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Every now and then Bevis turned round to give the bailiff a sly flick with the whip; the bailiff sat at the tail and dangled his legs over behind, so that his broad back was a capital thing to hit. By-and-by, the carter left the highway and took the waggon along a lane where the ruts were white with chalk, and which wound round at the foot of the downs.
The bandy to which they are yoked is a barbarous two-wheeled waggon, with a covering of plaited coco-nut leaves, in which a pair of strong bullocks will draw from five to ten hundred weight, according to the nature of the country; and with this load on a level they will perform a journey of twenty miles a day.
"We've some books and boxes of stationery for you from the Wyalla branch," one of the men called out as Eustace opened the door and looked out. A bushman slouching past with his roll of blankets slung across his back, glanced round at the waggon and continued his way to the hotel. Eustace and Harding both helped to carry the bundles and boxes into the bank.
'It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but not nearly so far. 'A little steeper! I Can anything be steeper than Dolly Waggon? Yes, you are right. It is steeper on the Cumberland side. I remember coming down a sheer descent, like an exaggerated sugar-loaf; but I was on a pony, and it was the brute's look-out. I will not go down the Cumberland side on my own legs.
While they talked the noise of waggon-wheels was heard approaching. Evan went into the middle of the road, and beheld a covered waggon, and a fellow whom he advanced to meet, plodding a little to the rear of the horses. He proved kindly.
In the meantime Smallbones had gained his feet, and was rubbing his ribs, to ascertain if they were all whole. "Well, I'm sure," said he, "if I ain't flattened for all the world like a pancake, with that 'ere corporal's weight. One may as well have a broad-wheel waggon at once go over one's body; but what could make him come for to go to run away bellowing in that odd manner?
How the Boers got there one can only imagine, for neither the Imperial Light Horse pickets on Waggon Hill, nor the Manchesters holding the very verge of that cliff which we call Cæsar's Camp and the Kaffirs Intombi, nor the mixed force of volunteers and police watching the scrub lower down, saw any form or heard a movement during the night.
The declaration of peace had taken effect only a few hours before, and the long waggon trains from Italy, of which he had told Els yesterday, were still delayed. The freight of spices and Levantine goods, Milan velvets, silks, and fine Florentine cloths, which they were bringing from the city of St. Mark, represented a large fortune.
The casualties in Ladysmith during a fortnight were one white civilian, two natives, a horse, two mules, a waggon, and about half-a-dozen houses. And of the last only one was actually wrecked; one of course the most desirable habitation in Ladysmith received no less than three shells, and remained habitable and inhabited to the end. And now what does it feel like to be bombarded?
Goldthwaite passed into the house, leaving the children beside the waggon. There was but a moment's shyness, and then the irrepressible Minnie's tongue began to go freely. "You look nice, Lucy," she said frankly. "I guess we'll have a good time to-day. There always is a good time when papa takes us anywhere." "This is a nice horse," said Tom, feeling he must say something. "What's his name?"
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