Our forester showed his bride everything connected with the adventures of his youth. Round by Stoney Cross they rode into Boldre Wood. He was able to show her the ruins of the cottage in which he had been imprisoned. He took her into Vinney Ridge, and pointed out, in the Blackwater Stream close by, the scene of his encounter with the bloodhound.
Annie had often, during the voyage to England, expressed a wish to see these places; for, besides being new to her, as she had never been much beyond Burley, all these scenes were associated with the early days of her hero.
But though she seemed as though she would never tire of these forest rambles, Mat confessed to her that some things about his old district disappointed him.
The gipsies and most of his old friends were either dead or had emigrated to other lands; some of the good old Forest families, it was true, remained—such as the Youngs and Broomfields, but of a generation that knew not him. Stephen Burns had long gone to join his brother on the Darling Downs; Mat had paid the debt to his old friend and backer, and on inquiry at Lyndhurst he found that the money had been received, to his great relief, as it had never been acknowledged.
One matter which especially shook our hero’s pride in his forest home, was the fact that most of the grand old trees associated with his youth had been cut down for ship’s timbers. Only some of his ancient friends in ‘Boldre Woods’ and ‘Vinney Ridge’ had been spared, and another eye-sore to him was that he found the forest ‘fenced in,’ in all directions. As he observed after one of their long rambles,—
“It is too small, Annie, there seems to be no room left, too civilized, too taken up, none of the good old breed of ponies left. I suppose Australia has spoilt me; it is yourself and your country I love, and we will soon return.”
Mat’s parents had settled down in their old age on a small farm which they had been able to purchase and cultivate through the aid of money sent home to them by their sons. When Tim arrived in the forest, he found that the money so generously given him by the squire would increase this farm of his father and mother, and also enable him to improve the breed of the forest ponies. As he was not able to do manual work this latter occupation suited him well; and when Mat arrived he found that his brother had taken up his abode with the old couple altogether. And the faithful “Jumper”?—
Shortly before Mat’s arrival in England, the old dog had taken his last sleep. He had laid himself down in his usual place, at the foot of Tim’s bed one night, and in the morning they found him dead, his rough and scarred old body lying in the position he had taken up on going to sleep,—a faithful guard to the last.
Tim took his dumb companion of many a hunt and many a fight, up in his arms, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, spoke to him as if addressing a human friend: “Oh! my dog, my old dog—my old chum, shall I never see you in this life again? Some have told me that dogs have another world as well as us; then I may meet you again. Oh! I can’t stand the look of that once affectionate eye. ‘Jumper,’ come.” And poor heart-broken Tim carried his last treasure to the old gipsy camping ground, and there buried him deeply under a gnarled old beech-tree, leaving an appropriate stone to mark his last resting-place.
When the Squire, his wife, and Parson Tabor returned from their trip to the Continent, they found that our hero and heroine were quite ready, and indeed anxious to return to their Australian home; and gladly did they again rejoice, when some few weeks later the little party of five found themselves one balmy evening collected together on the verandah of Bulinda Creek.