The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Final Reckoning, by G. A. Henty

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Title: A Final Reckoning
A Tale of Bush Life in Australia

Author: G. A. Henty

Illustrator: W. B. Wollen

Release Date: December 5, 2006 [EBook #20031]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FINAL RECKONING ***

Produced by Martin Robb

A Final Reckoning:
A Tale of Bush Life in Australia
by G. A. Henty.

Contents

Preface.
Chapter 1: The Broken Window.
Chapter 2: The Poisoned Dog.
Chapter 3: The Burglary At The Squire's.
Chapter 4: The Trial.
Chapter 5: Not Guilty!
Chapter 6: On The Voyage.
Chapter 7: Gratitude.
Chapter 8: A Gale.
Chapter 9: Two Offers.
Chapter 10: An Up-Country District.
Chapter 11: The Black Fellows.
Chapter 12: The Bush Rangers.
Chapter 13: Bush Rangers.
Chapter 14: An Unexpected Meeting.
Chapter 15: At Donald's.
Chapter 16: Jim's Report.
Chapter 17: In Pursuit.
Chapter 18: Settling Accounts.

Illustrations

Reuben Whitney Acquitted of the Charge of Burglary.
The Ladies Saved from the Malay's Crease.
A Fight with the Black Fellows.
Jim Notes the Bush Rangers' Plans for Mischief.

Preface.

In this tale I have left the battlefields of history, and have
written a story of adventure in Australia, in the early days when
the bush rangers and the natives constituted a real and formidable
danger to the settlers. I have done this, not with the intention of
extending your knowledge, or even of pointing a moral, although the
story is not without one; but simply for a change--a change both
for you and myself, but frankly, more for myself than for you. You
know the old story of the boy who bothered his brains with Euclid,
until he came to dream regularly that he was an equilateral
triangle enclosed in a circle. Well, I feel that unless I break
away sometimes from history, I shall be haunted day and night by
visions of men in armour, and soldiers of all ages and times.

If, when I am away on a holiday I come across the ruins of a
castle, I find myself at once wondering how it could best have been
attacked, and defended. If I stroll down to the Thames, I begin to
plan schemes