Yes, it was a long story. The sun had gone down ere he had finished, a crescent moon had appeared in the southern sky, and stars had come out. There was sweetness and beauty everywhere. There was calm in Craig's soul now. For he had told Elsie something besides. He had told her that he had loved her from the first moment he had seen her, and he had asked her in simple language to become his wife—to be his guardian angel.
That same evening, when Archie came out into the garden, he found Elsie still sitting by Craig's couch, but her hand was clasped in his.
Then Archie knew all, and a great, big sigh of relief escaped him, for until this very moment he had been of opinion that Craig loved Etheldene.
* * * * * *
In course of a few months Squire Broadbent was as good as his word. He came out to the new land to give the Australians the benefit of his genius in the farming way; to teach Young Australia a thing or two it had not known before; so at least he thought.
With him came Mrs. Broadbent, and even Uncle Ramsay, and the day of their arrival at Brisbane was surely a red-letter day in the annals of that thriving and prosperous place.
Strange to say, however, none of the squatters from the Bush, none of the speculating men, nor anybody else apparently, were very much inclined to be lectured about their own country, and the right and wrong way of doing things, by a Squire from the old country, who had never been here before. Some of them were even rude enough to laugh in his face, but the Squire was not offended a bit. He was on far too good terms with himself for that, and too sure that he was in the right in all he said. He told some of these Bush farmers that if they did not choose to learn a wrinkle or two from him he was not the loser, with much more to the same purpose, all of which had about the same effect on his hearers that rain has on a duck's back.
To use a rather hackneyed phrase, Squire Broadbent had the courage of his convictions.
He settled quietly down at Burley New Farm, and commenced to study Bush life in all its bearings. It soon began to dawn upon him that Australia was getting to be a great country, that she had a great future before her, and that he—Squire Broadbent—would be connected with it. He was in no great hurry to invest, though eventually he would. It would be better to wait and watch. There was room enough and to spare for all at Archie's house, and that all included honest Uncle Ramsay of course. He and Winslow resumed acquaintance, and in the blunt, straightforward ways of the man even Squire Broadbent found a deal to admire and even to marvel at.
"He is a clever man," said the Squire to his brother; "a clever man and a far-seeing. He gets a wonderful grasp of financial matters in a moment. Depend upon it, brother, he is the right metal, and it is upon solid stones like him that the future greatness of a nation should be founded."