That has made me thine for ever!
Bonny Mary of Argyle.

"Blarst my pipe!" exclaimed Mitchell, suddenly. "I beg your pardon,
Peter. My pipe's always getting stuffed up," and he proceeded to shell
out and clear his pipe.

The breeze had changed and strengthened. They heard the violin playing
"Annie Laurie."

"They must be having a Scotch night in that camp tonight," said
Mitchell. The voice came again:

Maxwelton Braes are bonny--
Where early fa's the dew,
For 'twas there that Annie Laurie
Gie me her promise true--

Mitchell threw out his arm impatiently. "I wish they wouldn't play
and sing those old songs," he said. "They make you think of damned old
things. I beg your pardon, Peter."

Peter sat leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands
fingering his cold pipe nervously. His sad eyes had grown haggard and
haunted. It is in the hearts of exiles in new lands that the old songs
are felt.

"Take no thought of the morrow, Mitchell," said Peter, abstractedly. "I
beg your pardon, Mitchell. I mean----"

"That's all right, Peter," said Mitchell. "You're right; to-morrow is
the past, as far as I'm concerned."

Peter blinked down at him as if he were a new species.

"You're an odd young man, Mitchell," he said. "You'll have to take care
of that head of yours or you'll be found hanging by a saddle-strap to
a leaning tree on a lonely track, or find yourself in a lunatic asylum
before you're forty-five."

"Or else I'll be a great man," said Mitchell. "But--ah, well!"

Peter turned his eyes to the fire and smiled sadly. "Not enjoyment and
not sorrow, is our destined end or way," he repeated to the fire.

"But we get there just the same," said Mitchell, "destined or not."

But to live, that each to-morrow,
Finds us further than to-day!

"Why, that just fits my life, Peter," said Mitchell. "I might have to
tramp two or three hundred miles before I get a cut* or a job, and if
to-morrow didn't find me nearer than to-day I'd starve or die of thirst
on a dry stretch."

[ * Cut--a pen or "stand" in a shearing shed ]

"Why don't you get married and settle down, Mitchell?" asked Peter, a
little tired. "You're a teetotaller."

"If I got married I couldn't settle down," said Mitchell. "I reckon I'd
be the loneliest man in Australia." Peter gave him a swift glance. "I
reckon I'd be single no matter how much married I might be. I couldn't
get the girl I wanted