Chapter IV.

Miss Phillips Meets With A Congenial Spirit In Victoria

As Mr Dempster had reported there had been a division in the family of the Phillipses shortly after they landed.  Mrs. Phillips wished to remain in Melbourne for a month or two, as she did not feel able to stand the long land journey at this particular time.  Neither her husband nor herself had much confidence in Dr. Grant’s skill, and she could have better attendance in town.  Mr. Phillips having ascertained that Mrs. Peck was in Adelaide, and having, through Mr. Talbot, sent a request that she should remain there, which her own interest was likely to make her attend to, had less objection to her staying in Melbourne than he ever had before; so he took a suite of furnished apartments for her and those of the family who remained in town.

Jane Melville went at once to Wiriwilta with the children, who all longed to be there, and who disliked Melbourne more than London.  Miss Phillips had her choice to remain in town or to go up to the station, and she decided on the former alternative, for she began to fear the station would be very dull, and would contrast unfavourably with the voyage, which had been lively and pleasant.  There were some of her fellow-passengers whom she was unwilling to lose sight of; and Mr. Brandon was not at Barragong, but in Adelaide, so, on the whole, she thought it would be preferable to stay.  She gave as her ostensible reason for the choice, her wish to be with Mrs. Phillips during her brother’s necessary absence.  Mr. Phillips stayed with his wife till she presented him with a second son, and then, as she was doing very well, he left her in the care of his sister and Elsie.

He had been rather annoyed to find that Brandon had been amusing himself by taking a journey to Adelaide so soon after coming out to the colony again.  Dr. Grant came down to meet Phillips, and represented that a great deal had gone amiss at Wiriwilta since he (Dr. Grant) had been supplanted in the charge of the stations; so that he thought it indispensable to go up with the least possible delay to look to all the flocks and the out-stations.

“It was the wildest thing in Brandon to start off in that way,” said Grant, “with a poor lad of a nephew who did not know a wattle from a gum-tree when he came, and scarcely a sheep from a cow.  I never would have done such a thing.”

“But he has gone to buy some new sheep, I hear,” said Phillips.  “Have they been delivered at Wiriwilta?”

“No, not yet,” said Grant; “and I think that was the most insane part of the business.  I am sure our Victorian flock-masters have always kept ahead of the Adelaide lot; and to go to the Adelaide side for sheep would be the last speculation I should care to enter into for myself, not to speak of implicating you in such a thing.  The long overland journey will pull them down so much that you are likely to lose a third of them on the road, and what you do save will be in wretched order.  Brandon was fairly ruined by going home to England.”