Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/30

‘I see,’ said Geoffrey, seating himself and watching his brother’s face.

‘There was Major Milward,’ Robert resumed, in the same slow, calculating manner, as though possessed of an anxiety to say what was in his thoughts to the best of his ability; ‘he used to tell me about it during the three years I was working for him before you came out. It was fifty years ago that he built his first whare on the sand-bank where he lives now. It is a long time, but in fifty years you would be no older than he is now. He didn’t have a great deal of money—just a few hundreds. He got hold of things slowly—kauri^[1] bushes and that, and every now and then he put in a few trees, and branded a few calves, and added a room or two to the house. He kept on growing, and it didn’t take as long as I said—not by a generation; he’s been a rich man longer’n we’ve been alive. Yes, and he’s given away more’n we’ve ever owned besides, And he’s lived well and had the best of everything up from Auckland—wine and that; and he’s been home in England, and most of his family have been there, and I guess he’s got enough left to do all our fencing at one pop, and the bank ’ld never notice he’d done it. Yet I’m not saying fifty years isn’t a terrible time to look forward to,’ he concluded a little lamely, turning an apologetic glance from the wall to the other’s face.

Geoffrey sat watching him in a sort of fascination, and for awhile nothing was said.

Robert, if he had expected an outbreak, was