It was a long time before Nic could settle off to sleep that night, and in consequence he was very late the next morning.
Chapter Forty.
The Doctor Plays Magistrate.
Do I mean Nic did not get down till breakfast was ready, about eight o’clock?
No, I do not. This was Australia in its earlier days of the colony, and people’s habits were different from ours.
Nic Braydon’s lateness consisted in his being fast asleep when the piping crow began to run up and down its scales to announce that the stars were paling faster, when the laughing jackasses chuckled at the loud crowing of the cocks; and he was dreaming about Mayne being brought up to the station by mounted police when the sun had been visible an hour.
Nic started up in a profuse perspiration, jumped out of bed and dressed rapidly, eager to get out in the paddocks to see that the bullocks and horses that brought the party on the previous day were properly attended to.
He now met the three men who had come with the waggon busy enough unpacking, and he found that Brookes, old Sam, and the three blacks were all hard at work. The fresh milk was being brought into the dairy, the horses were being fed and rubbed down, and all was going on in the satisfactory way which the boy felt would please his father.