“If I know Master Jim 'twill be no bite he'll snatch!” put in Mick.
“Well, all I 'ope is that the 'otel don't poison them,” said Mrs. Brown darkly. “I on'y stopped in a Melbin' 'otel once, and then I got pot-o'-mine poisoning, or whatever they call it. I've 'eard they never wash their saucepans!”
“No wonder you get rummy flavours in what you eat down there, if that's so,” said Dave. “Surprisin' what the digestions of them city people learn to put up with. Well, I suppose you won't be addin' to their risks by puttin' up much of a dinner for them to-day, Mrs. Brown.” He grinned wickedly.
“You go on, imperence!” said the lady. “If I let you look into the larder now (w'ich I won't, along of knowin' you too well), there'd be no gettin' you out to work to-day. Murty, that turkey weighed five-and-thirty pound!”
“Sure he looked every ounce of it,” said Murty. “I niver see his aiqual—he was a regular Clydesdale of a bird!”
“I rose him from the aig meself,” said Mrs. Brown, “and I don't think I could 'a' brung meself to 'ave 'im killed for anythink less than them comin' 'ome. As it was, I feel 'e's died a nobil death. An' 'e'll eat beautiful, you mark my words.”
“Well, it'll be something to think of the Boss at the head of his table, investigatin' a Billabong turkey again,” said Boone, putting down his empty cup. “And as there's nothing more certain than that they'll all be out at the stables d'reckly after dinner, wantin' to see the 'orses, you an' I'd better go an' shine 'em up a bit more, Mick.” They tramped out of the kitchen, while Mrs. Brown waddled to the veranda and cast further anxious glances at the bank of clouds lying westward.
Norah was watching them, too. She was sitting in the corner of the compartment, as the swift train bore them northward, with her eyes glued to the country flying past. Just for once the others did not matter to her; her father, Jim, and Wally, each in his own corner, as they had travelled so many times in the past, coming back from school. Then she had had eyes only for them; to-day her soul was hungry for the dear country she had not seen for so long. It lay bare enough in the early winter—long stretches of stone-walled paddocks where the red soil showed through the sparse, native grass; steep, stony hillsides, with little sheep grazing on them—pygmies, after the great English sheep; oases of irrigation, with the deep green of lucerne growing rank among weed-fringed water-channels; and so on and on, past little towns and tiny settlements, and now and then a stop at some place of more importance. But Norah did not want the towns; she was homesick for the open country, for the scent of the gum trees coming drifting in through the open window, for the long, lonely plains where grazing cattle raised lazy eyes to look at the roaring engine, or horses flung up nervous heads and went racing away across the grass—more for the fun of it than from fear. The gum trees called to her, beckoned to her; she forgot the smooth perfection of the English landscape as she feasted her eyes on the dear, untidy trees, whose dangling strips of bark seemed to wave to her in greeting, telling her she was coming home. They passed a great team of working bullocks in a wagon loaded with an enormous tree trunk; twenty-four monsters, roan and red and speckled, with a great pair of polled Angus in the lead; they plodded along in their own dust, their driver beside them with his immense whip over his shoulder. Norah pointed them out to the others with a quick exclamation, and Jim and Wally came to look out from her window.
“By Jove, what a team!” said Jim. “Well, just at this moment I'd rather see those fellows than the meet of the Coaching Club in Hyde Park—and I had a private idea that that was the finest sight in the world!”
“Aren't you a jungly animal!” quoth Wally.