"Oh well, no offence, no offence," said the constable. "Come on,
men, if you've finished, it's no use wasting time round here."
The two young troopers thanked the mother for their breakfast, and
strange to say, the one who had spoken to her went up to Aunt Annie
and shook hands warmly with her. Then they went out, and mounting,
rode back in the direction of Mudgee. Uncle Abe winked long and hard
and solemnly at Andy Page, and Andy winked back like a mechanical
wooden image. The two women nudged and smiled and seemed quite
girlish, not to say skittish, all the morning. Something had come to
break the cruel hopeless monotony of their lives. And even the
settler became foolishly cheerful.
Five years later: same hut, same yard, and a not much wider clearing
in the gully, and a little more fencing--the women rather more haggard
and tired looking, the settler rather more horny-handed and silent,
and Uncle Abe rather more philosophical. The men had had to go out
and work on the stations. With the settler and his wife it was, "If
we only had a few pounds to get the farm cleared and fenced, and
another good plough horse, and a few more cows." That had been the
burden of their song for the five years and more.
Then, one evening, the mail boy left a parcel. It was a small parcel,
in cloth-paper, carefully tied and sealed. What could it be? It
couldn't be the Christmas number of a weekly they subscribed to, for
it never came like that.
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