During the morning he had expressed great disapproval that a woman should
be idle, while men dragged heavy weights about. "White fellow,
big-fellow-fool all right," he said contemptuously, when Mac explained
that it was generally so in the white man's country. A Briton of the
Billingsgate type would have appealed to Jackeroo as a man of sound
common sense.
By the time the men-folk appeared, he had decided that with a little
management I would be quite an ornament to society. "Missus bin help ME
all right," he told the Sanguine Scot, with comical self-satisfaction.
Mac roared with delight, and the passage of the Fergusson having swept
away the last lingering torch of restraint he called to the Maluka;
"Jackeroo reckons he's tamed the shrew for us." Mac had been a reader of
Shakespeare in his time.
All afternoon we were supposed to be "making a dash" for the Edith, a
river twelve miles farther on; but there was nothing very dashing about
our pace. The air was stiflingly, swelteringly hot, and the flies
maddening in their persistence.
