n to light on him, and find out he was sick?"
asked Jacob.

"Why, I was just going to tell you. My master and Dick--Dick's our
youngest boy, you know--was looking after a stray sheep, when they comes
up to this hut, and hears a strange moaning noise. They went in at
once, and there was this young gentleman in a high fever, raving, and
talking all sorts of wild things, and half dead for want of water. So
my master goes back at once to our cottage and fetches me, and here I've
been, off and on, ever since. It's a mercy my master found him when he
did, or he must have died afore long."

Frank Oldfield nodded his head in assent, and held out his hand, first
to the shepherd's wife, and then to Jacob. "And so you've come to stay
a bit with your old master, Jacob. Thank God for that."

"Ay, that's right," said the good woman; "thank Him--you've cause to do
so, I'm sure God seems nearer to us who live out in the bush, in one
way. I mean, our mercies and blessings seem to come straighter like
from his own hand when we've so few of our fellow-Creatures about us."

"Jacob," said his master earnestly, "I trust, if I'm spared, that I
shall really turn over a new leaf, gradely, as you'd say. The drink has
been my curse, my ruin, and almost my death. I'll give it up
altogether, and sign the pledge, if God raises me up to health and
strength again."

"Ay, do, mayster," replied the other; "it'll be the best thing you ever
did in all your life."

The shepherd's wife was now able to delegate many of her kind offices to
Jacob, who proved a most loving and tender nurse. In a few days their
patient was able to sit up without difficulty, and, after a while, to
leave the hut for the shepherd's comfortable cottage, to which he was
conveyed on a litter of boughs by the stout arms of the shepherd and his
sons. Here it was agreed that he should remain as a regular lodger, at
a moderate remuneration for himself and Jacob, which his host and
hostess were rather loath to accept, but the refusal of which they saw
would give Frank Oldfield much pain. Jacob was his master's devoted
attendant, watching over him as a mother over her child.

It was one fine afternoon, when Frank was better than usual, that he
turned to Jacob in the midst of a walk, and said abruptly, "Jacob,
should you like to go to the diggings?"

"Why, Mayster Frank," was the reply, "I've often thought I should just
like to try my hand at it, for I was trained as a l