"I know who you mean, Mr. Harry; you mean the Medlicots. A very nice gentleman is Mr. Medlicot, and a very nice old lady is Mrs. Medlicot. And a deal of good they're going to do, by all accounts."
"Now, Mrs. Growler, that will do," said the wife.
The dinner consisted of a boiled leg of mutton, a large piece of roast beef, potatoes, onions, and an immense pot of tea. No glasses were even put upon the table. The two ladies had dressed for dinner, and were bright and pretty as they would have been in a country house at home; but Harry Heathcote had sat down just as he had entered the room.
"I know you are tired to death," said his wife, "when I see you eat your dinner like that."
"It isn't being tired, Mary; I'm not particularly tired. But I must be off again in about an hour."
"How else? Old Bates and Mickey are in their saddles still. I don't want to have my fences burned as soon as they're put up. It's a ticklish thing to think that a spark of fire any where about the place might ruin me, and to know at the same time that every man about the run and every swagsman that passes along have matches in their pocket. There isn't a pipe lighted on Gangoil this time of the year that mightn't make a beggar of you and me. That's another reason why I wouldn't have the young un a squatter."
"--I declare I think that squatters have more trouble than any people in the world," said Kate Daly.
"--Free-selectors have their own troubles too, Kate," said he.
It must be explained as we go on that Heathcote felt that he had received a great and peculiar grievance from the hands of one Medlicot, a stranger who had lately settled near him, and that this last remark referred to a somewhat favorable opinion which had been expressed about this stranger by the two ladies. It was a little unfair, as having been addressed specially to Kate, intending as it did to imply that Kate had better consider the matter well before she allowed her opinion of the stranger to become dangerously favorable; for in truth she had said no more than her sister.
"The Medlicots' troubles will never trouble me, Harry," she said.
"I hope not, Kate; nor mine either more than we can help."
"But they do," said Mary. "They trouble me, and her too, very much."