The pent-up bitterness of seventeen years burst forth. The constable standing near tried to stop the torrent, but he might as well have tried to turn back a south-east gale with a feather.
"I was to say nothing, indeed, was I? And what call had I to say nothing? Is that what you ask? Was I to stand here all day and say never a word for myself until they were ready to hang me? Tell me now, did I murder poor Baldy or did you? Was it not you who struck him down with the axe without saying as much as 'by your leave,' either to me or to him? Did you say a word to me until you finished your bloody work? And then you threatened to cut me down, too, with the axe, if I didn't hold my tongue, and help you to lift the man on to your horse. It is this day you should have remembered before you began that night's work. Sorrow's the day I ever met you at all, with the miserable life you led me; and you know I was always the good wife to you until you gave yourself entirely to the devil with your wicked ways. Wasn't I always on the watch for you every evening looking for you, and the chop on the fire, and the hot tea, and everything comfortable? And is it to hang me now you want to pay me back for the trouble I took for you and all the misery I suffered these long years? And the death of my poor father, who found me in gaol, is at your door too, for he would have been alive and well this day but for the deed you done, which broke his poor old heart; the Lord have mercy on him. And who is to blame but your own self for being in this place at all? You not only done the man to death, but you must go about the bush bragging of it to strangers, and twisting the halter for your own neck like a born idiot; and that's what you are, in spite of your roguery and cunning."
And so on for two hours of hell until the jury came back. They acquitted Julia and found her husband guilty. She left the court without once looking back, and he faced the jury alone.
Judge Pohlman had never before sent a man to the gallows. He made the usual little moral speech, and bewailed his own misfortune in having to perform so disagreeable a duty. Then he put on the black cap and passed sentence. At the concluding words, "May the Lord have mercy on your soul," the condemned man responded with a fervent "Amen," adding, "And that's the last of poor Nosey." He seemed greatly relieved when the ceremony was over, but it was not quite the last, there was another to follow.
For ten days he remained in his cell, and no one visited him except the priest. His examination of conscience was not difficult, for he had often rehearsed it, and much of it had been done for him in public.
He made his last journey between two priests, joining fervently in their prayers for the dying. His step was firm, and he showed neither fear nor bravado. The hangman quickly drew down the cap, but he seemed more flurried than his victim. The sheriff, without speaking, motioned him to place the knot in the correct position under the ear. Then the bolt was drawn and the story of "The Two Shepherds" was finished.
The man whom Philip met at Bendigo had farms in the country thinly timbered. North, south, east, and west the land was held under squatting licenses; with the exception of the home paddocks it was unfenced, and the stock was looked after by boundary riders and shepherds. To the south, between Nyalong and the sea--a distance of fifty or sixty miles--the country was not occupied by either the white or the black men. It consisted of ranges of hills heavily timbered, furrowed by deep valleys, through which flowed innumerable streams, winding their way to the river of the plains. Sometimes the solitary bushman or prospector, looking across a deep valley, saw, nestled amongst the opposite hills, a beautiful meadow of grass. But when he had crossed the intervening creek and scrubby valley, and continued his journey to the up-land, he found that the deceitful meadow was only a barren plain, covered, not with grass, but with the useless grass-tree. There is a little saccharine matter in the roots of the grass-tree, and a hopeful man from Corio once built a sugar-mill near the stream, and took possession of the plain as a sugar plantation. There was much labour, but very little sugar.
In the dense forest, cattle had run wild, and were sometimes seen feeding in the thinly-timbered grass land outside; but whenever a horseman approached they dashed headlong into the scrub where no horseman could follow them. Wild boars and their progeny also rooted among the tall tussocks in the marshes by the banks of the river, where it emerged from the ranges into the plains.
Blackfish and eels were plentiful in the river, but they were of a perverse disposition, and would not bite in the day-time. The bend nearest to Nyalong was twelve miles distant, and Philip once spent a night there with Gleeson and McCarthy. A fire was kindled and some fish were caught, but Philip took none home. Gleeson and McCarthy reserved their catches for their wives and families, and Philip's fish were all cooked on the fire at sunrise, and eaten for breakfast. Fishing was sport, certainly, but it was not profitable, nor exciting, except to the temper. Sometimes an eel took the bait, and then twisted himself round the limb of a tree at the bottom of the river. He then pulled all he was able until either the line or the hook was broken, or his jaw was torn into strips.
After midnight Philip was drowsy, and leaned his back against a tree to woo sweet sleep. But there were mosquitos in millions, bandicoots hopping close to the fire, and monkey-bears, night hawks, owls, 'possums and dingoes, holding a corroboree hideous enough to break the sleep of the dead.