get away?'

'You can swim,' said Ted. 'I'd be waiting for ye at the wharf. We'd be
outer reach by daybreak.'

'And then, Ted, how should we live?' My superior prudence questioned
him. I take it the difference in our upbringing and tradition spoke
here.

'Live! why, how does any one live on the wallaby? It's never hard to
get a day's work, if ye want a few bob. Up in the station country they
never refuse a man rations, anyway; it's in the town the trouble is.
I've never gone short, travelling.'

'I don't think I'd like begging for meals, Ted,' I said musingly. And
in a moment I was wishing with all my heart I could withdraw the
words. It seemed that, for the first time in all our acquaintance, I
had hurt and offended this simple, good-hearted fellow.

'Beggin', is it?' he cried, very visibly ruffled. 'I'd be sorry to ask
ye to, for it's what I've never done in me life, an' never would.
Would ye call a man a beggar for takin' a ration or a bitter 'baccy
from a station store? Why, doesn't every traveller do the same? An',
for that matter, can't a man always put in a day's work, gettin'
firewood or what not, if he's a mind to? Ye needn't fear Ted Reilly'll
ever come to beggin'!'

In my eager anxiety to placate my only friend I almost accepted his
offer. But not quite. Some little inherited difference held me back,
perhaps. I wonder! At all events, the thing was dropped between us for
the time; and, before he left, Ted promised he would tackle a bit of
work a Myall Creek farmer had offered him--to clear a bush paddock of
burrajong fern, which had poisoned some cattle. Thus, he would be able
to come and see me again on the following Sunday. On that we parted;
and, before I was half way through my milking, fear and regret
oppressed me as with a physical nausea; fear that I might have lost my
only friend, regret that I had not accepted his offer, and so won to
freedom and the big world outside St. Peter's.

The night that followed was one of the most unhappy spent by me at St.
Peter's. My prudence appeared to me the merest poltroonery, my remark
about 'begging' the most finicking absurdity, my failure to accept
Ted's offer the most reckless and offensive stupidity. Evidently I was
unworthy of any better lot than I had. I should live and die an
'inmate' and a drudge. I deserved nothing else. In short, I was a very
despicable lad, had probably lost the only friend I should ever have,
and, certainly, I was very miserable.