black-brushed over the cheap "lamp" variety, turning it grey by contrast.
The deluge lasted only a quarter of an hour; but it cleared the night,
and did its work. There was hail before it, too -- big as emu eggs,
the boys said -- that lay feet deep in the old diggers' holes on Pipeclay
for days afterwards -- weeks some said.

The two sweethearts of twenty years ago and to-night watched
the retreat of the storm, and, seeing Mount Buckaroo standing clear,
they went to the back door, which opened opposite the end of the shed,
and saw to the east a glorious arch of steel-blue, starry sky,
with the distant peaks showing clear and blue away back under
the far-away stars in the depth of it.

They lingered awhile -- arms round each other's waists --
before she called the boys, just as they had done this time of night
twenty years ago, after the boys' grandmother had called her.

"Awlright, mother!" bawled back the boys, with unfilial independence
of Australian youth. "We're awlright! We'll be in directly!
Wasn't it a pelterer, mother?"

They went in and sat down again. The embarrassment began to wear off.

"We'll get out of this, Mary," said Johnny. "I'll take Mason's offer
for the cattle and things, and take that job of Dawson's, boss or no boss"
-- (Johnny's bad luck was due to his inability in the past
to "get on" with any boss for any reasonable length of time) --
"I can get the boys on, too. They're doing no good here,
and growing up. It ain't doing justice to them; and, what's more,
this life is killin' you, Mary. That settles it! I was blind.