opportunity of asserting his faithfulness and importance to his
church.

The grave looked very narrow under the coffin, and I drew a breath of
relief when the box slid easily down. I saw a coffin get stuck once,
at Rookwood, and it had to be yanked out with difficulty, and laid on
the sods at the feet of the heart-broken relations, who howled
dismally while the grave-diggers widened the hole. But they don't cut
contracts so fine in the West. Our grave-digger was not altogether
bowelless, and, out of respect for that human quality described as
"feelin's," he scraped up some light and dusty soil and threw it
down to deaden the fall of the clay lumps on the coffin. He also
tried to steer the first few shovelfuls gently down against the end of
the grave with the back of the shovel turned outwards, but the hard
dry Darling River clods rebounded and knocked all the same. It didn't
matter much--nothing does. The fall of lumps of clay on a stranger's
coffin doesn't sound any different from the fall of the same things on
an ordinary wooden box--at least I didn't notice anything awesome or
unusual in the sound; but, perhaps, one of us--the most
sensitive--might have been impressed by being reminded of a burial of
long ago, when the thump of every sod jolted his heart.

I have left out the wattle--because it wasn't there. I have also
neglected to mention the heart-broken old mate, with his grizzled head
bowed and great pearly drops streaming down his rugged cheeks. He was
absent--he was probably "Out Back." For similar reasons I have
omitted reference to the suspicious moisture in the eyes of a bearded
bush ruffian named Bill. Bill failed to turn up, and the only
moisture was that which was induced by the heat. I have left out the
"sad Australian sunset" because the sun was not going down at the