“Only enough for sprinkling the garden these three months. I heard old Jerry, the shepherd, tell Paddy Nolan that he thought it was going to set in dry—the west wind was always blowing. We’ve lots of feed yet.”
“Old Jerry is a good judge of the weather at Mooramah; he’s been watching it these fifty years. And how are they at Wantabalree?”
“Very poor, almost starving.”
“What?” said Hubert. And then laughing at the boy’s strictly pastoral ideas, he said—“You mean the sheep in the paddocks, I suppose.”
“Yes, of course; they’re getting as bare as your hand. What they’ll do with all those sheep in another month or two nobody knows. Half of ’em’ll die before winter.”
“You seem to take a practical view of things, Maurice,” said Mr. Hope. “Are matters as bad as all that?”
“Well, I’m about a good deal, and I can’t help seeing. It’s a pity, too; they’re so nice, all of them.”
Hubert at home again! After all the doubts, fears, delays. Maurice had not exaggerated the amount of hugging, as he disrespectfully expressed it, which the returning hero had to undergo, and which would probably have created a stoppage on Mooramah platform. Mr. Hope stood by with a tolerant air, and even made some light remark to Miss Dacre as to their being left out of the extremely warm greetings which prevailed. A very short time, however, was suffered to elapse before all due apologies were made to their guests, and the cordiality of Laura’s manner perhaps caused Barrington Hope to overlook any overweening measure of love bestowed upon the long-absent brother.
“How her eyes sparkled, how her cheek glowed, how she seemed to devour the young fellow with her eyes!” he said to himself. And he argued favourably, knowing something of womankind, of the probable devotion to her husband should she ever condescend to endow mortal man with that supreme and sacred title.