Chapter 2

Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary in that Captain of Industry who has the very delicate and important task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made a distinguished man anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. Calm with the consciousness of strength, he was kind and considerate in manner as in nature, until provoked by glaring dishonesty or incivility. Then the lion part of his nature woke up, so that it commonly went ill with the aggressor. As this was matter of public report, he had little occasion to spoil the repose of his bearing. Day succeeds day, and for a fortnight the machinery goes on smoothly and successfully. The sheep arrive at an appointed day and hour by detachments and regiments at the washpen. They depart thence, like good boys on Saturday night, redolent of soap and water, and clean to a fault. They enter the shed white and flossy as newly combed poodles to emerge, on the way back to their pasturage, slim, delicate, agile, with a bright black A legibly branded with tar on their paper-white skins.

The Anabanco world--stiffish but undaunted--is turning out of bed one morning. Ha! what sounds are these? And why does the room look so dark? Rain, as I'm alive. "Hurrah!" says Master Jack Bowles, one of the young gentlemen. He is learning (more or less) practical sheep-farming, preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own. "Well, this is a change, and I'm not sorry for one," quoth Mr. Jack, "I'm stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won't the shearers growl! No shearing to-day, and perhaps none tomorrow either." Truth to tell, Mr Bowles' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom. Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped "just as a man was earning a few shillings." Those who are in top pace and condition don't like it. But to many of the rank and file--working up to and a little beyond their strength--with whom swelled wrists and other protests of nature are becoming apparent, it is a relief, and they are glad of the respite. So at dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands are then idle for the rest of the day. The shearers dress and avail themselves of various resources. Some go to look at their horses, now in clover, or its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetum. Some play cards, others wash or mend their clothes. A large proportion of the Australians having armed themselves with paper, envelopes, and a shilling's worth of stamps from the store, bethink themselves of neglected or desirable correspondents. Many a letter for Mrs Leftalone, Wallaroo Creek, or Miss Jane Sweetapple, Honeysuckle Flat, as the case may be, will find its way into the post-bag tomorrow. A pair of youngsters are having a round or two with the gloves; while to complete the variety of recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are busy in the comparative solitude of that building, at a rehearsal of a tragedy and a farce, with which they intend, the very next rainy day, to astonish the population of Anabanco.

At the home-station a truce to labour's "alarms" is proclaimed except in the case and person of Mr de Vere. So far is he from participation in the general holiday that he finds the store thronged with shearers, washers, and "knock-about men," who being let loose, think it would be nice to go and buy something "pour passer le temps." He therefore grumbles slightly at having no rest like other people.

"That's all very fine," says Mr Jack Bowles, who, seated on a case, is smoking a large meerschaum and mildly regarding all things, "but what have you got to do when we're all HARD AT WORK at the shed?" He speaks with an air of great importance and responsibility.

"That's right, Mr Bowles," chimes in one of the shearers, "stand up for the shed. I never see a young gentleman work as hard as you do."

"Bosh!" growls de Vere, "as if anybody couldn't gallop about from the shed to the washpen, and carry messages, and give half of them wrong! Why, Mr Gordon said the other day, he should have to take you off and put on a Chinaman--that he couldn't make more mistakes."

"All envy and malice, and t'other thing, de Vere, because you think I'm rising in the profession," returns the good-natured Bowles, "Mr Gordon's going to send 20,000 sheep, after shearing, to the Lik Lak paddock, and he said I should go in charge."

"Charge be hanged!" laughs de Vere, with two very bright-patterned Crimean shirts, one in each hand, which he offers to a tall young shearer for inspection. "There's a well there, and whenever either of the two men, of whom you'll have CHARGE, gets sick or runs away, you'll have to work the whim in his place, till another man's sent out, if it's a month."

This appalling view of station promotion rather startles Mr Jack, who applies himself to his meerschaum, amid the ironical comments of the shearers. However, not easily daunted or "shut up," according to the more familiar station phrase, he rejoins, after a brief interval of contemplation, "that accidents will happen, you know, de Vere, my boy--apropos of which moral sentiment, I'll come and help you in your dry-goods business; and then, look here, if YOU get ill or run away, I'll have a profession to fall back upon."

This is held to be a Roland of sufficient pungency for de Vere's Oliver. Everyone laughed. And then the two youngsters betook themselves to a humorous puffing of the miscellaneous contents of the store: tulip-beds of gorgeous Crimean shirts, boots, books, tobacco, canvas slippers, pocket-knives, Epsom salts, pipes, pickles, painkillers, pocket handkerchiefs, pills, sardines, saddles, shears and sauces: in fact everything which every kind of man might want, and which apparently every man did want, for large and various were the purchases, and great the flow of conversation. Finally, everything was severely and accurately debited to the purchasers, and the store was cleared and locked up. A large store is a necessity of a large station; not by any means because of the profit upon goods sold, but it obviously would be bad economy for old Bill, the shepherd, or Barney, the bullock-driver, to visit the next township, from ten to thirty miles distant, as the case may be, every time the former wanted a pound of tobacco, or the latter a pair of boots. They might possibly obtain these necessary articles as good in quality, as cheap in price. But there are wolves in that wood, oh, my weak brothers! In all towns dwells one of the 'sons of the Giant'--the Giant Grog--red-eyed, with steel muscles and iron claws; once in these, which have held many and better men to the death, neither Barney nor Bill emerges, save pale, fevered, nerveless, and impecunious. So arose the station store. Barney befits himself with boots without losing his feet; Bill fills his pocket with match-boxes and smokes the pipe of sobriety, virtuous perforce till his carnival, after shearing.

The next day was wet, and threatened further broken weather. Matters were not too placid with the shearers. A day or two for rest is very well, but continuous wet weather means compulsory idleness, and gloom succeeds repose; for not only are all hands losing time and earning no money, but they are, to use the language of the stable "eating their heads off" the while. The rather profuse mess and general expenditure, which caused little reflection when they were earning at the rate of two or three hundred pounds a year, became unpleasantly suggestive, now that all is going out and nothing coming in. Hence loud and deep were the anathemas as the discontented men gazed sadly or wrathfully at the misty sky.

A few days showery weather having, therefore, wellnigh driven our shearers to desperation, out comes the sun in all his glory. He is never far away or very faint in Riverina. All the pens are filled for the morrow; very soon after the earliest sunbeams the bell sounds its welcome summons, and the whole force tackles to the work with an ardour proportioned to the delay, every man working as if for the ransom of his whole family from slavery. How men work spurred on by the double excitement of acquiring social reputation and making money rapidly! Not an instant is lost; not a nerve, limb, or muscle doing less than the hardest task-master could flog out of a slave. Occasionally you see a shearer, after finishing his sheep, walk quickly out and not appear for a couple of hours, or perhaps not again during the day. Do not put him down as a sluggard; be assured that he has tasked nature dangerously hard, and has only given in just before she does. Look at that silent slight youngster, with a bandage round his swollen wrist. Every "blow" of the shears is agony to him, yet he disdains to give in, and has been working "in distress" for hours. The pain is great, as you can see by the flush which occasionally surges across his brown face, yet he goes on manfully to the last sheep, and endures to the very verge of fainting.

There was now a change in the manner and tone of the shed, especially towards the end of the day. It was now the ding of the desperate fray, when the blood of the fierce animal man is up, when mortal blows are exchanged, and curses float upward with the smoke and dust. The ceaseless clicking of the shears--the stern earnestness of the men, toiling with a feverish and tireless energy--the constant succession of sheep shorn and let go, caught and commenced--the occasional savage oath or passionate gesture, as a sheep kicked and struggled with perverse delaying obstinacy--the cuts and stabs, with brief decided tones of Mr Gordon, in repression or command--all told the spectator that tragic action was introduced into the performance. Indeed, one of the minor excitements of shearing was then and there transacted. Mr Gordon had more than once warned a dark sullen-looking man that he did not approve of his style of shearing. He was temporarily absent, and on his return found the same man about to let go a sheep whose appearance, as a shorn wool-bearing quadruped, was painful and discreditable in the extreme.

"Let your sheep go, my man," said Gordon, in a tone which somehow arrested the attention of nearly all the shearers, "but don't trouble yourself to catch another!"

"Why not?" said the delinquent, sulkily.

"You know very well why not!" replied Gordon, walking closely up to him, and looking straight at him with eyes that began to glitter, "you've had fair warning. You've not chosen to take it. Now you can go!"

"I suppose you'll pay a man for the sheep he's shorn?" growled out the ruffian.

"Not one shilling until after shearing. You can come then if you like," answered Gordon, with perfect distinctness.

The cowed bully looked savagely at him; but the tall powerful frame and steady eye were not inviting for personal arbitration of the matter in hand. He put up his two pairs of shears, put on his coat, and walked out of the shed. The time was passed when Red Bill or Terrible Dick (ruffians whom a sparse labour-market rendered necessary evils) would have flung down his shears upon the floor and told the manager that if he didn't like that shearing he could shear his------sheep himself and be hanged to him; or, on refusal of instant payment, would have proposed to bury his shears in the intestines of his employer by way of adjusting the balance between Capital and Labour. Many wild tales are told of woolshed rows. I knew of one squatter stabbed mortally with that fatal and convenient weapon, a shear-blade.

The man thus summarily dealt with could, like most of his companions, shear very well if he took pains. Keeping to a moderate number of sheep, his workmanship could be good. But he must needs try and keep up with Billy May or Abraham Lawson, who can shear from 100 to 130 sheep per day, and do them beautifully. So in "racing" he works hastily and badly, cuts the skin of his luckless sheep nearly as often as the wool, and leaves wool here and there on them, grievous and exasperating to behold. So sentence of expulsion goes forth fully against him. Having arrayed himself for the road he makes one more effort for a settlement and some money wherewith to pay for board and lodging on the road. Only to have a mad carouse at the nearest township, however; after which he will tell a plausible story of his leaving the shed on account of Mr Gordon's temper, and avail himself of the usual free hospitality of the bush to reach another shed. He addresses Mr Gordon with an attempt at conciliation and deference.

"It seems very 'ard, sir, as a man can't get the trifle of money coming to him, which I've worked 'ard for."

"It's very hard you won't try and shear decently," retorts Mr Gordon, by no means conciliated. "Leave the shed!"

Ill-conditioned rascal as the shearer is, he has a mate or travelling-companion in whose breast exists some rough idea of fidelity. He now takes up the dialogue.

"I suppose if Jim's shearing don't suit, mine won't either."

"I did not speak to you," answered Mr Gordon, as calmly as if he had expected the speech, "but of course you can go."

He said this with an air of studied unconcern, as if he would rather like a dozen more men to knock off work. The two men walk out, but the epidemic does not spread, and several take the lesson home and mend their ways accordingly.

The weather now was splendid; not a cloud specked the bright blue sky. The shearers continue to work at the same express-train pace; fifty bales of wool roll every day from the wool-presses; as fast as they reach that number they are loaded upon the numerous drays and wagons which have been waiting for weeks. Tall brown men have been recklessly cutting up hides for the last fortnight, wherewith to lash the bales securely. It is considered safer practice to load wool as soon as may be; fifty bales represent about a thousand pounds sterling. In a building, however secure, should a fire break out, a few hundred bales are easily burned; but once on the dray, this much-dreaded "edax rerum" in a dry country has little chance. The driver, responsible to the extent of his freight, generally sleeps under his dray; hence both watchman and insulation are provided.

The unrelaxing energy with which the work was pushed at this stage was exciting and contagious; at or before daylight every soul in the great establishment was up. The boundary-riders were always starting off for a twenty or thirty mile ride, and bringing tens of thousands of sheep to the wash-pen. At that huge lavatory there was splashing and soaking all day with an army of washers; not a moment is lost from daylight till dark, or used for any purpose save the all-engrossing work and needful food. At nine o'clock p.m. luxurious dreamless sleep, given only to those whose physical powers have been taxed to the utmost and who can bear without injury the daily tension.

Everything and everybody were in splendid working order, nothing out of gear. Rapid and regular as a steam-engine the great host of toilers moved onward daily with a march which promised an unusually early completion. Mr Gordon was not in high spirits, for so cautious and far-seeing a captain rarely felt himself so independent of circumstances as to indulge in that reckless mood--but much satisfied with the prospect. Whew! The afternoon darkens, and the night is delivered over to water-spouts and hurricanes, as it appears. Next day was raw, gusty, with chill heavy showers; drains had to be cut, roofs to be seen to; shorn sheep were shivering, washers all playing pitch-and-toss, shearers sulky; everybody but the young gentlemen wearing a most injured expression of countenance. "Looks as if it would rain for a month," says Long Jack. "If we hadn't been delayed might have had the shearing over by this." Reminded that there are 50,000 sheep yet remaining to be shorn, and that by no possibility could they have been finished, he answers, "Suppose so, always the same, everything sure to go agin the poor man." The weather did not clear up. Winter seemed to have taken thought, and determined to show even this land of eternal summer that he had his rights. The shed would be filled, and before the sheep so kept dry were shorn, down would come the rain again. Not a full day's shearing for ten days. Then the clouds disappeared as if the curtain of a stage had been rolled up, and lo! the golden sun, fervid and impatient to obliterate the track of winter.

The first day after the recommencement, matters went much as usual. Steady work and little talk, as if everyone was anxious to make up for the lost time. But on the second morning after breakfast, when the bell sounded, instead of the usual cheerful dash at the sheep, every man stood silent and motionless in his place. Someone uttered the words "roll up!". Then the seventy men converged, and slowly, but with one impulse, walked up to the end of the shed where stood Mr Gordon.

The concerted action of any body of men bears with it an element of power which commands respect. The weapon of force is theirs; it is at their option to wield it with or without mercy. At one period of Australian colonisation a superintendent in Mr Gordon's position might have had good ground for uneasiness. Mr Jack Bowles saw in it an EMEUTE of a democratic and sanguinary nature, regretted deeply his absent revolver, but drew up to his leader prepared to die by his side. That calm centurion felt no such serious misgivings. He knew that there had been dire grumbling among the shearers in consequence of the weather. He knew that there were malcontents among them. He was prepared for some sort of demand on their part, and had concluded to make certain concessions of a moderate degree. So looking cheerfully at the men, he quietly awaited the deputation. As they neared him there was a little hesitation, and then three delegates came to the front. These were Old Ben, Abraham Lawson, and Billy May. Ben Thornton had been selected for his age and long experience of the rights and laws of the craft. He was a weather-beaten, wiry old Englishman, whose face and accent, darkened as the former was by the Australian summers of half a century, still retained the trace of his native Devonshire. It was his boast that he had shorn for forty years, and as regularly "knocked-down" (or spent in a single debauch) his shearing money. Lawson represented the small free-holders, being a steady, shrewd fellow, and one of the fastest shearers. Billy May stood for the fashion and "talent," being the "Ringer," or fastest shearer of the whole assembly, and as such truly admirable and distinguished.

"Well now, men," quoth Mr Gordon, cheerily meeting matters half-way, "what's it all about?" The younger delegate looked at Old Ben, who, now that it "was demanded of him to speak the truth," or such dilution thereof as might seem most favourable to the interests of the shed, found a difficulty like many wiser men about his exordium.

"Well, Muster Gordon," at length he broke forth, "look'ee here, sir. The weather's been awful bad, and clean agin shearing. We've not been earning our grub, and--"

"So it has," answered the manager, "so it has. But can I help the weather? I'm as anxious as you are to have the shearing over quickly. We're both of one mind about that, eh?"

"That's all right enough, sir," struck in Abraham Lawson, who felt that Ben was getting the worst of the argument, and was moreover far less fluent than usual, probably from being deprived of the aid of the customary expletives, "but we're come to say this, sir, that the season's turned out very wet indeed. We've had a deal of broken time, and the men feel it very hard to be paying for a lot of rations, and hardly earning anything. We're shearing the sheep very close and clean. You won't have 'em done no otherways. Not like some sheds where a man can 'run' a bit and make up for lost time. Now we've all come to think this, sir, that if we're to go on shearing the sheep well, and to stick to them, and get them done before the dust and grass-seed come in, that you ought to make us some allowance. We know we've agreed for so much a hundred, and all that. Still as the season's turned so out-and-out bad, we hope you'll consider it and make it up to us somehow."

"Never knew a worse year," corroborated Billy May, who thought it indispensable to say something. "Haven't made enough, myself, to pay the cook."

This was not strictly true, at any rate, as to Master Billy's own earnings; he being such a remarkably fast shearer (and good withal), that he had always a respectable sum credited to him for his days' work, even when many of the slower men came off short enough.

However, enough had been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve fund, they knew not nor cared. This was their stand. And being Englishmen they intended to abide by it.

The manager had considered the situation before it actually arose. He now rapidly took in the remaining points of debate. The shearers had signed a specific agreement for a stipulated rate of payment, irrespective of the weather. By the letter of the law, they had no case. Whether they made little or much profit was not his affair. But he was a just and kindly man, as well as reasonably politic. They had shorn well, and the weather had been discouraging. He knew too that an abrupt denial might cause a passive mutiny, if not a strike. If they set themselves to thwart him, it was in their power to shear badly, to shear slowly, and to force him to discharge many of them. He might have them fined, perhaps imprisoned by the police-court. Meanwhile, how could shearing go on? Dust and grass-seeds would soon be upon them. He resolved on a compromise, and spoke out at once in a firm and decided tone as the men gathered up yet more closely around him.

"Look here, all of you! You know very well that I'm not bound to find you in fine weather. Still I am aware that the season has been against you. You have shorn pretty well, so far, though I've had to make examples, and am quite ready to make more. What I am willing to do is this: to every man who works on till the finish and shears to my satisfaction, I will make a fair allowance in the ration account. That is, I will make no charge for the beef. Does that suit you?" There was a chorus of "All right sir, we're satisfied. Mr Gordon always does the fair thing." &c. And work was immediately resumed with alacrity.