Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/242

232 truth of the lullaby she had been singing to the occupant of her pouch—

"I missed my game, but barked my shins on one of the boughs sprawling most awkwardly about. When I returned I stood on a log, at a respectful distance from the bees, who were buzzing ferociously inside the hollow tree. The foolhardy men were cross-cutting close to the hive. Ere long they chopped out the block of wood between the cuts and laid bare the comb. They had managed to perform the operation in the midst of the dense smoke of a fire under the log. Some smouldering boughs they now put upon the aperture they had made, and sat down to rest while the poor bees scrambled away to the remotest ends of the hollow trunk.

"I could not avoid hearing snatches of the men's conversation. They ought, they said, to be paid so much a day for their labour, not merely to be credited with a share of profits.

"'I've worked,' said Bill Bastion, as they call him, 'eight hundred days, I reckon. I'm a-goin' to have £400 for that, in cash. They've got plenty—I'll not be content with the miserable £50 they've given me, and the rest in credit.'

"Others," continued Tom, "sought to explain that he held the balance in land and improvements.

"'How 'm I to know as I'll ever get 'em?' replied Bill. 'Courtenay's run away—Boss O'Lochlan's mighty high-handed. I'd not be surprised if some bright day one jumped up and said, "Here, all you fellows, clear out! This blooming place's mine!" He was determined to have it out at the meeting to-morrow.' Bastion announced