Harry Heathcote of Gangoil

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (A
Tale of Australian Bush-Life)

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Title: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil
Author: Anthony Trollope
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HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
A Tale of Australian Bush-Life.
BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
AUTHOR OF
"THE WARDEN", "BARCHESTER TOWERS," "ORLEY FARM,"
"THE SMALL HOUSE AT ARLINGTON", "THE EUSTACE
DIAMONDS," &c., &c
ILLUSTRATED.

HARRY HEATHCOTE

CHAPTER I
GANGOIL.
Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man, twenty-four
years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight o'clock in the
evening. He was married, and with him and his wife lived his wife's
sister. At that somewhat late hour he walked in among the two young
women, and another much older woman who was preparing the table
for dinner. The wife and the wife's sister each had a child in her lap, the
elder having seen some fifteen months of its existence, and the younger
three months. "He has been out since seven, and I don't think he's had a
mouthful," the wife had just said. "Oh, Harry, you must be half

starved," she exclaimed, jumping up to greet him, and throwing her arm
round his bare neck.
"I'm about whole melted," he said, as he kissed her. "In the name of
charity give me a nobbler. I did get a bit of damper and a pannikin of
tea up at the German's hut; but I never was so hot or so thirsty in my
life. We're going to have it in earnest this time. Old Bates says that
when the gum leaves crackle, as they do now, before Christmas, there
won't be a blade of grass by the end of February."
"I hate Old Bates," said the wife. "He always prophesies evil, and
complains about his rations."
"He knows more about sheep than any man this side of the Mary," said
her husband. From all this I trust the reader will understand that the
Christmas to which he is introduced is not the Christmas with which he
is intimate on this side of the equator--a Christmas of blazing fires
in-doors, and of sleet arid snow and frost outside--but the Christmas of
Australia, in which happy land the Christmas fires are apt to be
lighted--or to light themselves--when they are by no means needed.
The young man who had just returned home had on a flannel shirt, a
pair of mole-skin trowsers, and an old straw hat, battered nearly out of
all shape. He had no coat, no waistcoat, no braces, and nothing round
his neck. Round his waist there was a strap or belt, from the front of
which hung a small pouch, and, behind, a knife in a case. And stuck
into a loop in the belt, made for the purpose, there was a small
brier-wood pipe. As he dashed his hat off, wiped his brow, and threw
himself into a rocking-chair, he certainly was rough to look at, but by
all who understood Australian life he would have been taken to be a
gentleman. He was a young squatter, well known west of the Mary
River, in Queensland. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, who owned 30,000
sheep of his own, was a magistrate in those parts, and able to hold his
own among his neighbors, whether rough or gentle; and some
neighbors he had, very rough, who made it almost necessary that a man
should be able to be rough also, on occasions, if he desired to live
among them without injury. Heathcote of Gangoil could do