rge and various were the
purchases, and great the flow of conversation. Finally, everything was
severely and accurately debited to the purchasers, and the store was
cleared and locked up. A large store is a necessity of a large station;
not by any means because of the profit upon goods sold, but it
obviously would be bad economy for old Bill, the shepherd, or Barney,
the bullock-driver, to visit the next township, from ten to thirty
miles distant, as the case may be, every time the former wanted a pound
of tobacco, or the latter a pair of boots. They might possibly obtain
these necessary articles as good in quality, as cheap in price. But
there are wolves in that wood, oh, my weak brothers! In all towns
dwells one of the 'sons of the Giant'--the Giant Grog--red-eyed, with
steel muscles and iron claws; once in these, which have held many and
better men to the death, neither Barney nor Bill emerges, save pale,
fevered, nerveless, and impecunious. So arose the station store. Barney
befits himself with boots without losing his feet; Bill fills his
pocket with match-boxes and smokes the pipe of sobriety, virtuous
perforce till his carnival, after shearing.

The next day was wet, and threatened further broken weather. Matters
were not too placid with the shearers. A day or two for rest is very
well, but continuous wet weather means compulsory idleness, and gloom
succeeds repose; for not only are all hands losing time and earning no
money, but they are, to use the language of the stable "eating their
heads off" the while. The rather profuse mess and general expenditure,
which caused little reflection when they were earning at the rate of
two or three hundred pounds a year, became unpleasantly suggestive, now
that all is going out and nothing coming in. Hence loud and deep were
the anathemas as the discontented men gazed sadly or wrathfully at the
misty sky.

A few days showery weather having, therefore, wellnigh driven
our shearers to desperation, out comes the sun in all his glory. He is
never far away or very faint in Riverina. All the pens are filled for
the morrow; very soon after the earliest sunbeams the bell sounds its
welcome summons, and the whole force tackles to the work with an ardour
proportioned to the delay, every man working as if for the ransom of
his whole family from slavery. How men work spurred on by the double
excitement of acquiring social reputation and making money rapidly! Not
an instant is lost; no