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He was called "Poisonous Jimmy" perhaps on account of his liquor, or perhaps because he had a job of poisoning dingoes on a station in the Bogan scrubs at one time. He was a sharp publican. He had a girl, and they said that whenever a shearing-shed cut-out on his side and he saw the shearers coming along the road, he'd say to the girl, "Run and get your best frock on, Mary!
The shearing-shed lay somewhat apart from the other ranch buildings, with a system of pens at its back, with chutes and swinging wickets for "cutting out" lambs from their mothers destined for the shears, and other incidental purposes.
I was young yet, but felt old at times, and there were times, in the hot, rough, greasy shearing-shed on blazing days, or in the bare "men's hut" by the flicker of the stinking slush-lamp at night, or the wretched wayside shanty with its drink-madness and blasphemy, or tramping along the dusty, endless track there were times when I wished I could fall back with all the experience I'd got, and sit once more in the little slab-and-bark "chapel" on Ross's Creek and hear Peter M'Laughlan and the poor, struggling selectors sing "Shall We Gather at the River?" and then go out and start life afresh.
Alessandro did the same, and with a truly devout spirit, for he was full of veneration for the Fathers and their teachings; but as he walked on towards the shearing-shed he thought: "Then, again, how can it be God's will that wrong be done? It cannot be God's will that one man should steal from another all he has. That would make God no better than a thief, it looks to me.
But how can it happen, if it is not God's will?" It does not need that one be educated, to see the logic in this formula. Generations of the oppressed and despoiled, before Alessandro, had grappled with the problem in one shape or another. At the shearing-shed, Alessandro found his men in confusion and ill-humor.
Worn out as was the strong man's frame not only with wild jealousy and tortured love, but with sleepless nights of patrol work, days in the shearing-shed, sharp fighting with a second conflagration fortunately put out before much damage had been done and a final dispersion of Unionist forces, Colin never for one instant relaxed his watch by Bridget's bedside.
After some talk, they drove off to camp, a little way up the creek, proposing to return in the morning. About sunset they were seen slowly approaching the shearing-shed, It seemed that in watering their horses they had seen a man in the creek. The small freighter imparted this information in a low voice, with some hesitation and a deprecatory half-smile.
He must have had money, or else he got remittances from home, for he paid his way and helped many a poor devil. They said that he gave away most of his money. Sometimes he worked for a while himself as bookkeeper at a shearing-shed, wool-sorter, shearer, even rouseabout; he'd work at anything a bushman could get to do.
Then he'd go out back to God-forgotten districts and preach to bushmen in one place, and get a few children together in another and teach them to read. He could take his drink, and swear a little when he thought it necessary. On one occasion, at a rough shearing-shed, he called his beloved brethren "damned fools" for drinking their cheques.
Peter walked up and the men made way for him and he went into the office. There was always considerably less swearing for a few feet round about where Peter M'Laughlan happened to be working in a shearing-shed. It seemed to be an understood thing with the men.
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