“I suppose so. But as the country gets more thickly settled, that’ll all come.”
“Yes. You see, in the old times when all these older men had to rough it together, and were dependent on each other for mutual help and defence, it was the smartest fellow who was made most of, irrespective of social grade. And these bricklayer chaps and journeymen were always in request, and could not only command high wages at any time, but didn’t care what they did, so they made their pile quickly enough. In a few generations most of the class distinctions of the old country will prevail here, as education and the importation of educated people grows. As it is, the rising generation, if you notice, is better educated than its parents, and in many instances undisguisedly looks down on its grandparents.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Lilian. “And my predilection generally lies with the old people, who, if somewhat uncultured, are kindness itself.”
“And their very roughness makes them the fittest people to open up a new colony,” went on Claverton. “Now look at that scowling fellow Jeffreys—how weary I am of his eternal scowl, by the way. Well, his grandfather would hardly have been taken on as valet to Mr Brathwaite’s father in the old country, and yet here the Jeffreys mix with us as equals, and are among the most well-to-do people anywhere about. Isn’t this shade delightful?”
For they were walking beneath a growth of massive yellow-wood trees, whose great twisted limbs overhead shut out the sunlight, though here and there it struggled through and lay in a golden network on the ground. Masses of lichen festooned from trunk and bough, and monkey ropes and trailers of every description hung here straight and cord-like, there tangled together in the most hopeless confusion. A gloom lay beneath the shadowing trees, but it was the softened gloom of a cathedral aisle; and the column-like trunks, firm and massive, stood in rows along the coarse of the stream which bubbled along—now in little clear pools, now brawling over a stony shallow.
“Yes, perfectly sweet,” answered Lilian.
“Then, like all things to which that description applies, it isn’t to last, for here we turn upward.”
A ragged track, half path, half water-course, diverged from the stream, leading up the bush-covered hillside, steep as a flight of steps.
“Wait a minute,” called out Lucy Smithson, who was overtaking them. “I don’t think I’ll go up after all. It’s turned out so hot, and here we leave the shade. Do you mind, Mr Gough?” she added to her companion. “But don’t let me keep you from going, I can easily go back alone. It isn’t far.”
This was out of the question, and she knew it. The fact being that the whole move was a little ruse on her part with the object of befriending Claverton and Lilian, in a way covering their retreat, so as not to make it quite so conspicuous. Who knew, thought the good-natured girl, but that this very afternoon might decide the future of those two? So she had laid her little plan.