"A man's back should be broad enough to bear all that for himself,"
said Harry. "I get ashamed of myself when I grumble, and yet one
seems to be surly if one doesn't say what one's thinking."

"I hope you'll always tell me what you're thinking, dear."

"Well, I suppose I shall--till this fellow is old enough to be talked
to, and to be made to bear the burden of his father's care."

"By that time, Harry, you will have got rich, and we shall all be in
England, sha'n't we?"

"I don't know about being rich, but we shall have been free-selected
off Gangoil.--Now, Mrs. Growler, we've done dinner, and I'll have a
pipe before I make another start. Is Jacko in the kitchen? Send him
through to me on to the veranda."

Gangoil was decidedly in the bush--according to common Australian
parlance, all sheep stations are in the bush, even though there
should not be a tree or shrub within sight. They who live away from
the towns live a "bush life." Small towns, as they grow up, are
called bush towns, as we talk of country towns. The "bush," indeed,
is the country generally. But the Heathcotes lived absolutely and
actually in the bush. There are Australian pastures which consist of
plains on which not a tree is to be seen for miles; but others are
forests, so far extending that their limits are almost unknown.
Gangoil was surrounded by forest, in some places so close as to be
impervious to men and almost to animals in which the undergrowth was
thick and tortuous and almost platted, through which no path could be
made without an axe, but of which the greater portions were open,