Such Is Life

eatment of these informal annals. That power, in the nature of things, resides napoleonically with myself, and has, I trust, been exercised toward the informa

fact, till you would think that, in the back-country, drinking took the place of Conduct, as three-fourths of life; whilst the remaining fourth consisted of fighting. Whereas, outside the shearing season, you might travel a hundred miles, calling at five shanties, without seeing a man the worse for drink; and you would be still more likely to go a thousand miles, calling at fifty shanties, without seeing any indication of a fight. Of course, there are some queer tragedies, and many mela

t me over his shoulder-how the open-hearted asses of fencers, in weary alternation, confidentially told me fragmentary and idiotic yarns-how they shook hands with me till I was tired, and wept over me till I was

in dates will give you another glimpse of Alf Jones. Also, the peculiar scythe-sweep of my style of narrative will take in a rencontre with anothe

lcannia shower. J

Runnymede. Tom A

ntractor, had been off work for a month, keeping his twenty horses and twenty-four bullocks in the Abbotsford Paddock, and watering the

they had acquired that crease down the hip pathetically known as 'the poor man's stripe.' Cleopatra's bucking had become feeble and mechanical, and so transparently stagey that I use

-mile stage to Alf Jones's, and, next day, a fifteen-mile stage to the station. This rate of travelling, with frequent holidays, was fast enough for a man without official hopes

broken, of course, by many pine ridges, clumps of red box, patches of scrub or timber, and the inevitable red gum flats which fringe the rivers. Eastward, the plain runs out irregularly into open forests of white box, pine, and other t

age of the scattered myalls on the plain stood out horizontally to leeward; and an endless supply of lightly-bounding roley-poleys were chasing each other across the level ground. I lashed my hat on with a handkerchief, one side of the brim being turned down to keep some of the sand

t seeing it- I came upon the portable engine and centrifugal p

nt, a couple of yards back from the edge of the excavation; and under this wall, an iron pipe connects the swamp with the tank. The swamp being full, and the water in the tank hav

portunity to secure a supply of water. The pumping plant had been set-up on the evening before, but not started; and now the wind had swept all the water to the other e

s of the engine. Mooney had maintained the affirmative, and the colt, the negative. The Pure Logic which the colt had opposed to Mooney's Applied Logic had ultimately prevailed, and the narangy had withdrawn fr

the weather, replenished my water-bag, and passed on. I may add that the pump was n't started on that occasion

case, I should have had to stop on Pup's account. I turned Cleopatra's head to leeward, and began carefully to dismount. But the wind ballooned the back of my coat and the right branch of my other garment, and I went three yards through the air, like a bird shot on the wing. Recovering foothold, I fought my way to Bunyip

, and hidden purpose. The first and second considerations were merely matters of research and calculation; the third was largely speculative, admitting of no more definite conclusion than that the time had come when

wly and painfully across the stubbly knobs of cotton-bush on his hands and knees. I hailed him in a voice that took the skin off my throat, but another glimpse showed him still travelling; his head bent almost to the ground. I rose carefully to my feet, facing the shower, but only to be hurled down on top of the fai

and weary brother, pullin

hou

eech, and the bloodshot eyes left my f

" I sug

m the cantle. Though filled with half a gallon of water not two hours before, it was now half-empty. I drew the cork; my visitor clasped the cool

gonia Tank," he

It 's about a mile and a

t come f

ike a lime-kiln. Too dog-tired to go any further, so I rested till morning, and then struck for the Patagonia, with a devil of a headache to help m

ss. Have y

ere she is now. I left her behind when the wind put me on

t the

ide. You'll be staying he

othing els

ht for the swamp I'll be right. I'll spell to-nig

mped at the tank, with the engine and

d ag

e you travell

water; too late for burr-cutting; nothing doing. I wis

by fits and starts, till the sand and dirt-pellets ceased to drift. Half-an-hour

eet, but shaky enough. With Bligh-like impartiality, I meted out half a pint of

to spare?" he asked. "

u hard-up? Because I can lend y

a couple or three notes

I touched your money. M

ctions of society," I replied. "Now strike straight acro

demanded, as I placed

lli

, so-

-lo

, which showed dull and coppery through suspended dust; till, just at that hour which calls the faithful

ave a single bark, and re-entered; then Jack the Shellback appeared, and, recognising me, got a larger quantity of profanity and indecency into his cordial welcome than you might think possible. Scarce as water was, he cursed me into washing the sand out of my hair with two consecutive goes of the precious liquid, whilst he swore the saddles of my horses, and obscene-languaged some supper for me. Even befo

e had," I remarked, as

n the vulgar tongue, that if I had ever been at sea, I would think nothing of a whiff like that. He told me of storms he had weathered-particularly, one off Christiana Cooner, a soli

atchless force and piquancy. "Bend her; she'll about fit yo

y brim. She proved a perfect fit when I 'bent' her. I wore her afterward for many a week, till one night she rolled away from

p for a professor of phrenology, or doxology, or any other ology," sugg

my good host's torrent of unrepeatable congratulation, I turned aside and unstrapped a portion of Bunyip's pack. Presently I advanced and resumed my seat, with the ancestor of all

n point of view, the most highly specialised, meerschaum ever seen on earth. It was a pipe such as no smoker parts with during life, but bequeaths to his best-beloved son- a p

rlies rather than meets the indescribable wealth of lucent and fathomless umber, which soul-satisfying colour intensifies toward the rounded heel, softening to a paler tint in its serene re-ascent, till the meerschaum terminates in a heavy, semi-cylindrical collar, of almost audacious simplicity. Then a thick, flexible, silk-chequered stem takes up the wondrous tale, in its turn extending, with a most magnanimous restraint, barely four inch

the critical moment, and, for the young hero's benefit, gently shifts the amiable old potterer to a better land in the very nick of time. Such is not life. And to avoid any shadow of the imputation in which that incident-begging novelist wallow

ark of red fire, miles ahead, told of someone camped at a clump on Illilliwa, just about the spot I had marked out as my own destination-there being grass anywhere inside th

out of the darkness-a large, blonde, heavily-moustached young fellow, with a light rifle in the hollow of his arm, Being too hungry for conversation, I mere

an armed. By the time my supper-service was re-packed, and I was stretched in Aboriginal contentment beside the fire, I had noticed, by the uncertain lig

n to the surface; and, as an hour -two hours-passed, I was fairly abashed by the extent and accuracy of his information. He talked so confidently, so scientifically, and, as far as my knowled

was Franz von Swammerbrunck, very much at my service. His friend, Schloss,

der?" I asked, veiling a mild and inoffensive

f Torres Straits. Desiring, of course, to avail myself of some few rays of this boreal light, I tried to steer the conversation in the direction of bainting and boetry (for such subjects go well at camp-fires), but F

eeping you out of bed,

ge-alien-isolate in dot platty dilemma mit Schloss unt minezelluf, invaluable unt moch velcome. Dot gootdefine kevartz reef, by instance, vich you loquacious-delineate, mit der visible golt destitute-by tam! he schall mine eyes from der skleep fly-away mit der enchantment-glitter! Ach Gott! Nefer py vhite man vitness, yo

d not less remarkable than their infatuation for non-auriferous reefs was their vivid interest in bushrangers and blackfellows; but whereas they received my crude geological information with the attention which its frankness certainly merited, it was plain that their idea of prospecting the back-blocks with the pick in one hand and the rifle in t

packed up their elaborate camp, and harnessed their horse in the spring-cart. They would stop for breakfast after a few hours' travelling; meantime, they had a cup of coffee. I roused myself to reiterate the directions I had already given respecting the locality of half a dozen reefs in the back-blocks; then my friends stowed away t

dt shall you peen

with Mr. Springfield. He was

g interview, dot der two Yarman moreprog

ward the land of Disillusionment. As I lay down again, I heard the poor fellows burst into unintelligible song; and, after the spring-cart had jogged a quarter of a mile, one of the

ushrangers; the lurking blackfellows; the squatter's lovely Diana-daughter, awaiting the well-bred greenhorn (for even she had cropped-up in conversation)-how

ened with polite toleration when I compassionately added that the pile reef is always discovered by an ungrammatical person, named Old Brummy, or Sydney Bob, or Squinty-eyed Pete, or something to the same general

ing document. And yet those visionaries were highly informed men-at least, as far as schools, lecturerooms, laboratories, museums, and the whole admirable machinery of modern academic and technical training could take them. This, let me add, is the reco

er 6 Hen. III., c. 17, sec. 34; holding myself prepared at any time to surrender the property to anyone clever enough to sneak it, and cunning enough to keep it; though a sense of delicacy might prevent me chasing the Kronprinzes round the country, as if they had stolen something. When the pipe had eaten its magnificent head off in tobacco, then, of course, I sold it to pay expenses, and bought it in myself. So I have it still. And if the censorious reader has

alpacar one here, made a-purpose for some clipper built (individual) like you. I would n't 'a' speculated in her, on'y she was the last the hawker had left. She's never bin bent." He produced a slate-coloured alpaca coat, which, when I trie

of Alf Jones?" I asked,

und for no one knew where. Jack's opinion was that in so doing he had made a slippery-hitch. I spoke of Alf's singing;

ething wonderfu

tially but positively; "nothing l

d he straightway rendered a mawkishly sentimental song, and a couple of extremely unchast

otif of nearly every joke worth telling. In this line, Jack was a discriminating anthologist, and, moreover, a judicious adapter-all his gestes being related in the first-person-singular. His autobiographical record was a staggerer; but I happened to recognise amongst his affaires de coeur several very old acquaintan

lackguard is a Bayard, any more than every wife-beater is a coward; but almost all moral and immoral qualities are in reality independent of each other. And Jack, for one thing, was eminently religious-as indeed were those greater geniuses and equally hard cases, Dick Steele an

ed with horror; then the poor fellow laid his pipe on the table, and, kneeling by his bedside, repeated in a firm, reverent voice an al

me you'll always make a bit of a prayer before turnin'-in; for the Lord says anybody that 's ashamed o' Him, He'll be ashamed o' him at the day o' judgment.' Awful-ain't it? Course, I promised, but it went in o' one ear, an' out o' the other, till about two year after, when I got word she was dead. I was on Runnymede then-for I come straight here w

e. It is surprising how much a landsman, however well-informed, may gather from a sailor when he listens like a three-years' child, and the mariner hath his will. I only wish I was as

f dead bullock. Drowsily opening one eye, I saw Pup standing by my side. He had thought I was dead; but, finding his mistake, he walked away through the gloom with an injured and dissatisfied air, and began trying to root the lid off Jack's camp-oven with his pointed nose. One pec

-lid roused Jack. He looke

ed mutton, which he divided into two unequal portions, then gave the smaller share to his own dog, and the

im before you turn-in again. There's always a siege of Jerusalem going on in

ect goin'; though, strictly speakin', he don't belong to no kingdom in particular; he belongs to the high seas. If you'd 'a' had a ch

leasure in laying before the intelligent public. I must, however, use my own language. Jack's rhetoric, t

air of eager, sleepless eyes, endowed with a power of something like 200 diameters; and he has also a perennially empty stomach-the sort of vacuum, by the way, which Nature particularly abhors. He can eat nothing but fish; and, since he suffers under the disadvantage

ands firmly on one end, like a 50lb. bag of flour, which, indeed, he closely resembles. His life is unadventurous; some might call it monotonous. He takes his position on a smooth rock, protected from cold by the beautiful padded surtout which clothes him from neb to base, and from heat by the cool, limpid wave, softly lap-lapping against the impenetrable feathers. He feels like a stove in the winte

ough as he is; the perpetual sabbath of absolute negation is good enough for him. His motto is, 'Happy the bird that has no history.' Once a day, he experiences a crisp, triumphant appetite, which differs from hunger as melody differs from discord; t

m a distance of, say, five miles. Emitting a quivering shriek of hunger, the strong-winged sufferer cleaves the inter

the table. You have thought to yourself: Now I'm turning out; now I'm putting on my--; now, my socks; now-Why, I'm in bed still, and no nearer breakfast than at first! Here we have a reproduction of the penguin's train of thought, plus the s

n the very act of dipping for a fish. Can he make the return trip? He must chance it. He negotiates with lightning speed the interspace between his tortured stomach and the second penguin's provender, whilst his own steam-siren screech of famine comes feebly halting after, and blends with the desolate plop of hi

for the present. Now he must wait-ah! heavens, wait!-while one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. By that time, the bird beside him will have caught another fish; and though it be only-By my faith, he must wait longer; for the penguin, concluding that his own appetite will

ss; and, with one prolonged, ear-splitting yell, wrung from him by the still-increasing torment of his fell disease, the unhappy bird expands his

paraphrased, I fell asleep with the half-formed longing to be a pen

shapeless mokes on the station-or, indeed, off it. 'Mokes' is good in this connection. But in a week or two, lazy as the mokes were, Jack could n't grapple either of them, stabbard or port, in the open paddock; they had learned to await,

inters, so that you could fold the saddle in any direction; and the panel had from time to time been subjected to so much amateur repairing that, when Jack mounted, he looked like a hen in a nest, so surrounded he was with exuding tufts of wool, raw horse-hair, emus' feathers, and

rigged thortships, one forrid of the rider, and one aft, and each padded on the inside surface. A couple or three rope-yarns, rove fore-and-aft on each side, would prevent the rider listing to stabbard or port, while the vertical pitch would be provided for by a lashing rove across each shoulder. If the horse reared and fell back, you would just draw your head in, like a turtle, and let the bulkheads carry the st

s aspiration had fallen short, partly owing to the clinging sediment of my congenital ignorance, but more especially because I lacked, and knew I lacked, what is known as a 'presence.' Now, however, the high, drab belltopper and long alpaca coat, happily seconded by large, round glasses and a vast and scholarly pipe, seemed to get over the latter and greater difficulty; and, for perhaps the first time in my life, I enjoyed that experience so dear to some of my fellow-pilgrims-the consciousness of being well-dressed. This would naturally come as a revelation to one who had always been sati

atan was an ornament to the station; a magnificently beautiful cream-coloured horse, with s

tion, was exercising a seasoned colt, thoroughly spoiled beforehand. Your novelist, availing himself of his prerogative, fancifully assigns this office to the well-educated, well-nurtured, and, above all,

rmost, with perfect safety, through forest or scrub-you are scarcely one step nearer to the successful riding of an equine artist that has sworn to get you off, or perish. Scarcely one step nearer than you were at first, unless you constitutionally possess certain qualifications, and a

must be the Young-Australian, which is, beyond doubt, the most trying in the world; that his skill is won by grassers innumerable; that, in short, there is no royal road to the riding of a proper out

dard Lowmoor; limbs of gutta-percha; a hide of vulcanised india-rubber; and the less brains he has, the better. Figuratively speaking, he should have no brains at all; his thinking faculties should b

e five exceptions to this rule-Gordon being the second, 'Banjo' the third, 'Glenrowan' the fourth, and the demurring reader the fifth-says the greatest art in riding is knowing how to fall. And here we touch the very root of the matter. It is the mo

rse and his rider as any writer ever did; and th

onstrative, but orderly; hospitable, courageous, cool,

s finger on Ignorance as the key to the enigma? Notice, too, how Curr, being a bit of a sticker himself, is thereby disqualified f

c theory; unlike them, his aeschatological hypothesis must be that the fire we wot of is only a man's own conscience-the wish, in his case, being father to the thought. Above all, he must have no idea how fearfully and wonderfully he is made. He must think upon himself as a good strong framework of bones, cushioned and buffered with meat, and partly tubul

t physically, as well as morally. To him it is a nasty scrunch of the two hundred and twenty-six bones forming his own admirably designed osseous structure; a dull, sickening wallop of his exquisitely composed cellular, muscular, and nervous tissues; a general squash of his beautifully mapped vascular

em. And I further maintain that, for reasons above specified, the man of large discourse, looking before an after (ah! that is where the mischief lies!) never, in spite

it with pleasure, you will remember, and assisted them to girth it on. You liked to be at the second backing of a colt-not as the central figure, of course, but in the capacity of critic and adviser. There was the probability of some decent riding; also the probability of a catastrophe. You may, perhaps, further remember that whilst the ceremony of saddling was in progr

e set of your saddle, now that he saw it girthed-on. The owner of the colt, speaking for himself, frankly admitted that he never pretended to be a sticker. The third fellow, whilst modestly glancing at his own unrivalled record, regretted he was sworn

ing-that, in this case, it is the second step that costs? The four fellows knew as well as you did-everyone except the tenderfoot novelist knows-that in nearly every instance, a freshly backed colt is like a fish out of water; stupid, puzzled, half-sulky, half-docile. It is at the second backing that he is ready to contest the question of fitness fo

s back slightly arched, and-ah! the saints preserve us!-with his tail jammed hard down. Carelessly humming a little tune, you hang your coat on the fence; and in the saying of two credos (note the appositeness of Cerv

, for, in situations like yours, a person ke

dy,

es

ure you'r

es

'll buck mi

our woe? We'll see presently. Meantime, console yourself with the recol

e off stirrup

es

to let the

ah

out

t to be, and the soles of your boots are ra

e other foot, and skips to the left. Then everything disappears from in front of the saddle-the wicked ears, now laid level backward-the black, tangled mane-the shining neck with the swee

humping of his feet on the ground, and the gratuitous c

t more, Tom, an

loose if you ca

own with the reins, a

m, Tom, what

other end! Stick to him, quotha! Easier said than done-is it not? And yet you've been riding all manner of horses, on and off (mark the significance of that expression) since you were a

r. And away in chase go two of the chaps on their bits of stuff. Meanwhile, you explain to the other two that the spill serves you right for riding so carelessly; and th

ompting him to join my horses. His tawny skin was streaked with foam, and his off flank slightly stained fro

orning,

dy, had bin swappin' horses with you. You are comin' out! Oh, I say! Nosey give me the letter, with the

you some time. How are y

in' to laydown, an' make chips o' the saddle. Up! you swine"-and, lying backward, he reached down to grip the sensitive membrane connecting the swine's hind-leg with his body. The maddened beast shot past me like a yellow streak for another ten yards; then, with a flaring

just below the speaker's shoulder-blade. "An' Magomery wants a person to make a lady's hack out o' sich an outlawr as him!" he continued, in hopeless protest, whilst the 'outlawr' exerted his iron muscles to the utmost, and the saddle creaked like a basket. "Nummin' good horse, too; on'y spoiled with-Jist

ntest. I saw Jack wrench the horse aside from the timber; whereupon the animal reared rather too rashly, and just saved himself from falling backward by dropping on his quar

-humoured face, was the only person visi

ry, he's buzznackin' roun' the run as usual," he continued, helping me to unsaddle. "Butler, he's laid up with the bung blight in both eyes. All the other fellers is out. Mrs. Bodysark"-and his grin deepened- "she 's

u look after Pup, like a good chap? Here's his

ins; but I would n't mind if you was i

iarty's laughing suddenly ceased, as his eye f

as I removed my belltopper and placed it on the counter. "Don't yo

blossom. Now you only want the upper half of your head shaved, and you

ing of finance, I trust you have n't forgotten the trifle

end, like a paddle. Then to the flat part of each upright he had attached a blow-fly, by means of a touch of gum on the insect's back, and had placed in the grasp of each fly a piece of pine an inch long, cut into the shape of a rifle

went of its own accord-would it? Perpetual motion's a thing I've been giving my attention to lately. You remember you advised me to study mechanics? Well, I 've been thinking of arranging a clock so as to wind itself up as it went on. That 's one idea. Another is a little more complicated. It 's a water-

y; "you 're worse than

a born me

"Possibly, your own self? Was n't my father a foreman in one of the largest mac

a born mechanician, you have neither the theoretical nor the practical training. Do y

d calculate with that slide

d him to do a sum in his head, in ten seconds, that I could n't do on a slate in ten hours, nor

f segmental ordinates, or the cycloidal calculus; or even of adiabatic expansion, or torsional resistance, or the hydrostatic pa

the performing flies, he laughed himself weak and empty.

" said I. "How a

, I took Mooney and Nelson into my confidence; and we arranged to meet accidentally, one evening after dusk, under th

tranger, appearing at

kles in stoc

f-a-crown

u at the first glance. Your name's Collins-is n't it? You might remember me passing by you last spring, a few miles back along the track here, where you 'd been helping Steve Thompson and a big, gipsy-looking fellow to load up some wool on a Sydney-pattern wagon? So that chestnut was a stolen horse, after all. Sm

bottles of pickles; then, after drinking some of the vinegar out of the way, he began harp

ing made up his order, noted the items and pr

ed, after a pause-the stranger being occupied

, like a good many more. Let's see-it was just the day after you went away that he came to Montgomery, and said he must go. That'll be six or eight weeks ago now. Montgomery went a lot out of his way to persuade him to stop, but it was no use; he was like a hen on a hot griddle till he got away. Decent chap, too; and, by gosh! can't he sing and play!

spect. There's not above two-or, at the most, three-lobes of that fellow's brain in bad working order. Just you watch the weekly papers,

Moriarty's flies, without the trace of a smile on his saturnine face. "I met him s

fellow, surely

whether it was a violin-case or a child's coffin, I was n't rude enough to ask. Old-fashioned Manton single-barrel slung on his back. Good-looking black-and-tan dog. Brown saddle-horse; small star; WD conjoined, near shoulder; C or G, near flank. B

gh," said Moriarty. "Ha

and come with me to where I knew of a brackish dam. I'd just been disappointed of water, myself, at the Old-man Gilgie. It had been half-full a few days before, but a dozen of Elder's camels had called there, carrying tucker to Mount Brown; and each of them had scoffed the full of a 400-gallon tank. Talk about camels doing withou

find myself a bit odd- negligent, and forgetful, and sort of imbecile-but that's a very different thing from being off your head. Why, just now, I saw your two horses in the paddock as I came up; and, if I was to be lagged for it, I could n't think where I had seen them before-in fact, not till I recognised you. Want of sleep, I blame it on

him, Moriar

road when he passed with 400 head of fats; and somehow I knew that his name was Spooner. Never saw hi

old me how you worked the scandal. You were si

stopping with Nosey the evening you left here, and wondering how you got on together, being queer in different ways. Then the conversation settled down on you; and we even quoted a remark Mrs. Beaudesart had made about you, only a couple of hours before. She had said th

n her room, with her

s sitting down as she went across the yard; and we counted

ur deepest student of human nature makes his favourite Beatrice, on receiving a hint, run down the garden like a lapwing, to do a bit of deliberate eavesdropping; whilst her masculine counterp

mistook; it imp

it to Ja

nd; but the Princess, true to her sex, says e

read it,

the wax, and let e

ard here, for we can't afford to be ju

Mrs. Beaudesart's simplicity; and it came out that Nelson and Mooney knew there was some reason why you dare n't go back t

e story run

it. (Which is mo

"And it hangs together fairly well for a fabrication. But I'm honestly sorry to have been forced to put such an

h about it; so, the evening before the disclosure, when Jack the Shellback was in the store getting some things to take out with him, I asked

rt believes it?" I

he can do, considering t

be like one of the

k it has the

ed about promiscuously; and she does n't take it any way ill to overhear a quiet joke about the thing

shonour has no effect,

e. You better go back

. Poverty, for instance, is disgrace without dishonour; Michael-and-Georgeship is dishonour without disgrace. In cases like min

ings spread of themselves, when they 're once fairly started. And everybody believes the yarn; bar Mooney, and Nelson, an

?" said I i

orning, I was at some correspondence here, and I heard a quick step, and

traced it home to you, and I want your authority. I always looked upon Collins as a decent sort of oddity,' says he; 'and I'

s wreckage of plot was owing to some defect in my own

y a sort of hypodermic influence; and all the fun seemed to have died out of it, till it sounded mean and small and unmanly. Yes; I had to tell him the fix you were in, and the commission you had given me, and everything from first to last; bar that infern

e; and he knows it," I remarked, with a sourness whi

to do with it?"

I replied. For the mid-day

st-time," said Moriarty,

ively, and, to the philosophic mind, as touchingly, as death itself; being recognised and remembered by the aristocrat who forgets his own personal dirt-origin and dirt-destination; by the woman who forgets the date of her birth; by the friend who forgets the insulting languag

nder-side of my imagined precaution against ophthalmia; here was the hidden purpose of that repetitional picking and sorting of the hawker's stock which had left Jack the Shellback his Hobson's choice in coats; here was a Wesleyan converging of the whole vast order of

! it's no Tam M'Callum!"-he swung his swag to the ground, and extended his hand-"Mony 's the tho

ip, though I felt like a man in the act of parrying a rifle bullet. "I have a wretched memory for faces

eplied my creditor,

d several in Victoria. Wait a moment-Did we meet at the Caledonian Sports, in Echuca, two years ago

llow, in vexation; "A thocht ye was

arked gently. "But my name's Collins," I continued, brig

edly-and the unconscious double-meaning of his words sank

like yourself. Moriarty,

's?" continued Tam,

cks. "The boss was saying there was a few burrs that would have to

Andraw here. Puir body's sicht's nae fit fir sic wark; an' A mauna pairt wi' h

n, perceptible only to Moriarty,

The prerogative was something like one enjoyed by abbots, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, in the ages of faith; namely, the right to extend the jurisdiction and protection of the Church over any secular prisoner accidentally met on his way to execution-a prerogative, the existence of which depended on its not being abused. And though Moriarty was only on the Commissariat, and was therefore unmercifully sat-on by the vulgar whenever he presumed to give orders, he held this right through a series of forerunners extending back to the time when Montgomery I. had been his own sto

ing back; and we preceded the two men on their way. "Can you ma

nd the two strangers took

aracteristic profundity, as we turned again toward the b

to locate him," I replied. "But, as I was telling Sc

llow comes to his state, he ought to be turned out for the summer in a swamp paddock, with the leeches on his

ty. Apply it to yourself

come to that s

e made. But I 'd like to see that fellow again. Go o

y by a desire to have another look at the man, and partly, perhaps, by a morbid longing to flaunt myself before Tam, I grandly dipped my lofty belltopper under the doorway of the hut, and, without removing it, helped myself to a pannikin of tea fro

o' Cakes are you from?" I a

chelfechan," he replied complacently. "Bit, de'i

(adj.) place you come from?" asked th

elfec

ess to come from a place

siccan a historic name in yir ain domd kintra. D'ye ken wha, firby

by; "Egglefeggan 's the place

ons o' slavery," replied Tam haughtily. "A dinna attreebute ony blam

descendant of a thousand kings. "Why, properly speaking, I

Tam- "air ye no the mair unsicker? Air ye no feart ye'se aiblins see

ter!" muttered H.R.H. "Why, they 're a cu

" replied the gardene

-good cookee

ent at the other end of the table. "Hi seed me fightin' in a sawr-pit f'r tew hewrs an' sebmteen minits, by the

onist-an open-mouthed, fresh-faced rouseabout, who was just undergoing tha

etive) do you hundertak

'Look hout!' ses Hi; 'w

did we not? Stra

ack," I observed, to fill

disco

seems like las' week. Hi druv ole Major Learm'th to them races, Hi did; an' wen the 'osses comes hin, 'e looks roun' an' ses to 'is labour, a-stannin' aside the kerridge, 'Cassandra fust,' ses 'e, 'an' the rest nowheers,' ses 'e. Now what's the hupshot?

ing the silent swagman, who seeme

end just now that I fanci

plai

better hopes now nor ever I had before. A boundary man he give me a little bottle o' stuff the other day; an' it seems to be about the correct thing. Jist feels like

ning quack remedies; you want t

t thank Tom for bein' so fast," he continued, raising his voice in attempt

, and Tam, pannikin in hand, ros

sked loudly, but with gentleness and commiseratiom "Pui

r a thing o' that sort. Seems like as if there was a job for one of us on this

thrawart body! " in

inued the other, with the querulousness of a sick ch

t! ye

ed no more about it nor the babe unborn, til

" asked the catechumen rouseabout. (Henceforth, the reader will have to supply from his own ima

yeerself, Dave," observed a mi

continued the swagman; "but I never done a injury

hree months for?" aske

rkit wi' him mair nir fowr minth. 'Deed, the puir body taks owre muckle thocht fir ithers, an' disna' spare himsel' ava. A ken naethin' aboot yon three minth; yon 's atween Andsaw a

it come. Hold on a minute"- he went to the bucket, and refilled his pannikin-"It was this way: I was jist start

your name

Glover,

n' a stack,' says he. 'I must fetch you along,' says he. So

ave, who had shifted his panni

I foun' him sayin' somethin' about not wantin' to press the charge; an' there was a bit of a confab; an' then I foun' the Bench askin

rosecutor's nam

ter

ens the carriage-doors,"

im, Collins?"

in consequence," I replied, pointedly interpolatin

go, mate?" asked the

E

the evi

' echo. But I foun' one o' the magistrates sayin', 'Quite so, Mr. Waterman-quite so, Mr. Waterman,' every now an' agen; an' I was on'y too glad to git off with three months. I'd 'a' got twelve, if I'd bin remanded for a proper trial.

an?" interrogated Dave. "

give me rats for campin' so near his place, as it might be las' night. Seems, it was ne

rn," commented the bullo

t drop

er-did ye iver foine justice in a coort? Be me sowl, Oi'd take the man's wurrd agin all the coorts in Austhr

come to the homestead for a supply of rations. "Vhere iss de (adj.) von?-vhere is de (adj.) autre? All mix-eh? De co

n English, Theop

snack," continued Theophi

osteece; mineself, I v

rn de (adj.) snack; I v

go to (

hile," I replied, with a courte

e best three months in the year for a thing he never done. 'Sides, I was on for a good long job with two as decent a fellers as you'd meet in a d

t?-that's the question," demanded Dave, w

E

g some o' these times, young fel

where he was when the f

en in a louder voice h

got. 'S'pose so,' says I. 'Better take my swag with me anyhow.' Course, by the time my three months was up, things was at the slackest; an' I could n't go straight back to a decent place, an' me fresh out o' chokey. Fact, I can't go back to that district no more. But as luck would have

he did n

of the bag yourself!" ex

sation took a m

e whole matter to unconscious cerebration. But here a question arose: If one half of my brain had been more alert than its duplicate when the object first presented itself-so that the observation of the vigilant half instantaneously appeared as an intangible memory to the

r time heard Terrible Tommy mention the name of Andrew Glover, my educated instinct of Nomenology, rising to the very acme

the Silences; blind to the horizonless areas of the Unknown; unresponsive to the touch of the Impalpable; oblivious to the machinery of the Moral Universe-in a word, indifferent to the mysterious Motive of Nature's all-pervading Soul. In such mental organisms, opinion, once deflected tangentially from the central Truth, acquires an independent and stubborn orbit of its own. But the Absolute Truth is so large, and human opinion so small, that the latter cannot get away altogether, however ecc

uded glasses, and handing them, with their case,

es rested on my face. But I sighed to reflect that he was still lookin

of these was acting a part to me. Such is life, my fellow-mummers-just like a poor player, that bluffs and feints his hour upon the stage, and then cheapens down to me

E