With Sydney gradually becoming established, Frank had been one of those sent to build a settlement at Parramatta, then known as Rose Hill. Through unremitting labor, he had earned a land grant by the time he had served his sentence, and he had chosen the land that was now his station on the Nepean River. Married by then, he had settled down to farming and raising sheep, his flock rapidly increasing from scores to hundreds.
The sheep, a strain of Merinos brought from Capetown, had been a fortunate choice of livestock. When the first large shipment of wool from the flocks in the colony had reached England, the importations of long-staple wool from the Merino flocks in Spain had just been cut off by the Napoleonic Wars. The wool brought a premium price, and Frank and others graziers gave up commercial farming and concentrated entirely on sheep.
His flocks increasing to thousands of sheep, Frank had tried to obtain more land. None in the vicinity of the Nepean River had been available, and other graziers had crossed the Blue Mountains to establish stations near the infant settlement of Bathurst. When his station had been threatened with overgrazing, Frank had set out with his family, stockmen, horses, dogs, wagons loaded with supplies, and half of his sheep. Driving the sheep slowly westward, letting them and the horses graze, it had taken him eight months to reach the land he had wanted.
"But I ended up right back here," Frank said, ending the long narrative, "so it's just as well that I kept this place and left it in charge of a manager instead of selling it."
David was unable to see the old man's face, nightfall having come an hour before, but his voice was sadly resigned. "Many men would have sent their family back and remained there," he commented.
Frank sighed. "Aye, many would have," he agreed. "Perhaps I would have myself if my wife hadn't gone a bit odd. But I thought I should sell out and bring them back, so that's what I did."
The two men fell silent as the cart moved down the track into the station and the horse found its own way in the thick darkness. As scattered raindrops fell, David reached down behind the seat for his oilskins, a long, loose coat made of thin linen soaked in whale oil. Frank rummaged under the seat for his, and the oily fabric rustled as the men unrolled the coats and donned them.
''At least this is only rain, without sleet or snow mixed with it," David remarked. "And as yet, it isn't very heavy."
"Aye, that makes it easier to bear." Frank chuckled. "But we're almost at the home paddock in any event."
A few minutes later, David smelled wood smoke, and lighted windows shone through the rain and darkness ahead. The cart passed the bulky shadows of pens, then drew up in the yard in front of a cookhouse where whale oil lamps burned inside. A barracks was adjacent to it, and a few yards away, a lamp turned low shone through a window in the house.
The cookhouse door opened and a man came out with a lantern as David jumped down from the cart and grabbed his things from behind the seat. The man held up the lantern and stepped closer. David saw that he was an Aborigine, wearing a stockman's clothes and wide hat. Frank made the introductions as he climbed heavily down from the cart. "David, this is Kunmanara, the gardener and handyman. Kunmanara, this is David Kerrick, a new stockman who'll be working here on Sundays."
A well-built man in his twenties, Kunmanara grinned amiably, his white teeth gleaming. "Are you all right, David?" he said, his accent the twangy. English of a native-born white rather than an Aborigine.
"Yes, I'm fine, Kunmanara," David replied, shaking hands with the man. "Are you all right?"
"Aye, I'll do." He moved to take the horse and the cart away. "There's hot stew and tea in the cookhouse, Mr. Williamson."
"That'll go down good," Frank replied. "Come on, David, let's go warm up and get a bite of tucker."
When Kunmanara led the horse away, Frank told David about the man and explained his accent as they went toward the cookhouse. While in the outback, the grazier had found the Aborigine as a small, orphaned boy, his parents having been killed by a wild boar. Frank had taken him in, putting him in the barracks once he was old enough to look after himself, and Kunmanara had been with the grazier ever since.
The cookhouse had a homey, cheerful atmosphere. A fire blazed in the fireplace at one end, with food bins, a cabinet, and a washstand beside it. Oil lamps burned brightly on a long, heavy table where two men sat over pannikins of tea. They stood up and Frank introduced them.
A small, wiry man with graying hair and a disabled leg was the cook and storekeeper, James Roberts. Smiling affably, he said to call him Jimbob. The other man, tall and angular, was in his forties. Cordial but more businesslike than Jimbob, Daniel Corbett was the head stockman.
After exchanging greetings with the men, David took a seat at the table as Frank and Daniel sat down, and Jimbob went to the fireplace. The grazier told David that there were four other employees who were jackaroos, trainee stockmen. They were out tending the sheep, he explained, and David would meet them the next day.
Spry and energetic despite his disabled leg, Jimbob bustled about at the fireplace, clattering dishes and pannikins. Soon, David and Frank had tin plates brimming with mutton stew, pannikins of tea, and a plate stacked with pieces of damper, stockman's bread made with flour, salt, and water. The rich, hearty stew, full of large chunks of meat and vegetables, and the broth thickened with pearl barley, was the most delicious food that David had eaten in a very long time.
Jimbob sat down at the table, and Kunmanara entered the room. As the men talked, David learned from their remarks that Jimbob and Daniel had been in the outback with Frank. Like Kunmanara, years of close association and shared experiences in the distant region had created a close bond between the two men and the grazier.
After the meal, Frank went to his house and David to the barracks with the other men. His bed, a wooden cot with its hard boards covered by layers of cured sheepskin, was as soft and comfortable as the best feather mattress, but it seemed only a short time before the other men were stirring again in the darkness before dawn. David went to the cookhouse with the others, and Frank joined them for a breakfast of fresh damper and thick slices of smoke-cured bacon.
At the first light of dawn on the cold, rainy morning, David went with Daniel to saddle horses. The home paddock was the area around the house and other buildings, which included a shearing shed and its adjacent holding pens. At one side of the buildings was a large garden, and there was also a chicken yard as well as a few head of cattle and pigs in other pens. The head stockman told David that the grazing area was divided into the north paddock, bordering on the Parramatta road, and the south paddock where he and David were headed.
As they rode south over the hills dotted with trees among the grass and brush, Daniel told David that the jackaroos remained with the two flocks of sheep, periodically going to the home paddock for food and other supplies. Shortly after, a flock of some fifteen hundred sheep came into view. The two youths with the sheep were loading a pack horse and taking down a fold made of poles and rope where the animals were penned at night, preparing to move the flock to another part of the paddock.
Reining up beside the youths, Daniel introduced them to David. A tall, fair boy, Silas Doak was about sixteen, and the other one, heavy-set and with an unruly shock of dark brown hair, Ruel Blake looked about fifteen. The head stockman told them that he and David would move the sheep, and they could go to the home paddock to get more supplies. The youths grinned happily, racing for their horses.
The two men completed the preparations to move the flock. The head stockman explained that sheep would graze grass down to the roots and destroy a pasture if kept in one place too long. He pointed out tufts of grass, showing David how to tell when the animals should be moved. Then, calling in the four dogs with the flock, Daniel demonstrated how to control them from a distance with hand signals.
With the fold rolled into a bundle of poles and ropes, Daniel tied a rope from it to the pack on the horse for the animal to drag it. He mounted his horse, taking the halter rope on the pac
k horse, and told David to drive the sheep ahead. David whistled to the dogs and motioned them to go around the flock to start the sheep moving, which resulted in total confusion.
The sheep, having spread out to graze, were scattered over a wide area. The dogs misunderstood David's intentions and dashed through the center of the flock, frightening the sheep and spreading them even farther apart as clusters of animals ran to and fro. Daniel, offering neither help nor advice, sat on his horse and waited.
It took David an hour of growing frustration to find out that his signals to the dogs were confusing them. Concentrating on that, he guided one dog at a time to gather the sheep which by then were spread far apart and madly milling about. When he finally had them together and moving in one direction, Daniel dryly reminded him that the flock was to be taken eastward, not to the home paddock where they were headed.
At midday, David finally had the flock flowing slowly over the rolling terrain to the east. But they were bunched instead of in the required wide column when being moved. The dogs still occasionally misunderstood his intentions, making clusters of a dozen sheep break away when they charged straight at the flock. Sending the dogs after the strays and trying again, David at last had the flock formed into a column.
During the late afternoon, the sheep reached the new grazing area. As he and Daniel were unloading the youths' belongings from the pack horse and putting up the fold, David commented wryly on his difficulties with the sheep. "No, that was nothing," the head stockman disagreed firmly. "Mr. Williamson said you would learn fast, and he was right. It usually takes a new stockman as many days as it took you hours to learn how to handle a flock. When Silas and Ruel get here, we'll go back to the home paddock. Mr. Williamson wants you to help him with some sick sheep."
The two youths arrived a few minutes later, and David and Daniel rode back across the hills. At the home paddock, David unsaddled his horse and put it in a pen with the other horses, then joined Frank at a holding pen where a score of thin, sickly sheep were standing about listlessly. The grazier opened a wooden box of medicines and primitive medical instruments, and David helped him doctor the sheep.
Most of them had infections around the stubs remaining from their tails. Frank explained that when the tail was cut off a lamb, the skin around the anus was removed so no wool would grow, a process known as mulsing. When it was improperly done, wool grew and collected clots of dung called dags, drawing blowflies. Even in winter, blowflies laid eggs in the dags that hatched into worms and caused the infections.
Trimming away the dags and opening the pockets of infection was nauseating, but David grimly accepted the fact that it was part of working with sheep. When he and the grazier finished, they went to a pen that was isolated from the others with quicklime spread around it. It contained a dozen sheep with patches of raw skin showing through their thin, ragged wool.
As they crossed the quicklime and went into the pen, Frank cautioned David to touch the sheep only with his hands. "They have what's called scab," he explained, "and it can be passed on to other sheep very easily. If you brush your clothes against one of these sheep and then against another one, that's enough to pass it on."
"Very well. What do you use to cure it?"
"A hammer between the eyes is the best cure," Frank replied, taking an earthenware pot from the box of medicines. "But I've been trying this. It's sulfur and alum mixed into a paste with whale oil."
"Has it been curing the disease?"
The grazier cheerfully shook his head. "Not yet, but it might need more time. We'll do this, then call it a day. As I mentioned before, you can use a horse to return to Parramatta, and Kunmanara will ride along with you to bring the horse back. But first we'll see what Jimbob has fixed for dinner." He opened the earthenware pot, laughing heartily. "There's nothing like doctoring sick sheep to work up an appetite."
David laughed wryly, moving toward the sheep with Frank. David was certain that any other grazier would have destroyed the sheep rather than risk spreading the disease to the flocks, confirming a general conclusion he had drawn about Frank and his station. There were too many employees for the some three thousand sheep at the station, and at the same time, the place was large enough for thousands more. It evidently made a profit, but that was secondary to Frank. In his autumn years, Frank was keeping his friends from the outback around him and working with his sheep however he wished, simply enjoying the time remaining to him.
The next day, Francis Greenway came to the construction site during the morning, exuberantly happy. In a recent shipload of convicts, there had been two building contractors, partners who had been convicted of fraud. The two men had been assigned as overseers at construction projects in Sydney, and had proven to be capable as construction supervisors.
The governor was pleased, and Greenway was even more gratified, because he was no longer involved in the details of construction. It was also good news for David. The construction of the barracks was on schedule and starting to draw ahead, and his chances of receiving a pardon appeared favorable. However, it had appeared at least possible that he might receive a pardon contingent upon his working as a construction supervisor.
During the afternoon on Wednesday, a clergyman came to the construction site with a young woman. As much a girl as a woman, she was about sixteen and apparently a convict or a servant, wearing a plain dungaree dress and a castoff coat. But she was meticulous. The coat had been carefully mended, and her hair arranged tidily under her mobcap.
The clergyman, a small, mild man with an air of patient concern, introduced himself as Terence Carlson. He asked David if they might speak privately, then told David that the young woman was Auberta Mowbray, and she was a convict.
"However," he added, "she lives with a family in the village and works as a maid. She doesn't stay in the Female Factory. I understand that a man named Enos Hinton works here. He forcibly interfered with Mistress Mowbray, and now she is in a delicate condition."
David frowned, understanding that Hinton had raped the young woman and she was pregnant. "That sounds like Hinton. Well, if you want to charge him with an offense, you need to talk to the commandant, not me, Vicar."
The man blinked owlishly, then shook his head. "No, I would like for him to do the honorable thing and marry her."
"Marry her?" David exclaimed. "You don't know Hinton, Vicar. To start with, I'd wager my right arm that he's never done an honorable thing in his life. And there can't be a woman on earth who is so utterly worthless as to deserve to be married to him."
"I understand he's a disreputable sort," the clergyman agreed. "However, when the family Mistress Mowbray is staying with finds out her condition, they will order her out of their home. Then she will have to go to the Female Factory, and she is completely unlike the women there. In addition, this is what Mistress Mowbray wants."
"Are you quite sure about that?" David asked her. "I've never met a man more detestable than he is, Mistress Mowbray."
"I don't need to be told about him, Mr. Kerrick," she replied quietly. "Notwithstanding how he is, this is what I want."
Although she was very young, as well as distraught over her predicament, her face and eyes reflected a spirited, determined personality. Studying her, David reflected that she would make a good man an excellent wife. Then he dismissed the thought, accepting her decision. He called to a laborer, telling him to get Hinton from the saw pit.
A few minutes later, Hinton came around the building, covered with sawdust. As soon as he saw the woman and clergyman, guilt was plain on his coarse features, his icy eyes reflecting apprehension, but he tried to bluster his way out of it. Vicar Carlson began talking to him in a soft, reasonable voice, and Hinton interrupted him, "I've never bloody seen her before in my life! And what flaming concern of yours is it?"
"You control your tongue, Hinton!" David snapped angrily. "That's a man of God you're talking to, not some swine like yourself!"
Hinton turned and glared, then looked away as David sta
red him down. Recovering his composure to an extent after Hinton's outburst, the clergyman began talking quietly again, encouraging him to accept his responsibilities and marry the woman. Hinton shook his head, stubbornly insisting that he had never seen her before. Auberta chimed in, her voice trembling with distress, and described the time and place where he had assaulted her.
Workers found reasons to pass nearby, exchanging winks and grins as they overheard the conversation, and they told others. Within a few minutes, workers all over the site were laughing and talking about it, enjoying Hinton's chagrin. He continued arguing with Vicar Carlson and the woman.
"All right, that's enough," David said, interrupting the conversation. "Hinton, everyone here knows you're lying through your teeth. You can either decide now to marry her, or you'll stay in a cell at the guardhouse on half rations until you do decide to do it."
The unblemished side of Hinton's face flushed with rage, his pale blue eyes bulging and his thick features trembling. "You can't bloody do that to me!" he bellowed. "You can't put me in a cell on half rations for not marrying her!"
"No, I can't," David agreed. "It'll be for malingering."
"Malingering?" Hinton roared. "I've been working my bloody arse off in that flaming saw pit, and you can't say that I've been malingering!"
"Yes, I can!" David snapped. "I'm the one who judges the work here, and the commandant will accept whatever I say. So you'll go into a cell for malingering, and I'll decide you've had enough when you decide to marry this woman. Now do you want the church or the guardhouse, Hinton?"
The man was speechless with fury for a moment, then he shrugged helplessly. "Aye, I'll marry her, then," he muttered grimly.
"What sort of arrangements do you want to make, Vicar?" David asked, turning to Terence Carlson. "Do you want to post the banns on Sunday?"
The clergyman hesitated, the problem having been settled quickly, then nodded happily. "Yes, the banns will have to be posted on two consecutive Sundays, then the wedding can be performed."
Outback Station Page 8
