Harold was wondering over the question whether a man in his state could or ought to be brought to England, or whether it could be possible to send his mother out to him, when the problem was solved by his falling in with a gentleman whose wife was a confirmed invalid, and who was ready to give almost any salary to a motherly, ladylike woman, beyond danger of marrying, who would take care of her and attend to the household.  He would even endure the son, and lodge him in one of the dependencies of his house, which had large grounds looking into beautiful Sydney Bay, provided he could secure such a person.

Even an escort had been arranged, as a brother of the gentleman was in England, and about to return with his wife to Australia; so that I was at once to communicate with them, pack her up, and consign her to them.  To Mrs. Alison herself Harold wrote with the offer of the situation, and a representation of her son’s need and longing for her, telling her the poor fellow’s affectionate messages, and promising himself to meet her at Sydney on her arrival.

He must needs await the arrival of Prometesky’s pardon, in answer to the recommendations that had gone by this very mail, and which he had had no difficulty in obtaining.  The squatters round Boola Boola would have done anything for the man who had delivered them from the Red Valley gang; and, besides, there was no one who had been long enough in the country to remember anything adverse to the old hermit mechanist, and most of them could hardly believe that he “had not come out at his own expense.”  And at Sydney, as a visitor, highly spoken of by letters from the Colonial Secretary, and in company with an English gentleman connected as was Mr. Tracy, Harold found himself in a very different sphere from that of the wild young sheep-farmer, coming down half for business, half for roistering diversion.  He emulated Eustace’s grandeur by appearances at Government House, and might have made friends with many of the superior families, if, after putting things in train for the sale of Boola Boola, he had not resolved on spending his waiting time on a journey to New Zealand to see his mother.

He trusted himself the more from having visited the Crees, and having found he could keep his temper when they sneered at him as a swell and a teetotaller—­nay, even wounded him more deeply by the old man’s rejection of his offers of assistance, as if he had wanted to buy the family off from denouncing him as having been the death of their daughter.  Often Harold must have felt it well for him that Dermot Tracy knew the worst beforehand—­nay, that what he learnt in New South Wales was mild compared with the Stympson version.  Dermot himself wrote to his uncle the full account of what he had learnt from Cree and from Prometesky of Harold’s real errors, and what Henry Alison had confessed of those attributed to him, feeling that this was the best mode of clearing the way for those hopes which Harold had not concealed from him.  Dermot was thoroughly happy, enchanted with the new world, more enthusiastic about his hero than ever, and eager to see as much as possible; but they renewed their promise to be in Sydney in time to greet poor old Mrs. Alison.