Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/166

 means a devil's. His physiognomy had been much damaged, and one eye removed by the premature explosion of a blast in some old Ballarat mine. The blind eye was covered with a green patch, which gave a sardonic appearance to the remaining features.

He was a stupid, heavy, good-natured Englishman. He stuttered a little, and had a peculiar habit of wedging the monosyllable 'why' into his conversation at times when it served no other purpose than to fill up the pauses caused by his stuttering; but this by no means assisted him in his speech, for he often stuttered over the 'why' itself. This peculiarity gave a flavour of originality and humour to Tom's utterances.

The sun was getting low down, and its yellow rays reached far up among the saplings of Golden Gully when Tom appeared coming down by the path that ran under the western hill. He was dressed in the usual costume cotton shirt, moleskin trousers, faded hat and waistcoat, and blucher boots. He carried a pick over his shoulder, the handle of which was run through the heft of a short shovel that hung down behind, and he had a big dish under his arm. He paused opposite the shaft with the windlass, and hailed the boy in his usual form of salutation.

'Look, see here, Isley!'

'What is it, Tom?'

'I seed a young―why―magpie up in the scrub, and yer oughter be able to catch it.'

'Can't leave the shaft; father's b'low.'

'How did yer father know there was any―why―wash in the old shaft?'