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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL

A Tale of Australian Bush-Life.

by

ANTHONY TROLLOPE,

Author of
"The Warden", "Barchester Towers," "Orley Farm," "The Small House at
Arlington", "The Eustace Diamonds," &c., &c.

Illustrated.






HARRY HEATHCOTE




CHAPTER I.

GANGOIL.


Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four
years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o'clock in the
evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife's
sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young
women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for
dinner. The wife and the wife's sister each had a child in her lap,
the elder having seen some fifteen months of its existence, and the
younger three months. "He has been out since seven, and I don't think
he's had a mouthful," the wife had just said. "Oh, Harry, you must be
half starved," she exclaimed, jumping up to greet him, and throwing
her arm round his bare neck.

"I'm about whole melted," he said, as he kissed her. "In the name of
charity give me a nobbler. I did get a bit of damper and a pannikin
of tea up at the German's hut; but I never was so hot or so thirsty
in my life. We're going to have it in earnest this time. Old Bates
says that when the gum leaves crackle, as they do now, before
Christmas, there won't be a blade of grass by the end of February."

"I hate Old Bates," said the wife. "He always prophesies evil, and
complains about his rations."

"He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the Mary," said
her husband. From all this I trust the reader will understand that
the Christmas to which he is introduced is not the Christmas with
which he is intimate on this side of the equator--a Christmas of
blazing fires in-doors, and of sleet arid snow and frost outside--but
the Christmas of Australia, in which happy land the Christmas fires
are apt to be lighted--or to light themselves--when they are by no
means needed.

The young man who had just returned home had on a flannel shirt, a
pair of mole-skin trowsers, and an old straw hat, battered nearly out
of all shape. He had no coat, no waistcoat, no braces, and nothing
round his neck. Round his waist there was a strap or belt, from the
front of which hung a small pouch, and, behind, a knife in a case.
And stuck into a loop in the belt, made for the purpose, there was a
small brier-wood pipe. As he dashed his hat off, wiped his brow, and
threw himself into a rocking-chair, he certainly was rough to look
at, but by all who understood Australian life he would have been
taken to be a gentleman. He was a young squatter, well known west of
the Mary River, in Queensland. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, who owned
30,000 sheep of his own, was a magistrate in those parts, and able to
hold his own among his neighbors, whether rough or gentle; and some
neighbors he had, very rough, who made it almost necessary that a man
should be able to be rough also, on occasions, if he desired to live
among them without injury. Heathcote of Gangoil could do all that.
Men said of him that he was too imperious, too masterful, too much
inclined to think that all things should be made to go as he would
have them. Young as he was, he had been altogether his own master
since he was of age--and not only his own master, but the master also
of all with whom he was brought into contact from day to day. In his
life he conversed but seldom with any but those who were dependent on
him, nor had he done so for the last three years. At an age at which
young men at home are still subject to pastors and masters, he had
sprung at once into patriarchal power, and, being a man determined to
thrive, had become laborious and thoughtful beyond his years.

Harry Heathcote had been left an orphan, with a small fortune in
money, when he was fourteen. For two years after that he had
consented to remain quietly at school, but at sixteen he declared his
purpose of emigrating. Boys less than himself in stature got above
him at school, and he had not liked it. For a twelvemonth he was
opposed by his guardian; but at the end of the year he was fitted
forth for the colony. The guardian was not sorry to be quit of him,
but prophesied that he would be home again before a year was over.
The lad had not returned, and it was now a settled conviction among
all who knew him that he would make or mar his fortune in the new
land that he had chosen.

He was a tall, well-made young fellow, with fair hair and a
good-humored smile, but ever carrying in his countenance marks of what
his enemies called pig-headedness, his acquaintances obstinacy, and
those who loved him firmness. His acquaintances were, perhaps, right,
for he certainly was obstinate. He would take no man's advice, he
would submit himself to no man, and in the conduct of his own business
preferred to trust to his own insight than to the experience of
others. It would sometimes occur that he had to pay heavily for his
obstinacy. But, on the other hand, the lessons which he learned he
learned thoroughly. And he was kept right in his trade by his own
indefatigable industry. That trade was the growth of wool. He was a
breeder of sheep on a Queensland sheep-run, and his flocks ran far
afield over a vast territory of which he was the only lord. His house
was near the river Mary, and beyond the river his domain did not
extend; but around him on his own side of the river he could ride for
ten miles in each direction without getting off his own pastures. He
was master, as far as his mastership went, of 120,000 acres--almost
an English county--and it was the pride of his heart to put his foot
off his own territory as seldom as possible. He sent his wool
annually down to Brisbane, and received his stores, tea and sugar,
flour and brandy, boots, clothes, tobacco, etc., once or twice a year
from thence. But the traffic did not require his own presence at the
city. So self-contained was the working of the establishment that he
was never called away by his business, unless he went to see some lot
of highly bred sheep which he might feel disposed to buy; and as for
pleasure, it had come to be altogether beyond the purpose of his life
to go in quest of that. When the work of the day was over, he would
lie at his length upon rugs in the veranda, with a pipe in his mouth,
while his wife sat over him reading a play of Shakspeare or the last
novel that had come to them from England.

He had married a fair girl, the orphan daughter of a bankrupt
squatter whom he had met in Sydney, and had brought her and her
sister into the Queensland bush with him. His wife idolized him. His
sister-in-law, Kate Daly, loved him dearly--as she had cause to do,
for he had proved himself to be a very brother to her; but she feared
him also somewhat. The people about the Mary said that she was fairer
and sweeter to look at even than the elder sister. Mrs. Heathcote was
the taller of the two, and the larger-featured. She certainly was the
higher in intellect, and the fittest to be the mistress of such an
establishment as that at Gangoil.

When he had washed his hands and face, and had swallowed the very
copious but weak allowance of brandy-and-water which his wife mixed
for him, he took