'Well, sir, the Doctor's no chop, but there's worse than Bill Bond, if you'll believe me. The only thing is, now he's hunted from pillar to post so, and he ain't got half a chance to repent if he wanted ever so much, I'm afraid he'll do something out of the way bad yet.'
The autumnal season, with calm sun-gilded days, cool starlight, unclouded nights, and mornings fresh and exhilarating, as if newly ordered from Paradise, came gradually to an end. Lovely, passing fair, as weather in the abstract; but dry, dry, always dry, and as such lamentable and injurious. Then winter made believe to arrive with the first week in June. But how could it be winter, Bertram thought, when the skies were still cloudless and untroubled, the mid-day warm, the plains dusty, the air soft, the river low; when the flowers in the garden bloomed and budded as usual; when no leaf fell from the forest; when, save the great acacias in the backyard and the white cedars in the garden, all the trees at Corindah were green and full-foliaged? The chief difference was that the nights were longer, cooler. There were sharp frosts from time to time; and when Bertram arose early in the morning, according to his wont, all things were covered with an icy mantle. On one occasion, when he met Mr. Gateward coming in from a long night ride, his abundant beard was frozen stiff as a stalactite.
The sheep died faster than ever, at which Bertram wondered much, but did not ask questions. 'Everything comes to him who waits,' was one of his favourite proverbs.
'If it had been always thus,' he told himself, 'so many evidences of capital and prosperity would not be here. A change will come sometime, but I cannot hasten it by ignorant questions. I shall learn all about this extraordinary country in the course of time.'
His theory was sound. But Mrs. Devereux was neither so self-contained nor philosophical. She complained and bemoaned herself from time to time, as is the way of women. At the evening meal, when after the day's duties the two young people and herself met with an affectation of social enjoyment, she made many things plain to the inquiring mind of Bertram Devereux, silent and incurious as he seemed to be.
'It had not always been thus. In the old, happy days droughts had certainly occurred, but with intervals of years between. Now the seasons seemed to have changed. The year before last was a drought, and now—this was the most sore and terrible grass famine she had ever remembered. Their losses would be frightful, disastrous, ruinous.'
'Was it on the cards that she would be actually ruined—lose all her property, that is—if the season remained unchanged?'
'Well, not absolutely. She could not truthfully say that. Even if all the sheep on Corindah died, the whole fifty thousand, the land and fences would remain. But twenty or thirty thousand pounds would be an immense sum to make up. The very thought made her shudder. To think of the years it had taken to make and save it! No doubt she could get more sheep. Her credit, she was thankful to say, was good enough for that.'
'I believe it's all Mr. Gateward's fault, said Pollie impetuously. 'Why did he persuade you not to buy a station in the mountains last year, where there's beautiful green grass and running water in the driest summer. That's what is needed for the poor sheep now. And all for a thousand pounds.'