There was a crumbling chimney built of bricks
not worth carting away--the early bricks in South Gippsland were
very bad, and the mortar had no visible lime in it--the ground was
strewn with brick-bats, bottles, sardine tins, hoop iron, and other
articles, the usual refuse of a bush shanty. It had been, in the
early times, a place reeking with crime and debauchery. Men had gone
out of it mad with drinking the poisonous liquor, had stumbled down
the steep bank, and had ended their lives and crimes in the black
Tarra river below. Here the rising generation had taken their first
lessons in vice from the old hands who made the house their favourite
resort. Here was planned the murder of Jimmy the Snob by Prettyboy
and his mates, whose hut was near the end of the bridge across the
river, and for which murder Prettyboy was hanged in Melbourne.
In the dusk I mistook the swagman for a stray aboriginal who had
survived the destruction of his tribe, but on approaching nearer, I
found that he was, or at least once had been, a white man. He had
gathered a few sticks, which he was breaking and putting on the fire.
I did not recognise him, did not think I had ever seen him before,
and I rode away.
During the next twenty-four hours he had advanced about half-a-mile
on his journey, and in the evening was making his fire in the Church
paddock, near a small water-hole opposite my house.
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