Rolf Boldrewood

“ It can be driven away. All the heavy-heartedness which a man feels, but never puts into words, flies away with the first or second glass of grog. If a man was suffering pains of any kind, or was being stretched on the rack (I never knew what a rack was till I'd time for reading in gaol, except a horse-rack) , or was being flogged, and a glass of anything he could swallow would make him think he was on a feather bed enjoying a pleasant doze, wouldn't he swig it off, do you think? ”

“ What is more, the other passengers don't thank him—quite the contrary—for drawing the fire on them. I have known men take away a fellow's revolver lest he should get them all into trouble. That was a queer start, wasn't it? Actually preventing a man from resisting. They were quite right, though; he could only have done mischief and made it harder for himself and every one else. If the passengers were armed, and all steady and game to stand a flutter, something might be done, but you don't get a coach-load like that very often. ”

“ If you'll take the trouble to watch men (and women too) that have been `in trouble' you'll find that nineteen out of every twenty drink like fishes when they get the chance. It ain't the love of the liquor, as teetotalers and those kind of goody people always are ramming down your throat—it's the love of nothing. But it's the fear of their own thoughts—the dreadful misery—the anxiety about what's to come, that's always hanging like a black cloud over their heads. That's what they can't stand; and liquor, for a bit, mind you—say a few hours or so—takes all that kind of feeling clean away. ”

“ Nothing's easier than to stick up one of them—lots of valuable things, besides money, often kept there, and it's ten to one against any one being on the look-out when the boys come. A man hears they're in the neighbourhood, and keeps a watch for a week or two. But he can't be always waiting at home all day long with double-barrelled guns, and all his young fellows and the overseer that ought to be at their work among their cattle or sheep on the run idling their time away. ”

“ Just at the worst pinch or at a turn, some one sings out `Bail up.' The coachman sees a strange man in front, or close alongside of him, with a revolver pointed straight at him. He naturally don't like to be shot, and he pulls up. There's another man covering the passengers in the body of the coach, and he says if any man stirs or lifts a finger he'll give him no second chance. ”

“ Money was that plentiful that everybody seemed to be full of it. Gold began to be sent down in big lots, by the Escort, as it was called—sometimes ten thousand ounces at a time. That was money if you liked — forty thousand pounds!—enough to make one's mouth water—to make one think dad's prophecy about the ten thousand pounds wasn't so far out after all.
Just at the start most people had a kind of notion that the gold would only last a short time, and that things would be worse than before. ”

“ We'd had quite enough of a quiet life, and began to long for a bit of work and danger again. Chaps that have got something on their minds can't stand idleness, it plays the bear with them. I've always found they get thinking and thinking till they get a low fit like, and then if there's any grog handy they try to screw themselves up with that. ”

“ It wasn't right in the line of the gold diggings, but it wasn't so far off. It was a queer start when the news got round about to the other colonies, after that to England, and I suppose all the other old world places, but they must have come by ship-loads, the road was that full of new chums—we could tell 'em easy by their dress, their fresh faces, their way of talk, their thick sticks, and new guns and pistols. Some of them you'd see dragging a hand-cart with another chap, and they having all their goods, tools, and clothes on it. ”

“ And suppose there are times when a man feels as if hell couldn't be much worse than what he's feeling all the long day through—and I tell you there are — I, who have often stood it hour after hour—won't he drink then? ”

“ If we work together we may make ten thousand pounds or more in the next four or five years, enough to clear out with altogether if we've luck. If any of us goes snivelling in now and giving himself up, they'd know there's something crooked with the lot of us, and they'll run us down somehow. I'll see 'em all in the pit of h—l before I give in, and if Jim does, he opens the door and sells the pass on us. ”

“ Well, what's any one, if he's ever so game, to do? If he tries to draw a weapon, or move ever so little, he's rapped at that second. He can only shoot one man, even if his aim is good, which it's not likely to be. ”

“ The method of cradling is the same, the appliances required are simple and inexpensive, and the proportional yield of gold highly reassuring. It is impossible to forecast the results of this most momentous discovery. It will revolutionise the new world. It will liberate the old. It will precipitate Australia into a nation. ”

“ The pull of it is that once they're in here they're never heard of again till it's time to shift them to another colony, or clear them out and let the buyer take his chance.'
`You've some plums here,' I said. `Even the cattle look pretty well bred.'
`Always go for pedigree stock, Fifteenth Duke notwithstanding. They take no more keep than rough ones, and they're always saleable. ”

“ Besides Jonathan Barnes and chaps of his sort, dad knew a few `fences' that had worked for him before. Of course we had to suffer a bit in value. These sort of men make you pay through the nose for everything they do for you. But we could stand that out of our profits, and we could stick to whatever was easy to pass and some of the smaller things that were light to carry about. Men that make £300 or £400 of a night can afford to pay for accommodation. ”

“ The house is cleared out of everything valuable, though nobody's harmed or frightened—in a general way, that is—a couple of the best horses are taken out of the stable, and the next morning there's another flaring article in the local paper. A good many men tried all they knew to be prepared and have a show for it ”

“ Starlight and I wanted to let our beards grow. People without any hair on their faces are hardly ever seen in the country now, except they've been in gaol lately, and of course we should have been marked men. ”