Guy Boothby

“ The sun, which throughout the day has caused them untold agonies, now lies low upon the horizon, turning the dreary plain into the likeness of a waveless sea, and painting the placid water-hole with colors of ever-changing beauty. ”

“ TALL, angular, and peculiarly plain, she was the wife of a Queensland Bush Carrier; and it is, I believe, an accepted fact that ladies of that station are not noted either for their culture or their refinement.
Crawling with heavily-laden bullock wagons across plains and never-ending scrubs would not appear to be an existence possessed of many charms, and yet I believe there is no case on record of a man or woman who, having once served his or her apprenticeship to the trade, has ever returned to a civilized life again. ”

“ Daphne patted his great brown paws and allowed a little wan smile of gratified vanity to flicker across her face. Let the woman be ever so old and plain, she is never beyond the reach of a compliment from the man she loves. ”

“ Small wonder therefore, that the women grow to be hard and rough, consorting, as they do, with none but the sternest of the opposite sex, and daily doing work that would test the patience and endurance of the strongest man. ”

“ When next I heard of them, Daphne was in the township hospital, recovering from a serious accident occasioned by a fall from the wagon: and her husband, an enormously built man, with a rough manner, which, by those unskilled in such matters, might easily have been mistaken for insolence, had that very day returned with loading from the west. ”

“ Out of the lining of his big cabbage-tree hat, he took a tiny bunch of Bush blue-bells and placed them in her hand. It was a critical moment for both of them. He was acutely afraid of ridicule; she, for some reason she could not have explained, did not know whether to laugh or cry.
She laid the flowers on the table by her bedside, and then turned to her husband, the better to express her thanks.
“Bill,” she said softly, “you was allus a good chap to me!”
“Nay, nay, my lass, you mustn't say that. You don't know 'ow we misses yer out yonder; things ain't the same at all without you. ”