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It rained heavily, a gale of wind was blowing, and trees kept falling down in all directions. Scott, the hut-keeper, sent the gin over in the canoe next morning with a big damper, tea, sugar, and meat, which made a very welcome breakfast for the hungry travellers.
The position of these guardians of the fleece is usually monotonous and dreary in the extreme; and those located here were a fair sample of the general herd. There was a shepherd and a hut-keeper.
At each inferior station there was a hut with a hut-keeper, whose duty was to look after the hut, to cook the provisions, and to tend the sheep or cattle brought for any special purpose into the fold or pen. The office was usually held by some old convict or other person unfit for hard labour. Though occasionally there is enough to do, it is considered an idle, lazy life.
The hut-keeper, on the other hand, remains all day at the hut, resting from his vigils and preparing the meals of himself and coadjutor, in readiness for the latter's return at dusk with his charge; which are forthwith penned and handed over to the safe keeping of the other, who watches them during the night.
Lee was away, and the hut-keeper was the only living soul about the place. He had just made some bread, and, having carried out his camp-oven to cool, was sitting on the bench in the sun, lazily, thinking what he would do next.
I was anxious about our horses, yet in a short time I could keep awake no longer. I slept, and when I next woke, I heard voices whispering eagerly together. I silently turned, so that I could see whence the voices came, and perceived the hut-keeper sitting up in bed, in close confabulation with the stranger.
Just a few minutes ago, I saw a white thing gliding past." "Spectral illusion, most likely. There was a hut-keeper murdered here by the blacks, thirty years ago, and they say he walks occasionally. But he can't hurt you, even if he tried. Now let go, sweetest, and I'll say you're a good girl." "Archie, you're cruel; and I love you. Don't leave me. Fn-n-n, ehn-n-n, ehn-n-n!" Sweetest was in tears.
"They will be most acceptable, sir," said the hut-keeper, his countenance brightening; "my own stock is small, and I have read each volume over and over again till I know them by heart. I believe that if a chest of new books were to reach me, like the half-starved wretch who suddenly finds himself in the midst of plenty, I could sit down and read till my eyesight or my wits had left me."
The hut-keeper was very grateful, and expressed himself in a way which showed that he was really a gentleman and a man of feeling. The brothers, as they rode away, agreed that it would be but an act of common kindness to ask him to visit them, and that they might send another man to take his place. Craven considered a moment.
He and the hut-keeper, whom he addressed as Jonas Knoll, appeared to be old acquaintances, but very few words passed between them. For the first time since they had landed, the Gilpins lay down to rest with a feeling that they were not as safe as they would have been in their own home in England.
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