‘How are you, Neuchamp?’ he called out cheerily, jumping down from an express waggon with a driving seat. ‘Splendidly punctual, are we not? Had to come sixty miles yesterday, and five-and-thirty this morning. Can’t lick us!’
‘It was very good of you,’ said Ernest most sincerely, ‘to make a push. I do not know what I should have done if I had had to wait another day here.’
‘You don’t mean to say you came here before yesterday?’ cried Mr. Parklands in tones of horror and amazement.
‘I came three days ago, I am sorry to say.’
‘Three days!’ groaned Parklands, ‘in this cursed hole. I wonder you didn’t hang yourself, or go on the spree. But Englishmen never do that till they have been three years out from home.’
‘Three years!’ said Ernest, rather amused. ‘Then there is a possibility of my taking to inebriety in course of time. It is rather alarming!’
‘I have known many a good fellow take to it. All the same, I shouldn’t say it was much in your line though, in three years or thirty. But didn’t I see a tremendous long fellow go into the house, just as those other horses came up?’
‘There was a very tall man at the head of yonder party,’ said Ernest, looking over at the black boy and his companion, who was lighting a fire and preparing to cook. ‘He is now in the hotel.’
‘Aymer Brandon for a thousand!’ said Mr. Parklands excitedly. ‘A very old friend of mine, and the best fellow going. I suspect he has been over to his runs, on the Warrego. I’ll soon lug him out.’
With this he dashed into the inn, and shortly reappeared in company with the tall gentleman, who, indeed, only required to be seen once to be easily recognised in future.