“‘It’s too late now, Kate, too late; but we’d better have taken Tessie’s warning and started a square trade, carrying or something, when the digging broke out,’ said the man. ‘We were all strong and full of go. I could do a man’s work, young as I was; the money would have run into our pockets—yes, regular run in—if we’d made a square start and stuck to it. Look at Benson and Warner, see where they are now! They couldn’t read and write neither, no more than us. Then there was that infernal Larry Trevenna. Poor Lance! I was sorry for him. They did us all the harm in the world; Larry with his gambling ways, and Lance setting you up to think you were good enough to marry him, and putting Dayrell’s back up agen the family. Our luck was dead out from start to finish, and now they’re all gone except you and me. I’d better set about the grave.’
“‘Where’d ye get the pick and shovel?’
“‘Some fossicker left them outside his camp. I saw them when I went to the spring for a drink.’
“‘For God’s sake take them back, no use making more enemies than we can help. There’ll be a row if he misses ’em!’
“‘All right! I’ll drop them as we pass,’ said her brother, as he drove the pick into the hard, stony soil.
“The woman took the short mining shovel, and with feverish energy cleared the narrow shaft as often as required. An hour’s work showed a cavity of the necessary width and depth, wherein the brother and sister laid the wasted body of the eldest son of the family—once its pride as the best horseman, shearer, reaper, cricketer, stockrider, and all-round athlete of the highland district of New South Wales. The pity of it, when misdirected energies hurry the men along the fiend’s highway, leading to a felon’s doom, a dishonoured grave!
“The pity of it! The man now lowered into the rude sepulchre, amid that ill-omened, blood-stained wild, might, under happier circumstances, and at a later day, have been receiving the plaudits of his countrymen, the thanks of his Sovereign, as the fearless, resourceful scout, whose watchful eye had saved a squadron, or whose stubborn courage had helped to block an advance until the reinforcement came up.
“It was not to be. Sadly and silently, but for the exclamation of ‘Poor Ned! good-bye! God have mercy on your soul!’ from the woman, the brother and sister rode away into the night.
“A rude cross had been fashioned and placed in a cairn of stones piled upon the grave. ‘The moonbeam strook, and deepest night fell down upon the heath’ as the hoofstrokes died away in the distance, deepening the sombre solitude of the spot, which had long worn the appearance of a place accursed of God and man!”
The far back, and by no means busy township of Dumbool was, if not enlivened, aroused from its normal apathy (when a race meeting, or a shearer’s carouse was not in full operation), by the return of a party of mounted police. The leading inhabitants, always well informed in such matters, had received notice of them passing through the district, heading towards the border. The township was not so insignificant or the two hotels so unimportant, as not to provide “Our Own Correspondent” of the Weekly Newsletter. This gentleman, who was Rabbit Inspector, Acting Clerk of the Bench, Coroner, and Honorary Magistrate, held all the minor appointments, not incompatible with the ends of justice, and the dignity of the Post Office, of which he was the present acting head, the Government Official of the branch being away on leave. He performed these various duties fairly well, delegating the Postal work to the leading storekeeper, and the Bench work to a neighbouring squatter, who, coached by the senior constable, was capable of getting through a committal without blundering. But the work of Special Correspondent was the one which he really enjoyed, and on which he chiefly prided himself.