Morley Roberts

“ In spite of living in the bush, they were just getting to feel that new frocks meant a good deal to them; for there were many young men about, entirely ineligible and very interesting, who found Grong Grong a short cut whichever way their business led them.
But they did not reckon on the flood—neither, we are told, did Noah's neighbours; and Simon Gardiner looked on himself as a wiser Noah. He was quite ready to take his neighbours in, yet he was taken unawares in spite of his foresight.
The ancient quiet Murrumbidgee was now running a banker and still rising. ”

“ An hour after dawn the buggy was no longer possible, and Morgan, crouching against the near tree, made Nellie climb upon his shoulders, and get to the lowest big branch. She was followed by her sister, and with great labour Mrs. Morgan took her place by them. Morgan tried his best, but was unable to raise himself. Though strong he was a heavy man of his years. But if he could not climb the waters could.
"Don't trouble about me," he said. "If it rises much more I can swim to an easier tree. I wonder how Gardiner is doing." ”

“ The water lapped about their feet and the horses lifted their heads; and Don sprang up between the girls as though the water had bitten him and left him no courage.
"It's deeper than I reckoned on," said Morgan, "and I believe it rises every minute. We must go for the Pine scrub. It's our only chance." ”

“ If a station happens to be reasonably free of scrub and oak-belts, such may be easily discerned at a mile and a half; indeed, anything noticeable at a further distance would be called a range, and be looked on as a notable obstacle to intercourse. And yet over all this country there must be a tilt somewhere, for the river really does run south-west. But not when a flood comes. Then the slope of drainage is manifestly inadequate. The water rises incredibly until there is a Deluge.
When Morgan first took up his land it had just been surveyed. ”

“ SUCH a man as Simon Gardiner, who held more land than any other squatter on the Murrumbidgee, is often fairly popular. For he was civil to all whom he fancied might help or hinder him, and servile in an offhand kind of way to such as could do both. ”

“ And now the sky was for ever dark and low and heavy; it rained unceasingly, and with an awe-inspiring most perpetual steadiness. The few aboriginals preserved, by the belated care of a Government on which they had been fathered, from poison and shot, hugged their kangaroo robes and retreated carefully to higher ground. ”

“ Yet nothing, not even financial stress, could induce Morgan to part with his place, not even an entirely inadequate price, which Gardiner swore was ruinously generous when he offered it.
And just then the Great Flood happened, which solved the problem in its own way.
At Grong Grong and thereabouts—that is, let us say, from fifty miles south of the Murrumbidgee to fifty miles north of it—the country is as flat as a flapjack. It is true there are a few pieces of rising ground known to the innocents born in the locality as hills. ”