Part 94 (2/2)
”Oh, in a couple of months, I suppose. I must give Tom time to get a house up before I go and join him. What a convenient thing a partner like that is, eh?”
”Oh, by-the-bye, Mrs. Buckley,” said Captain Brentwood, ”what do you make of this letter?”
He produced a broad thick letter, directed in a bold running hand,
”Major Buckley, ”Baroonah, Combermere County, ”Gipps-land.
”If absent, to be left with the nearest magistrate, and a receipt taken for it.”
”How very strange,” said Mrs. Buckley, turning it over. ”Where did you get it?”
”Sergeant Jackson asked me, as nearest magistrate, to take charge of it; and so I did. It has been forwarded by orderly from Sydney.”
”And the Governor's private seal, too,” said Mrs. Buckley. ”I don't know when my curiosity has been so painfully excited. Put it on the chimney-piece, Sam; let us gaze on the outside, even if we are denied to see the inside. I wonder if your father will come tonight?”
”No; getting too late,” said Sam. ”Evidently Halbert and the Doctor have found themselves there during their ride, and are keeping him and Mrs. Hawker company. They will all three be over to-morrow morning, depend on it.”
”What a really good fellow that Halbert is,” said Captain Brentwood.
”One of the best companions I ever met. I wish his spirits would improve with his health. A sensitive fellow like him is apt not to recover from a blow like his.”
”What blow?” said Mrs. Buckley.
”Did you never hear?” said the Captain. ”The girl he was going to be married to got drowned coming out to him in the a.s.sam.”
Chapter XLV
IN WHICH THERE ARE SOME ASTONIs.h.i.+NG REVELATIONS WITH REGARD TO DR.
MULHAUS AND CAPTAIN DESBOROUGH.
At ten o'clock the next morning arrived the Major, the Doctor, and Halbert; and the first notice they had of it was the Doctor's voice in the pa.s.sage, evidently in a great state of excitement.
”No more the common bower-bird than you, sir; a new species. His eyes are red instead of blue, and the whole plumage is lighter. I will call it after you, my dear Major.”
”You have got to shoot him first,” said the Major.
”I'll soon do that,” said the Doctor, bursting into the room-door. ”How do you do, all of you? Sam, glad to see you back again. Brentwood, you are welcome to your own house. Get me your gun--where is it?”
”In my bedroom,” said the Captain.
The Doctor went off after it. He reappeared again to complain that the caps would not fit; but, being satisfied on that score, he disappeared down the garden, on murderous thoughts intent.
Sam got his father away into the verandah, and told him all his plans.
I need hardly say that they met with the Major's entire approval. All his plans I said; no, not all. Sam never hinted at the end and object of all his endeavours; he never said a word about his repurchase of Clere. The Major had no more idea that Sam had ever thought of such a thing, or had been making inquiries, than had the owner of Clere himself.
”Sam, my dear boy,” said he, ”I am very sorry to lose you, and we shall have but a dull time of it henceforth; but I am sure it is good for a man to go out into the world by himself” (and all that sort of thing).
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