Ernest William Hornung

“ While Deverell sat thus, returning thanks on an empty stomach, at the northern edge of the ridge, a man tramped into the pines from the south, The heavy sand muffled his steps; but he stopped long before he came near Deverell, and threw down his swag with an emancipated air. The man was old, but he held himself more erect than does the typical swagman. The march through life with a cylinder of blankets on one's shoulders, with all one's worldly goods packed in that cylinder, causes a certain stoop of a very palpable kind ”

“ THE LUCKIEST MAN IN THE COLONY THAT is never a nice moment when your horse knocks up under you, and you know quite well that he has done so, and that to ride him another inch would be a cruelty—another mile a sheer impossibility. But when it happens in the bush, the moment becomes more than negatively disagreeable; for you may be miles from the nearest habitation, and an unpremeditated bivouac, with neither food nor blankets, is a thing that demands a philosophic temperament as well as the quality of endurance. ”

“ If the old man had no appetite, there was no earthly reason for him to eat; his abstinence could not hurt him under the circumstances, and naturally it did not worry Deverell. If, on the other hand, the old man preferred to feed off Deverell—with his eyes—why, there is no accounting for preferences, and that did not worry Deverell either. Indeed, by the time his pipe was once more in blast, he felt most kindly disposed towards this taciturn tramp. ”

“ He had been sitting the whole evening on the old fool's blankets, and the old fool had been sitting on the ground!
'I say! Why on earth don't you come and sit on your own blankets?' The young man spoke a little roughly; for to catch oneself in a grossly thoughtless act is always irritating.
'I am all right here, thank you,' returned the swagman, mildly. 'The sand is as soft as the blankets.'
'Well, I don't want to monopolise your blankets, you know,' said Deverell, without moving. ”

“ Perhaps a bit of blanket for me too! But I am the luckiest beggar alive; this wouldn't have happened to any one else!'
He went over to the fire and the swagman, who was crouching at the other side of it, peered at him from under a floury palm. He was making the damper already. His welcome to Deverell took a substantial shape; he doubled the flour for the damper. Otherwise the old tramp did not gush.
Deverell did the talking. Lying at full length on the blankets, which had been unrolled, his face to the flames, and his strong jaws cupped in his hands, he discoursed very freely of his luck. ”

“ I know him well; he wouldn't be a drag or a burden to you. He'd only just like to see you. All he would ask would be to see his son sometimes! That would be enough for him. I was his chum, mind you, so I know. ”

“ Deverell could gloat over his luck, and do nothing else—when he had nothing else to do. And in this he faced contentedly even this lonely, hungry night, his back to a pine at the north side of the ridge, and a short brier pipe in full blast.
He was the new manager of Dandong, to begin with, That was one of the best managerships in the colony, and Deverell had got it young—in his twenties, at all events, if not by much. The salary was seven hundred a year, and the homestead was charming. Furthermore, Deverell was within a month of his marriage; and the coming Mrs. ”