And snorting with erected mane.
The desert-born was on the point of being knocked down for fifty pounds, when Wilfred, infected by the extravagance of the day, bid another pound. She finally became his at the low price of sixty guineas.
‘She’s very green,’ said St. Maur; ‘just haltered, I should say. However, she has plenty of condition, and if you are going a journey, will be quiet enough in a week.’
‘I like her looks,’ said Wilfred. ‘It’s an awful price; but stock have risen so, that we shall reap the advantage in another shape. But for Rockley I should have gone back by sea.’
‘I never consider a few pounds,’ said that gentleman, ‘where my life’s concerned. I can just tell you, sir, that, in my opinion, the Rebecca is more than likely never to see Sydney at all if bad weather comes on. I shall buy that brown cob.’
After the cob had been bought, and a handsome chestnut by St. Maur, the friends strolled up to the famous Lamb Inn, long disestablished, like the cafés of the Quartier Latin, and there met with certain choice spirits, also rejoicing in the designation of ‘overlanders.’ They seemed on terms of intimacy with St. Maur, and cordially greeted his two friends. One and all had been lately concerned in large stock transactions—had been equally fortunate in their sales. Apparently they were minded to indemnify themselves for the perils of the waste by a full measure of such luxuries as the infant city afforded.
‘Great place this Melbourne, St. Maur,’ said a tall man with bushy whiskers. ‘Decomposed basaltic formation, with an outcrop of empty champagne bottles. I saw a heap opposite Northcott’s office yesterday like a glass-blower’s débris. As fast as they emptied them they threw them out of the window. Accumulation in time—you know.’
‘Northcott does a great business in allotments and house property,’ said St. Maur; ‘but it can’t last for ever. Too much of that champagne element. But what’s become of Warden—he was to have been here?’
‘Forgot about the hour, I daresay,’ said the man with the whiskers. ‘Most absent fellow I know. Remember what he said to the Governor’s wife at Adelaide? She asked him at dinner what he would take. Joe looked up from a dream (not of fair women, but of drovers and dealers), and thinking of the cattle he had just brought over, replied, “Six pounds a head all round, and the calves given in!”’
Mr. Joe Warden, blue-eyed and fair-haired as Cedric the Saxon, long afterwards famed as the most daring and successful of the explorers of that historic period, shortly joined them, apologising for his unpunctuality by declaring that he had bought two corner allotments and a flock of ewes within the last ten minutes.