And, almost as he spoke, there came into sight a magnificent team of six dark bays, harnessed to an American waggon. They were splendid animals, and were dressed in handsome substantial harness. The waggon was piled with cases and barrels, and the driver, an elderly man whose face might have been carved out of leather--it was so brown, and looked so tough--was sitting in front, cracking a long whip, and shouting to his horses.
"Hi! there! hi! Get along, Truelove! Now, then, Silver! Pull it up!"
Whereupon the bullock-driver sent the cracker on his whip flying in the air, till it tickled the noses of the leading bullocks, and he cried,--
"Hi! there! hi! Get along Strawberry! Now, then, Lazybones! Pull it up!"
"Pull it up!" echoed the teamster, scornfully. "You may well say, pull it up. I'll pull you up, if you block the road in that way. Make room for a gentleman, if you please. Why, I should be ashamed of myself for a lumbering lazy rascal, if I was you. Here am I, started two days after you, tripping up your heels in less time than it takes to say Jack Robinson! Well, if ever I take to bullock-driving, may I be--"
But here he made a full stop, and turned as red as a peony, for he caught sight of Alice in the bullock dray.
"Almost committed myself," he whispered to the bullock-driver, as they shook hands. "I didn't know you had a woman with you."
"She is a lady, Jamie," said the bullock-driver. "I am so glad you have come up, you can't tell. She is going your road, and you'll have to take her on, to-morrow morning."
"All right. If you say so, so it is. It's time we camped. I hurried on to catch you up, so that we might camp together. And who is this?" he asked, pointing to Grif, whose hitherto forlorn appearance was not improved by the dusty road. Not that it gave Grif any concern; his torn clothes, his dirty skin, his almost shoeless feet, mattered not to him. He had no thought of himself.
"This," said the bullock-driver, putting his hand on Grif's head, and looking kindly into Grif's face. "This is one of the anomalies of human nature. I don't know if the family to which he belongs is a numerous one, but if it is"--he paused, and his look changed to one of pity--"if it is, and if the other members of the family are made of the same stuff, they deserve better than this," and he touched Grif's rags, thoughtfully and tenderly.