"To think," Esther observed, "that with the exception of the few Barr Colonists looking for their farms, there isn't a soul in all that vast space." She was profoundly impressed by the bigness of the picture.
"Quite true," commented Bert shortly. He was adjusting his thoughts to the startling immensity of everything. After a long silence, he added: "It's all laid out on such a stupendous scale that it makes one feel exactly like an ant."
At the word "ant," Trailey felt a creepy sensation in the region of his shoulder-blades. He tried to reach the spot with his hand, but was unable, so he gently rubbed his back against the seat. So heavenly was the relief, that his spirit reacted to the wonderful picture before him. He sat in the wagon, and with absolutely expressionless eyes contemplated Nature's magnificent canvas.
"Not a building," he sighed; "not a street; not a tram; not a chapel; not even a restaurant where you can get a sixpenny plate of beef and potatoes to eat while you read the British Weekly"—then, lowering his voice, he gently whispered to himself with perfectly-delightful incongruity: "From Greenland's icy mountains, to India's——" but, as it was an exceedingly warm afternoon, and as he was enjoying a certain amount of freedom from the itching of his various stings, his head, which he had protected from the sun and the insects with a handkerchief pushed up round and under the back of his cap, fell forward on his ample breast, in which comfortable position he half dozed off.
Martha Trailey's musings ran in different grooves. She regarded her volcanic spouse with unutterable disdain, then echoed him mockingly: "No out-door relief; no asylums; no almshouses; no workhouses; no soup kitchens; no——"
Interrupting her satirically, Sam took up the refrain: "An' no pubs; no music 'alls; no kids sellin' matches; no cawffee stalls; no tarts ter wink at yer; in fact, absobloomin'lutely nothink."
Esther and Bert had wandered off, ostensibly to inspect their land; actually, to pick a place to build a nest.
"We must build it of logs, Bertie." Esther, like the crows, possessed a pronounced bump of rusticity.
Martha Trailey nudged her husband into complete wakefulness.
"Aren't you going to look at that other farm now we're here?" she said irritably.