Part 17 (2/2)
I replied, pulling the pack-saddle off Bunyip ”By the way, I'm to tell you that he'll be home presently”
”Nat a fear but he'll be hoot fur till ax a sthranger intil”
”Now, Mrs O'Halloran, it's the loveliest situation I've seen within a hundred miles,” I replied, as I set Cleopatra at liberty ”And the way that the place is kept reflects the very highest credit upon yourself”
Moreover, both coh for them that's niver been used till betther There's a dale in how a body's rairt”
”True, Mrs O'Halloran,” I sighed ”I'ht sort of children here! How old is the little girl?” My custoe of her child, and then express incredulity
”Oul'er nor she's good She was five on the thurteenth iv last month”
”No, but seriously, Mrs O'Halloran?”
”A' the thruth” And with this retort courteous the impervious woman retired into her house, while I seated ainst the wall, and proceeded to fill oras,” re me with instinctive courtesy ”We keep them for milkin'; an' Daddy shears the,” I replied ”They're beautiful goats
And I see you've got soht wan o' them chape, because he hed a sore back, fram a shearer, an' it's nat hailed up yit Daddy rides the other wans
E-e-e! can't row !”
”Yes; your Daddy's a good o, when there was no you What's your naot no narim voice frolance of the child in my face completed a mental appraisement of Rory's fah in this kind of conversation; then Rory caota conversation at the top of her voice while he was still a quarter of aher astride on the saddle, continued his ith the expression of aover
I had leisure to observe the child critically as she sat bareheaded beside Rory at the tea-table, glancing from time to time at me for the tribute of admiration due to each remark made by that nonpareil of ly beautiful child, but the stamp of child that expands into a beautiful woe and Antipodean birth, there was so racial index of her pure Irish face The black hair and eye-broere there, with eyes of indescribable blue; the full, shapely lips, and that delicate contour of chin which specially hest type of a race which is not only non-Celtic but non-Aryan
It is not the Celtic element that makes the Irish people a bundle of inconsistencies--clannish, yet disjunctive; ardent, yet unstable; faithful, yet perfidious; exceeding loveable for its own impulsive love, yet a broken reed to lean upon It is not the Celt who has made Irish history an unexampled record of patience and insubordination, of devotion and treachery The Celt, though fiery, is shrewd, sensible, and practical
It has been truly said that Western Britain is lo-Celtic le of the Tenth Legion was planted on the shore of Cantium-- before the first Phoenician shi+p stowed tin at the Cassiterides--the Celt had inhabited the British Islands long enough to branch into distinct sub-races, and to rise froery to the use of metals, the doious rites
Yet, relatively, this antique race is of last week only For, away beyond the Celt, paloeontology finds an earlier Brito-Irish people, of different origin and physical characteristics And there is little doubt that, forced ard by Celtic invaders, of anisation, that immemorial race is represented by the true Irish of to-day The black hair, associated with deep-blue eyes and a skin of extrest the offspring of Irish erants, are, in all probability, tokens of descent froly ancient people The type appears occasionally in the Basque provinces, and on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, but nowhere else
Few civilised races inhabit the land where the fossil relics of their own lineal ancestors mark the furthest point of human occupancy; yet it would seem to be so with the true Irish In what other way can this anomalous variety of the human race be accounted for? Ay, and beyond the earliest era noted by ethnography, this original Brito-Irish race must have differentiated itself froical succession, must have fixed its characteristics so tenaciously as to persist through the randoenerations ”God is eternal,” says a fine French apothegm, ”but man is very old”
And very new Mary O'Halloran was perfect Young-Australian To describe her froe--she was a very creature of the phenoence She was a child of the wilderness, a dryad a-descended poetry of her nature ladness of life; endowed each tree with sympathy, respondent to her own fellowshi+p She had noticed the dusky aspect of the ironwood; the volu the lordly currajong; the darker shade of the wilga'spine; the clean-spotted column of the leopard tree, crea She pitied the unlovely belar, when the wind sighed through its coarse, scanty, grey-green tresses; and she loved to conte myalls which, because of their rarity here, had been allowed to res of her vivacious existence, she had watched the deepening crireen leaves; she hadbloom of the scrub, in its many-hued beauty; she had revelled in the audacious black-and-scarlet glory of the desert pea
She knew the dwelling-place of every loved companion; and, by necessity, she had her own names for them all--since her explorations were carried out on Rory's shoulders, or on his saddle, and technicalities never troubled hiood All those impressions which endear the memory of early scenes to the careworn heart were hers in their vivid present, intensified by the strong ideality of her nature, and undisturbed by other cos us to the other mark of a personality so freshly minted as to have taken no uide, philosopher, and crony He was her overwheloodness; he was her help in ages past, her hope for years to come (no irreverence intended here; quite the reverse, for if true fa of ”Our Father, who art in heaven”); he was her Ancient of Days; her shi+eld, and her exceeding great reward
A new position for Rory; and he grasped it with all the avidity of a love-hungered soul The whole current of his affections, thwarted and repulsed by the world's indifference, found lavish outlet here
After tea, Rory took a billy and went out into the horse-paddock toto his side I reh respect which Rory's principles and abilities had always coive it up When a woenuine contempt to the spontaneous echo of her husband's popularity, it is a sure sign that she has explored the profound depths of masculine worthlessness; and there is no known antidote to this fatal enlightenment
Rory's next duty was to chop up a bit of firewood, and stack it beside the door Dusk was gathering by this tiht, while Rory and I seated ourselves on the bucket-stool outside Presently a lighted lamp was placed on the table, e rear from the co, cliht, but to compose herself to sleep