Luke meanwhile had reached Melbourne; and had come in contact with a family of the name of Eyre.  Luke—­if you have not forgotten—­had said to Mr. Eyre that he had obtained a clue to the men who robbed his master; such, at least, was the information given by that gentleman to Sibylla Massingbird, on her subsequent sojourn at his house.  He, Mr. Eyre, had said that Luke had promised to return the following day and inform him how he sped in the search, but that Luke never did return; that he had never seen him afterwards.  All true.  Luke found the clue, which he thought he had gained, to be no clue at all; but he heard news that pleased him better than fifty clues would have done—­that his master, Mr. Massingbird, was alive.  One who had travelled down to Melbourne from where John was lying, gave him the information.  Without waiting to break bread or draw water, without giving another thought to Mr. Eyre, Luke started off there and then, to retrace his steps to John Massingbird.  John was nearly well then, and they returned at once to the diggings.  In his careless way, he said the loss must be given up for a bad job; they should never find the fellows, and the best plan was to pick up more gold to replace that gone.  Luke informed him he had written home to announce his death.  John went into a fit of laughter, forbade Luke to contradict it, and anticipated the fun he should have in surprising them, when he went home on the accumulation of his fortune.  Thus he stopped at the diggings, remaining in complete ignorance of the changes which had taken place; the voyage of Frederick and his wife to Melbourne, the death of Mr. Verner, the subsequent death of Frederick; and above all—­for that would have told most on John—­of the strange will left by Mr. Verner, which had constituted him the inheritor of Verner’s Pride.

But fortune did not come in the rapid manner fondly expected by John.  The nuggets seemed shy.  He obtained enough to rub along with, and that was all.  The life did not ill suit him.  To such a man as Lionel Verner, of innate refinement, just and conscientious, the life would have been intolerable, almost worse than death.  John was not overburdened with any one of those qualities, and he rather liked the life than not.  One thing was against him:  he had no patience.  Roving about from place to place, he was satisfied nowhere long.  It was not only that he perpetually changed the spot, or bed, of work, but he changed from one settlement to another.  This was the reason probably that Captain Cannonby had never met with him; it was more than probable that it was the cause of his non-success.  Luke Roy was not so fond of roving.  He found a place likely to answer his expectations, and he remained at it; so that the two parted early, and did not again meet afterwards.

Suddenly John Massingbird heard that he had been left heir to Verner’s Pride.  He had gone down to Melbourne; and some new arrival from England—­from the county in which Verner’s Pride was situated—­mentioned this in his hearing.  The stranger was telling the tale of the unaccountable will of Mr. Verner, of the death of John and Frederick Massingbird, and of the consequent accession of Lionel Verner; telling it as a curious bit of home gossip, unconscious that one of his listeners was the first-named heir—­the veritable John Massingbird.