Part 3

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.

The clerk of the weather, too gracious even in these regions as far as the absence of rain is concerned, was steadily propitious. Cloudless skies and a gradually ascending thermometer alone were the signs that spring was changing into summer. The splendid herbage ripened and dried; patches of bare earth began to be discernible amid the late thick-swarded pastures, dust to rise and cloud-pillars of sand to float and eddy--the desert genii of the Arab. But the work went on at a high rate of speed, outpacing the fast-coming summer; and before any serious disasters arose, the last flock was "on the battens," and, amid ironical congratulations, the "cobbler," or last sheep was seized, and stripped of his rather dense and difficult fleece. In ten minutes the vast woolshed, lately echoing with the ceaseless click of the shears, the jests, the songs, the oaths of the rude congregation, was silent and deserted. The floors were swept, the pens closed, the sheep on their way to a distant paddock. Not a soul remains about the building but the pressers, who stay to work at the rapidly lessening piles of fleeces in the bins, or a meditative teamster who sits musing on a wool-bale, absorbed in a calculation as to when his load will be made up.

It is sundown, a rather later time of closing than usual, but rendered necessary by the possibility of the "grand finale." The younger men troop over to the hut, larking like schoolboys. Abraham Lawson throws a poncho over his broad shoulders, lights his pipe, and strides along, towering above the rest, erect and stately as a guardsman. Considerably more so than you or I, reader, would have been, had we shorn 130 sheep, as he has done to-day. Billy May has shorn 142, and he puts his hand on the five-foot paling fence of the yard and vaults over it like a deer, preparatory to a swim in the creek. At dinner you will see them all with fresh Crimeans and Jerseys, clean, comfortable, and in grand spirits. Next morning is settling-day. The book-keeping departments at Anabanco being severely correct, all is in readiness. Each man's tally or number of sheep shorn has been entered daily to his credit. His private and personal investments at the store have been as duly debited. The shearers, as a corporation, have been charged with the multifarious items of their rather copious mess-bill. This sum total is divided by the number of the shearers, the extract being the amount for which each man is liable. This sum varies in its weekly proportion at different sheds. With an extravagant cook, or cooks, the weekly bill is often alarming. When the men and their functionary study economy it may be kept very reasonably low.

The men have been sitting or standing about the office for half-an-hour when Mr Jack Bowles rushes out, and shouts "William May!" That young person, excessively clean, attired in a quiet tweed suit, with his hair cut very correctly short, advances with an air of calm intrepidity, and faces Mr Gordon. Gordon, now seated at a long table, wearing a judicial expression of countenance.

"Well, May, here's your account":--

So many sheep, at 1 pound per 100... xxxx pounds Cook, so many weeks................. xxxx pounds Shearing store account.............. xxxx pounds Private store account............... xxxx pounds ---- Total............................... xxxx pounds ----

"Is the tally of your sheep right?" "Oh! I daresay it's all right, Mr Gordon, I made it so and so; about ten less."

"Well, well! Ours is correct, no doubt. Now I want to make up a good subscription for the hospital this year. How much will you give? You've done pretty well, I think."

"Put me down a pound, sir."

"Very well, that's fair enough. If every one gives what they can afford, you men will always have a place to go to when you're hurt or laid up. So I put your name down, and you'll see it in the published list. Now about the shearing, May. I consider that you've done your work very well, and behaved very well all through. You're a fast shearer, but you shear closely, and don't knock your sheep about. I therefore do not charge you for any part of your meat bill, and I pay you at the rate of half-a-crown a hundred for all your sheep, over and above your agreement. Will that do?"

"Very well, indeed, and I'm much obliged to you, Mr Gordon."