The New Arcadia/Chapter 10
CHAPTER. X.
PEOPLING THE WILDERNESS.
"God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain."
"The old place, I fear, is spoiled for me," Mr. Dowling was saying to his daughter. "My solitude is about to be. invaded. All my life I have fled from the town, and now, in my old age, the city is spreading out its arms towards me. Its surplus population is to be spread over the plains I have loved."
"I believe the new-comers are a very respectable sort of people, father," the daughter replied. "They have been carefully selected. Dr. Courtenay is hopeful they will make good neighbours."
"But I don't want neighbours, my child; I desire to be left alone. Courtenay is a good fellow, and deserves to succeed in this wild venture of his. But I wish he had chosen some other field on which to launch his experiment."
"Is not that the very crime poor Mr. Leicester committed, father? He wanted to keep all the country-side to himself. Is not that the sin of half the landowners today?"
"True, my girl; we are all a selfish lot, We, on the one hand, seek to hold the lands; the workings classes, for their part, will net permit needy cousins in the old country to share with them the bounties of this. If a man possess a trade or profession, he will keep all he can of it. 'Protection,' 'monopolies,' 'favoured classes,' 'locked-up' lands, and streams, and forests, all are barbarisms—un-English, un-Christian. In theory I am in favour of freedom, and fairer divisions of the good, things of this life, but in practice—well, I'd like to be left alone."
"I'm so eager to see the people, father. Won't they be delighted with this charming valley, and the neat-looking tents, with everything prepared for them?"
"They ought to be," observed Mr. Bowling, doubtfully.
"The pangs of hunger they have felt, and been oppressed by loads of care; they have had no interest in the country they have assisted to develop, nor in the undertakings in which they have been employed. Now they will have but to work; I hope they'll do it. Poor Courtenay! His work's cut out for him."
"Come and see the tents, father, before the settlers arrive. There are the Courtenays, and Jim and his wife, putting the finishing touch on everything."
The wide expanse of valley that spread beneath Heatherside—the Dowlings' abode—was strangely altered in appearance. The wattles and pine-ridges still dotted its undulating surface with clumps of trees midst sweeps of verdure; the creek, its waters still unpolluted, chattered in its willow-shaded channel. Magpies hopped and piped from the gaunt ringed timber; the grass was knee-deep, since the dead squatter's sheep had been sold or removed to the outer paddocks. Orchids and buttercups reared their heads above the meadow-like pastures, as if wondering how much higher their slender stalks must rise to surmount the unwonted growth. In the distance the lake, a mirror of silver, reflected the day's declining rays. All was silent, expectant—an earthly paradise awaiting the new race of Seth. Across the valley from side to side stretched a chain of tents, in squares and crescents. Each little tabernacle, labelled with the name of the intended occupant, stood open in a plot of five acres, duly pegged off. The belongings of each family, sent forward the day before, had been neatly bestowed in the allotted tent. The night previous, the balloting had taken place at the White House; Jim and Elms drawing, one the number of the allotment, the other the name of the future settler, from the doctor's hat on the one hand, from Mrs. Courtenay's reticule on the other. The good lady had protested.
"I want you to have a hand in it, my dear," the doctor had urged.
"I suppose because I do not approve."
"Oh, yes, you do; you are deeply interested already."
"Only for your sake."
"No wonder the lady demurs," remarked the incorrigible Tom, who had come to have a peep at the place. "Naturally she objects to have one man's hand in her reticule and another's in her husband's pocket. Typical and significant."
"Well, they'll soon be empty again," remarked the good lady. "My husband has not calculated what it will cost to feed a thousand mouths for two or three years, and to run all his factories."
"The labourers will feed themselves, my dear, if I give them the chance."
"But will they?"
"That is just the problem we are going to solve."
Now the doctor and his followers were putting the last rickety chair on its faulty legs in one tent, propping up a derelict chest of drawers in another, tidying articles of vertu in a third.
"Well, what do you think of the camp?" asked the doctor of Dowling as he approached. "My back's broken with stooping about in these cramped little cribs all day," and the strong man threw back his shoulders and expanded his great chest as though to get his form into shape again.
"Your men are fortunate fellows," replied Bowling. "The valley is picturesque indeed, with its lines of white amongst the green and gold. You could not have selected a better site. The land will grow anything, if it's only scratched."
"We will do more than that," said the doctor. "We shall deepen the lagoons and have a splendid natural reservoir. We can shape the creek into a canal; get our craft from the centre of the settlement on to the lake, into the Silverbourne, to the Murray, and the world."
"Have you fully considered the cost of all these works?"
"Every penny. We shall accomplish all with our own labour, which we shall merely have to feed. After six months, provisioning will cost next to nothing."
"But men will not work for their food only."
"They will for homes and lands and share in the profits."
"You have launched upon an enormous undertaking."
"Not at all. In the ordinary course I must have invested scores of thousands of pounds in the enterprise. As it is, the settlers share the risk."
"How so?"
"They advance their labour. I put my land at their disposal. If the worst comes to the worst, I have drawn no profit from land, which at the same time has been improved; they, on the other hand, have toiled to little purpose. But they have lived in comfort meanwhile, and are better off than when they started. I have no fear, however, of failure, if they only rise to the occasion, and work like free men."
"That's the rub," said Dowling; "can you ever teach them to do that?"
"If making them interested principals—partners, in fact—will not do it, nothing will."
"How can you compel those to work who do not like it?. You will have some such."
"No doubt; all, however, have entered into a contract. If any will not work, neither shall they eat; they can go."
"Which a mighty lot will do."
"Not after the first few months. They will have given 'hostages to fortune.' Every month's labour will forge a chain of vested interest about them. Men will think twice before they abandon, in a tiff, their embryo farms and homes."
"But these people have always been of a roving disposition."
"Because you have never tried to interest them in their undertakings. Each week you give them a wage that virtually pays them off, buys out that healthful interest that should, by every means, be fostered. If these men worked for my uncle, or a contractor, they could depart any Saturday and leave him in the lurch, taking all their belongings with them. In this case they would have to abandon two-thirds of the result of their labour."
"Then you have the idea of dragooning and coercing them?"
"Certainly not, save for their own good. I desire to make labour more effective, more directly interested, and so more content. It is to the men's own interest that they should postpone receipt of the fullest revenue of their toil, not grab what they can every Saturday night. We can feed them for half what it cost them to cater for themselves. That they have to the good. Undertakings that yield no profit under the wages system you will find we can prosecute to advantage, accepting lowest prices, reaping fullest profits."
"Well, we shall see."
"What is that music sounding over the hill?" asked Eva Bowling, running towards the speakers.
"You ought to know the sighing of the wind in the she-oaks on the hills," replied her father.
"Listen!" insisted the girl. "It is music, martial music—'The Campbells are coming.'"
"By Jove, it is some band. I can hear it, Courtenay. What does it mean?"
"My army, coming in peace and joy," replied the doctor, "to win its victories. Here they are!" he shouted to his wife further down the hill.
"Why have they a band?" inquired Dowling.
"To cheer them, of course, as music ever does," answered the doctor. "Why should not our regiment be enlivened through all its hard campaign by inspiriting strains? Why may not life here be brightened by the healthful accessories that render the city so attractive? We are going to set up 'counter attractions' on these plains, I assure you."
"Barmaids and dice," suggested Tom, coming up with the others. "I thought yours was to be a temperance settlement, Courtenay?"
"Not of your milk-and-water sort. A vigorous, manly life our people shall lead here. All that can properly delight eye and ear, and improve heart and mind, shall they know, if I can secure it."
"I see them—here they come!" cried Eva with excitement.
Forthwith over the very ridges that the dying eye of the squatter had looked upon last, a troop bearing banners appeared. Instruments of brass shone in the sunlight—horse-teams, bullock-wagons, spring-carts, and drays, laden with singing, laughing, gesticulating women and children; men astride fowl-coops, youths waving their caps from the top of swaying loads, children running alongside, plucking the heather as the caravan descended into the valley—a long, animated line, winding through the solitary pine-trees, round the granite rocks, pilgrims from the dreary city, escaping to the paradise God had prepared for them.
In the midst of Settlement Square—as it was to be called—on "the village green" they met, the benefactors and the beneficiaries.
"Home, sweet Home," the band struck up as the players, all settlers, took their stand under a wide-spreading gum. There were wringing of hands, shouts of delight, capering of children, with some shedding of tears, as all speeded to see on which tent their names were inscribed, and what plot was to be the scene of their future labour.
As, an hour later, the doctor took his wife's arm and led her slowly homeward his hand trembled.
"It was almost too much for me," he confessed, "to see the pale-faced creatures, brave with hope, sweeping into the lovely valley. God help them—and us. The responsibility is great, and so is the joy." ....
"Do you remember the old squatter's last vision?" said Dowling to his wife as they walked home. "It was fulfilled, surely, this very evening,"