However, as I said, all clouds had cleared from the Toonarbin atmosphere, and, after a pleasant meal, Frank, Major and Mrs. Buckley, Sam, and Charles Hawker, rode home to Baroona under the forest arches, and reached the house in the gathering twilight. The boys were staying behind at the stable as the three elders entered the darkened sitting-room. A figure was in one of the easy chairs by the fire--a figure which seemed familiar there, though the Major could not make out who it was until a well-known voice said,-- "Is that you, Buckley?" It was the Doctor. They both welcomed him warmly home, and waited in the gloom for him to speak, but only saw that he had bent down his head over the fire. "Are you ill, Doctor?" said Mrs. Buckley. "Sound in wind and limb, my dear madam, but rather sad at heart. We have had some very severe black fighting, and we have lost a kind old friend--James Stockbridge." "Is he wounded, then?" said Mrs. Buckley. "Dead." "Dead!" "Speared in the side. Rolled off his horse, and was gone in five minutes." "Oh, poor James!" cried Mrs. Buckley. "He, of all men! The man who was their champion. To think that he, of all men, should end in that way!" * * * * * Charles Hawker rode home that night, and went into the room where his mother was. She was sitting sewing by the fire, and looked up to welcome him home. "Mother," said he, "there is bad news to tell. We have lost a good friend. James Stockbridge is killed by the blacks on the Macquarrie." She answered not a word, but buried her face in her hands, and very shortly rose and left the room. When she was alone, she began moaning to herself, and saying,-- "Some more fruit of the old cursed tree! If he had never seen me, he would have died at home, among his old friends, in a ripe, honoured old age." Chapter XXVII THE GOLDEN VINEYARD. On a summer's morning, almost before the dew had left the grass on the north side of the forest, or the belated opossum had gone to his nest, in fact just as the East was blazing with its brightest fire, Sam started off for a pleasant canter through the forest, to visit one of their out-station huts, which lay away among the ranges, and which was called, from some old arrangement, now fallen into disuse, "the heifer station." There was the hut, seen suddenly down a beautiful green vista in the forest, the chimney smoking cheerily. "What a pretty contrast of colours!" says Sam, in a humour for enjoying everything. "Dark brown hut among the green shrubs, and blue smoke rising above all; prettily, too, that smoke hangs about the foliage this still morning, quite in festoons. There's Matt at the door!"