“And now, squire,” said Mat, after the two had ridden some distance farther, “I’ve got something to tell you, that I have told to no man living, excepting Tim. This ‘swag’ holds a lot of nuggets, Tim has an equal quantity, and they should start us without the purse, thanks to you all the same; and now I will tell you about our gold discovery.”
Mat then recounted full particulars of their “find” in the Golden Gully, which Bell listened to with interest, saying he “would not tell it to the ground.”
By the time Mat had finished his narrative, they reined their horses up at the station.
As soon as Mat had made himself presentable, the squire reintroduced him to Mrs. Bell, and they shortly afterwards sat down to dinner, where they were joined by Annie and Parson Tabor.
Mrs. Bell was an easy-going soul, who, whilst mutilating her own English tongue, managed to utterly murder the French one, on the strength of having once paid a few weeks’ visit to France, for the sake of her daughter’s education. Her husband and children had long since quenched these foreign outpourings as far as they themselves were concerned, but whenever an unlucky stranger came to the house, Mrs. Bell would open fire as soon as her guest was seated, never caring whether he or she knew French or not.
Here then was a chance when Mat made his appearance, which she was not slow to avail herself of, by asking him whether he could speak or understand French, knowing perfectly well that in his case he could do neither.
Mat, who wished to be specially civil to the mother of Annie, answered,—
“No, ma’am, I have never learnt it, and I would hardly care about trying to.”
“Not want to learn French! the language of the present day! And pray, Mat, don’t call me ‘mum,’ as you did in the Forest. If I must ’ave a ’andle, let it be light and pretty, and pronounce it as I do—Madam. And now will you pass me the ‘ménoo.’”
It so happened that this was the exact word, as pronounced by Mrs. Bell, for one of the snakes of the Waigonda country.