He
was a man of education who had gone astray in London, and had fallen
on evil days in Queensland and Sydney. When alone in the kitchen he
consoled himself with curses. I could hear his voice from the other
side of the slabs. He cursed me, he cursed the Doctor, he cursed the
horses, the cat, the dog, and the whole world and everything in it.
It was impossible to feel anything but pity for the man, for his life
was ruined, and he had ruined it himself. I had also under my care a
vegetable garden, a paddock of Cape barley, two horses, some guinea
fowls, and a potato patch. One night the potatoes had been
bandicooted. To all the early settlers in the bush the bandicoot is
well known. It is a marsupial quadruped which lives on bulbs, and
ravages potato patches. It is about eighteen inches in length from
the origin of its tail to the point of its nose. It has the habits
of a pickpocket. It inserts its delicate fore paws under the stalks
of the potato, and pulls out the tubers. That morning I had
endeavoured to dig some potatoes; the stalks were there, but the
potatoes were gone. I stopped to think, and examined the ground. I
soon discovered tracks of the bandicoot, but they had taken the shape
of a small human foot. We had no small human feet about our
premises, but at the other side of the fence there was a bark hut
full of them.
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