Patrick Duggan's wife did the laundry work, and refused to take
payment in cash. But she made a curious bargain about it. A priest
visited Nyalong only once a month; he lived fifty miles away; when
Mrs. Duggan was in her last sickness he might be unable to administer
to her the rites of the church. So her bargain was, that in case the
priest should be absent, the schoolmaster, as next best man, was to
read prayers over her grave. Philip thought there was something
strange, perhaps simoniacal, about the bargain. Twice Mrs. Duggan,
thinking she was on the point of death, sent a messenger to remind
him of his duty; and when at last she did die, he was present at the
funeral, and read the prayers for the dead over her grave.
Avarice is a vice so base that I never heard of any man who would
confess that he had ever been guilty of it. Philip was my best
friend, and I was always loath to think unkindly of him, but at this
time I really think he began to be rather penurious--not
avaricious, certainly not. But he was not a hermit of the holiest
kind. He began to save money and acquire stock. He had not been
long on the hill before he owned a horse, two dogs, a cat, a native
bear, a magpie, and a parrot, and he paid nothing for any of them
except the horse. One day he met Mr. McCarthy talking to Bob Atkins,
a station hand, who had a horse to sell--a filly, rising three.
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