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<title> Remembering Babylon Lachlan Beattie - a tough guy </title>
I have chosen to describe Lachlan Beattie. He interested me most. He was born in Scotland. When he was nine years old his father was killed in a pit accident and he had to move to Queensland to his aunt and her family. He was a stuck-up tough guy when he arrived. He was a bit vulnerable though, since he easily cried. If he got a chance to show how good he was he easily took it. According to himself, and others, he was smart, but had wrong attitude. He enjoyed being best. When he could he took advantage of it. As he got older he, as most people, came to maturity a bit. He ended up as Minister who probably would lose his job, but he seemed to manage. 

When he first arrived to Queensland his cousin Janet got very disappointed. 
She had longed for him to come and had prepared to show him her secrets and treasures, but he was too cool and did not care about such stupid things. What she did not think about was that he might be scared of this new life he was going to live.
"... when he arrived he showed no gratitude for the chance they were offering him, and wasn't at all pleased to see them. He was a stocky, tough lad of nine, a town boy. Airdrie, he told them loftily, was a toon. The bush - it wasn't even country - was of no interest to him, [...] the things they had been saving to show him, all their little treasures and secrets, were in his eyes poor [...] She felt humiliated, as if the poverty was in them. It did not occur to her that he might be protecting himself; that his refusal to enter into their world might be a fear of losing, more than he had done already, the one he had left and was heartsick for. He scoffed and swaggered. Nothing here was good enough for him." (p55)

Even Lachlan had his weak point. Janet noticed that he easily cried. "He was very proud and like to believe he was tough, but he cried easily, she could make him cry." (p56)

Lachlan was the one who best understood what Gemmy (who was brought to the settlement by Lachaln and his two cousins) said. He acted as a translator. He was very cocky because of that and was determined to make the most of it. His thoughts and actions describe it: "Only he, as yet, had any clear hold on what the fellow was trying to say." (p17) and "...he would deliberately hold back and make them wait, screwing his face up, pretending to be stumped, so that, with a shout of triumph and a little knock of his knuckles against his skull at his own stupidity, he could the more dramatically come up with an answer." (p12) 

He was very smart but his schoolmaster George Abbot did not like his attitude: "He was very smart; this Lachaln Beattie, and might easily have become his favourite; took it for granted, in fact, that he must be. Quick-witted and free in his nature, full of pert assurance that George recognised only too well, and hungry for praise, he had done everything he could at first to draw attention to himself and win approval; and for this very reason George was determined from the start to deny it." (p52)

When Lachlan was thirteen he had to make a hard decision. Until now he had protected Gemmy: "It was a matter of honour with him to stand up for Gemmy whatever the cost." (p157) He had to choose: still hanging around with Gemmy or be with the cool older guys. He did not choose Gemmy. "He was sorry for it. But it was absurd to have Gemmy always tagging at his heels, and he blushed now to recall a time when he had regarded it as a sign of his power. How puffed he had been with his own importance! What a fool he must have appeared to the very fellows he had meant to impress!" (p158)
In the last few years he had grown to man's estate. It had much to do with his schoolmaster who was the person who let him be aware of his place. "His enlightenment had begun with the humiliation the schoolmaster had heaped upon him, and though he did not thank the man for it, he saw now that having set his face in the direction of manhood, he could not turn back." (p158)

As an adult he became a Minister, but after a scandal he risked losing his job. He seemed to be fine, although. He told Janet, or sister Monica,: "I've embarrassed the Government, that's the real issue. It's my colleagues who'll get rid of me..." (p191)
"'It's to be on Wednesday. I wanted you to know beforehand. They'll give the usual reasons, poor health, you know, as if I were fair worn oot - '" (p193) But he seemed to be in good shape and he said himself: "' I've never been fitter'" (p193) 

In short: In the beginning Lachlan made me feel uncomfortable but in the end of the story I sympathize with him.
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