An Outback Marriage

Another striking feature was the way in which they got themselves

mixed up with each other. Their names were so tangled up that no

one could keep tally of them. There was a Red Mick Donohoe (son

of the old publican), and his cousin Black Mick Donohoe, and Red

Mick's son Mick, and Black Mick's son Mick, and Red Mick's son

Pat, and Black Mick's son Pat; and there was Gammy Doyle (meaning

Doyle with the lame leg), and Scrammy Doyle (meaning Doyle with

the injured arm), and Bosthoon Doyle and Omadhaun Doyle--a Bosthoon

being a man who never had any great amount of sense to speak of,

while an Omadhaun is a man who began life with some sense, but lost

most of it on his journey. It was a common saying in the country-side

that if you met a man on the mountains you should say, "Good-day,

Doyle," and if he replied, "That's not my name," you should at once

say, "Well, I meant no offence, Mr. Donohoe."

One could generally pick which was which of the original stock,

but when they came to intermarry there was no telling t'other from

which. Startling likenesses cropped up among the relatives, and

it was widely rumoured that one Doyle who was known to be in jail,

and who was vaguely spoken of by the clan as being "away," was in

fact serving an accumulation of sentences for himself and other

members of the family, whose sins he had for a consideration taken

on himself.

With such neighbours as these fighting him for every block of

land, Andrew Gordon soon came to the end of his resources, and it

was then that he had to take in his old manager as a partner. Before

Bully Grant had been in the firm long, he had secured nearly all

the good land, and the industrious yeomanry that the Land Act was

supposed to create were hiding away up the gullies on miserable

little patches of bad land, stealing sheep for a living. Bully

fought them stoutly, impounded their sheep and cattle, and prosecuted

trespassers and thieves; and, his luck being wonderful, he soon

added to the enormous fortune he had made in mining, while Andrew

Gordon died impoverished. When he died, old Bully gave the management

of the stations to his sons, and contented himself with finding

fault. But one dimly-remembered episode in his career was talked of

by the old hands around Kiley's Hotel, long after Grant had become

a wealthy man, and had gone for long trips to England.

Grant, in spite of the judgment and sagacity on which he prided

himself, had at various times in his career made mistakes--mistakes

in station management, mistakes about stock, mistakes about men,

and last, but not least, mistakes about women; and it was to one

of these mistakes that the gossips referred.