Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/274

 Didn't think it would matter for a week; when this young chap pops in, all on a sudden like, and collars it. It's turned out quite contrairy, ain't it, sir?

. Contrairy! It's ruination, that's what it is! It'll play h—l and Tommy with the sheep in the Ban Ban Paddock. What's to keep 'em off his pre-lease? And he can pound 'em any day he likes. He'll do me thousands of pounds' worth of harm with his beggarly half-section. Have to buy him out and give him two prices—the old story.

. I hardly think he'll agree to that, sir! I heard him yesterday say, says he, 'I'm a-going to settle down for good, and make a home in this wilderness; this here land is so fertile,' says he

. Wilderness indeed! on a flat like that! Fert'le, fert'le—what's that? Good corn land? D—n his impudence; what's it to him, I'd like to know? Is he going to cultivate for a living in a dry country? Bah! I've seen them kind of coves afore. I give him two years to lose everything, to his shirt! What sort of a chap is he, Gayters? . Well, a civil-spoken young man enough, sir. Talks very nice, and seems to know himself. I should take him to be a gentleman.

. A gentleman! Bosh! How the devil can he be a gentleman and a free selector, eh? A feller that robs people of their land. He's next door to a cattle duffer. He'd turn bushranger, only he ain't got pluck enough.

. Very true, sir; cert'nly, sir; but he says it's not agin the law.

. The law! Hang the law! What's that got to do with it? A parcel of fellers that never owned a run or a foot of ground get into this Lower 'Ouse and makes laws to bind people that could buy 'em out over and over again. D'ye call that honest? I call it daylight robbery; and I'm not a-goin' to keep laws made that way if I can find a way to drive through 'em; yes, through 'em, with a coach and four!

. Yes, sir; but what are we to do? He'll have his nine hundred and sixty acres of pre-lease, and our sheep can't be kept off it nohow.

. Put a man on to free select right agin his frontage, take up two flocks, and shepherd all round him.