Guy Bolding. – Humph! I should be content to live and die in the Bush – nothing like it, if women were not so scarce. To think of the redundant spinster population at home, and not a spinster here to be seen within thirty miles, save Bet Goggins, indeed – and she has only one eye! But to return to Vivian – why should it be our object, more than his, to get back to England as soon as we can?
Pisistratus. – Not more, certainly. But you saw that an excitement more stirring than that we find in the sheep had become necessary to him. You know he was growing dull and dejected; the cattle station was to be sold a bargain. And then the Durham bulls, and the Yorkshire horses, which Mr Trevanion sent you and me out as presents, were so tempting, I thought we might fairly add one speculation to another; and since one of us must superintend the bucolics, and two of us were required for the pastorals, I think Vivian was the best of us three to intrust with the first; and, certainly, it has succeeded as yet.
Guy. – Why, yes, Vivian is quite in his element – always in action, and always in command. Let him be first in everything, and there is not a finer fellow, nor a better tempered – present company excepted. Hark! the dogs, the crack of the whip; there he is. And now, I suppose, we may go to dinner.
Enter Vivian.
His frame has grown more athletic; his eye, more steadfast and less restless, looks you full in the face. His smile is more open; but there is a melancholy in his expression, almost approaching to gloom. His dress is the same as that of Pisistratus and Guy – white vest and trowsers; loose neckcloth, rather gay in colour; broad cabbage-leaf hat; his mustache and beard are trimmed with more care than ours. He has a large whip in his hand, and a gun slung across his shoulders. Greetings are exchanged; mutual inquiries as to cattle and sheep, and the last horses despatched to the Indian market. Guy shows the Lives of the Poets; Vivian asks if it is possible to get the Life of Clive, or Napoleon, or a copy of Plutarch. Guy shakes his head – says, if a Robinson Crusoe will do as well, he has seen one in a very tattered state, but in too great request to be had a bargain.
The party turn into the hut. Miserable animals are bachelors in all countries; but most miserable in Bushland. A man does not know what a helpmate of the soft sex is in the Old World, where women seem a matter of course. But in the Bush, a wife is literally bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh – your better half, your ministering angel, your Eve of the Eden – in short, all that poets have sung, or young orators say at public dinners, when called upon to give the toast of "The Ladies." Alas! we are three bachelors, but we are better off than bachelors often are in the Bush. For the wife of the shepherd I took from Cumberland does me and Bolding the honour to live in our hut, and make things tidy and comfortable. She has had a couple of children since we have been in the Bush; a wing has been added to the hut for that increase of family. The children, I daresay, one might have thought a sad nuisance in England; but I declare that, surrounded as one is by great bearded men, from sunrise to sunset, there is something humanising, musical, and Christian-like, in the very squall of the baby. There it goes – bless it! As for my other companions from Cumberland, Miles Square, the most aspiring of all, has long left me, and is superintendent to a great sheep-owner some two hundred miles off. The Will-o'-the-Wisp is consigned to the cattle station, where he is Vivian's head man, finding time now and then to indulge his old poaching propensities at the expense of parrots, black cockatoos, pigeons, and kangaroos. The shepherd remains with us, and does not seem, honest fellow, to care to better himself; he has a feeling of clanship, which keeps down the ambition common in Australia. And his wife – such a treasure! I assure you, the sight of her smooth, smiling woman's face, when we return home at nightfall, and the very flow of her gown, as she turns the "dampers"1 in the ashes, and fills the teapot, have in them something holy and angelical. How lucky our Cumberland swain is not jealous! Not that there is any cause, enviable dog though he be; but where Desdemonas are so scarce, if you could but guess how green-eyed their Othellos generally are! Excellent husbands, it is true – none better; but you had better think twice before you attempt to play the Cassio in Bushland! There, however, she is, dear creature! – rattling among knives and forks, smoothing the tablecloth, setting on the salt-beef, and that rare luxury of pickles, (the last pot in our store), and the produce of our garden and poultry-yard, which few Bushmen can boast of – and the dampers, and a pot of tea to each banqueter; no wine, beer, nor spirits – those are only for shearing-time. We have just said grace, (a fashion retained from the holy mother country), when, bless my soul! what a clatter without, what a tramping of feet, what a barking of dogs! Some guests have arrived. They are always welcome in Bushland! Perhaps a cattle-buyer in search of Vivian; perhaps that cursed squatter, whose sheep are always migrating to ours. Never mind, a hearty welcome to all – friend or foe. The door opens; one, two, three, strangers. More plates and knives; draw your stools; just in time. First eat, then – what news?
Just as the strangers sit down, a voice is heard at the door —
"You will take particular care of this horse, young man: walk him about a little; wash his back with salt and water. Just unbuckle the saddle-bags; give them to me. Oh! safe enough, I daresay – but papers of consequence. The prosperity of the colony depends on these papers. What would become of you all if any accident happened to them, I shudder to think."
And here, attired in a twill shooting-jacket, budding with gilt buttons, impressed with a well-remembered device; a cabbage-leaf hat shading a face rarely seen in the Bush – a face smooth as razor could make it: neat, trim, respectable-looking as ever – his arm full of saddle-bags, and his nostrils gently distended, inhaling the steam of the banquet, walks in – Uncle Jack.
Pisistratus, (leaping up.) – Is it possible! You, in Australia – you in the Bush!
Uncle Jack, not recognising Pisistratus in the tall, bearded man who is making a plunge at him, recedes in alarm, exclaiming – "Who are you? – never saw you before, sir! I suppose you'll say next that I owe you something!"
Pisistratus. – Uncle Jack!
Uncle Jack, (dropping his saddle-bags.) – Nephew! – Heaven be praised. Come to my arms!
They embrace; mutual introductions to the company – Mr Vivian, Mr Bolding, on the one side – Major MacBlarney, Mr Bullion, Mr Emanuel Speck on the other. Major MacBlarney is a fine portly man, with a slight Dublin brogue, who squeezes your hand as he would a sponge. Mr Bullion – reserved and haughty – wears green spectacles, and gives you a forefinger. Mr Emanuel Speck – unusually smart for the Bush, with a blue satin stock, and one of those blouses common in Germany, with elaborate hems, and pockets enough for Briareus to have put all his hands into at once – is thin, civil, and stoops – bows, smiles, and sits down to dinner again, with the air of a man accustomed to attend to the main chance.
Uncle Jack, (his mouth full of beef.) – Famous beef! – breed it yourself, eh? Slow work that cattle-feeding! (Empties the rest of the pickle-jar into his plate.) Must learn to go ahead in the new world – railway times these! We can put him up to a thing or two – eh, Bullion? (Whispering me,) – Great capitalist that Bullion! LOOK AT HIM!
Mr Bullion, (gravely.) – A thing or two! If he has capital – you have said it, Mr Tibbets. (Looks round for the pickles – the green spectacles remain fixed upon Uncle Jack's plate.)
Uncle Jack. – All that this colony wants is a few men like us, with capital and spirit. Instead of paying paupers to emigrate, they should pay rich men to come – eh, Speck?
While Uncle Jack turns to Mr Speck, Mr Bullion fixes his fork in a pickled onion in Jack's plate, and transfers it to his own – observing, not as incidentally to the onion, but to truth in general – "A man, gentlemen, in this country, has only to keep his eyes on the look-out, and seize on the first advantage! – resources are incalculable!"
Uncle Jack, returning to the plate and missing the onion, forestalls Mr Speck in seizing the last potato – observing also, and in the same philosophical and generalising spirit as Mr Bullion – "The great thing in this country is to be always beforehand: discovery and invention, promptitude and decision! – that's your go. 'Pon my life, one picks up sad vulgar sayings among the