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They persisted, hour by hour, disconnected voices in the void and darkness, lonely and chance companions in the back-blocks of Canada, the one who couldn't, and the one who didn't want to, understand. A little before dawn I woke again. That thin voice, in patient soliloquy, was discussing Female Suffrage, going very far down into the roots of the matter. I met its owner next morning.
His manner was more curt and decided rougher than before. He appeared to have taken on the tone of the Back-Blocks. Yet she admired him. She did not dislike the roughness. But she felt a womanish aggrievement at his having left her to undo her own things. And the rooms were horrible the meagre appliances the course cotton sheets, the awful Reckitt's-blue colouring of the painted walls.
Mr McKeith returned her look, all the hardness in his face softening to an expression of almost tender indulgence. 'We'd see about that. I might convert you but in the Back-Blocks. 'Or I might convert YOU. He shook his head, and then laughed in a shy, boyish way. 'There's no knowing what might happen but in the Back-Blocks. Lady Bridget leaned forward.
It was supposed that the persistent efforts of hunters and boundary-riders had resulted in these wild creatures being driven well into the back country; and it is certain that, despite an occasional strange story from bushmen regarding the animals whose tracks they had come upon in the back-blocks, nothing was ever actually seen of Jacob Hall's more fantastic importations.
After a short sea-journey they took train to a dusty back-blocks township, where Gordon picked up one of the many outfits which he had scattered over the country, and which in this case consisted of a vehicle, a dozen or so of horses, and a black boy named Frying Pan. Thy drove four horses in a low, American-made buggy, and travelled about fifty miles a day. Frying Pan was invaluable.
If I believed it or unless I knew that what you did had been in honourable warfare, I don't think I could bear to speak to you again. Now, I'm going to ask you if it's true. 'If what is true? Lady Bridget, I'll tell you the truth if you ask me for it, about anything I've done. But I warn you ugly things happen in the Back-Blocks. 'The Premier said that you were the terror of the natives.
What do you think 'Master Arthur' is likely to have taken to?" "Something easy," muttered Renouard without unclenching his teeth. "Hunting man. Athlete. Don't be hard on the chap. He may be riding boundaries, or droving cattle, or humping his swag about the back-blocks away to the devil somewhere. He may be even prospecting at the back of beyond this very moment."
She had brains, was perfectly fearless, no man had ever taken a liberty with her, and every one in the Wadgery country who visited O'Fallen's had a wholesome respect for her opinion. About this time news came that the Governor, Lord Malice, would pass through Wadgery on his tour up the back-blocks. A great function was necessary. It was arranged.
Jacob Hall had then imported two pairs of wild cats, and turned these loose in the back-blocks of his land, besides encouraging a number of cats of the domesticated variety to take to the bush life and become wild, as they have been doing all over Australia for many years.
Thus the words of an old song, sung by a drunken street singer, brought a stronger and deeper stab to the heart of this lonely girl, than to the exile in the back-blocks of Maori-land, or on the edge of the golden West, eating his heart out over a period of years for a glint of the heather hills of home, or the sound of the little brook that had been his lullaby in young days, when all the world was full of dreams and fair romance.
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