bridge and I had been settled in our new home about
two years, and were beginning to get comfortable and contented. We had
had but little trouble with the blacks, and, having taken possession of
a fine piece of country, were flourishing and well to do.

We had never heard from home but once, and that was from Tom
Troubridge, soon after our departure, telling us that if we succeeded
he should follow, for that the old place seemed changed now we were
gone. We had neither of us left any near relations behind us, and
already we began to think that we were cut off for ever from old
acquaintances and associations, and were beginning to be resigned to it.

Let us return to where he and I were standing alone in the forest. I
dismounted to set right some strap or another, and, instead of getting
on my horse again at once, stood leaning against him, looking at the
prospect, glad to ease my legs for a time, for they were cramped with
many hours' riding.

Stockbridge sat in his saddle immoveable and silent as a statue, and
when I looked in his face I saw that his heart had travelled further
than his eye could reach, and that he was looking far beyond the
horizon that bounded his earthly vision, away to the pleasant old home
which was home to us no longer.

"Jim," said I, "I wonder what is going on at Drumston now?"

"I wonder," he said softly.

A pause.

Below us, in the valley, a mob of jackasses were shouting and laughing
uproariously, and a magpie was chanting his noble vesper hymn from a
lofty tree.

"Jim," I began again, "do you ever think of poor little Mary now?"

"Yes, old boy, I do," he replied; "I can't help it; I was thinking of
her then--I am always thinking of her, and, what's more, I always shall
be. Don't think me a fool, old friend, but I love that girl as well now
as ever I did. I wonder if she has married that fellow Hawker?"

"I fear there is but little doubt of it," I said; "try to forget her,
James. Get in a rage with her, and be proud about it; you'll make all
your life unhappy if you don't."

He laughed. "That's all very well, Jeff, but it's easier said than
done.--Do you hear that? There are cattle down the gully."

There was some noise in the air, beside the evening rustle of the south
wind among the tree-tops. Now it sounded like a far-off hubbub of
waters, now swelled up harmonious, like the booming of cathedral bells
across some rich old English valley on a still summer's afternoon.

"The