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Updated: June 17, 2025
On returning after dark we passed a billabong, from which a very strong stench, as if from decomposed vegetable matter, arose. The following morning we both felt unwell, and vomited a good deal. The man with me was much older than I, and succumbed to the sickness in nine days. After the party had left for Canobie, I was completely prostrated, and had no medicine on hand except Epsom salts.
"Oh home," said Tommy. "I don't care a bit about tea; and I want to see this Billabong of yours. Do let's go, Jim." "I hoped you wouldn't choose tea here," said Jim, striding off to the car. "Bush townships don't run to decent tea places, as a rule; the hotel is the only chance, and though they can give you a fair dinner, tea always seems to be a weak spot."
But Old Roses was not in the garden nor in the house, and they left without seeing him. He was sitting under a willow at the billabong, reading over and over to himself the address to be delivered before the Governor in the evening. As he read his face had a wintry and inhospitable look. The night came. Old Roses entered the dining-room quietly with the crowd, far in the Governor's wake.
It was very peaceful. To Norah, who knew that the world held no place like Billabong, it only lacked one person for the final seal of perfection. "Wish Dad would come," she said aloud, puckering her brow over a knot in the silk. "He's late and it is jolly dull without him." The knot came free, and the needles raced as though making up for lost time.
The big black thoroughbred still stood by the rails as they rode away. He had got rid of the saddle, and the broken bridle trailed from his head. No one had time to see to him. Billabong was humming with activity. Men were running down to the yards, bridle in hand; others leading their horses up to be saddled; while those who were ready had raced over to the quarters for a snatched breakfast.
Only eels rewarded her efforts; and while eels are not bad fun to pull out, Norah regarded them as great waste of time, since no one at Billabong cared to eat them, and in any case she would not let them come into the boat for a good-sized eel can make a boat unpleasantly slimy in a very short time. So each capture had to be carefully released at the stern not a very easy task.
It was illuminating, too, to the working bees, to see how Bob and the Billabong men planned for the comfort of the women who were to run the house, and for its easy working; so that presently a wave of labour-saving devices swept through the Cunjee district in imitation, and wives who had always carried buckets of water found taps conveniently placed where they were needed, and sinks and draining racks built to ease the dreary round of dish-washing, and air-gas plants established to supersede the old kerosene lamps.
"Why, hard luck comes to all of us we got burned out ourselves once, didn't we, Norah?" "Rather and had to live in tents," said Norah. "No, you'll have to come back to us at Billabong until we build up the cottage again oh, and, Tommy darling, I've been lonesome for you!" She put a hand on Bob's arm. "You won't worry, Bob? One bit of bad luck isn't going to beat you!"
Sometimes a motor-cycle chugged along, always with a girl perched on the carrier at the back, clinging affectionately to her escort. As Cunjee drew nearer and the farms closer together the crowd on the road increased, and the dust mounted in a solid cloud. The Billabong people drew to one side, as close as possible to the fence, cantering over the short, dusty grass.
Once, lying on her bed, with her face pressed into the pillow, trying not to see a lean head that beat on the ground, she heard a dull sound that rose to an angry shout from the men; and immediately the buggy drove away quickly, as Wally took Cecil away from Billabong. She only shivered, pressing her face harder.
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