clined to wheel his team an inch out of the middle of the
road. I stopped my horses and waited. He looked at me and I looked at
him--hard. Then he wheeled off, scowling, and swearing at his horses.
I'd given him a hiding, six or seven years before, and he hadn't
forgotten it. And I felt then as if I wouldn't mind trying to give some
one a hiding.

The goods clerk must have thought that Joe Wilson was pretty grumpy that
day. I was thinking of Mary, out there in the lonely hut on a barren
creek in the Bush--for it was little better--with no one to speak to
except a haggard, worn-out Bushwoman or two, that came to see her
on Sunday. I thought of the hardships she went through in the first
year--that I haven't told you about yet; of the time she was ill, and I
away, and no one to understand; of the time she was alone with James and
Jim sick; and of the loneliness she fought through out there. I thought
of Mary, outside in the blazing heat, with an old print dress and a
felt hat, and a pair of 'lastic-siders of mine on, doing the work of
a station manager as well as that of a housewife and mother. And her
cheeks were getting thin, and her colour was going: I thought of the
gaunt, brick-brown, saw-file voiced, hopeless and spiritless Bushwomen I
knew--and some of them not much older than Mary.

When I went back down into the town, I had a drink with Bill Galletly at
the Royal, and that settled the buggy; then Bob shouted,* and I took the
harness. Then I shouted, to wet the bargain. When I was going, Bob said,
'Send in that young scamp of a brother of Mary's with the horses: if
the collars don't fit I'll fix up a pair of makeshifts, and alter the
others.' I thought they both gripped my hand harder than usual, but that
might have been the beer.

* 'Shout', to buy a round of drinks.--A. L., 1997.

IV. The Buggy Comes Home.

I 'whipped the cat' a bit, the first twenty miles or so, but then, I
thought, what did it matter? What was the use of grinding to save money
until we were too old to enjoy it. If we had to go down in the world
again, we might as well fall out of a buggy as out of a dray--there'd be
some talk about it, anyway, and perhaps a little sympathy. When Mary had
the buggy she wouldn't be tied down so much to that wretched hole in the
Bush; and the Sydney trips needn't be off either. I could drive down to
Wallerawang on the main line, where Mary had some people, and leave the
buggy and horses there, a