All That Swagger by Miles Franklin — Read

Late one afternoon Darcy reined-in to note the changes that had taken place in Burrabinga during his absence. Some of the nearer slopes had been ringbarked and burned; trout fishers had denuded a reach of the river of its fairy shrubs. The orchards obscured the low-set house. Old Wong's grave was new in the little cemetery.

Clare Margaret had planted a drive of poplars and clumps of pampas grass, and the leaves of the trees shimmered as beaten gold, the white plumes of the grass waved like the crests of a medieval crusade against the setting sun. Pale blue wood smoke from the autumn burning-off was incense to the traveller's senses, and the cool, familiar song of the river poured between day and night like eternity whispering _Hussssssssssh_! to the mundane disharmonies of man. Darcy felt that he had come home. The western country could not be what this was to him. It was like entering a deep, cool castle after the heat and glare, dust or wet or cold of unrelieved night and day. He rode forward to the announcement of the dogs, which brought some of the family to the veranda. He was breathless in thinking of Clare Margaret. Would she know him?