Saw the promise of the future
And the prices sheep would be.
The season, with insensible and subtle gradation, stole slowly, yet surely, forward. The oat-grass waved its tassels strangely like the familiar hay-field over many a league of plain and meadow. The callow broods of wild fowl sailed joyously amid the broad flags of the lagoons, or in the deep pools of the creeks and river. The hawk screamed exultant as she floated adown the long azure of the bright blue, changeless summer sky. Bird, and tree, and flower told truly and gleefully, after their fashion, of the coming of fair spring; brief might be her stay, it is true, but all nature had time to gaze on her richly-tinted robes and form, potently enthralling in their sudden splendour, as are the fierce and glowing charms of the south.
Unbroken success! The new sheep arrived and were delivered reluctantly by their owner, who swore by all his gods that the agents had betrayed him, and that for two pins he would not deliver at all, but finally consented to hear reason, and sold his cart and horses, tent and traps – yet another bargain – to the invincible M‘Nab, departing with his underlings by mail.
Shearing was nearly over, the last flock being washed, when one afternoon M‘Nab came home in a high state of dissatisfaction with everything. The men were shearing badly; there had been two or three rows; the washers had struck for more wages; everything was out of gear.
“I’ve been trying to find out the reason all day,” said he, as he threw himself down on the camp-bed in his tent, with clouded brow, “and I can think of nothing unless there is some villainous hawker about with grog; and I haven’t seen any cart either.”
“It’s awfully vexatious,” said Jack, “just as we were getting through so well. What the pest is that?” By this time, the day having been expended in mishaps and conjectures, evening was drawing on. A dark figure came bounding through the twilight at a high rate of speed, and, casting itself on the tent floor, remained in a crouching, pleading position.
“Why, Wildduck,” said Jack, in amazement, “what is the matter now? You are the most dramatic young woman. Has a hostile brave been attempting to carry you off? or old man Jack had a fit of unfounded jealousy? Tell us all about it.”
“That ole black gin, Nanny,” sobbed the girl, lifting up her face, across which the blood from a gash on the brow mixed freely with her tears; “that one try to kill me, she close up choke me only for Maramie.” Here she showed her throat, on which were marks of severe compression.
“Poor Wildduck!” said Jack, trying to soothe the excited creature. “What made her do that? I thought yours was a model happy family?”
“She quiet enough, only for that cursed drink. She regular debbil-debbil when she get a glass.”
“Ay!” said M‘Nab, “just as I expected; and where did you all get it? You’ve had a nip, too, I can see.”
“Only one glass, Mr. M‘Nab; won’t tell a lie,” deprecated the fugitive. “That bumboat man sell shearers and washers some. You no see him?”
“How should I see?” quoth M‘Nab; “where is he now?”
“Just inside timber by the wash-pen,” answered the girl; “he sneak out, but leave ’em cart there.”
“I think I see my way to cutting out this pirate, or ‘bumboat,’ as Wildduck calls him,” said Jack. “The forest laws were sharp and stern – that is, I believe, that on suspicion of illegal grog you can capture a hawker with the strong hand in New South Wales. So, Wildduck, you go and camp with the carrier’s wife, she’ll take you in; and, M‘Nab, you get a couple of horses and the ration-carrier – he’s a stout fellow – and we’ll go forth and board this craft. We’ll do a bit of privateering; ha, ha! ‘whate’er they sees upon the seas they seize upon it.’”
With short preparation the little party set out in the cool starlight. Jack put a revolver into his belt for fear of accidents. Mr. M‘Nab had fished out the section of the Licensed Hawkers’ Act which referred to the illegal carrying of spirits, and, being duly satisfied that he had the law on his side, was ready for anything. The ration-carrier was strictly impartial. He was ready to assist in the triumph of capture, or to return unsuccessful with an equal mind, caring not a straw which way the enterprise went. He lit his pipe, and followed silently. As they approached the wash-pen they became sensible of an extraordinary noise, as of crying, talking, and screaming – all mingled. From time to time a wild shriek rent the air, while the rapid articulation in an unknown tongue seemed to go on uninterruptedly.
“Must be another set of blacks,” said Jack, as he halted to listen. “I hope not; one camp is quite enough on the place at a time.”
“It’s that old sweep, Nanny, I’m thinking,” said the ration-carrier. “When she has a drop of grog on board she can make row enough for a whole tribe. I’ve heard her at them games before.”
As the miami of the sable patriarch came into view, dimly lighted by a small fire, an altogether unique scene presented itself. The old gin, called Nanny, very lightly attired, was marching backward and forward in front of the fire, apparently in a state of demoniac possession. She was crying aloud in her own tongue, with the voice at its highest pitch of shrillness, and with inconceivable rapidity and frenzy. In her hand she carried a long and tolerably stout wand, being, in fact, no other than the identical yam-stick to which Wildduck had referred as a weapon of offence, when proposing her as a fitting antagonist for the contumacious young stockman. With this she occasionally punctuated her rhetoric by waving it over her head, or bringing it down with terrific violence upon the earth. The meagre frame of the old heathen seemed galvanised into magical power and strength as she paced swiftly on her self-appointed course, whirling her shrivelled arms on high, or bounding from the earth with surprising agility. Such may have been the form, such the accents, of the inspired prophetess in the dawn of a religion of mystery and fear among the rude tribes of earth’s earliest peoples – a Cassandra shrieking forth her country’s woes – a Sibyl pouring out the dread oracles of a demon worship. The old warrior sat unmoved, with stony eyes fixed on vacancy, as the weird apparition passed and repassed like the phantasmagoria of a dream; while his aged companion, who seemed of softer mould, cowered fearfully and helplessly by his side.
“By Jove!” said Jack, “this is a grand and inspiriting sight. I don’t wonder that Wildduck fled away from this style of thing. This old beldame would frighten the very witches on a respectable Walpurgis night. Great is the fire-water of the white man!”
“She’ll wear herself out soon,” said the ration-carrier. “Old man Jack wouldn’t stand nice about downing her with the waddy, if she came near enough to him. He and the tother old mammy, they never touches no grog. They’re about the only two people in this part of the country as I know of as doesn’t. But the gins is awful.”
“Polygamy has its weak side, apparently,” moralized Jack, as still the frenzied form sped frantically past, and raved, and yelled, and chattered, and threatened; “not but what the uncultured white female occasionally goes on ‘the rampage’ to some purpose. Hallo! she’s shortening stride; we shall see the finale.”
Suddenly, as if an unseen hand had arrested the force which had so miraculously sustained her feeble form, she stopped. The fire of her protruding eyes was quenched; her nerveless limbs tottered and dragged; uttering a horrible, hoarse, unnatural cry, and throwing out her arms as in supplication and fear, she fell forward, without an effort to save herself, almost upon the embers of the dying fire. Old man Jack sat stern and immovable; but the woman ran forward with a gesture of pity, and, dragging the corpse-like form a few paces from the fire, covered it with a large opossum-skin cloak or rug.
“We may as well be getting on towards this scoundrel of a hawker,” proposed M‘Nab. “He ought to get it a little hotter if it were only for this bit of mischief.”
“There’s a deal of tobacky in the grog these fellows sell,” observed the ration-carrier, with steady conviction, “that’s the worst of ’em; if they’d only keep good stuff, it wouldn’t be so much matter in this black country, as one might say. But I remember getting two glasses, only two as