IN BAD COMPANY
CHAPTER I
Bill Hardwick was as fine a specimen of an Australian as you could find in a day's march. Active as a cat and strong withal, he was mostly described as 'a real good all-round chap, that you couldn't put wrong at any kind of work that a man could be asked to do.'
He could plough and reap, dig and mow, put up fences and huts, break in horses and drive bullocks; he could milk cows and help in the dairy as handily as a woman. These and other accomplishments he was known to possess, and being a steady, sensible fellow, was always welcome when work was needed and a good man valued. Besides all this he was the fastest and the best shearer in the district of Tumut, New South Wales, where he was born, as had been his father and mother before him. So that he was a true Australian in every sense of the word.
It could not be said that the British race had degenerated as far as he was concerned. Six feet high, broad-chested, light-flanked, and standing on his legs like a gamecock, he was always ready to fight or work, run, ride or swim, in fact to tackle any muscular exercise in the world at the shortest notice.
Bill had always been temperate, declining to spend his earnings to enrich the easy-going township publican, whose mode of gaining a living struck him as being too far removed from that of honest toil. Such being his principles and mode of life, he had put by a couple of hundred pounds, and 'taken up a selection.' This means (in Australia) that he had conditionally purchased three hundred and twenty acres of Crown Land, had paid up two shillings per acre of the upset price, leaving the balance of eighteen shillings, to be paid off when convenient. He had constructed thereon, chiefly with his own hands, a comfortable, four-roomed cottage, of the 'slab' architecture of the period, and after fencing in his property and devoting the proceeds of a couple of shearings to a modest outlay in furniture, had married Jenny Dawson, a good-looking, well-conducted young woman, whom he had known ever since he was big enough to crack a stockwhip.
In her way she was as clever and capable; exceptionally well adapted for the position of a farmer's wife, towards which occupation her birth and surroundings had tended. She was strong and enduring in her way, as were her husband and brothers in theirs. She could milk cows and make excellent butter, wasn't afraid of a turbulent heifer in the dairy herd, or indisposed to rise before daylight in the winter mornings and drive in the milkers through the wet or frozen grass. She could catch and saddle her own riding-horse or drive the spring cart along an indifferent road to the country town. She knew all about the rearing of calves, pigs, and poultry; could salt beef and cure bacon—in a general way attend to all the details of a farm. Her father had acquired a small grant in the early colonial days, and from its produce and profits reared a family of healthy boys and girls.
They had not been educated up to the State school standard now considered necessary for every dweller in town or country, but they could read and write decently; had also such knowledge of arithmetic as enabled them to keep their modest accounts. Such having been the early training of Bill's helpmate, it was a fair augury that, with luck and good conduct, they were as likely as any young couple of their age to prosper reasonably, so as eventually to acquire a competence, or even, as indeed not a few of their old friends and neighbours had done, to attain to that enviable position generally described as 'making a fortune.'
For the first few years nothing could have been more promising than the course of affairs at Chidowla or 'Appletree Flat,' as their homestead was formerly named, in consequence of the umbrageous growth of the 'angophora' in the meadow by the mountain creek, which bordered their farm. Bill stayed at home and worked steadily, until he had put in his crop. He cleared and cultivated a larger piece of ground with each succeeding year. The seasons were genial, and the rainfall, though occasionally precarious, did not, during this period, show any diminution. But annually, before the first spring month came round, Bill saddled the old mare, and leading a less valuable or perhaps half-broken young horse, packed his travelling 'swag' upon it and started off for the shearing. Jenny did not particularly like being left alone for three months or perhaps four, with no one but the children, for by this time a sturdy boy and baby girl had been added to the household. But Bill brought home such a welcome addition to the funds in the shape of the squatters' cheques, that she hid her uneasiness and discomfort from him, only hoping, as she said, that some day, if matters went on as they were going, they would be able to do without the shearing money, and Bill could afford to stop with his wife and children all the year round. That was what she would like.
So time went on, till after one more shearing, Bill began to think about buying the next selection, which an improvident neighbour would shortly be forced to sell, owing to his drinking habits and too great fondness for country race meetings.
The soil of the land so handily situated was better than their own, and, as an adjoining farm, could be managed without additional expense.
The 'improvements' necessary for holding it under the lenient land laws of New South Wales had been effected.
They were not particularly valuable, but they had been passed by the Inspector of Conditional Purchases, who was not too hard on a poor man, if he made his selection his 'bona fide home and residence.' This condition Mr. Dick Donahue certainly had fulfilled as far as locating his hard-working wife Bridget and half-a-dozen bare-legged, ragged children thereon, with very little to eat sometimes, while he was acting as judge at a bush race meeting, or drinking recklessly at the public-house in the township.
So now the end had come. The place was mortgaged up to its full value with the bank at Talmorah, the manager of which had refused to advance another shilling upon it.
The storekeeper, who had a bill of sale over the furniture, horses and cows, plough, harrow, and winnowing machine, had decided to sell him up. The butcher and the baker, despairing of getting their bills paid, declined further orders. Poor Bridget had been lately feeding herself and the children on milk and potatoes, last year's bacon, and what eggs the fowls, not too well fed themselves, kindly produced.
Jenny had helped them many a time, from womanly pity. But for her, they would often have been without the 'damper' bread, which served to fill up crevices with the hungry brood—not that she expected return or payment, but as she said, 'How could I see the poor things hungry, while we have a snug home and all we can eat and drink?'
Then she would mentally compare Bill's industry with Dick's neglect, and a feeling of wifely pride would thrill her heart as she returned to her comfortable cottage and put her children, always neatly dressed, to sleep in their clean cots.
As she sat before the fire, near the trimly-swept hearth, which looked so pleasant and homely, though there was but a wooden slab chimney with a stone facing, a vision arose before her of prosperous days when they would have a ring fence round their own and the Donahues' farm—perhaps even an 'additional conditional lease,' to be freehold eventually—afterwards a flock of sheep and who knows what in the years to come.
'The Donahues, poor things, would have to sell and go away, that was certain; they couldn't prevent them being sold up—and, of course, Bill might as well buy it as another. The bank manager, Mr. Calthorpe, would sell the place, partly on credit, trusting Bill for the remainder, with security on both farms, because he was sober and industrious. Indeed, he told Bill so last week. What a thing it was to have a good name! When she thought of the way other women's husbands "knocked down" their money after shearing, forty and fifty pounds, even more, in a week's drunken bout, she felt that she could not be too thankful.