The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it and on every foot of ground round 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, 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, but what 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.

“Hold your cackle,” 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, to call his ancient cadences back to him one by one, and to string them together.

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 breathless silence and glistening eyes of the rough diggers hanging on his voice—out burst in that distant land his English song.

It swelled from his little throat and gushed from him with thrilling force and plenty, and every time he checked his song to think of its theme, the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he first soared from and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh from many a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how tight the listeners had held their breath to hear him. And, when he swelled with song again, and poured with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet brooks, the honey-clover, and the English spring, the rugged mouths opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one drop trickled from fierce unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged cheeks.

Home! sweet home!

And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had once been white-headed boys, and had strolled about the English fields with little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard, and they were full of oaths, and drink, and riot, and remorses; but no note was changed in this immortal song. And so, for a moment or two, years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone out in the sunshine; they came back, bright as the immortal notes that had lighted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the cottage, the old mother’s tears, when he left her without one grain of sorrow; the village church and its simple chimes; the clover field hard by in which he lay and gambolled, while the lark praised God overhead; the chubby playmates that never grew to be wicked; the sweet hours of youth and innocence, and home!

“What will you take for him, mistress? I will give you five pounds for him!”

“No! no! I won’t take five pounds for my bird!”

“Of course she won’t,” cried another, “she wouldn’t be such a flat. Here, missus,” cried he, “I’ll give you that for him,” and he extended a brown hand with at least thirty new sovereigns glittering in it.

The woman trembled; she and her husband were just emerging from poverty after a hard fight.

“Oh!” she cried, “it is a shame to tempt a poor woman with so much gold. We had six brought over, and all died on the way but this one!” and she threw her white apron over her head, not to see the glittering bribe.

“Bother you, put the money up and don’t tempt the woman,” was the cry. Another added, “Why, you fool, it wouldn’t live a week if you had it,” and they all abused the man; but the woman turned to him kindly, and said:—

“You come to me every Sunday, and he shall sing to you. You will get more pleasure from him so,” said she sweetly, “than if he was always by you.”

“So I shall, old girl,” replied the rough, in a friendly tone.

George stayed till the lark gave up singing altogether, and then he said: “Now, I’m off. I don’t want to hear bad language after that: let us take the lark’s chirp home to bed with us.” And they made off; and true it was, the pure strains dwelt upon their spirits, and refreshed and purified these sojourners in an evil place.