“Ay, but an innocent one,--one more likely to lift your heart on high than to give you ill thoughts.” “Well, this is a riddle!” and Robinson was intensely puzzled. “Carlo!” cried George suddenly, “come here; I will not have you hunting and tormenting those kangaroo rats to-day. Let us all be at peace, if _you_ please. Come, to heel.” The friends strode briskly on, and a little after eleven o’clock they came upon a small squatter’s house and premises. “Here we are,” said George, and his eyes glittered with innocent delight. THE LARK IN THE GOLD-FIELDS. CHARLES READE. PART II. THE house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground around it. A furze bush had been planted by the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate in the middle of them. From the little plantation all the magnificent trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded with amazing resolution and consistency, and oak and ash reigned, safe from overtowering rivals. They passed to the back of the house, and there George’s countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and gravel-walk he found from thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them diggers. “Ah, well,” said he, on reflection, “we could not expect to have it all to ourselves, and, indeed, it would be a sin to wish it, you know. Now, Tom, come this way: here it is, here it is,--there.” Tom looked up, and in a gigantic cage was a light-brown bird. He was utterly confounded. “What! is it this we came twelve miles to see?” “Ay! and twice twelve wouldn’t have been much to me.” “Well, and now where is the lark you talked of?” “This is it.” “This? This is a bird.” “Well, and isn’t a lark a bird?” “Oh! ay, I see! Ha, ha! ha, ha!” Robinson’s merriment was interrupted by a harsh remonstrance from several of the diggers, who were all from the other end of the camp. “Stop your noise!” cried one; “he is going to sing.” And the whole party had their eyes turned with expectation towards the bird. Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But at last, just at noon, when the mistress of the house had warranted him to sing, the little feathered exile began as it were to tune his pipes. The savage men gathered round the cage that moment, and amidst a dead stillness the bird uttered some very uncertain chirps; but after a while he seemed to revive his memories, and call his ancient cadences back to him one by one. And then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at home came glowing down on him here, and he gave music back for it more and more, till at last, amidst the breathless silence and the glistening eyes of the rough diggers hanging on his voice, out burst in that distant land his English song.