After a short but spirited engagement with a drayman, who seemed an educated person, to Lance's astonishment, he compounded for a payment of two guineas, for which moderate sum the owner of this expensive equipage—worth a hundred and fifty pounds at ruling prices—covenanted to land them all in safety at a decent lodging-house.
'You are in luck,' said the drayman, as they were walking back to the wharf, 'to find a place to put your head in to-night, I can tell you. Lots of your fellow-passengers will have to camp out under any shelter they can extemporise. But I happen to hear the people I am taking you to say they had one bedroom and a small attic to let, the occupants having started for Ballarat this morning.'
'And how is it you are not there with all the rest of the world, if it's as rich as they say it is?'
'They can't exaggerate the richness of it. I know so much of my own knowledge, but I happened to buy this old nag and the dray, which brings me in about a thousand a year at present. I'm not an avaricious man, so I'm waiting on here till I feel in the humour to tackle digging in earnest.'
By this time the wharf was reached, and the dray being loaded with their boxes and bundles, Mrs. Polwarth placed comfortably in the centre, the men walked beside the driver. Two long and very broad streets were traversed before they arrived at a neat weatherboard cottage with dormer windows and an upper floor. The proprietor, a bronzed colonist, received them cheerfully, and immediately set to work to take in their luggage.
'Mother,' he said to a cheery, brisk little woman who now came up to the garden gate, 'you take in this young lady and little gal, and make 'em comfortable. Mr. Waters says as they've just come out in the Red Jacket. They'll be all the readier for their tea, I'll be bound. We'll see to all the boxes and things.'
'Mr. Waters, you'll just have time to do up the old horse afore the tea-bell rings. I wouldn't let them beef-steaks get cold, if I was you.'
As they sat smoking over a snug fire in the kitchen, after a well-cooked and sufficing meal, Lance and his 'mate' came fully to the conclusion that they had been in luck in falling across their friend the drayman, and being guided to such good quarters. Here they were comfortably lodged at a reasonable charge, and, moreover, had the advice of two experienced and well-disposed men as to their future plans and prospects.
'Yes. After stopping a week in Melbourne, I should certainly make tracks for Ballarat, if I were in your place,' said Mr. Waters the drayman. 'You've come all this way to dig. Jack has a wife and a child to work for, and the sooner you set about it the better.'
'But what is the best way to get there?' asked Lance. 'The road is bad, and it's a long way there. We can't carry our boxes. It's too expensive to go by coach. I don't see my way.'