'Yes,' he said; 'but 'twasn't Hamlet.'

'Go on!' The boys looked back apprehensively.

'No, 'twasn't. 'Twas a big feller. I dunno who; but he must 'a' bin a
bushranger, 'r a feller what's escaped from gaol, 'r someone. Did you
coves see which way he went?'

'No,' said Ted fearfully; and a simultaneous move was made towards the
township. The boys were not cowards, but they had plenty of discretion.

'Look here,' Dick continued impressively; 'no matter who 'twas, we've
gotter keep dark, see. If we don't it'll be found out what we was all up
to, an' we'll get more whack-o.'

The party was unanimous on this point; and when Dick returned home he
shocked his mother with a lively account of how he slipped in the quarry
and fell a great depth, striking his head on a rock, and being saved from
death only by the merest chance imaginable.

CHAPTER VII.

The small, wooden Wesleyan chapel at Waddy was perched on an eminence at
the end of the township furthest from the Drovers' Arms. The chapel,
according to the view of the zealous brethren who conducted it,
represented all that counted for righteousness in the township, and the
Drovers' Arms the head centre of the powers of evil. For verbal
convenience in prayer and praise the hotel was known as 'The Sink of
Iniquity,' and the chapel as 'This Little Corner of the Vineyard,' and
through the front windows of the latter, one sabbath morn after another