‘I think that spotted cow looks as near meat as anything we’re likely to get, sir,’ said Jack Windsor, interrupting the train of distrustful reverie. ‘It begins to look as if it meant it. Lord send we may get well soaked before we get home!’ Mr. Windsor’s pious aspiration was appropriate this time. They reaped the benefit of a genuine and complete saturation before they reached the yard with the small lot of cattle they were compelled to take in for companionship to their ‘fat beast.’ There was no appearance of haste about the rain, no tropical violence, no waterspout business. It trickled down in slow, monotonous, still, and settled drizzle, much as it might have done in North Britain. It only did not stop; that was all. It was hopefully continuous all the evening. And when Mr. Neuchamp opened his casement at midnight he thankfully listened to the soaking, ceaseless downpour, which seemed no nearer a sudden conclusion than during the first hour. Before dawn Mr. Neuchamp was pacing his verandah, having darted out from his couch the very moment that he awoke. The temperature had sensibly fallen; so had the clouds, which were low and black; and still the rain streamed down more heavily than at first. There was apparently no alteration likely to take place during the day. The water commenced to flow in the small channels. The minor watercourses, the gullies, and creeks were filling. Wonder of wonders—it was a settled, set-in, hopelessly wet day! What a blessed and wonderful change from last week! Ernest had a colloquy with Charley Banks about things in general, and then permitted himself a whole day’s rest—reading a little, ciphering a little, and looking up his correspondence, which had fallen much into arrear. As the day wore on the rain commenced to show determination, heavily, hour after hour, with steady fall, saturating the darkened earth, no longer dusty, desolate, hopelessly barren. The gaping fissures were filled. The long disused ruts and gutters ran full and foaming down to their ultimate destination, the river. That great stream refused to acknowledge any immediate change of level from so inconsiderable a cause as a rainfall so far from its source. But, doubtless, as Charley Banks pointed out, in a week or more it would ‘come down’ in might and majesty, when the freshets at the head waters should have time to gather forces and swell the yellow tide. It was well if there was not then a regular flood, but that would do them no harm; might swamp out the Freemans, perhaps, but as long as Tottie wasn’t drowned, and the old woman, the rest of the family might be swept down to Adelaide for all he, Charley, cared. So let it rain till all was blue. There was no mistake this time. It was a general rain. We should have forty-eight hours of it before it stopped. Every hoof of stock was off the frontage now and away back, where there was good shelter and a trifle of feed. In a fortnight after this there would be good ‘bite’ all over Rainbar run.