d to be sober. I told him the lady was wanting him, and
Mr. Phillips and me shook him up; and he half came to himself; and if
the mistress had not smelt the drink so strong upon him, she might not
have known. She had another fine lassie, and all was going on very
well, for the mistress was more reasonable. She had bought her
experience very dear the time before, and would take a telling. When
the doctor had got over his drinking fit he was very penitent, and
spoke quite feelingly on the subject. Mr. Phillips turned off the man
that had fetched him the brandy, and told all the men on the station
the reason why. The man Carter did not want for skill, nor for kindness
either, when he was sober; so, as we were more fearful for the
fortnight after than the fortnight before the birth, we just kept him
on. Little Harriett was a fortnight old, and the mistress was doing so
nicely that Mr. Phillips thought he might leave us for one of his
out-stations, where he was wanted, and said he would not be home for
two or three days. And then the poor demented creature of a drunken
doctor contrived again to get hold of drink, and was far more
outrageous this time. Mrs. Phillips was lying on the sofa in the
parlour, when he came in and terrified her by roaring for more brandy;
and when I came in to settle him, he grippit me by the arm and
threatened me with I don't know what, if I refused him. The mistress
entreated me to turn him out of doors--and so I did. He got on a horse
of the master's--I marvelled how he kept his seat--and set off, and I
felt easy in my mind.

"But I had just got the mistress quieted down, when the native boy Jim,
that was always doing odd jobs about the place, came running past the
window with such a look of terror on his face that I saw something was
wrong. I ran out quick but quietly, to ask what was the matter.

"'Fire! Peggy,' says he; and then, sure enough, I looked out, and the
grass was on fire, but very far off, and a strong wind blowing it right
to the slab huts on the head station with their thatch roofs. Nothing
could save us if it came near, and as I have told you it was a busy
time, and the men were all hither and thither, and nobody left on the
place but Martha, and Jim, and myself, and the mistress ill, and two
infants, as I may say, for Emily was not thirteen months old. The only
thing that could be done was to burn a broad ring round the houses, as
I had seen done at Barragong; but that craved wa