is is something quite new. So you are going to Botany
without waiting to be sent there. Ha! ha! Well, I wish you every sort
of good luck. My dear friend, Hamlyn, too. What a loss he'll be to our
little society, so sociable and affable as he always is to us poor
farmers' sons. You'll find it lonely there though. You should get a
wife to take with you. Oh, yes, I should certainly get married before I
went. Good night."

All this was meant to be as irritating as possible; but as he went out
at the door he had the satisfaction to hear James' clear honest laugh
mingling with the Vicar's, for, as George had closed the door, the
Doctor had said, looking after him--

"Gott in Himmel, that young man has go a skull like a tom-cat."

This complimentary observation was lost on Mary, who had left the room
with George. The Vicar looked round for her, and sighed when he missed
her.

"Ah!" said he; "I wish he was going instead of you."

"So does the new colony, I'll be bound," added the Doctor.

Soon after this the party separated. When James and the Doctor stood
outside the door, the latter demanded, "Where are you going?"

"To Sydney, I believe, Doctor."

"Goose. I mean now."

"Home."

"No, you ain't," said the Doctor; "you are going to walk up to Hamlyn's
with me, and hear me discourse." Accordingly, about eleven o'clock,
these two arrived at my house, and sat before the fire till half-past
three in the morning; and in that time the Doctor had given us more
information about New South Wales than we had been able to gather from
ordinary sources in a month.

Chapter V

IN WHICH THE READER IS MADE ACCOMPLICE TO A MISPRISION OF FELONY.

Those who only know the river Taw as he goes sweeping, clear and full,
past orchards and farmhouses, by woods and parks, and through long
green meadows, after he has left Dartmoor, have little idea of the
magnificent scene which rewards the perseverance of anyone who has the
curiosity to follow him up to his granite cradle between the two
loftiest eminences in the West of England.

On the left, Great Cawsand heaves up, down beyond down, a vast sheet of
purple heath and golden whin, while on the right the lofty serrated
ridge of Yestor starts boldly up, black against the western sky,
throwing a long shadow over the wild waste of barren stone at his feet.

Some Scotchmen, perhaps, may smile at my applying the word
"magnificent" to heights of only 2,100 feet. Yet I have been among