United States or Nauru ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was an old shanty-keeper up Coonamble way, so Billy said, that used to always mistake him for another bullocky and mistake the other bullocky for him couldn't tell the one from the other no way and he used to have bills against Billy that the other bullock-driver'd run up, and bills against the other that Billy'd run up, and generally got things mixed up in various ways, till Billy wished that one of 'em was dead.
Why, bless my soul, seventeen years ago, when old Redwood owned her, there was n't a horse in the district could come within coo-ee of her. All she wants is a few feeds of corn and a gallop or two, and mark my words she'll show some of them the way." Some horse-races were being promoted by the shanty-keeper at the Overhaul seven miles from our selection.
Barcoo reached for his drink and drank slowly; he needed time to think Box-o'-Tricks studied his boots Sally Thompson looked out at the weather the shanty-keeper wiped the top of the bar very hard and the rest shifted round and "s'posed they'd try a game er cards." Barcoo set his glass down very softly, pocketed his hands deeply and defiantly, and said: "Well, what of that?
Of course, there are some queer tragedies, and many melancholy farces, enacted at the shanties; but speaking in a broad, statistical way, the shanty-keeper gets such a miserably small percentage of the money earned out-back that he usually lives in saint-like indigence, and dies in the odour of very inferior liquor.
"I say, Mister Mister man," said the Joker suddenly to the driver, "Was his missus sick at all?" "I dunno," replied the driver. "She might have been. He said so, anyway. I ain't got no call to call a man a liar." "See here," said the cannibalistic individual to the driver, in the tone of a man who has made up his mind for a row, "has that shanty-keeper got a wife at all?" "I believe he has."
'In God's name, she cried out, 'aren't ye satisfied with losing your own soul and bringing disgrace upon your family, but ye must be the ruin of your innocent children? Don't touch the brand, Dick! But father wasn't a man to be crossed, and what made it worse he had a couple of glasses of bad grog in him. There was an old villain of a shanty-keeper that lived on a back creek.
The Oracle came up with Smith that night at the nearest shanty, and found that he had forgotten again, and in several instances, and was forgetting some more under the influence of rum and of the flattering interest taken in his case by a drunken Bachelor of Arts who happened to be at the pub. Tom came in quietly from the rear, and crooked his finger at the shanty-keeper.
It would merely call forth from fitting oblivion the lambing-down of two stalwart fencers by a pimply old shanty-keeper; and you know this sort of thing has been described ad sickenum by other pens, less proper than mine described, in fact, till you would think that, in the back-country, drinking took the place of Conduct, as three-fourths of life; whilst the remaining fourth consisted of fighting.
Jimmy is riding resolutely along this narrow path, congratulating himself upon a danger escaped, when he becomes aware of a sunburned, black-bearded man who is leaning unconcernedly against a tree beside the track. This is none other than the shanty-keeper, who, having observed Jimmy's manoeuvre in the distance, has taken a short cut through the bush in order to intercept him.
Well, Jim and I used to get our horses and ride off quietly in the afternoon, as if we were going after cattle; but, in reality, as soon as we were out of sight of mother, to ride over to that old villain, Grimes, the shanty-keeper, where we met the young Dalys, and others of the same sort talked a good deal of nonsense and gossip; what was worse played at all-fours and euchre, which we had learned from an American harvest hand, at one of the large farms.
Word Of The Day