said, with colonial brevity; and so we escorted our strange guest
through the house into the kitchen, where the ever-ready kettle and
gridiron were busy preparing tea and chops over a blazing fire. Of
course the maids screamed when they saw us, and I do not wonder at
their doing so, for neither F--- nor I looked very respectable, with
huddled on dressing-gowns and towzled hair; whilst our foot-sore,
drenched guest subsided into a chair by the door, covered his
wretched pinched face with two bony hands, and burst into tears. I
certainly never expected to see a swagger cry, and F--- declared the
sight was quite as new to him as to me. However, the poor man's
tears and helplessness gave fresh energy to my maids' treacherous
nerves, and they even suggested dry clothes. Our good-natured
cadet, who at this moment appeared on the scene, was only too happy
to find some outlet for _his_ superfluous benevolence, and hastened
off, to return in a moment or two with an old flannel shirt, dry and
whole, in spite of its faded stripes, a pair of moleskin trousers,
and a huge pair of canvas cricketing shoes. It was no time for
ceremony, so we women retreated for a few minutes into the
store-room, whilst F--- and Mr. A--- made the swagger's toilette,
getting so interested in their task as even to part his dripping
hair out of his eyes. He had no swag, poor fellow, having lost his
roll of red blankets in one of the treacherous bog-holes across the
range.

That man was exactly like a lost, starving dog. He ate an enormous
breakfast, curled himself upon some empty flour-sacks in a dry
corner of the kitchen, and slept till dinner time; then another
sleep until the supper hour, and so on, the round of he clock. All
this time he never spoke, though we were dying to hear how he had
come into such a plight. The "sou'-wester" still raged furiously