Part 33

“That's the worst part of it all, I think. The Oracle went up North somewhere. In the course of a year or two his affair got over Gippsland way through a mate of his who lived over there, and at last the story got to the ears of this girl, Bertha Bredt. She must have written a dozen letters to him, Aunt Bob said. She knew what was in 'em, but, of course, she'd never tell us. The Oracle only wrote one in reply. Then, what must the girl do but clear out from home and make her way over to Sydney--to Aunt Bob's place, looking for Tom. She never got any further. She took ill--brain-fever, or broken heart, or something of that sort. All the time she was down her cry was--'I want to see him! I want to find Tom! I only want to see Tom!'

“When they saw she was dying, Aunt Bob wired to the Oracle to come--and he came. When the girl saw it was Tom sitting by the bed, she just gave one long look in his face, put her arms round his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder--and died.... Here comes the Oracle now.”

Mitchell lifted the tea-billy on to the coals.

From the original advertisements (March, 1900), books by the same author:

When the World was Wide & Other Verses

By Henry Lawson, Author of “While the Billy Boils”.

Ninth Thousand. With photogravure portrait and vignette title. Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 5s.; post free, 5s. 5d.

Mr. R. Le Gallienne, in The Idler: “A striking volume of ballad poetry. A volume to console one for the tantalising postponement of Mr. Kipling's promised volume of sea ballads.”

Weekly Chronicle, Newcastle (Eng.): “Swinging, rhythmic verse.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “The verses have natural vigour, the writer has a rough, true faculty of characterisation, and the book is racy of the soil from cover to cover.”

Melbourne Age: “'In the Days when the World was Wide and Other Verses', by Henry Lawson, is poetry, and some of it poetry of a very high order.”

Otago Witness: “It were well to have such books upon our shelves... they are true History.”

New Zealand Herald: “There is a heart-stirring ring about the verses.”

Bulletin: “How graphic he is, how natural, how true, how strong.”

While the Billy Boils: Australian Stories.

By Henry Lawson.

Author of “In the Days when the World was Wide”.

Twelfth Thousand. With eight plates and vignette title by F. P. Mahony. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.; paper cover, 2s. 6d. (postage, 6d.)

Also in two parts (each complete in itself), in picture covers, at 1s.; post free, 1s. 3d. each (Commonwealth Series).

The Academy: “A book of honest, direct, sympathetic, humorous writing about Australia from within is worth a library of travellers' tales. Mr. Lawson shows us what living in the bush really means. The result is a real book--a book in a hundred. His language is terse, supple, and richly idiomatic.”

Mr. A. Patchett Martin, in Literature (London): “A book which Mrs. Campbell Praed, the Australian novelist, assured me made her feel that all she had written of bush life was pale and ineffective.”

The Spectator: “In these days when short, dramatic stories are eagerly looked for, it is strange that one we would venture to call the greatest Australian writer should be practically unknown in England. Short stories, but biting into the very heart of the bushman's life, ruthless in truth, extraordinarily dramatic, and pathetically uneven....”

The Times: “A collection of short and vigorous studies and stories of Australian life and character. A little in Bret Harte's manner, crossed, perhaps, with that of Guy de Maupassant.”

About the author:

Henry Lawson was born near Grenfell, New South Wales, Australia on 17 June 1867. Although he has since become Australia's most acclaimed writer, in his own lifetime his writing was often “on the side”--his “real” work being whatever he could find. His writing was frequently taken from memories of his childhood, especially at Pipeclay/Eurunderee. In his autobiography, he states that many of his characters were taken from the better class of diggers and bushmen he knew there. His experiences at this time deeply influenced his work, for it is interesting to note a number of descriptions and phrases that are identical in his autobiography and in his stories and poems. He died at Sydney, 2 September 1922. He is most famous for his short stories.

“On the Track” and “Over the Sliprails” were both published at Sydney in 1900, the prefaces being dated March and June respectively--and so, though printed separately, a combined edition was printed the same year (the two separate, complete works were simply put together in one binding); hence they are sometimes referred to as “On the Track and Over the Sliprails”. The opposite occurred with “Joe Wilson and His Mates”, which was later divided into “Joe Wilson” and “Joe Wilson's Mates” (1901). All of these works are now online, as well as one book of Lawson's verse, “In the Days When the World was Wide” (1896).

. . . . .

An incomplete glossary of Australian terms and concepts which may prove helpful to understanding this book: