's unlucky," said Bolt, "for here am I, just landed from Victoria,
and money in both pockets. And where do you think I am going now? to
Chester, to see my father and mother, and show them I was right after
all. They wanted me to go to school; I wouldn't. Leathered me; I howled,
but wouldn't spell; I was always bad to beat. Next thing was, they
wanted to make a tanner of me. I wouldn't. 'Give me fifty pounds and
let me try the world,' says I. THEY wouldn't. We quarreled. My uncle
interfered one day, and gave me fifty pounds. 'Go to the devil,' said
he, 'if you like; so as you don't come back.' I went to Sydney,
and doubled my fifty; got a sheep-run, and turned my hundred into a
thousand. Then they found gold, and that brought up a dozen ways of
making money, all of 'em better than digging. Why, ma'am, I made ten
thousand pounds by selling the beastliest lemonade you ever tasted for
gold-dust at the mines. That was a good swop, wasn't it? So now I'm come
home to see if I can stand the Old Country and its ways; and I'm going
to see the old folk. I haven't heard a word about them this twenty
years."

"Oh, dear, sir," said the meek woman, "twenty years is a long time. I
hope you won't find them dead an' buried."

"Don't say that; don't say that!" And the tough, rough man showed a
grain of feeling. He soon recovered himself, though, and said more
obstreperously than ever, "If they are, I disown 'em. None of your
faint-hearted people for me. I despise a chap that gives in before
eighty. I'm Ben Bolt, that is bad to beat. Death himself isn't going to
bowl me out till I've had my innings."

"La, sir; pray don't talk so, or you'll anger them above, and, ten to
one, upset the train."

"That's one for me, and two for yourself, ma'am."

"Yes, sir," said the mild soul. "I have got my husband with me, and you
are only a bachelor, sir."

"How d'ye know that?"

"I think you'd ha' been softened down a bit, if you'd ever had a good
wife."

"Oh, it is because I speak loud. That is with bawling to my shepherds
half a mile off. Why, if I'm loud, I'm civil. Now, young man, what is
YOUR trouble?"

Henry started from his reverie, and looked astonished.

"Out with it," shouted Mr. Bolt; "don't sit grizzling there. What with
this lady's husband, dead and buried in that there newspaper, and you,
that sets brooding like a hen over one egg, it's a Quaker's meeting, or
nearly. If you've been and murdered anybody, tell us all about it. On