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The younger delegate looked at Old Ben, who, now that it "was demanded of him to speak the truth," or such dilution thereof as might seem most favourable to the interests of the shed, found a difficulty like many wiser men about his exordium. "Well, Muster Gordon," at length he broke forth, "look'ee here, sir. The weather's been awful bad, and clean agin shearing.
I put in fourteen acres of wheat and oats this year, and I don't think I'll cut a wheelbarrow-load of it. I'm full of the place. I never have a single penny to my name, and it ain't father's drinking that's all to blame; if he didn't booze it wouldn't he much better. It's the slowest hole in the world, and I'll chuck it and go shearing or droving.
At this end the scent of sheep and wool and men had not yet routed that home essence of the barn, like the savour of acorns and withering beech leaves. They were shearing by hand this year, nine of them, counting the postman, who, though farm-bred, "did'n putt much to the shearin'," but had come to round the sheep up and give general aid.
He turns the Old World into a laughing stock by shearing it of its storied humanity simply because there is nothing in him to respond to the glory that was Greece, to the grandeur that was Rome simpler because nothing is holier to him than a joke.
The day after this we rode home again, and I had to set to work directly to prepare for my own Christmas party to the shepherds and shearers, for we have just commenced to muster the sheep, and the shearing will be in full force by Christmas Day.
You might as well give us sheep, and prevent us from shearing the wool, or roasting the meat." This reasoning prevailed, and the Irish were kept to their barbarism, and the barons preserved their dive stock.
The construction of the dwelling-house, being a matter of a secondary consideration, it was necessarily left to the last; and the whole party set to work busily to put up a large shed for shearing, and storing the wool when ready for packing. "How gaily is at first begun Our life's uncertain race! Whilst yet that sprightly morning sun, With which we just set out to run, Enlightens all the place."
It was curious that turning of his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray.
Only a few years since Mr. Roberts added a useful companion to the Jacquard punching machine, in his combined self-acting machine for shearing iron and punching both webs of angle or T iron simultaneously to any required pitch; though this machine, like others which have proceeded from his fertile brain, is ahead even of this fast-manufacturing age, and has not yet come into general use, but is certain to do so before many years have elapsed.
So lit was the lagoon by starshine that the head of the swimmer could be distinguished away out in the midst of circles of light; also, as the head neared the reef, a dark triangle that came shearing through water past the palm tree at the pier. It was the night patrol of the lagoon, who had heard in some mysterious manner that a drunken sailor-man was making trouble in his waters.
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