Rolf Boldrewood

“ The ceaseless clicking of the shears—the stern earnestness of the men, toiling with a feverish and tireless energy—the constant succession of sheep shorn and let go, caught and commenced—the occasional savage oath or passionate gesture, as a sheep kicked and struggled with perverse delaying obstinacy—the cuts and stabs, with brief decided tones of Mr Gordon, in repression or command—all told the spectator that tragic action was introduced into the performance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few days showery weather having, therefore, wellnigh driven our shearers to desperation, out comes the sun in all his glory. He is never far away or very faint in Riverina. All the pens are filled for the morrow; very soon after the earliest sunbeams the bell sounds its welcome summons, and the whole force tackles to the work with an ardour proportioned to the delay, every man working as if for the ransom of his whole family from slavery. How men work spurred on by the double excitement of acquiring social reputation and making money rapidly! ”

“ Their nerve, muscle, eye, endurance, will be all at, so to speak, concert-pitch, and sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity even awful to the unprofessional observer.
The unpastoral reader may be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing; the employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer principally of the former. To adjust equitably the proportion is one of those incomplete aspirations which torment humanity. Hence the contest—old as human society—between labour and capital. ”

“ He reproves sufficiently, and no more, any glaring fault; makes his calculation as to who are really bad shearers, and can be discharged without loss to the commonwealth, or who can shear fairly and can be coached up to a decent average. One division, slow, and good only when slow, have to be watched lest they emulate "the talent," and so come to grief. Then "the talent" has to be mildly admonished from time to time lest they force the pace, set a bad example, and lure the other men on to "racing." This last leads to slovenly shearing, ill-usage of the sheep, and general dissatisfaction. ”

“ One hundred men for one day rather than one man for one hundred days. Results soon began to demonstrate themselves. In twelve months the dams were full, the wells sending up their far-fetched priceless water, the wire fences erected, the shepherds gone, and 17,000 sheep cropping the herbage of Anabanco. Tuesday was the day fixed for the actual commencement of the momentous, almost solemn transaction—the pastoral Hegira, so to speak, as the time of most station events is calculated with reference to it, as happening before or after shearing. ”

“ Shearers always diet themselves on the principle that the more they eat the stronger they must be. Digestion, as preliminary to muscular development, is left to take its chance. They certainly do get through a tremendous amount of work. The whole frame is at its utmost tension, early and late. But the preservation of health is due to their natural strength of constitution rather than to their profuse and unscientific diet. Half-an-hour after sunrise Mr Gordon walks quietly into the vast building which contains the sheep and their shearers—called "the shed," par excellence. ”

“ Some are rough and savage with the sheep, which do occasionally kick and become unquiet at critical times; and it must be confessed are provoking enough. Some shear very fairly and handsomely to a superficial eye, but commit the unpardonable offence of "leaving wool on." Some are deceitful, shearing carefully when overlooked, but "racing" and otherwise misbehaving directly the eye of authority is diverted. These and many other tricks and defects require to be noted and abated, quietly but firmly, by the manager of the shed—firmly because evil would develop and spread ruinously if not checked ”

“ Rain, as I'm alive. "Hurrah!" says Master Jack Bowles, one of the young gentlemen. He is learning (more or less) practical sheep-farming, preparatory to having (one of these days) an Anabanco of his own. "Well, this is a change, and I'm not sorry for one," quoth Mr. Jack, "I'm stiff all over. No one can stand such work long. Won't the shearers growl! No shearing to-day, and perhaps none tomorrow either." Truth to tell, Mr Bowles' sentiments are not confined to his ingenuous bosom. Some of the shearers grumble at being stopped "just as a man was earning a few shillings." ”

“ Every one is a man and a brother at sheep-washing. Wage, one pound per week; wood, water, tents and food "A LA DISCRETION." Their accounts are simple: so many weeks, so many pounds; store account, so much; hospital? well, five shillings; cheque, good-morning.
The wool-pressers, the fleece-rollers, the fleece-pickers, the yardsmen, the washers' cooks, the hut cooks, the spare shepherds; all these and a few other supernumeraries inevitable at shearing-time, having been paid off, the snowstorm of cheques which has been fluttering all day comes to an end. ”

“ In all towns dwells one of the 'sons of the Giant'—the Giant Grog—red-eyed, with steel muscles and iron claws; once in these, which have held many and better men to the death, neither Barney nor Bill emerges, save pale, fevered, nerveless, and impecunious. ”

“ He put up his two pairs of shears, put on his coat, and walked out of the shed. The time was passed when Red Bill or Terrible Dick (ruffians whom a sparse labour-market rendered necessary evils) would have flung down his shears upon the floor and told the manager that if he didn't like that shearing he could shear his———sheep himself and be hanged to him; or, on refusal of instant payment, would have proposed to bury his shears in the intestines of his employer by way of adjusting the balance between Capital and Labour. Many wild tales are told of woolshed rows. ”

“ Lose your temper, and be over particular: off go Billy May, Abraham Lawson, and half-a-dozen of your best men, making a weekly difference of perhaps two or three thousand sheep for the remainder of the shearing. Can you not replace them? Not so! Every shed in Riverina will be hard at work during this present month of September and for every hour of October. Till that time not a shearer will come to your gate, except, perhaps, one or two useless, characterless men. Are you to tolerate bad workmanship? ”

“ Small tramways, with baskets for the fleeces, run the wool up to the wool tables, superseding the more general plan of hand picking. At each side of the shed floor are certain small areas, four or five feet square, such space being found by experience to be sufficient for the postures and gymnastics practised during the shearing of a sheep. Opposite to each square is an aperture, communicating with a long narrow paled yard, outside of the shed. Through this each man pops his sheep when shorn, where he remains in company with the others shorn by the same hand, until counted out. ”

“ If an employer does his best to mete out justice he is always appreciated and supported by the majority. These few instances will serve as a description of the whole process of settling with the shearers. The horses have all been got in. Great catching and saddling-up has taken place all the morning. By the afternoon the whole party are dispersed to the four winds; some, like Abraham Lawson and his friends, to sheds "higher up," in a colder climate, where shearing necessarily commences later. From these they will pass to others, until the last sheep in the mountain runs are shorn. ”

“ Now and then the "refrain" is varied by "Tar!" being shouted instead, when a piece of skin is snipped off as well as the wool. Great healing properties are attributed to this extract in the shed. And if a shearer slice off a piece of flesh from his own person, as occasionally happens, he gravely anoints it with the universal remedy, and considers that the onus then lies with Providence, there being no more that man can do. Though little time is lost, the men are by no means up to the speed which they will attain in a few days, when in full practice and training. ”

“ Mr Gordon moves forward. As he does so, every man leans towards the open door of the pen in front of which he stands. The bell sounds! With the first stroke each one of the seventy men has sprung upon a sheep—has drawn it out—placed its head across his knee—and is working his shears as if the "last man out" was to be flogged, or tarred and feathered at the least. Four minutes—James Steadman, who learned last year, has shorn down one side of his sheep; Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are well down the other sides of theirs ”

“ Tact, temper, patience, and firmness are each and all necessary in that Captain of Industry who has the very delicate and important task of superintending a large woolshed. Hugh Gordon had shown all in such proportion as would have made a distinguished man anywhere, had fortune not adjusted for him this particular profession. ”

“ The climate is mild, and favourable to health. They have been accustomed from childhood to abundance of the best food; opportunities of intercolonial travel are frequent and common. Hence the Anglo-Australian labourer without, on the one hand, the sharpened eagerness which marks his Transatlantic cousin, has yet an air of independence and intelligence, combined with a natural grace of movement, unknown to the peasantry of Britain. ”

“ A large store is a necessity of a large station; not by any means because of the profit upon goods sold, but it obviously would be bad economy for old Bill, the shepherd, or Barney, the bullock-driver, to visit the next township, from ten to thirty miles distant, as the case may be, every time the former wanted a pound of tobacco, or the latter a pair of boots. ”

“ A pair of youngsters are having a round or two with the gloves; while to complete the variety of recreations compatible with life at a woolshed, a selected troupe are busy in the comparative solitude of that building, at a rehearsal of a tragedy and a farce, with which they intend, the very next rainy day, to astonish the population of Anabanco. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Next morning at a rather earlier hour every man is at his post. Business is meant decidedly. Now commences the delicate and difficult part of the superintendence which keeps Mr Gordon at his post in the shed, nearly from daylight till dark, for from eight to ten weeks. During the first day he has formed a sort of gauge of each man's temper and workmanship. ”

“ So at dinner-time all the sheep in the sheds, put in overnight in anticipation of such a contingency, are reported shorn. All hands are then idle for the rest of the day. The shearers dress and avail themselves of various resources. Some go to look at their horses, now in clover, or its equivalent, in the Riverina graminetum. Some play cards, others wash or mend their clothes. A large proportion of the Australians having armed themselves with paper, envelopes, and a shilling's worth of stamps from the store, bethink themselves of neglected or desirable correspondents. ”

“ This important ceremony over, master and men, manager, labourers and supernumeraries, betook themselves to their separate abodes, with such keen avoidance of delay that in five minutes not a soul was left in or near the great building lately so busy and populous, except the boys who were sweeping up the floor. The silence of ages seems to fall and settle upon it. ”

“ Those who are in top pace and condition don't like it. But to many of the rank and file—working up to and a little beyond their strength—with whom swelled wrists and other protests of nature are becoming apparent, it is a relief, and they are glad of the respite. ”