Harry Heathcote of Gangoil

I

Gangoil

Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o’clock in the evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife’s sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table for dinner. The wife and the wife’s sister each had a child in her lap, the elder having seen some fifteen months of its existence, and the younger three months. “He has been out since seven, and I don’t think he’s had a mouthful,” the wife had just said. “Oh, Harry, you must be half starved,” she exclaimed, jumping up to greet him, and throwing her arm round his bare neck.

“I’m about whole melted,” he said, as he kissed her. “In the name of charity give me a nobbler. I did get a bit of damper and a pannikin of tea up at the German’s hut; but I never was so hot or so thirsty in my life. We’re going to have it in earnest this time. Old Bates says that when the gum leaves crackle, as they do now, before Christmas, there won’t be a blade of grass by the end of February.”

“I hate Old Bates,” said the wife. “He always prophesies evil, and complains about his rations.”

“He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the Mary,” said her husband.