By this time Jack Holmes and Gundagai Bill are ‘out,’ or finished; and the cry of “Wool!’ Wool!” seems to run continuously up and down the long aisles of the shed, like a single note upon some rude instrument.  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.  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.

This is the first day.  According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains.  It is before the battle, the “salut,” when no hasty word or too demonstrative action can be suffered by the canons of good taste.  Red Bill, Flash Jack, Jem the Scooper, and other roaring blades, more famous for expedition than faithful manipulation, are shearing today with a painstaking precision, as of men to whom character is everything.

Mr Gordon marches softly up and down, regarding the shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight improvements of style, or expressing unqualified approval as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn.  All goes on well.  Nothing is heard but expressions of goodwill and enthusiasm for the general welfare.  It is a triumph of the dignity of labour.

One o’clock.  Mr Gordon moved on to the bell and sounded it.  At the first stroke several men on their way to the pens stopped abruptly and began to put on their coats.  One fellow of an alert nature (Master Jack Windsor) had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr Gordon’s form in proximity to the final bell.  With a bound like a wild cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, amidst the laughter and congratulations of his comrades.  Another man had his hand on the pen-gate at the same instant, but by the Median law was compelled to return sheepless.  He was cheered, but ironically.  Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly completed them; the others moving off to their huts, where their board literally smoked with abundance.