A new shepherd from the other side was living with his wife and daughter near the Rises, and one day when Barlow was riding over the run, he heard some strange sounds, and stopped his horse to listen.  There was nobody in sight in any direction, and Barlow said, “There’s something the matter at the new shepherd’s hut,” and he rode swiftly towards it.  As he approached the hut, he heard the screams of women and the voice of a blackfellow, who was hammering on the door with his waddy.  He was a tame blackfellow who had been educated at the Missionary Station.  He could write English, say prayers, sing hymns, read the Bible, and was therefore named Parson Bedford by the Derviners, after the Tasmanian Missionary.  He could box and wrestle so well that few white men could throw him.  He could also drink rum; so whenever he got any white money he knew how to spend it.  He was the best thief and the worst bully of all the blacks about Nyalong, because he had been so well educated.  I knew him well, and attended his funeral, walking in the procession with the doctor and twenty blackfellows.  He had a white man’s funeral, but there was no live parson present, so king Coco Quine made an oration, waving his hands over the coffin, “All same as whitefellow parson,” then we all threw clods on the lid.

So much noise was made by the women screaming and the Parson hammering, that the stockman was able to launch one crack of his stock-whip on the Parson’s back before his arrival was observed.  The Parson sprang up into the air like a shot deer, and then took to his heels.  He did not run towards the open plains, but made a straight line for the nearest part of the Rises.  As he ran, Frank followed at an easy canter, and over and over again he landed his lash with a crack like a pistol on the behind of the black, who sprang among the rough rocks which the horse could not cross, and where the lash could not reach him.

[Illustration 3.]

Then there was a parley.  The Parson was smarting and furious.  He had learned the colonial art of blowing along with the language.  He threw down his waddy and said: 

“You stockman, Frank, come off that horse, drop your whip, and I’ll fight you fair, same as whitefellow.  I am as good a man as you any day.”

“Do you take me for a blooming fool, Parson?  No fear.  If ever I see you at that hut again, or anywhere on the run, I’ll cut the shirt off your back.  I shall tell Mr. Calvert what you have been after, and you’ll soon find yourself in chokey with a rope round your neck.”

The Parson left Nyalong, and when he returned he was dying of rum and rheumatism.

Frank rode back to the hut.  The mother and daughter had stood at the door watching him flog the Parson.  He was in their eyes a hero; he had scourged their savage enemy, and had driven him to the rocks.  They were weeping beauties—­at least the daughter was a beauty in Frank’s eyes—­but now they wiped away their tears, smoothed their hair, and thanked their gallant knight over and over again.  Two at a time they repeated their story, how they saw the blackfellow coming, how they bolted the door, and how he battered it with his club, threatening to kill them if they did not open it.