He
said:
"Tut, tut, it's not worth mentioning. Say no more about it. I would
of course have done as much for anybody."
Of course he could not leave the ladies again to the mercy of the
Parson, so he waited until the shepherd returned with his flock.
Then Frank rode away with a new sensation, a something as near akin
to love as a rough stockman could be expected to feel.
Neddy, the shepherd, asked Mr. Calvert for the loan of arms, and he
taught his wife and daughter the use of old Tower muskets. He said,
"If ever that Parson comes to the hut again, put a couple of bullets
through him."
After that Frank called at the hut nearly every day, enquiring if the
Parson had been seen anywhere abroad.
"No," said Cecily, "we haven't seen him any more;" and she smiled so
sweetly, and lowered her eyes, and spoke low, with a bewitching
Tasmanian accent.
Frank was in the mud, and sinking daily deeper and deeper. At last
he resolved to turn farmer and leave the run, so he rented the land
adjoining Philip's garden and the forty-acre. There was on it a
four-roomed, weather-board house and outbuildings, quite a bush
palace. Farming was then profitable. Frank ploughed a large paddock
and sowed it with wheat and oats. Then while the grain was ripening
he resolved to ask Cecily a very important question. One Sunday he
rode to the hut with a spare horse and side saddle.
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