"It was near dark on a Saturday when we got to Barragong, which was the name of Mr. Brandon's station. The master had got home long before us, for he had gone on his horse.
"'Well, Peggy,' said he, as I got off the dray, 'how do you like bush travelling? Slow, but sure, is it not?'
"'Uncommonly slow,' said I.
"'Why, you have got worse burnt on the top of the dray than even on shipboard. Spoiled your beauty, Peggy.'
"'My beauty is of no manner of consequence,' said I, 'it has not broke my work arm, and that is more to the purpose. Will you please, Sir, to ask the mistress to show me the kitchen?'
"'You ask to see what is not to be seen,' said the master. 'There is no kitchen to speak of, and as for the mistress, it is a pure invention of your own.'
"'No mistress?' I gasped out; 'ye spoke of Mrs. Brandon.'
"'It was you that spoke of her, Peggy; and as I hope in time to have such a person on the premises, I made bold to say that you would suit her, and in the meantime I dare say we will get on very well. You will be really the mistress here, for there is not another woman within twenty miles.'
"I started back, fairly cowed at the thought of being in that wild place alone, among I knew not how many men of all sorts of characters.
"'It was not fair of you, Sir,' I said; 'I never thought but what you were married when you took me up so natural.'
"'But really, Peggy, you are the very person we want here, and I can make it worth your while to stay. You want good wages, and you will get them; you are not a child, and you can take care of yourself. It is hard that because I am so unlucky as to have no wife, I am to have neither cleanliness nor comfort. Make the best of a bad bargain, Peggy; I confess that your eagerness after good wages led me too far, but I felt the temptation strong. Try the place for a week, and if you do not like it, you can go back. Mr. Phillips's drays are going into town, and if you cannot make up your mind to be contented here, you can return to Melbourne with them.'
"I took the measure of Mr. Brandon that week, and I came to the determination that I ought to stay. To be sure it was wrong of him to fetch me out on false pretences, as it were, but I had walked into the trap myself, and, as he said, he was in great need of a servant. He might be weak, but he was not wicked; at least, I felt that I could hold my own. It was a rough place for a gentleman to live in. Am I wearying you, young ladies? I could leave off now, and go on the morn's night."
"I am interested very much in your story," said Elsie.
"And so am I," said Jane. "I know not where fortune, or rather, as you more properly call it, Providence may send us; and your experience has a peculiar fascination to me. Do, pray, go on."
"Well, as I was saying, it was a rough place, and he was a gentleman in his up-bringing and in many of his ways. You would not have believed, if you had seen him in Melbourne, and heard him speak such English, that he could go about in an old ragged, dirty shooting-coat, with a cabbage-tree hat as black as a coal nearly—that he could live in a slab hut, with a clay, or rather, a dirt floor, and a window-bole with no glass in it—and that he could have all the cooking and half the work of the house done at the fireside he sat at, and sit down at a table without a table-cloth, and drink tea out of tin pannikins. The notion of getting such wages in a place with such surroundings quite dumb-founded me; and he had the things too; for by-and-by I found napery and china in a big chest that I used for a table out of doors; and bit by bit I made great improvements at Barragong. He gave me one of the huts for myself, and I was a thought frightened to sleep there my leafu' lane at first, but I put my trust in my Maker, and He watched over me. I cooked in my own hut, and settled up the master's. He began to think that a boarded floor would be an improvement, and he got the men to saw them up. Hard work it was for them; and ill-coloured boards they made; but when they were laid down, and a glass window put in, the master's hut looked more purpose-like.
"I was not feared for the wild kye when I saw that the stockkeeper would help me to get them into the bail; and when we got a milk-house dug out of the hill-side, I made grand butter. I'll not soon forget the day I had my first kirning. The stockkeeper—George Powell was his name—had got into the dairy, as I thought, to lick the cream, for he was an awful hand on it; but he kept hanging about, and glowering at the milk-pans, and then looking at me, till at last he said some nonsense, and I told him to be off with his daffing; I would tell the master if he said an uncivil word.
"'I don't mean to be uncivil, Peggy; quite the contrary,' says he.
"'Then what do you mean?' says I, taking his hand off my shoulder, and driving it bang against the stone slab we put the milk-pans on.
"'I mean, Peggy, will you marry me?' says he; 'that's civil enough, surely.'
"'No I won't,' says I. 'Thank you for the compliment, all the same, but I have no wish to change my condition.'
"'Tell that to the marines,' says he. 'If you don't like me, tell me so; but none of that nonsense.'
"'I like you well enough; but what I say is no nonsense. I do not wish to change my condition.'
"'It would be a good change for you,' says he. 'I wonder you are not frightened to stay here a single woman. Now, if you were my wife, I could protect you;' and he flourished the arm I had given the bang to—and a goodly arm it was.
"I told him about the bairns, and he just laughed at me. 'We'll see,' says he. 'We'll see. Wait a little.'
"Well, every kirning that he was not out at a distance on the master's business, did that man Powell come into the dairy and ask me the same question, and get the same answer; and three of the shepherds, and a little imp of a laddie that looked after the horses, made up to me too, and seemed to think it was not fair that I would choose none of them. Any woman with a white face might have had as many sweethearts; but I think it was my managing ways that took Powell's fancy. If a fairy could only move a lot of the women from the places where they are not wanted, and put them where they are, there would be a wonderful thinning taken out of Scotland and planted in Australia. But ye see there are no fairies; and at such a distance, it costs a lot of money to move such commodities as single women. I have puzzled my brains whiles about the matter, Miss Jane, and many a time I have repented coming back to a place where hands are many and meat is scarce; but it will not be for long; and in the meantime I try to help all the distressed bodies that I know about; and that I have kept my five bairns from being a burden to anybody, is enough work for any woman either here or in Australia. I'm going off of my story; but the marvel to me that I was so beset with sweethearts that did not want them, while so many lasses here never Can see the sight of one, always makes me think that there should be a medium, and that lasses should neither be ower much made of or neglected altogether. But to go back to the bush. I had to rule with a high hand at Barragong, and really to demean myself as if I were the mistress, to keep folk in their place. But the worst was to come.
"The master had not been well for a week or so, and I had taken especial care of him, and got him gruel and such like, that he seemed very glad of; and he was getting better, and was sitting by the fire while I was setting down the supper, when he said—No, I cannot tell you what he said. No; he was not well, and may be did not know exactly what he was about. I cannot tell his words, though they are burned into my memory as clear and distinct as though I had heard them but yesterday, but they were most unbefitting words for him to say or for me to hear.
"I stood still for a whole minute or more, and looked him in the face. He did not like the fixed steady way I kept my eyes on him.
"'Say such a thing again if you dare,' said I. 'You had no such thought in your head or your heart when you brought me out to Barragong. I knew that by your eyes. You must treat me respectfully if you mean to call yourself a gentleman.'
"'Don't be so very hot, Peggy. You have made a fellow so comfortable, that he may be excused for thinking more of you than he used to do,' says he.
"'Think more of me!' says I; 'you think less of me, or you would not dare——'
"'What was I to fancy,' says he, 'when you refuse Powell so pertinaciously, but that you are looking higher?'
"'Mr. Brandon,' says I, 'George Powell is high enough for me, for he would make me his wife; and if I was free to marry, I would look for no higher match. But to think that what you offer is higher!—May God forgive you for the thought!'
"'Why, Peggy, perhaps I may offer higher yet; you are a good and a clever girl, and will make an admirable wife.'
"'Not to you, sir; nor to any one out of my own station. Do not think of making a fool of yourself, just because there is nobody here to compare with homely Peggy Walker.'
"He looked at me more particularly than he had ever done before. I leaned my hands on the table, and squared my elbows, and spread my great browned hand and red arms before him. He laughed, and said, 'Peggy, you are right; you are a worthy girl and a clever, and in the sight of God are worth ten of me; but when I think of taking you home and presenting you to my mother and sisters as Mrs. Brandon, it is rather comical. As for anything else, you are too good a girl, and I will say no more about it, only I wish you would marry Powell and be done with it.'
"Well, Miss Jean, this was the beginning and the end of it with the master; but I think that man Powell was my greatest temptation, especially after Mr. Brandon's words. He really was a protection to me, for he was always civil and respectful in his language to me, and there was not one of the men who dared say the thing that would anger him. But it fell out that I was removed from Barragong before I had given in to Powell, though I'm not saying what might have happened if I had stopped there for six months longer.
"The master had a friend, a Mr. Phillips, who lived twenty miles off, who had more stock and more men on his station than we had at Barragong;—a nice quiet gentlemanly man, who had done as silly a thing as Mr. Brandon had half evened himself to. He had married out of his degree, though he had more temptation to it than the other, for the lassie was very bonnie, and very young, and I dare say he thought he could learn her the ways of gentlefolks.
"Be that as it may, the lady, Mrs. Phillips, was expecting her inlying, and her husband had trysted a skilled nurse from Melbourne, for a doctor could not be had; but when the appointed time came, the nurse had made some other engagement, and could not or would not come; nor did she send a fit person in her place. There was not time to get any one from Melbourne, and Mr. Phillips came to Barragong and entreated me to come to his wife, and Mr. Brandon to spare me. I said I had but little skill, but that I would do the best I could for the poor lady in her straits, and the master said he would let me go with pleasure if I would only promise to come back when Mrs. Phillips was well and about again.
"I thought I had been rather deceived in this instance too, for I fancied there was no woman about the place but the mistress herself; but I saw a well-grown strapping lass in the kitchen, and I thought she might have answered as well me; but I soon found out that though the woman (Martha they called her) had legs and arms and a goodly body of her own, she had no more head than a bairn, and would have been a broken reed to trust to in any time of peril or difficulty.
"It did not seem to me at first that Mrs. Phillips was so unlike a lady, for she had an English tongue, and she was very well-favoured, and sat quiet in her seat, and ordered folk about quite natural. She had been married now well on for a year, and had got used to be the mistress. But I had not been long there ere I found out her faults and her failings; and to my mind her husband had but a poor life with her, though he did seem to be very fond of the young creature, with all her deficiencies. You see she had not an atom of consideration either for him or for any other body on the station; she was either too familiar or too haughty to the girl Martha; as for me, I knew my place better, and if she did not keep me at my distance, I could mostly keep her at hers.
"Not many days after I went to the Phillips's, she was taken ill and safely delivered of a fine lassie. I have seen women make a great fuss about bairns, till I cannot be surprised at anything they say or do, but the joy of the father over the wee Emily was beyond anything I ever saw. To see the great bearded man taking the hour-old infant in his arms, kissing it over and over again, and speaking to it in the most daft-like language, and calling on every one to admire its beauty! No doubt the bairn had as much beauty as a thing of that age can have, but I don't think any of the men he showed it to admired it much. I know Powell, for one, when he came with his master's compliments to inquire for Mrs. Phillips, and may be to have a crack with myself, was not much taken up with the brat, as he called it. I had it in my arms, and it was greeting, poor thing, so I had no time to give Powell a word, except just the message for Mr. Brandon.
"Mrs. Phillips was by no means an easy lady to nurse. I knew well how strict old Tibbie Campbell, who used to nurse Mrs. Henderson, used to be about what a lying-in woman should have to eat and drink, and what care she took that she could catch no cold, and I thought I behoved to be as particular with Mrs. Phillips; but she would not hear reason. She said that such a climate as Scotland should be no rule for treatment in Australia, and she thought she should know her own constitution best, and what was likely to agree with her; so she would take no telling from me. As for Mr. Phillips, he would always give her what she wanted if she teased for it long enough, or if she began to greet, so she carried her point in spite of my teeth. And, poor thing, she suffered for it; for she first took the cold, and then the fever; she was out of her senses for five weeks, and barely escaped with her life. It was a weary nursing. Mr. Phillips was wonderful in a sick-room, and relieved me greatly; but I had such an anxious life with the bairn as well as the mother. He used to beg me, with tears in his eyes, to save the bit lassie, if it was in my power, and the man's life seemed to hang on the little one's. His eye was as sharp as a mothers'—sharper than most mothers'—to notice if Emily looked worse or better. It was a novelty to me to see such care and thought in a man, not but what it is well a father's part to care for his own offspring, and to take trouble and fatigue for them.
"Mr. Brandon, all the time that the mistress was lying between life and death, was wondrous patient, and never made a complaint for the want of me, though I am sure things were at sixes and sevens at Barragong; but when Mrs. Phillips had got the turn, and was able to move about again, he sent me a message to come back. Well, I had promised, no doubt—and I had a far easier life at Mr. Brandon's than where I was, and nothing had ever been said about wages by Mr. Phillips to me—but then the poor little lassie, it seemed as much as her life was worth to leave her to her mother and the lass Martha, for they had not the sense of an ordinary woman between them, and my heart clung to the bit bairn with great affection.
"One day Powell came over with the spring-cart to fetch me home, and I was in a swither what to do, for ye don't just like to press services on folk that do not want them; but by that time Mr. Phillips had got to know the necessity of the case, and it was only because he wanted the offer to come from his wife that he had not asked me before; but she was unreasonable, and he had to do it himself. She did not see why she and Martha could not manage the baby; she was sure Peggy was no such marvel; that there was no difficulty in feeding the child; that it was cruel to put a strange woman over to give her orders, for Peggy was far too independent for her place; and then Emily would love her nurse better than her own mother. I know that was the way she went on to Mr. Phillips, but on this point he was unmovable. When he asked me as a great favour to stay, I consented for the sake of him and of Emily.
"Powell was very angry at me for stopping, and took quite a spite to the little lassie that caused my stay. The way he spoke of that bairn decided me. If he could not be fashed with one, how could he be fashed with five? I was determined on one thing, that I should not have a house of my own unless there was room in it, and a welcome in it, for Bessie's orphans; so it was settled in my mind that day that I never could be Mrs. Powell.
"I stopped at the Phillips's for more than eighteen months. The mistress got used to me, and the bairn Emily was as fond of me as bairn could be. I had more freedom from sweethearts there at first, for the men were greatly taken up with Martha; but by the time I had been three months there I had nigh hand as many followers, as she called them, as she had herself. And followers she might well call them. I could not go out with the bairn for a walk, or out to the kye, or turn my head any way, without one or other of them being at my heels. And when Martha got married to one of the men on the place, which happened ere long, I seemed to have the whole station bothering me; but I would have nothing to do with any of them. Mr. Phillips gave more credit than any of the folk I had ever seen to my yearnings after Bessie's orphans, and my resolutions to live single for their sake; but he never could see that they would be such a drawback to any decent man that liked me; but I knew there were few men so taken up with bairns as he was.
"Well, as I said, Mrs. Phillips, finding I did my work well and quietly, gave over interfering with me, and seemed to get to like me; but when her time was drawing near again, she was not disposed to trust herself to my care altogether, nor, indeed, was I very keen of the responsibility. She wanted to go to Melbourne, but the master would not hear of it; and not all her fleeching, nor her tears, nor three days' sulks, in which she would not open her mouth to him, would make him give in to that.
"He seemed to have the greatest dread of parting with her, particularly to go to Melbourne; and it was a busy time of the year, so that he could not stay with her there. But he said he would go and fetch a doctor, if one was to be had, and keep him in the house till he was needed, and for as long as she was in any peril; and with that she behoved to be contented. He was as good as his word, for he fetched one from the town. I did not much like the looks of the man, but I said nothing, and the mistress seemed quite satisfied.
"But Mr. Phillips took me by myself, and says he to me, 'I believe this man is skilful enough and clever enough, but he has one fault—we must keep drink from him and him from drink, or we cannot answer for the consequences. But for this fault he would have had too good a practice in Melbourne for us to be able to have him for weeks here. There is no place near where he can get drink, so I think we can easily manage to keep him all right. We need not tell Mrs. Phillips, Peggy.'
"Well, I kept watch over this Dr. Carter very well for a fortnight or more, and he seemed to go on all right; but after that time he got very restless, and I used to hear him walking about at night as if he could not sleep, and through the day he could not settle to his book as he used to do at first, or go to take a quiet walk, or ride not over far from the house, but took little starts and turned back, as if something was on his mind.
"I misdoubted him, but with all my watching I could see nothing. As ill luck would have it, the night the mistress was taken ill, and I went to call him up, there I found this man Carter as drunk as he could be, to be able to stand, with an empty brandy bottle beside him that he had knocked the head off. The keys were in my pocket, and not a bottle missing out of the press. There never was much kept in the house, for Mr. Phillips was a most moderate man, and tea is the great drink in the bush; but in case of sickness we aye had some brandy by us. But the poor deluded man had got one of the men about the place to ride forty miles to get him this brandy that had just come at the time when he was especially needed to be sober. I told him the lady was wanting him, and Mr. Phillips and me shook him up; and he half came to himself; and if the mistress had not smelt the drink so strong upon him, she might not have known. She had another fine lassie, and all was going on very well, for the mistress was more reasonable. She had bought her experience very dear the time before, and would take a telling. When the doctor had got over his drinking fit he was very penitent, and spoke quite feelingly on the subject. Mr. Phillips turned off the man that had fetched him the brandy, and told all the men on the station the reason why. The man Carter did not want for skill, nor for kindness either, when he was sober; so, as we were more fearful for the fortnight after than the fortnight before the birth, we just kept him on. Little Harriett was a fortnight old, and the mistress was doing so nicely that Mr. Phillips thought he might leave us for one of his out-stations, where he was wanted, and said he would not be home for two or three days. And then the poor demented creature of a drunken doctor contrived again to get hold of drink, and was far more outrageous this time. Mrs. Phillips was lying on the sofa in the parlour, when he came in and terrified her by roaring for more brandy; and when I came in to settle him, he grippit me by the arm and threatened me with I don't know what, if I refused him. The mistress entreated me to turn him out of doors—and so I did. He got on a horse of the master's—I marvelled how he kept his seat—and set off, and I felt easy in my mind.
"But I had just got the mistress quieted down, when the native boy Jim, that was always doing odd jobs about the place, came running past the window with such a look of terror on his face that I saw something was wrong. I ran out quick but quietly, to ask what was the matter.
"'Fire! Peggy,' says he; and then, sure enough, I looked out, and the grass was on fire, but very far off, and a strong wind blowing it right to the slab huts on the head station with their thatch roofs. Nothing could save us if it came near, and as I have told you it was a busy time, and the men were all hither and thither, and nobody left on the place but Martha, and Jim, and myself, and the mistress ill, and two infants, as I may say, for Emily was not thirteen months old. The only thing that could be done was to burn a broad ring round the houses, as I had seen done at Barragong; but that craved wary watching. By good luck the bairns were both sleeping, and Mrs. Phillips resting quiet, so I called Martha and Jim, and said we must take wet bags and green boughs and beat the fire out as we burned. Jim was as quick and clever as need be, and set about in earnest; but Martha said she could do nothing for terror, and prayed me to remember her situation.
"'Your situation,' says I, 'will be far worse if you don't bestir yourself for your own safety. If you won't lend a hand for the sake of your poor helpless mistress and the innocent bairns, you behove to do it for the sake of your own four quarters.' So she got more reasonable, and helped us somewhat, but it was close work, for the fire was near. It was all that poor wretch of a doctor's doing, too, for he had been trying to smoke, and had dropped his lighted pipe in the dry withered grass, and it blazed up like wild; he got out of it, for he was travelling against the wind, while we were in full waft of it. I thought the wind and the fire would beat us, and was like to throw up the work in despair, when I saw a man on horseback galloping for dear life. I thought it was the master at first, but it was Mr. Brandon, and he was nigh hand as good, for he fell to, and worked with all his might, and with his help we saved the house, and all the precious ones in it. In time the men dropped in, and they set about working to save the run, but if the wind had not providentially changed at night, they would scarcely have been able to save it. As it was, there was thousands of acres of land laid bare, and a flock of sheep killed; the poor beasts have not the sense to run away out of the fire.
"Oh! the appearance of the place that night was awful to behold; and just before the wind chopped round the master came home, riding like fury.
"'We are all safe,' said I, as I ran to meet him, and I saw his face by the light of the blazing fires around us was as pale as death. 'Mrs. Phillips and the bairns are not a hair the worse. Thank God for all his mercies!'
"'Thank God!' said he, 'thank God! Now they are preserved, I can bear the loss of anything else!'
"He came to his wife, and kissed her and the bairns with solemn, and, as I thought, with pathetic thankfulness. I was afraid she would be sorely upset with the terrible events of the day, and I never closed my eyes that night, but sat up by her bedside lest she should take a bad turn; but she did not seem any the worse of it, and both her and the bairns got on brawly. The loss of the sheep was no such great matter in these times, for there was so little market for them, that we had to boil them down for the sake of the tallow—that could be sent to England. Times were changed before I left the colony, for the diggings made a great demand for sheep and cattle to kill; but when I was up the country the waistrie of flesh was sinful to behold. I have many a day sinsyne thought on the beasts and the sheep that were slaughtered there for the working men, and how the bits that they threw about or left on their plates might be a good dinner for many a hungry stomach in Scotland.
"Well, after I had been more than a year and a half at Mr. Phillips's, my wages just running on as they had done at Mr. Brandon's, and five pounds sent every quarter, as opportunity offered, for the bairns, I heard word of a cousin of William Lowrie's coming out to Melbourne, to follow his trade of a stone-mason there, and I had a strong desire to see him, to ask after my orphans; for if my letters to them were but poor, the letters I got back were no better, so my heart was set on seeing Sandy Lowrie, who had lived close by, and knew the bairns well. It chanced that Mr. Phillips had a man and his wife on the station at the time that had no family. The man was nothing of a hand at work, but the wife was one of those bright, clever, cheery little Englishwomen that can turn hand to anything, and had such a fine temper—nothing ever could put her out. So, as she could do for the mistress as well as myself, I asked leave from the master and Mrs. Phillips to go to the town and see Sandy. The mistress was fashious, for she did not like anybody about her to please themselves, and she had got used to me, as I said before; but the master was as reasonable as she was the contrary.
"He said to me, the day before I left, 'Peggy, I owe you a great debt. You have saved the life of my wife and children.'
"'Under Providence, sir,' said I.
"'Under Providence, of course,' said he; 'but I fear Providence would have done little for them if Martha had been the only instrument Providence had at hand to use, so I am over head and ears in debt to you.'
"'No, Mr. Phillips,' said I, 'my work you have paid me well for; my kindness you have returned with kindness and consideration such as I never hoped to meet with in a strange land. If I have nursed and cared for your children you have comprehended my love for my own poor bairns; and this permission to visit Melbourne, that I may hear about them, is a great favour, and one I will never forget to be grateful for.'
"'You are not to let me off in this way,' said he. 'You will find a hundred pounds lying in the bank to your credit, which, as you are a prudent woman, you may be trusted to invest yourself in any way that you may judge best for yourself or the orphans. My idea is that you may take a little shop, and this sum would stock it. I could assist you with my name further than the sum of money I have given to you, if it is necessary.'
"It flashed on my mind that this was a grand opening; but it seemed so selfish and greedy-like to take advantage of his kindness, and to leave him, and Mrs. Phillips, and the bairns, to further my own plans. I said as much to him, but he would not hear of a refusal.
"'You never can manage to do much for the children at service, for all your wages, except your own necessary expenses, goes home and is spent; but by having a little business, you may save more than you could send to them now, and get them a better education, and give them a better start. No doubt we will miss you here; but Mrs. Bennett is a very excellent person, and now I hear that Dr. Grant is going to buy Mr. McDougall's station, only fifteen miles off, we can get him to come on an emergency, though he says he would rather not practise. I will not say that we can do very easily without you, but we must not keep you always here.'
"The kindness of Mr. Phillips I will never forget. Well, it was done all as he planned it. I went to Melbourne and saw Sandy Lowrie, and he gave me good accounts of the bairns, as growing in stature, and Tam and Jamie keen of their learning, but the old woman, their grandmother, he said was sore failed, and no likely to be long spared.
"I took a little shop at a low rent, in a little village, a bit out of the town, for I was frightened to incur much risk, and I set up on my own footing, with 'M. Walker, general store,' over my door-cheek.
"I was doing a decent business, in a small way, among poor people mostly; and I set my face very steady against giving credit, for two reasons—first, that I was not clever enough to keep accounts; and besides that, it just does working folk harm to let them take on. At a time of sickness I might break through my rule, but at no other time. All the folk about me called me Miss Walker, very much to my surprise; and as I was thought to be making money, I had no want of sweethearts. After I had gone on for some years the diggings broke out, and there was an awful overturn of everything in Melbourne. I made a lot of money, and I bought the shop from the landlord, and was very proud to get my title-deed written out on parchment, and to see myself a woman of landed heritable property; and then I made my will, too, for I had something to leave. I never was doing better in business in my life than when Robbie Lowrie, a brother of Sandy's, came out to go to the diggings, and maybe with an eye to make up to myself; but the news he brought me made me change all my plans and return to Scotland. He told me that the grandmother was dead, and that the old man, who never had half the gumption of his wife, was not able to control the five youngsters; so that they were getting out their heads at no allowance. Tam, in particular, he said, was a most camsteery callant; but the old man, he said, was fairly off all work, and not one of his own bairns were either able or willing to help him, and I knew that he had an awful horror of the sea. So I let my shop, and sold the stock for time; and indeed the payments have no been owre regular, and the man that took it is still in my debt. I found the grandfather and the bairns were really as Robbie had said, and I have had my own work to set things to rights. They were in debt, too, though I had sent them double the money after I had the shop than before; but they just thought that a rich auntie in Australia was a mine of wealth, and the folk very unwisely gave them trust whenever they asked it. But they were doing very weel at the school, and I find it a hantle cheaper to give them learning here than in Melbourne; so it answers me better to bide here than to take them out, even if grandfather would agree. He was good to me and mine in my straits, and I cannot think to leave the old man now.
"But what with the rent and the schooling, and one thing and another, I found that the rent of my bit shop would not pay all expenses, so I took in washing and dressing for the folk about Swinton. I was aye clever at it, and I got a great inkling about clear-starching and fine dressing from that Mrs. Bennett, at Mr. Phillips's station, for she was a particular good laundress. A body learns at all hands if one has only the will. And ye see, now, it seemed better for Tam and the rest that I should try my luck in a bigger place, and I hope I may not repent of it.
"That's all my story. It's no much tell; but yet, ye see that none of my brothers have been burdened with my bairns. I have done it all myself."
Jane sat silent a few moments after Peggy had finished her narrative, and then thanked her gravely and earnestly for it. Elsie, too, had been much interested in the adventures of this clever, upright woman, and was only sorry it could not be available—neither incident nor sentiment—for her poetry.
"Now, I have kept you up long enough, young ladies. If what I have said gives you any heart, I will be glad. I hope you will sleep well, and have lucky dreams; so good-night."
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