'What's a jackeroo? Oh, a young gentleman—for choice, the newest new chum to be found—who goes to a station to get Colonial experience. He has to work like a nigger, and revels in it, for a bit. If he is a black sheep, and has the antique ideas of the Colonies held by those who sent him out to whiten him, his illusions may last a couple of days; if he has read up Australia on the voyage, they will probably hold out a little longer, while he keeps looking for what his book told him he would find; the fact being that the modern bush life hasn't yet been done into English. Meanwhile he runs up the horses, rides round boundaries, mends fences, drives sheep to water—if it is a drought—and skins the dead ones, weighs out flour and sugar, cleans harness, camps anywhere, and lives on mutton and damper, and tea.'
'But what does he get for all that?' asked Maurice, with visions of money-bags.
'Rations and experience,' replied Flint promptly. 'When he's admitted to be worth his salt he will be asked to make other arrangements. Then some still newer new chum will be selected for the post, through the introductions he has brought to the stock and station agents, and in his turn will drive his teeth into the dirty work of the station, which the ordinary pound-a-week hands refuse, and so get his Colonial experience!'
'Thanks; I'll stop where I am,' said Maurice.
'He isn't fair,' said Dick, speaking for the first time. 'You know you aren't fair, old chap, raking up your own case as typical, when it was exceptional. Jackeroos are treated all right, and paid too, so long as they're smart and willing—the two things needful. Come, I've been a squatter myself, and can't hear my class run down.'
'You won't hear me defend the landlords on that ground,' remarked Flint, who had contracted eccentric politics.
'Well,' said Dick, experimentally, 'if I go back to it, Maurice shall be my jackeroo, and judge for himself whether you haven't painted us too black.'
He shipped his oars. Flint was standing up with the boat-hook to pilot them through the open lock-gates.
'Then I'll ride the boundaries!' cried Fanny, who sat a horse like a leech, but had had no mount for years.
'In that case,' added Flint quietly, 'I'll apply for overseer's billet, with the right of sacking slack hands.'
For a moment Dick looked really pleased: this jesting about a station in Australia was, so far, feeling the way, and might make matters a trifle easier when the time came. But the smile quickly faded from his face. In truth, on no day during these last weeks had he been so troubled in spirit, so tossed between the cross-currents of conflicting feelings.
That morning he had received two letters, apparently of contrary character: for while the perusal of one gratified him so intensely that he could not help handing it round for them all to see, the mere sight of the other was sufficient to make him thrust the unopened envelope hurriedly into his pocket.
The first letter was indeed a matter for congratulation, for it was the most completely satisfactory, though not the first, of several similar communications which Dick had received since his return from Australia. It was a short note from the editor of the 'Illustrated British Monthly,' accepting (for immediate use: a great point) a set of sketches entitled 'Home from Australia,' which set forth the humours and trials of a long sea voyage, and were, in fact, simply a finished reproduction of those sketches that had delighted the passengers on board the Hesper. But it was more than a mere formal acceptance: besides enclosing a cheque (in itself a charming feature) to meet the present case, the note contained a complimentary allusion to the quality of the 'work,' and a distinct hint for the future. This in a postscript—observing that as Australian subjects were somewhat in demand since the opening of the Colonial Exhibition—he (the editor) would be glad to see anything thoroughly Australian that Mr. Edmonstone might chance to have ready.
Of course the precious note was read aloud, and greeted with cries of delight. Fancy an opening with the 'Illustrated British' at this stage! What could be better? And it did look like a real opening. The hero of the moment alone sat silent; the unread letter in his pocket checked his speech; it was from Yorkshire.
'Why did you ever leave us, when you can do so splendidly here at home?' Mrs. Edmonstone asked him, half in regret for the past, half in joy for the future.
Flint saw his friend's preoccupation, and answered for him.
'He didn't know it was in him till he got out there, I fancy. I remember him sending his first things to the Melbourne and Sydney papers; and before a year was out, his famous buck-jumping picture was stuck up in every shanty in New South Wales and Victoria.'
'Eh?' said Dick, looking up abruptly. 'Oh, they coloured it vilely! What do you say, mother? No, I say, don't jump to conclusions. How do you know I can do any real good? I've been lucky so far, but I'm only at the very, very beginning. I may fail miserably after all. And then where should I be without my little pile?'
After breakfast Dick read the letter from Yorkshire in his own room.
'At the risk of being unduly persistent,' wrote Colonel Bristo, 'I must ask you to reconsider your decision.' (Dick had refused a short but pressing invitation the week before.) 'I know something of your reasons for refusing, and I believe them to be mistaken reasons. If you have really settled to return to Australia, that is all the more reason why you should come. If you like, I will undertake not to press you to stay beyond one day; only do come to bid us good-bye. Do not, however, fear to offend me by a second refusal. I shall be grievously disappointed, but nothing more. We really want you, for we shall be short of guns; two of the men only stay till Monday, so come on that day. But apart from all this, I am very sure that your coming will make the days a little less dull and dreary for one of us. Everything else has failed.'
The letter ended abruptly. Dick read it through twice, and put it back in his pocket with a full heart.
But what was he to do? Here was the good Colonel honestly trying, in his own way, to set matters right between him and Alice; but it was a childlike, if not a childish way—a way that ignored causes and refused to realise effects.
Dick trusted he was no such fool as to be affected by the hope that breathed in the Colonel's letter. The Colonel was confessedly unversed in women's ways—then why did he meddle? Surely it would have been more natural, more dignified, to send him, Dick, to the deuce, or to the Colonies—they were much the same thing in the Old Country—than to waste another thought on the man whom his own daughter (who could surely judge for herself) had chosen to jilt? Dick savagely wished that the former had been his treatment; and, rowing down from Sunbury that afternoon, he was so far decided that the phrases of his refusal were in his head. Call it rude, churlish, obstinate; he was obstinate, and was willing to own it; he had refused the Colonel once, and that refusal should be final.
Nevertheless, he was absent and distrait all day, whereas the others were in rather higher spirits than usual, and the contrast was uncomfortable. Dick therefore invented an excuse for running up to town, promising himself
