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“I suppose your old boozing mate’s wife was very happy when he reformed,” I said to Mitchell.

“Well, no,” said Mitchell, rubbing his head rather ruefully. “I suppose it was an exceptional case. But I knew her well, and the fact is that she got more discontented and thinner, and complained and nagged him worse than she’d ever done in his drinking days. And she’d never been afraid of him. Perhaps it was this way: She loved and married a careless, good-natured, drinking scamp, and when he reformed and became a careful, hard-working man, and an honest and respected fellow-townsman, she was disappointed in him. He wasn’t the man that won her heart when she was a girl. Or maybe he was only company for her when he was half drunk. Or maybe lots of things. Perhaps he’d killed the love in her before he reformed–and reformed too late. I wonder how a man feels when he finds out for the first time that his wife doesn’t love him any longer? But my old mate wasn’t the nature to find out that sort of thing. Ah, well! If a woman caused all our trouble, my God! women have suffered for it since–and they suffer like martyrs mostly and with the patience of working bullocks. Anyway it goes, if I’m the last man in the world, and the last woman is the worst, and there’s only room for one more in Heaven, I’ll step down at once and take my chances in Blazes.”

[The end]

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Some definitions and Australian slangs:

anabranch: A bend in a river that has been cut through by the stream. The main current now runs straight, the anabranch diverges and then rejoins. See billabong.

Barcoo-rot. “Persistent ulceration of the skin, chiefly on the hands, and often originating in abrasions”. (Morris, Australian English). Barcoo is a river in Queensland.

billabong. Based on an aboriginal word. Sometimes used for an anabranch, but more often used for one that, in dry season or droughts especially, is cut off at either or both ends from the main stream. It is often just a muddy pool, and may indeed dry up completely.

blackfellow: condescending for Australian Aboriginal

blackleg: someone who is employed to cross a union picket line to break a workers’ strike. As Molly Ivins said, she was brought up on the three great commandments: do not lie; do not steal; never cross a picket line. Also scab.

blanky or — : Fill in your own favourite word. Usually however used for “bloody”–see crimson/gory.

blooming: actually used in speech instead of “bloody” (see crimson).

bluey: swag. Explanation in Lawson’s “The romance of the Swag” here.

bob: one shilling

bullocky: Bullock driver. A man who drove teams of bullocks yoked to wagons carrying e.g. wool bales or provisions. Proverbially rough and foul mouthed.

bummer: A cadger or bludger. Someone who begs for food. Interesting Americanism already. Also, tramp. (Different meaning today)

bush: originally referred to the low tangled scrubs of the semi-desert regions (cf. `mulga’ and `mallee’), and hence equivalent to “outback”. Now used generally for remote rural areas (“the bush”) and scrubby forest.

bushfire: wild fires: whether forest fires or grass fires.

bushman/bushwoman: someone who lives an isolated existence, far from cities, “in the bush”. (today: a “bushy”)

bushranger: an Australian “highwayman”, who lived in the `bush’– scrub–and attacked especially gold carrying coaches and banks. Romanticised as anti-authoritarian Robin Hood figures–cf. Ned Kelly–but usually very violent.

bunyip: Aboriginal monster, inhabiting waterholes, billabongs particularly. Adopted into European legends.

caser: Five shillings (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound (“quid”)). As a coin, a crown piece.

chaffing: teasing, mocking good-humouredly

churchyarder: Sounding as if dying–ready for the churchyard = cemetery

crimson = gory: literary substitutes for “bloody”–the “colonial oath”, unacceptable in polite company. Why, is a complete mystery. Popularly explained as contraction of “by Our Lady”. Unproved. In reproducing (badly) a German’s pronunciation of Australian, Lawson retains the word, but spells it “pluddy”.