As Luck Would Have It by Edward Dyson

THE stir of the bush awakened Bob at dawn. He washed in the creek, and ate a fragmentary breakfast, finishing the food he had brought from the drive. His thoughts were all of Olivia, and he stood irresolute, although he had quite made up his mind not to risk the wrecking of his plans by calling upon Peebles at this stage. There was another important consideration: he felt himself to be anything but presentable in his wild and woolly condition. He hunted out a still pool to serve as a mirror, and took a good look at himself, and then seated on the bank indulged in his first hearty laugh for many a week, refreshing his hilarity with occasional glimpses at the shaggy, unfamiliar person reflected in the creek water. His hair had grown almost to his shoulders. It had always been thick and strong, it now pushed out about his head like the coiffure of a Papuan warrior, and he was whiskered to the eyes, only eyes, nose, and a pinch of cheek being visible in the dense scrub. Meeting himself in an unexpected mirror, Bob would never have recognised this hirsute object, and it amazed him that a natural growth could bring about so complete a metamorphosis. He looked middle aged, almost mediaeval. He tried to picture himself being tender and sentimental towards the darling of his heart in this guise, and shrank in real terror from the notion.

Bob had become curiously confident of his darling's love for him while pent in the mine, he wondered now if the love of any girl could survive a shock like this. He had all a very young twentieth century man's contempt for whiskers, and could not grasp the idea of Olivia not sharing his horror. At any rate he could not bring himself to face her, an object of ridicule, even if his serious intentions did not necessitate an immediate escape from the district.