Windabyne a Record of By-Gone Times in Australia

Windabyne A Record of By-gone Times in Australia Ranken, George A digital text sponsored by Australian Literature Gateway University of Sydney Library Sydney 2003 http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/setis/id/ranwind © University of Sydney Library. The texts and images are not to be used for commercial purposes without permission Source Text: Prepared from the print edition published by Remington and Company London 1895 357pp. All quotation marks are retained as data. First Published: 1895 823.89A/C899/J1/1 Australian Etext Collections at novels 1890-1909 Windabyne A Record of By-gone Times in Australia Related by in 1880, edited by London Remington and Company 1895 Dedication. To Our Friends at Home, this Volume is inscribed as a record of Australian life, written at the birth-place of Southern Colonisation, by one who has done his share in the work of the pioneer. It tells of actual occurrences, under a thin veil of fiction. Beginning with the history of a “Station,” or pastoral holding, the narrative traces the fortunes of the characters introduced through various scenes, and ends with a description of the old homestead, Windabyne, revisited, after an interval of twenty-five years. It may not be out of place to point out to Home readers that the topics which rise to the surface in carrying out the work of colonisation, are very different from the “parish jobs and parish politics,” to which Colonial questions have been at times likened, by a portion of the English Press. In these Colonies, we are dealing with a territory, measuring two-thirds of the size of Europe, the outskirts of which are sparsely settled by a population of almost purely British origin, numbering four millions. The foundations of a great Dominion in the South Seas are being laid. In less than three generations, this Dominion will be occupied by a people as strong in numbers as many first-class powers, and the mark of to-day's work will be seen then for good or evil, deeply imprinted in inherited customs and institutions. That which is now in the germ will then be seen in the fruit. The writer will be well pleased if his little work should aid in interesting the British people as to what their kinsmen are doing at the Antipodes. SYDNEY, 1894. Letters about Windabyne. NO. I. — From the Honourable W. B. Dalley. ROCKMORE — SUTTON FOREST, April 25th. 1882, MY DEAR MR. RANKEN. I shall have great pleasure in doing what you desire. I always regarded your story as one of the most thoroughly characteristic stories of Australian Bush life that had been written. I can hardly imagine anything more thoroughly descriptive of Station life as it was in this country than your tale, and your persons of the drama were real. I like your gins as well as your gentlemen, and relished your humour in depicting the doubtful characters of your story, as much as your genuine pathos in telling of the gallant struggles of refined people, and of the success of scheming vulgarity. In haste, yours always very truly, WILLIAM B. DALLEY. No. II. — Also from the Honourable W. B. Dalley. ROCKMORE — SUTTON FOREST, May 11th, 1882. MY DEAR SIR, When your story of Windabyne was in course of publication in the Magazine in which it originally appeared, I felt, and in many quarters expressed the conviction that it was a thoroughly Australian tale, perfectly preserving throughout a local colouring, and manifestly the work of a man who well knew, and had the capacity of vigorously describing the condition of this colony forty years ago, and the changes in its fortunes so far as they had been identified with the occupation of the soil for pastoral purposes, which have since taken place. I have now had the opportunity and the gratification of reading it again under the altered and improved form, in which you propose to give it to the public. In thanking you for the pleasure which its re-perusal has given me, I may be pardoned for saying that I am more than ever convinced that your tale is by far the most truthful, as it is, as far as I know, the most deeply interesting narrative of the experiences of an Australian squatter that I have yet seen. No man of average acquaintance with the history and vicissitudes of pastoral enterprise in this colony can fail to remember abundant instances precisely resembling those which you have with much literary skill grouped among the circumstances, which influenced the fortunes of the gentle family whose story you tell with so much grace and pathos. And I think I am indulging in no immoderate or undeserved language of eulogy when I say of your story, that it gives in a most attractive form the real history of one of the most precious and refining influences of our colonization, the planting of the family life of persons of culture and gentleness in the far interior in the olden times. In this country your book should be received with favour, because it is life- like in its portraiture; elsewhere its merits rest entirely upon the power and grace of its author as a writer, which I think are amply sufficient to secure for it a fair share of public approval. I am, my dear sir, Very faithfully yours, WILLIAM B. DALLEY. No. III. — From Julian Thomas — “The Vagabond.” October, 1878. MY DEAR RANKEN, I reckon that I belong to the nil admirari school — at least, as regards the works of others, all my veneration being required for home consumption. But I know a good thing when I see it. I have before expressed to you my liking for Windabyne. The perusal of the portion of that tale in this month's “Australian” — which I have just finished — has given me great pleasure. I am prond to know and to be associated in literary work with a man who has the head and heart to write as you have done. Enough said. Windabyne is too good to lie buried in the “Australian.” When finished, I think you should re-write it, put in more plot and incident, and publish here and in London. As the true story of the squatting phase of colonial life, it will rank with “His Natural Life,” as depicting the what-has-been in Australia. Listen to the words of wisdom from the first critic in the Colonies. Yours, JULIAN THOMAS. N.B. — The story appeared first in Sydney, in a monthly magazine, called, “The Australian,” published in 1878 and 1879. Windabyne a Record of By-gone Times in Australia Chapter I. The History of a Station. On one of our Western rivers — once many days' ride beyond the blue ranges to be seen on a clear day from the flag-staff — now twelve miles only from a railway station, at a point where the mountain slopes begin to melt into the great basin of the interior, is to be seen Windabyne Homestead. The Yarombil is the Southern boundary of the Run. That watercourse shows at the road-crossing in ordinary times, as little more than a huge stretch of gravel within high, precipitous banks, saving its title to the name of “river” by the slender stream trickling through the pebbles to the great pool lower down, called the “Big Waterhole.” At one time, when the sun fell low, and the oak-tops* swayed in the whispering breeze, the pelican and the black swan might be seen opening their wings and drifting slowly along the rippling surface of this mimic lake, then shaded in woodland verdure, while the blue crane would float overhead from the shelter of the casuarina to the high naked top of the white gum-tree. But these denizens of the woods and waters have now gone; the waterhole is made subservient to various hydraulic, industrial and domestic uses; and the gums and oaks have been converted into fencing-stuff and shingles. There comes first in view, as you cross the plain, the dark line of dwarf scrub rising above the bank, and then the homestead appears with its clear-cut fences and bright green garden, a pleasant change to the eye, after thirty miles of brown pasture or gaunt eucalyptus. On the Southern, or Girrah, side of the river, there lie a succession of wooded flats and box ridges, and on the opposite, or Windabyne, side, there stretch away, North and West, in dim perspective, the open vistas that mark the spot to be on the borders of the great salt-bush country. Of Windabyne in the last century we know nothing; but the stone tomahawks turned up often by the fencers' picks, and the draywheels of the carriers, tell of a race that once filled the valley with their hunts, their love-makings, their tribal feasts and feuds. The story of the big “Condôles” that came from beyond the salt water, bearing men with shining faces, armed with “thunder-sticks,” no doubt reached them through rumours from the coast, — but mutilated and distorted beyond recognition from repeated tellings. Sometimes, even now, strange fables are picked up on our frontiers, which are only narrations of our own doings, in disguise, brought back to us as news, after being passed on from mouth to mouth at hundreds of camp fires. But it was long before these strange white men met the Yarombil tribes face to face. It took place, at length, shortly before the drought of 1839. Only one water-hole held out that season. To lose that would be death to the blacks; but the sheep of the great John Shoddy, Esq., of Darling Harbour, were on the country.

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