Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/290

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ACCIDENTS.
261

the knee. Also, though we did not discover the full extent of mischief on our first examination, the flies, those terrible accompaniments to neglected wounds in a warm climate, had already attacked the burns.

The presence of so young a baby served still further to complicate the whole affair, and Rosa, whose kind nature was always ready at suggesting help, sent off a messenger to her sister, begging that she would come and take care of it. As to the poor woman herself she was one of the lowest description, both in character and class, and to all appearance sufficiently contented with her calling to desire no change for a better; nevertheless she bore most intense pain with an unselfish courage which commanded our admiration, frequently through the night begging us all to go to bed, and, as she expressed it, "not to mind her."

But the hardest trial to patient endurance, on the occurrence of any bad accident in the bush, is not so much the time that is required to fetch a doctor as the solitary position of the sufferer, who lies helplessly awaiting the discovery of his condition by some chance passer-by. The bush is so lonely, even on its highways, that a poor fellow whom we knew lay upon the ground, with a compound fracture of one leg, from six in the morning until three in the afternoon before being found. His case was made worse by the cruelty of a fellow-servant, who was with him when the accident took place, and who left him, promising to procure help from a house which was but a few miles distant, but who neither returned nor sent assistance. The day was one of the hottest of that summer, and the miseries of the sufferer were further increased by the ants which swarmed upon him as he lay on the ground. Yet,