Landtakers: The Story of an Epoch

The river had risen to the foot of the slope. The pens and the men's quarters were gone. Only the roof of the woolshed was visible, creaking and swaying under the force of the flood. A shepherd and three thousand sheep were missing. The carcasses of bullocks went down the river, trees, debris, and McFarlane's house. And still the rain pelted with the venom of a satanic resolution to clear the valley of every living thing.

Emma stood at the door of the homestead and watched the river, which circled the homestead with a waste of yellow waters. Sambo, beside her, checked off the various chunks of lumber as they passed with the dispassionate interest of a toll-keeper. "There goes ole Andy's best cady. Won't be half sore losin' that. Real felt, it war. Crikey, missus, there's his weskit. Can't be much more the poor ole stinker left. Hullo, what's that?" He was struck dumb by his first sight of a sideboard, which Emma guessed must be part of the furniture Rosa Bellamy had been so proud about. She had brought it all the way from England, then from Moreton Bay by bullock-dray. A table, chairs and a chest-of-drawers came whirling down the stream, and after them a painted door, which told her that the Bellamy's house was gone, the Bellamys with it, perhaps.