inued to prosper with him as it did at present, it
would be no time before he could sell out and joyfully depart for the
old country.

In the meantime, why complain? He had much to be thankful for. To take
only a small point: was this not Saturday night? To-morrow the store
was closed, and a string of congenial occupations offered: from
chopping the week's wood--a clean and wholesome task, which he gladly
performed--through the pages of an engrossing book to a botanical
ramble round old Buninyong. The thought of it cheered him. He stooped
to caress his two cats, which had come out to bear him the mute and
pleasant company of their kind.

What a night! The great round silver moon floated serenely through
space, dimming the stars as it made them, and bathing the earth in
splendour. It was so light that straight black lines of smoke could be
seen mounting from chimneys and open-air fires. The grass-trees which
supplied the fuel for these fires spread a pleasant balsamic odour, and
the live red patches contrasted oddly with the pale ardour of the moon.
Lights twinkled over all the township, but were brightest in Main
Street, the course of which they followed like a rope of fireflies, and
at the Government Camp on the steep western slope, where no doubt, as
young Purdy had impudently averred, the officials still sat over the
dinner-table. It was very quiet--no grog-shops or
saloons-of-entertainment in this neighbourhood, thank goodness!--and
the hour was still too early for drunken roisterers to come reeling
home. The only sound to be heard was that of a man's voice singing OFT
IN THE STILLY NIGHT, to the yetching accompaniment of a concertina.
Mahony hummed the tune.

But it was growing cold, as the nights were apt to do on this tableland
once summer was past. He whistled his dog, and Pompey hurried out with
a guilty air from the back of the house, where the old shaft stood that
served to hold refuse. Mahony put him on the chain, and was just about
to turn in when two figures rounded the corner of a tent and came
towards him, pushing their shadows before them on the milk-white ground.

"'D evenin', doc," said the shorter of the two, a nuggetty little man
who carried his arms curved out from his sides, gorilla-fashion.

"Oh, good evening, Mr. Ocock," said Mahony, recognising a neighbour.--
"Why, Tom, that you? Back already, my boy?"--this to a loutish,
loose-limbed lad who followed behind.--"You don't of course come fro