68 
MYOLA 
CHAP. 
I came back with my arm round Jack’s very sub- 
stantial waist most of the way, for I had the middle box 
seat, so that my feet could not touch the splashboard, 
and going down these hills I would otherwise have been 
more than a dozen times on the horses’ heels. The 
three drivers on this line are splendid whips, Bob, Jack, 
and Joe ; the first named has been driving Cobbs’s 
coaches for twenty-one years. It is a terribly hard life, 
and how they manage to grow stout on it is a wonder. 
It was five o’clock in the evening when we reached 
Herberton, and the landlady, unlike the last time I 
arrived, bustled out into the street to meet me, and 
had prepared (so she told me) the bridal rooms for my 
benefit. It was midnight before I went to bed, but 
not to sleep, alas ! for a little dying child was in the 
next room, and the poor mother, worn out with constant 
nursing, appealed to me, and I took her place while she 
got some sleep. There is an hour between the night 
and the morning, when it grows colder and the 
darkness becomes more intense ; then the tiny face 
grew paler and more pinched, her little fingers tightened 
on mine, and the breath grew fainter and fainter until 
it died away altogether. When the glory of the morn- 
ing sun came in, it fell on the tiny hands folded 
together for ever, and the peaceful face of a last long 
sleep. 
I had intended going on by the ordinary coach 
next day to Georgetown, but as I could not get the 
box seat, and would probably have had to share an 
inside one with a tipsy miner or two, I decided to get 
a trap of my own and to loiter by the way, as I was 
in search of flowers. There was no difficulty in doing 
this, and by two that day, I was off on my travels 
again, with three good-looking horses, and an extra 
pair in case of need, one of which Jackey, a black 
