This tirade effectually awakened the driver, and said he, with an earnestness there was no mistaking,—
‘By G—d, Mr M‘Pherson, I’m on the square. I never took much notice o’ the ram at the railway. It was dusk, too, when the agent put him in. I seen him two or three times along the road, an’ thought he looked fust class. Nobody could ha’ touched him without me knowin’ of it. But, at the best o’ times, I can’t tell one sheep from t’other, never havin’ had any truck with ’em. Anyhow, if there’s cross work ’bout this un, all I can say is, as I ain’t in it: An’ now you can send for the traps if you likes.’
The man’s manner carried conviction with it, and for a few minutes M‘Pherson was silent.
‘Come awa’, some o’ ye, an’ catch the creature till I have a look at him.’
But when caught, nothing was ascertainable beyond the one patent fact that he was a broken-mouthed, miserable old cull, who ought to have gone to market as a wether years ago. Earmarks, out of their own district, are of precious little use as a means of identification now-a-days.
It will be noticed that Jack forgot all about his twenty minutes’ stay and chat with the cook in Tara kitchen. The coach had been very much overdue.
‘Surely you’re not going to take the thing home, Mac?’ said his friend, as the former lugged the ‘Duke’s’ _locum tenens_ towards the buggy. ‘He’s only fit to have his throat cut.’
‘Never mind,’ replied M‘Pherson moodily, ‘he’ll mebbe turn out o’ some use yet.’
Not that the old Scotchman was at all inclined to sit down quietly and suffer his loss. Very far from it. But he was no favourite, and public sympathy was absent. Unfeeling people averred that, at the time of the sale, he had been under the influence of hypnotism, etc., etc.; in fact, laughed at, and enjoyed the thing as a good joke. Therefore he was disinclined to blazon his misadventure throughout the Colonies. Also, he thought it would be bad policy to make too much noise.
Nevertheless, he quietly strained every nerve, and spent money freely in endeavours to discover the missing animal. Private detectives and the local police took the matter in hand, and with exactly the same amount of success.
Meanwhile the ‘Duke’ was thriving. At Tara a big underground cellar, lit by skylights, had recently been excavated. This was his home. There, waited upon by the only three in the secret, the great merino lived on the fat of the land. Some nights the Blakes would let him out into the garden for a pick, themselves or Brown securing him in his quarters again before they turned in.