"Well," said Hugh, a little awkwardly, "they are relations of Mr.
Blake's. You'll see what an Australian farmer's homestead is like."

They drove through a rickety wire-and-sapling gate and across about
a mile of bush, and suddenly came on a little slab house nestling
under the side of a hill. At the back were the stockyards and the
killing-pen, where a contrivance for raising dead cattle--called a
gallows--waved its arms to the sky. In front of the house there was
rather a nice little garden. At the back were a lot of dilapidated
sheds, leaning in all directions. A mob of sheep was penned in
a yard outside one of the sheds; and in the garden an old woman,
white-haired and wrinkled, with a very short dress showing a lot
of dirty stocking and slipshod elastic-sided boot, was bending over
a spade, digging potatoes.

The old woman straightened herself as they drove up.

"Good daah to you, Misther Gordon," she said. "Good daah to you,
Miss."

"Good day, Mrs. Doyle," said Hugh. "Hard work that, this weather.
How's all the family?"

"Mag--Marg'rut, I mane--she's inside. That's her playin' the pianny.
She just got it up from Sydney."

"And where's Peter?"

"Peter's shearin' the sheep. He's in that shed there beyant. He's