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xenithWhile looking for other things, of course, I found my missing book that I referred to in this post (so you look at that to see what the hell I'm talking about). The year of the story is later 1824.
He stopped and screwed up his eyes, dazzled, as he came out of the wood and into sunlight. There was a stone cottage ahead.... There were strange animals near the house. A white kangaroo. Two small black bear-like creatures. They didn't run away, though. Neither did the native porcupine that was sitting on the doorstep.
...
She stood in the doorway that led into the house--a tall girl in a peignoir throw over a nightgown. There was, Brady saw with a feeling of unreality, a magpie sitting on her shoulder. Her hair was very long, dark and straight and reaching to her waist.
...
Her name was Emma Davis. She was the widow of an army officer who had secured a land grant, brought her to Van Diemen's Land then died. She had been twenty-five then.... She had been left a little money--not enough to live on in England but, with the cottage, sufficient for this shepherdess kind of life where she could milk her cows and grow things in the garden. She loved caring for animals; those he'd seen outside had been sick and, now made well again, preferred to stay with her. And she wrote poetry and studied nature and played the flute a little.
...
Her talk and manners were those of a lady, yet she milked cows, cleaned her house and adapted a shirt and trousers of her late husband's for him as well an any cottager. At times, she behaved like a demi-mondaine--she'd come into the kitchen on more than one occasion in her night-attire, showing far more bosom and ankle than was seemly and leading Brady to guess that she exposed more than her face and arms to the sun, yet she was as modest as a nun in her dealings with him.
From "And Wretches Hang: the true and authentic story of the rise and all of Matt Brady, bushranger", Richard Butler
He stopped and screwed up his eyes, dazzled, as he came out of the wood and into sunlight. There was a stone cottage ahead.... There were strange animals near the house. A white kangaroo. Two small black bear-like creatures. They didn't run away, though. Neither did the native porcupine that was sitting on the doorstep.
...
She stood in the doorway that led into the house--a tall girl in a peignoir throw over a nightgown. There was, Brady saw with a feeling of unreality, a magpie sitting on her shoulder. Her hair was very long, dark and straight and reaching to her waist.
...
Her name was Emma Davis. She was the widow of an army officer who had secured a land grant, brought her to Van Diemen's Land then died. She had been twenty-five then.... She had been left a little money--not enough to live on in England but, with the cottage, sufficient for this shepherdess kind of life where she could milk her cows and grow things in the garden. She loved caring for animals; those he'd seen outside had been sick and, now made well again, preferred to stay with her. And she wrote poetry and studied nature and played the flute a little.
...
Her talk and manners were those of a lady, yet she milked cows, cleaned her house and adapted a shirt and trousers of her late husband's for him as well an any cottager. At times, she behaved like a demi-mondaine--she'd come into the kitchen on more than one occasion in her night-attire, showing far more bosom and ankle than was seemly and leading Brady to guess that she exposed more than her face and arms to the sun, yet she was as modest as a nun in her dealings with him.
From "And Wretches Hang: the true and authentic story of the rise and all of Matt Brady, bushranger", Richard Butler
