they are made to work before they are fed—­to their infinite disgust.  But no such cruelty was exercised at Boolabong.  Boolabong was a very Paradise for vagabonds.  There was always flour and meat to be had, generally tobacco, and sometimes even the luxury of a nobbler.  The Brownbies were wise enough to have learned that it was necessary for their very existence that they should have friends in the land.  On the Sunday the father and Jerry Brownbie were sitting out in the veranda at about noon, and the other two sons, Jack and Joe, were lying asleep on the beds within.

The heat of the day was intense.  There was a wind blowing, but it was that which is called there the hot wind, which comes dry, scorching, sometimes almost intolerable, over the burning central plain of the country.  No one can understand without feeling it how much a wind can add to the sufferings inflicted by heat.  The old man had on a dirty, wretched remnant of a dressing-gown, but Jerry was clothed simply in trowsers and an old shirt.  Only that the mosquitoes would have flayed him, he would have dispensed probably with these.  He had been quarreling with his father respecting a certain horse which he had sold, of the price of which the father demanded a share.  Jerry had unblushingly declared that he himself had “shaken” the horse—­ Anglice, had stolen him—­twelve months since on Darnley Downs, and was therefore clearly entitled to the entire plunder.  The father had rejoined with animation that unless “half a quid”—­or ten shillings—­ were given him as his contribution to the keep of the animal, he would inform against his son to the squatter on the Darnley Downs, and had shown him that he knew the very run from which the horse had been taken.  Then the sons within had interfered from their beds, swearing that their father was the noisiest old “cuss” unhung, they having had their necessary slumbers disturbed.

At this moment the debate was interrupted by the appearance of a man outside the veranda.  “Well, Mr. Jerry, how goes it?” asked the stranger.  “What, Bos, is that you?  What brings you up to Boolabong?  I thought you was ringing trees for that young scut at Gangoil?  I’ll be even with him some of these days!  He had the impudence to send a man of his up here last week looking for sheep-skins.”

“He wasn’t that soft, Mr. Jerry, was he?  Well, I’ve dropped working for him.—­How are you, Mr. Brownbie?  I hope I see you finely, Sir.  It’s stiffish sort of weather, Mr. Brownbie, ain’t it, Sir?”

The old man grunted out some reply, and then asked Boscobel what he wanted.

“I’ll just hang about for the day, Mr. Brownbie, and get a little grub.  You never begrudged a working-man that yet.”

Old Brownbie again grunted, but said no word of welcome.  That, however, was to be taken for granted, without much expression of opinion.

“No, Mr. Jerry,” continued Boscobel, “I’ve done with that fellow.”