Over the Sliprails | Page 3

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Over the Sliprails by Henry Lawson

[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalised. Some obvious
errors have been corrected.]

Over the Sliprails by Henry Lawson

Author of "While the Billy Boils", "When the World was Wide and
Other Verses", "On the Track", "Verses: Popular and Humorous", &c.

Preface

Of the stories in this volume many have already appeared in the
columns of [various periodicals], while several now appear in print for
the first time.
H. L. Sydney, June 9th, 1900.

Contents

The Shanty-Keeper's Wife A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper
An Incident at Stiffner's The Hero of Redclay The Darling River A
Case for the Oracle A Daughter of Maoriland New Year's Night Black
Joe They Wait on the Wharf in Black Seeing the Last of You Two
Boys at Grinder Brothers' The Selector's Daughter Mitchell on the

"Sex" and Other "Problems" The Master's Mistake The Story of the
Oracle

Over the Sliprails

The Shanty-Keeper's Wife

There were about a dozen of us jammed into the coach, on the box seat
and hanging on to the roof and tailboard as best we could. We were
shearers, bagmen, agents, a squatter, a cockatoo, the usual joker -- and
one or two professional spielers, perhaps. We were tired and stiff and
nearly frozen -- too cold to talk and too irritable to risk the inevitable
argument which an interchange of ideas would have led up to. We had
been looking forward for hours, it seemed, to the pub where we were to
change horses. For the last hour or two all that our united efforts had
been able to get out of the driver was a grunt to the effect that it was
"'bout a couple o' miles." Then he said, or grunted, "'Tain't fur now," a
couple of times, and refused to commit himself any further; he seemed
grumpy about having committed himself that far.
He was one of those men who take everything in dead earnest; who
regard any expression of ideas outside their own sphere of life as trivial,
or, indeed, if addressed directly to them, as offensive; who, in fact, are
darkly suspicious of anything in the shape of a joke or laugh on the part
of an outsider in their own particular dust-hole. He seemed to be always
thinking, and thinking a lot; when his hands were not both engaged, he
would tilt his hat forward and scratch the base of his skull with his little
finger, and let his jaw hang. But his intellectual powers were mostly
concentrated on a doubtful swingle-tree, a misfitting collar, or that
there bay or piebald (on the off or near side) with the sore shoulder.
Casual letters or papers, to be delivered on the road, were matters
which troubled him vaguely, but constantly -- like the abstract ideas of
his passengers.
The joker of our party was a humourist of the dry order, and had been
slyly taking rises out of the driver for the last two or three stages. But
the driver only brooded. He wasn't the one to tell you straight if you
offended him, or if he fancied you offended him, and thus gain your
respect, or prevent a misunderstanding which would result in life-long

enmity. He might meet you in after years when you had forgotten all
about your trespass -- if indeed you had ever been conscious of it -- and
"stoush" you unexpectedly on the ear.
Also you might regard him as your friend, on occasion, and yet he
would stand by and hear a perfect stranger tell you the most outrageous
lies, to your hurt, and know that the stranger was telling lies, and never
put you up to it. It would never enter his head to do so. It wouldn't be
any affair of his -- only an abstract question.
It grew darker and colder. The rain came as if the frozen south were
spitting at your face