第27章

The `big squatter', as he was called on our side of the country, was Mr.Falkland.He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony, and worked his way up by degrees.He had had no money when he first came, people said; indeed, he often said so himself.He was not proud, at any rate in that way, for he was not above telling a young fellow that he should never be downhearted because he hadn't a coat to his back or a shilling in his pocket, because he, Herbert Falkland, had known what it was to be without either.`This was the best country in the whole world,' he used to say, `for a gentleman who was poor or a working man.' The first sort could always make an independence if they were moderately strong, liked work, and did not drink.

There were very few countries where idle, unsteady people got rich.

`As for the poor man, he was the real rich man in Australia;high wages, cheap food, lodging, clothing, travelling.

What more did he want? He could save money, live happily, and die rich, if he wasn't a fool or a rogue.Unfortunately, these last were highly popular professions; and many people, high and low, belonged to them here -- and everywhere else.'

We were all well up in this kind of talk, because for the last two or three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always shorn at his shed.He was one of those gentlemen -- and he was a gentleman, if ever there was one -- that takes a deal of notice of his working hands, particularly if they were young.Jim he took a great fancy to the first moment he saw him.He didn't care so much about me.

`You're a sulky young dog, Richard Marston,' he used to say.

`I'm not sure that you'll come to any good; and though I don't like to say all I hear about your father before you, I'm afraid he doesn't teach you anything worth knowing.But Jim there's a grand fellow;if he'd been caught young and weaned from all of your lot, he'd have been an honour to the land he was born in.He's too good for you all.'

`Every one of you gentlemen wants to be a small God Almighty,'

I said impudently.`You'd like to break us all in and put us in yokes and bows, like a lot of working bullocks.'

`You mistake me, my boy, and all the rest of us who are worth calling men, let alone gentlemen.We are your best friends, and would help you in every way if you'd only let us.'

`I don't see so much of that.'

`Because you often fight against your own good.We should like to see you all have farms of your own -- to be all well taught and able to make the best of your lives -- not driven to drink, as many of you are, because you have no notion of any rational amusement, and anything between hard work and idle dissipation.'

`And suppose you had all this power,' I said -- for if I was afraid of father there wasn't another man living that could overcrow me -- `don't you think you'd know the way to keep all the good things for yourselves?

Hasn't it always been so?'

`I see your argument,' he said, quite quiet and reasonable, just as if I had been a swell like himself -- that was why he was unlike any other man I ever knew -- `and it is a perfectly fair way of putting it.

But your class might, I think, always rely upon there being enough kindness and wisdom in ours to prevent that state of things.Unfortunately, neither side trusts the other enough.And now the bell is going to ring, I think.'

Jim and I stopped at Boree shed till all the sheep were cut out.

It pays well if the weather is pretty fair, and it isn't bad fun when there's twenty or thirty chaps of the right sort in the shearers' hut;there's always some fun going on.Shearers work pretty hard, and as they buy their own rations generally, they can afford to live well.

After a hard day's shearing -- that is, from five o'clock in the morning to seven at night, going best pace all the time, every man working as hard as if he was at it for his life -- one would think a man would be too tired to do anything.But we were mostly strong and hearty, and at that age a man takes a deal of killing; so we used to have a little card-playing at night to pass away the time.

Very few of the fellows had any money to spend.They couldn't get any either until shearing was over and they were paid off; but they'd get some one who could write to scribble a lot of I O U's, and they did as well.

We used to play `all-fours' and `loo', and now and then an American game which some of the fellows had picked up.It was strange how soon we managed to get into big stakes.I won at first, and then Jim and I began to lose, and had such a lot of I O U's out that I was afraid we'd have no money to take home after shearing.Then I began to think what a fool I'd been to play myself and drag Jim into it, for he didn't want to play at first.

One day I got a couple of letters from home -- one from Aileen and another in a strange hand.It had come to our little post-office, and Aileen had sent it on to Boree.

When I opened it there were a few lines, with father's name at the bottom.

He couldn't write, so I made sure that Starlight had written it for him.

He was quite well, it said; and to look out for him about Christmas time;he might come home then, or send for us; to stop at Boree if we could get work, and keep a couple of horses in good trim, as he might want us.A couple of five-pound notes fell out of the letter as I opened it.

When I looked at them first I felt a kind of fear.I knew what they came from.And I had a sort of feeling that we should be better without them.

However, the devil was too strong for me.Money's a tempting thing, whether it's notes or gold, especially when a man's in debt.

I had begun to think the fellows looked a little cool on us the last three or four nights, as our losses were growing big.