“‘No I won’t,’ says I.  ’Thank you for the compliment, all the same, but I have no wish to change my condition.’

“‘Tell that to the marines,’ says he.  ’If you don’t like me, tell me so; but none of that nonsense.’

“’I like you well enough; but what I say is no nonsense.  I do not wish to change my condition.’

“‘It would be a good change for you,’ says he.  ’I wonder you are not frightened to stay here a single woman.  Now, if you were my wife, I could protect you;’ and he flourished the arm I had given the bang to—­and a goodly arm it was.

“I told him about the bairns, and he just laughed at me.  ‘We’ll see,’ says he.  ‘We’ll see.  Wait a little.’

“Well, every kirning that he was not out at a distance on the master’s business, did that man Powell come into the dairy and ask me the same question, and get the same answer; and three of the shepherds, and a little imp of a laddie that looked after the horses, made up to me too, and seemed to think it was not fair that I would choose none of them.  Any woman with a white face might have had as many sweethearts; but I think it was my managing ways that took Powell’s fancy.  If a fairy could only move a lot of the women from the places where they are not wanted, and put them where they are, there would be a wonderful thinning taken out of Scotland and planted in Australia.  But ye see there are no fairies; and at such a distance, it costs a lot of money to move such commodities as single women.  I have puzzled my brains whiles about the matter, Miss Jane, and many a time I have repented coming back to a place where hands are many and meat is scarce; but it will not be for long; and in the meantime I try to help all the distressed bodies that I know about; and that I have kept my five bairns from being a burden to anybody, is enough work for any woman either here or in Australia.  I’m going off of my story; but the marvel to me that I was so beset with sweethearts that did not want them, while so many lasses here never Can see the sight of one, always makes me think that there should be a medium, and that lasses should neither be ower much made of or neglected altogether.  But to go back to the bush.  I had to rule with a high hand at Barragong, and really to demean myself as if I were the mistress, to keep folk in their place.  But the worst was to come.

“The master had not been well for a week or so, and I had taken especial care of him, and got him gruel and such like, that he seemed very glad of; and he was getting better, and was sitting by the fire while I was setting down the supper, when he said—­No, I cannot tell you what he said.  No; he was not well, and may be did not know exactly what he was about.  I cannot tell his words, though they are burned into my memory as clear and distinct as though I had heard them but yesterday, but they were most unbefitting words for him to say or for me to hear.

“I stood still for a whole minute or more, and looked him in the face.  He did not like the fixed steady way I kept my eyes on him.