Gentleman Craig was certainly a strange mortal; but after all he was only the type of a class of men to be found at most of our great universities. Admirable Crichtons in a small way, in the estimation of their friends—bold, handsome, careless, and dashing, not to say clever—they may go through the course with flying colours. But too often they strike the rocks of sin and sink, going out like the splendid meteors of a November night, or sometimes—if they continue to float—they are sent off to Australia, with the hopes of giving them one more chance. Alas! they seldom get farther than the cities. It is only the very best and boldest of them that reach the Bush, and there you may find them building fences or shearing sheep. If any kind of labour at all is going to make men of them, it is this.
Two minutes after Craig had been talking to Archie, the sweet, clear, ringing notes of his manly voice were awaking echoes far a-down the dark forest.
Parrots and parrakeets, of lovely plumage, fluttered nearer, holding low their wise, old-fashioned heads to look and listen. Lyre-birds hopped out from under green fern-bushes, raising their tails and glancing at their figures in the clear pool. They listened too, and ran back to where their nests were to tell their wives men-people were passing through the forest singing; but that they, the cock lyre-birds, could sing infinitely better if they tried.
On and on and on went the cavalcade, till sylvan beauty itself began to pall at last, and no one was a bit sorry when all at once the forest ended, and they were out on a plain, out in the scrub, with, away beyond, gently-rising hills, on which trees were scattered.
The bleating of sheep now made them forget all about the gloom of the forest. They passed one or two rude huts, and then saw a bigger smoke in the distance, which Bill told Archie was Findlayson's.
Findlayson came out to meet them. A Scot every inch of him, you could tell that at a glance. A Scot from the soles of his rough shoes to the rim of his hat; brown as to beard and hands, and with a good-natured face the colour of a badly-burned brick.
He bade them welcome in a right hearty way, and helped "the lassie" to dismount.
He had met "the lassie" before.
"But," he said, "I wadna hae kent ye; you were but a bit gilpie then. Losh! but ye have grown. Your father's weel, I suppose? Ah, it'll be a while afore anybody makes such a sudden haul at the diggin' o' gowd as he did! But come in. It's goin' to be anither warm day, I fear.
"Breakfast is a' ready. You'll have a thistle fu' o' whiskey first, you men folks. Rin butt the hoose, my dear, and see my sister. Tell her to boil the eggs, and lift the bacon and the roast ducks."