I didn't mean to hit off at the missus,
you know!" and then catching the twinkle in Tam's eyes, stopped short,
and with a characteristic shrug "reckoned he was making a fair mess of
things."
Mac would never be other than our impetuous brither Scot, distinct from
all other men, for the bush never robs her children of their
individuality. In some mysterious way she clean-cuts out the personality
of each of them, and keeps it sharply clean-cut; and just as Mac stood
apart from all men, so Tam also stood apart, the quiet self-reliant man,
though, we had seen among the horses, for that was the real man; and as
Mac built castles, and made calculations, Tam put his shoulder to the
drudgery, and before Mac quite knew what had happened, he was hauling
logs and laying foundations for a brumby trap in the south-east country,
while Bertie's Nellie found herself obliged to divide her attention
between the homestead and the brumby camp.
As Mac hauled and drudged, the melons paid their first dividend;
half-past eleven four weeks drew near; "Just-So Stories" did all they
could, and Dan coming in found the Quiet Stockman away back in the days
of old, deep in a simply written volume of Scottish history.
Dan had great news of the showers, but had to find other audience than
Jack, for he was away in a world all his own, and, bent over the little
volume, was standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scottish fathers,
fighting with them for his nation.
