'"But thou, son of the forest free! Thou art not, wert not foe to me, Frank tamer of the wild! Thou hast not sought the sunless home Where darkly delves the toiling gnome, The mid-earth's swarthy child.
'"Then be thou ever, as of yore, A dweller in the woods and o'er Fresh plains thy herds shall roam; Join not the vain and reckless crowd, Who swell the city's pageant proud, But prize thy forest home."
'He said; and with an eldritch scream The gnome king vanished, and my dream— Day's waking hour returned. Yet still the wild tones echoed clear, Half chimed with truth in reason's ear, And my heart inly burned!'
'Well done, Maxwell, old fellow; didn't think you could read so well! I haven't been asleep above two or three times. I enjoyed it awfully. Particular down on us. Your underground friend, though, prophesies war, famine, and mixed immigration! Cheerful cuss!'
'Mr. Aubrey, will ye oblige me by coming before the curtain. It's proud I am to know ye. I have seen worse, sir, let me tell ye, in the pages of the _Dublin University Magazine_, where the name of Moore O'Donnell is not entirely unknown. I would like to repate to ye a short ode of my own on——'
'Rush oh! at Cockfighter's Flat,' burst in a new man—Markham—impetuously. 'That's all the talk now, my boys! They say the gold's thicker than the wash, shallow sinking, and lots of water. Jackson just told me; he's off there to-morrow to buy gold and go to Melbourne with it. I'm away, then. Any of you chaps join me?'
'I don't mind taking a look,' said Maxwell. 'I've half a mind to turn gold-buyer myself. It's a paying game.'
'It's an awfully risky one,' said Freshland. 'A man takes his life in his hand once he's known to carry gold. I know a fellow who started from here for Melbourne a fortnight since, and has never turned up.'
'Perhaps he's bolted,' suggested a cynic.
'Perhaps so,' answered Freshland carelessly; 'but if so, his wife, from her looks, they tell me, is not in the secret. I'm afraid it's the old story,' continued he, gazing mournfully into space. 'I know well how it's done. I can see it all as I sit here. A fellow goes stepping along the road through the Black Forest, whistling cheerfully and thinking of the ounces he has in his belt, or of what has gone down by the escort, of a piano for his wife, of the children who will have grown so, of the pleasant Christmas they will spend together, when, just where the creek crosses the road, One-eyed Dick and Derwent Bill step suddenly out.'