Chapter III (2)

"I ain't seen e'er a one, neither dingo nor blackfellow. But, you know, if they were after mischief they'd take care not to make a show. There might be stacks of them about and we never to see one of them."

Nosey was proud of his cunning.

"Well," said Baldy, "I can hear of nobody having seen any strangers about the Rises, nor dingoes, nor black fellows. And the dingoes, anyhow, would have left some of the carcases behind; but the thieves, whoever they are, have not left me as much as a lock of the wool of my sheep. I have been talking about 'em with old Sharp; he is the longest here of any shepherd in the country, and knows all the blacks, and he says it's his opinion the man who took the sheep is not far away from the flock now. What do you think about it, Nosey?"

"What the----should I know about your sheep?" said Nosey. "Do you mean to insinivate that I took 'em? I'll tell you what it is, Baldy; it'll be just as well for you to keep your blasted tongue quiet about your sheep, for if I hear any more about 'em, I'll see you for it; do you hear?"

"Oh, yes, I hear. All right, Nosey, we'll see about it," said Baldy.

There would have been a fight perhaps, but Baldy was a smaller man than the other and was growing old, while Nosey was in the prime of life.

Baldy went to Nyalong next day. His rations did not include gin, and he wanted some badly, the more so because he was in trouble about his lost sheep. Gin, known then as "Old Tom," was his favourite remedy for all ailments, both of mind and body. If he could not find out what had become of his sheep, his master might dismiss him without a character. There was not much good character running to waste on the stations, but still no squatter would like to entrust a flock to a shepherd who was suspected of having stolen and sold his last master's sheep.

Baldy walked to Nyalong along the banks of the lake. The country was then all open, unfenced, except the paddocks at the home stations. The boundary between two of the runs was merely marked by a ploughed furrow, not very straight, which started near the lake, and went eastward along the plains. In the Rises no plough could make a line through the rocks, and the boundaries there were imaginary. Stray cattle were roaming over the country, eating the grass, and the main resource of the squatters was the Pounds Act. Hay was then sold at 80 pounds per ton at Bendigo; a draft of fat bullocks was worth a mine of gold at Ballarat, and, therefore, grass was everywhere precious. No wonder if the hardy bullock-driver became a cattle lifter after his team had been impounded by the station stockman when found only four hundred yards from the bush track. Money, in the shape of fat stock, was running loose, as it were, on every run, and why should not the sagacious Nosey do a little business when Baldy's fat sheep were tempting him, and a market for mutton could be found no farther away than the Nyalong butcher's shop.

Baldy left the township happier than usual, carrying under his arm two bottles of Old Tom. He was seen by a man who knew him entering the Rises, and going away in the direction of Nosey's hut, and then for fifteen years he was a lost shepherd. In course of time it was ascertained that he had called at Nosey's hut on his way home. He had the lost sheep on his mind, and he could not resist the impulse to have another word or two with Nosey about them. He put down the two bottles of gin outside the door of the hut, near an axe whose handle leaned against the wall. Nosey and his wife, Julia, were inside, and he bade them good evening. Then he took a piece of tobacco out of his pocket, and began cutting it with his knife. He always carried his knife tied to his belt by a string which went through a hole bored in the handle. It was a generally useful knife, and with it he foot-rotted sheep, stirred the tea in his billy, and cut beef and damper, sticks, and tobacco.

"I have been to Nyalong," he said, "and I heern something about my sheep; they went to the township all right, strayed away, you know, followed one another's tails, and never came back, the O. K. bullocks go just the same way. Curious, isn't it?"

Nosey listened with keen interest. "Well, Baldy," he said, "and what did you hear? Did you find out who took 'em?"

"Oh, yes," said Baldy; "I know pretty well all about 'em now, both sheep and bullocks. Old Sharp was right about the sheep, anyway. The thief is not far from the flock, and it's not me." Baldy was brewing mischief for himself, but he did not know how much.

"Did you tell the police about 'em?" asked Nosey.

"Oh, no, not to-day!" answered Baldy. "Time enough yet. I ain't in no hurry to be an informer."

Nosey eyed him with unusual savagery, and said:

"Now didn't I tell you to say no more about your blasted sheep, or I'd see you for it? and here you are again, and you can't leave 'em alone. You are no better than a fool."

"Maybe I am a fool, Nosey. Just wait till I get a light, and I'll leave your hut and trouble you no more."

He was standing in the middle of the floor cutting his tobacco, and rubbing it between the palms of his hands, shaking his head, and eyeing the floor with a look of great sagacity.

Nosey went outside, and began walking to and fro, thinking and whispering to himself. It was a habit he had acquired while slowly sauntering after his sheep. He seemed to have another self, an invisible companion with whom he discussed whatever was uppermost in his mind. If he had then consulted his other self, Julia, he might have saved himself a world of trouble; but he did not think of her. He said to himself: "Now, Nosey, if you don't mind, you are going to be in a hole. That old fool inside has found out something or other about the sheep, and the peelers will have you, if you don't look out, and they'll give you another seven years and maybe ten. You've done your time once, Nosey, and how would you like to do it again? Why couldn't you leave the cursed sheep alone and keep out of mischief just when you were settling down in life comfortable, and might have a chance to do better. Baldy will be telling the peelers to-morrow all he knows about the sheep you stole, and then they'll fetch you, sure. There's only one thing to stop the old fool's jaw, and you are not game to do it, Nosey; you never done a man yet, and you are not game to do it now, and you'll be damned if you do it, and the devil will have you, and you'll be hanged first maybe. And if you don't do him you'll be lagged again for the sheep, and in my opinion, Nosey, you are not game. Yes, by the powers, you are, Nosey, damned if you ain't. Who's afeered? And you'll do it quick --do it quick. Now or never's your time."

While talking thus to himself, Nosey was pacing to and fro, and he glanced at the axe every time he passed the door. The weapon was ready to his hand, and seemed to be inviting him to use it.

"Baldy is going to light his pipe, and while he is stooping to get a firestick, I'll do him with the axe."

When Baldy turned towards the fire, Nosey grasped the axe and held it behind him. He waited a moment, and then entered the hut; but Baldy either heard his step, or had some suspicion of danger, for he looked around before takingup a firestick. At that instant the blow, intended for the back of the head, struck him on the jaw, and he fell forward among the embers. For one brief moment of horror he must have realised that he was being murdered, and then another blow behind the head left him senseless.

Nosey dragged the body out of the fireplace into the middle of the floor, intending, while he was doing a man, to do him well. He raised the axe to finish his work with a third blow, but Julia gave a scream so piercing that his attention was diverted to her.

"Oh, Nosey," she said, "what are you doing to poor Baldy? You are murdering him."

Nosey turned to his wife with upraised axe.

"Hold your jaw, woman, and keep quiet, or I'll do as much for you."

She said no more. She was tall and stout, had small, sharp, roving eyes; and Nosey was a thick-set man, with a thin, prominent nose, sunken eyes, and overhanging brows. He never had a prepossessing appearance, and now his look and attitude were so ugly and fierce that the big woman was completely cowed. The pair stood still for some time, watching the last convulsive movements of the murdered Baldy.

Nosey could now pride himself on having been "game to do his man," but he could not feel much glory in his work just yet. He had done it without sufficient forethought, and his mind was soon full of trouble.

Murder was worse than sheep stealing, and the consequences of his new venture in crime began to crowd on his mind with frightful rapidity. He had not even thought of any plan for hiding away the corpse. He had no grave ready, and could not dig one anywhere in the neighbourhood. The whole of the country round his hut was rocky-- little hills of bare bluestone boulders, and grassy hollows covered with only a few inches of soil--rocks everywhere, above ground and below. He could burn the body, but it would take a long time to do it well; somebody might come while he was at the work, and even the ashes might betray his secret. There were shallow lakes and swamps, but he could not put the corpse into any of them with safety: search would be made wherever there was water, on the supposition that Baldy had been drowned after drinking too freely of the gin he had brought from Nyalong, and if the body was found, the appearance of the skull would show that death had been caused, not by drowning, but by the blows of that cursed axe. Nosey began to lay all the blame on the axe, and said, "If it had not stood up so handy near the door, I wouldn't have killed the man."

It was the axe that tempted him. Excuses of that sort are of a very ancient date.

Luckily Nosey owned two horses, one of which was old and quiet. He told Julia to fasten the door, and to open it on no account whatever, while he went for the horse, which was feeding in the Rises hobbled, and with a bell tied round his neck. When he returned he saddled the animal, and Julia held the bridle while he went into the hut for the body. He observed Baldy's pipe on the floor near the fire-place, and he replaced it in the pocket in which it had been usually kept, as it might not be safe to leave anything in the hut belonging to the murdered man. There was a little blood on the floor, but he would scrape that off by daylight, and he would then also look at the axe and put away the two bottles of gin somewhere; he could do all that next morning before Baldy was missed. But the corpse must be taken away at once, for he felt that every minute of delay might endanger his neck. He dragged the body outside, and with Julia's help lifted it up and placed it across the saddle. Then he tried to steady his load with his right hand, and to guide the horse by the bridle with his left, but he soon found that a dead man was a bad rider; Baldy kept slipping towards the near side or the off side with every stride of the horse, and soon fell to the ground.

Nosey was in a furious hurry, he was anxious to get away; he cursed Baldy for giving him so much trouble; he could have killed him over again for being so awkward and stubborn, and he begun to feel that the old shepherd was more dangerous dead than alive. At last he mounted his horse, and called to Julia to come and help him.

"Here, Julia, lift him up till I catch hold of his collar, and I'll pull him up in front of me on the saddle, and hold him that way."

Julia, with many stifled moans, raised the body from the ground, Nosey reached down and grasped the shirt collar, and thus the two managed to place the swag across the saddle. Then Nosey made a second start, carefully balancing the body, and keeping it from falling with his right hand, while he held the bridle with his left.

The funeral procession slowly wound its way in a westerly direction among the black rocks over the softest and smoothest ground to avoid making any noise. There was no telling what stockman or cattle-stealer the devil might send at any moment to meet the murderer among the lonely Rises, and even in the darkness his horrible burden would betray him. Nosey was disturbed by the very echo of his horse's steps; it seemed as if somebody was following him at a little distance; perhaps Julia, full of woman's curiosity; and he kept peering round and looking back into the darkness. In this way he travelled about a mile and a half, and then dismounting, lowered the body to the ground, and began to look for some suitable hiding place. He chose one among a confused heap of rocks, and by lifting some of them aside he made a shallow grave, to which he dragged the body, and covered it by piling boulders over and around it. He struck several matches to enable him to examine his work carefully, and closed up every crevice through which his buried treasure might be visible.

The next morning Nosey was astir early. He had an important part to act, and he was anxious to do it well. He first examined the axe and cleaned it well, carefully burning a few of Baldy's grey hairs which he found on it. Then he searched the floor for drops of blood, which he carefully scraped with a knife, and washed until no red spot was visible. Then he walked to Baldy's and pretended to himself that he was surprised to find it empty. What had happened the previous night was only a dream, an ugly dream. He met an acquaintance and told him that Baldy was neither in his hut nor with his sheep.

The two men called at old Sharp's hut to make enquiries. The latter said, "I seen Baldy's sheep yesterday going about in mobs, and nobody to look after them." Then the three men went to the deserted hut. Everything in it seemed undisturbed. The dog was watching at the door, and they told him to seek Baldy. He pricked up his ears, wagged his tail, and looked wistfully in the direction of Nosey's hut, evidently expecting his master to come in sight that way.

The men went to the nearest magistrate and informed him that the shepherd was missing. A messenger went to the head station. Enquiries were made at the township, and it was found that Baldy had been to Nyalong the previous day, and had left in the evening carrying two bottles of gin. This circumstance seemed to account for his absence; he had taken too much of the liquor, was lying asleep somewhere, and would reappear in the course of the day. Men both on foot and on horseback roamed through the Rises, examining the hollows and the flats, the margins of the shallow lakes, and peering into every wombat hole as they passed. They never thought of turning over any of the boulders; a drunken man would never make his bed and blanket of rocks; he would be found lying on the top if he had stumbled amongst them. One by one as night approached the searchers returned to the hut. They had discovered nothing, and the only conclusion they could come to was, that Baldy was taking a very long sleep somewhere--which was true enough.

Next day every man from the neighbouring stations, and some from Nyalong, joined in the search. The chief constable was there, and as became a professed detector of crime, he examined everything minutely inside and outside the two huts, but he could not find anything suspicious about either of them. He entered into conversation with Julia, but the eye of her husband was on her, and she had little to say. Nosey, on the contrary, was full of suggestions as to what might have happened to Baldy, and he helped to look for him eagerly and actively in every direction but the right one.

For many days the Rises were peopled with prospectors, but one by one they dropped away. The chief constable was loath to leave the riddle unsolved; he had the instinct of the sleuth-hound on the scent of blood. He had been a pursuer of bad works amongst the convicts for a long time, both in Van Diemen's Land and in Victoria, and had helped to bring many men to the gallows or the chain-gang. He had once been shot in the back by a horse thief who lay concealed behind the door of a shepherd's hut, but he secured the horse thief. He was a man without nerves, of medium height, strongly built, had a broad face, massive ears, wide, firm mouth, and strong jaws.

One night after the searchers had departed to their various homes, the chief remained alone in the Rises, and leaving his horse hobbled at a distance, cautiously approached Nosey's hut. He placed his ear to the outside of the weatherboards, and listened for some time to the conversation of Nosey and his wife, expecting to obtain by chance some information about the disappearance of the other shepherd. Nosey was in a bad temper, swearing and finding fault with everything. Julia was prudent and said little; it was best not to say too much to a man who was so handy with the family axe. But at last she made use of one expression which seemed to mean something. She said, "Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged." There was a prophetic ring in these words which delighted the chief constable, and he glued his great ear to the weatherboards, eagerly listening for more; but the wrangling pair were very disappointing; they would not keep to the point. At last he walked round the hut, suddenly opened the door, and entered. Nosey was struck dumb at once. His first thought was that his plan had been sprung, and that the murder was out. The chief addressed Julia in a tone of authority, imitating the counsel for the crown when examining a prevaricating witness.

"Now, missus, remember you will be put on your oath. You said just now, 'Oh, Nosey, you murdering villain, you know you ought to be hanged.' Those were your very words. Now what did you mean? On your oath, mind; out with it at once."

But Julia was not to be caught so easily. She replied:

"Oh, bad luck to him, he is always angry. I don't know what to do with him. I did not mean anything."

"You did not mean anything about Baldy, I suppose, did you, now?" queried the constable, shamefully leading the witness, and looking hard at Nosey.

Julia parried the question by heaving a deep sigh, and saying: "Hi, ho, Harry, if I were a maid, I never would marry;" and then she began singing a silly old song.

The constable was disgusted, and said:

"My good woman, you'll find there will be nothing to laugh at in this job, when I see you again."

As he left the hut, he turned at the door and gave one more look at Nosey, who had stood all the time rivetted to the ground, expecting every moment that the constable would produce the handcuffs. Soon afterwards Julia went outside, walked round the hut, and stayed awhile, listening and looking in every direction. When she returned, Nosey said, in a hoarse whisper:

"Is he gan yet?"

"I think," replied Julia, "he won't be coming again to-night. He has thrown away his trouble this time, anyhow; but ye must hould your tongue, Nosey, if ye want to save your neck; he means to have you if he can."

Nosey stayed on the run some weeks longer, following his sheep. It would not be advisable to go away suddenly, and, moreover, he recollected that what the eye could not see might some time be discovered by another of the senses. So he waited patiently, standing guard as it were over the dead, until his curiosity induced him to pay a farewell visit by daylight to the place where Baldy was buried.

There had been hot weather since the body had been deposited in the shallow grave, and the crevices among the piles of bluestones had been filled by the wind with the yellow stalks of decayed grass. Nosey walked round his own particular pile, and inspected it closely. He was pleased to find that it showed no signs of having been touched since he raised it. It was just like any of the other heaps of rocks around it. He had, at any rate, given Baldy as good a funeral as circumstances would permit, better than that of many a man who had perished of hunger, heat, and thirst, in the shelterless wastes of the Never-Never Land, "beyond Moneygrub's farthest run." Nosey and the weather had done their work so well that for the next fifteen years no shepherd, stockman, or squatter ever gave a second look at that unknown grave. The black snake coiled itself beneath the decaying skeleton, and spent the winter in secure repose. The native cat tore away bits of Baldy's clothing, and with them and the yellow grass made, year after year, a nest for its young among the whitening bones.

Everything, so far, had turned out quite as satisfactorily as any murderer could expect. Nosey had been game to do his man, and he had done him well. Julia was prudent enough to hold her tongue for her own sake; it was unlikely that any further search would be made for the lost shepherd; he had been safely put out of sight, and not even Julia knew where he was buried.

Nosey began to have a better opinion of himself than ever. Neither the police nor the law could touch him. He would never be called to account for putting away his brother shepherd, in this world at any rate; and as for the next, why it was a long way off, and there was time enough to think about it. The day of reckoning was distant, but it came at last, as it always does to every sinner of us all.

Nosey resigned his billet, and went to Nyalong. He lived in a hut in the eastern part of the township, not far from the lake, and near the corner of the road coming down from the Bald Hill. Here had been laid the foundation of a great inland city by a bush publican, two storekeepers, a wheelwright, and a blacksmith. Another city had been started at the western side of Wandong Creek, but its existence was ignored by the eastern pioneers.

The shepherd soon began to forget or despise the advice of his wife, Julia; his tongue grew loose again, and at the bar of the inn of the crossroads his voice was often heard loud and abusive. He felt that he had become a person of importance, as the possessor of a secret which nobody could discover. What he said and what he did was discussed about the township, and the chief constable listened to every report, expecting that some valuable information would accidentally leak out.

One day a man wearing a blue jumper and an old hat came down the road, stepped on to the verandah of the inn, and threw down his swag. Nosey was there, holding forth to Bill the Butcher, Dick Smalley, Frank Barton, Bob Atkins, Charley Goodall, and George Brown the Liar. A dispute occurred, in which the presumptuous stranger joined, and Nosey promptly knocked him off the verandah into the gutter. A valid claim to satisfaction was thus established, and the swagman showed a disposition to enforce it. He did not attempt to regain his position on the boards, but took his stand on the broad stone of honour in the middle of the road. He threw up his hat into the air, and began walking rapidly to and fro, clenched his fists, stiffened his sinews, and at every turn in his walk said:

"You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life."

This man's action promised real sport, and true Britons as we all were we were delighted to see him. Nosey stood on the verandah for a minute or two, watching the motions of the swagman; he did not seem to recollect all at once what the code of honour required, until Bill the Butcher remarked, "He wants you, Nosey," then Nosey went.

The two men met in the middle of the road, and put up their hands. They appeared well-matched in size and weight. The swagman said:

"You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life."

Nosey began the battle by striking out with his right and left, but his blows did not seem to reach home, or to have much effect.

The swagman dodged and parried, and soon put in a swinging blow on the left temple. Nosey fell to the ground, and the stranger resumed his walk as before, uttering his war cry:

"You'll find me as good a man as ever you met in your life."

There were no seconds, but the rules of chivalry were strictly observed; the stranger was a true gentleman, and did not use his boots.

In the second round Nosey showed more caution, but the result was the same, and it was brought about by another hard blow on the temple. The third round finished the fight. Nosey lay on the ground so long that Bill, the Butcher, went over to look at him, and then he threw up the sponge--metaphorically--as there was no sponge, nor any need of one.

The defeated Nosey staggered towards his hut, and his temper was afterwards so bad that Julia declined to stay with him any longer; she loosed the marriage bonds without recourse to law, and disappeared. Her husband went away westward, but he did not stay long. He returned to Nyalong and lived awhile alone in his hut there, but he was restless and dissatisfied. Everybody looked at him so curiously. Even the women and children stood still as he passed by them, and began whispering to one another, and he guessed well enough why they were looking at him and what they were saying--"That's Nosey the murderer; he killed Baldy and hid him away somewhere; his wife said he ought to be hanged, and she has run away and left him."

When the hungry hawk comes circling over the grove of crookedy gum in which two magpies are feeding their callow young, the bush is soon filled with cries of alarm. The plump quail hides himself in the depths of a thick tussock; the bronze-winged pigeon dives into the shelter of the nearest scrub, while all the noisiest scolds of the air gather round the intruder. Every magpie, minah, and wattle-bird within a mile joins in the clamour. They dart at the hawk as he flies from tree to tree. When he alights on a limb they give him no peace; they flap their wings in his face, and call him the worst of names. Even the Derwent Jackass, the hypocrite with the shining black coat and piercing whistle, joins in the public outcry, and his character is worse than that of the hawk himself, for he has been caught in the act of kidnapping and devouring the unfledged young of his nearest neighbour. The distracted hawk has at length to retreat dinnerless to the swampy margin of the river where the tallest tea-trees wave their feathery tops in the wind.

In like manner the human hawk was driven from the township. He descended in the scale of crime, stole a horse, and departed by night.

Bill, the butcher, said next day: "Nosey has gone for good this time. He will ride that horse to death and then steal another."

At this time I rode through the Rises and called at the two huts; I found them occupied by two shepherds not unlike the former tenants, who knew little and cared less what had become of their predecessors. Time empties thrones and huts impartially, and the king feels no pride in his monument of marble, nor the shepherd any shame beneath the shapeless cairn which hides his bones.

At this time the old races both of men and animals were dying out around Lake Nyalong, and others were taking their places. The last black child ever seen in the township was brought by its mother to the hut of a white woman. It was naked and very dirty, and she laid it down on the clay floor. The white woman's heart was moved with pity at the sight of the miserable little bairn. She took it up, washed it with warm water and soap, wrapped it in flannel, and gave it back to the mother. But the lubra was loath to receive it. She said, "Black picaninny all die. No good; white picaninny live."

The kangaroo, wombat, and dingo were fast dying out, as well a the blackfellow. We could all see well enough how the change was brought about. Millions of years ago, new species may have been evolved out of the old species, but nothing of the kind happens now. The white men of Australia were not evolved out of the black men. There are no family ties, and never will be, between the kangaroo, the wombat and wallaby, and their successors, the cattle, the sheep, and the goats. We can kill species, but we can't create any.

The rabbit, destined to bring Nosey to the gallows, was a favoured animal on Austin's station at the Barwon. It was a privilege to shoot him--in small quantities--he was so precious. But he soon became, as the grammar says, a noun of multitude. He swarmed on the plains, hopped over the hills, burrowed among the rocks in the Rises, and nursed his multitudinous progeny in every hollow log of the forest. Neither mountain, lake, or river ever barred his passage. He ate up all the grass and starved the pedigree cattle, the well-born dukes and duchesses, and on tens of thousands of fertile acres left no food to keep the nibbling sheep alive. Every hole and crevice of the rocks was full of him. An uninvited guest, he dropped down the funnel-shaped entrance to the den of the wombat, and made himself at home with the wild cat and snake. He clothed the hills with a creeping robe of fur, and turned the Garden of the West into a wilderness. Science may find a theory to account for the beginning of all things, but among all her triumphs she has been unable to put an end to the rabbit. War has been made upon them by fire, dynamite, phosphorus, and all deadly poisons; by dogs, cats, weasels, foxes, and ferrets, but he still marches over the land triumphantly.

For fifteen years Nosey roamed from station to station under various names, between Queensland and the Murray, but wherever he went, the memory of his crime never left him. He had been taught in his boyhood that murder was one of the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance, and he knew that sooner or later the cry would be heard. Sometimes he longed to unburden his mind to a priest, but he seldom saw or heard of one. The men with whom he worked and wandered were all like himself--lost souls who had taken the wrong turn in the beginning of their days, the failures of all trades and professions; thieves, drunkards, and gamblers; criminals who had fled from justice; men of pleasure and, therefore, of misery; youths of good family exported from England, Ireland, and Scotland to mend their morals, to study wool, and become rich squatters. All these men get colonial experience, but it does not make them saintly or rich. Here and there, all over the endless plains, they at last lie down and die, the dingoes hold inquests over them, and, literally, they go to the dogs, because they took the wrong turn in life and would not come back.

In 1868 Nosey and his two mates were approaching a station on the Lachlan. Since sunrise they had travelled ten miles without breakfast, and were both hungry and weary. They put down their swags in the shade of a small grove of timber within sight of the station buildings. Bob Castles said:

"I was shearing in them sheds in '52 when old Shenty owned the run. He was a rum old miser, he was, would skin two devils for one hide; believe he has gone to hell; hope so, at any rate. He couldn't read nor write much, but he could make money better'n any man I ever heard of. Bought two runs on the Murray, and paid 180,000 pounds for 'em in one cheque. He kept a lame schoolmaster to write his cheques and teach his children, gave him 40 pounds a year, the same as a shepherd. Lived mostly on mutton all the year round; never killed no beef for the station, but now and then an old bullock past work, salted him down in the round swamp for a change o' grub. Never grew no cabbage or wegetables, only a paddock of potatoes. Didn't want no visitors, 'cos he was afraid they'd want to select some of his run. Wanted everything to look as poor and miserable as possible. He put on a clean shirt once a week, on Sabbath to keep it holy, and by way of being religious. Kept no fine furniture in the house, only a big hardwood table, some stools, and candle boxes. After supper old Mother Shenty scraped the potato skins off the table into her apron --she always boiled the potatoes in their jackets--and then Shenty lay down on it and smoked his pipe till bedtime, thinking of the best way to keep down expenses. A parson came along one day lifting a subscription for a church, or school, or something. He didn't get anything out of old Shenty, only a pannikin of tea and some damper and mutton. The old cove said: 'Church nor school never gave me nothing, nor do me no good, and I could buy up a heap o' parsons and schoolmasters if I wanted to, and they were worth buying. Us squatters is the harrystockrisy out here. The lords at home sends out their good-for-nothing sons to us, to get rich and be out of the way, and much good they does. Why don't you parsons make money by your eddication if it's any good, instead of goin' round beggin'? You are all after the filthy lucre, wantin' to live on other folks.' I was holdin' the parson's horse, and when he got into the saddle, he turns to old Shenty, and says: 'From rottenness you sprung, and to rottenness you'll go. Your money will drag you down to hell; you'll want to throw it away, but it will burn into your soul for all eternity.'

"I am mortal hungry," continued Bob, "and they don't give no rations until about sundown, and we'll have to wait six hours. It's hard lines. I see there's an orchard there now, and most likely a wegtable garden--and cabbages. I'd like some boiled beef and cabbage. It wouldn't be no harm to try and get somethin' to eat, anyhow. What do you say, Ned? You was a swell cove once, and knows how to talk to the quality. Go and try 'em."

Ned went and talked to the "quality" so well that he brought back rations for three.

Towards the end of the year Nosey arrived at Piney Station, about forty miles from the Murray, and obtained employment. Baldy's bones had been lying under the rocks for nearly fifteen years. It was absurd to suppose they could ever be discovered now, or if they were, that any evidence could be got out of them. Nosey felt sure that all danger for himself was passed, but still the murder was frequently in his mind. The squatter was often lonely, and his new man was garrulous, and one day Nosey, while at work, began to relate many particulars of life in the old country, in Van Diemen's Land, and in the other colonies, and he could not refrain from mentioning the greatest of his exploits.

"I once done a man in Victoria," he said, "when I was shepherding; he found me out taking his fat sheep, and was going to inform on me, so I done him with an axe, and put him away so as nobody could ever find him."

The squatter thought that Nosey's story was mostly blowing, especially that part of it referring to the murder. No man who had really done such a deed, would be so foolish as to confess it to a stranger.

Another man was engaged to work at the station. As soon as he saw Nosey he exclaimed, "Hello, Nosey, is that you?"

"My name is not Nosey."

"All right; a name is nothing. We are old chums, anyway."

That night the two men had a long talk about old times. They had both served their time in the island, and were, moreover, "townies," natives of the same town at home. Nosey began the conversation by saying to his old friend, "I've been a bad boy since I saw you last --I done a man in Victoria"; and then he gave the full particulars of his crime, as already related. But the old chum could not believe the narrative, any more than did the squatter.

"Well, Nosey," he said, "you can tell that tale to the marines."

In the meantime the runs around Lake Nyalong had been surveyed by the government and sold. In the Rises the land was being subdivided and fenced with stone walls, and there was a chance that Baldy's grave might be discovered if one of the surveyed lines ran near it, for the stonewallers picked up the rocks as near as possible to the wall they were building, and usually to about the distance of one chain on each side of it.

A man who had a contract for the erection of one of these walls took with him his stepson to assist in the work. In the month of August, 1869, they were on their way to their work accompanied by a dog which chased a rabbit into a pile of rocks. The boy began to remove the rocks in order to find the rabbit, and in doing so uncovered part of a human skeleton. He beckoned to his stepfather, who was rather deaf, to come and look at what he had found. The man came, took up the skull, and examined it.

"I'll be bound this skull once belonged to Baldy," he said. "There is a hole here behind; and, yes, one jaw has been broken. That's Nosey's work for sure' I wonder where he is now."

No work was done at the wall that day, but information was given to the police.

Mounted constable Kerry came over to the Rises. The skeleton was found to be nearly entire; one jaw-bone was broken, and there was a hole in the back of the skull. The feet were still encased in a pair of boots laced high above the ankles. There were portions of a blue-striped shirt, and of a black silk necktie with reddish stripes. There was also the brim of an oiled sou'wester' hat, a pipe, and a knife. The chin was very prominent, and the first molar teeth on the lower jaw were missing. The remains were carefully taken up and conveyed to Nyalong; they were identified as those of Baldy; an inquest was held, and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against Nosey and his wife.

After the inquest mounted constable Kerry packed up the skeleton in a parcel with every small article found with it, placed it in a sack, put it under his bed, slept over it every night, and patiently waited for some tidings of the murderer. In those days news travelled slowly, and the constable guarded his ghastly treasure for eighteen months.

Nemesis was all the time on her way to Piney station, but her steps were slow, and she did not arrive until the seventeenth anniversary of the disapppearance of Baldy.

On that day she came under the guise of constable, who produced a warrant, and said:

"Cornelius Naso, alias Nosey, alias Pye, I arrest you under this warrant, charging you with having murdered a shepherd, named Thomas Balbus, alias Baldy, at Nyalong, in the colony of Victoria, on the 28th day of February, 1854. You need not say anything unless you like, but if you do say anything I shall take it down in writing, and it will be used as evidence against you at your trial."

Nosey had nothing to say, except, "I deny the charge"; he had said too much already.

He was handcuffed and taken to the police station at Albury. In one of his pockets a letter was found purporting to be written by Julia, and disclosing her place of residence.

Soon afterwards Nosey and his wife met in captivity after their long separation, but their meeting was not a happy one; they had no word of welcome for each other.

The preliminary examination was held in the court house at Nyalong, and there was a large gathering of spectators when the proceedings commenced. On a form below the witness box there was something covered with a white sheet. Men craned their necks and looked at it over one another's shoulders. The two prisoners eyed it intently. It was guarded by constable Kerry, who allowed no one to approach it, but with an authoritative wave of the hand kept back all impertinent intruders. That day was the proudest in all his professional career. He had prepared his evidence and his exhibits with the utmost care. At the proper moment he carefully removed the white sheet, and the skeleton was exposed to view, with everything replaced in the position in which it had been found under the rocks in the Rises. Nosey's face grew livid as he eyed the evidence of his handiwork; Julia threw up both hands, and exclaimed:

"Oh! there's poor Baldy that you murdered!"

Nosey felt that this uncalled-for statement would damage his chance of escape, so, turning to the bench, he said:

"Don't mind what the woman says, your lordship; she is not in her right senses, and always was weak-minded."

The constable being sworn, related how, on information received, he had gone to the Stoney Rises, and had uncovered a skeleton which was lying on a broad flat stone. The bones of the legs from the knees downward were covered with stones. The boots were attached to the feet, and were pointing in such a direction as to show that the body must have rested on the right side. Large stones, but such as one man could lift, had been placed over the feet and the legs. The other bones were together, but had been disturbed. With them he found the brim of an oiled sou'-westr' hat, a clay tobacco pipe, a rusty clasp-knife with a hole bored through the handle, fragments of a blue shirt; also pieces of a striped silk neckerchief, marked D. S. over 3; the marks had been sewn in with a needle. There was a hole in the back of the skull, and the left jaw was broken.

Just at this time a funeral procession, with a few attendants, passed the court-house on its way to the cemetery. Julia's father was going to his grave. He had come over the sea lately to spend the rest of his days in peace and comfort in the home of his daughter, and he found her in gaol under the charge of murder. There was nothing more to live for, so he went out and died.

The two prisoners were committed, but they remained in gaol for more than seven months longer, on account of the difficulty of securing the attendance of witnesses from New South Wales.

But when the evidence was given it was overwhelming. Every man who had known Baldy seemed to have been kept alive on purpose to give evidence against the murderer. Every scrap of clothing which the wild cats had left was identified, together with the knife, the pipe, the hat brim, and the boots; and the prisoner's own confession was repeated. Julia also took the side of the prosecution. When asked if she had any questions to put, she said, "My husband killed the man, and forced me to help him to put the body on his horse."

The jury retired to consider their verdict, and spent two hours over it. In the meantime the two prisoners sat in the dock as far apart as possible. They had never spoken to each other during the trial, and Nosey now said in a low voice:

"You had no call, Julia, to turn on me the way you did. What good could it do you? Sure you might at least have said nothing against me."

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.