when sydney lawson left home to take up new country for himself, there happened to be no tutor at wonga-wonga, and so harry and donald were allowed to go with the young squatter, both to keep them out of mischief and to enlarge their “colonial experience.” besides, they would be of as much use as, at least, a man and a half. the boys were away for months, but they never grew tired of their long holiday, although they often had to work hard enough in it. it was the thought that they were doing real man’s work, and yet holiday-making at the same time, that made the holiday so jolly.
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just after sunrise one calm bright morning, the little expedition started—sydney, harry, donald, and king dick-a-dick’s heir-apparent, “prince chummy,” on horseback, and in charge of a small mob of horses and another of cattle, and two old hands in charge of the bullock-dray that carried the baggage, stores, tools, nails, horseshoes, arms, ammunition, &c. “jawing jim” and “handsome bob” were the sobriquets by which these two old hands were known—both given on the lucus a non lucendo principle, since jim scarcely ever opened his mouth, and bob was nearly as black, and not nearly so good-looking, as prince chummy. jim was a staffordshire man, and bob was a cockney. they were both good bushmen, but they had both been sent out for burglary, and therefore they may seem to have been strange guards for the commissariat-waggon, though the spirit-cask had another cask outside it as a precaution against furtive tapping. but for one thing, they were pretty well under the eye of the rest of the party; and for another, each watched the other like duplicated japanese officials. there was a long-standing rivalry between them. each sneered at the other’s home exploits. when jem did open his lips to any one except his bullocks, it was generally to launch some sarcasm at bob, but in a tongue-fight he was rarely a match for the ugly londoner, whose lonely bush life had not cured him of his cockney glibness.
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all the wonga-wonga-ites mustered to see the little party off—mr. lawson riding with it for a mile or two. there was a little confusion at starting. a young imported bull strolled up, angrily snuffing and pawing, as if jealous of the superior size of the bullocks; and just as they had begun to obey jim’s very strong language and oft-cracked long whip, the little bull took a mean advantage, made a mad flank charge on the middle yoke, and threw the whole line into disorder. thereupon bob, who had made himself comfortable on the flour-sacks in the dray, began to chaff his comrade, in his own elegant style, on his clumsiness.
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“call yourself a bullock-driver?” bob was saying, when an old shoe that mrs. jones had thrown after harry hit bob in the face.
he was going to abuse mrs. jones then, but jim growled out,
“doan’t get inta a scoat, lahd! it hit thee wheer tha ken’t be hoort,” and handsome bob had to subside into his flour-sack couch again, silenced for once.
with much cracking of whips, trampling of hoofs, clanking of chains, jingling of tin pots, grinding of wheels, and creaking of pole and yokes, the expedition at last fairly got under way. we watched it go down the rise, across the flat, and through the slip-panels that led into the bush beyond; and then, when we could see nothing but the dust above the tree-tops, mrs. lawson and mrs. m‘intyre, who was visiting at wonga-wonga, went into their bed-rooms—perhaps to pray for their boys’ safety.
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i saw them start, but can only relate their adventures from what i heard of them when the boys came back.
the settled country through which they passed would have seemed wild enough to most english people, accustomed to hedged-in little fields, fitting like patches in a patchwork quilt, with roads and lanes curving between them, and railways running over them in the most rural places. in this “settled country” there were miles without a fence, and our pioneers generally camped out at night; although, when they came to a public, or an “accommodation-house,” with a paddock, about sundown, they would have a night between sheets for a change, and when they chanced to halt near a head-station at nightfall, they could make sure of hearty hospitality, although not always of a bed. as they went on, the country seemed wilder and wilder to their eyes, although perhaps we should not have seen much difference.
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when i went out to new south wales, i expected, from what i had read in guide-books, to see capital convict-made roads running through the colony everywhere. what i found was a tolerable bit of road reaching as far as parramatta (not twenty miles from sydney), but beyond that there was nothing that we should call a road in england. deep ruts running right across the road; grey logs that the mail-cart used to bump over, and black jagged tree-stumps that it used to graze against; the smoothest bits of road like a ploughed field; unbridged creeks; “corduroy” causeways of tree-trunks across swampy places;—that is what i remember of australian up-country roads in dry weather; and in wet weather they were chains of ponds, with marsh that swallowed you to the ankle, and bog that gobbled you above the knee, intervening; and bogged blue-bloused dray-drivers sitting here and there on the tops of their loads of wool-bales, smoking in sullen resignation, like mariners in the tops of gradually-sinking wrecks.
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at last, however, our pioneers came to the end of even such roads as these, and had to trust to rare cattle-paths, the sun, the compass, and “gumption” for guidance. they had reached the march-land on which the white man, who has grown nearly as wild, meets the black man who has not been tamed, and shoots him or poisons him with strychnine-damper for spearing his flocks and herds, and sometimes gets speared by him in return. on the last run our pioneers crossed they met a stockman who was herding cattle with pistols in his holsters and a carbine in his hand. a strange wild-looking fellow was this stockman. he wore a rain-blackened, sun-bronzed, cabbage-tree hat, with a jetty, greasy cutty pipe stuck into the discoloured band; a faded, stained, white-seamed red shirt, buckled round him with a chapped brown belt; and tattered moleskin trousers falling in vandyked fringes over rusty gaping boots. one of his stirrup-leathers was made of knotted green hide. his face was just the colour of his hat—the little of it that could be seen peeping through a foot or two of coarse black hair like a guardsman’s bearskin. he had lived so long by himself that, when he first began to talk to the new-comers, he stammered like a bashful girl. he soon recovered his tongue, however, and the first thing he asked for was tobacco. they were smoking tea on that station, owing to the long time the drays that were bringing them fresh stores had been delayed upon the road. when sydney gave the man a fig or two of colonial tobacco, and another of glossy barrett’s twist, he pounced upon them as if he could scarcely believe his eyes. the american negrohead he put away jealously in his trousers-pocket for special occasions, and then began to slice and rub up the dull-green saltpetery colonial tobacco, as if he was famishing for want of a “proper smoke.” as it spluttered in his pipe he told the strangers some strange tales about the blacks. they had sighted them several times before this; but, as the blacks had always bounded off like so many kangaroos as soon as they were sighted, our pioneers had begun to think that they would not have much to fear from them.
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“don’t you believe it,” said the stockman. “they’ll be on ye when you’re least lookin’ for ’em, the sneaking divils!”
this is one of the stories he told about the blacks, and from it you will see that white men can be quite as bloodthirsty in those wild parts:
“when we come up here, two er the chaps that the cove hired was brothers. i niver seen brothers so fond er each other as them two young fellers was. strappin’ young fellers, though they was new to this kind er work. they’d been knockin’ about, an’ was glad to git anythin’ to do, i guess. wal, one day tom—that was the youngest—was down by the creek yonder, lookin’ arter a duck, or summat er that. me an’ fred—that was the eldest—was up on the rise beyont, lookin’ arter the bullocks. all of a suddent we heerd a cooey.
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“‘that’s tom,’ says fred. i didn’t want him to tell me. it worn’t a bit like a black feller’s.
“‘he’s come to grief,’ says i, for it sounded like that, an’ down we galloped to the creek full pelt. jist as we got into the scrub we heard another cooey, an’ presently another, fainter an’ fainter like. wal, we hunted about, an’ onder a grass tree we found poor tom with a spear stickin’ into him.
“‘mother—poor old gal!’ he says, when we come up to him, an’ fred was kneelin’ by his side. i guess he was the old gal’s pet, and fred had promised to look arter him when they come out, or summut er that. anyhow fred looked like a very divil.
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“‘which way?’ says he, lookin’ about an’ cockin’ his gun. ‘who was it, tom?’ says he, with his face as white as ashes.
“poor tom had jist breath enough left to say ‘black swan,’ an’ then the blood bubbled out er his mouth, an’ he was dead, an’ his brother a-blubberin’ over him like a gal over her sweetheart. i let him blubber for a bit to ease hisself, but he was ser long about it that i gives him a nudge with my foot. ‘come,’ says i, ‘fred, git up—that ain’t no good,’ says i.
“‘no,’ says he, jumpin’ up, ‘that ain’t no good—but you hear me, tom!’ an’ then he clinched his fist like the playactors, an’ swore that, if he iver cotched black swan, he’d cut him in two with a cross-cut saw.
“‘sarve him right,’ says i, ‘but there ain’t much chance er that.’
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“black swan was a black divil we’d called so ’cos of his gallus long neck. wal, we cotched tom’s horse, and fred took the corpse back on it to the station, and buried his brother close ahind our hut. i can’t say i relished that azactly, nor the way fred ’ud go an’ sit by the grave arter sundown, mumblin’ to hisself as if he was silly. he’d been a jolly chap afore that—not half as jolly as tom, though. the hut was like a dead place when he was gone. all that fred seemed to care about was to get a pop at the blacks. wal, one day when we’d had a scrimmage with ’em, fred hit black swan in the knee. he was a-hoppin’ off, boohooin’ like a babby, a one leg, but fred was down on him in no time. i ’spected he’d blow his brains out right off, an’ have done wi’ him. but fred knocked him down with the butt-end er his gun, an’ tied his hands an’ feet, an’ lugged him back to our hut, an’ kicked him into the skillion ahind.
“‘what are you going to do with that poor divil, fred?’ says i, when we was havin’ our smoke arter supper.
“‘niver you mind,’ says he.
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“wal, it worn’t no business o’ mine, an’ so i turned in. next mornin’ the black was gone, an’ fred didn’t show. then i guessed what was up, an’ told the cove. him and me rode down to the place where poor tom was skewered, an’ there, right afore the grass tree, was the black, lashed atween two planks, an’ sliced through as neat as you’d cut a sangwidch. fred niver showed arter that, an’ i worn’t sorry to be rid er his company, though, arter all, it were on’y a black feller.”
prince chummy was far less affected by this horrid story than harry and donald were. there is not much love lost between black fellows of different tribes; the tribes are not united by any feeling of common patriotism; but native australian lads have the same kind of liking for the blacks that a young squire has for his peasant foster-brother.
“the cowardly english cur!” cried harry, indignantly. “if they’d fought fair with spears and womeras, the englishman would precious soon have cut his lucky.”
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but before he left his brother’s station, harry had learnt to think somewhat more harshly of the blacks.
when sydney’s party had left that last run, and crossed a wide stretch of dry scrub country, they struck a creek shaded by red gum-trees, and ran it down until they came to what was, for australia, a fine river. fig trees and pines—all kinds of trees—laced together with creepers and wild vine, grew thick along the river’s banks. they were pink and purple and crimson and yellow with wild flowers, and big white water-lilies with huge green leaves almost paved the water inshore. there were wild fowl, too, in the river; and scores upon scores of pigeons, bronzewings, and green and purple wompoos, were feasting on the wild figs and cherries, and making them patter down like rain. besides a host of little birds, there were snowy cockatoos and flashing parrots and lories galore, and sometimes a paddymelon was seen.
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“just won’t we blaze away, donald!” cried harry, in ecstasy.
but what pleased sydney more was the grassy, light-timbered land, that stretched like a wild park for miles on both sides of the river. he determined to seek no farther, and as soon as he had pitched his camp, he was in the saddle again, and off to mark out his run. he scored the bark of a tree from which he started with his initials, and then rode a dozen miles or more, and slashed another tree with his tomahawk. in that free-and-easy fashion he took possession of all the land between the trees for ten miles on both sides of the river. then he galloped into camp again, and scribbled off a rough description of the district he had taken up for the crown lands office, using the dray for his writing-desk. with this specification prince chummy was sent back upon their tracks to the nearest post-office. it was by no means certain that prince chummy would return, although he did seem so fond of his young master, since black fellows are very fickle; but he could best be spared from the station when hard work had to be done—that being an occupation not at all to a black fellow’s taste. he might safely be trusted to post the letter, since sydney had made him believe that it would come back to tell of him if he didn’t.
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whilst he was away sydney and jim and bob set to work at timber-felling and splitting, whilst harry and donald in turns mounted guard over the stores or looked after the cattle. before prince chummy got back, a store had been run up, and a hut for sydney and the boys, and another for the men, and the stockyard was nearly finished. masters and men fared very much alike. in neither hut was there any superfluous furniture. the bedsteads were bullocks’ hides stretched on posts driven into the ground. all this time not a black had been seen at pigeon park, as sydney had christened his station. they came often enough afterwards, as you will read in my next chapter; but in this i have only room to tell how they first made their appearance there.
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one evening the cattle and horses had been driven into a grassy horseshoe peninsula made by the winding river, not far from the huts. sydney and the men had knocked off work, and were sitting, smoking, on their verandahs, and the boys were out with their guns. presently harry cried out,
“hark! i can hear a horse galloping yonder. perhaps it’s chummy come back. let’s go and meet him.”
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when donald put his ear down to the ground, he heard the hoofs quite plainly, and agreed to go. as a rule, young australians think it is necessary to ride when they set out anywhither of set purpose. they will take the trouble of running a horse up from a flat almost a mile off in order to ride a mile. but if the boys had gone back then for their horses, the chances were that the horseman, whoever it was, would get to the station almost as soon as they did; so they trotted off on foot. in a few minutes the rider topped a rise, and though the setting sunlight bathed him in bright blood, they could make out that it was chummy. he reined in as he drew near the boys in a place in which there was a belt of scrub on both sides. he was grinning, and shouting back greetings to his young friends, when from the scrub on both sides whizzed a flight of spears. poor chummy, bristled like a porcupine, fell forward on his horse’s neck, clutching the mane with the rigid grasp of death, and the fear-maddened horse, which had been wounded in the neck itself, rushed past the boys like a whirlwind. out of the scrub darted a score or two of darkies, dancing and jabbering, “wah! wah! wah!” like angry apes, and advancing on the boys with brandished spears and wildly-waved boomerangs and waddies.
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“i did feel funky then, and no mistake, mr. howe,” harry afterwards told me; “but, you see, if we’d shown the white feather then, it would have been all up with us. so we turned round and stared at the blacks.
“‘we must pepper them,’ i said to donald.
“‘ay, lad; but ane at a time, and then load whilst the ither is firin’,’ says donald.
“he’s a cool customer, is donald, with his t’anes and t’ithers. we hadn’t much time to talk, for i saw one of the beggars just going to let drive at us, so i up with my gun and let drive at him. i was loaded with duck-shot, and though it scattered, i must have spoilt his beauty, for the blood came streaming down his face. it was queer to see how scared the big beggars were—over six foot some of ’em were. they couldn’t have been much used to powder. they all of them stopped short when they saw the blood, as if they’d all been shot.
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“‘don’t wait for me,’ i said to donald, when i was going to load again; but, though he gave ’em both his barrels pretty quick when he saw how things were, he only marked ’em behind. they’d all turned, and before you could say ‘jack robinson’ they’d vanished in the scrub. syd and the men weren’t long in rushing up, i promise you; but there was nothing left for them to do. poor old chummy was as dead as a doornail by that time. we buried him before we went to bed, with some of the spear-heads still sticking in him. we couldn’t have got ’em out without tearing him all to bits. i suppose the beggars had got it into their heads that he’d brought us, and so wanted to finish him off first. it’s strange the down black fellows have on black fellows. poor old chummy! and yet, after all, if you think of it, you can’t blame the beggars. i can’t see what right we whites have to this country. if you were to get up at night and see a fellow helping himself to your swag, you’d do your best, i guess, to shoot him if he wouldn’t bundle out. and that’s how the blacks must feel when they see us taking up their country. it sounds soft, and yet i can’t help half wishing sometimes that they were as ’cute and as plucky as the maories. they won’t stand nonsense, for all your english red-coats; though the soldiers and settlers between them might eat up every maori, if they could only catch ’em and kill ’em. there’s enough of ’em to do it.”
