We're all tethered goats here. Every time we make
up our minds to clear out, something pulls us back with a jerk."
"Tethered goats!" Mac called us, and the world must apply the simile as
it thinks fit. The wizard of the Never-Never weaves his spells, until
hardships, and dangers, and privations, seem all that make life worth
living; and then holds us "tethered goats"; and every time the town calls
us with promises of gaiety, and comfort, and security, "something pulls
us back with a jerk" to our beloved bush.
There was no sign of rain; and as bushmen only pitch tent when a deluge
is expected, our camp was very simple: just camp sleeping mosquito-nets,
with calico tops and cheese net for curtains--hanging by cords between
stout stakes driven into the ground. "Mosquito pegs," the bushmen call
these stakes.
Jackeroo, the unpoetical, was even then sound asleep in his net; and in
ten minutes everything was "fixed up." In another ten minutes we had
also "turned in," and soon after I was sound asleep, rolled up in a
"bluey," and had to be wakened at dawn.
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