“Well, this is a riddle;” and Robinson was intensely puzzled.
“Carlo,” cried George, suddenly, “come here. I will not have you hunting and tormenting those kangaroo rats to-day. Let us all be at peace, if you please. Come to heel.”
The friends strode briskly on, and a little after eleven o'clock they came upon a small squatter's house and premises. “Here we are,” cried George, and his eyes glittered with innocent delight.
The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground round it. A furzebush had been planted by the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate in the middle of them. From the little plantation all the magnificent trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded with amazing resolution and consistency, and oak and ash reigned safe from overtowering rivals. They passed to the back of the house, and there George's countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel walk he found from thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them diggers.
“Ah, well,” said he, on reflection, “we could not expect to have it all to ourselves, and indeed it would be a sin to wish it, you know. Now, Tom, come this way; here it is, here it is—there.” Tom looked up, and in a gigantic cage was a light brown bird.
He was utterly confounded. “What, is it this we came twelve miles to see?”
“Ay! and twice twelve wouldn't have been much to me.”
“Well, but what is the lark you talked of?”
“This is it.”
“This? This is a bird.”