"I scarcely aim so high, Hugh," replied Deverell. "My stock-keepers are scattered over the cleared land in huts, to look after the cattle. I live in my castle, like a feudal lord, surrounded by my vassals, who have erected rude temporary huts. But if you will all agree to settle round me, we will really found a colony. I will make an application to purchase, instead of leasing, my immense tract of land. We will divide and cultivate it, which I never could do alone; and we will begin to build a handsome village, or perhaps two villages—one named Mayburn, and the other Deverell."
"Please, sir, have you plenty of timber?" asked Jack, roused at the prospect of work.
"You will see my woods and forests soon, Jack," answered Mr. Deverell. "Then I have inexhaustible quarries of stone in the mountains, and some good quarrymen and stonecutters on my establishment. We will have a regular English village, with a green for sports, and pleasant gardens to the cottages."
For a few days more they travelled pleasantly over the grassy turf; then they came on almost impenetrable brushwood; and as this formidable obstacle to their progress would require vigor to overcome it, they encamped to spend the night, and commence their fatigue with the morning light. But they found conversation and repose equally impossible, from the disturbance caused by the restless movements and incessant bellowing of the cattle, which struggled to escape from the pens in which their attendants had confined them. Hugh went up to them with some curiosity, to know what was the cause of this unusual excitement amongst the quiet creatures. The herdsmen were all grinning and rubbing their hands with great glee.
"Well, Patrick," said Deverell to one of the men, "what is the jest that you seem to enjoy so much?"
"It's the bastes, master," answered the man exultingly; "they know where they are, the craters! Don't they smell the smell of their own comrades, sinsible darlings! And it isn't the brush they'd mind if we were giving them lave to it. Isn't it a short cut they'd make to come at them as is of their own blood! True old Irish they are, and illegant bastes. Arrah, didn't them rogues see that when they came kidnapping? and didn't they choose them out, in regard that there were no bastes to be seen like them! Bad luck to the rappareens!"
"Can it be possible," asked Margaret, "that we are really so near to Daisy Grange that the animals scent it?"
"We are a long day's journey yet from Daisy Grange," answered Deverell; "but it is true that we are not far from the borders of my extensive estate. This formidable thorny brushwood forms, in fact, the boundary and defence on this side, neither easy nor desirable to penetrate. A very large portion of the interior of my land is not only uncultivated, but is even unknown to me. We take care, however, to have cattle-stations and hut-keepers round the boundaries, that our rights may be recognized and preserved; and doubtless these weary wanderers have been stolen from one of the border stations, and now scent with great satisfaction their old companions, and their old quiet, luxurious homes."
"Then I suppose we may conclude," said Gerald, "that if we understood the vaccine gamut, we should hear that big old red cow bellowing 'Home! sweet home!' And don't I wish we could join her, for I don't like the look of that ugly scrub we shall have to carry our horses through."
"Not altogether ugly," said Margaret; "look at this curious and interesting Banksia, with its stiff yellow robe; the white star-like blossoms of this shrub, which resembles our myrtle; and here is our old friend the tea-shrub."