Harry Heathcote of Gangoil

with doors and windows and floors shattered, broken, and decayed. There were none of womankind belonging to the family, and in such a house a decent woman-servant would have been out of her place. Sometimes there was one hag there and sometimes another, and sometimes feminine aid less respectable than that of the hags. There had been six sons. One had disappeared utterly, so that nothing was known of him. One had been absolutely expelled by the brethren, and was now a vagabond in the country, turning up now and then at Boolabong and demanding food. Of the whole lot Georgie Brownbie, the vagabond, was the worst. The eldest son was at this time in prison at Brisbane, having on some late occasion been less successful than usual in regard to some acquired bullocks. The three youngest were at home⁠—Jerry, Jack, and Joe. Tom, who was in prison, was the only stanch friend to the father, who consequently at this time was in a more than usually depressed condition.

Christmas Day would fall on a Tuesday, and on the Monday before it Jerry Brownbie, the eldest of those now at home, was sitting, with a pipe in his mouth, on a broken-down stool on the broken-down veranda of the house, and the old man was seated on a stuffy, worn-out sofa with three legs, which was propped against the wall of the house, and had not been moved for years. Old Brownbie was a man of gigantic frame, and had possessed immense personal power; a man, too, of will and energy, but he was now worn out and dropsical, and could not move beyond the confines of the home station. The veranda was attached to a big room which ran nearly the whole length of the house, and which was now used for all purposes. There was an exterior kitchen, in which certain processes were carried on, such as salting stolen mutton and boiling huge masses of meat, when such work was needed. But the cookery was generally done in the big room. And here also two or three of the sons slept on beds made upon stretchers along the wall. They were not probably very particular as to which owned each bed, enjoying a fraternal communism in that respect. At the end of this chamber the old man had a room of his own. Boolabong was certainly a miserable place; and yet, such as it was, it was frequented by many guests. The vagabondism of the colonies is proverbial. Vagabonds are taken in almost everywhere throughout the bush. But the welcome given to them varies. Sometimes they are made to work before they are fed, to their infinite disgust; but no such cruelty was exercised at Boolabong. Boolabong was a very Paradise for vagabonds. There was always flour and meat to be had, generally tobacco, and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler. The Brownbies were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very existence that they should have friends in the land. On the Sunday the father and Jerry Brownbie were sitting out in the veranda at about noon, and the other two sons, Jack and Joe, were lying asleep on the beds within.

The heat of the day was intense. There was a wind blowing, but it was that which is called there the hot wind, which comes dry, scorching, sometimes almost intolerable, over the burning central plain of the country. No one can understand without feeling it how much a wind can add to the sufferings inflicted by heat. The old man had on a dirty, wretched remnant of a dressing-gown, but Jerry was clothed simply in trousers and an old shirt. Only that the mosquitoes would have flayed him, he would have dispensed probably with these. He had been quarreling with his father respecting a certain horse which he had sold, of the price of which the father demanded a share. Jerry had unblushingly declared that he himself had “shaken” the horse (Anglice, had stolen him twelve months since on Darnley Downs), and was therefore clearly entitled to the entire plunder. The father had rejoined with animation that unless “half a quid”⁠—or 10s.⁠—were given him as his contribution to the keep of the animal, he would inform against his son to the squatter on the Darnley Downs, and had shown him that he knew the very run from which the horse had been taken. Then the sons within had interfered from their beds, swearing that their father was the noisiest old “cuss” unhung⁠—they having had their necessary slumbers disturbed.

At this moment the debate was interrupted by the appearance of a man outside the veranda.

“Well, Mr. Jerry, how goes it?” asked the stranger.

“What, Bos, is that you? What brings you up to Boolabong? I thought you was ringing trees for that young scut at Gangoil? I’ll be even with him some of these days! He had the impudence to send a man of his up here last week looking for sheepskins!”

“He wasn’t that soft, Mr. Jerry, was he? Well, I’ve dropped working for him. How are you, Mr. Brownbie? I hope I see you finely, sir. It’s stiffish sort of weather, Mr. Brownbie, ain’t it, sir?”

The old man grunted out some reply, and then asked Boscobel what he wanted.

“I’ll just hang about for the day, Mr. Brownbie, and get a little grub. You never begrudged a workingman that yet.”

Old Brownbie again grunted, but said no word of welcome. That, however, was to be taken for granted, without much expression of opinion.

“No, Mr. Jerry,” continued Boscobel, “I’ve done with that fellow.”

“And so has Nokes done with him.”

“Nokes is at work on Medlicot’s Mill. That sugar business wouldn’t suit me.”

“An axe in your hand is what you’re fit for, Bos.”

“There’s a many things I can turn my hand to, Mr. Jerry. You couldn’t give a fellow such a thing as a nobbler, Mr. Jerry, could you? I’d offer money for it, only I know it would