CHAPTER XVI.

The Squire’s offer—Tim decides to go home—Our heroine’s advice to Mat—Our forester takes to gardening—The “new chum’s” difficulties and troubles.

The squire, one evening after the inmates of Bulinda Creek had once more settled down to their quiet every-day life, beckoned Mat on to the verandah for a smoke. When they had made themselves comfortable in a couple of “squatters,” or easy seats made of canvas, propped on two poles, the old man spoke.

“Mat, my lad, I have heard the opinion of the doctor, that Tim should go home. I hope that you and he will accept the offer that I am going to make to you. If he wishes to go, and I believe he does, I propose to pay his passage to the old country in the best ship that we can find, and I intend to start him in the forest with a thousand pounds, so that he can take a little farm, or buy a bit of land, and he shall draw upon me for any farther sum he may require.”

Mat was about to thank him for this generous proposal, but the squire stopped him.

“I know that you will never take money without working for it and all that, but remember, should you wish to ease your conscience, you can repay me when you are a rich man, and I intend to put you on a road by which you may attain this, the particulars of my scheme I will explain to you in good time. Another thing, you can also help your brother and yourself by accepting the purse that was subscribed for you, and which money I long ago placed out at interest in the bank, and then there are your nuggets worth at least three pounds sterling an ounce, and—”

“True enough, squire,” interrupted Mat, “_they_ are what brought all the misery to your house, and to Tim too, for ’twas Magan, of course, that shot him. I wish I had put _them_ in the bank, when I landed in Sydney.”

“Very well, Mat, and now I have a proposition to make which concerns yourself. No one in this country could have rescued my daughter under the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the case, as you did it”—here Bell paused to light up another pipe, whilst our forester waited with impatience, he scarcely knew why, for his next words. The squire quietly puffed at his pipe, and continued, “Had the police come up with this Magan, I feel convinced that, proof as he was against their bullets, he would have retreated fighting to the cave, and rather than surrender would have killed Annie, for the brute would as soon have shot a woman as a man; and, bear in mind, I never shall forget that that gallant chief of yours saved your life, and thus the lives of others, and I will make it one of my first cares to reward him and his wife, and the whole of his tribe, in any way you think they will most appreciate. But to come back to yourself, Mat. You of all men will appreciate deeds rather than words, and I propose that from this date you take up your abode with us, and go equal shares with me in all the property I possess.

“Tom wishes this as well. Remember that you will be, as the younger man, the working partner, and will consequently be of the greatest assistance to me, who am getting a bit portly and old. Now go and sleep over all this. To-morrow I will show you my books, and then you can tell me if you agree. Tom, who is well provided for, says you _must_, and I say you _shall_.”

Mat did not “sleep over it,” but lay _awake_ that night thinking over the squire’s proposal. To his own way of thinking, he had not done anything so wonderful after all in the way that he had rescued Annie; though true he recollected that Dromoora had praised him in the matter, which praise, coming from the lips of that old warrior, meant a very great deal indeed. He plainly saw what a splendid opening lay before him; such a career had never occurred to him in his wildest dreams. And then he thought how splendid it would be if Tim could join him in anything of the sort; or should he go home with Tim? No, _that_ would be no advantage to either; besides, he thought he _would_ like to stay at Bulinda. Thus, reasoning the matter over in every possible way, in trying to come to a conclusion, he went to sleep.

Our forester was sauntering along the verandah the next day, thinking of what he should say to the squire, when Annie came softly out of Tim’s room, and Mat almost ran against her, so absorbed was he in his thoughts.

“Oh, Mat,” she said, “I was coming to look for you. Tim would like to speak to you, and after that I want you to help me get some bananas for him.”

“Is that you, Mat?” said a faint voice, as our hero entered the sick-room. “I want to talk to you about what we were saying the other day, when I wasn’t allowed to talk any more. I’m much better this morning. The doctor says I can never ride, or do anything worth doing again, _that’s_ what pains me; ’taint the wound so much as that. But I ought to be very thankful, I know, ’taint no worse, cos t’ parson says I oughter. Oh! he is just like an angel; steals in and prays; yes, prays at night, when he thinks I’m asleep; but I can hear him whispering his prayers. And Miss Annie, she _do_ just about take care of me; I never have to ask for anything I want. I feel better in body and in mind when those two are here, and they come different times, and never bother me with ‘How did you sleep last night?’ because they _know_; they tell each other. And I told t’ parson as how I’d like to get back to t’ forest, and he said the doctor told him that he wished I _was_ back, and if I went on so well as now, I might go in a few weeks; and that is why I wanted to see you, to ask you, is there enough money as my share, do you think, for me to go?”

Tim broke down at this point from exhaustion, and Mat gave him a cooling drink from a bottle which his brother pointed out, and begged him not to talk any more.

“You only _listen_, Tim,” he said. “I’ve settled all about the money; you’ll have plenty, and _will_ go home. I’ll tell you all about it another time. I am going now to get some bananas for you.”

“Will you come again after I’ve had a sleep, Mat? for I feel so much happier now I’ve seen you, I shall get to sleep and dream of home.”

Mat promised, then stepped out and rejoined Annie, and they proceeded to the garden, where he cut a large bunch of “Lady’s Finger” bananas which she showed him, and carried it back to the house.

When he had deposited his burden, Mat turned to Annie.

“I am afraid I nearly pushed you over just now, Miss Annie, when you were coming out of Tim’s room, but I never looked up in time. I was stupidly going along with my head down, thinking so much of what your father said to me last night.”

“Why, what _did_ he say?”

“I’ll tell you in a few words. He asked me to live with him and be his partner.”

“I guessed that might be it, for we were all talking about it. And what was your answer?”

“Why, he told me to give him an answer this morning; and it’s such a grand prospect for a poor man like myself. But then, I am not used to live amongst your class, Miss Annie, and I don’t know _what_ to say.”

“Well, then, I will tell you what to say; and you must say it to please me. Tell my father that you will be glad to avail yourself of his terms. And as to what you say about ‘class,’ I daresay you will get accustomed to ours, and all the other ‘classes’ round about here, in time.”

“Then, Miss Annie, I’ll say as you tell me.”

There was a noble specimen of the crimson-flowered “poinciania-tree” growing near to the entrance of the house, and a seat had been put up under its shady branches. This tree was a favourite resort of various members of the family, by reason of the cool currents of air which played around it. The verandah, though perfectly shady, was rather confined as to atmosphere; the perfume of the creepers which shut it in was also rather overpowering.

After his conversation with Annie, our forester departed to look for the squire, but not finding him thought that he would smoke a pipe under the “poinciania-tree,” and there await his return.

Strolling up to the seat, he found it already occupied by Annie, who had brought her work there.

“I cannot find your father. Miss Annie, do you know, I was thinking, before I spoke with you just now, that I would go back to England with Tim.”

“Why, Mat? do you like England so much better?”

“No, I don’t think I do, since you said I might stay here.”

“Yes, I would rather you _would_ stay,” said Annie, as she went on rapidly with her knitting. “I should not like to think that the man who risked his life to save mine was going away for ever.”

“Miss Annie, do you know that during the whole of that wild, savage life I was leading, I used often to get out a book that I saved, and think of the young lady who gave it me.”

“Was she such a _very_ nice girl, then?” inquired Annie.

“She _was_—she was Miss Annie Bell!”

“_Me! me_ give you a book! I never _did_, Mat.”

“I think perhaps you will remember when I show it you.” And Mat went off to his room, and returning presently, laid an old and much-battered copy of “Robinson Crusoe” in her lap.

“There!” he said triumphantly.

“I _do_ remember it,” said Annie, after looking at the old yellow-leaved volume. “I gave it you in the forest, when I was a school-girl.”

“Yes; I never expected to show it to you again.”

“Do you always keep presents like that, Mat?”

“No; but that is the only present I ever had from a lady who was kind to me, and I _was_ pleased when it was washed up from the wreck. By-the-bye, would you like to see my journal? I have been writing it out as carefully as I can, because a publisher in Sydney has offered me a good price if I’ll let him print it, and it will be so nice if Tim and I can make a few pounds by it.”

“I should _like_ to hear it, if you will read it to me, Mat.”

Mat fetched the manuscript, and, taking his seat by Annie said,—

“I won’t give you all this beginning part, because you heard most of that at the lecture; but do listen to this page, because, when I read that part to the publisher, he threw himself back in his chair, shoved his spectacles on the top of his forehead, put his thumbs into his waistcoat, and said, ‘Um—ah!—yes; just so. I believe there _are_ some curious freaks of nature in those northern parts, but this is—well—er—er—a _little_ strong.’ What he _really_ meant was—‘You and your brother are terrible liars.’

“This is the account, as I wrote it, only I’ve had the ‘wording’ improved:—

“Tim and I were returning to the camp on a moonlight night, along a chain of small water-holes, which were fringed with ‘blady’ grass, when some beast or other suddenly floundered into the water, but never rose to the surface again. Whilst I watched, Tim went off to the camp close by, and soon returned with half a dozen blacks with their clap-nets. These entered the little pool, and, after working their nets for some time, one of them jumped out with a fish of about six pounds in his net. ‘Very good,’ I said to my black friend, ‘but that is not the beast we heard in the dry grass.’ ‘Yes, that is it,’ he replied. ‘Look! he has two sorts of legs on his stomach, and he eats grass at night, like a kangaroo, and we call him “Barramundi” (_Ceratodus forsteri_); and sometimes we have caught him on the banks of water-holes on moonlight nights. He can breathe in the water because he has _these_ things, showing me his gills; and he can breathe on land because he has _these_—I will show you;’ upon which the black cut open the fish, and showed me his lungs.”

“I can only say,” said Mat, as he stopped reading, “that we both _saw_ all this, and, after all, it’s not much more wonderful than some of the tree-snakes. I can show you, on the next one I kill, two little short points or legs under his stomach, to help him to grip getting about trees.”

Before Mat could continue his journal they were summoned to dinner, so Annie took up the book, saying,—

“We must go on with it this evening. I am sure that I shall like it so much.”

When, however, the evening came, Annie remembered that her garden _must_ be watered, for she had neglected this of late; so she asked Mat to come and help her to carry the buckets, saying,—

“If you will fill the buckets at the water-hole, and then carry them across the paddock to those trees—that is where my garden is—I will walk on first, for I do not suppose that there are any bushrangers about now.”

Mat had often passed this garden, with its hedge of prickly “Osage orange,” but had never penetrated through the little gate.

He soon filled his buckets, and was by Annie’s side, in her garden, waiting for orders.

She pointed out those shrubs and flowers which were specially thirsty subjects, and told him the names of many of the plants.

“These many-coloured flowers are Balsams; that great bush, with its deep red flowers, is a Bouganvillia; and the creeper joining it, over the summer-house, with its bunches of waxy flowers, is called Stephanotis; it scents the whole garden at night.”

“I know the smell of _that_,” said Mat, “if I do not know the name, for you had a nosegay of it when I saw you in Sydney.”

“Yes, I _had_, and I wear it at all the balls and parties I go to. It is my favourite flower.”

Our hero watered everything he was told to, and a good many dead sticks and cuttings that he was not told to. When they had finished, he asked Annie whether they should come again the next evening to water; also whether he might look after her garden a bit, for that it was “terrible” weedy.

“Yes,” she returned, “I should be glad if you would help me this dry weather. What funny expressions you _do_ use sometimes!”

“And,” continued Mat, “will you give me a bit of the—the—sweet-smelling plant.”

“Certainly I will,” she said, as she plucked a spray and gave it him, “and I will write down those difficult names for you. Now we will go in; they will wonder what has become of us.”

Mat told his brother that evening, before he went to bed, that he had heard of three plants quite new to him, called “Balsam,” “Boug-and-villia,” and “Ste-phen-oh-tis;” and Tim agreed that whatever the plants were like, the names were very wonderful.

The following day our forester found the squire and Tom alone in the former’s room. Parson Tabor had been away a great deal of late upon affairs connected with the station in Sydney, with Tom as companion. “Our Parson” was always taken into the confidence of the family in matters both temporal and spiritual; he was one of those men who seldom ventured an opinion upon any important matter until it was asked for; but when he _did_ speak, his remarks and advice were worth considering, and to the point.

Mat had hoped when he entered the squire’s room that the clergyman would have been there too, but in this he was disappointed: the parson was too busy writing, they said, to attend; besides, they had not much to discuss, for, said Bell,—

“I’ve got a new chum coming, but _first_, what is your decision Mat, with reference to the matter we were discussing the other night?”

Mat replied that if the squire and Tom still wished him really to have a share in the station, and become one of the partners, he would do his very best, and certainly would be very proud of such a distinction being conferred upon him. He would like, he said, to begin work at once, and be off to the out-station in a couple of days’ time. (Mat did not say so, but the fact was he had taken a great fancy to gardening all at once, and wished to have a couple more evenings at that delightful occupation.)

Bell and his son were much pleased at having secured such a powerful and useful aid as our forester for the working of the station, and Mat was as delighted at having achieved the very height of his ambition, though he could never conceive that such a possibility would be afforded him in Australia, when he left the New Forest, as to rise suddenly to the position of partner in one of the finest properties in the country; for though the “books” of the station were at present a little beyond his understanding, yet by this time he was well acquainted with the whole of the “run,” and the thousands of cattle and horses upon it, and during frequent visits to Sydney for purposes connected with Bell’s affairs, he had heard nothing but praise on all sides of the squire’s management, and of the “solidity” attached to his name.

When Mat proposed to lose no time in commencing his work at the out-station, Bell replied that he wished him to wait at Bulinda until a “new chum” arrived from England, who was expected daily.

“Fact is,” he said. “I thought I had done with ‘new chums,’ but a