CHAPTER VI.
THE BROWNBIES OF BOOLABONG.
Old Brownbie, as he was usually called, was a squatter also, but a squatter of a class very different from that to which Heathcote belonged.

He had begun his life in the colonies a little under a cloud, having been sent out from home after the perpetration of some peccadillo of which the law had disapproved.
In colonial phrase, he was a "lag"-- having been transported; but this was many years ago, when he was quite young; and he had now been a free man for more than thirty years.

It must be owned on his behalf that he had worked hard, had endeavored to rise, and had risen.

But there still stuck to him the savor of his old life.

Every one knew that he had been a convict; and even had he become a man of high principle--a condition which he certainly never achieved--he could hardly have escaped altogether from the thralldom of his degradation.
He had been a butcher, a drover, part owner of stock, and had at last become possessed of a share of a cattle-run, and then of the entire property, such as it was.