tten 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 with amazing resolution
and consistency, 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?"

"O, 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 awhile he seemed to
revive his memories, and call his ancient cadences back to him one by
one, and string them _sotto voce_.

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 his little throat and gushed from him with thrilling force
and purity, 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