country, turning up now and then at Boolabong and demanding food. Of
the whole lot Georgie Brownbie, the vagabond, was the worst. The
eldest son was at this time in prison at Brisbane, having on some
late occasion been less successful than usual in regard to some
acquired bullocks. The three youngest were at home--Jerry, Jack, and
Joe. Tom, who was in prison, was the only stanch friend to the
father, who consequently at this time was in a more than usually
depressed condition.

Christmas-day would fall on a Tuesday, and on the Monday before it
Jerry Brownbie, the eldest of those now at home, was sitting, with a
pipe in his mouth, on a broken-down stool on the broken-down veranda
of the house, and the old man was seated on a stuffy, worn-out sofa
with three legs, which was propped against the wall of the house, and
had not been moved for years. Old Brownbie was a man of gigantic
frame, and had possessed immense personal power--a man, too, of will
and energy; but he was now worn out and dropsical, and could not move
beyond the confines of the home station. The veranda was attached to
a big room which ran nearly the whole length of the house, and which
was now used for all purposes. There was an exterior kitchen, in
which certain processes were carried on--such as salting stolen
mutton and boiling huge masses of meat, when such work was needed.
But the cookery was generally done in the big room. And here also two
or three of the sons slept on beds made upon stretchers along the
wall. They were not probably very particular as to which owned each
bed, enjoying a fraternal communism in that respect. At the end of
this chamber the old man had a room of his own. Boolabong was
certainly a miserable place; and yet, such as it was, it was
frequented by many guests. The vagabondism of the colonies is
proverbial. Vagabonds are taken in almost every where throughout the