AustLit
Some forty years ago, before there was such a colony as Queensland, before Brisbane was anything but a straggling row of humpies, before the far-stretching station of Whiteside had been curtained and while it still stretched from far away beyond the heads of the Pine River down to the outskirts of the future metropolis, before Mr. Thomas Petrie had settled on the Pine River, which he did in spite of the warnings of his friends that he would surely be murdered by the blacks, and before he had blazed the trees to mark the road from his settlement to the township which is now part of the high road to the North; in these far-off and yet very near days, Dan Steve and his wife camped upon the Pine River and were some of the best known and most noticeable personalities of the locality.
The Steves had come from Sydney, of which place they disliked to hear mention, as also to be questioned as to their reasons for emigration; consequently it was a favourite amusement with the shepherds and stockmen when they chanced to meet them to raise a wordy war by dwelling on these topics. It was not very often, however, that they had the chance, for the Steves kept very much to themselves and it was only on rare occasions that they went to the township.
Nell Steve was a very handsome young woman, twenty years younger than her husband. She was tall and well made, with bright eyes that sparkled with a decided spice of daredevilry, brilliantly white teeth and cheeks as round and softly shaded as a peach.
Steve was devoted to his wife in spite of her “cussedness,” but she led him a terrible life and many times he had vowed he would leave her. Such threats only seemed to increase Nell’s delight in teasing him, for, like a true woman, she not only loved to have power but liked frequently to test it. Nevertheless, in spite of all her vagaries she was in the literal sense a true “help-meet” to Dan; no hired man could have kept so sharp a look-out as she did while the bullock that was to supply their beef barrel was being skinned and the hide that was so invariably damaged just where the brand ought to have been was hidden away. She was a capital mate, too, in looking after cattle. Their stock ran wild, but Nell knew them all and they were all run in and branded in due season. Perhaps it was due to Nell’s care that their cows were so prolific. No other man had such wonderful increase as Steve. Most of the cows had two or three calves at foot and it seemed sometimes as if the bulls must have calved, too, so numerous was the bovine progeny. Sometimes this excessive fertility of their stock caused disagreeableness with other cattle owners. Dire threats were hurled at Dan’s head, who listen to them with the greatest equanimity. “Hard words break no bones,” said Nell, philosophically, and the calmness with which she listened and the over-powering torrent of eloquence with which she replied was something to remember.
One Christmas-tide, Steve having several hides to dispose of, besides sundry other items of business to transact, started with his wife to go to Brisbane.
They got as far as a wayside shanty and stayed for refreshment. Several choice spirits had already congregated there, for it was on the track from the north coast to Brisbane. Of course in the rare event of meeting old friends, “nips” were freely exchanged and both Mr. and Mrs. Steve got considerably exhilarated and the hour they intended to stay extended to the remainder of the day.
Two shearers, Ned Wace and Bill Wright, arrived soon after they did, each with a big cheque in his pocket, which they were going to “knock down” in a Christmas spree. Two teams of bullocks arrived next day and the patient oxen stood with necks bowed beneath their heavy yokes while their drivers went in to refresh themselves before unyoking. These men had, as yet, no cheques to knock down and it was incumbent on them to get their loads to town before Christmas. They had had a bad journey for it had been a long, dry season and there was scarcely any grass. They had still a two or three days’ journey before them for the roads in those days were merely tracks which made a devious winding course, following the flats and making a circuit round every fallen tree that came in the way.
“We want rain bad, but it ‘uld be uncommon awkward if it came down before we got the loads in!” said one of the teamsters to Joe Smith, the owner of the shanty.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Joe Smith, “you’re as well here as anywhere, and it’s a pocket like for the beasts.”
There must have been distinctly an eye to business in such an assertion, for, to ordinary persons, no place could have looked less promising as a shelter than the slab humpy with mud floor and dilapidated bark roof, though it shone with comparative glory by the side of the “lean to’s” that were affixed to the house in every conceivable position and for purposes of most varied description.
“I should not wonder but when it does come it will come regular; it’s most too late for thunderstorms,” and Jack looked questioningly at the sky which had been overcast for some days.
Jack’s prophecy was right. That very night the rain began; only a small, steady rain at first but gradually increasing till, by daybreak, it came down in sheets of water, with short intervals between of lighter rain, when a deceptive brightness made it seem about to hold up, but which really only heralded another downpour.
The Steves’ horses, with all the others and the bullocks each went their several ways, delighting in the freshening of the dry grass by the rain and the spell from work. Their owners took their pleasure as they best could in the shanty and no one had better cause to rejoice in the welcome downpour than Joe Smith. His guests drank long and deep and diversified their potations by brawls which never came to anything serious.
Nell Steve made good use of her tongue and of her eyes. Ned Wace was an old admirer of her’s and though Dan was drinking too much to take great notice of what was going on he saw enough one evening to make an effort to strike Ned in the face.
“Now then, what’s that for, you old sawney?” said Nell, catching her husband’s hand saving Ned’s nose from injury.
Dan mumbled something, at which Nell laughed. “You go along to bed,” she said; “you’ve had too much. You always get that quarrelsome in your cups there’s no bearing of you. There, never mind him, Ned, it’s no odds to us what he says.”
“I’ll make it odds!” growled Dan who, though he had taken a good dead more than was good for him, was quite able to understand everything that was going on. “I’ll be rid of you, you baggage!”
“Well said, Dan!” exclaimed a man who had arrived soon after the rain began. He had come from town where he had taken in a load of corn and had swopped his old wagon for a brand new dray with bright-red wheels. He had a good horse, too, with strong, new harness, altogether a very creditable turn-out and one on which all the assembled company at the shanty had cast admiring glances when he arrived. He, in his turn, had been very much struck by Nell and, though he was not a man of words, he had sat staring at her in a fashion which betokened extreme admiration. Nell had observed it, of course, but she did not speak to him; she liked talking and laughing with Ned Wace better, for Ned was a bit of a wit and kept the whole party in good humour by his wonderful sallies; all except old Dan, who always listened in contemptuous silence.
“Well said; that young ‘oman requires a tight whip-hand. She’s too much for the likes of you; you want something quieter.”
“No, nothing quieter! No, no more of women of any sort if I know it. Once quit of, well sorra a woman shall come nigh me,” muttered Dan in a thick husky voice.
“Well, I don’t know but you’re right. And yet—”
Dick sat beside Dan for a long time in complete silence. He had a real talent for silence, had Dick. Then he got up and went to the shanty bar again where Nell and Ned were still laughing and talking loudly while the others listened and dozed and drank, and Dick Green gazed at Nell unflinchingly. After two days’ and two nights’ downpour the rain ceased and though the sky was still threatening, the spell of dry weather revived everyone’s spirits except Joe Smith’s. More rain was still wanted, but it was a good thing to have an interval of dry weather. Early in the morning the bullock-drivers got in their horses to go in search of their bullocks. Bill Wright got his own horse and Ben’s. Dick Green got Dan Steve’s and Nell’s but did not look for his own nor make any reference to the new dray.
“Where’s the dray, Dick?” exclaimed Bill as Dick came up with Dan Steve’s horses.
Dick looked rather sheepish. “Never you mind” was all the explanation he vouchsafed.
“And where’s Dan?” exclaimed Nell who had now emerged from some inner recesses of the shanty. Her hair was rough and her dress untidy, but still she looked very handsome as she stood with one hand on her hip looking at Dick Green’s efforts to get her mare to stand while he saddled her.
“Ah! she’s too much for you,” she cried with a loud laugh as for the third time the mare whipped round and brought her heels unpleasantly near Dick’s face.
Ned looked rather impudently at his corpulent host. “That’s as much as you knows. I believe I could show you a trick or two.”
Joe turned his back on him with silent contempt. Ned was always impudent and disrespectful and never got drunk—a crying sin in the publican’s eyes.
Meanwhile Nell had gone out and quick as light had thrown the saddle over the mare’s back and now stood with the pliant strength which is grace itself, laughing at Green for his unavailing efforts.
“The mare’s too much for you,” she said jeeringly.
“Not a bit of it,” replied Dick stolidly, adjusting the piece of grass in his mouth to his entire satisfaction and looking admiringly at Nell meanwhile. “She’s not and the missus won’t be neither,” and with that he caught Nell in his arms, placed her in the saddle, and before she had recovered from her surprise, he had given the high-spirited beast a cut across the flanks, a thing she hated, and made her start off like the wind.
Nell kept her seat magnificently, the mare reared when the blow fell, but she sat as if she and her horse were one.
Dick sprang into his own saddle as he gave the cut to the mare. No one would have credited Dick Green with such promptitude and cleverness, but it is a true saying that “man rises to the occasion,” and Green rose to it then. Fleet as the wind he flew after Nell and while the spectators gathered before the shanty still gazed open mouthed they were out of sight. It was a classic idyl enacted in the Australian bush. Jupiter himself, when he carried off Europa, showed no more dash and aplomb than did Dick Green, the cockatoo farmer, when he carried off his handsome, unsuspecting, newly-purchased wife! For wife Green really believed her to be on the strength of his bargain with her husband, though Nell herself had not been consulted in the matter any more than had the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A couple of hours after, Bill Wright and Ned Wace on their journey to town overtook a brand new dray with red wheels. They looked at one another significantly. Ned had been too much crestfallen in consequences of the morning’s occurrence to speak a word, and Bill had generously carried on the conversation by himself.
“What’s up?” said Bill
Ned said nothing.
They put spurs to their horses and were soon alongside the dray in which old Dan was reposing comfortably, while the horse jogged along at his own sweet will.
“Hello, Dan! Have you made off with Green’s dray? You’ll have the police after you!”
Dan looked up and chuckled.
“Where’s your wife, Dan?” continued Bill determined to get to the bottom of the matter if questioning could do it.
“Dun know,” muttered Dan, “and I don’t care nother.”
“Well, I saw her go off with Dick Green a couple of hours ago,” said Bill hoping to “draw” the old man.
“A good riddance of bad rubbish!” said Dan vindictively.
“Aren’t you going after them?”
Dan shook his head and winked in Ben’s direction. “I’ve swopped her,” he said. “Swopped her for his dray, and I think it’s a darned good bargain,” and he looked down affectionately at the red wheels.
“When!” said Bill, and he also looked at Ben who had turned quite white. “Is that legal?”
“I don’t know nothing about legal. I only know if a woman won’t go the road you wants her to go, you’d best be rid of her, and rid I am,” and Dan gathered the reins together, as if to conclude the conversation.
“Did Mrs. Steve know you’d sold her to Dick,” said Ned speaking for the first time.
Dan passed the reins into his other hand, and paused a moment as if to give additional weight to his words. “Look here, young man, if I was such a fool as you seems to think me, why I’m blame’d if I’d not knock out my brains agin that there stone! Nell know, indeed! I tell you what, if you wants to know so much about the women you’d better get married yourself, you’ll find out a lot then!” and Dan cast a glance of withering scorn on his interlocutor, and whistled to his horse to move on.
“By George!” exclaimed Bill “That’s a pretty go. He’s sold the woman and never let on to her.”
Ned made no reply. His feelings were evidently too deep for words. Dan drove on to the township, and there sold the dray at a good figure and had an exceedingly good time with the proceeds. Whether he had a dim suspicion that the bargain was not valid, or that Dick Green might repent of the exchange and wish it undone he did not say, but he took very good care to spend the money so that his own share of the bargain was satisfactory. What Dick did with his wife was no business of his, he could sell her again and drink her value if he liked, just as he had done with the dray; the first act in the drama was closed so far as he was concerned, and he had a strong suspicion he had got the best of it.
Before the end of the week Dick Green came to the shanty again a sadder and a wiser man. He was alone and on foot. He made no answer to the host’s inquiries for Mrs. Steve; the only question he asked was whether Dan Steve had come back with the dray.
In due course of time Dan arrived on a broken-down beast and a saddle to match.
“I want to be off that bargain, Dan,” Green said as he walked forward to meet Dan out of hearing of the rest.
Old Dan chuckled, “I’ll warrant you do. Where’s Nell?”
“Gone back and taken both the horses with her.”
At this Dan burst into a real guffaw. For the credit of the old man’s heart it must be stated that he looked really well pleased when he heard his wife as home again. No doubt the satisfaction of having “had” Dick so completely added to his pleasure.
“She’s a rare ‘un, she is,” was all he said. “It takes more nor such a one as you to tackle her.”
It was a gratuitous insult added to a heavy injury; but Dick made no remonstrance.
“Where is the dray?” he asked when Dan had finished chuckling.
“Yonder,” said Dan, pointing over his shoulder in the direction of the township. “I got a matter of 30 pounds for it.”
“Hand it over,” said Green savagely.
“All right! Hand over my wife, and we’ll be quits; it was here we made the bargain.”
Green gazed ruefully upon the ground for some minutes, then he took his hand off the horse’s bridle. “No use crying over spilt milk,” he muttered to himself. Evidently the idea of again running away with Mrs. Steve, even to bring her to her husband, did not present itself as feasible.
Green did not re-enter the shanty, but old Dan went in in high feather and got royally drunk on the strength of having sold his wife, his friend and his dray and having had a grand spree into the bargain.
When he got home he found Nell established as usual. He did not feel quite comfortable on presenting himself, as he was not sure how she would receive him. To his great relief she made no allusion to his last mercantile transaction, feeling perhaps that she had not played a dignified part in the matter.
Dan like a prudent man and one taught by experience, took his cue from her and maintained a delicate reserve about the little occurrence which had brought about a decided improvement in his wife’s ways.
This strange couple lived on in the same neighbourhood for many years after the wife-selling episode, mending their way a little as civilisation step by step grew nearer. Dan’s awe of his handsome wife increased with the feebleness of advancing years, but that one assertive act of his stood him in a good stead, and Mrs. Steve never defied him so aggressively as before. In the latter days of his life her greatest amusement and gratification consisted in making arrack from treacle. Her method was very primitive, and she always said as she squeezed the flannel in which the vapour of the boiling treacle was condensed that she was obliged to do it for her husband’s sake, for it was the only thing that sat easy on his stomach.
Queensland Scene
Some forty years ago, before there was such a colony as Queensland, before Brisbane was anything but a straggling row of humpies, before the far-stretching station of Whiteside had been curtained and while it still stretched from far away beyond the heads of the Pine River down to the outskirts of the future metropolis, before Mr. Thomas Petrie had settled on the Pine River, which he did in spite of the warnings of his friends that he would surely be murdered by the blacks, and before he had blazed the trees to mark the road from his settlement to the township which is now part of the high road to the North; in these far-off and yet very near days, Dan Steve and his wife camped upon the Pine River and were some of the best known and most noticeable personalities of the locality.
_
colonial romance
The Steves had come from Sydney, of which place they disliked to hear mention, as
also to be questioned as to their reasons for emigration; consequently it was a favourite amusement with the shepherds and stockmen when they chanced to meet them to raise a wordy war by dwelling on these topics. It was not very often, however, that they had the chance, for the Steves kept very much to themselves and it was only on rare occasions that they went to the township.
Mrs. Steve was perhaps in some respects answerable for their isolation, for she
“carried on” finely with the young men when she had the chance, and terrible matrimonial jars were invariably the results of their visits to the township.
Nell Steve was a very handsome young woman, twenty years younger than her
husband. She was tall and well made, with bright eyes that sparkled with a decided spice of daredevilry, brilliantly white teeth and cheeks as round and softly shaded as a peach.
Sisters Together
__
Steve was devoted to his wife in spite of her “cussedness,” but she led him a terrible
life and many times he had vowed he would leave her. Such threats only seemed to increase Nell’s delight in teasing him, for, like a true woman, she not only loved to have power but liked frequently to test it. Nevertheless, in spite of all her vagaries she was in the literal sense a true “help-meet” to Dan; no hired man could have kept so sharp a look-out as she did while the bullock that was to supply their beef barrel was being skinned and the hide that was so invariably damaged just where the brand ought to have been was hidden away. She was a capital mate, too, in looking after cattle. Their stock ran wild, but Nell knew them all and they were all run in and branded in due season. Perhaps it was due to Nell’s care that their cows were so prolific. No other man had such wonderful increase as Steve. Most of the cows
had two or three calves at foot and it seemed sometimes as if the bulls must have calved, too, so numerous was the bovine progeny. Sometimes this excessive fertility of their stock caused disagreeableness with other cattle owners. Dire threats were hurled at Dan’s head, who listen to them with the greatest equanimity. “Hard words break no bones,” said Nell, philosophically, and the calmness with which she listened and the over-powering torrent of eloquence with which she replied was something to remember.
__
"_"
One Christmas-tide, Steve having several hides to dispose of, besides sundry other
items of business to transact, started with his wife to go to Brisbane.
They got as far as a wayside shanty and stayed for refreshment. Several choice spirits had already congregated there, for it was on the track from the north coast to Brisbane.
Of course in the rare event of meeting old friends, “nips” were freely exchanged and both Mr. and Mrs. Steve got considerably exhilarated and the hour they intended to stay extended to the remainder of the day.
Two shearers, Ned Wace and Bill Wright, arrived soon after they did, each with a big
cheque in his pocket, which they were going to “knock down” in a Christmas spree. Two teams of bullocks arrived next day and the patient oxen stood with necks bowed beneath their heavy yokes while their drivers went in to refresh themselves before unyoking. These men had, as yet, no cheques to knock down and it was incumbent on them to get their loads to town before Christmas. They had had a bad journey for it had been a long, dry season and there was scarcely any grass. They had still a two or three days’ journey before them for the roads in those days were merely tracks which made a devious winding course, following the flats and making a circuit round every fallen tree that came in the way.
Queensland Life
settler villages
Judith Grant was a well-received novel; The Millwood Mystery was serialized in the Town and Country Journal, as was The Garston House Tragedy. Her last story, The Case of Dr Hilston, was completed a few weeks before her death. Some of her other titles are “Kitty Cartwright” and “An Awfully Sudden Death”.
Jeannie Lockett
NSW writer
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Washing Time
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