he was royal, too, but held easy views with regard to religion and the conventionalities of civilisation. Mary insisted on being married properly by a clergyman, made the old man build a decent hut, had all her children christened, and kept him and them clean and tidy up to the time of her death.
Poor Queen Mary was ambitious. She started to educate her children, and when they got beyond her—that is when they had learnt their letters—she was grateful for any assistance from the good-natured bush men and women of her acquaintance. She had decided to get her eldest boy into the mounted police, and had plans for the rest, and she worked hard for them, too. Jimmie offered no opposition, and gave her no assistance beyond the rations and money he earned shepherding—which was as much as could be expected of him.
He did as many husbands do “for the sake of peace and quietness”—he drifted along in the wake of his wife, and took things as easily as her schemes of reformation and education would allow him to.
Queen Mary died before her time, respected by all who knew or had heard of her. The nearest squatter’s wife sent a pair of sheets for a shroud, with instructions to lay Mary out, and arranged (by bush telegraph) to drive over next morning with her sister-in-law and two other white women in the vicinity, to see Mary decently buried.
But the remnant of Jimmie’s tribe were there beforehand. They tore the sheets in strips and tied Mary up in a bundle, with her chin to her knees—preparing her for burial in their own fashion—and
