Hobart, at length. Mr. Blount was unaffectedly pleased, even joyous, when for the second time he sighted the towering summit and forest-clothed sides of Mount Wellington, overlooking the picturesque city, the noble stretches of the Derwent, and the Southern main. Impatient of delay, and feverishly anxious to receive the letters which he had not cared to trust to the irregular postal service of Silverado; almost certain, as he deemed, of answers to his letters from Mrs. Bruce and Imogen, even if the master of the house had not relented, he had stayed a day to ensure the company of the mining expert, the road being lonely, the weather bad, and the conversation of a cultured companion valuable under the circumstances. Mr. Blount ran rapidly through the pile of letters and papers which he found awaiting him; indeed, made a second examination of these former missives.
A feeling of intense disappointment overcame him when no letters with the postmark of the village on the Upper Sturt turned up, nor did he discover the delicate, yet free and legible handwriting, which conveyed such solace to his soul at Bunjil.
Looking over the correspondence, mechanically, however, he came across the postmark of that comparatively obscure townlet, and recalling the bold, characteristic hand of Sheila Maguire, tore it open. It ran as follows:—
“Dear Mr. Blount,—You told me when you went away that cold morning, that if anything happened here that I thought you ought to know, I was to write and tell you. We all thought there would be a heavy fall of rain, and most likely a big storm that night. I expect you just missed it, but there must have been a waterspout or something, for the Little River, and all the creeks at the head of the water, came down a banker. It knocked the sluicing company’s works about, above a bit, and flooded the miners’ huts—but the worst thing it did was to drown poor Johnny Doyle the mailman. Yes! poor chap, it wasn’t known for days afterwards, when the people at Marondah wondered why they didn’t get their mail. He was never known to be late before. However, drowned he was, quite simple too. He could swim first-rate, but the pack-horse was caught in a snag, and he must have jumped in, to loose the bags, and got kicked on the head and stunned. So the packer was drowned, and him too, worse luck! His riding horse was found lower down—he’d swum out all right. They fished up the pack saddle with the mail-bags, but the letters were squashed up to pulp—couldn’t be delivered.
“So, if you wrote to any one down the river, she didn’t get it.
“I thought it as well to let you know, as you might be waiting for an answer, and not getting one, go off to foreign parts in a despairing state of mind. Bunjil’s much the same as when you left, except that Little-River-Jack, the two O’Haras, and Lanky Dixon were arrested in Gippsland, but not being evidence enough, the P.M. here turned them up. A report came that you had struck it rich in Tasmania, so you may be sure of getting all your letters now and some over. I’ve noticed that. So long. I send a newspaper with the account in it of the flood.
“Believe me always,
“Your sincere friend and well-wisher,
“Sheila Maguire.
“P.S.—The cob goes first-rate with me. I’m learning him to jump. He’s christened ‘Bunjil.’ I’m going to live in Tumut after Christmas, and he will remind me of the time you came here first.”