Children of the Bush by Lawson, Henry, 1867-1922

"`Now, listen here, Dave! If I ever hear a word from anyone about watching that gory grass, I'll find you, Dave, and murder you, if you're in wide Australia. I'll screw your neck, so look out.'

"But he's dead now, so it doesn't matter."

There was silence for some time after Dave had finished. The chaps made no comment on the yarn, either one way or the other, but sat smoking thoughtfully, and in a vague atmosphere as of sadness--as if they'd just heard of their mother's death and had not been listening to an allegedly humorous yarn.

Then the voice of old Peter, the station-hand, was heard to growl from the darkness at the end of the hut, where he sat on a three-bushel bag on the ground with his back to the slabs.

"What's old Peter growlin' about?" someone asked.

"He wants to know where Dave got that word," someone else replied.

"What word?"

"_Quint-essents_."

There was a chuckle.

"He got it out back, Peter," said Mitchell, the shearer. "He got it from a new chum."

"How much did yer give for it, Dave?" growled Peter.

"Five shillings, Peter," said Dave, round his pipe stem. "And stick of tobacco thrown in."

Peter seemed satisfied, for he was heard no more that evening.

GETTIN' BACK ON DAVE REGAN

A RATHER FISHY YARN FROM THE BUSH

(AS TOLD BY JAMES NOWLETT, BULLOCK-DRIVER)

You might work this yarn up. I've often thought of doin' it meself, but I ain't got the words. I knowed a lot of funny an' rum yarns about the bush, an' I often wished I had the gift o' writin'. I could tell a lot better yarns than the rot they put in books sometimes, but I never had no eddication. But you might be able to work this yarn up--as yer call it.

There useter be a teamster's camp six or seven miles out of Mudgee, at a place called th' Old Pipeclay, in the days before the railroad went round to Dubbo, an' most of us bullickies useter camp there for the night. There was always good water in the crick, an' sometimes we'd turn the bullicks up in the ridge, an' gullies behind for grass, an' camp there for a few days, and do our washin' an' mendin', and make new yokes perhaps, an tinker up the wagons.

There was a woman livin' on a farm there named Mrs Hardwick--an' she _was_ a hard wick. Her husban', Jimmy Hardwick was throwed from his horse agenst a stump one day when he was sober, an' he was killed--an' she was a widder. She had a tidy bit o' land, an' a nice bit of a orchard an' vineyard, an some cattle, an' they say she had a tidy bit o' money in the bank. She had the worst tongue in the district, no one's character was safe with her; but she wasn't old, an' she wasn't bad-lookin'--only hard--so there was some fellers hangin' round arter her. An' Dave Regan's horse was hangin' up outside her place as often as anybody else's. Dave was a native an' a bushy, an' drover an' a digger, an' he was a bit soft in them days--he got hard enough arterwards.