A Stranger’s Challenge

This humorous bush ballad by Paterson depicts a cunning stranger getting revenge on locals who tried deceiving him. Through ironic twists, Paterson celebrates the wit and grit of the Aussie larrikin.

The poem ‘A Walgett Episode‘ sets up a classic tale of comeuppance as the “cockatoo” (foreigner) arrives in the outback town only to be duped into betting on a supposedly wild horse that turns out to be wooden. The smug townspeople mock the stranger as just another naïve “new chum” to swindle.

However, Paterson masterfully pivots the story as the stranger tricks the Walgett townspeople right back, selling them “marsupial skins” that are really still attached to live kangaroos. His ruse punishes their mean-spirited hazing of newcomers.

Paterson revels in the hilarious absurdity of the scam and the “silence” falling over the shocked town realizing they’ve been outfoxed. The stranger’s victory symbolizes the Australian spirit triumphing through cleverness despite the odds.

With humorous irony, Paterson cautions against underestimating new arrivals. The stranger’s resilience and practical joke on the duplicitous locals make for an entertaining underdog tale celebrating Aussie ingenuity and irreverence.

A Walgett Episode

The sun strikes down with a blinding glare;
The skies are blue and the plains are wide,
The saltbush plains that are burnt and bare
By Walgett out on the Barwon side—
The Barwon River that wanders down
In a leisurely manner by Walgett Town.

There came a stranger—a “Cockatoo”—
The word means farmer, as all men know,
Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo
Barks loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow
Uplifts his song on the stock-yard fence
As he watches the lambkins passing hence.

The sunburnt stranger was gaunt and brown,
But it soon appeared that he meant to flout
The iron law of the country town,
Which is—that the stranger has got to shout:
“If he will not shout we must take him down,”
Remarked the yokels of Walgett Town.

They baited a trap with a crafty bait,
With a crafty bait, for they held discourse
Concerning a new chum who there of late
Had bought such a thoroughly lazy horse;
They would wager that no one could ride him down
The length of the city of Walgett Town.

The stranger was born on a horse’s hide;
So he took the wagers, and made them good
With his hard-earned cash—but his hopes they died,
For the horse was a clothes-horse, made of wood!—
’Twas a well-known horse that had taken down
Full many a stranger in Walgett Town.

The stranger smiled with a sickly smile—
’Tis a sickly smile that the loser grins—
And he said he had travelled for quite a while
A-trying to sell some marsupial skins.
“And I thought that perhaps, as you’ve took me down,
You would buy them from me, in Walgett Town!”

He said that his home was at Wingadee,
At Wingadee, where he had for sale
Some fifty skins and would guarantee
They were full-sized skins, with the ears and tail
Complete; and he sold them for money down
To a venturesome buyer in Walgett Town.

Then he smiled a smile as he pouched the pelf,
“I’m glad that I’m quit of them, win or lose:
You can fetch them in when it suits yourself,
And you’ll find the skins—on the kangaroos!”
Then he left—and the silence settled down
Like a tangible thing upon Walgett Town.