“They tell me you have big trees in that Australia of yours,” he said. “Tell me now, are they as big as the Califorian redwoods?”
“I don’t know the redwoods,” Wally answered solemnly. “But ours are big. There’s a story of twelve men who started with axes and cross-cut saws to get a gum-tree down. They worked on one side for nine months and then they got bored with that, and they packed up and made a journey round to the other side. And there they found a party of fifteen men who’d been working at that side for a year, and they were very surprised——” Laughter overcame him suddenly at the sight of the priest’s amazed face.
“You young rascal!” said he, joining in the laugh against himself. “And I taking it all in so meekly!”
“I might go on, if you liked, sir, and tell you the story of the man who was out in the bush bringing home some calves,” said Wally.
“Well, he found his way blocked by a fallen tree, too big to get the calves over. So he started to drive them along it, to get round. When he didn’t come home they came to the conclusion that he had stolen the calves; and so they had to apologize to him, later on, when he turned up with a nice lot of bullocks. He said proudly that he hadn’t lost one, only they had grown up while they were on the journey!”
“That was a long tree!” said the priest, between chuckles. “Well, well, it must be a great country that will grow such timber—and such stories, and the boys to tell them!”
“I ought to beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Only no good Australian can resist telling tall stories about his tall trees. But I can tell you a true one of a tree I knew where seven men camped in the hollow butt. They had bunks built inside, all round it, and a table in the middle, and of course, space for a doorway. That tree was over fifty-five feet inside, and goodness only knows what it was outside, buttresses and all.”
“And it’s true, I suppose, that you could drive a coach-and-four through a tree?” the priest asked.
“Driving a coach-and-four through the hollowed-out stump of a tree used to be common enough with us,” said Jim. “Not that the four horses mattered: you might as well say ‘and twelve’; it was the width high enough up to take the top of the coach that meant a really big tree. It was easier to make a hollow shell fit for the passage of the coach than to get the whole tree cut down.”