Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/27

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A BAD IMPRESSION
15

exciting routine with their raw, strict, public-school tutor.

At Arran Downs a single note had been received from the new owner naming the day he was likely to arrive. As the hour was not mentioned, all things were ready by about the middle of the day; and by evening the feeling of the garrison expressed itself in a universal inability to sit down. The veranda was paced as though it had been a vessel's deck—the horizon swept as though it had been the sea. At six there was open dissatisfaction, and the young Villierses, who had been decently dressed, and even partially subdued, for some hours—these young ruffians broke out, and drove their tutor in despair to the school-room, because his jurisdiction did not extend beyond those weather-board walls.

But when night set in, Mr. Villiers (a blue-eyed man with a fair beard and bad teeth) was heard to close his watch with a snap and to announce that he would wait no longer. The new owner might be given up