“All right!” and Gerrard, secretly delighted, but showing no sign of it, went on placidly: “you see, Ted, you have a good man in Black” (head stockman at Marumbah). “What he doesn't know about cattle isn't worth knowing, and there's no need for you to come tearing back for mustering, and branding, and attending to things generally. D'ye think that if you died to-morrow the cattle would go into mourning, and would refuse 'to increase and multiply'? No one in this world is indispensable, although everyone thinks he is, and that, when he pegs out, the Universe is going to fall into serious trouble. Now, that's all I have to say. Are you satisfied I'm talking sense?”
“Sonny, it's all right. I'll do any blessed thing you want, although I hate the idea of leaving Marumbah to loaf about in Sydney for six months,” and the big man gripped Gerrard by his pointed beard, and tugged it affectionately. “I can see that I have thought too much of myself and too little of others.”
“Not a bit; you were only thinking of Marumbah. Ted, old man, I think I'll come back next year, and well see the Melbourne Cup together, hey?”
“Its a deal! If you don't come, I'll——”
“Kick me when I do come. Time we were off home, fatty.”
Just about midnight, as Gerrard lay on his bed reading, he heard a low sound of sobbing from little Mary's room, which adjourned his own. He rose quietly, stepped to her door, and gently opened it.
The child was in her nightdress, leaning out of the window, with her hands outstretched to the night.
“Oh Jim, Jim, dear Jim! I wish Uncle Tom had never come to Marumbah. He must be a godless and wicked man to take you away from me when I love you. I hate him, I hate him!”
Gerrard went back to his room, lit his pipe and walked out on to the verandah, and paced slowly up and down, thinking.
“I wish I had 'em both,” he said to himself.