so, always the same, everything sure to go agin the poor man.”  The weather did not clear up.  Winter seemed to have taken thought, and determined to show even this land of eternal summer that he had his rights.  The shed would be filled, and before the sheep so kept dry were shorn, down would come the rain again.  Not a full day’s shearing for ten days.  Then the clouds disappeared as if the curtain of a stage had been rolled up, and lo! the golden sun, fervid and impatient to obliterate the track of winter.

The first day after the recommencement, matters went much as usual.  Steady work and little talk, as if everyone was anxious to make up for the lost time.  But on the second morning after breakfast, when the bell sounded, instead of the usual cheerful dash at the sheep, every man stood silent and motionless in his place.  Someone uttered the words “roll up!”.  Then the seventy men converged, and slowly, but with one impulse, walked up to the end of the shed where stood Mr Gordon.

The concerted action of any body of men bears with it an element of power which commands respect.  The weapon of force is theirs; it is at their option to wield it with or without mercy.  At one period of Australian colonisation a superintendent in Mr Gordon’s position might have had good ground for uneasiness.  Mr Jack Bowles saw in it an EMEUTE of a democratic and sanguinary nature, regretted deeply his absent revolver, but drew up to his leader prepared to die by his side.  That calm centurion felt no such serious misgivings.  He knew that there had been dire grumbling among the shearers in consequence of the weather.  He knew that there were malcontents among them.  He was prepared for some sort of demand on their part, and had concluded to make certain concessions of a moderate degree.  So looking cheerfully at the men, he quietly awaited the deputation.  As they neared him there was a little hesitation, and then three delegates came to the front.  These were Old Ben, Abraham Lawson, and Billy May.  Ben Thornton had been selected for his age and long experience of the rights and laws of the craft.  He was a weather-beaten, wiry old Englishman, whose face and accent, darkened as the former was by the Australian summers of half a century, still retained the trace of his native Devonshire.  It was his boast that he had shorn for forty years, and as regularly “knocked-down” (or spent in a single debauch) his shearing money.  Lawson represented the small free-holders, being a steady, shrewd fellow, and one of the fastest shearers.  Billy May stood for the fashion and “talent,” being the “Ringer,” or fastest shearer of the whole assembly, and as such truly admirable and distinguished.

“Well now, men,” quoth Mr Gordon, cheerily meeting matters half-way, “what’s it all about?” The younger delegate looked at Old Ben, who, now that it “was demanded of him to speak the truth,” or such dilution thereof as might seem most favourable to the interests of the shed, found a difficulty like many wiser men about his exordium.