A Davyhurst Romance:

DAVYHURST ROMANCE  –  THE VAGRANT LETTER

The Bush Buck-and the Belle   –   A Mulga Novelette

“Vagrant” : The love affairs of ‘Dancing Tommy’, coach-driver, poet, and whipper in in general at local social functions, have ever been of considerable interest to the Davyhurst community and other Mulgaland centres. Arrived in claw-hammer coat and immaculate waistcoat. Tommy is always the central figure around which the dancers move at the weekly hops. No entertainment could possibly be a success without Dancing Tommy. Naturally, such a superb person, is eagerly sought after by the fair sex, but as no ravishing miss had won him, despite much desperate angling to capture his affections, the girls at last gave him up in despair.

* * * * *

“He is heartless,” sobbed a brunette at one of the pubs, on receiving a cold decisive no to her sixth consecutive proposal of matrimony. Seems Tommy has some sentiment however, judging by the following tender communication sent to one of his numerous bush acquaintances and picked up on the road by a resident who takes a sardonic delight in passing the letter around for inspection.

* * * * *

“Dearest  C-, I am writing this in the chaff-house; you can’t get a fair chance anywhere else with all the blokes hanging around. Excuse the candle-grease spots, the other stains are tears! Don’t let on to Billy and the other coachy’s you got this. Billy doesn’t know what it is to be in love; he knows more about beer and narking you by blocking you or for getting one of Jacky Harris racehorses working in the coach to have a go in the Davyhurst races. Oh, C–, when can you get off to hear the outpourings of a distracted soul. Say you’ve got the influenza to the missus, and climb out the winder when you’re supposed to be in bed. Meet me near the North Pole Mine on Friday night, and we can make all arrangements to get hooked if dearest, you are willing. A bursting heart is pleading.
~Your adoring one,  “Thomas.”

Here followed several blobs of candle grease and many marks of Tommy’s emotion.

Words cannot give any adequate idea of the enamored one’s disgust on learning that the above epistle had fallen into wrong hands. “If I hadn’t planked all me money on the Caulfield Cup I’d emigrate,” says Tommy.