They went in and sat down again. The embarrassment began to wear off.
“We'll get out of this, Mary,” said Johnny. “I'll take Mason's offer for the cattle and things, and take that job of Dawson's, boss or no boss”—(Johnny's bad luck was due to his inability in the past to “get on” with any boss for any reasonable length of time)—“I can get the boys on, too. They're doing no good here, and growing up. It ain't doing justice to them; and, what's more, this life is killin' you, Mary. That settles it! I was blind. Let the jumpt-up selection go! It's making a wall-eyed bullock of me, Mary—a dry-rotted rag of a wall-eyed bullock like Jimmy Nowlett's old Strawberry. And you'll live in town like a lady.”
“Somebody coming!” yelled the boys.
There was a clatter of sliprails hurriedly thrown down, and clipped by horses' hoofs.
“Insoide there! Is that you, Johnny?”
“Yes!” (“I knew they'd come for you,” said Mrs. Mears to Johnny.)
“You'll have to come, Johnny. There's no get out of it. Here's Jim Mason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you show fight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan burst his concertina, and they're in a fix.”
“But I can't leave the missus.”
“That's all right. We've got the school missus's mare and side-saddle. She says you ought to be jolly well ashamed of yourself, Johnny Mears, for not bringing your wife on New Year's Night. And so you ought!”
Johnny did not look shame-faced, for reasons unknown to them.