By the time it was hidden away, buried in the heart of the fire, a
woman's presence in a camp had proved less disturbing than might be
imagined, and we learned that our traveller had "come from Beyanst," with
a backward nod towards the Queensland border, and was going west; and by
the time the cabbage and tea were finished he had become quite talkative.
"Ain't seen cabbage, ma'am, for more'n five years," he said, leaning back
on to a fallen tree trunk, with a satisfied sigh (cabbage and tea being
inflating), adding when I sympathised, "nor a woman neither, for that
matter."
Neither a cabbage nor a woman for five years! Think of it, townsfolk!
Neither a cabbage nor a woman--with the cabbage placed first. I wonder
which will be longest remembered.
"Came on this, though, in me last camp, east there," he went on,
producing a hairpin, with another nod eastwards. "Wondered how it got
there." "Your'n, I s'pose"; then, sheepish once more, he returned it to
his pocket, saying he "s'posed he might as well keep it for luck."
It being a new experience to one of the plain sisterhood to feel a man
was cherishing one of her hairpins, if only "for luck," I warmed towards
the "man from Beyanst," and grew hopeful of rivalling even that cabbage
in his memory.
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