United States or Kuwait ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is Broom, and Black, the gipsy, at the rendezvous. I can go for them, and be back in time: they are stout and true." "Stout enough, but not true. No, no, I want no sharers in this business, and you know how ill they behaved in the last affair. I'll swear that they only produced half the swag. I like honour between gentlemen and soldiers; and that's why I have chosen you.
"All right, Baldy," they'd say, "git out your blooming swag and come along with us, old man; we'll stick to you and see you through." "I swear I'd show you round first," he'd reply. "Go up to the store and get what rations you want. You can camp in the huts to-night, and I'll see you in the morning."
It was a stout, dumpy swag, with a red blanket outside, patched with blue, and the edge of a blue blanket showing in the inner rings at the end. The swag might have been newer; it might have been cleaner; it might have been hooped with decent straps, instead of bits of clothes-line and greenhide but otherwise there was nothing the matter with it, as swags go.
As I watched, full of admiration, for the proud, strong character of the man, he looked up suddenly, and, in a flash, knew that I knew. Flushing hotly, he rose, and "thought he would turn in "; and Dan, who had been discussing education most of the evening, decided to "bottle off a bit of sleep too for next day's use," and opened up his swag.
"He is the man we have been looking for so long. I fancy we have got all the swag that has been stolen for the last eighteen months bags of jewels and watches, and sacks of silver. He is handcuffed, and his legs are tied, so we must carry him in." The officer fetched out a lantern. The other constable helped him to let down the backboard of the cart. "Now, Bastow, wake up," Chester said.
Macquarie afterwards shouldered his swag and staggered and struggled along the track ten miles to the Union Town hospital. Lord knows how he did it. He didn't exactly know himself. Tally limped behind all the way, on three legs. The doctors examined the man's injuries and were surprised at his endurance. Even doctors are surprised sometimes though they don't always show it.
By the red, consuming light, poured past the straggling Confederate soldiers, dead to the acknowledgment of private rights, and sacking shop and home with curses and ribaldry; the suburban citizens and the menial negroes adopted their examples; carrying off whatever came next their hands, and with arms full of "swag," dropping it in the highway, lured by some dearer plunder.
The hands of the clock could be plainly seen to move, and its ticking was furiously rapid. Mr. Galpin made a calculation on his dazzling cuff. 'In three-quarters of an hour the clock will have run out, he informed his audience, 'and you will be able to open any locks that you've got keys for. I shall call to-morrow morning, young man, for the swag.
Vell, ven ve came out, you minds as 'ow the voman had a bundle in her arms, and you spake to her; and she answered you roughly, and left us all, and vent straight home; and ve vent and fenced the swag' that wery night and afterwards napped the regulars. And sure you made us laugh 'artily, Meester Pepper, when you said, says you, 'That 'ere voman is a rum blo" en. So she vas, Meester Pepper!"
This is the easiest way of carrying a heavy swag, for one can rest one's self by shifting the burden from one shoulder to the other. I strapped my pannikin and a small axe about my waist, and thus equipped began to ascend the valley, angry at having been misled by Chowbok, but determined not to return till I was compelled to do so.
Word Of The Day