The old man at Boolabong was now almost obsolete.  Property, that he could keep in his grasp, there was in truth none.  He was the tenant of the run under the Crown, and his sons would not turn him out of the house.  The cattle, when there were cattle, belonged to them.  They were in no respect subject to his orders, and he would have had a bad life among them were it not that they quarreled among themselves, and that in such quarrels he could belong to one party or to the other.  The house itself was a wretched place—­out of order, with doors and windows and floors shattered, broken, and decayed.  There were none of womankind belonging to the family, and in such a house a decent woman-servant would have been out of her place.  Sometimes there was one hag there and sometimes another, and sometimes feminine aid less respectable than that of the hags.  There had been six sons.  One had disappeared utterly, so that nothing was known of him.  One had been absolutely expelled by the brethren, and was now a vagabond in the country, turning up now and then at Boolabong and demanding food.  Of the whole lot Georgie Brownbie, the vagabond, was the worst.  The eldest son was at this time in prison at Brisbane, having on some late occasion been less successful than usual in regard to some acquired bullocks.  The three youngest were at home—­Jerry, Jack, and Joe.  Tom, who was in prison, was the only stanch friend to the father, who consequently at this time was in a more than usually depressed condition.

Christmas-day would fall on a Tuesday, and on the Monday before it Jerry Brownbie, the eldest of those now at home, was sitting, with a pipe in his mouth, on a broken-down stool on the broken-down veranda of the house, and the old man was seated on a stuffy, worn-out sofa with three legs, which was propped against the wall of the house, and had not been moved for years.  Old Brownbie was a man of gigantic frame, and had possessed immense personal power—­a man, too, of will and energy; but he was now worn out and dropsical, and could not move beyond the confines of the home station.  The veranda was attached to a big room which ran nearly the whole length of the house, and which was now used for all purposes.  There was an exterior kitchen, in which certain processes were carried on—­such as salting stolen mutton and boiling huge masses of meat, when such work was needed.  But the cookery was generally done in the big room.  And here also two or three of the sons slept on beds made upon stretchers along the wall.  They were not probably very particular as to which owned each bed, enjoying a fraternal communism in that respect.  At the end of this chamber the old man had a room of his own.  Boolabong was certainly a miserable place; and yet, such as it was, it was frequented by many guests.  The vagabondism of the colonies is proverbial.  Vagabonds are taken in almost every where throughout the bush.  But the welcome given to them varies.  Sometimes