Chapter XVII: Act II

_Enter MR. CECIL EGREMONT, dressed in blue Crimean shirt,
moleskin trousers, knee-boots, straw hat._

EGREMONT. And so I'm farming in Australia. A thing I've longed for all my days. Such a free, independent, pleasant life. No one to bother you; no one to interfere with you. Such a splendid large piece of land I've secured too—three hundred and twenty acres, with three times as much for grazing. Grazing right, that's the expression—a pre-lease, ha! (_Looks in book._) I believe my fortune's made. Who's this? Some neighbour probably. Good-day, sir; very glad to see you.

GAYTERS. It's more'n I am to see _you_ here. D'ye know where you are?

EGREMONT. On the Crown Lands of Her Majesty the Queen of England in the first place, and on the farm conditionally purchased (_refers to Land Regulations_) by Cecil Egremont, gentleman farmer, late of Bideford, Devon.

GAYTERS. What's the good of all this rubbish? You're on our _main camp_.

EGREMONT. Camp? camp?—I see no traces of an encampment. In what historical period, may I ask?

GAYTERS. Can't yer see this? (_Kicks bone aside._) It's our cattle camp. I don't mean a soldier's camp or any of that rot. It's been our—the Hon'ble Rufus Polyblock's—Bundabah Run, this twenty year and more.

EGREMONT. Has this land been sold before? Then that land agent has deceived me! And yet he looked respectable. I paid him eighty pounds deposit. Have his receipt.

GAYTERS. I don't mean sold exactly—not but that Mr. Polyblock would have bought it fast enough if Government had let him. But we had a lease of it and always had stock running on it.

EGREMONT. Oh, a lease!—for a special object I presume, or perhaps a pastoral lease? (_Consults book._) Perhaps it was a Run—Run—oh, I have it here!—page 38. But surely that gives you no legal right to hold it against the _bona-fide_ conditional purchaser?

GAYTERS. Well, I expect we've no _legal_ claim if it comes to that. But no gentleman in this country goes to select on another gentleman's run. It ain't the thing, you know.

EGREMONT. Oh, 'it ain't the thing'? Something like poaching or shooting without a license; but how was I to know? The law says, 25 Vict. No. 1,