Explore "Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days" by Miles Franklin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The up-country _Courier_, voicing the opinion of its squatter subscribers, called on the rich and aristocratic relatives of the bushrangers to come out on the side of law and order by assisting the troopers to put down the outlawry. Labosseer was sure that this exhortation was especially intended for him, and it wrung his withers unendurably.
Knowing Mrs Poole to be an ambitious woman, he humbled his pride sufficiently to ride over to put the case before her privily. She appeared genuinely upset about the evil suspicions clinging to her stepson, but at the same time she was indignant that such rumours should be given credence. Her explanation of Bert's frequent absences was that he must be enamoured of one of the pretty girls of the Eagle Hawk connection. This was the case with Malcolm McEachern, as many knew. But Labosseer felt that the explanation lacked plausibility.