Excerpt from The Straits ImpregnableThe afternoon was wearing out, and I began to think of home and tea. I stopped working, straightened my back, ran moist fingers through my hair, and sat down on the log. The axe went tumbling to the ground. Watch-and-pray and Wait-and-see got up from the fallen gum suckers, and trotted forward with waving tails and glistening, Slippery tongues. I made haste to get rid of them. They began to play, biting ears and growling, but went back at last, laid keen black heads on narrow paws and watched me out of grave brown eyes.To Gippsland Spring had come. The day had been a day of spring until evening beckoned afternoon away. Now a little breeze - gentle, but rather cold - came out of the west and wan dered through the tops of the gum suckers. The scent of eucalyptus came with it, and behind it followed the voices of countless rustling leaves.It moved among the wattle tops where they wound along the river, it moved across the rape crops and over the grassy ¿ats beyond. It bent the sedges in the lagoons where the first black ducks were feeding, and where, on warmer nights, big eels bubbled below the sunken logs. I raised my forehead to the cool, and, lo! The breeze had gone!Through the rape crop sheep were streaming. Anxious ewes pulled hurriedly at the broad green leaves or watched with care their frolicking youngsters. On the ¿ats, round the salt trough, the bullocks chewed and meditated. Smoke climbed up by the river bend, and outside her cottage moved Mrs. Pigg, bringing in the wash ing, pulling vegetables, feeding the fowls. Small and busy the distance showed her.Behind me, and on either Side, the suckers pushed up their heads. High over them leaned spectral trees: blackened, lea¿ess, stripped of bark, weary with long waiting. About the ground great trees had fallen: grim logs - knotted logs -logs scarred with the breath of summer fires. Here and there showed feeding sheep, and this way and that way ran well-worn pads leading to the waterholes in the wattles. Over the hill Side spread a faint green carpet where was shoot ing the young grass.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.