Mr. Hart nodded and walked away. He was in a tender and serious mood. The letter from his daughter had somewhat disturbed him. Its tone was as affectionate as usual; but hidden in its words, like the scent of a flower in its leaves, was a confession of unhappiness. It was not expressed in so many words. The writer told him this and that, as she was in the habit of doing, and a stranger reading it would have said, "It is a happy girl who wrote this letter." But Mr. Hart read with the heart of a father, and he saw what would not have been visible to others. He seemed to hear his daughter whisper to him to come home and counsel and advise her--to come and love and protect her. It made him terribly uneasy.
"When the six months are up," he thought, "I will not wait another day. Father and daughter should be together; she is just of the age when a girl most needs a father's love and care. Thank God, there is not long to wait; in a little more than four months I shall turn my back on Silver Creek."
And yet the thought brought a certain regret with it. Silver Creek had been a good place for him, and he had cause to bless the day he entered it, with his company of actors and actresses and his weak-kneed horse. He paused at the foot of the Margaret Range, and thought of the first day he had seen it, and how he had debated whether he should ascend it or not.
"The happiness of our lives hangs upon chance," he said. "If I had not ascended this hill I should not have made the acquaintance of Philip in the way I did. We should not have been together now, and I should not have had the means of joining my child and making her life happy. Four thousand pounds! Aha! Gerald! Fly away, time!"
He called it out to the hills, as a light-hearted boy might have done.
He found William Smith in all his glory. The hill was alive with men. Philip's claim was in full work; a steam-engine was at the top of it, puffing and blowing day and night, pumping up the water. The William Smith quartz-crushing machine was thumping away merrily. New veins of golden quartz had been discovered, and were being worked. Some of the workmen's slab huts were already erected, and the plots for kitchen-gardens laid out. Two or three score of goats were scampering about; in the fowl-houses roosted five hundred head of poultry; women were hanging clothes on the lines to dry; children were running after one another and playing. William Smith was supremely happy and satisfied with himself. He stood there, dusty and brown, with his sleeves tucked up, a king. He conducted Mr. Hart over the ground, and showed him what he had done, and told him what he intended to do. Everything was planned and arranged in an admirable way. William Smith, in this carrying out of his ambition, was an enthusiast, but he was no dreamer. He was a practical man to the edges of his nails.
"I will ride back with you," he said to Mr. Hart, "and sleep at the Silver Flagon to-night, if you will stop with me till ten o'clock."
Mr. Hart consented, and went among the workmen, and talked with them while William Smith read his mother's letter. They had supper together, and a pipe afterwards, and sat outside William Smith's wooden house, which had a fine broad verandah all round it.
"See this place in twelve months," said William Smith, "and you'll not know it."
"I shall be away then," said Mr. Hart, "and shall be hearing one day that you are at the head of the Government."