BETHANY.


I was feeling miserable as I sat in the hospital garden, and I rather fancy
I looked pretty much as I felt, for a cheery-faced Boer nurse, with her
black hair, blacker eyes, and rose-blossom lips, came up to where I sat,
bringing with her two or three slightly wounded Boers. "I have brought some
Boers who know something of your countrymen, Mr. Australian," she said. "I
thought you would be glad to hear all about them." "By Jove! yes, nurse. If
I were not a married man, I should try to thank you gracefully." "Oh, yees;
oh, yees," she answered, tossing back her head; "that is all right. You say
those pretty things; then, when you go away from here, you tell your wife,
and you write in your papers we Boer girls are fat old things, who never
use soap and water. All the Rooibaatjes do that." And off she went,
laughing merrily, whilst my friends the enemy grinned and enjoyed the
little comedy. So we fell to talking, and-half a dozen wounded "Tommies"
gathered round and chipped into the conversation, which by degrees worked
round to a deed which the West Australians did; and as I listened to the
tale so simply told by those rough farmer men, I felt my face flush with
pride, and my shoulders fell back square and solid once more, whilst every
drop of blood in my veins seemed to run warm and strong, like the red wine
they grow on the hillside in my own sunny land; for the story concerned men
whom I knew well, men who were bred with the scent of the wattle in the
first breath they drew, men who grew from childhood to manhood where the
silver sentinel stars form the cross in the rich blue midnight sky. My
countrymen--Australians--men with whom I had hunted for silver in the
desolate backblocks of New South Wales; men with whom I had scoured the
interior of West Australia seeking for gold; men who had been with me on
the tin fields and opal fields. I had never doubted that they would keep