fore.

"Within two miles of us, I should judge. It was formerly called
Hawswood, in honor of the proprietor; but after the gold fever broke
out, he sold it to a man whose name was Buckerly, a fine-looking fellow
and bold as a lion. I made his acquaintance when he first landed at
Melbourne, accompanied by a wife and children, and advised him to trade
at the mines and acquire a fortune; but he was a large-feeling person,
and had occupied a good position in England, and I suppose that he
considered all kinds of trafficking plebeian, and beneath his dignity.

"Buckerly thought of entering a banking house in the city, but unluckily
altered his mind and concluded to raise stock. He met with Hawswood, got
an exalted idea of the profits, and without asking advice, paid five
thousand pounds for the place and all that was on it. I had serious
doubts of the success of his project, especially when he told me that he
should move his family to the stock-house immediately, and superintend
his estate. The poor fellow thought that it was fitted and furnished
like a suburban villa, and his wife, one of the prettiest and most
affable women that ever landed in Australia, looked forward, with many
expressions of pleasure, to the delightful country residence that she
was to occupy with her husband and children."

Mr. Brown stopped, and appeared to be in a reflective mood, while I, who
had been dozing, waked up, and requested him to finish.

"I never saw them afterwards, at least alive, but I often heard, by the
shepherds in Buckerly's employ, that the bushrangers and he were at war,
and that the result could be easily foretold. It seemed that the former
were in the habit of taking a sheep or lamb, according to their fancy,
whenever hunger dictated, and as they had always done; but Buckerly
determined, very foolishly, to stop so unlawful a course, forgetting
that he had every thing to lose, and the bushrangers nothing to gain. He
was not strong enough to cope with them, and should have bided his time;
but he was hot-headed and rash, and at length was unfortunate enough to
kill a fellow who had slaughtered a sheep. From that day he was a doomed
man, and not only brought destruction upon himself, but upon his family,
for one night his house was attacked, and although he made a brave
resistance, yet what could one man do against a dozen? He fell with
countless stabs upon his body, and then the devils, the fiends
incarnate, seized the poor wom