n the
sunny mullock heaps and break clay lumps between their hands, and lay
plans for the putting down of shafts, and smoke, till an urchin was sent
to "look for his father and Mr So-and-so, and tell 'em to come to their
dinner."

And again--mostly in the fresh of the morning--they would hang about the
fences on the selection and review the live stock: five dusty skeletons
of cows, a hollow-sided calf or two, and one shocking piece of equine
scenery--which, by the way, the old mate always praised. But the
selector's heart was not in farming nor on selections--it was far away
with the last new rush in Western Australia or Queensland, or perhaps
buried in the worked-out ground of Tambaroora, Married Man's Creek, or
Araluen; and by-and-by the memory of some half-forgotten reef or lead
or Last Chance, Nil Desperandum, or Brown Snake claim would take their
thoughts far back and away from the dusty patch of sods and struggling
sprouts called the crop, or the few discouraged, half-dead slips which
comprised the orchard. Then their conversation would be pointed with
many Golden Points, Bakery Hill, Deep Creeks, Maitland Bars, Specimen
Flats, and Chinamen's Gullies. And so they'd yarn till the youngster
came to tell them that "Mother sez the breakfus is gettin' cold," and
then the old mate would rouse himself and stretch and say, "Well, we
mustn't keep the missus waitin', Tom!"

And, after tea, they would sit on a log of the wood-heap, or the edge
of the veranda--that is, in warm weather--and yarn about Ballarat and
Bendigo--of the days when we spoke of being on a place oftener than at
it: _on_ Ballarat, _on_ Gulgong, _on_ Lambing Flat, on _Creswick_--and
they would use the definite article before the names, as: "on The Turon;
The Lachlan; The Home Rule; The Canadian Lead." Then again they'd
yarn of old mates, such as Tom Brook, Jack Henright, and poor Martin
Ratcliffe--who was killed in his golden hole--and of other men whom
they didn't seem to have known much about, and who went by the names of
"Adelaide Adolphus," "Corney George," and other names which might have
been more or less applicable.

And sometimes they'd get talking, low and mysterious like, about "Th'
Eureka Stockade;" and if we didn't understand and asked questions, "what
was the Eureka Stockade?" or "what did they do it for?" father'd say:
"Now, run away, sonny, and don't bother; me and Mr So-and-so want to
talk." Father had the mark of a hole on his leg, whic