Ned was a Down's native, every inch of him. He stood five feet eleven in
his bare feet yet was so broad and strong that he hardly looked over the
medium height. He had blue eyes and a heavy moustache just tinged with
red. His hair was close-cut and dark; his forehead, nose and chin wore
large and strong; his lips were strangely like a woman's. He walked with
short jerky steps, swinging himself awkwardly as men do who have been
much in the saddle. He wore a white shirt, as being holiday-making, but
had not managed a collar; his pants were dark-blue, slightly belled; his
coat, dark-brown; his boots wore highly polished; round his neck was a
silk handkerchief; round his vestless waist, a discoloured leather belt;
above all, a wide-brimmed cabbage tree hat, encircled by a narrow leather
strap. He swung himself along rapidly, unabashed by the stares of the
women or the impudent comment of the children. Nellie, suddenly, felt all
her ill-humour turn against him. He was so satisfied with himself. He
had talked unionism to her when she met him two weeks before, on his way
to visit a brother who had taken up a selection in the Hawkesbury
district. He had laughed when she hinted at the possibilities of the
unionism he championed so fanatically. "We only want what's fair," he
said. "We're not going to do anything wild. As long as we get £1 a
hundred and rations at a fair figure we're satisfied." And then he had
inconsistently proceeded to describe how the squatters treated the men
out West, and how the union would make them civil, and how the said
squatters were mostly selfish brutes who preferred Chinese to their own
colour and would stop at no trick to beat the men out of a few shillings.
She had said nothing at the time, being so pleased to see him, though she
determined to have it out with him sometime during this holiday they had
planned. But somehow, as he stepped carelessly along, a dashing manliness
in every motion, a breath of the great plains coming with his sunburnt
face and belted waist, he and his self-conceit jarred to her against this
sordid court and these children's desolate lives. How dared he talk as he