Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/299

 on his pilgrimage, especially when he fell upon a comfortable bachelor abode, with cuisine, library, and liquor reasonably up to date. Not infrequently the pilgrim's steed would stray, which the owner would search for in such a perfunctory manner that it seemed as if years might roll on before he was run in. One really most agreeable and gifted person—he afterwards became Premier in a neighbouring colony—was celebrated as protracting his visits by this device. One morning there appeared in a provincial paper the startling announcement, 'Mr. Blank's horse is found.' It was the making of him. The laughter was so general that he left that colony, and attained in another to political eminence and material prosperity.

Not always, however, was even the bona-fide squatter on his travels made welcome. A friend of mine arrived at a station late in the evening. 'I am Mr. Blake,' he said, 'of Kilrush'—a name well known throughout his own and other districts for generous, unstinted hospitality. The proprietor stood at his door, but offered no welcome.

'How far is it to the next place?' inquired the traveller.

'Sixteen miles; you can't miss the road.'

'Thanks; much obliged.' So he put spurs to his weary steed—he had come far since sunrise—and departed, reaching the station, so obligingly referred to, long after dark on a cold night.

In the following year the same squatter arrived at Kilrush. He was cordially received—invited to stay a day and rest his horse. 'I killed him with kindness,' were my friend's words—relating the affair to me years afterwards—'and when he rode away, did everything possible, short of holding his stirrup for him.

Mr. Blake," said he, "you've behaved to me like a gentleman! I am afraid I didn't give you that idea when you called at Bareacres. I feel ashamed of myself, I assure you."

So you ought to be," I said, looking him straight in the face. He muttered something and rode away.'