in toil or triumph. How I appeared on the scene at this particular juncture came about in this wise.

When I first arrived in Port Fairy, the "Heifer Station" was what would be called in mining parlance "an abandoned claim," and possibly "jumpable," to use another effective expression with which the gold-fields have enriched the Australian vernacular. Mr. John Cox of Werrongourt had reconsidered his first intention of segregating the immature females of his herd—probably as too expensive—had withdrawn them and their herdsmen, leaving hut and yards untenanted, the run unoccupied. This last was now for sale with "improvements." I really can't recall the date of that comprehensive euphemism, which included everything, from a watch-box to a wool-shed, from a brush-yard to a family mansion. Perhaps about the time when the children of married servants advertised for were feelingly referred to as "encumbrances."

However, improvements and encumbrances notwithstanding, we must get on with our "Heifer Station" history. Here it was for sale, with one hut, one log-yard, and the right to 40,000 acres, more or less, of first-class pasture—for how much? Would I could get the offer again! Thirty pounds! This was the price—everybody knew it. Mr. Cox wanted to sell—had plenty of country at Werrongourt—couldn't be bothered with it. The best thing I could do was to go and see it, or close for it at once. Mr. Cox was in Tasmania just at present, but had, of course, left instructions. Thus far the friendly public. I thought I would go and see. So I mounted Clifton, the grandson of Skeleton, and turned my face to the setting sun. Making my way to Tarrone, where at that time Mr. Chamberlain lived, I explained to him the object of my tourist wandering. I was most hospitably received. It turned out afterwards that he had had a hint that I wanted to "sit down" somewhere in his neighbourhood. The runs at that time were, as may be imagined, very sparsely stocked. If the Commissioner of Crown Lands was in a bad temper, he had the power to "give away" to the interloper a seriously appreciable portion of any pastoral area, however long established and secure the occupant might fancy himself to be.

So, as he afterwards told one of the neighbours, he determined to show me every courtesy; after which, appealing to all chivalrous feelings in my nature, he felt that I could not, in common decency, annex any portion of his (Mr. Chamberlain's) run. This was a shade of diplomacy sometimes roughly described as characteristic of "the old soldier." If so, my host's military experiences, as on another historical occasion, served him well. When I left Tarrone that morning, with a guide, towards the Heifer Station, I would have driven on to Western Australia—a pastoral Vanderdecken—rather than infringe on the tolerably liberal boundaries which he claimed for Tarrone.

I rode along and passed the great Tarrone Marsh, with its well-defined wooded banks and its miles upon miles of mournful reeds, wild-duck and bittern haunted. My guide pointed out to me a place where, riding one day a mare that he described as "touchy," by the edge of the marsh, suddenly a blackfellow jumped out from behind a tree—"a savage man accoutred proper." The touchy mare gave so sudden a prop, accompanied by a desperate plunge, that he was thrown almost at the feet of the "Injun." Others appeared—like Roderick Dhu's clansmen—from every bush and "stony rise," which had till this moment sheltered them. He raised himself doubtfully, much expectant of evil; relations had certainly been strained of late between the races. However, they did not (apparently) kill him, he being there to relate the story. I forget what trifle prevented them.

Then he proceeded to sketch the "lay of the country." Told me (of course) that "I couldn't miss the place if I followed the swamp round for two or three miles, then made for the east a bit, till I came to some thickish country, then to look out for a ti-tree crick as would lead down to the main crick. I'd cut the tracks where they had been tailing the heifers. Then I'd see the hut and yard." He then went on his way, having "to run in a beast to kill," and I saw him no more. No track, no road, no bridle-path was there, no known thoroughfare; while, after you left the great Tarrone Marsh, there was not a landmark to speak of within twenty miles, not a bit of open country the size of a corn-patch. A long, solitary, unsatisfactory day lay before me. Sometimes I was pretty sure I was on the "run"; at other times I was confident that I was off it. I found the creek a minute but permanent-looking rivulet, with occasional water-holes. The hut and yards were on this watercourse; both inexpensive structures. I saw, however, that the whole country-side was covered with a sward of kangaroo grass two or three feet high, and as thick as a field of barley. No doubt it was good fattening country, but I did not take to it somehow. It was a "blind" place, in stock-riders' phrase—no open country, no contrasts, no romance about it in fact. "Toujours gum-tree," as Sir Edward Deas Thomson said when he drove Sir Charles Fitzroy and Colonel Mundy—somewhere about that time—with a four-in-hand drag to Coombing, near Carcoar. I didn't fancy it altogether, good though the grass undoubtedly was. I managed to make my way back to Tarrone that night, where I recruited after the toils of the day. I informed my gallant and politic host that I thought I should go farther west. We parted on the morrow—to his relief, doubtless—with feelings of high mutual consideration.

Years afterwards we had many a laugh about the fright I gave him; and when I was safely settled at Squattlesea Mere, less than twenty miles to the westward, I nearly concluded an agreement with him to rent Tarrone for five years, with the option of purchase, while he went to England. This was a year or two before the gold. The rental asked for run, herd (the same numbers, ages, and sexes to be returned), and homestead was calculated upon the fat cattle prices of the period—£2 : 10s. for cows, £3 for fat bullocks; so was the purchase money. I often thought how awfully sold my friend and neighbour would have been, as a shrewd man of business, not wholly unmindful of the main chance, had I closed with his offer. I finally declined it on the ground of the run being fully stocked up—our bête noir in those deliciously simple days, when we thought it took ten acres, more or less, to fatten a bullock.

But though it was not considered good form to settle down too close to a man's horse paddock, it would never have done to have taken the first occupier's word for what was his lawful right of run. By his own account there was never any permanent water "out back." All the decent land within twenty miles was his; the best thing the intending pastoralist could do was to go clean out of the district. Had the Dunmore people listened thus dutifully to Mr. Hunter of Eumeralla, they would never have taken up Dunmore, which, in the future, turned out a more valuable property than Eumeralla.

Nor would the Messrs. Aplin have got St. Kitts, the runs of Yambuk and Tarrone being popularly supposed to absorb all the available country between their boundaries. Mr. Lemann, however, managed to insert himself and his belongings, wedge-fashion, between Tarrone and Kangatong, on the border of the Tarrone Marsh. Though small of stature, and not stalwart, he held his own, and fattened a decent average of his herd of 1000 or 1200 head annually until he sold out to Mr. Smith. Mr. Lemann had formerly been a kind of neighbour of ours, having fed his herd previously in the vicinity of a creek running into the Upper Yarra, near a flat which, if I mistake not, is known as "Lemann's Swamp" to this day.

He was a well-informed man, who took a great interest in liberal politics. I well recollect his being filled with righteous wrath at the high-handed act of Rajah Brooke in making a clean sweep of a fleet of pirates. I said then, and have since been confirmed in my opinion, that the gallant ruler of Sarawak knew his business better than his Exeter Hall critics.

Mr. Lemann had for working overseer and general stand-between him and personal exertion a country Englishman named Tom Cook, who with his wife managed everything that his stock-rider Hugh was not responsible for. I took some interest in the family, as we had hired Thomas aforesaid from the emigrant vessel as ploughman, and he had been in our service in that capacity at Heidelberg. From the fair-haired, fresh-coloured English farm labourer that he was then, I watched his development through various stages of colonial experience—into dairyman, knock-about-man, bullock-driver, and finally stock-rider at Kangatong. I rather think he had his smock-frock when he came to us, with English rustic tongue and gait. When I afterwards saw him at Mr. Smith's muster (I had sold Mr. Gibb, the dealer, who was lifting the fat cattle there, an additional drove, just started for Melbourne, at £8 all round, cash) he was quite the stock-rider of the period, with neat boots and seat to match, a sharp eye for calves, and, alas! a colonially-acquired taste for grog, and a fight afterwards, if possible.

However, such were only occasional recreations, between which he was a first-rate worker and most worthy fellow. He and his good wife reared a family of Australian-born East Saxons; his eldest son—a tall fellow with a team of his own, grown a carrier—took away the first load of wool I ever sent from Squattlesea Mere, in 1862 or thereabouts.

Among other things in which Cook showed his power of adaptation was the building of a stone cottage and dairy for Mr. Lemann. The country being of volcanic formation, stone to any amount was on hand, and he principally built the walls, nearly two feet in thickness, of a very snug bachelor establishment—a vast improvement, both in summer and winter, upon the ordinary slab architecture.

After deciding not to buy Mr. Cox's heifer station, I happened to be staying at Grasmere, when I met, one evening, two strange gentlemen, a mile or two from the place, coming along rather travel-worn as to their steeds. These were my worthy friends James Dawson, now of Camperdown, and his friend and partner Mr. Selby. They, like Mr. Lemann, had been trying to make cattle pay on the Upper Yarra ranges—had, like him, concluded to start for the west country, then reported to be the best grass going, and not all taken up. They speedily heard of Mr. Cox having a station for sale, and he soon after returning from Tasmania, Mr. Dawson closed with him for the £30 or thereabouts. Messrs. Dawson and Selby shortly afterwards brought up their cattle, and, with their belongings, occupied the run. I always suspected Mr. Dawson, who was philologically inclined, to have extracted the name Kangatong from the aborigines subsequently, and christened the run after his arrival. It was among the things not generally known before his advent. Gradually and judiciously, as time passed on, Kangatong was improved, and so successfully managed that it took rank as one of the best paying stations in the district. Mr. Dawson and his family showed exceptional kindness towards the blacks who lived near them. Kangatong was just outside of the "tauri," or hereditary district of "the Children of the Rocks," or matters might not have continued so pacific, my old friend being of a temper singularly intolerant of injustice. But his tribelet had long mingled with the whalers of the Port, from which they were distant less than twenty miles. I doubt Port Fairy Campbell and his merry men had "civilised" them previously—i.e. shot a few of the more troublesome individuals. However, Mr. Dawson succeeded in making a valuable collection of data, from which he was enabled to publish his late work upon the manners, language, and religious customs of certain Australian aboriginals, which has received favourable mention from the Saturday and other leading reviews.

CHAPTER XVII LE CHEVALIER BAYARD

It was in a year "before the gold" that I had occasion to ride to Kalangadoo, across the Adelaide border near Mount Gambier. Kalangadoo was a cattle station, then the property of the Messrs. Hunter, Alick, Jemmy, and Frank, who then dwelt there, and led the half-laborious, half-romantic life which to the cattle-station holder of the day was allotted. The "Mount Gambier mob," as in colonial parlance described, was at that time composed of men the majority of whom had attained to social distinction. Not far off, at Compton, lived Evelyn Sturt, to my eyes the veritable fine fleur of the squatter type. In that year, let us say about 1850, he was a very grand-looking fellow—aristocratic, athletic, adventurous; an explorer, a pioneer, a preux chevalier in every sense of the word, a leading colonist, with a strong dash of Bayard about him; popular with the men of his set, and, it is unnecessary to say, a general favourite with the women.

He had the features, the bold autocratic regard with which the early romance-writers were wont to depict the Norman Baron, whose part I make no doubt he would have acted creditably had Fate but arranged his existence synchronically.

The prejudices of the day being against a younger son's procuring a competence after the simple and masterful plan of his ancestors, he was constrained to betake himself with his brethren and kinsfolk to far countries and unknown seas. And right manfully had he, and they, of whom more than one name shines brightly on the pages of modern history, dared the perils of sea and shore, of waste and wilderness.

He had been an explorer, was now a pioneer squatter drawing nearer and yet nearer to the goal of fortune. He had been rich, he had been poor, had driven his own bullocks, and been hardly pressed at times. But whatever the occupation or garb in which he elected to masquerade temporarily, no one ever looked upon Evelyn Sturt without its being strongly borne in upon his mind that he saw a gentleman of high degree.

I admired him with a boy's natural feeling of hero-worship. All that I saw and heard of him heightened the idea. Not less stalwart than refined,

The hero besides of numerous local legends. He had leaped from a bridge into a flooded river and rescued a drowning man. He had offered to suck the poison from the wound of a snake-bitten stock-rider. He had quelled the boldest bushman in a shearing row. He was chief magistrate, universal referee, good at all arms, gallant and gay. The modern exemplar of the good knight and true.

Willie Mitchell was a different type—a more recent importation—tall, slight, delicate in frame and constitution—cultured and artistic; he was the nearest approach to the languid swell that in that robust and natural-mannered epoch we had encountered. He had been enticed to Australia by one of the Hunters, who, it appeared to us bush-abiding colonists, were always going "home." They had very properly pointed out to him that he could obtain a high interest for his money by investing it in stock, living like a gentleman the while—a point upon which he was decided. He had recently purchased a small but rich cattle run in the Mount Gambier district, where the water was subterranean, and the cattle had to be supplied by troughs.

He afterwards sold this and purchased Langa-willi from Wright and Montgomery, who never did a bit of good after they sold it, the most perfect place and homestead in the West. But this by the way.

Why Langa-willi will always be a point of interest in my memory, apart from other reasons, was that Henry Kingsley lived there the chief part of a year as a guest of Mitchell's. It was at Langa-willi that Geoffrey Hamlyn, that immortal work, the best Australian novel, and for long the only one, was written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden forth with the overseer to make believe to inspect the flocks, but in reality to get an appetite for lunch.

I like to think of them spending the evening sociably in their own way, both rather silent men—Kingsley writing till he had covered the regulation number of sheets—or finished the chapter, perhaps, where the bushrangers came to Garoopna; Mitchell, reading steadily, or writing up his home correspondence; the old housekeeper coming in with the glasses at ten o'clock, then a tumbler of toddy, a smoke in the verandah, or over the fire if in winter, and so to bed. Peaceful, unexciting days and nights, good for Mitchell, who was not over-strong, and for his talented guest. I suspect that in England, where both abode in later years, they often looked back with regret to the peerless climate, the calm days, the restful evenings, spent so far beyond the southern main at Langa-willi. The surroundings were judiciously utilised by the author as furnishing that flavour of verisimilitude which added so much to the charm of his fiction. Baroona, where the Buckleys lived, is the name of a property not far from Mount Hesse, and Widderin, the name of Sam Buckley's famous horse, is also that of a hill visible from the plains of Skipton.

Mr. Mitchell, I may mention, was one of those investors who apparently have only to buy a place to make money out of it. He did so at the Mount Gambier station, knowing no more of cattle and their ways, when he bought it, than of the habits of the alpaca. He then bought Langa-willi, with 20,000 sheep or so, having the same pleasing ignorance of their tastes and management; held it till after the gold; never did any work himself; spent a fair portion of his time at the Melbourne Club. Finally sold out at a handsome profit with a large stock of sheep, and departed to England, never to return.

This looks like luck. Doubtless there was an infusion of that most agreeable ingredient. But I have no doubt either that the mild and elegant William possessed a reasonable share of prudence, about which, like his other endowments and accomplishments, he said nothing. His first introduction to our Port Fairy community was at race time, when he appeared with the Hunters and Sturt, riding a beautiful little blood mare called Medora, a safe and easy mount, his long legs curiously near the ground. There couldn't be, however, a nicer fellow, and Australia will ever owe him a debt of gratitude for extending the hand of generous and delicate hospitality to the artist who first worthily illustrated her free forest life, her adventurous sons and daughters fair.

Charles Mackinnon, erst of Skye—old Charles as he may possibly now be called, alas! and may not the insidious adjective be applied to others of his contemporaries?—dwelt hard by with Mr. Watson, his partner. He yet lives in my memory as the kindest of men. "Kind as a woman" exactly describes his disposition as exemplified in my case. There were no women, by the way, thereabouts in those days, except black ones, who used to fetch in the horses on foot, carry water, and otherwise make themselves useful.

While at Kalangadoo I was suddenly knocked over by a feverish attack—an exceptional case with me—then, as now, tolerably tough; but an hour or two of that kind of thing takes the conceit out of the best of us. Shivering and burning by turns, with throbbing headache and nausea, I had to lie down to it, and was very bad all one night. Charles Mackinnon watched over me in the most patient manner the while. We were new acquaintances, too. I remember distinctly his appearance next morning with a bowl of beef-tea, with which I broke a twenty-four hours' fast.

Finding that I anxiously desired to become possessed of a black boy, he procured me a small imp, so young and callow that he fell off the quiet old horse (which Mackinnon also lent me for him to ride home on), and, sprawling in the midst of the dust, cried piteously. Poor Charlie Gambier! as I named him—he had the honour of being christened by his lordship the late Bishop Perry of Melbourne. He was also taught, with great pains and perseverance, his catechism. He could read his Bible well. He turned out much the sort of Christian that might have been expected, deteriorating rapidly after the age of fifteen, and learning to drink spirits and copy the undesirable white man with painful accuracy.

John Meredith, a scion of a well-known Tasmanian family, was another resident within hail of the Mount. A stalwart Australian in good sooth, 6 feet 4 inches, or thereabouts, in his stocking-soles; blue-eyed, fair-bearded, and about twice as tall as any old-style Cambrian, I should say, in the somewhat "rangey" country whence his ancestors came. I had made his acquaintance by riding from Melbourne with him a year or so before. Having just come over from Tasmania with a faithful retainer and four horses, thence imported, he was journeying to a run which he had bought.

He rode an immense black horse, which carried him "like a pony," fifteen stone and over as his weight probably then was! I well remember speculating as to how such a horse might be bred—a grand forehand, clean flat legs, active, powerful, blood-like, a great jumper, and a good carriage horse.

Let any one try to pick up an animal of this type, no matter what price he is prepared to give. He will then realise the correctness of my conviction then, wholly unaltered by after-experience, of his rarity and value.

The faithful retainer, whose name was William Godbold, was a grim-looking "old hand," who had, however, risked his life in a memorable flood in order to save a comrade.

Years after the faithful retainer came to work on my station, and being looked upon as "such a good man," was permitted to purchase a colt on credit. He availed himself of the credit (and the colt) by riding him across the border to Mount Gambier. There was no extradition treaty in those days. A fawn bay, with a black stripe down his back, a shoulder cross and mule markings (see Darwin), four years old, fast and sound—I never was paid for that colt, and "still the memory rankles," trifling as is the deficit! Many debts have I forgiven. Some, alas! have had to be forgiven to me. But that colt—"Chilleno" by name, own brother to my best hack "The Gaucha"—I can't forgive that one.

On my way out and back—it was some four or five days' ride—I stayed at various stations. It was de règle in those days, and I don't know a pleasanter ending to a day's ride than meeting a hospitable squatter in his own house. You have had just work enough to tire you reasonably, to make you enjoy a cheerful meal, some fresh unstudied talk (people are twice as confidential in the bush, even with strangers, as they are in town), a smoke in the verandah, and the sound, peaceful sleep that follows all. Then the awakening in the lovely fresh bush air, winter or summer, the feeling is ennobling, invigorating. As he fills his lungs and expands his breast therewith the wayfarer feels a better and wiser man. Old Mr. Robertson, a Scottish settler, had a lovely station on the Wannon. To his homestead travellers chiefly gravitated for reasons which he summarised somewhat plainly on one occasion.

"Don't think I believe you come to see old Robertson," he said. "In the summer it's the fruit that fetches you, and in the winter Mary's jam." Now, Miss Robertson's preserves and conserves were the admiration of the whole district, while the orchard in the season was a marvel for fruit of every kind and sort.

I wish I could show those good people and certain conceited gardeners who persist in pruning and cutting every lower limb of their fruit trees, the orchard at Wando Vale, as in those days. Great umbrageous apple trees with long lateral branches trailing on the ground, covered with fruit of the finest size and quality.

The remarkable thing about these apple trees was that they had never been grafted or pruned. They all came from the seed of a barrel of decayed apples, and which, being of many different varieties, were, as the old gentleman expressed it, "each better than the other." That such is not the general result I am aware, being a bit of a gardener myself, but it was the fact in this instance, as I saw and tasted the fruit, and have the word of the owner for it besides, who planted the trees with his own hands.

Mr. Alfred Arden I remember visiting at Hilgay, as also the late John Coldham of Grassdale. What a lovely bit of country his was! And is not all the Wannon the "pick of creation"—Colac, perhaps, excepted? Low deep-swarded hills, rolling downs, and thickly-timbered slopes, all wheat land, and forty bushels to the acre at that. Too good for this wicked world almost! The men who took it up first had hardly sufficient inducement to exert themselves. There is such a thing as being too well off. I am aware it is not good for me, above all men, but I should like to have a try at bearing it again, and risk