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Updated: June 27, 2025
Then laying the pipe, so to speak, on the scent of the swagman, I attempted a clairvoyant rear-glance along his past history, and essayed a forecast of his future destiny, in order to get at the valuation presumably placed upon him by his Maker.
Jim bobbed his float up and down despairingly. "This is the most fishless creek!" he said. "Well, the only thing left to tell you is where the swagman came in." "Oh, by Jove," Harry said, "I forgot the swaggie." "Was it his fault the fire started?" inquired Wally. "Rather!
It was Mosey Price; and he told me" &c., &c. Stewart sighed, glanced toward the south-east, produced a cigar-case, took thence three cigars, handed one to me and another to Mungo Park lit the third himself, then smoked listlessly and mechanically. "Good," he remarked, throwing away the inch-long stump of his cigar, and gathering his reins. "What's your name?" he continued, turning to the swagman.
This was not too much to count on; for I have yet to find the churlish or unfeeling swagman; whereas, my late experience of the respectable classes had not been satisfactory. At all events, the fire would give me respite from the mosquitos. Encouraged by this brightening prospect, I crossed the road and entered on the heavy timber and broken ground of the river frontage.
A swagman had happened to call at the station that morning; he asked for work and then for tucker. He irritated Wall, who told him to clear out. It was the first time that a swagman had been turned away from the station without tucker. Swaggy went along the track some miles, brooding over his wrongs, and crossed Sandy Creek.
This man's action promised real sport, and true Britons as we all were we were delighted to see him. Nosey stood on the verandah for a minute or two, watching the motions of the swagman; he did not seem to recollect all at once what the code of honour required, until Bill the Butcher remarked, "He wants you, Nosey," then Nosey went.
I am tempted, in illustration of this, to quote from a larger work of mine, "Australia," an instance of my own observation of the "resourceful Australian": "Without touch of cap, or sign of servility, the swagman came up. "'Gotter a job, boss? "'No chance; but you can go round and get rations. "'I wanter job pretty bad. Times have been hard. Perhaps you recollect me Jim Stone.
This advice did not sound very respectful; however, I overlooked it for the present, as it was not unlikely I might have the advantage of seeing him again in custody, and I sent to him across the road some hot tea, bread, butter, and beef. This softened the heart and loosed the tongue of the old swagman. It appeared from his account of himself that he was not much of a blacksmith.
But the pipe, being now master of the position, gently seduced my mind to a wider consideration, merely using the swagman as a convenient spring-board for its flight into regions of the Larger Morality.
By virtue of a fine tradition, or unwritten law, handed down from the time of Montgomery's father, a subaltern officer of Runnymede had power to send any decent-looking swagman or a couple of them, for that matter to the hut for a feed.
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