Read Online The Shadow of the Lynx by Victoria Holt - Free Book Online Page B

nodded.
    “We’ll do our best to make you feel at home. Ah, here’s the buggy. I’ll tell John to see about the baggage.”
    “Jemmy will help,” said Stirling.
    “Let him be worth his salt. He can come along later with John and the baggage.”
    So it was arranged and I rode beside Stirling and Adelaide my new brother and sister into the town of Melbourne, just as the lamp lighters riding on horseback, were lighting the street-lamps with their long torches. They sang as they worked the old songs which I had heard so often at home. I remember particularly “Early One Morning’ and ” Strawberry Fair’; and I felt that although I had journeyed thousands of miles, I was not far from home.
     
    The hotel was full of graziers who had come in from the 48 outback to Melbourne in order to negotiate their wool. They talked loudly of prices and the state of the market; but I was more interested in another type those men with bronzed faces and calloused hands and an avid look in their eyes. They were the diggers who had found a little gold, I imagined, and came in to spend it.
    We ate dinner at six o’clock in the dining-room. I sat between Adelaide and Stirling, and it was Stirling who talked of these men and pointed out those who had struck lucky and those who hoped to.
    I said, “Perhaps it would have been better if gold had not been discovered here.”
    “Many of the good citizens of Melbourne would agree with you,” conceded Stirling.
    “People are leaving their workaday jobs to go and look for a fortune. Mind you, many of them come back disillusioned before long. They dream of the nuggets they are going to pick up and a few grains of gold dust as is all they find.”
    I shivered and thought of my father and wondered if he had ever come to this place and talked as these men were talking now.
    “It’s a life of hardship they lead at the diggings,” said Ade laide.
    “They’d be much better off doing a useful job.”
    “But some of them make their fortunes,” Stirling reminded her.
    “Money is the root of all evil,” said Adelaide.
    “The love of it,” Stirling corrected her.
    “But don’t we all love it?”
    “Not it,” I put in.
    “The things it can buy.”
    “It’s the same thing,” Stirling replied.
    “Not necessarily. Some people might want it for the sake of others.”
    Both he and Adelaide knew that I was thinking of my father and Adelaide hastily changed the subject. She told me once more that the homestead was some forty miles north of Melbourne. Their father had built it ten years before; he had designed it himself and it was a fine house as houses in this part went. It was not exactly like an English mansion of course; but that would be absurd in such a place.
    I asked what I should be expected to do there and Adelaide replied that I could help in the house. She supposed that in all the activities that went on I would be sure to find some thing which would appeal to me.
     
    sol. -c 49 doesn’t like idle folk,” said Stirling.
    “Don’t call him by that ridiculous name,” reproved Adelaide. She turned to me.
    “I’m sure you’ll find plenty to do.”
    She talked a little about the country until Stirling said:
    “Let her find out for herself.”
    Then Adelaide asked me questions about England and I told her of Danesworth House and how I had become a pupil teacher there.
    “You must have been most unhappy there,” she said and seemed rather pleased about this. I understood. She felt I should fit more happily into my new life since the old had not been very good.
    And so we talked until dinner was over; then I returned to my room and when I had been there a short time there was a knock on the door and Adelaide came in. She looked so anxious that I immediately asked her if anything was wrong.
    oh no. I just thought we should have a little talk about everything.
    I’d like you to be prepared. ” Then I knew that she was anxious on my behalf and that I had been right when I had