fer. In the first place, no one but
ourselves will know your history. In the next, if they did so, that
is no reason why you should not hold the appointment. No man is
free from the risk of being suspected unjustly. You have been
acquitted by a jury of your countrymen and, even did everyone know
it, no one dare throw it in your teeth.

"No, I repeat, if you like I have no doubt that I can obtain for
you an appointment as officer in the constabulary. You need not
give me an answer now. Think it over for a week. You will have
plenty of time, for Mr. Hudson insists upon your taking up your
abode with him, when you land."

"That I do," Mr. Hudson said. "I have a place a mile out of Sydney,
and there you will stop for a bit. Then I hope you will go up the
country with me, for a month or two, and learn the ways of the
place; till Captain Wilson has got an appointment for you--that is,
if you quite decide to accept his offer, instead of mine. But
remember, if ever you get tired of thief hunting, the offer will
still be open to you."

Sydney was at that time but a very small place; for the great wave
of emigrants had not yet begun to flow, and the colony was in its
early infancy. As soon as the vessel cast anchor, Mr. Hudson and
his party landed, taking Reuben with them; and an hour later he
found himself installed, as a guest, at the squatter's house.

It was large and comfortable, surrounded by a broad verandah, and
standing in a garden blooming with flowers, many of which were
wholly unknown to Reuben. He had, of course, before landing laid
aside the suit he had worn on board ship, and had dressed himself
in his best; and the heartiness and cordiality of his host, his
wife, and daughter soon made him feel perfectly at his ease.

"We are in the rough, you know," Mr. Hudson said to him. "Everyone
is in the rough here, at present. Twenty years hence things may
settle down, but now we all have to take them as we find them. The
chief difficulty is servants. You see, almost every other man here
is either a convict, an ex-convict, or a runaway sailor; about as
bad material as you could want to see, for the formation of what
they call at home a genteel establishment. The number of emigrants
who come out is small. For the most part they have a little money
and take up land, or at any rate, go up country and look for work
there. A few, of course, who have been sent out by their friends at
home to get rid of them, loaf about Syd