“Yes,” she returned, “I should be glad if you would help me this dry weather. What funny expressions you do use sometimes!”
“And,” continued Mat, “will you give me a bit of the—the—sweet-smelling plant.”
“Certainly I will,” she said, as she plucked a spray and gave it him, “and I will write down those difficult names for you. Now we will go in; they will wonder what has become of us.”
Mat told his brother that evening, before he went to bed, that he had heard of three plants quite new to him, called “Balsam,” “Boug-and-villia,” and “Ste-phen-oh-tis;” and Tim agreed that whatever the plants were like, the names were very wonderful.
The following day our forester found the squire and Tom alone in the former’s room. Parson Tabor had been away a great deal of late upon affairs connected with the station in Sydney, with Tom as companion. “Our Parson” was always taken into the confidence of the family in matters both temporal and spiritual; he was one of those men who seldom ventured an opinion upon any important matter until it was asked for; but when he did speak, his remarks and advice were worth considering, and to the point.
Mat had hoped when he entered the squire’s room that the clergyman would have been there too, but in this he was disappointed: the parson was too busy writing, they said, to attend; besides, they had not much to discuss, for, said Bell,—
“I’ve got a new chum coming, but first, what is your decision Mat, with reference to the matter we were discussing the other night?”
Mat replied that if the squire and Tom still wished him really to have a share in the station, and become one of the partners, he would do his very best, and certainly would be very proud of such a distinction being conferred upon him. He would like, he said, to begin work at once, and be off to the out-station in a couple of days’ time. (Mat did not say so, but the fact was he had taken a great fancy to gardening all at once, and wished to have a couple more evenings at that delightful occupation.)
Bell and his son were much pleased at having secured such a powerful and useful aid as our forester for the working of the station, and Mat was as delighted at having achieved the very height of his ambition, though he could never conceive that such a possibility would be afforded him in Australia, when he left the New Forest, as to rise suddenly to the position of partner in one of the finest properties in the country; for though the “books” of the station were at present a little beyond his understanding, yet by this time he was well acquainted with the whole of the “run,” and the thousands of cattle and horses upon it, and during frequent visits to Sydney for purposes connected with Bell’s affairs, he had heard nothing but praise on all sides of the squire’s management, and of the “solidity” attached to his name.
When Mat proposed to lose no time in commencing his work at the out-station, Bell replied that he wished him to wait at Bulinda until a “new chum” arrived from England, who was expected daily.