Selected Stories by Henry Lawson Page A

father.”
    “Have you done that writing lesson yet?”
    “Very near.”
    “Then send down the slate next time for some sums.”
    “All right.”
    The boy resumed his seat, fixed the corner of the slate well into his ribs, humped his back, and commenced another wavering line.
    Tom Mason was known on the place as a silent, hard worker. He was a man of about sixty, tall, and dark bearded. There was nothing uncommon about his face, except, perhaps, that it had hardened, as the face of a man might harden who had suffered a long succession of griefs and disappointments. He lived in a little hut under a peppermint tree at the far edge of Pounding Flat. His wife had died there about six years before, and though new rushes broke out and he was well able to go, he never left Golden Gully.
    Mason was kneeling in front of the “face”, digging away by the light of a tallow candle stuck in the side. The floor of the drive was very wet, and his trousers were heavy and cold with clay and water; but the old digger was used to this sort of thing. His pick was not bringing out much to-day, however, for he seemed abstracted and would occasionally pause in his work, while his thoughts wandered far away from the narrow streak of wash-dirt in the “face”.
    He was digging out pictures from a past life. They were not pleasant ones, for his face was stony and white in the dim glow of the candle.
    Thud, thud, thud—the blows became slower and more irregular as the fossicker’s mind wandered off into the past. The sides of the drive seemed to vanish slowly away, and the “face” retreated far out beyond a horizon that was hazy in the glow of the Southern Ocean. He was standing on the deck of a ship and by his side stood a brother. They were sailing southward to the Land of Promise that was shining there in all its golden glory! The sails pressed forward in the bracing wind, and the clipper ship raced along with its burden of the wildest dreamers ever borne in a vessel’s hull! Up over long blue ocean ridges, down into long blue ocean gullies; on to lands so new, and yet so old, where above the sunny glow of the southern skies blazed the shining names of Ballarat! and Bendigo! The deck seemed to lurch, and the fossicker fell forward against the face of the drive. The shock recalled him, and he lifted his pick once more.
    But the blows slacken again as another vision rises before him. It is Ballarat now. He is working in a shallow claim at Eureka, his brother by his side. The brother looks pale and ill, forhe has been up all night dancing and drinking. Out behind them is the line of blue hills; in front is the famous Bakery Hill, and down to the left Golden Point. Two mounted troopers are riding up over Specimen Hill. What do they want?
    They take the brother away, handcuffed. Manslaughter last night. Cause—drink and jealousy.
    The vision is gone again. Thud, thud, goes the pick; it counts the years that follow—one, two, three, four, up to twenty, and then it stops for the next scene—a selection on the banks of a bright river in New South Wales. The little homestead is surrounded by vines and fruit trees. Many swarms of bees work under the shade of the trees, and a crop of wheat is nearly ripe on the hillside.
    Aman and a boy are engaged in clearing a paddock just below the homestead. They are father and son; the son, a boy of about seventeen, is the image of his father.
    Horses’ feet again! Here comes Nemesis in mounted troopers’ uniform.
    The mail was stuck up last night about five miles way, and a refractory passenger shot. The son had been out “ ‘possum shooting” all night with some friends.
    The troopers take the son away handcuffed: “Robbery under arms”.
    The father was taking out a stump when the troopers came. His foot is still resting on the spade, which is half driven home. He watches the troopers take the boy up to the house, and then, driving the spade to its full depth, he turns up another sod. The troopers