Part 16 (2/2)

And as day by day, year by year, our own fluid Present congeals into a fixed Past, we shall do well to take heed that, in time to coh history is a thing that never repeats itself--since no two historical propositions are alike--one perennial truth holds good, namely, that every social hardshi+p or injustice ression and submission, remote or proximate in point of time And I, for one, will never believe the trail of the serpent to be so indelible that barefaced incongruitythe footsteps of civilisation

Dan O'Connell's ten-by-five paddock lay end-on toaboutthe corner of the paddock, I went through a gate, and was closing and securing it behind Bunyip and Pup, when I became aware of a stout-built, blackbeardedthe inside of the fence

”Rory?” said I inquiringly

”Well-to-be-shure! A ken har'ly crarit it, Ta my proffered hand, while his face becaed,” said I--”so manly and sunburnt, and bearded like the patriarchs of old--that I did n't know you when I brought that wire

But I wonder how you failed to recognisethat you heard ht ye wur farmin' in Victoria,” he replied

”An' Collins is a purty common name, so it is; an' A did n't hear yer Chris'n naht, an' we'll hev a graat cronia about oul' ti forward to, Rory Which way are you going now?”

”No it home a brave while afore sundown”

So we rode slowly side by side along the narrow clearing which extended in endless perspective down the line of fence After giving Rory a sketch of the vicissitudes and disasters which had i years ofinfluence of his own history during the sahtly over all points of real interest, and dwelt interminably on the statistics of the station--such as the percentage of lambs for each year since the stock was put on; the happily decreasing loss by dingoes; the average clip per head, and all manner of circumscribed pastoral shop

I reined our conversation round to the future prospects and possibilities of the region wherein his lot was cast, and tried to steer it along that line

But he s at that

It had never occurred to hiress; that the introduction of sheep meant the ultimate extirpation of all trees and scrubs, except the inedible pine; and that the perpetual tra of those sharp little hoofs would in tiy, absorbent surface; so that these fluffy, scrub-clad expanses would becoated by lakes and forests, and probably enjoying a fairly equable rainfall

I have reason to remember that I quoted Sturt's account of the Old Man Plain as a desert solitude of thecharacter

But, as I pointed out, settlement had crept over that inhospitable tract, and the Old Man Plain had become a pastoral paradise, with a possible future which noon to cite instances, within e and memory, of permanent lakes formed in Northern Victoria, and a climate altered for the better, by rated by idle exposure to the seasons But I had brought round the subject of exploration; and again Rory amazed me by the extent and accuracy of his infor from Sturt to Eyre, he firmly, yet temperately, held that the expedition carried out by this explorer along the shores of the Great Australian Bight was the ablest achievement of its kind on record; and he forthwith proceeded to substantiate his contention by a consecutive account of the difficulties met and surmounted on that journey Also he expatiated with sohtness of public information with respect to Eyre's exploit

He listened with kindly toleration whilst I adverted to the excellent work of more recent explorers, whose discoveries had raph line a feasible undertaking But his discursiveof the Transatlantic cable, in '65; and he dwelt on that epoch- ith such minuteness of detail, and such confident mastery of names, dates, and so forth, that I half-resented--not his disconcerting fund of information, but his modest reticence on other subjects of interest It is a , for instance, to discover that the unassu Londoner, to whorees of the British Peerage, has spent e

But I noticed a growing uneasiness in Rory's manner, despite his efforts towards a free-and-easy cordiality At last he said deprecatingly:

”We're about a o roun' be a tank thonder, an' that ht on an'

ye'll coate in the corner, an'

the house furnent ye An' ye ht tell hurself A'll be home atoast sundown”

He shook up his horse, and dived through the scrub at an easy trot, whilst I went on down the fence Before I had gone three-quarters of a reen hue of a tall, healthy-looking pine, standing about a hundred and fifty yards fro that this abnormal deviation in colour, if not forthwith inquired into, would harass ly in after years, I turned aside to inspect the tree

It orth the trouble The pine had been dead for years, but every leafless twig, right up to its spiry suiant woodbine, which embraced the trunk with three clean stems, each as thick as your arm No moralist worthy of the naory in the tree; but I had scarcely turned away from it before my meditations were disturbed--

Ten or fifteen yards distant, under the cool shade of a large, loilga, I observed aat ease A tall, athleticbeside hiht of hi hi his wide-brimmed hat over his face

My first i, but a scruple of punctilioof Rory's horse-paddock was visible here and there through gaps in the scrub; even the hut was in sight from my own point of view; the sun was still a couple of hours above the horizon; and the repose of the wilga shade was more to be desired than the activity of the wood-heap To everything there is a time and a season; and the tacticalis just when fades the gliht, and all the air a solemn stillness holds So, after a moment's hesitation, my instinctive sense of bush etiquette caused ate which afforded ingress to Rory's horse-paddock

But I want you to notice that this decision was preceded by a poise of option between two alternatives Now mark what followed, for, like Falstaff's story, it is worth the