But he was probably neither a pretty nor an
interesting boy; for as a man he was of the very
plainest, with a short figure, always negligently " put
on," a rough, mannerless way, and a voice husky and
hoarse, although redeemed at times into an approach
to commanding an audience, when he was strongly
stirred in some exciting cause. Some people have no
patience to subdue natural antipathies in such cases,
and these people would, as well-known scripture
(with some transposition of the idea) tells us, be apt
to be most plentiful "in his own country." But, again,
Fawkner was himself a convict Yes, but for what ?
Certainly if a man so notorious in after life had com-
mitted any very disparaging crime it must have been as
notorious as his name. But I never heard anything
distinctive beyond that he had, for something or
other, passed under the Caudine Forks of the Van
Diemen's Land Criminal Courts. Inevitably his early
upbringing was in low associations, where, probably,
ties of friendly feeling survived, as to which he might



Early Melbourne and Victoria. 67

have said with the bard of Avon — " I am not of that
feather to shake off my friend when he must need
me" {Timon of Athena). My impression was that he
had been convicted of harbouring, or aiding to escape,
some who had broken the law, whatever more that
may have meant, for, with his pluck, he was probably
little troubled about niceties of fine feeling, and,
thus accoutred. Providence dropped the man amongst
altogether different circumstances and associations
in his new location.
