“But surely he is formed for better things than that,” observed Alethea, and Polly thought she saw a slight blush rise on the cheek of her friend.
“He would never consent to associate with the rude, rough men which drovers surely must be, even though he might meet occasionally with the adventures you describe,” she exclaimed.
“Oh! but he intends not only to be a drover, but a grazier; and that, he tells me, is a sure road to wealth and independence,” observed Polly.
“Here he comes to answer for himself,” said Kate, and the young ladies, looking up, saw Jack advancing towards them, and presenting a very becoming appearance in his grey suit, with his hair brushed as smoothly back from his smooth open forehead as its curly nature would admit of, and his hat in his hand, a fashion he gladly adopted, to avoid the necessity of constantly removing it as he passed his numerous acquaintances.
Polly’s affectionate little heart bounded at seeing many friendly glances thrown at him, and she whispered to Kate, in a tone which Alethea overheard, “He does not look as if we need ever be ashamed of him, after all.”
“If he follows the life he proposes, he will never wear a sword like a gentleman,” observed Kate.
“He is tolerably well able, I should say, to defend himself without one,” observed Alethea, “from the specimen he gave us of his prowess this afternoon,” and she described the scene which had occurred on their entering the town, when Jack had so bravely taken the part of the poor widow’s cow.
While she was speaking, Jack himself came up to them. The sisters immediately attacked him on the subject, and Alethea inquired whether he had driven back the animal to Widow Pitt’s paddock.
“Oh, yes!” he answered; “but I should have had a far better appetite for dinner, had I been able to find the fellows who had been so cruelly baiting her. However, they will not manage to escape me altogether, I’ll warrant; but, as you know, I do not expect to remain here much longer, now that I have finished my course at the Grammar School. They will be for sending me to college if I do, and that I could never brook. But before I go, I must come and pay you a visit at Harwood Grange, Mistress Alethea.”
“We shall always be glad to see you,” said the young lady, looking up with a bright glance at Jack’s honest countenance. “Here comes my father to say the same.”