Robbery Under Arms

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We were so quiet and comfortable till the winter was over and the spring
coming on, till about September, that I almost began to believe
we'd never done anything in our lives we could be made to suffer for.

Now and then, of course, I used to wake up in the night,
and my thoughts would go back to `Terrible Hollow', that wonderful place;
and one night with the unbranded cattle, and Starlight,
with the blood dripping on to his horse's shoulder,
and the half-caste, with his hawk's eye and glittering teeth --
father, with his gloomy face and dark words. I wondered whether
it was all a dream; whether I and Jim had been in at all;
whether any of the `cross-work' had been found out; and, if so,
what would be done to me and Jim; most of all, though,
whether father and Starlight were away after some `big touch';
and, if so, where and what it was, and how soon we should hear of it.

As for Jim, he was one of those happy-go-lucky fellows
that didn't bother himself about anything he didn't see or run against.
I don't think it ever troubled him. It was the only bad thing
he'd ever been in. He'd been drawn in against his will,
and I think he had made up his mind -- pretty nearly --
not to go in for any more.

I have often seen Aileen talking to him, and they'd walk along in the evening
when the work was done -- he with his arm round her waist,
and she looking at him with that quiet, pleased face of hers,
seeming so proud and fond of him, as if he'd been the little chap
she used to lead about and put on the old pony, and bring into the calf-pen
when she was milking. I remember he had a fight with a little bull-calf,
about a week old, that came in with a wild heifer, and Aileen
made as much of his pluck as if it had been a mallee scrubber.
The calf baaed and butted at Jim, as even the youngest of them will,
if they've the wild blood in 'em, and nearly upset him; he was only
a bit of a toddler. But Jim picked up a loose leg of a milking-stool,
and the two went at it hammer and tongs. I could hardly stand for laughing,
till the calf gave him best and walked.

Aileen pulled him out, and carried him in to mother, telling her
that he was the bravest little chap in the world; and I remember I got scolded
for not going to help him. How these little things come back!

`I'm beginning to be afraid,' says George, one evening,
`that it's going to be a dry season.'

`There's plenty of time yet,' says Jim, who always took
the bright side of things; `it might rain towards the end of the month.'

`I was thinking the same thing,' I said. `We haven't had any rain to speak of
for a couple of months, and that bit of wheat of ours is beginning to go back.
The oats look better.'

`Now I think of it,' put in Jim, `Dick Dawson came in from outside,
and he said things are shocking bad; all the frontage bare already,
and the water drying up.'

`It's always the way,' I said, bitter-like. `As soon as a poor man's
got a chance of a decent crop, the season turns against him or prices go down,
so that he never gets a chance.'

`It's as bad for the rich man, isn't it?' said George. `It's God's will,
and we can't make or mend things by complaining.'

`I don't know so much about that,' I said sullenly. `But it's not as bad
for the rich man. Even if the squatters suffer by a drought
and lose their stock, they've more stock and money in the bank, or else credit
to fall back on; while the like of us lose all we have in the world,
and no one would lend us a pound afterwards to save our lives.'

`It's not quite so bad as that,' said George. `I shall lose my year's work
unless rain comes, and most of the cattle and horses besides;
but I shall be able to get a few pounds to go on with,
however the season goes.'

`Oh! if you like to bow and scrape to rich people, well and good,' I said;
`but that's not my way. We have as good a right to our share of the land
and some other good things as they have, and why should we be done out of it?'

`If we pay for the land as they do, certainly,' said George.

`But why should we pay? God Almighty, I suppose, made the land
and the people too, one to live on the other. Why should we pay
for what is our own? I believe in getting my share somehow.'

`That's a sort of argument that doesn't come out right,' said George.
`How would you like another man to come and want to halve the farm with you?'

`I shouldn't mind; I should go halves with some one else
who had a bigger one,' I said. `More money too, more horses, more sheep,
a bigger house! Why should he have it and not me?'

`That's a lazy man's argument, and -- well, not an honest man's,' said George,
getting up and putting on his cabbage-tree. `I can't sit and hear you
talk such rot. Nobody can work better than you and Jim, when you like.
I wonder you don't leave such talk to fellows like Frowser,
that's always spouting at the Shearers' Arms.'

`Nonsense or not, if a dry season comes and knocks all our work over,
I shall help myself to some one's stuff that has more than he knows
what to do with.'

`Why can't we all go shearing, and make as much as will keep us
for six months?' said George. `I don't know what we'd do
without the squatters.'

`Nor I either; more ways than one; but Jim and I are going shearing next week.
So perhaps there won't be any need for "duffing" after all.'

`Oh, Dick!' said Aileen, `I can't bear to hear you make a joke
of that kind of thing. Don't we all know what it leads to!
Wouldn't it be better to live on dry bread and be honest than to be
full of money and never know the day when you'd be dragged to gaol?'

`I've heard all that before; but ain't there lots of people
that have made their money by all sorts of villainy, that look as well
as the best, and never see a gaol?'

`They're always caught some day,' says poor Aileen, sobbing,
`and what a dreadful life of anxiety they must lead!'

`Not at all,' I said. `Look at Lucksly, Squeezer, and Frying-pan Jack.
Everybody knows how they got their stock and their money.
See how they live. They've got stations, and public-house and town property,
and they get richer every year. I don't think it pays to be too honest
in a dry country.'

`You're a naughty boy, Dick; isn't he, Jim?' she said, smiling through
her tears. `But he doesn't mean half what he says, does he?'

`Not he,' says Jim; `and very likely we'll have lots of rain after all.'

Chapter 8

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.

So I gave Jim his share; and after tea, when we sat down again,
there weren't more than a dozen of us that were in the card racket.
I flung down my note, and Jim did his, and told them that we owed to take
the change out of that and hand us over their paper for the balance.

They all stared, for such a thing hadn't been seen since the shearing began.
Shearers, as a rule, come from their homes in the settled districts
very bare. They are not very well supplied with clothes;
their horses are poor and done up; and they very seldom have a note
in their pockets, unless they have managed to sell a spare horse
on the journey.

So we were great men for the time, looked at by the others
with wonder and respect. We were fools enough to be pleased with it.
Strangely, too, our luck turned from that minute, and it ended in our winning
not only our own back, but more than as much more from the other men.

I don't think Mr. Falkland liked these goings on. He wouldn't
have allowed cards at all if he could have helped it. He was a man
that hated what was wrong, and didn't value his own interest a pin
when it came in the way. However, the shearing hut was our own,
in a manner of speaking, and as long as we shore clean and kept the shed going
the overseer, Mr. M`Intyre, didn't trouble his head much
about our doings in the hut. He was anxious to get done with the shearing,
to get the wool into the bales before the dust came in,
and the grass seed ripened, and the clover burrs began to fall.

`Why should ye fash yoursel',' I heard him say once to Mr. Falkland,
`aboot these young deevils like the Marstons? They're as good's ready money
in auld Nick's purse. It's bred and born and welded in them.
Ye'll just have the burrs and seeds amang the wool if ye keep losing
a smart shearer for the sake o' a wheen cards and dice;
and ye'll mak' nae heed of convairtin' thae young caterans ony mair
than ye'll change a Norroway falcon into a barn-door chuckie.'

I wonder if what he said was true -- if we couldn't help it;
if it was in our blood? It seems like it; and yet it's hard lines to think
a fellow must grow up and get on the cross in spite of himself,
and come to the gallows-foot at last, whether he likes it or not.
The parson here isn't bad at all. He's a man and a gentleman, too;
and he's talked and read to me by the hour. I suppose some of us chaps
are like the poor stupid tribes that the Israelites found in Canaan,
only meant to live for a bit and then to be rubbed out to make room
for better people.

When the shearing was nearly over we had a Saturday afternoon to ourselves.
We had finished all the sheep that were in the shed, and old M`Intyre
didn't like to begin a fresh flock. So we got on our horses and took a ride
into the township just for the fun of the thing, and for a little change.
The horses had got quite fresh with the rest and the spring grass.
Their coats were shining, and they all looked very different
from what they did when we first came. Our two were not so poor
when they came, so they looked the best of the lot, and jumped about in style
when we mounted. Ah! only to think of a good horse.

All the men washed themselves and put on clean clothes.
Then we had our dinner and about a dozen of us started off for the town.

Poor old Jim, how well he looked that day! I don't think you could pick
a young fellow anywhere in the countryside that was a patch on him
for good looks and manliness, somewhere about six foot or a little over,
as straight as a rush, with a bright blue eye that was always
laughing and twinkling, and curly dark brown hair. No wonder all the girls
used to think so much of him. He could do anything and everything
that a man could do. He was as strong as a young bull,
and as active as a rock wallaby -- and ride! Well, he sat on his horse
as if he was born on one. With his broad shoulders and upright easy seat
he was a regular picture on a good horse.

And he had a good one under him to-day; a big, brown, resolute,
well-bred horse he had got in a swap because the man that had him
was afraid of him. Now that he had got a little flesh on his bones
he looked something quite out of the common. `A deal too good for a poor man,
and him honest,' as old M`Intyre said.

But Jim turned on him pretty sharp, and said he had got the horse
in a fair deal, and had as much right to a good mount as any one else --
super or squatter, he didn't care who he was.

And Mr. Falkland took Jim's part, and rather made Mr. M`Intyre out
in the wrong for saying what he did. The old man didn't say much more,
only shook his head, saying --

`Ah, ye're a grand laddie, and buirdly, and no that thrawn, either --
like ye, Dick, ye born deevil,' looking at me. `But I misdoot sair
ye'll die wi' your boots on. There's a smack o' Johnnie Armstrong
in the glint o' yer e'e. Ye'll be to dree yer weird, there's nae help for't.'

`What's all that lingo, Mr. M`Intyre?' called out Jim,
all good-natured again. `Is it French or Queensland blacks' yabber?
Blest if I understand a word of it. But I didn't want to be nasty,
only I am regular shook on this old moke, I believe, and he's as square
as Mr. Falkland's dogcart horse.'

`Maybe ye bocht him fair eneugh. I'll no deny you. I saw the receipt mysel'.
But where did yon lang-leggit, long-lockit, Fish River moss-trooping callant
win haud o' him? Answer me that, Jeems.'

`That says nothing,' answered Jim. `I'm not supposed to trace back
every horse in the country and find out all the people that owned him
since he was a foal. He's mine now, and mine he'll be
till I get a better one.'

`A contuma-acious and stiff-necked generation,' said the old man,
walking off and shaking his head. `And yet he's a fine laddie;
a gra-and laddie wad he be with good guidance. It's the Lord's doing,
nae doot, and we daurna fault it; it's wondrous in our een.'

That was the way old Mac always talked. Droll lingo, wasn't it?

Chapter 9

Well, away we went to this township. Bundah was the name of it;
not that there was anything to do or see when we got there.
It was the regular up-country village, with a public-house, a store, a pound,
and a blacksmith's shop. However, a public-house is not such a bad place --
at any rate it's better than nothing when a fellow's young and red-hot
for anything like a bit of fun, or even a change. Some people can work away
day after day, and year after year, like a bullock in a team or a horse
in a chaff-cutting machine. It's all the better for them if they can,
though I suppose they never enjoy themselves except in a cold-blooded
sort of way. But there's other men that can't do that sort of thing,
and it's no use talking. They must have life and liberty and a free range.
There's some birds, and animals too, that either pine in a cage
or kill themselves, and I suppose it's the same way with some men.
They can't stand the cage of what's called honest labour,
which means working for some one else for twenty or thirty years,
never having a day to yourself, or doing anything you like,
and saving up a trifle for your old age when you can't enjoy it.
I don't wonder youngsters break traces and gallop off like a colt
out of a team.

Besides, sometimes there's a good-looking girl even at a bush public,
the daughter or the barmaid, and it's odd, now, what a difference that makes.
There's a few glasses of grog going, a little noisy, rattling talk,
a few smiles and a saucy answer or two from the girl,
a look at the last newspaper, or a bit of the town news from the landlord;
he's always time to read. Hang him -- I mean confound him --
for he's generally a sly old spider who sucks us fellows pretty dry,
and then don't care what becomes of us. Well, it don't amount to much,
but it's life -- the only taste of it that chaps like us are likely to get.
And people may talk as much as they like; boys, and men too, will like it,
and take to it, and hanker after it, as long as the world lasts.
There's danger in it, and misery, and death often enough comes of it,
but what of that? If a man wants a swim on the seashore he won't stand
all day on the beach because he may be drowned or snapped up by a shark,
or knocked against a rock, or tired out and drawn under by the surf.
No, if he's a man he'll jump in and enjoy himself all the more because
the waves are high and the waters deep. So it was very good fun to us,
simple as it might sound to some people. It was pleasant to be bowling along
over the firm green turf, along the plain, through the forest, gully,
and over the creek. Our horses were fresh, and we had a scurry or two,
of course; but there wasn't one that could hold a candle to Jim's brown horse.
He was a long-striding, smooth goer, but he got over the ground
in wonderful style. He could jump, too, for Jim put him over
a big log fence or two, and he sailed over them like a forester buck
over the head of a fallen wattle.

Well, we'd had our lark at the Bundah Royal Hotel, and were coming home
to tea at the station, all in good spirits, but sober enough,
when, just as we were crossing one of the roads that came through the run
-- over the `Pretty Plain', as they called it -- we heard a horse
coming along best pace. When we looked who should it be but Miss Falkland,
the owner's only daughter.

She was an only child, and the very apple of her father's eye,
you may be sure. The shearers mostly knew her by sight,
because she had taken a fancy to come down with her father a couple of times
to see the shed when we were all in full work.

A shed's not exactly the best place for a young lady to come into.
Shearers are rough in their language now and then. But every man
liked and respected Mr. Falkland, so we all put ourselves
on our best behaviour, and the two or three flash fellows
who had no sense or decent feeling were warned that if they broke out at all
they would get something to remember it by.

But when we saw that beautiful, delicate-looking creature
stepping down the boards between the two rows of shearers,
most of them stripped to their jerseys and working like steam-engines,
looking curiously and pitifully at the tired men and the patient sheep,
with her great, soft, dark eyes and fair white face like a lily,
we began to think we'd heard of angels from heaven, but never seen one before.

Just as she came opposite Jim, who was trying to shear sheep and sheep
with the `ringer' of the shed, who was next on our right,
the wether he was holding kicked, and knocking the shears out of his hand,
sent them point down against his wrist. One of the points went right in,
and though it didn't cut the sinews, as luck would have it,
the point stuck out at the other side; out spurted the blood,
and Jim was just going to let out when he looked up and saw Miss Falkland
looking at him, with her beautiful eyes so full of pity and surprise
that he could have had his hand chopped off, so he told me afterwards,
rather than vex her for a moment. So he shut up his mouth
and ground his teeth together, for it was no joke in the way of pain,
and the blood began to run like a blind creek after a thunderstorm.

`Oh! poor fellow. What a dreadful cut! Look, papa!' she cried out.
`Hadn't something better be bound round it? How it bleeds!
Does it pain much?'

`Not a bit, miss!' said Jim, standing up like a schoolboy going to say
his lesson. `That is, it doesn't matter if it don't stop my shearing.'

`Tar!' sings out my next-door neighbour. `Here, boy; tar wanted for No. 36.
That'll put it all right, Jim; it's only a scratch.'

`You mind your shearing, my man,' said Mr. Falkland quietly. `I don't know
whether Mr. M`Intyre will quite approve of that last sheep of yours.
This is rather a serious wound. The best thing is to bind it up at once.'

Before any one could say another word Miss Falkland had whipped out
her soft fine cambric handkerchief and torn it in two.

`Hold up your hand,' she said. `Now, papa, lend me yours.' With the last
she cleared the wound of the flowing blood, and then neatly and skilfully
bound up the wrist firmly with the strips of cambric.
This she further protected by her father's handkerchief,
which she helped herself to and finally stopped the blood with.

Jim kept looking at her small white hands all the time she was doing it.
Neither of us had ever seen such before -- the dainty skin, the pink nails,
the glittering rings.

`There,' she said, `I don't think you ought to shear any more to-day;
it might bring on inflammation. I'll send to know how it gets on to-morrow.'

`No, miss; my grateful thanks, miss,' said Jim, opening his eyes
and looking as if he'd like to drop down on his knees and pray to her.
`I shall never forget your goodness, Miss Falkland, if I live
till I'm a hundred.' Then Jim bent his head a bit -- I don't suppose
he ever made a bow in his life before -- and then drew himself up as straight
as a soldier, and Miss Falkland made a kind of bow and smile to us all
and passed out.