Aub Dawson saw them first, and reported that they looked decent enough blokes, but his grudging tone suggested that he was reserving his opinion, and could give no positive guarantee that they were not concealing horns, hoofs and forked tails. Although these activities had no apparent connection with the Lane, we felt bothered. Perhaps this was because they had no apparent connection with anything else either. If we could have seen them as a first stage in straightening operations, later to be extended in our direction, and finally past our doors, they would have been, though upsetting, at least comprehensible. We should have known what we were worrying about. But just there the ridge is a veritable razor-back, and Nature has quite clearly ordained where the road is to go. Theoretically, it is two chains wide; but that, of course, is nonsense, and has always been treated as such by those whose properties debouch upon it. If it were indeed so constructed; its edges would pass on the one side through Bert Hall’s front verandah, and on the other behind the Robertsons’ packing-shed; and since it could hardly be supported, as these structures are, upon wooden stumps, it would necessarily float on air.
