Here was soup that an epicure would not have despised, fish to tempt a dying man, besides game of different kinds, pies, and last, if not least, steak of kangaroo.
The soup itself was made from the tail of the kangaroo, and I know nothing more wholesome and nourishing, though some may think it a little strong.
While the white folks were having dinner indoors, the black fellows were doing ample justice to theirs al fresco, only they had their own cuisine and menu, of which the least said the better.
“You’re sure, Mr Craig, you winna tak’ a wee drappie?”
If the honest squatter put this question once in the course of the evening, he put it twenty times.
“No, really,” said Craig at last; “I will not tak’ a wee drappie. I’ve sworn off; I have, really. Besides, your wife has made me some delightful tea.”
“Weel, man, tak’ a wee drappie in your last cup. It’ll cheer ye up.”
“Take down your fiddle, Findlayson, and play a rattling strathspey or reel, that’ll cheer me up more wholesomely than any amount of ‘wee drappies.’”
“Come out o’ doors then.”
It was cool now out there in Findlayson’s garden—it was a real garden too. His garden and his fiddle were Findlayson’s two fads; and that he was master of both, their present surroundings of fern and flower, and delicious scent of wattle-blossom, and the charming strains that floated from the corner where the squatter stood were proof enough. The fiddle in his hands talked and sang, now bold or merrily, now in sad and wailing notes that brought tears to even Archie’s eyes. Then, at a suggestion of Craig’s, Etheldene’s sweet young voice was raised in song, and this was only the beginning of the concert. Conversation filled up the gaps, so that the evening passed away all too soon.