The Hillyars and the Burtons by Henry Kingsley

THE talk of the colony, for a week or so, turned upon nothing else but the gallant exploit of Lieutenant Hillyar with the bush-rangers. He became the hero of the day. His orderly persuaded him to have his hair cut; and the locks went off like smoke at half-a-crown apiece; so fast, indeed, that the supply fell short of the demand, and had to be supplied from the head of a young Danish trooper, who, after this, happening to get drunk in Palmerston, while in plain clothes, and not being recognized, was found to be so closely cropped that it was necessary to remand him for inquiries, as it was obvious to the meanest capacity that he had n't been out of jail more than a couple of days.

The papers had leading articles upon it. The Palmerston Sentinel (squatter* interest, conservative, aristocratic,) said that this was your old English blood, and that there was nothing like it. The Mohawk (progress of the species and small farm interest, ) said, on the other hand, that this Lieutenant Hillyar was one of those men who had been unjustly hunted out of his native land by the jealousy of an accursed and corrupt aristocracy, in consequence of his liberal tendencies, and his fellow-feeling for the (so--called) lower orders. And this abominable Mohawk, evidently possessed of special knowledge, in trying to prove the habitual condescension of George Hillyar towards his inferiors, did so rake up all his old blackguardisms that Mr. Secretary Oxton was as near mad as need be.