And they'd shout: "So-long, Andy," as he galloped off from the jump.
Strange that those shy, quiet, gentle-voiced bushmen seem
the hardest and most reckless riders.

But of late his horse had been seen hanging up outside Porter's
for an hour or so after sunset. He smoked, talked over
the results of the last drought (if it happened to rain),
and the possibilities of the next one, and played cards with old Porter;
who took to winking, automatically, at his "old woman", and nudging,
and jerking his thumb in the direction of Lizzie when her back was turned,
and Andy was scratching the nape of his neck and staring at the cards.

Lizzie told a lady friend of mine, years afterwards, how Andy
popped the question; told it in her quiet way -- you know Lizzie's quiet way
(something of the old, privileged house-cat about her);
never a sign in expression or tone to show whether she herself
saw or appreciated the humour of anything she was telling,
no matter how comical it might be. She had witnessed two tragedies,
and had found a dead man in the bush, and related the incidents
as though they were common-place.

It happened one day -- after Andy had been coming two or three times a week
for about a year -- that she found herself sitting with him
on a log of the woodheap, in the cool of the evening,
enjoying the sunset breeze. Andy's arm had got round her --
just as it might have gone round a post he happened to be leaning against.
They hadn't been talking about anything in particular. Andy said
he wouldn't be surprised if they had a thunderstorm before mornin' --
it had been so smotherin' hot all day.