CHAPTER XVIII

RAVENSWORTH

Stern realities of bush life - No glamour remains - True types of bush "hand" - Bushrangers and cattle thieves - Highway robbery and murder - Chased - Cross a stream in flood - Lost in the bush - Starvation - A creeping horror - Mustering cattle - A brave woman and a black snake.

I LEFT next morning for Newcastle, but already with some mysterious foreboding of failure hanging over me. I felt that I was now no longer a mere looker-on in the life-struggle which I saw on all sides, but that I had come into it to take my own part. In my turn I was to try what fortune could do for a poor man : but I believed in personal endeavour and the recognition of it by Providence. I did not know Providence.

Arrived in Newcastle I took the train to Singleton, from which the Russell's Station was distant about fourteen miles. I deposited what little money I had in a local bank, and then went to an inn, where a buggy was waiting for me from Ravensworth. The large deal case containing my bush "outfit" was left to come in the next dray that came in for stores. It would have mattered little had it never come, for before I had been a week on the station I had been laughed out of the whole thing, and had had to buy an old second-hand bush saddle, my own being as useless to a stockman as a crinoline to a blue-

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EN ROUTE FOR THE BUSH

jacket. At this inn another instance occurred of psychic recognition - perfectly inexplicable on any hypothesis either of memory or resemblance. On leaving Cheltenham Lodge for the railway station I was driven by an old cabman, by name Fowles, whom we frequently employed. A son of his whom I had never seen had gone out to Australia many years before this. When I got out of the cab, old Fowles who knew where I was going said to me, "If you see my son Tom in Australia, ask him to write home and tell us how he's getting on." I explained that Australia was a big country, and asked him if he had any idea of the name of the place his son had gone to. He had none. I forgot all about it until an exceptionally ragged ostler brought out the Ravensworth buggy for me, when suddenly something persuaded me it was old Fowles' son. I felt absolutely sure of it, so I said--

" Your name is Fowles, isn't it ? "

He looked amazed, and seemed to think I had some special reason for asking him, and was at first disinclined to answer. But I pressed him and said

"Your father the Cheltenham cabdriver asked me to look you up."

He then admitted he was the man, and I said--

"Then why don't you write home ? "

* * * * *

I need not repeat my impressions of ordinary bush scenery in Australia. Maturer experience and knowledge of other lands only confirmed my original view - that - with scarcely an exception - no country is uglier and more uninteresting. Of course, there are some parts of Australia which do not come into this category, and there are scenes of great beauty, such as the Blue Mountains, but the average of the country is an unending monotony of barren, undulating land, with trees growing at considerable distances apart, their dull, grey bark

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peeling off and hanging in ribbons over their whitening stem : or else plains of scorched, coarse grass, with patches of dense scrub marking the site of creek or gully, with its bed dry and stony one hour, and the next a roaring stream after some rain.

Though the house at Ravensworth had in no way altered since the jolly days I had spent there as a midshipman, I instinctively felt that the soul of it had fled, and I cannot describe how lonely I felt when I looked round the familiar scene. It was not that I feared to contend with the difficulties which must beset a youngster settling down to a bush life for my training at sea had been rough enough and I knew I should take to bush life with great pleasure, thoroughly enjoying the excitement of mustering cattle or horses, and the stirring scenes of a stockyard. For all that had not altered. But when the day was over and I returned to the solitude of the verandah and looked across the eternal vista of plain and scattered gum-trees, whilst the sun went down and the black vault overhead twinkled with stars, my heart seemed to sink within me with a desperate sense of social loneliness.

For already that first day had begun to be one of disillusion there was not a particle of cordiality or friendship in the greeting of any one, whilst as to the overseer himself to whom Willie Russell had written personally commending me he never came near me, or took the slightest notice of me for hours, though hanging about the whole day within a few yards of the house. Moreover, when he did come, and I looked in his face and listened to his brogue, I instinctively felt there would be no sympathy between us an instinct absolutely correct and painfully verified : for we had not one single thought, desire, or custom in common. At sight of him the last shred of glamour of the place vanished, and day by day I

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THE TRUE BUSH "HAND"

began to realise my isolation. I was known to be poor dependent, as it were, on the hospitality of the Russells, and, in the eyes of the overseer and of the station hands, had no right to come and go as I liked, or to be living in the big house. I became, no doubt, resentful, and I certainly hated the whole crew. The fact was, the "hands" on Ravensworth were true types of stockmen, and not those of fiction - that glorified personage of the Australian novelist. If he exists I did not come across him, for the men I had to associate with were the lowest scum of society : idle, drunken hooligans, with minds as debauched as their habits were filthy. The leading " hand " - a half-caste - was a magnificent horseman, and soon after became a notorious bushranger : the others were loafers, born and bred, and many of them sheep-stealers, without a thought but trying to see how little work they could do ; living simply to draw their pay and go to the nearest bush grog-shop to get drunk and gamble. Furthermore, the only law amongst them was the law of the fist. It was Cheltenham College over again, and, however much I may believe in schoolboys fighting, it becomes irksome later on in life, and hurts more. I believe I have always been able to adapt myself to the ways of any decent men I have been thrown amongst, whether English or French, Arabs, Chinaman or Japper, but these "hands" at Ravensworth were impossible. True, I was getting "Colonial experience," but it was an experience a young man would be better without.

Gradually I began to grasp the whole question of settling in the bush, and recognised in very early days that the life of a struggling beginner - however much he himself might come to like it - was in every conceivable way unsuited to a woman nurtured in the indolent luxury of a Virginian home in the palmiest days of slavery. To transplant to these rough scenes such an exotic - on

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whom even the wind had never blown harshly - whose feet, like those of most Southern American women in pre-Abolition days, had rarely walked a mile; whose hands had never tied her own shoe-strings, was impossible ; and I began to realise the utter futility of my venture. I had left home with that incentive for which most men work hardest, and lured by the phantom of a fortune to be made in a short time, or buoyed up with illusive hope of falling on my feet. I ignorantly supposed that honest, willing men must be at a premium in Australia : but, alas ! I found persons so equipped wandering about everywhere, many in actual search of food.

Life at Ravensworth differed in no degree from bush life in general, and as that has often been described, I need say nothing about it here. The times themselves, however, were productive of some incidents which are worth recording - as a picture of an epoch already passing into the limbo of the forgotten - namely, adventures and alarms from bushrangers. There was an epidemic of bushranging at this time in our part with horrid barbarities, which had produced that kind of panic not unknown in a suburban district in England after a few cases of housebreaking. A gang of ruffians infested our neighbourhood, keeping us constantly on the alert at night, and our eyes well open as we rode about by day. Within a mile or two of our house several people had been "stuck up," the Colonial expression for being robbed with or without violence, and without prejudice to murder if necessary. The mail coach had been stopped and passengers plundered, and - as in our stage-coaching days - a dozen able-bodied men, most of them with pistols in their pockets, had surrendered at discretion to one or two highwaymen. In these encounters it was not uncommon for the robbers to meet their old masters, and

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treat them as they thought they deserved. A squatter, living within a few miles of us - who had frequently bragged about what he would do if he met any of the gang - was stopped by a single individual ; made to dismount, stripped naked, and then, tied to the tail of the bushranger's horse, was led within about a hundred yards of his own door, and there loosened ; the thief trotting off quietly with both horses, plus the man's clothes, watch, and money. Another point of resemblance between the bushranger and the highwayman of romance was that the lower class befriended and sheltered him, and, indeed, his numbers were largely recruited from small farmers and other people who were ostensibly living respectable lives. This made it very difficult for the authorities to suppress them, as they were always kept informed of the movements of the mounted police by their friends, or, if hard pressed, could lay aside the revolver and bowie knife for the bucolic stockwhip. The climax of their impudence, on the Hunter River, was reached by three or four of them riding into a considerable town, overawing the police, robbing the bank and standing treat, at one of the largest public-houses, to all and sundry who chose to drink, paying honestly for all the liquor : and then riding off quietly and unmolested.

Beyond stealing some horses I do not think they committed any depredations at Ravensworth, though I myself had a narrow escape. I had ridden into Singleton and had put my horse up at the inn. Fowles, the ostler, told me confidentially that he had heard there were "men" on the road between Singleton and our place, and advised me not to go alone. But the Hunter River, which lay between Ravensworth and the town, was in flood, and I knew that if I did not cross it soon I might be detained for days. So I determined to chance it, and towards evening, my horse being thoroughly fresh, I rode out of

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the town and found that I had not been wrong about the river, as it was now a raging stream of several hundred yards wide ; in a few hours to be unfordable. It was a dark night, but I crossed in safety, and purposely rode on the grass under the trees to deaden the sound of the horse's hoofs. About five or six miles from Ravensworth the road became extremely dark, when, passing through a thick clump of trees, my ears - which like those of most short-sighted people - are abnormally sharp caught the sound of a faint whistle some way ahead of me, which was repeated almost immediately on my right and, in a moment, behind me also. I did not stop long to think, as the whistler on my right was evidently within a few hundred yards of me, so turning my horse sharp to the left I struck into the bush. Quicker than it takes me to tell I heard the sound of horses' hoofs both behind me as well as on the road over which I had just travelled. Then I let my horse go. Fortunately for me he was very nearly a thoroughbred, and though not very suited for ordinary bush work, was a grand goer. ¹ I did not feel a moment's anxiety as to his speed, but I did as to my own eyesight, for I was afraid I might ride into some impassable gully, where my pursuers would be able to close on me. For nearly a mile I let my horse go as he liked, and still I heard the hoofs behind me, but as they were clearly not gaining I began to pull him in a little, for he had already travelled some twenty-six miles with me that day, and I wanted to keep him fresh. But I found that the sound of the hoofs grew almost immediately plainer, so I determined to ride as straight as I could to a station belonging to some people called Glennie, which lay somewhere ahead of me. Another mile brought me to a hut on their station, close by which was a stockyard, and I hoped to

¹ I have heard that he subsequently won the Melbourne Cup, but cannot say if it is true. His name was Seducer.

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CHASED

find some of their stockmen there, but the hut seemed quite empty and I could not stop to look in. Another half mile and I had to cross a deep gully; which, however, I thought I should have no difficulty in doing as I had often crossed it before. But as I galloped down the sloping bank fringed with wood, I saw the shimmer of a broad stream in front of me where I had expected to find only a few yards of knee-deep water. I knew all the dangers of trying to cross a stream in flood ; the swirl of water, the uprooted trees borne along with tangled weeds trailing after them, and, above all, the difficulty of finding a landing-place. There was, however, no alternative, so, sticking my spurs into my horse, I rammed him into the water. He went completely under and nearly turned over, but he righted and then tried to swim back to the bank we had left. Fortunately, however, I managed to turn his head down stream again, and rolling together in the water we swept down in the dark, a distance which to me seemed never-ending. Then the horse gradually edged himself towards the other bank, felt the ground under his feet, stumbled over some drift wood, and, at last, with a great effort got up on to the bank, where he stood still, shivering. I jumped off and led him up higher, and then listened. Far off, on the other side, I heard the sound of horses going down the stream. None of my pursuers had followed me across the gully; or perhaps they thought I had not ventured it myself, and was still on their side. I mounted and rode on, and striking the track leading to the station, in a short time saw its lights. I got in safely, and was, of course, made welcome.

A day or two after this a man was shot where I first fell in with these rascals, and I have no doubt it was done by their gang, one of whom, as ill-conditioned a scoundrel as ever walked, only a few weeks previously had been

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employed as a rough-rider at Ravensworth. Some months later he departed this life in the gaol at Sydney with a rope round his neck, and "split" on his "pals" : which broke up the gang on that part of the Hunter River. I have always believed that I was indebted for this adventure to one of our station hands.

To be lost in the bush was my next experience, and though I had looked Death in the face many times before, and frequently since, I never felt such a disinclination to come nearer to him as I did then. I had gone out with the stockmen to bring in cattle from a distant part of the station, but had to return to the head station for a horse, my second animal having fallen with me coming down a steep hill, spraining his fetlock. I felt no doubt I could find my way back alone, and this I succeeded in doing, for, acting on the advice of the stockmen, I left it a good deal to the horse. I got to the station late in the evening, having ridden close on sixty miles under me, one of the most wonderful horses I had ever seen - a roan, called Badger - who on a previous occasion had carried me close on a hundred and ten miles in twenty-four hours. As I owed my life on this occasion to this animal's marvellous endurance and intelligence, I will briefly describe him. He stood about fifteen hands, had a coarse, Roman-nosed head, an eye full of fire : shoulder perfect in form : a neck like a bull's : short, flat legs, cow-kneed : his body abnormally long, his back hollow, his quarters of immense strength, with the girth of a drayhorse. He seemed to have some specialised breathing apparatus in lieu of lungs, for he could gallop - fairly fast - for hours, up hill, down hill, over rock, stones, dead timber, and heavy grass. In fact, I never saw the man he could not tire out. His skill in collecting cattle was equal to anything human ; he would wait for the charge of a bull or an infuriated cow - much the more dangerous of the two - and

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LOST IN THE BUSH

then step aside with all the coolness of a great matador. He was perfectly quiet and good-tempered. His reputation spread far and wide, and, in consequence, he was stolen out of our paddock and was ridden for a long time by a celebrated bushranger called Wingey, who was captured and hanged ; when old Badger came back to Ravensworth.

But to return to my story. Early next morning, having got a second horse and some food for the day, I started off to find our camp. But by midday, having eaten my food, I found I had lost all trace of the track, and that I began to recognise nothing. I rode on and on ; climbed some hills I had never seen before, and towards dusk gave it up as a bad job for that night, for I had been riding, off and on, for over eleven hours, leading my other horse by a halter, which was tiring work. So I hobbled the horses, off-saddled, and lit a big fire. It was a brilliant night and the country lay spread out below me in primæval silence, save every now and then for the distant wolf-like bark of a dingo. With my saddle under my head I was soon asleep, and slept soundly until the morning, when I awoke desperately hungry. I caught both the horses, saddled up, and began to cast about where to go next. I reasoned with myself that it was best to find my way back to the head station rather than plunge further into unknown regions ; but, above all, it was necessary to reach water, so I followed down the first gully I could find.

This I did for a few hours, but began to think I must be on the western watershed, and thus travelling away from the station instead of towards it. So I resolved to try and find my old track, and return to Ravensworth on it, and, knowing that, in a general way, the camp where we had pitched qur quarters bore about north-west from the head station, I tried to ride south-east now. This,

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as long as the sun was low, was easy enough, but as it got vertical it was by no means easy to keep on the bearing, and I had no watch on me the best compass in the world when you know its use. I was beginning to feel tired for want of food and water, but still rambled on through the same eternal scrub and open patches, the same everlasting gum-trees, shrivelling in the blazing sun, and looking like mangy olives.

On and on, on and on, the led horse frequently going one side of a tree, myself the other, necessitating turning my horse and getting him in line again - wearisome when every ounce of strength seems ebbing away. I had now got down into what seemed an interminable plain, thinly wooded and almost bare of grass, the heat, as the day drew on, seeming to take on a visible tremulous reality, the leaves of the trees hanging down apparently dead ; not a sound anywhere except the footfall of the two horses. When the sun was in its meridian I got off and lay down under the thickest tree I could find. Overhead I heard a scraping noise and wondered what it was, and, looking up, caught the bright, round eye of an opossum scratching his claws in the gum-tree. How I thirsted for his blood ! But I had no means of either catching or killing him. I lay so still he almost touched me, as he came down and skipped off to another tree, and I was sorry when he went : at least he was some kind of companion. But what roused me from a stupor into which I was undoubtedly falling was a pungent aromatic smell, which I had not before noticed, growing stronger and stronger as some unfelt wave of air brought it to my nostrils. I sat up wondering what it could be and looking about saw, a few yards off, an advancing column of the red soldier ant of the bush. I instantly got on my feet, with a feeling of horror, for I remembered the dead bar-keeper of Canoona and the sight of a dead man's

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A SWARM OF ANTS

bones, picked as white as snow, which I had once seen somewhere else. I knew, too, that these ravenous insects do not wait for the death of their prey, for I had seen them swarming over an unfortunate cow, lying with her back broken, at the bottom of a gully, her mouth, eyes, nostrils, full of the all-pervading horror. I saw myself in the same plight, overmastered by millions of these scourges, my eyes pierced by their terrible jaws and my breath choked. And doubtless it was a providential discovery in time ; for had I fallen asleep I see no reason for doubting I should have been attacked. I braced myself up : any death was better than this, even a black snake would be infinitely preferable : with an end in five minutes.

I moved off and stood thinking and then had an inspiration. Why not leave it to Badger ? I called to him, he was cropping the scanty grass a few yards away, the led horse tied to his girths. The animals came up, and I verily believe old Badger understood, for there was a look in his eyes of almost human sympathy as he rubbed his forehead on my chest. I crawled up on his honest back : lay the reins on his neck and signed to him to move on : talk I could not. To my surprise he turned off exactly in the opposite direction from whence we had come, heading again north. But I let him go, he was an extraordinarily quick walker, the led horse having frequently to break into a slow trot. He got back to the hills, up one, as steep as the side of a house, down a long valley, turning sharp to the east at the bottom of it, and it was impossible not to see he knew where he was going. But night came on again, and he slackened his pace and began to look about him, and I thought he knew he was at fault or could not be sure of his track in the dark. So I got off him, hobbled him and tied the led horse to a tree with as long a halter as I could. I think Badger was

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never twenty yards away from me all that night; remaining close at hand, like a loving dog, and quietly cropping what grass he could get. I spent a night of great pain, my vitals seeming drawn together, and I chewed grass and buckled my belt as tight as it would go. I think I must have been nearly mad, for every imaginable horror crossed my mind and all the events that brought me to this pass rose up before me like voices in the night. But, strange to say, I slept again, and in the morning actually felt fresher. My hand was very painful from holding the halter, but I thought nothing of it, and unhobbling old Badger I managed to get on his back and again gave him his head. We had completely changed places. But the other horse had got loose and I could see him nowhere. This did not greatly affect me, though during the night I had several times thought I might try and kill him and eat his flesh. But I dismissed the idea as too brutal, and I thought I saw in his disappearance that an escape from such cruelty had been sent. However, we had not travelled a mile before the poor beast came whinnying up to us, rubbed his nose on old Badger's and looked into my face. How little the faithful creature knew the murderous thought I had been harbouring against him ! I caught the halter and he dropped contentedly alongside : and silent and dejected we three jogged on. But I believe it was my confidence in Badger's instinct to find either water or the way home, that supported me all through the next terrible and trying day. I need not attempt to describe the pangs I was suffering : thirst and hunger have been too often portrayed to make anything one could say new. I was simply dead-beat, my brain growing cloudy, and I knew I was sinking into indifference, and I can hardly remember anything, until, towards evening, I saw a curl of smoke, a long way off, but still unmistakable, and my spirits rose.

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A MERCIFUL ESCAPE

I tried to urge on my good, old horse and he responded. I was in terror now lest I should fail to reach to where the smoke lay or lose sight of it in the fast falling gloom. As to what it might be - white man's camp or black's resting-place - I cared nothing, though the latter might very possibly have ended in a spear or knob-stick. For any fate was better than death by starvation, and I pushed on. It is impossible to describe my joy when, in the fast darkening night, I saw the white gleam of a long line of fence, and heard the bark of some clever dog collecting sheep ; a far sweeter sound to me than would have been the voice of an archangel singing all the Pæans of Heaven. Following the fence I soon came to a shepherd's hut, a woman standing at the door, a small child clinging to her skirts. She made no sign of welcome, but stood gazing fixedly at me - I learnt afterwards she thought I was a bushranger - and I could not speak for the dryness of my swollen throat. As I rode up I pointed to my mouth and the truth dawned on her, for she came and helped me off my horse for I could hardly move - and brought me milk, and, later, some food. My troubles were over.

Soon after this her husband came in : he was not one of the Russell's men; indeed, I was forty or fifty miles away from Ravensworth, but only about five from a station I had once before visited riding Badger. My belief is he was making for the place all the time, though, as far as I know, he had never approached it from the direction we had come. As I lay in some dried grass in the shed that night I began to realise how very nearly the shadow of death had fallen on me, and felt certain that my life had been preserved by some occult intelligence possessed by my horse quite beyond human cognition.

It is only a philosopher or a fool who believes he can reduce all mental processes to systematised reason, or

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that, with animals, it is only hereditary instinct. The marvellous organ of locality of Australian bushmen, and of Australian blacks, is certainly possessed by bush-bred horses and cattle in a still higher degree, for men make use of the heavenly bodies to find their way, but it is ridiculous to picture to oneself a horse or cow looking up into the heavens for Altair or the Southern Cross, or examining the stem of trees to observe on which side the sun beats. There is more unexplainable wisdom in a bee than in a beadle : in a bug than in a County Councillor.

I slept until nearly ten next day, and, beyond feeling great pain in my hand - which had been cut almost to the bone by the halter without my having been aware of it - I felt all right, and started off for Ravensworth, the shepherd accompanying me until I could recognise the lay of the land. Being well provisioned, I took it easy, following the dried bed of a stream in which there were frequent water holes, and spent that night in the bush, lighting my fire, warming up my tea and again sleeping the sleep of the righteous. Next day I reached the head station. I had been missing nearly five days, but my return excited no comment, for they supposed I was still at the muster ; and I myself said nothing about my adventure. I rode into the paddock, turned the horses loose, and next morning, whilst it was still dark, getting some provisions from the storekeeper, started again for the camp, which I found, more by good luck than anything else, on the evening of the next day. Here my arrival excited no interest either, most of them thinking I had done what all of them would have liked to do : gone off to lie low in some bush grog-shop.

We spent many days in these hills mustering cattle, and I know no sport to equal it. The hardest run after foxhounds is mere child's play to driving several hundred

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A HUMBLE FRIEND

head of half-maddened cattle through a country that nothing but a bush-bred horse could get over. Only those who have seen what bush horses can do can understand it, whilst an Australian stockman, as horseman, is as far ahead of the much vaunted American cowboy as the said cowboy is better than a British stockbroker. Mustering horses is faster work than cattle, it is true, but there is not the constant peril of the charge of a frenzied bull or cow, which, swerving suddenly out of the flying herd, comes at you with a blind rush. All then depends on a quick eye, a nimble horse, and a habit of keeping your saddle, when your horse plunges sideways or whirls himself round - like a leaf in a squall.

* * * * *

There was only one man on the station for whom I had any regard - an under-overseer, by name Greenwood, a small, patient person with very great knowledge of sheep farming and of Colonial business generally. With him I went to look at a station that was for sale about thirty miles away from Ravensworth, with some half-formed idea in my mind of getting possession of it and of working it with him. But the plan fell through. Mrs. Greenwood was a very remarkable woman, of great personal courage, and alone amongst many other women situated like herself in out-of-the-way places in the bush remained with her husband all through the bushranging panic. She must also have been a woman of great presence of mind, as the following anecdote will illustrate. One night she jumped out of bed to run to a crying child, when she put her foot down on what she instantly knew must be a snake, and, by the shape of it, that her foot was close to its head. Had she drawn back she would have been instantly bitten, but she threw all her weight on her one foot and nearly crushed the life out of it. But the reptile had wound its hinder coils up round her leg and had squeezed

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it so tight she could scarcely move. Her husband was out and there was no one to help her, but she managed to unwind the coils, and then sprang aside. She got a match and lighted her candle and saw an unusually large black snake - the most poisonous reptile in the world - with its neck almost crushed flat, wriggling on the floor. She got a hatchet and chopped its head off. It must certainly have been death to her in a few minutes if she had shown less coolness.

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