{"product_id":"2940013669031","title":"The Romance of a Station","description":"\"There's a fire at the South End, Mrs. Ansdell. Your husband is\u003cbr\u003esignalling for Rame's boat. You'll see him this evening.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI ran out to the verandah of the Police Magistrate's house. Yes,\u003cbr\u003ethere was the beacon light shining like a big red star, low down in\u003cbr\u003ethe heavens, far off across Gundabine Bay. I heard one of the pilots\u003cbr\u003eshouting at the verandah of the wooden public-house opposite:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rame, I say! Hurry up with your nobbler. There's Ansdell on the\u003cbr\u003eIsland signalling to be brought over.\" Then I saw Rame slouch out of\u003cbr\u003ethe bar, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his Crimean shirt, and trot\u003cbr\u003edown to the wharf; and I knew that in two or three hours' time my\u003cbr\u003ehusband would be with me, and I was glad, for I was a bride, and this\u003cbr\u003ehad been our first week of separation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I shall go back with my husband to-morrow,\" I declared resolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Jarvis, the Police Magistrate's wife, shook her head\u003cbr\u003eremonstrantly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It will be much wiser to wait a little longer. The house isn't\u003cbr\u003eready for you: I fancy the carpenters are at work still.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll help the carpenters,\" I replied.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"There are no servants, and you aren't used to roughing it in the\u003cbr\u003ebush.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, yes, I am. Why, I have lived all my life in the bush, and I\u003cbr\u003elove it. If you had ever seen dear old Bungroopim, Mrs. Jarvis, you\u003cbr\u003ewouldn't wonder that I am glad to have married a squatter instead of a\u003cbr\u003etownsman.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe both laughed, for we both knew that that wouldn't have made any\u003cbr\u003edifference; and Captain Jarvis put in--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh, yes; I know what your 'bush' was like--cool verandahs covered\u003cbr\u003ewith roses and Cape jasmine and grape-vines, mountains in the\u003cbr\u003edistance, good buggy roads, and plenty of neighbours--lots of girls\u003cbr\u003eand young men, and races and picnics, and good times all round. That\u003cbr\u003ewas kid-glove roughing it, Mrs. Ansdell, and you'll find life on the\u003cbr\u003eIsland a different sort of thing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The roses and the Cape jasmine will cover the verandah in time,\" I\u003cbr\u003eanswered; \"and as for the girls and the young men and the good times,\u003cbr\u003eI don't care about all that now.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But the mosquitoes, Mrs. Ansdell?\" said his wife. \"You can't\u003cbr\u003eimagine how bad they are on the Island at this time of the year. Don't\u003cbr\u003eyou think it would be wiser to wait till the plague has lessened?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The mosquitoes could not be worse than they are here,\" I returned;\u003cbr\u003efor as we sat in the verandah the air was full of the buzzing of\u003cbr\u003einsects, and we flourished whisks of horsehair while we talked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I am sorry to disturb your calm resignation,\" said Captain Jarvis,\u003cbr\u003e\"but I am afraid they will if I do not. The Island mosquito is a\u003cbr\u003epeculiarly ferocious beast. Let me give you a bit of advice, Mrs.\u003cbr\u003eAnsdell. Buy up all the gauze netting and all the Persian insect-\u003cbr\u003epowder in Gundabine before you go over. It's a fact that Lambert and\u003cbr\u003ehis hands always went out mustering with their heads in bags.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLambert was the former owner of the Island, from whom my husband had\u003cbr\u003ea few months before bought the station and the cattle which ran upon\u003cbr\u003eit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn spite of Captain Jarvis's warnings, and Mrs. Jarvis's gentle\u003cbr\u003edissuasion--in spite also of a certain sinister suggestiveness in the\u003cbr\u003ecompassionate interest which was shown in me by every inhabitant of\u003cbr\u003eGundabine, from the postmistress to the storekeeper's assistant, my\u003cbr\u003eresolution, fixed some days before, had not wavered. I was determined\u003cbr\u003eto brave all discomfort--to brave even my husband's opposition, and to\u003cbr\u003einsist upon returning with him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had been married only a month. I was longing to start on my new\u003cbr\u003elife, and to settle into my new home, the blue shores of which were\u003cbr\u003etantalisingly visible across the bay; and here I was, imprisoned in\u003cbr\u003ethis dreary coast township in sight of the Promised Land, and\u003cbr\u003eforbidden to pass the strip of water that separated me from it. I\u003cbr\u003eliked the idea of living on an island. This stretch of country, forty\u003cbr\u003emiles long by fourteen broad, was to be our kingdom--my husband's and\u003cbr\u003emine. There was no one to dispute possession except a little colony of\u003cbr\u003epilots who lived at the lighthouse and telegraph station quite at the\u003cbr\u003enorth end, and with whom I determined to make friends--they had\u003cbr\u003ealready sent me wedding presents of coral and mother-of-pearl from the\u003cbr\u003enautilus shell.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070171496688,"sku":"2940013669031","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013669031_p0.jpg?v=1763596847","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013669031","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}