“That comes from heaven or Providence, or from something that one knows to be unassailable, and therefore one can put up with it. Even if one gets a sun-stroke one does not complain. The sun has a right to be there, and is no interloper, like a free-selector. I can’t understand why free-selectors and mosquitoes should have been introduced into the arrangements of the world.”
“I s’pose the poor must live somewheres, and ‘squiters too,” said Mrs. Growler, the old maid-servant, as she put a boiled leg of mutton on the table. “Now, Mr. Harry, if you’re hungered, there’s something for you to eat in spite of the free-selectors.”
“Mrs. Growler,” said the master, “excuse me for saying that you jump to conclusions.”
“My jumping is pretty well-nigh done,” said the old woman.
“By no means. I find that old people can jump quite as briskly as young. You have rebuked me under the impression that I was grudging something to the poor. Let me explain to you that a free-selector may be, and very often is, a rich man. He whom I had in my mind is not a poor man, though I won’t swear but what he will be before a year is over.”
“I know who you mean, Mr. Harry; you mean the Medlicots. A very nice gentleman is Mr. Medlicot, and a very nice old lady is Mrs. Medlicot. And a deal of good they’re going to do, by all accounts.”
“Now, Mrs. Growler, that will do,” said the wife.
The dinner consisted of a boiled leg of mutton, a large piece of roast beef, potatoes, onions, and an immense pot of tea. No glasses were even put upon the table. The two ladies had dressed for dinner, and were bright and pretty as they would have been in a country house at home; but Harry Heathcote had sat down just as he had entered the room.
“I know you are tired to death,” said his wife, “when I see you eat your dinner like that.”
“It isn’t being tired, Mary; I’m not particularly tired. But I must be off again in about an hour.”