‘If ever I marry a woman with such a name as that, I hope I shall be a henpecked husband for the rest of my life!’ I retorted angrily, seizing a paper-knife and beginning to tear away at the _Australasian_, so as to drown further conversation upon what was a very sore subject.
My brother Donald’s wife Lizzie was as good and kind a little woman as ever breathed, but like many young wives in happy circumstances, she was a matchmaker. And being impulsive, effusive, and not quite—what shall I call it? I don’t like to say she was not quite a lady, but that would suggest my meaning—she did not pursue her calling with that tact and judgment which its delicate nature required. I need not say more, except that she had a number of spinster sisters, and one only bachelor relative, who lived all by himself in single-blessedness on his own fine and thriving property, and that I was that male victim. I beg pardon of all the Misses Lindsay for using such a term; I was not a victim as far as _they_ were concerned. But I did feel it hard that I should be laughed at wherever I went as the captive knight of half-a-dozen fair ones, when I had never had the choosing of one of them.
When I received the above letter I had just seen my last wool-bale packed on the last bullock-dray and started on its slow journey to Melbourne; and the day after I set off myself on my yearly visit to Don. He was less fortunate in respect of sheep-shearing than I, for living in an exceptionally cool district, where an exceptionally wet and wintry spring had kept everything behindhand, he had still all his troubles to come. I thought of that as I buttoned myself into my Ulster, which I was glad of that cold morning, though Christmas was only a month off; and I reflected that I should be the only unemployed man at the disposal of the household until the shearing was over, and foresaw (as I thought) the consequences. I made up my mind, however, that I would defy Lizzie’s machinations in a more systematic manner than heretofore. May I be forgiven for so priggish a determination.
It was midnight before I reached Ballarat, where Don usually met me; but upon this occasion I found a telegram stating that he was too busy to leave his farm, and would send for me next day. So I had one game of pool at the club and went to bed; and next morning enjoyed an hour or two over newly arrived English papers and periodicals, and a solitary lunch; and then the familiar old ramshackle buggy and the beautiful horses Don was famed for made their appearance, and I set off on the last stage of my journey. When I arrived at my destination it was dark and raining heavily; and the groom who opened the stable-gate told me that my brother had not long come up from the wash-place and was interviewing shearers at the hut. I was wet and muddy, so I went straight to my room without even asking for my sister-in-law, who was usually in her nursery at that hour, and proceeded to make myself respectable for dinner. Presently I heard Don about the passages (the house was ‘weather-board’ and the partitions extremely thin) asking the servants where I was; and then his head and a half-bared neck appeared in the narrow aperture between my door and the door-post.