Part 30 (1/2)
”Oh, don't mention it! I' desperately
”Well, good-bye, Miss Je her hand
”I ain, soers met
”I hope so,” she faltered
”Good-bye, Ji her hand
”Good-bye” The word sounded like a breath of evening air, kissing the she-oak foliage
Then the maiden with the meek brown eyes, and the pathetic evidence of Australian nationality on her upper lip, returned to her simple duties
And the remembrance of Mrs Beaudesart came down on me like a thousand of bricks Such is life
ButMy loco had jolted its way over the rough section, carrying away an obstruction labelled VR, and had reached the next points I was still two or three days ahead of my official work; and there had happened to be a stray half-crown in the pocket of the spare oriflamme I had unfurled at th of that half-crown, draw uileful letter, containing a s? This would test his awfulness at finding out things, besides giving myself, morally, a clean bill of health Or should I first walk across to B----'s and get dick L---- to shi+ft sonorance re Palestine?
I decided on the latter line of action, and followed it with--Well, at all events, I have the conity uncompromised, and a nonchalance unruffled, in the face of dick's really interesting descriptions of South-eastern Tase, I merely remarked that the default was caused my circumstances over which &c
I spent a couple of days, besides Sunday, at B----'s place; while the fisherman kept an eye on my horses I helped B---- to work out a new and rotten idea of a wind- the other end On the first afternoon, a couple of hours after my arrival, I drove into for so done, I looked in at the Express office, and had a gossip with Archimedes on the topics of the day
And nohilst duly appreciating the rectitude of soul which has carrieddisclosure, you will surely condone the obscurity in which I have been compelled to envelop all names used herein
CHAPTER IV
SUN DEC 9 Dead Man's Bend Warrigal Alf down Rescue twice
Enlisted Terrible Tommy
Noould your novelist rede you fro mysterious and momentous, no doubt, and probably connected with buried treasure Yet it is only the abstract and brief chronicle of a fair average day; a day happy in having no history worth , an idle ely composed of such uneventful days; and these are therefore most worthy of careful analysis
How easy it is to recall the scene! The Lachlan river, filled by su thesilently past, and going to waste Irregular areas of lignuht, representing swarowth, indicating billabongs of the river The river itself fringed, and the adjacent low ground dotted, with swauiants of its species on the Murray and Lower Goulburn On both sides of the river, far as the eye can coht-red soil, broken here and there by clumps and belts of swamp box, now cut off frolassy stratum of the lower atmosphere
And where the boundary fence of Mondunbarra and Avondale crosses the plain, is seen a fair exauely apprehended in regions outside its domain, and so little noticed where repetition hasfil distortion of objects in middle-distance, but, to all appearance, a fine sheet of silvery water, two hundred yards distant, about the saht to left
Both banks are clearly defined; irregular promontories jut far out into the smooth water from each side; and the boundary fence crosses it, post after post, in di in shallow, sunlit water The most critical and deliberate examination can no more detect evidence of phantasy in the unreal water than in the real fence
The e is one of Nature's obscure and cheerless jokes; and in this instance, as in some few others, she is beyond Art
She even assists the illusion by a very slight depression of the plain in the right place In fact, an artist's picture of a e would be his picture of a level-brimmed, unruffled lake; also, theto contrast the appearance of water with that of its fac-siyman taxed to differentiate his creed fro the opposition
And Nature, in taking this mirthless rise out of the spectator, never repeats herself in the particulars of distance, area or configuration of her simulacre; it may be a mere stripe across the road--the brown, sinuous track disappearing beneath its surface, to re-appear on the opposing shore--it ie; or it may be the counterfeit presenth this last is rare
A hot day is not an iround must be open plain, or nearly so; the athly dry It is worthy of notice that horses and cattle are entirely insusceptible to the illusion Another fact, not so noteworthy in view of the general perversity of inanie when you are watching for it to decide an argument It always presents itself when you have no interest in it In this quality of irredeemable cussedness it resembles the e for it; no one ever found it except he was in a raging hurry, with a long stage to go, and no likelihood of co back by the same route
To complete the picture--which I want you to carry in yourunder a coolibah--standing heads and points, after thethe flies andthem off such parts of his own body as possessed the requisite faculty And in the centre of a clear place, a couple of hundred yards away, you on, apparently deserted; the heavy wool-tarpaulin, dark with dust and grease, thrown across the arched jigger, for over the wheels nearly to the ground, yet displaying the outline of the Sydney pattern--which, as every schoolgirl knows, differs froround of this picture, youis an ill phrase, and peculiarly inapplicable just here--we'll say, reclining, pipe into re-peruse one of Ouida's novels, and thinking (ah! your worshi+p's a wanton) what a sweet, spicy, piquant thing it ress with slumbrous dark eyes