Further, the dining-table was more than "fairly" steady, three of
the legs being perfectly sound, and it therefore only threatened to fall
over when leaned upon. And lastly, although most of the plates and all
the cups were enamel ware, there was almost a complete dinner service in
china. The teapot, however, was tin, and, as Mac said, as "big as a
house."
As for the walls, not only were the "works of art" there, but they
themselves were uniquely dotted from ceiling to floor with the muddy
imprints of dogs' feet--not left there by a Pegasus breed of winged dogs,
but made by the muddy feet of the station dogs, as the, pattered over the
timber, when it lay awaiting the carpenter, and no one had seen any
necessity to remove them. Outside the verandahs, and all around the
house, was what was to be known later as the garden, a grassy stretch of
hillocky ground, well scratched and beaten down by dogs, goats, and
fowls; fenceless itself, being part of the grassy acres which were
themselves fenced round to form the homestead enclosures. Just inside
this enclosure, forming, in fact, the south-western barrier of it, stood
the "billabong," then a spreading sheet of water; along its banks
flourished the vegetable garden; outside the enclosure, towards the
south-east, lay a grassy plain a mile across, and to the north-west were
the stock-yards and house paddock--a paddock of five square miles, and
the only fenced area on the run; while everywhere to the northwards, and
all through the paddock, were dotted "white-ant" hills, all shapes and
sizes, forming brick-red turrets among the green scrub and timber.
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