The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1873-02-13
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LOVE UP A GUM TREE.

New South Wales is country La
| BILE to floods. Its rivers generally
lake their rise in the lofty mountain
ranges, and i'll the early parts of their
course are Joined by numerous .tribu-
tary streams. When the rainy season
has set in-May-the down pour
sometimes continues tor six weeks at
time, and then these rivers overflow
their banks and flood the surrounding
country far ahd near, forming, in ma
ny places, miniature seas. Upon these
occasions hundreds of farmers are ru-
ined, thousands of sheep and cattle
generally destroyed, and not unfre-
quently many valuable human lives
are lost.
Perhaps the country most liable to
| disastrous floods in the whole coun-
| try is the Hunter, where, every few
years, thousands of acres are submer-
| ged with suddenness that is truly
appalling. Houses are frequently bu-
ried to the chimney-tops beneath the
waters, which rapidly form an inland
sea of at least hundred miles in
length, by an acre in bre adth.
In the year 1866 was quartered at
Windsor, a little township about
twenty miles distant from Sidney, the
metropolis of the country, and for
some months / had chiefly been en-
gagged in the arduous and by no means
romantic duty of hunting for illicit
stills, of which it was supposed there
were several in the neighborhood.
I certainly did my best to discover
their whereabouts, but was completely
unsuccessful, and after traversing the
country day after day, in every kind
of disguise, until must have travel
ed hundreds of miles, l at last gave
the matter up as bad job.
If had not found still, however,
I had in the course of my wanderings
discovered what gave me a lar great
er delight, fallen across one of the
prettiest and most loveable little girls
that all Australian or any other sun
had the honor of shining upon, and,
what was better, had SO ingratiated
myself in her good graces as to win
her promise that she would never
marry any one but me. 10 4vaa
Our acquaintance had commenced
in romantic manner enough. / had
rescued her from wild COW, who
would certainly have gored her had ]
not interposed and shot the brute.
She was too frightened to walk home
and so accompanied her, was intro
duced to her parents as a matter of
course, and they were profuse in their
thanks, and begged me hencetorth to
look upon their house as my home,
and so forth.
I promptly took them at their word,
and every other evening, and some
times even oftener, my charger would
be comfortably stalled for hours at a
time in Farmer Martins stable; and
meanwhile, the pretty Gertrude and
myself would be either wandering by
the rivers bank studying poetry to-
gether in the old summer house, or,
as the cold weather drew on, playing
chess i'll the snug little back parlor.
These things continued until the
rainy season set in, but instead of be-
ing deferred by the steady down
pours, my visits become, if possible,
more frequent than before. and
through the slushy low-lands, where
the water was above my horses knee,
1 lightly logged like u marine CEN
taur, to revisit my inamorata.
By and by the fathers suspicious
were aroused. Could it be possible a
mounted trooper, wearing English
uniform, would ride nightly through
mud and rain, and thunder and light
ming. and hail and wind, TO drink a
glass of grog and smoke a pipe with
an old man OF sixtyf Common sense
answered NO." and having fair
stock of that commodity, so also said
Farmer Martin. "The girl he's after,
and it's time time to put a stop to this
nonsense" was the conclusion he ar
rived at.
And SO the next night rode over,
and before Gertrude and could fin
ish our third game of chess, Mr.. Mar
tin put his head into the room and
said in dry, dignitied kind of n
way:
''Hem. could 1 speak with you a
few minutes i'll the front parlor, Mr..
Rush ?''
! think l knew what was coming,
and SO did Gertrude, for she grew
Very pale. and unset the the chess.