Читать книгу The Boy in the Bush онлайн

20 страница из 75

"Ridden in his coach," smiled Mr. George.

"My mother," continued Mr. Bell, "was a clergyman's daughter. I myself was born in a bush humpy, and my mother died shortly after—"

"Of chagrin! Of chagrin!" muttered Mr. George.

"We will draw a veil over the sufferings of those years—"

"Oh, but we made good! We made good!" put in Mr. Swallow comfortably. "What are you grousing about? We made good. There you sit, Bell, made of money, and grousing, anybody would think you wanted a loan of two bob."

"By the waters of Babylon there we sat down—" said Mr. George.

"Did we! No we didn't. We rowed up the Swan River. That's what my father did. A sturdy British yeoman, Mr. Grant."

"Where did he get the boat from?" asked Mr. Bell.

"An old ship. I was a baby, sir, in a tartan frock. Remember it to this day, sitting in my mother's lap. My father got that boat off a whaler. It had been stove in, and wasn't fit for the sea. But he made it fit for the river, and they rowed up the Swan—my father and a couple of 'indented' servants, as we called them. We landed in the Upper Swan valley. I remember that camp fire, sir, as well as I remember anything." "Better than most things," put in Mr. George.