more wood, swept the hearth, put a parcel of fresh steak and
sausages--brought by the coach--on to a clean plate on the table, and
got some potatoes into a dish; for Chatswood had told her that her
first and longest and favourite stepson was not far behind him with
the bullock team. Before she had finished the potatoes she heard the
clock-clock of heavy wheels and the crack of the bullock whip coming
along the dark bush track.

But the very next morning a man riding back from Croydon called, and
stuck his head under the veranda eaves with a bush greeting, and she
told him all about it.

He straightened up, and tickled the back of his head with his little
finger, and gaped at her for a minute.

"Why," he said, "that wasn't no excise officer. I know him well--I
was drinking with him at the Royal last night afore we went to bed,
an' had a nip with him this morning afore we started. Why! that's
Bobby Howell, Burns and Bridges' traveller, an' a good sort when he
wakes up, an' willin' with the money when he does good biz, especially
when there's a chanst of a drink on a long road on a dark night."

"That Harry Chatswood again! The infernal villain," she cried, with
a jerk of her arm. "But I'll be even with him, the dirrty blaggard.
An' to think--I always knew Old Jack was a white man an'--to think!
There's fourteen shillin's gone that Old Jack would have paid me, an'
the traveller was good for three shillin's f'r the nips, an'--but Old
Jack will pay me next time, and I'll be even with Harry Chatswood, the
dirrty mail carter. I'll take it out of him in parcels--I'll be even
with him."