She disliked the cattle dogs mooching round with hanging jaws and slavering tongues.

The ferocious chuckle of a great grey king-fisher--the bird which white people called the laughing jackass--perched on the branch of a gum tree beside the fence, made her shudder, because the bird's soulless cachinnation seemed an echo of Colin's laugh.
Ah! that was the bush, undivested of romance--hard, brutal, vindictive, in spite of the mocking verdure of her honeymoon spring....

And Colin was a part of the Bush.

He resembled it.

He too could be strong and sweet and tender as the great blossoming white cedar down by the lagoon, as rills of running water making the plain green--when his desires were satisfied.