a miser over
the first ten pounds I spent; but when I got down to the last I'd buy
things for the house. And now that I was getting on, I hated to spend
a pound on anything. But then, the farther I got away from poverty the
greater the fear I had of it--and, besides, there was always before us
all the thought of the terrible drought, with blazing runs as bare and
dusty as the road, and dead stock rotting every yard, all along the
barren creeks.

I had a long yarn with Mary's sister and her husband that night in
Gulgong, and it brightened me up. I had a fancy that that sort of a
brother-in-law made a better mate than a nearer one; Tom Tarrant had
one, and he said it was sympathy. But while we were yarning I couldn't
help thinking of Mary, out there in the hut on the Creek, with no one to
talk to but the children, or James, who was sulky at home, or Black
Mary or Black Jimmy (our black boy's father and mother), who weren't
oversentimental. Or maybe a selector's wife (the nearest was five
miles away), who could talk only of two or three things--'lambin'' and
'shearin'' and 'cookin' for the men', and what she said to her old man,
and what he said to her--and her own ailments--over and over again.

It's a wonder it didn't drive Mary mad!--I know I could never listen to
that woman more than an hour. Mary's sister said,--

'Now if Mary had a comfortable buggy, she could drive in with the
children oftener. Then she wouldn't feel the loneliness so much.'

I said 'Good night' then and turned in. There was no getting away from
that buggy. Whenever Mary's sister started hinting about a buggy, I
reckoned it was a put-up job between them.

III. The Ghost of Mary's Sacrifice.

When I got to Gudgeegong I stopped at Galletly's coach-shop to leave the
cart. The Galletlys were good fellows: there were two brothers--one was
a saddler and harness-maker. Big brown-bearded men--the biggest men in
the district, 'twas said.

Their old man had died lately and left them some money; they had men,
and only worked in their shops when they felt inclined, or there was a
special work to do; they were both first-class tradesmen. I went into
the painter's shop to have a look at a double buggy that Galletly had
built for a man who couldn't pay cash for it when it was finished--and
Galletly wouldn't trust him.

There it stood, behind a calico screen that the coach-painters used to
keep out the dust when they were varnishing. It was a firs