ten or eleven; and I find it very hard to pass the time away; but I believe this will all be over soon, as the stock out back will be in great straits for water soon, and then our joy begins.
I have read your advice, and I wish for your sake and Grannie's I could bring myself to follow it. But oh! I should smother if I were to go back to Sydney again: I should have no heart. There is a curious phenomenon in stock-breeding called ‘throwing back.’ After years and years of careful breeding, you will sometimes find a beast born with all the characteristics of the original stock. In the same way, I believe some of the wild blood of our savage Irish ancestors has been transmitted to me. At any rate, my home is in the bush; and as no good is to be done but on the confines of the settled country, that is where I hope to go within the next year.
I had just finished a letter to Grannie this afternoon just before receiving this of yours. I enclose a slip of paper for her in this. Give my love to all.—Your affectionate son, BARTIE.
(By the bye, I have dropped that, and now adopt the commoner one of Thomas.)
By April, 1889, the monotony of life at Mullah had become unendurable, and at the beginning of May Boake left on a roving expedition northwards. He was accompanied by two brothers named Boyd, one of whom has been previously mentioned as coming with him from Monaro. All three were young and strong, used to a bush life and eager for adventure; and they proposed to carry out Boake's idea of going ‘on the confines of the settled country’
