FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  
e people too, one to live on the other. Why should we pay for what is our own? I believe in getting my share somehow.' 'That's a sort of argument that doesn't come out right,' said George. 'How would you like another man to come and want to halve the farm with you?' 'I shouldn't mind; I should go halves with some one else who had a bigger one,' I said. 'More money too, more horses, more sheep, a bigger house! Why should he have it and not me?' 'That's a lazy man's argument, and--well, not an honest man's,' said George, getting up and putting on his cabbage-tree. 'I can't sit and hear you talk such rot. Nobody can work better than you and Jim, when you like. I wonder you don't leave such talk to fellows like Frowser, that's always spouting at the Shearers' Arms.' 'Nonsense or not, if a dry season comes and knocks all our work over, I shall help myself to some one's stuff that has more than he knows what to do with.' 'Why can't we all go shearing, and make as much as will keep us for six months?' said George. 'I don't know what we'd do without the squatters.' 'Nor I either; more ways than one; but Jim and I are going shearing next week. So perhaps there won't be any need for "duffing" after all.' 'Oh, Dick!' said Aileen, 'I can't bear to hear you make a joke of that kind of thing. Don't we all know what it leads to! Wouldn't it be better to live on dry bread and be honest than to be full of money and never know the day when you'd be dragged to gaol?' 'I've heard all that before; but ain't there lots of people that have made their money by all sorts of villainy, that look as well as the best, and never see a gaol?' 'They're always caught some day,' says poor Aileen, sobbing, 'and what a dreadful life of anxiety they must lead!' 'Not at all,' I said. 'Look at Lucksly, Squeezer, and Frying-pan Jack. Everybody knows how they got their stock and their money. See how they live. They've got stations, and public-house and town property, and they get richer every year. I don't think it pays to be too honest in a dry country.' 'You're a naughty boy, Dick; isn't he, Jim?' she said, smiling through her tears. 'But he doesn't mean half what he says, does he?' 'Not he,' says Jim; 'and very likely we'll have lots of rain after all.' Chapter 8 The 'big squatter', as he was called on our side of the country, was Mr. Falkland. He was an Englishman that had come young to the colony, and worked his w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78  
79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

honest

 

George

 
country
 

argument

 

people

 

shearing

 

Aileen

 
bigger
 

Squeezer


Lucksly

 

sobbing

 

Frying

 

villainy

 
caught
 
dreadful
 

anxiety

 

dragged

 
Chapter

squatter

 

colony

 
worked
 

Englishman

 
called
 

Falkland

 

property

 

richer

 

public


stations

 

Everybody

 
smiling
 

naughty

 

putting

 

horses

 
cabbage
 

fellows

 
Frowser

spouting
 

Shearers

 

Nobody

 
halves
 

shouldn

 
Nonsense
 
duffing
 

Wouldn

 

knocks


season

 

months

 
squatters