Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/74

 "I missed a magpie steer to-day, and I didn't see that fat yellow cow with the white flank. Thim's a pair that's always together, and I seen all the leading mob barrin' the two."

"We must have a hunt for them to-morrow," I said, "and the sooner Joe comes in the better, Mrs. Burge."

"Yes, indeed," said that resolute matron, casting a glance at the cradle where lay a plump infant not many weeks old; "and is there any other man in the country that would risk his life for a load of stock-yard rails? Not but it's elegant timber; only he might think of me and the baby."

The argument was a good one, so next day I went out and forcibly brought away Joe and a final cargo of rails, though to the last he asserted "that we were spoiling the yard for the sake of another week's splitting."

I may here state that we got our stock-yard up in due time. It was seven feet high, and close enough—a rat could hardly get through. My share was chiefly the mortising of the huge posts, which afforded considerable scope for amateur execution, by reason of their size and thickness. If the yard is still standing—and nothing less than a stampede of elephants would suffice to level it—I could pick out several of "my posts" with unerring accuracy. "God be with those days," as the Irish idiom runs; they were happy and free. I should like to be drafting there again—if the clock could be put back. But life's time-keeper murmurs sadly with rhythmic pendulum, "Never—for ever: for ever—never!"

All of a sudden war broke out. The reasons for