The Wreck, 407 



with a crape band round his cabbage-tree hat. It was curious to 

 hear the ditFerent remarks as the body was hfted into the cart. The 

 sailors, of course, monopohzed this job, and "That's you," "End 

 on end," " Gently does it," "Cant him a little over," would have 

 sounded strangely in the ears of a professional undertaker. 



I did not go to the funeral, for I could not get a horse. More- 

 over, I wanted to put the tent a little to rights j and as soon as I 

 had shut the paddock-gates after the mournful procession, I wended 

 my way slowly back to the tent, accompanied by the two sailors. 

 The first thing I did was to cut the blood-stained branch off the 

 honeysuckle which caused his death 3 and I have it now, a memento 

 of the sad event. 



Death is a solemn subject at all times, and his presence is felt 

 equally in the palace as in the cottage j but never more deeply 

 than when he invades a small circle of men who are in a manner 

 isolated from the rest of the world, and whose sole dependence is 

 upon each other. The bushman has in general few friends, but 

 these few are bound to him by far stronger ties than the word 

 friendship generally conveys : and when one of the party is 

 snatched away, his form is missed at every turn. In the bush, at 

 the camp fire, in my wanderings over the lonely swamp, the dead 

 man had often been my only companion, and his cheery laugh stiU 

 seemed to ring in my ears 3 and where was he now ? No 3 a man 

 must seek the solitude of a bush tent to know the real meaning of 

 the word " mate." 



Night fell, and none of the funeral party had returned, and about 

 eleven, tired of watching, I threw myself in my clothes down upon 

 the bed which had so lately been occupied by a corpse. At day- 

 break a man from the hut, who was coming to fetch wood out of 

 the paddock, called at the tent, and told me that a horse and dray 

 were standing at the paddock fence. I went to fetch them home, 

 and found three horses with empty saddles behind the dray. As 

 soon as breakfast was ready, the first of the mourners appeared. 

 He had lost his horse on the plains, and had come home on foot j 



