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                             IN BAD COMPANY

                           AND OTHER STORIES


                              THE WORKS OF

                            ROLF BOLDREWOOD

                            UNIFORM EDITION

                       _Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each._

  ROBBERY UNDER ARMS.
  A COLONIAL REFORMER.
  THE MINER'S RIGHT.
  A MODERN BUCCANEER.
  NEVERMORE.
  THE SQUATTER'S DREAM.
  A SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON.
  OLD MELBOURNE MEMORIES.
  MY RUN HOME.
  THE SEALSKIN CLOAK.
  THE CROOKED STICK; OR, POLLIE'S PROBATION.
  PLAIN LIVING.
  A ROMANCE OF CANVAS TOWN.
  WAR TO THE KNIFE.
  BABES IN THE BUSH.
  IN BAD COMPANY, AND OTHER STORIES.
                  *       *       *       *       *
  THE SPHINX OF EAGLEHAWK: A TALE OF OLD BENDIGO. Fcap. 8vo. 2s.
  THE GHOST CAMP; OR, THE AVENGERS. Cr. 8vo. 6s.

                    MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.




                             IN BAD COMPANY

                           AND OTHER STORIES


                                   BY

                            ROLF BOLDREWOOD

                               AUTHOR OF

   'ROBBERY UNDER ARMS,' 'THE MINER'S RIGHT,' 'THE SQUATTER'S DREAM,'
                      'A COLONIAL REFORMER,' ETC.




                                 London

                       MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

                    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

                                  1903


                         _All rights reserved_




                          _First Edition 1901_

                            _Re-issue 1903_




                                CONTENTS


                                                     PAGE

               IN BAD COMPANY                           1

               MORGAN THE BUSHRANGER                  135

               HOW I BECAME A BUTCHER                 146

               MOONLIGHTING ON THE MACQUARIE          165

               AN AUSTRALIAN ROUGHRIDING CONTEST      174

               THE MAILMAN'S YARN                     182

               DEAR DERMOT                            190

               THE STORY OF AN OLD LOG-BOOK           199

               A KANGAROO SHOOT                       208

               FIVE MEN'S LIVES FOR ONE HORSE         214

               REEDY LAKE STATION                     220

               A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY                    234

               THE HORSE YOU DON'T SEE NOW            241

               HOW I BEGAN TO WRITE                   249

               A MOUNTAIN FOREST                      255

               THE FREE SELECTOR—A COMEDIETTA         261

               BUSH HOSPITALITY                       282

               LAPSED GENTLEFOLK                      288

               SHEARING IN RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES  296

               ANCIENT SYDNEY                         321

               AFTER LONG YEARS                       335

               IN THE DROVING DAYS                    341

               THE AUSTRALIAN NATIVE-BORN TYPE        351

               MY SCHOOL DAYS                         360

               SYDNEY FIFTY YEARS AGO                 369

               OLD TIME THOROUGHBREDS                 377

               THE FIRST PORT FAIRY HUNT              387

               BENDEMEER                              398

               SPORT IN AUSTRALIA                     407

               OLD STOCK-RIDERS                       415

               MOUNT MACEDON                          422

               WALKS ABROAD                           430

                 FROM TUMUT TO TUMBERUMBA             437

                 IN THE THROES OF A DROUGHT           444

                 A SPRING SKETCH                      449

                 NEW YEAR'S DAY 1886                  455

               A DRY TIME                             461

               AUSTRALIAN COLLIES                     466

               IN THE BLOOM OF THE YEAR               474

               FALLEN AMONG THIEVES                   481

               A TRANSFORMATION SCENE                 491

               IN BUSHRANGING DAYS                    501




                             IN BAD COMPANY


                               CHAPTER I

Bill Hardwick was as fine a specimen of an Australian as you could find
in a day's march. Active as a cat and strong withal, he was mostly
described as 'a real good all-round chap, that you couldn't put wrong at
any kind of work that a man could be asked to do.'

He could plough and reap, dig and mow, put up fences and huts, break in
horses and drive bullocks; he could milk cows and help in the dairy as
handily as a woman. These and other accomplishments he was known to
possess, and being a steady, sensible fellow, was always welcome when
work was needed and a good man valued. Besides all this he was the
fastest and the best shearer in the district of Tumut, New South Wales,
where he was born, as had been his father and mother before him. So that
he was a true Australian in every sense of the word.

It could not be said that the British race had degenerated as far as he
was concerned. Six feet high, broad-chested, light-flanked, and standing
on his legs like a gamecock, he was always ready to fight or work, run,
ride or swim, in fact to tackle any muscular exercise in the world at
the shortest notice.

Bill had always been temperate, declining to spend his earnings to
enrich the easy-going township publican, whose mode of gaining a living
struck him as being too far removed from that of honest toil. Such being
his principles and mode of life, he had put by a couple of hundred
pounds, and 'taken up a selection.' This means (in Australia) that he
had conditionally purchased three hundred and twenty acres of Crown
Land, had paid up two shillings per acre of the upset price, leaving the
balance of eighteen shillings, to be paid off when convenient. He had
constructed thereon, chiefly with his own hands, a comfortable,
four-roomed cottage, of the'slab' architecture of the period, and after
fencing in his property and devoting the proceeds of a couple of
shearings to a modest outlay in furniture, had married Jenny Dawson, a
good-looking, well-conducted young woman, whom he had known ever since
he was big enough to crack a stockwhip.

In her way she was as clever and capable; exceptionally well adapted for
the position of a farmer's wife, towards which occupation her birth and
surroundings had tended. She was strong and enduring in her way, as were
her husband and brothers in theirs. She could milk cows and make
excellent butter, wasn't afraid of a turbulent heifer in the dairy herd,
or indisposed to rise before daylight in the winter mornings and drive
in the milkers through the wet or frozen grass. She could catch and
saddle her own riding-horse or drive the spring cart along an
indifferent road to the country town. She knew all about the rearing of
calves, pigs, and poultry; could salt beef and cure bacon—in a general
way attend to all the details of a farm. Her father had acquired a small
grant in the early colonial days, and from its produce and profits
reared a family of healthy boys and girls.

They had not been educated up to the State school standard now
considered necessary for every dweller in town or country, but they
could read and write decently; had also such knowledge of arithmetic as
enabled them to keep their modest accounts. Such having been the early
training of Bill's helpmate, it was a fair augury that, with luck and
good conduct, they were as likely as any young couple of their age to
prosper reasonably, so as eventually to acquire a competence, or even,
as indeed not a few of their old friends and neighbours had done, to
attain to that enviable position generally described as'making a
fortune.'

For the first few years nothing could have been more promising than the
course of affairs at Chidowla or 'Appletree Flat,' as their homestead
was formerly named, in consequence of the umbrageous growth of the
'angophora' in the meadow by the mountain creek, which bordered their
farm. Bill stayed at home and worked steadily, until he had put in his
crop. He cleared and cultivated a larger piece of ground with each
succeeding year. The seasons were genial, and the rainfall, though
occasionally precarious, did not, during this period, show any
diminution. But annually, before the first spring month came round, Bill
saddled the old mare, and leading a less valuable or perhaps half-broken
young horse, packed his travelling'swag' upon it and started off for
the shearing. Jenny did not particularly like being left alone for three
months or perhaps four, with no one but the children, for by this time a
sturdy boy and baby girl had been added to the household. But Bill
brought home such a welcome addition to the funds in the shape of the
squatters' cheques, that she hid her uneasiness and discomfort from him,
only hoping, as she said, that some day, if matters went on as they were
going, they would be able to do without the shearing money, and Bill
could afford to stop with his wife and children all the year round. That
was what _she_ would like.

So time went on, till after one more shearing, Bill began to think about
buying the next selection, which an improvident neighbour would shortly
be forced to sell, owing to his drinking habits and too great fondness
for country race meetings.

The soil of the land so handily situated was better than their own, and,
as an adjoining farm, could be managed without additional expense.

The 'improvements' necessary for holding it under the lenient land laws
of New South Wales had been effected.

They were not particularly valuable, but they had been passed by the
Inspector of Conditional Purchases, who was not too hard on a poor man,
if he made his selection his '_bona fide_ home and residence.' This
condition Mr. Dick Donahue certainly had fulfilled as far as locating
his hard-working wife Bridget and half-a-dozen bare-legged, ragged
children thereon, with very little to eat sometimes, while he was acting
as judge at a bush race meeting, or drinking recklessly at the
public-house in the township.

So now the end had come. The place was mortgaged up to its full value
with the bank at Talmorah, the manager of which had refused to advance
another shilling upon it.

The storekeeper, who had a bill of sale over the furniture, horses and
cows, plough, harrow, and winnowing machine, had decided to sell him up.
The butcher and the baker, despairing of getting their bills paid,
declined further orders. Poor Bridget had been lately feeding herself
and the children on milk and potatoes, last year's bacon, and what eggs
the fowls, not too well fed themselves, kindly produced.

Jenny had helped them many a time, from womanly pity. But for her, they
would often have been without the 'damper' bread, which served to fill
up crevices with the hungry brood—not that she expected return or
payment, but as she said, 'How could I see the poor things hungry, while
we have a snug home and all we can eat and drink?'

Then she would mentally compare Bill's industry with Dick's neglect, and
a feeling of wifely pride would thrill her heart as she returned to her
comfortable cottage and put her children, always neatly dressed, to
sleep in their clean cots.

As she sat before the fire, near the trimly-swept hearth, which looked
so pleasant and homely, though there was but a wooden slab chimney
with a stone facing, a vision arose before her of prosperous days when
they would have a ring fence round their own and the Donahues'
farm—perhaps even an 'additional conditional lease,' to be freehold
eventually—afterwards a flock of sheep and who knows what in the years
to come.

'The Donahues, poor things, would have to sell and go away, that was
certain; _they_ couldn't prevent them being sold up—and, of course, Bill
might as well buy it as another. The bank manager, Mr. Calthorpe, would
sell the place, partly on credit, trusting Bill for the remainder, with
security on both farms, because he was sober and industrious. Indeed, he
told Bill so last week. What a thing it was to have a good name! When
she thought of the way other women's husbands "knocked down" their money
after shearing, forty and fifty pounds, even more, in a week's drunken
bout, she felt that she could not be too thankful.

'Now Bill, when shearing was over, generally took a small sum in
cash—just enough to see him home, and paid in the cheque for the
season's shearing to his bank account. It was over sixty pounds last
year, for he sold his spare horse—a thirty-shilling colt out of the
pound, that he had broken in himself—to the overseer, for ten guineas,
and rode home on the old mare, who, being fat and frolicsome after her
spell, "carried him and his swag first-rate."

'As to the two farms, no doubt it would give them all they knew, at
first, to live and pay interest. But other people could do it, and why
shouldn't they? Look at the Mullers! The bark hut they lived in for the
first few years is still there. They kept tools, seed potatoes, odds and
ends in it now. Next, they built a snug four-roomed slab cottage, with
an iron roof. That's used for the kitchen and men's room. For they've
got a fine brick house, with a verandah and grand furniture, and a big
orchard and more land, and a flock of sheep and a dairy and a buggy
and—everything. How I should like a buggy to drive myself and the
children to the township! Wouldn't it be grand? To be sure they're
Germans, and it's well known they work harder and save more than us
natives. But what one man and woman can do, another ought to be able
for, I say!'

And here Jenny shut her mouth with a resolute expression and worked away
at her needle till bedtime. Things were going on comfortably with this
meritorious young couple, and Bill was getting ready to start for the
annual trip 'down the river,' as it was generally described. This was a
region distant three hundred miles from the agricultural district where
the little homestead had been created. The 'down the river' woolsheds
were larger and less strictly managed (so report said) than those of the
more temperate region, which lay near the sources of the great rivers.
In some of them as many as one hundred, two hundred, even three hundred
thousand sheep were annually shorn. And as the fast shearers would do
from a hundred to a hundred and fifty sheep per day, it may be
calculated, at the rate of one pound per hundred, what a nice little
cheque would be coming to every man after a season's shearing. More
particularly if the weather was fine.

Bill was getting ready to start on the following morning when a man
named Janus Stoate arrived, whom he knew pretty well, having more than
once shorn in the same shed with him.

He was a cleverish, talkative fellow, with some ability and more
assurance, qualities which attract steady-going, unimaginative men like
Bill, who at once invited him to stay till the morning, when they could
travel together. Stoate cheerfully assented, and on the morrow they took
the road after breakfast, much to Mrs. Hardwick's annoyance, who did not
care for the arrangement. For, with feminine intuition, she distrusted
Janus Stoate, about whom she and her husband had had arguments.

He was a Londoner—an 'assisted' emigrant, a radical socialist, brought
out at the expense of the colony. For which service he was so little
grateful that he spoke disrespectfully of all the authorities, from the
Governor downward, and indeed, as it seemed to her, of respectable
people of every rank and condition. Now Jenny, besides being naturally
an intelligent young woman, utilised her leisure hours during her
husband's absence, for reading the newspapers, as well as any books she
could get at. She had indeed more brains than he had, which gift she
owed to an Irish grandmother. And though she did by no means attempt to
rule him, her advice was always listened to and considered.

'I wish you were going with some one else,' she said with an air of
vexation. 'It's strange that that Stoate should come, just on your last
evening at home. I don't like him a little bit. He's just artful enough
to persuade you men that he's going to do something great with this
"Australian Shearers' Union" that I see so much about in the newspapers.
I don't believe in him, and so I tell you, Bill!'

'I know you don't like Unions,' he answered, 'but see what they've done
for the working classes! What could we shearers have done without ours?'

'