Mr. Giles Medlicot, though at Gangoil he was still spoken of as a newcomer, had already been located for nearly two years on the land which he had purchased immediately on his coming to the colony. He had come out direct from England with the intention of growing sugar, and, whether successful or not in making money, had certainly succeeded in growing crops of sugarcanes and in erecting a mill for crushing them. It probably takes more than two years for a man himself to discover whether he can achieve ultimate success in such an enterprise; and Medlicot was certainly not a man likely to talk much to others of his private concerns. The mill had just been built, and he had lived there himself as soon as a watertight room had been constructed. It was only within the last three months that he had completed a small cottage residence, and had brought his mother to live with him. Hitherto he had hardly made himself popular. He was not either fish or fowl. The squatters regarded him as an interloper, and as a man holding opinions directly averse to their own interests—in which they were right. And the small free-selectors, who lived on the labor of their own hands—or, as was said of many of them, by stealing sheep and cattle—knew well that he was not of their class. But Medlicot had gone his way steadfastly, if not happily, and complained aloud to no one in the midst of his difficulties. He had not, perhaps, found the Paradise which he had expected in Queensland, but he had found that he could grow sugar; and having begun the work, he was determined to go on with it.
Heathcote was his nearest neighbour, and the only man in his own rank of life who lived within twenty miles of him. When he had started his enterprise he had hoped to make this man his friend, not comprehending at first how great a cause for hostility was created by the very purchase of the land. He had been a newcomer from the old country, and, being alone, had desired friendship. He was Harry Heathcote’s equal in education, intelligence, and fortune, if not in birth—which surely, in the Australian bush, need not count for much. He had assumed, when first meeting the squatter, that good-fellowship between them, on equal terms, would be acceptable to both; but his overtures had been coldly received. Then he, too, had drawn himself up, had declared that Heathcote was an ignorant ass, and had unconsciously made up his mind to commence hostilities. It was in this spirit that he had taken Nokes into his mill—of whose character, had he inquired about it, he would certainly have heard no good. He had now brought his mother to Medlicot’s Mill. She and the Gangoil ladies had met each other on neutral ground, and it was almost necessary that they should either be friends or absolute enemies. Mrs. Heathcote had been aware of this, and had declared that enmity was horrible.
“Upon my word,” said Harry, “I sometimes think that friendship is more so. I suppose I’m fitted for bush life, for I want to see no one from year’s end to year’s end but my own family and my own people.” And yet this young patriarch in the wilderness was only twenty-four years old, and had been educated at an English school!
Medlicot’s cottage was about a hundred and fifty yards from the mill, looking down upon the Mary, the banks of which at this spot were almost precipitous. The site for the plantation had been chosen because the river afforded the means of carriage down to the sea, and the mill had been so constructed that the sugar hogsheads could be lowered from the buildings into the river boats. Here Mrs. Heathcote and Kate Daly found the old lady sitting at work, all alone, in the veranda. She was a handsome old woman, with gray hair, seventy years of age, with wrinkled face, and a toothless mouth, but with bright eyes, and with no signs of the infirmity of age.
“This is gay kind of you to run so far to see an auld woman,” she said.
Mrs. Heathcote declared that they were used to the heat, and that after the rain the air was pleasant.
“You’re two bright lassies, and you’re hearty,” she said. “I’m auld, and just out of Cumberland, and I find it’s hot enough—and I’m no guid at horseback at all. I dinna know how I’m to get aboot.”
Then Mrs. Heathcote explained that there was an excellent track for a buggy all the way to Gangoil.
“Giles is aye telling me that I’m to gang aboot in a bouggey, but I dinna feel sure of thae bouggies.”
Mrs. Heathcote, of course, praised the country carriages, and the country roads, and the country generally. Tea was brought in, and the old lady was delighted with her guests. Since she had been at the mill, week had followed week, and she had seen no woman’s face but that of the uncouth girl who waited upon her.
“Did ye ever see rain like that!” she said, putting up her hands. “I thought the Lord was sending his clouds down upon us in a lump like.”
Then she told them that some of the men had declared that if it went on like that for two hours the Mary would rise and take the cottage away. Giles, however, had declared that to be trash, as the cottage was twenty feet above the ordinary course of the river.
They were just rising to take their leave, when Giles Medlicot himself came in out of the mill. He was
