The Heather to the Hawkesbury

by Sheila Hunter

  “Are they savage?”

  “No,” laughed Mick, “they aren’t savage at all. In fact, they are very nice animals and make good pets. But they don’t like dogs and if one attacks them they can sit on that great big tail of theirs and rip a dog to pieces.”

  “They have faces like deer. Do they taste like it?” asked Murdoch.

  “Well as I haven’t eaten deer I can’t say.” put in Mick, “they are good to eat in a stew. You usually eat the tail.”

  They passed farms with large houses and smaller wooden cottages, each man curious to see the type of house that they might expect theirs to be. Mr. Forrest warned them that the houses would be small. They looked such dusty little abodes, not at all like the stone houses at home. They couldn’t help being disappointed at their appearance.

  After many hours they came to the town of Riverbend, a group of houses along a dusty road, a church, a hotel and a store. Murdoch hoped it would be a friendly town, but it certainly was a strange-looking one.

  Half a mile further on the wagon stopped in front of a timber cottage.

  “This is your new home, Alec,” said Mick, as he pulled the horses up at the gate.

  Alec looked at the house that looked like so many they had seen. The garden was very pretty and he knew Margaret would revel in that. He pushed the front door open and was pleased to see several rooms, but saw that it would be a tight squeeze for his eight folk.

  Mick came up behind Alec. “How many young’uns have you, mate?”

  “Six,” said Alec. “Two boys and four girls.”

  “Well, you’ll find that some will want to sleep out here. The biguns will, anyhow. Come out here.”

  He led the way through one of the bedrooms to a verandah that ran the length of the house.

  “I grew up in this house. Me Dad and Mother lived here for years. So I know how good it is to sleep here.”

  “Aye, it would be,” said Alec. “Ian and Jamie will like this.”

  “Come on, let’s get the stuff unloaded,” said Mick, and they went back to the wagon to find Murdoch already untying the ropes holding Alec’s furniture and goods. They carried the furniture in first and put it in place, then the other bundles were unloaded and soon Alec was left in the cottage to start unpacking.

  Mick pointed to another cottage on a rise among some trees and said, “We’ll be up there, that’s Macdonald’s house. Come up the driveway and ask at the stables.”

  Murdoch waved to Alec with a smile and climbed up beside Mick. Along the road a short distance they turned in to a long tree-lined driveway that curved gently, running past a large pond where birds were massed. They drew up beside a lovely two-storied house. Murdoch had never seen anything lovelier. There were creepers covering a wide verandah which ran around the house. Whoever planted the garden was an artist, for the whole place was a blaze of colour.

  As they approached the house, Mick pulled up as a very pretty woman came down the steps, followed by Mr. Forrest who greeted Murdoch and asked Mick if they had had a good trip. He turned to his wife and said, “Our new farmer, my dear. Murdoch Macdonald from Skye, of your land.”

  Mrs. Forrest cried delightedly, “From Scotland? Welcome to “Forrest Park”, Mr. Macdonald.”

  She extended her hand to him. He detected a faint but familiar burr in her pleasant voice.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Forrest.” Would you be coming from Scotland?”

  “Yes, I do,” she laughed. “We must talk about it all. I come from Mull.”

  “Carry on to the cottage with Mick, Murdoch. He’ll look after you until I can show you around.” William Forrest took his wife’s hand and led her into the house.

  Mick took the laden wagon round to the commodious stables and drew up. the called out and a man came out to them.

  Mick said, “Hello, George. Meet Murdoch Macdonald. This is George Peters, Macdonald. George, will you come and help us unload? We left Alec Fraser at his house and he’ll follow us soon.”

  “G’day,” greeted George as he jumped up on the wagon, rolling a cigarette as soon as he was settled.

  Murdoch still couldn’t see his house as there were so many trees around the homestead, but soon, there it was. Very similar to Alec’s, but the garden was a shambles. Weeds everywhere and not a flower to be seen.

  Mick saw his disappointment. “The garden ain’t much, are it?” Old Fred wasn’t much of a gardener, but the house is sound. It don’t leak anyway. If your missus is a gardener, she’ll soon knock it into shape. Go and look at the house.”

  Murdoch went through the gate and up the path through the tangled weeds. There was a verandah here too, bigger at the front than Alec’s, but the same area along the side. He pictured his older sons claiming it as theirs. One of the internal walls had been painted white and Murdoch was delighted to see how light and airy it was. He tried to think what Mary would do to it and how soon her stamp would be upon it.

  “Come on, Mick, let’s get onto it.”

  Soon they were unloaded and Mick suggested returning to the big house. “The Park,” he called it. He said that Mrs. King, the cook, would be expecting them for a meal. As Murdoch shut the gate, Alec joined them. He whistled when he saw the mass of weeds.

  “A bit of a mess, old man,” he said to Murdoch. “I imagined that you would have a garden like ours, and I am so pleased about ours for Margaret.”

  “Yes, I must admit it is a bit of a disappointment. I must try to clean it before my lass gets here.”

  “I’ll help you man. We can’t have her coming to this.”

  “When it’s cleaned up it’s not so bad,” said Mick. “Mr Forrest has had good fruit trees put into all the farmhouse gardens and the fences are good, so you’ll soon see the difference. Mr. Forrest used to make Fred clean it up every now and then. He hates the place being untidy.”

  Mick took them to the Park kitchen and there he met Mrs King who was a massive woman. She sat the hungry men down to a large table and served a beautifully cooked meal to them.

  “Mrs. Forrest said that you are to eat here until your families come, so be off to yours now Mick.”

  “Well, don’t you be feeding them so much that they cannot work, Mrs. King.”

  She hunted him off with a large spoon saying, “The cheeky fellow.”

  They did enjoy their meal and afterwards made off to Murdoch’s house and settled down to sleep, their first night on ‘Forrest Park’. They were up early the next morning and were soon learning the jobs they were to do.

  Murdoch stopped as he worked, stood still and looked around him. What a glorious spring day. Funny that it should be spring when it should be autumn, when everything should be turning everything gold at home, everything here was springing into new life. It all seemed so different. It was different. As he stood he turned and looked. Man, it was grand enough to please any farmer. The pastures were green and lush, sparkling with early morning dew. The cows, although not the shaggy ones like at home, stood sleek in the sunlight, chewing in their contended way. Across the fields, paddocks they called them here, he looked to the Hawkesbury River winding along beneath the high Blue Mountains. They were such a lovely clear blue, not like the Cuillins, but again so different. Not really high either, he supposed, but my, they were lovely on this first morning of being a farmer. What a place to have brought his family! What a place for the boys to work in! What a place for his three lassies to blossom in, his lovely, Mary and the two little ones. It would gladden a man’s heart. It does gladden my heart! He suddenly took his hat off and threw it in the air. “Oh Aye! ... we are here.”

  On the following Saturday Murdoch once more travelled the dusty road to Parramatta, with Mick driving the wagon. There was great merriment when he greeted the families again. Alistair was there too, to collect his folk and he and Murdoch were able to exchange news of each other’s farms. Alistair had found conditions much as the others had and was as excited as such a dour man could be at the potential he saw in their new land.

>   With children, the women and the remaining luggage in the wagon, Mick turned the horses towards home. With such a light load, the horses broke into a trot, much to the delight of the children. Malcolm, Duncan and Ian sat beside Mick and asked incessant questions and eagerly looked at every new thing. Murdoch leaned back against the seat talking to Mary and Margaret who eagerly questioned him about everything. Murdoch was telling Margaret about her lovely flowers, breaking off to say, “look children, look at the kangaroos. See Johnnie, Donald through the trees over this side.”

  Johnnie was so excited as he scrambled over the seat that he fell on his father. “Where, where?” he cried.

  Murdoch pointed to the two soft grey animals that stopped to look at them, then they turned and bounded away. The little boy cried with delight.

  “There are quite a few of them. They come down to the farm. You often see them in the early morning, and a lot of other things too. The whole place is very busy with birds and other things even some funny little spiky animals that waddle and eat ants. They are such strange creatures. I daresay we’ll learn a lot about them as we become Australians.”

  “What is that noise, Father?” asked Duncan. “It goes on and on.”

  “They tell me they are big insects, son, called cicadas. I’ve not seen one close, but you see them fly. Look, there’s one now.”

  They all looked about them, wondering what next they would see Mary stole a hesitant hand onto her husband’s arm and looked up at him and queried, “You like it all then Murdoch?”

  “Yes, lass, I do. I think we have a chance here that we are most fortunate to have.”

  “But it’s not home, Murd,” she said wistfully, looking out at the foreign-looking landscape. “Everything looks so grey and dirty and I don’t think I have felt really clean since I arrived. It all looks so unfriendly.”

  “No, we won’t feel those clean sea winds of home, but we’ll have other things.”

  “Is Mary’s garden full of flowers like mine, Murdoch?”

  “No, Meg, it isn’t. The people who were in your house were good gardeners, but Fred is a bachelor and didn’t go in for flowers. Or vegetables either as far as I can make out. We’ll soon have it in Order.

  I’m sorry that I didn’t have the opportunity of cleaning it up before you came, Mary, but I have been learning my job. I did want to have something done for you.”

  “Never mind Mother, Duncan and John and I will soon have a garden for you,” said Malcolm, “although how you make a garden I don’t know, but we will soon learn, wont we, Johnnie?”

  “Yes, Malcolm, we will grow pretty flowers for Mama.” chimed the little fellow.

  Duncan asked, “Can we have potatoes and vegetables and things, Dad, like Mr. Forrest said?”

  “Yes, son, we each have an acre of land around our house, with a really good fence around it. Mr. Forrest already has fruit trees planted and they are just finishing flowering, and lass, this means that we will have our own peaches, plums and apricots and there is an orange and a lemon too. There is a grape vine on a frame on the back verandah. It will be great having such things for the children.

  “How lovely, Murd. Mrs. Trent told us about the fruit here. I am looking forward to tasting them.”

  “Do we have fruit trees, too, Murd?” asked Margaret.

  “Yes, indeed you have, Meg. We’ll not be short of good food for the children. I think we’ll see ours grow healthy. Mr. Forrest supplies meat for all his workers and shares anything else he has. I am sure that we have fallen on our feet. We can thank God that He led us to Mr. Forrest.”

  “If this could only be,” said Mary, looking at her children, still pale from the unhealthy conditions on the ship, even after a week in Sydney Town. They were all dark-haired as she and Murdoch were. She knew they had an unhealthy transparency after the crowded and dirty conditions and the very bad food that they’d had. She and the other mothers had reveled in the fresh food they had obtained in Sydney. Murdoch already had a red tinge to his face and as she looked at him he smiled down at her. She put her hand up to his cheek.

  “I am sunburned,” he said. “We’ll have to see that the children do not really burn. The boss has warned us about it and until they get used to the hot sun we will have to take care of them. Your brood will suffer, Meg, with their fair skin and hair. Alec looks rather boiled at the moment. He’s had to rub oil on his face, for he is quite burned. You will all need big hats here.”

  “Poor Alec,” said Meg.

  “It doesn’t stop him,” said Murdoch. “He’s never still. Into everything, and works that hard. I think he wants to have a farm himself, before next week. He is absolutely reveling in it. I think he likes Australia.”

  “Dear Alec,” she replied, “he was ever impatient for what he wants.”

  “One thing about Alec is that he is not ambitious for himself. He’s forever saying, “Meg would love one of those” or “I must buy a pony for the children as soon as I can.” He just can’t wait to do it all now.”

  Alistair and Caroline, in their wagon, were behind the dust of the ‘Forrest Park’ families and soon Mick pulled up so that the families could bid their farewells. There was much sharing of all they had seen and hurried plans for seeing one another at Christmas if they could. Their wagon turned off the road and was soon out of sight. There was now more interest in their surrounds as they felt they were nearing a new phase in their lives. Eventually Riverbend came into view and Murdoch was able to tell about those inhabitants he had met. They silently drove through the town they would soon know so well. Looking to the right and left they acknowledged a wave or two.

  Soon they drew up outside the Fraser cottage and Alec quickly ran down the path to meet them all, holding his wife and as many children as he could close to him.

  “Look at them, Mary, you’d think they had been separated for year,” chuckled Murdoch. “Well, Meg, what do you think of it?”

  “The garden is lovely, Murdoch, as you said. Goodness, will I ever learn the names of all those flowers?”

  They all went into the house and could see that Alec had burned much midnight oil in putting their things to order.

  Meg cried, “Oh Alec, you have worked so hard. Look, there is Mam’s vase. Oh Alec!”

  Murdoch broke in. “We’ll leave you to settle in. I am sure Mary will be anxious to see her house. Come along children.”

  The Frasers hardly knew that the Macdonalds had left. Everyone was opening doors and looking at everything. It was all so strange.

  Murdoch put his arm around Mary as they set off again. “Mary, my dear, your garden is nothing that some effort won’t fix. Alec has done much with their things. I didn’t,” he said hesitantly, “because I thought you’d prefer to put them away yourself. Oh love, I can see I could have done more.”

  “Hush dear, you know it will be fine and we can do it all together.”

  They turned into the long driveway of ‘Forrest Park’ and were all delighted at the pretty scene ahead.

  Alison and William Forrest saw them arrive and came from the house to meet them. Alison liked the look of this tall Highland lass and like Emma Trent she could sense a sadness within her. “A sensitive lassie we have here,” she thought, but said, “We’ll not keep you, Mrs. Macdonald, as you’ll be anxious to see your new home. We must be friends. I look forward to knowing you.”

  “Why, thank you Mrs. Forrest, that is a kind welcome.” Mary too loved the sound of the familiar lilt in her voice. Yes they would be friends.

  As they neared their home, Murdoch uttered a cry of delight. Mick chuckled and said, “Look. No weeds.”

  “Alec, I’ll be bound.” said Murdoch.

  “Yes, he got George to help him. He couldn’t get you away quickly enough. He wanted to surprise you as he reckons his wife had a nice garden to come to and yours didn’t. Nice bloke, Alec.”

  “Dear Alec” said Mary.

  “Just like Alec,” put in Murdoch.

  They all climbed
down and started through the gate, carrying their things to the house.

  “I’ll be off then, Mac. See you around.”

  ‘’Thanks so much, Mick.”

  Alec and George had rid the front garden of the worst of the weeds and had roughly dug over the beds. It was far from perfect, but it did give the place a lived-in look and you could see the fruit trees still with blossom on them. They trooped inside and Mary looked at the house that would be their home for some years. Perhaps forever, she thought.

  What a funny, ugly place it seemed. Bare rough boards on the verandah and smoother ones in the house. The floor, walls and everything timber.

  “We’ll paint it up and make it look nice, lassie. We’ll put some mats on the floor and curtains at the windows and soon it will look like home.

  “Oh Murdoch, not like home, not a bit like home.” She seemed to stifle a sob and then took a deep breath. “Oh Murd, you have unpacked a lot.”

  “Well, dear, I tried to do enough to start with, but didn’t get too far.”

  Just then there was a scream from Catherine, “Come Father.” Murdoch raced through the house and found Catherine looking at a long brown snake on the back verandah. He picked her up quickly and shoved her at Mary.

  “It didn’t bite you, did it child?”

  “No, Father. What is it?”

  “I must get it before it hides.”

  Soon there was a thrashing sound outside and Murdoch was able to tell them that the snake was dead. Malcolm and Duncan had been most in interested spectators and wanted to handle the squirming thing.

  “Leave it alone, boys. It can kill you even though it is dead. Leave it absolutely alone. I’ll take it away. Catherine, sure you are are not bitten?”

  “Yes, Father, I didn’t go near it, it looked so horrible but Father, it isn’t dead. Look, it is still moving.”

  “It is dying, dear, and still very dangerous. You must watch out for them all the time. Do not try to kill it yourself, but run away fast and call me.”

  “Will they chase me?”

  “I think not, lassie, but Mr. Forrest will tell us more. “