" So then I says to my
wife, "I'm off back to the run," I says, "and it's sorry I am that
ever I married you." And she says, "Well, I'm not goin' out to yer
old run, to get eat up with musketeers." So says I, "Please yourself
about that, you faggot," I says, "but I'm off." So off I cleared,
and I never seen her from that day till this. I married her under
the name of Keogh, though. Will that make any difference?"
This legal problem kept them occupied for some time; and, after
much discussion, it was decided that a marriage under a false name
could hardly be valid.
Then weariness, the weariness of open-air, travelling, and hard
work, settled down on them, and they made for the house. On the
verandah the two gins lay sleeping, their figures dimly outlined under
mosquito nets; the dogs crouched about in all sorts of attitudes.
Considine turned in all standing in the big rough bunk, while Carew
and Gordon stretched their blankets on the hard earth floor, made
a pillow of their clothes, and lay down to sleep, after fixing
mosquito nets. Gordon slept as soon as he touched the blankets,
but Carew tumbled and tossed. The ground was deadly hard. During
the journey Frying Pan had got grass for their beds; here he had
not been told to get it, and it would have looked effeminate to ask
for grass when no one else seemed to want it.
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