wind, hot and strong; what terrors they were when you were driving sheep!'
'You were a tremendous stock-rider, Gladdie!' remarked her husband.
'Wasn't I just! Ever since I was that high! And I was fond, like, of that old run—knew every inch of it better than any man on the place—except the old man, and perhaps Daft Larry. Knew it, bless you! from sunrise—you remember the sunrise out there, dull, and red, and sudden—to sundown, when you spotted the station pines black as ink against the bit of pink sky, as you came back from mustering. Let's see—I forget how it goes—no, it's like this:—
"Twas merry 'mid the black-woods when we spied the station roofs,
To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard,
With a running fire of stock-whips and a fiery run of hoofs,
Oh, the hardest day was never then too hard!
That's how it goes, I think. We used sometimes to remember it as we rode home, dog-tired. But it was sheep with us, not cattle, more's the pity. Why, what's wrong, Alfred? Have you seen a ghost?'
'No. But you fairly amaze me, darling. I'd no idea you knew any poetry. What is it?'
