Australian Tales - Setis

number of genteel residents of the place. After clearing the fruit-boxes
and firewood on the jetty, the courting couple walked slowly towards the
charming little village on the hill. As they went along, with all their
senses active, the warm bright sun shining upon such varied loveliness,
had a remarkably mellowing effect on Phoebe's feelings, such as she had
never before experienced. Her heart got as soft as a boiled turnip with
loving sentiment; her eyes were swimming in tender emotion, and she
occasionally glanced at the beaming face of her doting lover beside her,
with Kissing Point on her pretty pouting lips.
“Well, well, dash my wig! this is a nation noice place sure enough!”
said Jonathan in a transport of admiration, as he suddenly stood still in
the middle of a green paddock, and gazed at the rare blending beauties of
hill and dale, and meandering stream around him, and sniffed in the
salubrious air, rich with scents of orange blossom and sweet brier.
“Blaimed if this bea'n't the prettiest place I've seen since I left Devon, an'
no mistake! It minds me of the bank of the river Dart, a few miles below
Totness, just avore ye come to Dittisham, where the plums grow in
galores. Dost thee loike ripe plums, Phoebe?”
Jonathan's tongue was now fairly loosened, and he was waxing warm
while he was keeping as cool and collected as a fireman. He knew what
he was talking about this time, and was careful not to make another
blunder, and thus risk all his hopes; so when Phoebe said she did like
ripe plums very much, he said her lips were like plums, and he liked
them uncommon; and was just about to say something else equally
poetical, when his eloquence was interrupted by Phoebe's calling his
attention to the eccentric behaviour of a cow, with a young calf by her
side, a short distance from them.
“Drat the beast, what does her mean?” quoth Jonathan, as the cow
elevated her tail, and began to bellow in a very ominous manner. “Stand
still, Phoebe, and poke the parasol at 'un, whoile I run an' cut a stick; I'll
soon settle the cranky owld creetur,” saying which he ran towards a tree,
about a hundred yards distant, to cut a cudgel, but had scarcely got halfway
there, when he heard a shrill cry, and on turning round he beheld
Phoebe lying on the ground, and her hat and parasol blowing before the
breeze, in the direction of a water-hole, while the cow was making
towards him full speed, with head down and tail straight up, like a millet
broom.
“Whoa! drat 'ee, what be thee about, nasty toad!” shouted Jonathan,
with uplifted hands, trying to strike respect into the cow by waving his
cabbage-tree hat, but she paid not the slightest heed to his hat; onward
she rushed with fury streaming out of her nostrils, and her glaring eyes
looking like railway lanterns denoting danger. When he saw it was
hopeless to try to stop her, either with arguments or antics, he promptly
decided that it was the wisest plan to run for his life; so he turned and ran