kept ringing in his ears sardonically. He knew that his punishment must
go on and on; and it did.

Old Roses married Victoria Lindley from "out Tibbooburra way," and there
was comely issue, and that issue is now at Eton; for Esau came into his
birthright, as he said he would, at his own time. But he and his wife
have a way of being indifferent to the gay, astonished world; and,
uncommon as it may seem, he has not tired of her.

MY WIFE'S LOVERS

There were three of them in 1886, the big drought year: old Eversofar,
Billy Marshall, and Bingong. I never was very jealous of them, not even
when Billy gave undoubted ground for divorce by kissing her boldly in
the front garden, with Eversofar and Bingong looking on--to say nothing
of myself. So far as public opinion went it could not matter, because
we were all living at Tilbar Station in the Tibbooburra country, and the
nearest neighbour to us was Mulholland of Nimgi, a hundred miles away.
Billy was the son of my manager, John Marshall, and, like his father,
had an excellent reputation as a bushman, and, like his mother, was
very good-looking. He was very much indeed about my house, suggesting
improvements in household arrangements; making remarks on my wife's
personal appearance--with corresponding disparagement of myself; riding
with my wife across the plains; shooting kangaroos with her by night;
and secretly instructing her in the mysteries of a rabbit-trap,
with which, he was sure, he could make "dead loads of metal" (he was
proficient in the argot of the back-blocks); and with this he would buy
her a beautiful diamond ring, and a horse that had won the Melbourne
Cup, and an air-gun! Once when she was taken ill, and I was away in the
South, he used to sit by her bedside, fanning her hour after hour, being
scarcely willing to sleep at night; and was always on hand, smoothing
her pillow, and issuing a bulletin to Eversofar and Bingong the first
thing in the morning. I have no doubt that Eversofar and Bingong cared
for her just as much as he did; but, from first to last, they never
had his privileges, and were always subordinate to him in showing her
devotion. He was sound and frank with them. He told Eversofar that, of
course, she only was kind to him, and let him have a hut all to
himself, because he was old and had had a bad time out on the farthest
back-station (that was why he was called Eversofar), and had once
carried Bingong with a broken leg, on his back,