Thus incoherently muttering to the woods what my pride of reason would not
have suffered me gravely to say to my fellow-men, I fatigued my tormented
spirits into a gloomy calm, and mechanically retraced my steps at the
decline of day. I seated myself at the door of my solitary log-hut, lean
ing my cheek upon my hand, and musing. Wearily I looked up, roused by a
discord of clattering hoofs and lumbering wheels on the hollow-sounding
grass-track. A crazy groaning vehicle, drawn by four horses, emerged from
the copse of gum-trees,--fast, fast along the road, which no such pompous
vehicle had traversed since that which had borne me--luxurious satrap for
an early colonist--to my lodge in the wilderness. What emigrant rich
enough to squander in the hire of such an equipage more than its cost in
England, could thus be entering on my waste domain? An ominous thrill
shot through me.

The driver--perhaps some broken-down son of luxury in the Old World, fit
for nothing in the New World but to ply, for hire, the task that might
have led to his ruin when plied in sport--stopped at the door of my hut,
and called out, "Friend, is not this the great Fenwick Section, and is not
yonder long pile of building the Master's house?"

Before I could answer I heard a faint voice, within the vehicle, speaking
to the driver; the last nodded, descended from his seat, opened the
carriage-door, and offered his arm to a man, who, waving aside the
proffered aid, descended slowly and feebly; paused a moment as if for
breath, and then, leaning on his staff, walked from the road, across the
sward rank with luxuriant herbage, through the little gate in the new-set
fragrant wattle-fence, wearily, languidly, halting often, till he stood
facing me, leaning both wan and emaciated hands upon his staff, and his
meagre form shrinking deep within the folds of a cloak lined thick with
costly sables. His face was sharp, his complexion of a livid yellow, his