[1] It recounts the story of an outback woman left alone with her baby in a bush hut as she awaits attack by a swagman who has called there during the day.
[2] The story was subsequently published in the author's 1902 collection Bush Studies, under the preferred title and with some previously excised scenes restored.
Compare this horrible nightmare with Lawson's '"The Drover's Wife," and you will realise the difference between the relentless, the strained, and the terrible, and that which is human.
[5] Gleeson-White goes on to point out that Baynton's version of "the bush" is one to fear, where women in particular have to live under the threat of violence, and are generally appreciated only for their looks and their capacity for work.
[6] The Australian Town and Country Journal went further by stating, "It seems a pity that a writer with Barbara Baynton's keen observation, incisive pen, and dramatic sense, should not turn her powers to better account than she has done in Bush Studies", later referring to the stories as "harrowing" and "mercilessly tragic".