“You wouldn’t care to sell her?”
“No! I couldn’t part with her. My wife and the children drive her. She’s so good all round, and quiet too; and though there’s lots of horses in the district, it’s wonderful what a time it takes to pick up a real good one.”
“Quite Arab like! I was told people would sell anything in Australia, especially horseflesh. There’s the luncheon bell! Well, I’ve had a pleasant morning, and even with the prospect of dinner at seven o’clock, I feel equal to a modest meal, just to keep up the system. It’s wonderful what an appetite I’ve had lately.”
Mr. Blount fed cautiously, with an eye to dinner at no distant period. Sheila was much excited at the idea of the Sergeant coming to dine with him.
“He’s a splendid old chap,” said she. “Such tales I used to hear about him when I was a kiddie at school. Many a day when he’s been out after cattle-stealers, and bushrangers, people said he’d never come back alive. He was never afraid, though, and he made them afraid of him before he was done.”
“By the way, where did you go to school, Sheila? You speak excellent English, and you haven’t any twang or drawl, like some of the colonial girls.”
“Oh! at She-oak Flat. There was a State school there, and mother kept us at it pretty regular, rain or shine, no staying at home, whatever the weather was like or the roads, and we had three miles to walk, there and back.”
“So you didn’t go to Melbourne, or Sydney?”
“No! Never been away from Bunjil. I suppose I shall see the sea some day.”
“Never seen the sea—the sea? You astonish me!”