Barney, the boozer, one day visited the school.  He opened the door and stood on the threshold.  His eyes seemed close together, and there was a long red scar on his bare neck, where he had on a former occasion cut his throat.  All the scholars were afraid of Barney, and the girls climbed up on the benches and began to scream.

Philip went up to the Boozer and said: 

“Well, my friend, what do you want here?”

“The devil knows,” replied Barney.

“Very likely, but he is not here, he has gone down the road.”

Then taking Barney by the arm he turned him round and guided him to the road.  Barney went about twenty yards until he came to a pool of water.  He stepped on to the fence and sat on the top rail gazing into the pool.  At last he threw his hat into it, then his boots, coat, shirt, and trousers.  When he was quite naked, he stamped on his clothes until they were thoroughly soaked and buried in mud.  Barney then resumed his search for the devil, swinging his arms to and fro in a free and defiant manner.

The school was also visited by a bishop, a priest, a squatter, and a judge.  The dress and demeanour of the judge were very impressive at so great a distance from any centre of civilization, for he wore a tall beaver hat, a suit of black broadcloth, and a white necktie.  Philip received him with reverence, thinking he could not be anything less than a lord spiritual, such is the power of broadcloth and fine linen.  Nosey, the shepherd, was then living at Nyalong, having murdered the other shepherd, Baldy, about six months before, and this judge sent Nosey to the gallows seventeen years afterwards; but neither Nosey nor the judge knew what was to happen after seventeen years.  This is the story of Nosey and Baldy.

THE TWO SHEPHERDS.

By the men on the run they were known as Nosey and Baldy, but in a former stage of their existence, in the days of the Emperor Augustus Caesar, they were known as Naso and Balbus.  They were then rivals in love and song, and accused each other of doing things that were mean.  And now, after undergoing for their sins various transmigrations into the forms of inferior animals, during two thousand years, as soon as shepherds are required in Australia Felix, they appear once more following their flocks and herds.  But they are entirely forgetful of all Greek and Roman civilization; their morals have not improved, and their quarrels are more bitter than ever.  In the old times they tootled on the tuneful reed, and sang in purest Latin the sweetest ditties ever heard, in praise of Galatea and Amyntas, Delia and Iolla.  But they never tootle now, and never sing, and when they speak, their tongue is that of the unmusical barbarians.  In their pagan days they stained their rustic altars with the blood of a kid, a sacrifice to Jupiter, and poured out libations of generous wine; but they offer up neither prayer nor sacrifice now, and they pour libations of gin down their throats.