Harry Heathcote of Gangoil

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

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, by Anthony Trollope (#37 in our series by Anthony Trollope)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5642] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 3, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL ***

This eBook was produced by Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

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 all that. Men said of him that he was too imperious, too masterful, too much inclined to think that all things should be made to go as he would have them. Young