Harry Heathcote of Gangoil quotes

Even if one gets a sunstroke one does not complain. The sun has a right to be there, and is no interloper, like a free-selector.

I can’t understand why free-selectors and mosquitoes should have been introduced into the arrangements of the world.

”

“There ain’t much difference in ’em, Mr. Heathcote.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

It’s getting uncommon close shaving for them wethers in the new paddock. They’re down upon the roots pretty well already.”

“

What does a man live for except to alter things?

When a man clears the forest and sows corn, does he not alter things?”

“

When thieves fall out, Mr. Bates, honest men come by their own.

”

What the glass of brandy-and-water was to Mickey O’Dowd after a fortnight’s solitude in a bush hut, with tea, dampers, and lumps of mutton, a young man in the guise of a gentleman was to poor Kate Daly.

A brother-in-law, let him be ever so good, is after all no better than tea without milk.

No doubt Mickey O’Dowd often thought about a nobbler in his thirsty solitude, and so did Kate speculate on what might possibly be the attractions of a lover. Medlicot probably indulged in no such speculations;

The men worked with a will, as though the whole run had been the personal property of each of them. Nokes and Boscobel would probably have done the same had the fires come before they had quarreled with their master.

It is a small and narrow point that turns the rushing train to the right or to the left.

The rushing man is often turned off by a point as small and narrow.

“I’m not going to pick my words because men like Nokes and Boscobel have the power of injuring me.

I’m not going to truckle to rascals because I’m afraid of them.

I’d sooner be burned out of house and home, and go and work on the wharves in Brisbane, than that.”

“

If the devil is to get ahead, he must, but I won’t hold a candle to him.

You fellows may tell every man about the place what I say. As long as I’m master of Gangoil I’ll be master; and when I come across a swindle I’ll tell the man who does it he’s a swindler. I told Bos to his face;

“Jackson will come quicker on him than on any animal he can get at Maryborough.” And so it was arranged, in spite of the wife’s tears and entreaties. Harry had his coffee and some food, and started, with his two horses, for the doctor.

Nature is so good to us that we are sometimes disposed to think we might have dispensed with art.

In the bush, where doctors can not be had, bones will set themselves; and when doctors do come, but come slowly, the broken bones suit themselves to such tardiness. Medlicot was brought in and put to bed.