The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson

Author:Rohan Wilson [Wilson, Rohan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9781616953126
Google: EZOdAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00EX433MG
Barnesnoble: B00EX433MG
Goodreads: 18404625
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2011-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

In the afternoon the company reached a creek edging the grasslands to the south where the forest walled off the plain and the chirruping of frogs sounded out the seconds. All of the party men placed their feet with care as they went among the stones near the water as it was known that snakes bred there in profusion. The creek itself was a dull trickle. The rovers refilled their canteens and drank as the frogs piped mindlessly in the shallows. Along the road further they passed a cete of badgers moving away as the men approached. The badgers had burrows on the plain and laboured off to these diggings. Some buried only their heads, leaving their bodies exposed. The assignees kicked at the animals but the badgers were as solid as barrels and clung to the earth with inch-long claws. The men kicked and dragged at the stumpy legs but the animals huddled up tighter into circles.

John Batman came alongside Bill to pass him a canteen. They stood together in the saplings grown high along the grassed embankment and watched the men at their foolery. It was untended country, unburned. There were wiry stems, the very beginnings of trees, sprouting in the soil. Gums for the most part, as sheep refused their bitter leaves, but blackwoods as well. Little stands of tea-trees too placed about as if by some enormous hand. All bending in the weather.

Batman screwed up his eyes in the low winter sun. I’d say the blacks have given up on this pasture.

Bill drank again from the canteen and recorked it as he began walking off along the track. They can no more give it up than you can give up yer hands and feet, he said.

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