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An’ another time I remember Tom’s coach broke down on the track, an’ he had to ride inter town with the mails on horseback; an’ he left a couple of greenhides, for Skinner the tanner at Mudgee, for me to take on in the wagon, an’ a bag of potatoes for Murphy the storekeeper at Home Rule, an’ a note that said: “Render unto Murphy the things which is murphies, and unto Skinner them things which is skins.” Tom was a hard case.

Well, this day, when Tom handed down the tucker an’ letters, he got down to stretch his legs and give the horses a breathe. The coach was full of passengers, an’ I noticed they all looked extra glum and sulky, but I reckoned it was the heat an’ dust. Tom looked extra solemn, too, an’ no one was talkin’. Then I suddenly began to notice something in the atmosphere, as if there was a dead beast not far away, an’ my mates started sniffin’ too. An’ that reminds me, it’s funny why some people allers sniff hard instead of keepin’ their noses shut when there’s a stink; the more it stinks the more they sniff. Tom spit in the dust an’ thought a while; then he took a parcel out of the boot an’ put it on the corner post of the fence. “There,” he said, “There’s some fresh fish that come up from Sydney by train an’ Cobb & Co’s coach larst night. They’re meant for White the publican at Gulgong, but they won’t keep this weather till I git out there. Pity to waste them! you chaps might as well have a feed of ’em. I’ll tell White they went bad an’ I had to throw them out,” says Tom. Then he got on to the coach agen an’ drove off in a cloud of dust. We undone the brown paper, an’ the fish was in a small deal box, with a lid fastened by a catch. We nicked back the catch an’ the lid flew open, an’ then we knowed where the smell comed from all right. There wasn’t any doubt about that! We didn’t have to put our noses in the box to see if the fish was bad. They was packed in salt, but that made no difference.

You know how a smell will start sudden in the bush on a hot, still day, an’ then seem to take a spell, an’ then get to work agen stronger than ever. You might be clost alongside of a horse that has been dead a fortnight an’ smell nothin’ particular till you start to walk away, an’ the further you go the worse it stinks. It seems to smell most round in a circle of a hundred yards or so. But these fish smelt from the centre right out. Tom Tarrant told us arterwards that them fish started to smell as soon as he left Mudgee. At first they reckoned it was a dead horse by the road; but arter a while the passengers commenced squintin’ at each other suspicious like, an’ the conversation petered out, an’ Tom thought he felt all their eyes on his back, an’ it was very uncomfortable; an’ he sat tight an’ tried to make out where the smell come from; an’ it got worse every hundred yards–like as if the track was lined with dead horses, an’ every one dead longer than the last–till it was like drivin’ a funeral. An’ Tom never thought of the fish till he got down to stretch his legs and fetched his nose on a level with the boot.

Well, we shut down the lid of that box quick an’ took it an’ throwed it in the bushes a good way away from the camp, but next mornin’, while we was havin’ breakfast, Billy Grimshaw got an idea, an’ arter breakfast he wetted a canvas bag he had an’ lit up his pipe, an’ went an’ got that there box o’ fish, an’ put it in the wet bag, an’ wrapped it tight round it an’ tied it up tight with string. Billy had a nipper of a nephew with him, about fourteen, named Tommy, an’ he was a sharp kid if ever there was one. So Billy says, “Look here, Tommy, you take this fish up to Mrs Hardwick’s an’ tell her that Dave Regan sent ’em with his compliments, an’ he hopes she’ll enjoy ’em. Tell her that Dave fetched ’em from Mudgee, but he’s gone back to look for a pound note that he dropped out of a hole in his pocket somewheers along the road, an’ he asked you to take the fish up.” So Tommy takes the fish an’ goes up to the house with ’em. When he come back he says that Mrs Hardwick smiled like a parson an’ give him a shillin’–an’ he didn’t wait. We watched the house, an’ about half an hour arterwards we seen her run out of the kitchen with the open box in her hand, an’ run a good way away from the house an’ throw the fish inter the bushes, an’ then go back quick, holdin’ her nose.