\'Yes; it does seem a goodish price to pay for a half-bred mare—worth ten pound at the outside,\' said old Bill, the cook for the rouseabouts at Jergoolah Station, one wet evening, as the men gathered round the fire after supper, with their pipes in their mouths. It had been wet for three days, so there was no shearing. Very little work for the other men either—half a hundred strong—as the wet-fleeced sheep were best left alone. The shearers were sulky of course. They were eating (and paying for) their own rations. But the ordinary \'pound-a-week men,\' whose board, with lodging, was provided for them gratis, were philosophically indifferent to the state of the weather.
\'I don\'t care if it rains till Christmas,\' remarked a dissipated-looking youth, who had successfully finished a game of euchre with a dirty pack of cards and an equally unclean companion. \'It\'s no odds to us, so long\'s the creeks don\'t rise and block us goin\' to the big smoke to blue our cheques. I don\'t hold with too much fine weather at shearin\' time.\'
\'Why not?\' asked his late antagonist, staring gloomily at the cards, as if he held them responsible for his losses.
\'Why not?\' repeated the first speaker; \'\'cause there\'s no fun in watchin\' of bloomin\' shearers makin\' their pound and thirty bob a day while we can\'t raise a mag over three-and-six—at it all hours like so many workin\' bullocks, and turned out the minute shearin\'s over, like a lot of unclaimed strangers after a cattle muster.\'
\'Why did ye come here at all?\' asked a tall, broad-shouldered \'corn-stalk\' from the neighbourhood of Penrith; \'nobody asked yer. There was plenty for the work afore you 215struck in. It\'s you town larrikins that spoil the sheds—blackguardin\' and gamblin\' and growlin\' from daylight till dark. If I was the boss I\'d set bait for ye, same\'s the dingoes.\'
\'You shut up and go home to yer pumpkin patch,\' retorted the card-player, with sudden animation. \'You Sydney-siders think no one can work stock but yourselves. You\'ve no right this side of the Murrumbidgee, if it comes to that; and I\'d make one of a crowd to start you back where you come from, and all your blackleg lot.\'
\'Put up your hands, you spieler!\' said the New South Wales man, making one long stride towards the light-weight, who, standing easily on guard, appeared in no way anxious to decline the combat.
\'Come, none of that, you Nepean chap,\' said a good-humoured, authoritative voice; \'no scrappin\' till shearin\'s over, or I\'ll stop your pay. Besides, it\'s a daylight start to-morrow morning. I\'ve a paddock to clear, and the glass is rising. The weather\'s going to take up.\' This was the second overseer, whose word was law until the \'cobbler\' was shorn, and the last man with the last sheep left the shed amid derisive cheers. After a little subdued \'growling,\' the combatants, there being no grog to inflame their angry passions, subsided.
\'What\'s that old Bill was sayin\' about horses and men\'s lives? I heard it from outside,\' demanded the centurion. \'Any duffing going on?\'
\'Why, Joe Downey passed the remark,\' made answer a wiry-looking \'old hand,\' then engaged in mending one of his boots so neatly that he might have passed for a journeyman shoemaker, had it not been an open secret that he had learned the trade within the walls of a gaol, \'that if a man was to "shake" a horse here and ride him into Queensland, he\'d never be copped.\'
\'Oh, he wouldn\'t, eh? And why did Bill get his hair off?\'
\'Well, Bill he says, "You\'re a d—d young fool," says he. "I\'ve seen smarter men than you lose their lives over a ten-pound \'oss—yes, and bring better men to the same end."\'
\'But he said something about five men,\' persisted the overseer. \'What did he mean by that?\'
216\'What did I mean by that?\' said the old man, who had now drawn nearer, in stern and strident tones. \'Why, what I say. It\'s God\'s truth, as I stand here, and the whole five of \'em\'s now in their graves—as fine a lot of men, too, as ever you see—all along of one blasted mare, worth about two fivers, and be hanged to her!\'
The old man\'s speech had a sort of rude eloquence born of earnestness, which chained the attention of the variously composed crowd; and when Mr. Macdonald, the overseer, said, \'Come, Bill, let\'s have it. It\'s a lost day, and we may as well hear your yarn as anything else before turn-in time,\' the old man, thus adjured, took his pipe out of his mouth, and seating himself upon a three-legged stool, prepared to deliver himself of a singular and tragic experience.
William James, chiefly referred to as \'old Bill,\' was a true type of the veritable \'old hand\' of pre-auriferous Australia. Concerning an early voyage to Tasmania he was reticent. He referred to the period ambiguously as \'them old times,\' when he related tales of mystery and fear, such as could have only found place under the régime of forced colonisation. No hirsute ornament adorned his countenance. Deeply wrinkled, but ever clean-shaved, it was a face furrowed and graven, as with a life-record of the darker passions and such various suffering as the human animal alone can endure and live. Out of this furnace of tribulation old Bill had emerged, in a manner purified and reformed. He gave one the impression of a retired pirate—convinced of the defects of the profession, but regretful of its pleasing episodes. Considered as a bush labourer, a more useful individual to a colony did not live. Bill could do everything well, and do twice as much of it as the less indurated industrialist of a later day. Hardy, resourceful, tireless, true ............