Page:Where the Dead Men Lie.djvu/230

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crossed dejectedly over its back. Its presence brought so sharply home the fact of its one-time rider's absence. We take Death as a matter of course, and a slight thing such as that serves to remind us of its awful reality.

Everybody was very much affected at the grave. I saw one young fellow crying manfully: I, for one, was not very far off it. The three victims of that awful night lie side by side in the little knot of graves on Brookong Creek; but I think it will be many a long day before the recollection of the 12th July, 1891, fades from the minds of the dwellers in Riverina. I have only spoken of what came within my own experience; but every station was flooded, and lives lost besides those at Brookong.

. . . I was very pleased to hear of Evie's success. I suppose the scholarship entitles her to go to the High School for a certain period, and prepare for the University. I wish to God I could change places with her . . . I have very little time at present for writing—I do long sometimes to be able to sit down quietly and write, but everything I do is done in snatches. To have a quite room with an easy chair and a desk, and no one to disturb me, is the height of my never-to-be-gratified ambition.

I ought to have written to dear Grannie, but I have spun this out so long that there is no time. You must give this to her to read instead . . . Give my love to Addie and the girls.—Yours affectionately, Bartie.

Boake wrote some unremarkable verses ‘In Memoriam, Arthur Biscay,’ and sent them to The Albury Banner, which had published a short time previously a metrical address ‘To “Rolf Boldrewood”’—Boake's first printed composition. The latter to some extent echoes Gordon's dedication to