Australian Tales - Setis

outrage, you cowardly villain. We are gentlemen, and we — — ”
“Ho-ho-ho!” jeered the gardener. “Gentlemen, are you? That's just
what Dick Turpin and his mate, Tom King, the infamous highwaymen,
used to say. You look very genteel, certainly. Now, don't give me any
more of your sauce. Time's up — thrice. My name's Aaron Horseradish,
and that's my mark — I can't write.”
Saying which he pulled the trigger, and the charge of dust-shot
scattered through the tree, and a proportion of it entered the skins of poor
Joey and Jasper, who acknowledged the receipt thereof by a prolonged
howl.
“There, that's one; and as you don't seem to like that, I'll give you
another,” said Aaron; but just as he was about to give them another, his
attention was drawn to a number of horsemen, who were riding rapidly
through the bush towards him.
“Hoy, my man,” shouted one of the horsemen, “have you seen
anything of two nak — — ”
“Seen 'em? ay, to be sure I have,” interrupted old Horse-radish,
dancing and pointing with his gun to the tree with fiendish triumph,
while the dog got up and wagged his stumpy tail in delight, as if he were
exactly of the same opinion as his master — that the horsemen were
detectives, come out in search of two notorious bushrangers.
“Hurrah! here they are,” yelled Horseradish, as the strangers rode
rapidly up; “I've bailed them up in the tree, and I was just going to give
'em some more black pepper. They're an awful looking pair of scoun —
— ”
Before he could finish the libellous sentence he was knocked down,
gun and all, by the excited party of horsemen, who crowded round the
base of the tree. But the joyful exclamations of Goosgog and Spindles
drowned the cries of the unlucky gardener; with the howls of Growler
too, who had his toes trodden on by one of the panting steeds, and had
run away to his kennel lest he should get them trodden on again.
Words are inadequate to describe the delight of the two poor sufferers
at beholding the welcome faces of about half a score of their intimate
acquaintances; and it would be equally impossible to describe the
consternation of Aaron Horseradish, on finding that he had been shooting
at two respectable citizens of Sydney, instead of those terrible scourges
of society, Gardiner and Gilbert.
A rapid explanation followed, which I must give as rapidly. It appears
that some boys who had wandered along the rocks, from Coogee to
Bondi, had found, first of all, the market basket; and as “boys will be
boys,” they sat down and ate everything in it that was eatable. After they
had done so, and while they were perhaps looking about for another
basket to devour, they espied two heaps of clothing under a cliff, at
which they were rather alarmed, for they naturally concluded that the