Pending her answer, Brandon felt very unsettled.  He could not set himself to work systematically, and all the neighbours said that his visit to England had spoiled him for a colonist, as it did with most people.  He missed his pleasantest neighbour, Mr. Phillips, and he missed the children.  Though Dr. Grant in one direction, and Mr. M’Intyre in another, thought they were ten times better than the Phillipses, Brandon did not feel that they could make up to him for their absence.

Dr. Grant was certainly mismanaging, to a considerable extent, Mr. Phillips’s business, and muddling it as he did his own affairs.  He had now been many years in the sheep-farming line, and in the best of times, for he had bought very cheap—­much cheaper than either Phillips or Brandon, and he had quite as large a capital to start with; but he had a bad way of managing the men on his stations; he gave the same wages as other people, certainly, for he could not help that, but he always gave them with a grudge, and seemed to think his employes were picking his pocket.  He had a harsh and dictatorial way of giving orders—­very different from Brandon’s and Phillips’s pleasant manner—­and he consequently had never been well served.  His men had been the first to leave at the time of the diggings, and the consequences had been most disastrous.  From sheer want of hands, he had sacrificed one of his runs with the sheep on it to Powell, and now he grudged to see how very handsomely Powell had been repaid for his money and time in this transaction.  The fortune that Powell had made ought to have been his—­Dr. Grant’s own—­instead of filling the pockets of a man who had only sprung from the ranks.

The same style of mismanagement was carried into Mr. Phillips’s affairs; and yet when Brandon relieved Dr. Grant of the burden he had so unwillingly taken up, the latter felt rather hurt, for he had had a handsome salary for the charge of Wiriwilta and the other stations, and he would certainly miss the money; and, besides, he thought it showed a want of confidence in himself on Phillips’s part.

At Wiriwilta, however, there was a feeling of pleasure at the exchange, and Brandon had the satisfaction of really benefiting his friend without taking any very great deal of trouble.

In this restless state of his mind he had great pleasure in the society of Edgar, who attached himself to his uncle with quiet fidelity.  He soon learned to ride, and to ride fearlessly and far; he learned too to use his limbs, his ears, and his eyes, so that Brandon found he really had a head on his shoulders, which he had been rather doubtful of when the lad had been kept so constantly at his books.