Where had Mary got that queer aboriginal look, she the granddaughter of an English earl?
"Y're real lively to-day, aintcher, Jack? Got a hundred quid for your birthday, and my, some talk!"
"Comes to that," said Jack, rousing himself with difficulty. "We've come fifteen or twenty miles without you opening your mouth either."
Tom laughed shortly and relapsed into silence.
"Well," he said, "let's wake up now, there's the outlying paddock." He pointed with his whip.—"And there's the house through the dip in the valley!" Then suddenly in a queer tone: "Say, matey, don't it look lovely from here, with all that afternoon sun falling over it like snow . . . You think I've never seen snow: but I have, in my dream."
Jack's heart contracted as he jumped down to open the first gate. For him too, the strange fulness of the yellow afternoon light was always unearthly, at Wandoo. But the day was still early, just after dinner-time, for they had stayed the night half way.
"Looks in good trim, eh?" said Jack.
"So it does! All" replied Tom. "Mr. George says Ma done wonders. Made it pay hand over fist. Y'remember that fellow, Pink-eye Percy, what come from Queensland, and had studied agriculture an' was supposed to be a bad egg an' all that? At that 'roo hunt, you remember? Well, he bought land next to Wandoo, off-side from the Reds. An' Ma sortta broke wi' the Reds over something, an' went in wi' him, an't' seems they was able to do wonders. Anyway Old George says Ma's been able to buy a little place near her own old home in Beverley, to go to.—But seems to me—"
"What?"
"Funny how little anyone tells you, Jack."