hmen
stand in awe of sickness and death.

But after I'd fixed him comfortably and given him a drink from the water
bag the greyness left his face, and he pulled himself together a bit; he
drew up his arms and folded them across his chest. He let his head rest
back against the tree--his slouch hat had fallen off revealing a broad,
white brow, much higher than I expected. He seemed to gaze on the azure
fin of the range, showing above the dark blue-green bush on the horizon.

Then he commenced to speak--taking no notice of me when I asked him if
he felt better now--to talk in that strange, absent, far-away tone that
awes one. He told his story mechanically, monotonously--in set words, as
I believe now, as he had often told it before; if not to others, then to
the loneliness of the bush. And he used the names of people and places
that I had never heard of--just as if I knew them as well as he did.

"I didn't want to bring her up the first year. It was no place for a
woman. I wanted her to stay with her people and wait till I'd got the
place a little more ship-shape. The Phippses took a selection down the
creek. I wanted her to wait and come up with them so's she'd have some
company--a woman to talk to. They came afterwards, but they didn't stop.
It was no place for a woman.

"But Mary would come. She wouldn't stop with her people down country.
She wanted to be with me, and look after me, and work and help me."

He repeated himself a great deal--said the same thing over and over
again sometimes. He was only mad on one track. He'd tail off and
sit silent for a while; then he'd become aware of me in a hurried,
half-scared way, and apologise for putting me to all that trouble, and
thank me. "I'll be all right d'reckly. Best take the horses up to the
hut and have some breakfast; you'll find it by the fire. I'll foller
you, d'reckly. The wife'll be waitin' an'----" He would drop off, and be
going again presently on the old track:--

"Her mother was coming up to stay awhile at the end of the year, but the
old man hurt his leg. Then her married sister was coming, but one of the
youngsters got sick and there was trouble at home. I saw the doctor in
the town--thirty miles from here--and fixed it up with him. He was a
boozer--I'd 'a shot him afterwards. I fixed up with a woman in the town
to come and stay. I thought Mary was wrong in her time. She must have
been a month or six weeks out. But I listened to her.... Don't argue
wit