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Updated: May 14, 2025
Wherever our name resounds, they must turn pale, and when we set all against all, we shall then be able to know whether we lose, or win, we shall extirpate them, or they us; and if we cease to exist, so may the wasted wilderness, the depopulated land, the ruined palaces, and burnt-down temples and horror and desolation, announce to the after-world what we have suffered and done.
And by now it was high noon; and she turned about and took a few steps on the backward road. But even therewith it seemed as if the sun, which heretofore had been shining brightly in the heavens, went out as a burnt-down candle, and all was become dull grey over head, as all under foot was a dull dun. But Birdalone deemed she could follow a straight course back again, and so walked on sturdily.
Almost irresistibly you are moved to take a human friend and a friendly horse or pony and pitch your camp out under the great stars larger and brighter indeed do they seem to burn here in the Orient and feel the dew on your face as you awaken in the "morning calm" of the ancient Hermit Kingdom, whose feeble life was snuffed out, like the flame of a burnt-down candle, but a few short months ago.
Raw they ate thistle tops, pigweed, and crowfoot, with great relish. Their game they cooked as follows. Kangaroo were first singed, cleaned out, and filled with hot stones, then put on the top of a burnt-down fire, hot ashes heaped all over them. The blacks like their meats with the gravy in, very distinctly red gravy.
A great deal of smoke still rose from the ground, but without, quite uninjured, stood the rose-bush, fresh and blooming, and mirrored every flower, every branch, in the clear water. "Oh! how beautifully the roses are blooming in front of the burnt-down house!" cried a passer-by. "It is impossible to fancy a more lovely picture. I must have that!"
As they went past the remains of the burnt-down house, they saw a great swarm of bees suddenly mount up from the trees of the garden; it flew several times round the market-place as if seeking for a habitation, and at last turning back, struck directly down among the ruins of the former kitchen fireplace; it seemed as if it had selected the hearth for its abiding home.
As for Henrietta she had long ago earned from her husband's friends the name of the "little nun," the "little eremite" because nothing could entice her from her seclusion. If only they had known her thoughts! One day, however, she surprised her husband by expressing a wish to go to the Charity Ball at a neighbouring mining town; it was for raising funds to build up again a burnt-down village.
Scraps of newspapers, soda-water and beer bottles, highly decorated old provision tins, and spent cartridge cases, the remains of chilly picnics and damp shooting luncheons, had at first sight lent color to the foreground by mere contrast, but the corrosion of time and weather had blackened rather than mellowed the walls in a way which forcibly reminded the consul of Miss Elsie's simile of the "burnt-down factory."
The sun of the next morning shone brightly on the glistening snow-covered roofs round the market-place, and dyed the smoke-clouds, which rose slowly from the ruins of the burnt-down house, with the most gorgeous tints of purple, gold, and sulphur-blue, whilst hundreds of little sparrows raked and picked about in the ashy flakes which were scattered over the snow in the market-place and churchyard, with exulting twitterings.
A few scraggy trees and bushes, which twisted and writhed like vines around the square tower and crumbling walls of an irregular but angular building, looked in their brown shadows like part of the debris. "It's just like a burnt-down bone-boiling factory," said Miss Elsie critically; "and I shouldn't wonder if that really was old McHulish's business.
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