“Yes—so pretty,” answered Lilian; “it’s a poem in itself.”
“How do you like Thirlestane?”
“I like it, too. Did you name it?”
“Yes,” replied Naylor, “it’s called after a small place my grandfather had in England. Its original name is a Dutch one—Uitkyk, a look-out; but Thirlestane’s better than Uitkyk, isn’t it?”
“Jack Armitage calls it ‘Oatcake’ even to this day,” put in Claverton.
Suddenly, a loud booming noise came from one of the enclosures. All looked in that direction. The great ostrich was plainly visible, his neck inflated to six times its size as he emitted his deep call, volleying it out in heavy booms, three at a time.
“Fancy an ostrich making such a row as that! You wouldn’t have thought it possible, would you, Miss Strange?” said Gough, the tutor. He had joined the party at dinner-time, when school was over.
“I don’t think I should,” answered Lilian. “The first time I heard it, I was so frightened. It was at Seringa Vale. I was lying awake at night, and this great booming sounded so awful in the dead of night. I hadn’t a notion what it was; the first thing I thought of was some wild beast.”
“A lion, I suppose,” said Naylor.
“I think the whole of the Zoological Gardens ran through my vivid imagination. How Mr Brathwaite laughed when I told him about it next morning! Yet I was terribly frightened.”