The Frenchman, for such he was, turned for a moment, and fixing a small glittering eye—cold and serpentine—upon M‘Nab, said—
“It is then that you refuse us a morsel of food, the liberty to lie on the hut floor?”
“There is the road,” repeated M‘Nab; “I will harbour no impostors or loafers.”
“I have the honour to wish you good-evening,” said the Frenchman, bowing with exaggerated politeness; “a pleasant evening, and dreams of the best.”
The men went slowly on their way. M‘Nab went into the cottage, by no means too well satisfied with himself. A feeling of remorse sprang up within his breast. “Hang the fellows!” said he to himself, “it serves them right. Still I am going in to a comfortable meal and my bed, while these poor devils will most probably have neither. That Frenchman didn’t seem a crawler either, though I didn’t like the expression of his eye as he moved away. They’ll make up for it at Jook-jook to-morrow. Why need they have told me that confounded lie? then they would have been treated well. However, it can’t be helped. If we don’t give them a lesson now and then the country will get full of fellows who do nothing but consume rations, and fair station work will become impossible.”
Early next morning—it was Sunday, by the way—Jack was turning round for another hour’s snooze, an indulgence to which he deemed himself fairly entitled after a hard week’s work, when Mr. M‘Nab’s voice (he was always up and about early, whatever might be the day of the week) struck strangely upon his ear. He was replying to one of the station hands; he caught the words—“The shed! God in heaven—you can’t mean it!” Jack was out of bed with one bound, and, half clad, rushed out. M‘Nab was saddling a horse with nervous hands that could scarcely draw a buckle.
“What is it, man?” demanded Redgrave, with a sinking at the heart, and a strange presentiment of evil.
“The wool-shed’s a-fire, sir!” answered the man, falteringly, “and I came in directly I seen it to let you know.”
“On fire! and why didn’t you try and put it out?” inquired he, hoarsely, “there were plenty of you about there.”
He was hoping against hope, and was scarcely surprised when the man said, in a tone as nearly modulated to sympathy as his rough utterance could be subdued to—