"He hurts me as it is, Mr. Pickering. I know nothing quite so sad as such sights, and I've seen more of them on my way up here than ever in my life before."
"Come, come, don't tell me it's worse than the old country," said the squatter, laughing, "or we shall fight all the way back! Now, will you jump up and come with me while I get your luggage; or shall we meet at the post-office over yonder on the other side?"
The girl looked round, following the direction of the pointed whip. "Yes, at the post-office, I think," and then she smiled. "It may seem an affectation, Mr. Pickering, but I'd really rather not go near the hotel again."
"Well, perhaps you're right. I'll be with you in five minutes, Miss Winfrey."
He flicked his horses: and in those five minutes the new governess made a friend for life in poor Miss Crisp the little old post-mistress. It was an unconscious conquest; indeed, she was thinking more of her employer than of anything she was saying; but this Miss Winfrey had a way of endearing herself to persons who liked being taken seriously, due perhaps to her own habit of taking herself very seriously indeed. Nevertheless, she was thinking of the squatter. He was a little rough, though less so, she thought, in his flannel shirt and wide-awake, than in the high collar and frock-coat which he had worn at their previous interview in Melbourne. On the whole she liked him well enough to wish to bring him to her way of looking at so distressing a spectacle as that of a drunken man. And it so happened that no sooner had she taken her seat beside him in the buggy than he returned of his own accord to the subject which was uppermost in her mind.
"It was one of my own men, Miss Winfrey."
"The man on the verandah?"
"Yes. They call him Cattle-station Bill. He looks after what we call the Cattle Station—an out-station of ours where there are nothing but sheep, by the way—on the other side of the township. He has a pretty lonely life over there. It's only natural he should knock down a cheque now and again."
The governess looked puzzled. "What does it mean—knocking down a cheque?"
"Mean? Well, we pay everything by cheque up here, d'you see? So when a man's put in his six months' work, say, he rolls up his swag and walks in for his cheque. Twenty-six pounds it would be for the six months, less a few shillings, we'll say, for tobacco. And most of 'em take their cheque to the nearest grog shanty and drink it up in three or four days."