Kings In Grass Castles
Page 24
The Thylungra boys elaborated shamelessly on their adventures with wild blacks, demonstrated the arts of spear and boomerang throwing and of catching duck, Boontamurra fashion, by grabbing their feet and pulling them under water.
Still, it was many weeks before the nagging pain of homesickness was eased by new friendships and interests.
A graveyard, in a corner of the spacious grounds, became a secret meeting place to which the homesick boys escaped in odd, breathless moments. All their lives they would remember this retreat, the scent of jonquils and freesias that clambered over the untidy graves, the awesome epitaphs, one of a boy who had died at the age of fourteen:
He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding or deceit beguile his soul.
It was here they brought letters from their father to be read and re-read and carefully preserved. Some of this correspondence, quoted as written and spelt, has historical interest and throws some light on the writer’s character and activities at this time. Although the lack of formal education is obvious, his handwriting would put many a scholar to shame.
The first letter was written from Blackney Creek, near Yass, NSW, on January 20, 1880, while staying with Grandmother’s Aunt Mrs Moore before leaving on the return trip to Thylungra:
My dear Michael and Johnny,
I wish to tell ye that on tomorrow we are bound for home with the help of God and as soon as I reach I shall write to ye again…Be sure and write to Uncle Michael and Uncle Jerry. I should rather ye would write to them than to myself for when ye write to them it will be as good as if youd ritten to me and be sure and make all enquiries about all at all the places and especially about Grandmother and Mr Healy. Uncle Martin Tully is sending for ye at Easter and when ye are leaving his place after the holiday let both of ye go to him and Mrs Tully and thank them for there hospitality to ye and do the same with Mrs Roach and Mr Roach and any place ye go ye are to do the same. Ye are to go to see Paddy Tully and Michael Tully also. Dear Michael Mr Mcguinnes will lend ye and Patsy (Skeahan) his violin until he buys you a new one…
Dear children ye are to write every fortnight regular…I am sending ye 5 shillings worth of stamps. I thought 1 would see ye the day after I left ye as I was going past the college about ½ past 8 o’clock, but could not see ye.
Whereiver ye are be always mannerly and manly and dutiful to yere masters especially Rev. Father Gallagher.
The next letter, dated February 16, was sent from Moonagee Station on the return journey.
My dear boys, Michael and Johnnie,
…We reached Mr Ridges on the 12th, and we are here since on account of the Bogun being flooded so that we cannot cross. From what we can hear every river and creek between here and home is flooded, but we will try to cross tomorrow as this river is falling fast…Mr Ridge has treated us all very kind and as for grapes and other fruits there are no end to what is here. Half of the grapes will not be used before they go to hops. Pat Moore and Donald Maguiness is with us and also Martha the servant girl. When we came to Molong we stopped two days and the young horse we bought from Mr Lee is a beauty, we call him Starling and the Sydney horse we call him Exhibition…Any amount of good grass and too much water, all the horses, including the new ones we purchased, are looking well. The Taffey Filly foaled and I left her at Mr Boards until I come down next time to see ye my dear children…Your mamma and me will be very anxious to hear from ye, and let ye be writing every second week the longest. Let me know how ye like the College and also let me know how are your cousins, Patsy Skeahan and Michael Costello, and let me know are ye all in the one class and are ye sleeping in the one room.
Did Mr MacGuiness buy the violin for ye, dear Michael, and also let me know how is the Rev. Father Gallagher and how are ye’re teachers and are ye both in the one class. I do not understand why I have had no word from home since we left. I am hoping for some word when we get to Bourke…
And from Thylungra some two months later:
…We reached home on the 18th inst. after a long and wairesome journey. Since we parted from ye in Goulburn we could scarcely travel twenty miles a day and not that some days on account of the heavy rain.
We stopped at Bourke for a few days and there lost the Taffey colt, so Willie gave a circle round and got on his track for nearly sixty miles, where he overtook him, or we would never have seen him again before he reached home. After leaving Bourke we got on very well until we came to the Warrego where we were detained again for five days, but at last Mr Chambers, at the boundary, brought up three casks to the crossing place and we made a raft again and crossed and from there to home we did well. We thought to be home for St Patrick’s day—my ‘birthday’ but only got as far as Bunginderry.
My dear boys I cannot explain it to ye how it was when we got home only Uncle Jerry will tell ye as he has left here two day ago for Goulburn and he will tell ye about the stallion Hard Times and the nice little bay colt that was off the Forester bay mare Count’s mother and nothing looked after since the day we left here. Dear children I hope in God I shall see the day ye will be able to stop here while we take a trip to our friends in Goulburn. I do not intend for yere mama and me to leave here again until you are able to look after the place dear Michael and Johnnie the overseer and Pat the stockman. All the horses got home alright we had. Dear Michael I think it is better ye learn to practise the violin as Johnnie is learning the piano but please yereself. Tell cousin Patsy Skeahan to take care of my saddle and bridle and tell him to bring it to Blackshaw and he will stuff it for him and remember me kindly to him and Michael Costello…
All the way home Grandfather had tried to cheer his wife by saying how they would soon buy a fine home in Brisbane from where she could take ship to Sydney and go by train to Goulburn to visit the boys. Passing derelict homesteads kept going by a handful of men and a few blacks, he had drawn comparisons with their comfortable home at Thylungra, recalling what joy he had always had in returning to the warm welcome of his orderly and well-kept establishment.
‘It was always my idea,’ he said, ‘that a good home and proper living must come first. How can they expect a place to get on where the men live little better than the blacks—often living with them in fact from what we see of the unfortunate progeny.’
The gate of the Thylungra homestead paddock was open when they arrived. Puzzled, Grandfather closed it but as the road swung past the kitchen garden and the chicken run on the river bank the truth began to dawn. Only a few dusty feathers blowing in the wind betokened Grandmother’s fine Leghorns and prized Muscovy ducks. The goats were pulling at the rank weeds in the otherwise denuded garden and Grandmother’s pot plants and creepers were long since dead. The place seemed quite deserted, the stone flags of the verandah hidden under inches of mud, the rooms dusty and derelict, everything blown about by the wind and stained with rain. Grandfather gave a shout of rage and presently a few old natives came straggling up to the house.
‘Where is everybody? What has happened to the place?’
They explained as best they could. The bookkeeper had eloped with the female unit of the ‘good couple’. The man was somewhere out on the run trying to carry on with the help of a few blacks. He had fought with the other stockmen for going on the grog and making trouble with the black women. They had thereupon given notice, one clearing out with two of Grandfather’s most prized horses. Big Johnnie and Stumpy Michael had not yet returned from their long droving trip to Adelaide. The other blacks had heard that the police were coming out to ‘investigate’ a murder and all but a few had got frightened and cleared out. This meant that Pumpkin had had to go with Dinny Skeahan who had taken the teams to Bourke. Old Cobby was sick, ‘close up finish’, and a piccaninny had been fatally burnt some weeks before.
Grandfather sank into a broken verandah chair and hid his face in his hands.
‘Oh Mary, Mary, heaven help the country when the women go.’
19
WESTERN HORIZONS
The years
1880 to 1881. Patsy Durack’s letters to his sons at college. A lawsuit. Will Ogilvie and his Thylungra horse. Growing interest in the Northern Territory. Further adventures of John Costello and his expanding Territory interests. Patsy Durack reads report of Alexander Forrest on the Kimberley district, discusses it with Solomon Emanuel and goes to Perth with his brother to interview Alexander Forrest.
Grandfather’s letters to his sons show his life in some detail over this period and also indicate the way in which he was training his eldest boy for the position of head of the family.
Dear Michael,
Now I am sending ye £6. 10. cheque and you are to go to the bank and get a draft for £6 to send it to John Quirk Esq., White Gate County Galway Ireland. You will have discount to pay also and the very day ye receive this letter send this money home…Send him a nice letter and send me a copy. Tell Mr Quirk that you hear from me every week and that I send them all kind love and I hope his children are on the way to Australia and this £6 is to fit the girls out he is to send to me and £1 to be kept by his youngest son from yourself…
Father Gallagher now gives a fine character of ye and Patsy Skeahan and Michael Costello to everyone and there is not one he talks to about ye but lets us know and not one from Goulburn to here but is expecting they will hear ye taking a prize at Xmas next…Mr Hopson says he is quite shure he will see yere name in the papers for a prize and so does Mr Fitzwalter and Mrs Baird and Mr Webb on the Macquarie is on the look out for ye also.
My father accepted such commissions conscientiously and began to enjoy a sense of importance as the son of a big squatter who ‘brought people out’ from Ireland and whose name stood high in the community.
On August 3, 1880, Grandfather wrote from Brisbane:
Dear Michael and Johnny,
Ye will be surprised to get a letter from me here. I had to come down concerning the country I sold to Pollak and Hogan. They summonsed me for one of the blocks of country I sold them being differently situated to what they expected. My solicitor tells me that he never heard of such a case before. He thinks they only want to friken me, and that they will not do very easy—to see what they could get out of me. The case is to come off in November next when your Uncle Michael and me are to come to Brisbane again. If God spares me I shall go down to see ye then. If I was to go now I would not be home for the races next month… I have Jerve Storier training for me and another man with him which rides Whynot over the jumps…
I took up a lot more country since ye left. For Thylungra 148½ sq. miles on the Bargo Bargey and 100 sq. miles adjoining Sultan on the head of Thunda Creek and I took up for Galway Downs about 200 square miles. When your Uncle Jerry came home I bought in with him in Galway Downs again and am to put on 1000 head of cattle and 5000 sheep and we are to be halves in everything on the station. I have the sheep partly bought on my way down and am to inspect them on my way home.
I hope in God ye will devote your whole time to yere study while ye are in school for you know I badly need yere help as soon as ye have yere education received. Uncle Jerry is in a great way to have Michael back to go with him and I suppose 1 will require Johnny. I do not intend to take either of ye from school until ye have received a good education. If God spares me, and Pat we will manage with Sunnie’s help until such time as ye are home…
Your mama was very lonely when I was leaving. When ye are writing cheer her up by telling her ye will be home soon again with the help of God.
Tell Patsy (Skeahan) Woods has Gaslight and he is to run in a big race at Thargomindah 10 days after Galway Downs races. Tell him his father is going to get some sheep with mine. I am to start for home after tomorrow…
James Pollak and Thomas Hogan were partners in Comeongin Station about eighty miles south-west of Thylungra and adjoining the original land taken up by the Duracks and John Costello on Mobel Creek. The dispute ran on for some time with an exchange of enraged claims and counterclaims which, reduced from their colourful original wording to bald legal summary, ran as follows:
The Plaintiffs … claim £5000 damages from Patrick Durack for the reason that the land he sold them having Mobile (or Mobel Creek) as a boundary not being what he represented it and they having lost through this misrepresentation buildings and stock they had put upon it.
Defendant denies misrepresentation of country in dispute. He alleges that Pollak and Hogan inspected it themselves and pronounced themselves satisfied with the situation at the time of the sale. Defendant further alleges that Pollak and Hogan having mustered cattle on this country over a period of years could not have been ignorant of the nature of the property disputed. Defendant moreover counter-claims and charges the plaintiffs with unpaid debts and the loss of a horse lent to them by the defendant during formal inspection of the country in question.
The Plaintiffs file in rejoinder to above complete denial of debts and loss of borrowed horse. They allege that only that part of the land inspected by them was properly represented by the boundaries stated the remainder of the land purchased being useless.
Defendant files in rejoinder to above that if Pollak and Hogan are not satisfied with the country he will refund purchase money being the sum of £800 and again take over the rights of the disputed area. He states that the disputed land was a gift at this price.
Plaintiffs allege that on discovery of misrepresentation they had asked Patrick Durack for return of purchase money which he had refused since when they have sustained losses to the extent of the £5000 claimed. They did not wish to surrender rights to the whole area only that which was misrepresented.
Eventually the matter was settled out of court, the bold strokes with which Grandfather recorded the payment of £900 to Pollak and Hogan and £300 to his solicitors betokening his moral indignation.
Having unearthed this account of a long-forgotten quarrel I wrote to my cousin Francis Tully of Ray Station (earlier known as Wathagurra) asking him about the country in question.
The disputed property, [he wrote], would, from the locality indicated, be part of the original Mobel run, a block now known as Whynot which was resumed from Pinkilla. Whynot and Mobel are both beautiful properties and the country on both excellent so I can well understand Uncle Patsy’s being indignant when they said the land he had sold them was no good.
Grandfather and Stumpy Michael, finding themselves in Brisbane with time on their hands between legal engagements, had made their first ventures in the purchase of city properties. Grandfather purchased the Bowen Hotel in South Brisbane and he and his brother between them some blocks of city land at already inflated values that they were not wrong in supposing would shortly be doubled.
The temptation, while in the city, to take ship a mere 510 miles south to Sydney and thence by rail to visit his sons in Goulburn, proved too strong for Grandfather, as is seen from the following letter written after his return to Thylungra at the end of August.
Dear Children,
The day I left ye on that day fortnight I reached home and spent one day out of that in Sydney and two clear days where I bought the sheep inspecting them. So you see I lost no time…
On tomorrow I am to go out to Galway Downs. The horses are all out there…The races…are to come off on the 1st and 2nd September. You know the grey colt that John Horigan broke in before ye left—He called him Tarigan. He has beat mostly everything here and has got only a fiew gallops yet. He beat Silvery and Bachelor over 100 yds. hard held…The four that was in to train before 1 left is out at Uncle Jerry’s. John H. is gathering the horses. There is about 250 head gathered now and all look very well…
I had a letter from yere Uncle Michael since he left Wilcannia with the cattle. They are all well and by this time very near Adelaide. All here at Thylungra and Wathagurra are well and were very glad to hear from ye…Grandmother wishes to tell ye she prays for ye night and morning and I hope ye shall pray for her. Do not be forgetting to write to yere Grandmother Costello at Blackney Creek…
An account of the races fo
llowed ten days later.
Dear Michael and Johnny,
I am just after coming home from the races on yesterday…Whynot did not stand training well. He was rather weak when they started for the hurdle race. Going over the second jump Whynot and Colman’s horse cannoned and my rider fell. Whynot could not be cot until he went to the camp about one mile from the coarse. He was brought back again and went over the jumps 4 feet high like a bird they all say. He is the best jumping horse in Queensland, and then he came in second and only got £8. Colman’s horse came first. Shamrogue won the maiden plate and the big handy cap. Curnell won the ladies purse. Saladden another race and Silvery another. All the horses we ran was either first or second, and we beat all Redford’s cracks and won the most part of the money. We won £151. The only big money we lost was the Steeple race.
We had three days racing and everything went off well only Tom Kilfoyle and Edward Hammand had a bit of a fite. Ned came off second best. James Hammond and Simpson had a smawl row—only one nock down and all was over. James was no match for Simpson. Any amount of all other sports and dancing…
Mr Hambleton asked me why you did not rite to him. I told him you wrote to him and sent him yere portrait, dear Michael and Johnny. Now let both of ye send Mr Hambleton and tell him ye wrote to him and I will send him one of yere portraits. He is going to buy the house at Corongla. Direct youre letter to Himself. He is living at Corongla station, Cooper’s Creek, near Thargomindah, and enquire for his Mrs and also Mr Colman and Mrs Colman. Make it a nice letter and let him know what ye are learning…
Pat was at the races. John and Michael Skeahan rode all the races for us. Gaslight is to run in a few days time at Thargomindah…
Letters later in the year indicate the rapid increase of sheep on Thylungra and the state of the beef market in 1880, which was a fairly poor year on the Cooper.