Sam turned his gaze away from the gaunt and played-out beasts. "Where are yer goin' to nah, then?" he said to the man.
Two voices replied so exactly in unison that they seemed like one: "Wolver'ampton."
"'Eaps of 'ouses there, I suppose?" remarked Sam mildly.
"Miles an' miles of 'em," said the three-cornered-faced woman, as she adjusted one of her curling-pins with a whitish hand, which was embellished with one thin wedding ornament and three or four ruby and sapphire rings.
"All the 'ouses there is joined tergevver, eh?" said Sam—"like strings of sossidges."
"They are an' all," replied the flat-faced man, with a touch of ecstasy in his voice.
"'Cept where the pubs, an' popshops, an' streets makes openings in 'em," added the woman.
At this juncture, Trailey's team caught up behind, so Sam clicked to Tempest and Kruger to move along.
With a lusty whack across the ribs with a stout poplar pole, administered to the panting nigh-side ox with marvellous dexterity, the flat-faced man warned his animals that it was time to get up. The sudden jerk, when they lunged to their tired feet, nearly threw the woman out of the wagon.
Within forty days, two or three hundred Barr Colonists were back in England. The English newspapers appropriately christened them "Barr Colonist refugees."