“What does it matter where the smell comes from, so that you get it?”

“Why, Tom,” replied George, opening his eyes, “it makes all the difference.  I like to smell a flower—­flower is not complete without smell—­but I don’t care if I never smell a bush till I die.  Then the birds they laugh and talk like Christians; they make me split my sides, God bless their little hearts; but they won’t chirrup.  Oh, dear, no, bless you, they leave the Christians to chirrup—­they hold conversations and giggle and laugh and play a thing like a fiddle—­it is Australia! where everything is inside-out and topsy-turvy.  The animals have four legs, so they jump on two.  Ten-foot square of rock lets for a pound a month; ten acres of grass for a shilling a year.  Roasted at Christmas, shiver o’ cold on midsummer-day.  The lakes are grass, and the rivers turn their backs on the sea and run into the heart of the land; and the men would stand on their heads, but I have taken a thought, and I’ve found out why they don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because if they did their heads would point the same way a man’s head points in England.”

Robinson laughed, and told George he admired the country for these very traits.  “Novelty for me against the world.  Who’d come twelve thousand miles to see nothing we couldn’t see at home?  Hang the same old story always; where are we going, George?”

“Oh, not much farther, only about twelve miles from the camp?”

“Where to?”

“To a farmer I know.  I am going to show you a lark, Tom,” said George.  His eyes beamed benevolence on his comrade.

Robinson stopped dead short.  “George,” said he, “no! don’t let us.  I would rather stay at home and read my book.  You can go into temptation and come out pure; I can’t.  I am one of those that, if I go into a puddle up to my shoe, I must splash up to my middle.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“Your proposing to me to go in for a lark on the Sabbath day.

“Why, Tom, am I the man to tempt you to do evil?” asked George, hurt.

“Why, no! but, for all that, you proposed a lark.”

“Ay, but an innocent one, one more likely to lift your heart on high than to give you ill thoughts.”

“Well, this is a riddle;” and Robinson was intensely puzzled.

“Carlo,” cried George, suddenly, “come here.  I will not have you hunting and tormenting those kangaroo rats to-day.  Let us all be at peace, if you please.  Come to heel.”

The friends strode briskly on, and a little after eleven o’clock they came upon a small squatter’s house and premises.  “Here we are,” cried George, and his eyes glittered with innocent delight.

The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground round it.  A furzebush had been planted by the door.  Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate in the middle of them.  From the little plantation all the magnificent trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded with amazing resolution and consistency, and oak and ash reigned safe from overtowering rivals.  They passed to the back of the house, and there George’s countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel walk he found from thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them diggers.