Length20h 54m
About this audiobook
Excerpt: "Bill Hardwick was as fine a specimen of an Australian as you could find in a day's march. Active as a cat and strong withal, he was mostly described as 'a real good all-round chap, that you couldn't put wrong at any kind of work that a man could be asked to do.' He could plough and reap, dig and mow, put up fences and huts, break in horses and drive bullocks; he could milk cows and help in the dairy as handily as a woman. These and other accomplishments he was known to possess, and being a steady, sensible fellow, was always welcome when work was needed and a good man valued. Besides all this he was the fastest and the best shearer in the district of Tumut, New South Wales, where he was born, as had been his father and mother before him. So that he was a true Australian in every sense of the word. It could not be said that the British race had degenerated as far as he was concerned. Six feet high, broad-chested, light-flanked, and standing on his legs like a gamecock, he was always ready to fight or work, run, ride or swim, in fact to tackle any muscular exercise in the world at the shortest notice. Bill had always been temperate, declining to spend his earnings to enrich the easy-going township publican, whose mode of gaining a living struck him as being too far removed from that of honest toil. Such being his principles and mode of life, he had put by a couple of hundred pounds, and 'taken up a selection.' This means (in Australia) that he had conditionally purchased three hundred and twenty acres of 2Crown Land, had paid up two shillings per acre of the upset price, leaving the balance of eighteen shillings, to be paid off when convenient. He had constructed thereon, chiefly with his own hands, a comfortable, four-roomed cottage, of the 'slab' architecture of the period, and after fencing in his property and devoting the proceeds of a couple of shearings to a modest outlay in furniture, had married Jenny Dawson, a good-looking, well-conducted young woman, whom he had known ever since he was big enough to crack a stockwhip."
Audiobook details
GenreGeneral Fiction, Fantasy
Length20 hrs 54 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJul 24, 2020
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1In Bad Company,
29ACT IV
2CHAPTER I
30BUSH HOSPITALITY
3CHAPTER II
31LAPSED GENTLEFOLK
4CHAPTER III
32SHEARING IN RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES
5CHAPTER IV
33ANCIENT SYDNEY
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6CHAPTER V
34AFTER LONG YEARS
7CHAPTER VI
35IN THE DROVING DAYS
8CHAPTER VII
36THE AUSTRALIAN NATIVE-BORN TYPE
9CHAPTER VIII
37MY SCHOOL DAYS
10CHAPTER IX
38SYDNEY FIFTY YEARS AGO
11MORGAN THE BUSHRANGER
39OLD TIME THOROUGHBREDS
12HOW I BECAME A BUTCHER
40THE FIRST PORT FAIRY HUNT
13MOONLIGHTING ON THE MACQUARIE
41BENDEMEER
14AN AUSTRALIAN ROUGHRIDING CONTEST
42SPORT IN AUSTRALIA
15THE MAILMAN'S YARN AN OWER TRUE TALE
43OLD STOCK-RIDERS
16DEAR DERMOT
44MOUNT MACEDON
17THE STORY OF AN OLD LOG-BOOK
45WALKS ABROAD
18A KANGAROO SHOOT
46FROM TUMUT TO TUMBERUMBA
19FIVE MEN'S LIVES FOR ONE HORSE
47IN THE THROES OF A DROUGHT
20REEDY LAKE STATION
48A SPRING SKETCH
21A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY
49NEW YEAR'S DAY 1886
22THE HORSE YOU DON'T SEE NOW
50A DRY TIME
23HOW I BEGAN TO WRITE
51AUSTRALIAN COLLIES
24A MOUNTAIN FOREST
52IN THE BLOOM OF THE YEAR
25THE FREE SELECTOR A Comedietta
53FALLEN AMONG THIEVES
26ACT I
54A TRANSFORMATION SCENE
27ACT II
55IN BUSHRANGING DAYS
28ACT III
