it. Ill luck and good luck. Laughing at it afterwards and joking
at it always; he and Jack--always he and Jack--till Jack got married.
The children used to say Long Gully was haunted, and always hurried
through it after sunset. It was haunted enough now all right.

But, raising the gap at the head of the gully, he woke suddenly and came
back from the hazy, lazy plains; the

Level lands where Distance hides in her halls of shimmering haze,
And where her toiling dreamers ride towards her all their days;

where "these things" are ever far away, and Distance ever near--and
whither he had drifted, the last hour, with Jack Denver, from the old
Slab School.

"I wonder whether old Fosbery's got through yet?" he muttered, with
nervous anxiety, as he looked down on the cluster of farms and scattered
fringe of selections in the broad moonlight. "I wonder if he's got there
yet?" Then, as if to reassure himself: "He must have started an hour
before me, and the old man can ride yet." He rode down towards a farm on
Pipeclay Creek, about the centre of the cluster of farms, vineyards, and
orchards.

Old Fosbery--otherwise Break-the-News--was a character round there. If
he was handy and no woman to be had, he was always sent to break the
news to the wife of a digger or bushman who had met with an accident.
He was old, and world-wise, and had great tact--also great experience in
such matters. Bad news had been broken to him so many times that he had
become hardened to it, and he had broken bad news so often that he had
come to take a decided sort of pleasure in it--just as some bushman are
great at funerals and will often travel miles to advise, and organize,
and comfort, and potter round a burying and are welcomed. They had
broken the news to old Fosbery when his boy went wrong and was "taken"
("when they took Jim"). They had broken the news to old Fosbery when his
daughter, Rose, went wrong, and bolted with Flash Jack Redmond. They had
broken the news to the old man when young Ted was thrown from his horse
and killed. They had broken the news to the old man when the unexpected
child of his old age and hopes was accidentally burnt to death. So the
old man knew how it felt.

The farm was the home of one of Jack Denver's married sisters, and, as
there was no woman to go so far in the night they had sent old Fosbery
to tell her. Folks were most uneasy and anxious, by the way, when they
saw old Fosbery coming unexpectedly, and s