‘Yes, Peter, no doubt they’re a couple of fine colts, and should make
good steppers. I hope you’ll have them well broken in for the drag by
the time I return. Then, with the other pair of browns, they ought to
turn out about the smartest four-in-hand in the district.’
‘Goin’ away, sir?’ asked Peter Barlow, Head Stockman and Chief of
Horse at Wicklow Downs.
‘Yes, Peter; I’m thinking of taking a trip to the Old Country,’
replied Mr Forrest, owner of the big cattle station on the border. ‘I
mean to take Mrs Forrest and the children, and be away twelve months;
so you’ll have plenty of time to fix up a team. We start in three
weeks from to-day.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Peter, ‘afore you goes I shouldn’t mind takin’ a
spell down country myself, if you haven’t no objection.’
His employer turned sharply round from the horse-yard rail, and looked
at the young fellow.
Twenty-five, born on the station, an orphan, fairly steady, very
useful, the best rough-rider in the district, never more than fifty
miles away from home in his life. Such was the record of Peter Barlow,
who chewed a straw, and smiled as he noticed his master’s surprise.
‘Why, what’s bitten you, my lad,’ said the latter, ‘that you want to
get away amongst the spielers and forties of the big smoke? Isn’t
Combington large enough for a spree?’
‘Well, sir,’ replied Peter, rather sheepishly, ‘you see, they’re
always a-poking borack an’ a-chiackin’ o’ me over in the hut because
I’ve never seed nothin’. There’s chaps there as has been everywheres,
an’ can talk nineteen to the dozen o’ the things they’ve gone through,
an’ me a-settin’ listenin’ like a stuffed dummy.’
‘I see, Peter,’ said Mr Forrest, laughing, ‘you want to travel.
“Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits,” eh, Peter? Believe me, my
lad, for all that, you’re better off as you are, notwithstanding the
gas of those other fellows. However, you may take a month if you like.
I think, though, that you’ll be glad to get back in the half of it.
But how would it do for you to come down with us? I shall be staying
in town for a week or so, and could often see you, and that you didn’t
get into any mischief.’