from a world apart,
have led us up to this very minute. Now why? Coincidence maybe. Well,
coincidence must be worked a bit threadbare explaining things for
people.

"Take my own case: I was born in the Riverina of New South Wales, the
back lots--sheep country. That's where I belong--and look at me! Quite a
gap to bridge--what?...

"My father went out there as a jackaroo, without a penny; and before he
died he could ride straightaway all day across his own paddocks. Nothing
ever turned him from his natural destiny, which was raising good sheep,
and plenty of 'em. In twenty years I don't suppose he was off the
station twice; it suited him. It would have suited me too. Roving and
changing and mucking about in crowds--no; I was fed up with that when he
sent me away to school. After his death I stepped into his place, of
course, and I never had any notion except to carry on as he had done
before me to the end of my billet. Never any notion up to a day about
three months ago, when there came a cablegram from England.

"Well, it's what I say--a man is better off if he has some simple and
handy system of accounting for life. He goes to bed in his own private
heaven and he wakes up in the general hell. And what's the reason? There
isn't any, unless you believe in black cats or astral influence, or the
curse of Shielygh--or something.

"That cablegram was to inform me that my father had left another family
back home. Previous, so to speak. Previous and legitimate. Naturally
everything he'd acquired in Australia in near half a century belonged
to them: the stock; the land; the house I was born in; the very
picture of my mother on the wall--everything but me, being an
encumbrance on the estate.... A fair knockout, wasn't it?"

His voice held the level acerbity that no man with a boy's eyes has any
right to know.

"Did I fight? I started to--rather! At first, you see, I didn't begin to
understand what it was had hit me. I took my two years' wages as
overseer--I'd a right to that, at least--and I came on to England, with
my comb over one eye, regularly scratching after trouble. And then I
found the only people I could fight were three elderly gentlewomen who
lived together on a Yorkshire lane in a little cottage covered with
climbing roses. They were most polite and had me in to tea; and we
talked about something--a sale of work in aid of the local church, I
think.... At that it was rather heroic of them, you know. The
enter