with which William was familiar and she was not. A land, moreover, that was peopled by the seething multitudes of a dark and warlike race, whose language she did not speak and whose religions and customs were alien to her.
“You will live like a queen, my darling,”
William had asserted, when she had ventured to express her doubts. “With a score of excellent servants to wait on you, a fine house, and a social life that has its equal nowhere else . .
. and certainly not in Sydney, believe me.”
She did believe him; indeed, she trusted him implicitly. Yet for all that, Jenny found herself wishing that he had paid more attention to the Osbornes”
persuasive arguments, instead of shutting his mind to them.
She bit back another regretful sigh. This was such a lovely place, a place in which she would have been happy to stay for much longer than the scant few days William had allowed for their visit. In the distance, as the wagon wound its way slowly along a well-worn cart track through the bush, she glimpsed the lake-Lake Illawarra-gleaming silver in the bright sunlight, behind its screen of trees and flowering shrubs. Nearer at hand, but also hidden by the close-growing gums, a stream flowed placidly by, and all around it were great tracts of lush green pasture, with cattle grazing and, on the gentle slope of hillside
William Stuart Long
to the east, the white dots that her hostess had told her were sheep.
As far as the eye could see was, she knew, Osborne land-a vast acreage, sustaining countless flocks of sheep and the herds of prime beef and dairy cattle that the family now owned. And their holding was not confined to this station, Henry Osborne had said, in no spirit of boastfulness but with simple pride.
His eldest son, Harry, had leased from him the Narrow Plains station at Colombo, across the Dividing Range, and-a month or so before she and William had arrived to pay their promised visit-his second boy, Patrick, had set off to establish a new sheep run on land at Lake Urana, between the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers.
It had taken years-a lifetime, in truth-to build up to their state of prosperity. Henry and Sarah had talked of the early, pioneering days, of the initial hardships they had endured, of the cares of a young and growing family reared in a primitive cabin, many miles from any other human habitation, always with the risk of drought or bushfires, of aboriginal raids or the predatory attention of convict escapers on the run. But shrewdness, enterprise, and skillful planning, as well as prodigious hard work on both their parts, had brought success and a happy, united family.
Henry Osborne smilingly described himself as a squatter now, his tone when he claimed the title at once deprecating and oddly defensive.
“Where my livestock spread out in search of new pasture, I took possession of the land, as did many others. The land was empty, unexplored and unsurveyed, certainly unsettled. But we had no security of tenure. At first we could only take out annual licenses-pastoral licenses, they were called-with the risk of being dispossessed. It took ten years of struggle with the government, but finally, by banding together, we won the right to purchase at a favorable price the freehold of the land we leased. It took an Order in Council from the British government to gain us that right, and the public, as well as successive governors of the colony, opposed us at every turn.”
Perhaps, Jenny thought, if William had stayed in Australia and become a pastoralist five years ago, when he had come on
leave from India, the challenge would have had its appeal-a stronger appeal than fighting his country’s battles in the Punjab or the Crimea had offered. But as it was … She was conscious of a sudden feeling of intense sadness. It was too late to cherish even the smallest hope that her husband would change his mind or that anything the Osbornes might show him would deflect him from his chosen path;
“You will live like a queen, my darling,”
William had asserted, when she had ventured to express her doubts. “With a score of excellent servants to wait on you, a fine house, and a social life that has its equal nowhere else . .
. and certainly not in Sydney, believe me.”
She did believe him; indeed, she trusted him implicitly. Yet for all that, Jenny found herself wishing that he had paid more attention to the Osbornes”
persuasive arguments, instead of shutting his mind to them.
She bit back another regretful sigh. This was such a lovely place, a place in which she would have been happy to stay for much longer than the scant few days William had allowed for their visit. In the distance, as the wagon wound its way slowly along a well-worn cart track through the bush, she glimpsed the lake-Lake Illawarra-gleaming silver in the bright sunlight, behind its screen of trees and flowering shrubs. Nearer at hand, but also hidden by the close-growing gums, a stream flowed placidly by, and all around it were great tracts of lush green pasture, with cattle grazing and, on the gentle slope of hillside
William Stuart Long
to the east, the white dots that her hostess had told her were sheep.
As far as the eye could see was, she knew, Osborne land-a vast acreage, sustaining countless flocks of sheep and the herds of prime beef and dairy cattle that the family now owned. And their holding was not confined to this station, Henry Osborne had said, in no spirit of boastfulness but with simple pride.
His eldest son, Harry, had leased from him the Narrow Plains station at Colombo, across the Dividing Range, and-a month or so before she and William had arrived to pay their promised visit-his second boy, Patrick, had set off to establish a new sheep run on land at Lake Urana, between the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers.
It had taken years-a lifetime, in truth-to build up to their state of prosperity. Henry and Sarah had talked of the early, pioneering days, of the initial hardships they had endured, of the cares of a young and growing family reared in a primitive cabin, many miles from any other human habitation, always with the risk of drought or bushfires, of aboriginal raids or the predatory attention of convict escapers on the run. But shrewdness, enterprise, and skillful planning, as well as prodigious hard work on both their parts, had brought success and a happy, united family.
Henry Osborne smilingly described himself as a squatter now, his tone when he claimed the title at once deprecating and oddly defensive.
“Where my livestock spread out in search of new pasture, I took possession of the land, as did many others. The land was empty, unexplored and unsurveyed, certainly unsettled. But we had no security of tenure. At first we could only take out annual licenses-pastoral licenses, they were called-with the risk of being dispossessed. It took ten years of struggle with the government, but finally, by banding together, we won the right to purchase at a favorable price the freehold of the land we leased. It took an Order in Council from the British government to gain us that right, and the public, as well as successive governors of the colony, opposed us at every turn.”
Perhaps, Jenny thought, if William had stayed in Australia and become a pastoralist five years ago, when he had come on
leave from India, the challenge would have had its appeal-a stronger appeal than fighting his country’s battles in the Punjab or the Crimea had offered. But as it was … She was conscious of a sudden feeling of intense sadness. It was too late to cherish even the smallest hope that her husband would change his mind or that anything the Osbornes might show him would deflect him from his chosen path;
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