Jack laughed and went back to the coach to throw off his overcoat. He loved the crazy inconsequence of everything. He stepped along the road feeling his legs thrilling with new life. The thrill and exultance of new life. And yet somewhere in his breast and throat tears were heaving. Why? Why? He didn't know. Only he wanted to cry till he died. And at the same time, he felt such a strength and a new power of life in his legs as he strode the Australian way, that he threw back his head in a sort of exultance.
Let the exultance conquer. Let the tears go to blazes.
When the coach came alongside, there was the old danger-look in his eyes, a defiance, and something of the cat-look of a young lion. He did not mount, but walked on up the hill. They were climbing the steep Darling Ranges, and soon he had a wonderful view. There was the wonderful clean new country spread out below him, so big, so soft, so ancient in its virginity. And far beyond, the gleam of that strange empty sea. He saw the grey-green bush ribboned with blue rivers, winding to an unknown sea. And in his heart he was determining to get what he wanted. Even though he did not know what it was he wanted. In his heart he clinched his determination to get it. To get it out of this ancient country's virginity.
He waited at the top of the hill. The horses came clop-clopping up. Morning was warm and full of sun. They had rolled up the flaps of the wagonette, and there was the beaming face of Mr. George, and the purple face of Mr. Ellis, and the back of the head of the floss-haired child.
Jack looked back again, when he had climbed to his seat and the horses were breathing, to where the foot of the grey-bush hills rested in a valley ribboned with rivers and patched with cultivation, all frail and delicate in a dim ethereal light.
"A land of promise! A land of promise," said Mr. George. "When I was young I bid £1080 for 2,700 acres of it. But Hammersley bid twenty pounds more, and got it.—Take up land, Jack Grant, take up land. Buy, beg, borrow or steal land, but get it, sir, get it."
"Hell have to go farther back to find it," said Mr. Ellis, from his blue face. "He'll get none of what he sees there."
"Oh, if he means to stay, he can jump it.—The law is always bendin' and breakin', bendin' and breakin'."
"Well, if he's going to live with me, Mr. George, don't put him on to land-snatching," said Mr. Ellis. And the two men fell to a discussion of Land Acts, Grants, Holdings, Claims, and Jack soon ceased to listen. He thought the land looked lovely. But he had no desire to own any of it. He never felt the possibility of "owning" land. There the land was, for eternity. How could he own it?—Anyhow, it made no appeal to him along those lines.
But Mr. Ellis loved "timber" and broke the spell by pointing and saying: