Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/18

him. Now and then the nature of the road permitted them to range up alongside, but this was seldom. Behind them, on a neck of land jutting out into the broad tidal river, lay the township—a handful of white wooden buildings—shut in, save where cut by the roadway, by an impenetrable sea of scrub. A steamer lay alongside the wharf, the throb of a winch floating up through the chill air of the wintry afternoon. A few cows grazed outside the Court House. These were the sole evidences of activity. The steamer was an excitement which repeated itself—weather permitting—once a fortnight throughout the year, and affected the destinies of the people for fifty miles around. The cows were constant—except at milking time, when they had to be sought for in the scrub, usually standing perfectly still until discovered by an irate owner and driven off recalcitrant to a half-starved calf.

The men were both young, the elder not more than twenty-eight, and the other scarcely yet come to manhood. There was a likeness between them which betrayed some relationship, though this was rather in indefinable characteristics than in actual resemblance, the elder brother’s face possessing a beauty and restlessness of spirit which were lacking in the simpler, yet more forceful countenance of the younger. The face of the man in front was for the moment clouded and gloomy, while that of the younger brother wore an apologetic expression.

‘Couldn’t see his way?’ said the elder brother, with a short laugh. ‘He’s like ourselves, then. What else did he say?’

‘Said he’d got a lot of money out he never expected to see again. The natives had gone