Babes in the Bush
by Rolf Boldrewood · English · Gutenberg #51209 · 950,456 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Babes in the Bush
Author: Rolf Boldrewood
Release date: February 13, 2016 [eBook #51209]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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BABES IN THE BUSH
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
BABES IN THE BUSH
by
ROLF BOLDREWOOD
Author of
‘Robbery Under Arms,’ ‘The Miner’s Right,’ ‘The Squatter’s Dream,’
‘A Colonial Reformer,’ etc.
London
Macmillan and Co., Limited
New York: The Macmillan Company
1900
All rights reserved
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
‘FRESH FIELDS—AND PASTURES NEW’ 1
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST CAMP 21
CHAPTER III
THE NEW HOME 43
CHAPTER IV
MR. HENRY O’DESMOND OF BADAJOS 59
CHAPTER V
‘CALLED ON BY THE COUNTY’ 77
CHAPTER VI
AN AUSTRALIAN YEOMAN 93
CHAPTER VII
TOM GLENDINNING, STOCK-RIDER 111
CHAPTER VIII
MR. WILLIAM ROCKLEY OF YASS 125
CHAPTER IX
HUBERT WARLEIGH, YR., OF WARBROK 139
CHAPTER X
A PROVINCIAL CARNIVAL 149
CHAPTER XI
MR. BOB CLARKE SCHOOLS KING OF THE VALLEY 161
CHAPTER XII
STEEPLECHASE DAY 173
CHAPTER XIII
MISS VERA FANE OF BLACK MOUNTAIN 189
CHAPTER XIV
THE DUEL 204
CHAPTER XV
THE LIFE STORY OF TOM GLENDINNING 220
CHAPTER XVI
‘SO WE’LL ALL GO A-HUNTING TO-DAY’ 238
CHAPTER XVII
THE FIRST MEET OF THE LAKE WILLIAM HUNT CLUB 251
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MAJOR DISCOVERS HIS RELATIVE 265
CHAPTER XIX
BLACK THURSDAY 282
CHAPTER XX
AN UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT 296
CHAPTER XXI
A GREEN HAND 312
CHAPTER XXII
INJUN SIGN 328
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BATTLE OF ROCKY CREEK 339
CHAPTER XXIV
GYP’S LAND 352
CHAPTER XXV
BOB CLARKE ONCE MORE WINS ON THE POST 366
CHAPTER XXVI
THE RETURN FROM PALESTINE 387
CHAPTER XXVII
THE DUEL IN THE SNOW 401
CHAPTER I
‘FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW’
‘What letter are you holding in your hand all this time, my dear?’ said
Captain Howard Effingham to his wife during a certain family council.
‘Really, I had almost forgotten it. A foreign postmark—I suppose it is
from your friend Mr. Sternworth, in Australia or New Zealand.’
‘Sternworth lives in New South Wales, not New Zealand,’ returned he
rather testily. ‘I have told you more than once that the two places are
a thousand miles apart by sea. Yes! it is from old Harley. When he was
chaplain to our regiment he was always hankering after a change from
routine duty. Now he has got it with a vengeance. He was slightly
eccentric, but a better fellow, a stauncher friend, never stepped.’
‘Don’t people go to Australia to make money?’ asked Rosamond Effingham,
a girl of twenty, with ‘eldest daughter’ plainly inscribed upon her
thoughtful features. ‘I saw in a newspaper that some one had come home
after making a fortune, or it may have been that he died there and left
it to his relatives.’
‘Sternworth has not made a fortune. He is not the man to want one.
Still, he seems wonderfully contented and raves about the beauty of the
climate and the progress of his colony.’
‘Let me read his letter out,’ pleaded the anxious wife softly, and, with
a gesture of assent, the father and daughter sat expectant.
Mrs. Effingham had the gift of reading aloud with effect, which, with
that of facile, clear-cut composition, came to her as naturally as the
notes of a song-bird, which indeed her tuneful voice resembled.
‘The letter is dated from Yass—(what a funny name! a native one, I
suppose)—in New South Wales, and June the 20th, 1834. Nearly six months
ago! Does it take all that time to come? What a long, long way off it
must be. Now then for the contents.
‘MY DEAR EFFINGHAM—I have not written for an age—though I had your last
in reply to mine in due course—partly because, after my first
acknowledgment, I had nothing particular to say, nor any counsel to
offer you, suitable for the situation in which you appear to have landed
yourself. When you were in the old regiment you were always a bad
manager of your money, and the Yorkshireman had to come to your
assistance with his hard head more than once. I thought all that sort of
thing was over when you succeeded to a settled position and a good
estate. I was much put out to find by your last letter that you had
again got among the shallows of debt. I doubt it is chronic with you.
But it is a serious matter for the family. If I were near you I would
scold you roundly, but I am too far off to do it effectually.
‘My reason for writing now—for I am too busy a man to send the
compliments of the season across the globe—is that a tempting investment
in land—a perfect gift, as the phrase is—has come to my knowledge.
‘Now, I am not hard-natured enough to tempt you to come here with your
amiable wife, whose praises, not always from yourself, I have often
heard—[really, my dear, I had no idea you paid me compliments in your
letters to your friends]—and your tenderly nurtured family; that is, if
you can retain your position, or one in any way approaching it. But I
know that the loss of fortune in the old country entails a more complete
stripping of all that men hold dear, than in this new land, where
aristocratic poverty, or rather, scantiness of money, is the rule, and
wealth, as yet, the exception.
‘I cannot believe that you are _totally_ without means. Here, cash is at
a premium. Therefore, if you have but the shreds and fragments of your
fortune left, you may still have capital available from the wreck
sufficient to make a modest venture, which I shall explain.
‘A family long resident near this rising town—say forty or fifty miles
distant—have been compelled, like you, to offer their estate for sale. I
will not enter into the circumstances or the causes of the step. The
fact that we are concerned with is, that a valuable property—as fair
judges consider it—comprising a decent house and several thousand acres
of good land, may be bought for three or four thousand pounds.
‘I do not hide from you that many people consider that the present bad
times are likely to last, even to become more pressing. _I_ fully expect
a reaction. If you can do better in any way I do not ask you for one
moment to consider this matter, much as I should like to see my old
comrade and his family here.
‘But if otherwise, and the melancholy life of the ruined middle-aged
Briton stares you in the face, I say boldly, do not go to Boulogne, or
other refuge for the shady destitute, where a man simply counts the days
which he must linger out in cheap lodgings and cheese-paring idleness,
but come to Australia and try a more wholesome, more manly, if
occasionally ruder life. I know what you home-keeping English think of a
colony. But you may find here a career for your boys—even suitable
marriages for your girls, whose virtues and accomplishments would
doubtless invest them with distinction.
‘If you can get this sum together, and a few hundreds to have in your
pocket at landing, I can guarantee you a livelihood—you know my caution
of old—with many of the essentials, God forbid I should say _all_, of
“the gentle life.” Still, you may come to these by and by. The worst of
my adopted country is that there is a cruel uncertainty of seasons, at
times sore on man and beast. That you must risk, like other people. If
you come, you will have one friend here in old Harley Sternworth, who,
without chick or child, will be proud to pour out whatever feelings of
affection God has given him, into the lap of your family. If you decide
on coming, send a draft for three thousand pounds payable to my order at
once. I will manage the rest, and have Warbrok ready to receive you in
some plain way on your arrival. So farewell for the present. God bless
you and yours, says your old friend,
HARLEY STERNWORTH.’
As the letter disclosed this positive invitation and plan of emigration
which, whether possible or impossible, was now brought into tangible
form, the clasp in which lay the father’s hand and the daughter’s
slightly tightened. Their eyes met, their faces gradually softened from
the expression of pained endurance which had characterised them, and as
the clear tones of the reader came to an end, Rosamond, rising to her
feet, exclaimed, ‘God has sent us a friend in our need. If we go to this
far land we may work together and live and love undivided. But oh,
mother, it breaks my heart to think of _you_. We are young, it should
matter little to us; but how will you bear to be taken away from this
pleasant home to a rude, waste country, such as Australia must be?’
‘My darling,’ said the matron, as she folded the letter with an
instinctive habit of neatness, and handed it to her husband, ‘the
sacrifice to me will be great, far greater than at one time I should
have thought it possible to bear. But with my husband and children are
my life and my true dwelling-place. Where they are, I abide thankfully
to life’s close. Strength, I cannot doubt, will be given to us all to
bear our—our——’
Here the thought, the inevitable, unimaginable woe of quitting the loved
home of youth, the atmosphere of early friendship, the intertwining ties
of relationship, completely overcame the courage of the speaker. Her
eyes overflowed as, burying her face in her husband’s arms, which were
opened to receive her, she wept long and silently.
‘How could we think of such a thing, my darling, for one moment?’ said
Effingham. ‘It would kill you to part, at one blow, from a whole
previous existence. I hardly foresaw what a living death it would be for
you, more than all, to leave England _for ever_. There is a world of
agony in that thought alone! I certainly gave Sternworth a full account
of my position in my last letters. It was a relief. He has always been a
true friend. But he has rashly concluded that we were prepared to go to
his wild country. It would be your death-blow, darling wife; and then,
what good would our lives be to us? Some of our friends will help us,
surely. Let us live quietly for a year or two. I may get some
appointment.’
‘It relieves my bursting heart to weep; yet it will fit me for future
duty. No, Howard, we must not falter or draw back. You can trust, I
know, in Mr. Sternworth’s practical wisdom, for you have a hundred times
told me how far-seeing, shrewd, and yet kindly he was. In his plan there
is the certainty of independence; together we can cheer each other when
the day’s work is done. As for living in England, trusting to the
assistance of friends, and the lingering uncertainty of a provision from
the Government, I have seen too many families pitiably drifting towards
a lower level. There is no middle course. No! Our path has been chosen
for us. Let us go where a merciful Providence would seem to lead us.’
The fateful conference was ended. A council, not much bruited about, but
fraught with momentous results to those yet unborn, in the Effingham
family, and it may be to other races and sections of humanity. Who may
limit the effects produced in the coming time, by the transplantation of
but _one_ rarely endowed family of our upward-striving race?
Nothing remained but to communicate the decision of the high contracting
parties of the little state to the remaining members. The heir was
absent. To him would have been accorded, as a right, a place in the
parliament. But he was in Ireland visiting a college chum, for whom he
had formed one of the ardent friendships characteristic of early
manhood. Wilfred Effingham was an enthusiast—sanguine and
impulsive—whose impulses, chiefly, took a good direction. His heart was
warm, his principles fixed. Still, so sensitive was he to the
impressions of the hour, that only by the sternest consciousness of
responsibility could he remain faithful to the call of duty.
Devoted primarily to art and literature; sport, travel, and social
intercourse likewise put in claims to his attention and mingled in his
nature the impulses of a refined Greek with the energy and self-denial
of his northern race.
It must be confessed that these latter qualities were chiefly in the
embryonic stage. So latent and undeveloped were they, indeed, that no
one but his fond mother had fully credited his possession of them.
But as the rounded limbs of the Antinous conceal the muscles which
after-years develop and harden, so in the graceful physique and
sensitive mind of Wilfred Effingham lay hidden powers, which, could he
have foreseen their future exercise, would have astonished no one more
than himself. Such was the youth recalled from his joyous revel in the
Green Isle, where he had been shooting and fishing to his heart’s
content.
A letter from his mother first told that his destiny had been changed.
In a moment he was transformed. No longer was he to be an enjoyer of the
hoarded wealth of art, letters, science, sitting on high and choosing
what he would, as one of the gods of Olympus. His lot, henceforth, would
be that of a toiler for the necessaries of life! It was a shrewd blow.
Small wonder had he reeled before it! It met him without warning,
unsoftened, save by the tender pity and loving counsel so long
associated with his mother’s handwriting. The well-remembered
characters, so fair in delicate regularity, which since earliest
schooldays had cheered and comforted him. Never had they failed him;
steadfast ever as a mother’s faith, unfailing as a mother’s love!
Grown to manhood, still, as of old, he looked, almost at weekly
intervals, for the missive, ever the harbinger of home love, the herald
of joy, the bearer of wise counsel—never once of sharp rebuke or
untempered anger.
And now—to the spoiled child of affection, of endowment—had come this
message fraught with woe.
A meaner mind, so softly nurtured, might have shrunk from the ordeal. To
the chivalrous soul of Wilfred Effingham the vision was but the summons
to the fray, which bids the knight quit the tourney and the banquet for
the stern joys of battle.
His nature, one of those complex organisms having the dreamy poetic side
much developed, yet held room for physical demonstration. Preferring for
the most part contemplation to action, he had ever passed, apparently
without effort, from unchecked reverie and study to tireless bodily toil
in the quest of sport, travel, or adventure. Possessed of a constitution
originally vigorous, and unworn by dissipation, from which a sensitive
nature joined with deference to a lofty ideal had hitherto preserved
him, Wilfred Effingham approached that rare combination which has ere
now resulted, under pressure of circumstance, in the hero, the poet, the
warrior, or the statesman.
He braced himself to withstand the shock. It was a shrewd buffet. Yet,
after realising its force, he was conscious, much to his surprise, of a
distinct feeling of exaltation.
‘I shall suffer for it afterwards,’ he told his friend Gerald O’More,
half unconsciously, as they sat together over a turf fire which glowed
in the enormous chimney of a rude but comfortable shooting lodge; ‘but,
for the soul of me, I can’t help feeling agreeably acted upon.’
‘Acted upon by what?’ said his companion and college chum, with whom he
had sworn eternal friendship. ‘Is it the whisky hot? It’s equal to John
Jameson, and yet it never bothered an exciseman! Sure that same is
amaylioratin’ my lot to a degree I should have never believed possible.
Take another glass. Defy Fate and tell me all about it. Has your father,
honest man, discovered another Roman tile or Julius Cæsar’s
tobacco-pouch? [the elder Effingham was an antiquarian of great
perseverance], or have ministers gone out, to the ruin of the country,
and the triumph of those villains the radicals? ’Tis little that ever
happens in that stagnant existence that you Saxons call country life,
barring a trifle of make-believe hunting and shooting. Sure, didn’t me
uncle Phelim blaze away into a farmer’s poultry-yard in Kent for
half-an-hour, and swear (it was after lunch) that he never saw pheasants
so hard to rise before.’
Thus the light-hearted Irishman rattled on, well divining, for all his
apparent mirth, that something more than common had come in the letter,
that had the power to drive the blood from Wilfred’s cheek and set
Care’s seal upon his brow. That impress remained indelible, even when he
smiled, and affected to resume his ordinary cheerfulness.
At length he spoke: ‘Gerald, old fellow! there is news from home which
most people would call bad. It is distinct of its kind. We have lost
everything; are ruined utterly. Not a chance of recovery, it seems. My
dear mother bids me understand _that_ most clearly; warns me to have no
hope of anything otherwise. The governor has been hard hit, it seems, in
foreign bonds; Central African Railways, or Kamschatka telegraph
lines,—some of the infernal traps for English capital at any rate. The
Chase is mortgaged and will have to go. The family must emigrate.
Australia is to be the future home of the Effinghams. This appears to be
settled. That’s a good deal to be hid in two sheets of note-paper, isn’t
it?’ And he tossed up the carefully directed letter, caught it as it
fell, and placed it in his pocket.
‘My breath is taken away; reach me the whisky, if you wish to save my
life, or else it will be——’ (prompt measures were taken to relieve the
unfortunate gentleman, but without success). ‘Wilfred, me dear fellow,
do you tell me that you’re serious? What will ye do at all, at all?’
‘Do? What better men have had to do before now. Face the old foe of
mortals, Anagkaia, and see what she can do when a man stands up to her.
I don’t like the idea any the worse for having to cross the sea to a new
world, to find a lost fortune. After all, one was getting tired of this
sing-song, nineteenth century life of fashionable learning, fashionable
play, fashionable work—everything, in fact, regulated by dame Fashion. I
shall be glad to stretch my limbs in a hunter’s hammock, and bid adieu
to the whole unreal pageant.’
‘Bedad! I don’t know. I’d say the reality was nearer where we are, with
all the disadvantages of good dinners, good sport, good books, and good
company. But you’re right, me dear fellow, to put a bold face on it; and
if you have to take the shilling in the divil’s regiment, sure ye’ll die
a hero, or rise to Commander-in-Chief, if I know ye. But your mother,
and poor Miss Effingham, and the Captain—without his turnips and his
justice-room and his pointers and his poachers, his fibulæ and
amphoræ—whatever will he do among blackfellows and kangaroos? My heart
aches for ye all, Wilfred. Sure ye know it does. If ye won’t take any
more potheen, let us sleep on it; and we’ll have a great day among the
cocks, if we live, and talk it over afterwards. There never was that
sorrow yet that ye didn’t lighten it if ye tired your legs well between
sun and sun!’
With the morrow’s sun came an unwonted calm and settled resolve to the
soul of Wilfred Effingham. Together, gay, staunch Gerald O’More and he
took the last day’s sport they were likely to have for many a day. The
shooting was rather above than under the average, as if the ruined heir
was willing to show that his nerves had not been affected by his
prospects.
‘I must take out the old gun,’ he said, ‘and keep up my shooting. Who
knows but that we may depend upon it for a meal now and then in this New
Atlantis that we are bound for. But one thing is fixed, old fellow, as
far as a changeable nature will permit. I shall have to be the mainstay
of my father’s house. I must play the man, if it’s in me. No more
dilettantism, no more mediæval treasures, no more tall copies. The
present, not the past, is what we must stand or fall by. The governor is
shaken by all this trouble; not the best man of business at any time. My
dear mother is a saint _en habit de Cour_; she will have to suffer a
sea-change that might break the hearts of ordinary worldlings. Upon
Rosamond and myself will fall the brunt of the battle. She has prepared
herself for it, happily, by years of unselfish care and thought. I have
been an idler and a loiterer. Now the time has come to show of what
stuff I am made. It will mean good-bye to you, Gerald O’More, fast
friend and _bon camarade_. We shall have no more shooting and fishing
together, no more talk about art and poetry, no more vacation tours, no
more rambles, for long years—let us not say for ever. Good-bye to my old
life, my old Self! God speed us all; we must arm and away.’
‘I’d say you might have a worse life, Wilfred, though it will come hard
on you at first to be shooting kangaroos and bushrangers, instead of
grouse and partridges, like a Christian. But we get used to everything,
I am told, even to being a land-agent, with every boy in the barony
wondering if he could tumble ye at sixty paces with the ould duck gun.
When a thing’s to be done—marrying or burying, standing out on the sod
on a foggy morning with a nate shot opposite ye, or studying for the
law—there’s nothing like facing it cool and steady. You’ll write me and
Hallam a line after you’re landed; and we’ll think of ye often enough,
never fear. God speed ye, my boy! Sure, it’s Miss Annabel that will make
the illigant colonist entirely.’
The friends parted. Wilfred lost no time in reaching home, where his
presence comforted the family in the midst of that most discouraging
state of change for the worse, the packing and preparing for departure.
But he had utilised the interval since he left his friend by stern
self-examination, ending in a fixed, unalterable resolve. His mother,
his sisters, and his father were alike surprised at his changed bearing.
He had grown years older in a week. He listened to the explanation of
their misfortune from his father with respectful silence or short,
undoubting comment. He confirmed the decision to which the family
counsel had arrived. Emigration to Australia was, under the
circumstances, the only path which promised reparation of the fortunes
of the house. He carefully read the letter from Mr. Sternworth, upon
which their fate seemed to hang. He cheered his mother by expressing
regret for his previous desultory life, asking her to believe that his
future existence should be devoted to the welfare of all whom both held
so dear.
‘_You_ have never doubted, my dearest mother,’ he said, ‘but that your
heedless son would one day do credit to his early teaching? I stand
pledged to make your words good.’
The arrival of the heir, who had taken his place at his father’s right
hand in so worthy a spirit, seemed to infuse confidence into the other
members of the family. Each and all appeared to recognise the fact that
their expatriation was decided upon, and while lamenting their loved
home, they commenced to gather information about their new abode, and to
dwell upon the more cheering probabilities.
The family was not a small one. Guy Effingham was a high-spirited
schoolboy of fourteen, whose cricket and football engagements had
hitherto, with that amount of the humanities which an English public
schoolboy is compelled to master, under penalties too dire for
endurance, been sufficient to fill up his irresponsible life. It was
arranged that he was to remain at school until the week previous to
their departure. His presence at home was not necessary, while his
mother wished him to utilise the last effective teaching which he was
likely to have. To her was committed the task of preparing him for his
altered position. Two younger daughters, with a boy and girl of tender
years, the darlings of the family, completed the number of the
Effinghams. The third daughter, Annabel, was the beauty of the family. A
natural pride in her unquestioned loveliness had always mingled with the
maternal repression of all save the higher aims and qualities which it
had been the fond mother’s life-long duty to inculcate. Annabel
Effingham had received from nature the revival of the loveliness of some
ancestress, heightened and intensified by admixture of family type. She
was fair, with the bright colouring, the silken hair, the delicate
roseate glow which had long been the boast of the women of her mother’s
family—of ancient Saxon blood—for many generations. But she had
superadded to these elements of beauty a classical delicacy of outline,
a darker shade of blue in the somewhat prouder eye, a figure almost
regal in the nobility of carriage and unconscious dignity of motion,
which told of a diverse lineage. Beatrice, the second daughter of the
house, had up to the present time exhibited neither the strong
altruistic bias which, along with the faculty of organisation,
characterised Rosamond, nor the universally confessed fascination which
rendered Annabel’s path a species of royal progress. Refined,
distinguished in appearance, as indeed were all the members of the
family, she had not as yet developed any special vocation. In her
appearance one saw but the ordinary traits which stamp a highly cultured
girl of the upper classes. She was, perhaps, more distinctly literary in
her tastes than either of her sisters, but her reserved habits concealed
her attainments. For the rest, she appeared to have made up her mind to
the inevitable with less apparent effort than the other members of the
family.
‘What can it avail—all this grieving and lamenting?’ she would say. ‘I
feel parting with The Chase, with our relations and friends—with all our
old life, in fact—deeply and bitterly. But that once admitted, what good
end is served by repeating the thought and renewing the tears? Other
people are ruined in England, and have to go to Boulogne and horrid
continental towns, where they lead sham lives, and potter about, unreal
in everything but dulness and poverty, till they die. We shall go to
Australia to _do_ something—or not to do it. Both are good in their way.
Next to honest effort I like a frank failure.’
‘But suppose we _do_ fail, and lose all our money, and have nothing to
eat in a horrid new country,’ said Annabel, ‘what _will_ become of us?’
‘Just what would become of us here, I suppose; we should have to
work—become teachers at a school, or governesses, or hospital nurses;
only, as young women are not so plentiful in Australia as in England,
why, we should be better paid.’
‘Oh, but here we know so many people, and they would help us to find
pleasant places to live in,’ pleaded Annabel piteously. ‘It does seem so
dreadful to be ten thousand miles away from your own country. I am sure
we shall starve!’
‘Don’t be a goose, Annabel. How can we starve? First, we have the chance
of making money and living in plenty, if not in refinement, on this
estate that papa is going to buy. And if that does not turn out a
success, we must find you a place as companion to the Governor-General’s
wife, or as nursery governess for _very_ young children. I’ll become a
“school marm” at Yass—that’s the name—and Rosamond will turn dressmaker,
she has such a talent for a good fit.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear! don’t talk of such dreadful things. Are we to go all
over the world only to become drudges and work-women? We may as well
drown ourselves at once.’
‘My child! my child!’ said a gentle voice. ‘What folly is this? What are
we, that we should be absolved from the trials that others have to bear?
God has chosen, for His own good purpose, to bring this misfortune upon
us. He will give us strength to bear it in a chastened spirit. If we do
not bear it in a resigned and chastened spirit, we are untrue to the
teaching which we have all our lives affected to believe in. We have all
our part to perform. Let us have no repining, my dearest Annabel. Our
way is clear, and we have others to think of who require support.’
‘But you _like_ to be miserable, you know, mother; you think it is God’s
hand that afflicts you,’ sobbed the desponding spoiled child. ‘I can’t
feel that way. I haven’t your faith. And it breaks my heart; I shall
die, I shall die, I know.’
‘Pray, my darling, pray for help and grace from on high,’ continued the
sweet, sad tones of the mother, as she drew her child’s fair head upon
her lap, and passed her hand amid ‘the clustering ringlets rich and
rare,’ while Beatrice sat rather unsympathetically by. ‘You will have me
and your sisters to cheer you.’ Here the fair disconsolate looked
distrustfully at Beatrice.
By degrees the half-mesmeric, instinctive influence of the loved
mother’s pitying tones overcame the unwonted fit of unreason.
‘I will try and be good,’ she murmured, looking up with a soft light in
her lovely eyes, ‘but you know I am a poor creature at best. You must
bear with me, and I will help as much as I can, and try to keep from
repining. But, oh, my home, my home, the dear old place where I was
born. How dark and dreary do this long voyage and journey seem!’
‘Have we not a yet longer voyage, a more distant journey to make, my own
one?’ whispered the mother, in accents soft as those with which in times
gone by she had lulled the complaining babe. ‘We know not the time, nor
the hour. Think! If we do not prepare ourselves by prayer and faith, how
dark _that_ departure will appear!’
‘You are always good and kind, always right, mother,’ said the girl,
recovering her composure and assuming a more steadfast air. ‘Pray for
me, that I may find strength; but do I not know that you pray for all of
us incessantly? We ought—that is—I ought to be better than I am.’
Among the lesser trials which, at the time of his great sorrow,
oppressed Howard Effingham, not the least was the necessity for parting
with old servants and retainers. He was a man prone to become attached
to attendants long used to his ways. Partly from kindly feeling, partly
from indolence, he much disliked changing domestics or farm labourers.
Accustomed to lean against a more readily available if not a stronger
support than his own, he was, in most relations of life, more dependent
than most men upon his confidential servants.
In this instance, therefore, he had taken it much to heart that his
Scotch land-steward, a man of exceptional capacity and absolute personal
fidelity, having a wife also, of rare excellence in her own department,
should be torn from him by fate.
Backed up by his trusty Andrew, with his admirable wife, he felt as if
he could have faced all ordinary colonial perils. While under Jeanie
Cargill’s care, his wife and daughters might have defied the ills of any
climate, and risked the absence of the whole College of Physicians.
Andrew Cargill was one of those individuals of strongly marked
idiosyncrasy, a majority of whom appear to have been placed, by some
mysterious arrangement of nature, on the north side of the Tweed.
Originally the under-gardener at The Chase, he had risen slowly but
irresistibly through the gradations of upper-gardener and under-bailiff
to the limited order of land-steward required by a moderate property. He
had been a newly-married man when he formed the resolution of testing
the high wages of the Southron lairds. His family, as also his rate of
wages, had increased. His expenses he had uniformly restricted, with the
thoroughness of his economical forefathers. He despised all wasteful
ways. He managed his master’s affairs, as committed to his charge, with
more than the rigorous exactitude he was wont to apply to his own.
Gaining authority, by the steady pressure of unrelaxing forecast habit
of life, he was permitted a certain license as to advice and implied
rebuke. Had Andrew Cargill been permitted to exercise the same control
over the extra-rural affairs that he was wont to use over the
farm-servants and the plough-teams, the tenants and the trespassers, the
crops and the orchards, the under-gardeners and the pineries, no
failure, financial or otherwise, would have occurred at The Chase.
When the dread disaster could no longer be concealed, it is questionable
whether Mr. Effingham felt anything more acutely than the necessity
which existed of explaining to this faithful follower the extent, or
worse, the cause of his misfortune. He anticipated the unbroken silence,
the incredulous expression, with which all attempts at favourable
explanation would be received. Open condemnation, of course, was out of
the question. But the mute reproach or guarded reference to his master’s
inconceivable imbecility, which on this occasion might be more strongly
accented than usual, would be hard to endure.
Mr. Effingham could not depute his wife, or one of the girls, to convey
the information to the formidable Andrew. So he was fain to pull himself
together one morning, and go forth to this uncompromising logician.
Having briefly related the eventful tale, he concluded by dispensing
with his faithful servant, as they were going to a new country, and very
probably would never be able to employ servants again.
Having thrown down the bombshell, the ‘lost leader’ looked fixedly at
Andrew’s unmoved countenance, and awaited the particular kind of
concentrated contempt which he doubted not would issue forth.
His astonishment was great when, after the hurried conclusion, ‘I shall
miss you, Andrew, you may be sure, more than I say; and as for Jeanie, I
don’t know how the young ladies and the mistress will get on without
her,’ the following words issued slowly and oracularly from Andrew’s
lips:—
‘Ye’ll no miss me ava, Maister Effingham. Dinna ye think that it’s a’
news ye’re tellin’ me. I behoved just to speer a bit what garred the
puir mistress look sae dowie and wae. And the upshot o’ matters is that
I’m gaun wi’ ye.’
‘And your wife and children?’
‘Ye didna threep I was to leave them ahint? Andra’ Cargill isna ane o’
thae kind o’ folk, sae just tak’ heart, and for a’ that’s come and gane
ye may lift up your heid ance mair; it’s nae great things o’ a heid, as
the auld wife said o’ the Deuk’s, but if Botany Bay is the gra-and
country they ca’ it, and the book-writers and the agents haena been
tellin’ the maist unco-omon set o’ lees, a’ may gang weel yet.’
‘But what’s put this in _your_ head, of all people in the world,
Andrew?’ queried his master, becoming bold, like individuals, or
corporate bodies, of purely defensive ideas, after observing tokens of
weakness in the besieging force.
‘Weel, aweel, first and foremost, Laird, ye’ll no say that we haena
eaten your bread and saut this mony a year; there’s been neither stint
nor stay till’t. I hae naething to say against the wage; aiblins a man
weel instructed in his profession should aye be worthy o’ his hire.
Jeanie has been just spoiled by the mistress—my heart’s sairvice to her
and the young leddies—till ilka land they were no in, wad be strange
eneugh to her, puir body. And the lang and short o’ the hail matter is,
that we loe ye and your bonnie lads and lassies, Laird, sae weel that we
winna be pairted frae ye.’
As Mr. Effingham grasped the hand of the staunch, true servitor, who
thus stood by him in his need, under whose gnarled bark of natural
roughness lay hid so tender and true a core, the tears stood in his
eyes.
‘I shall never forget this, Andrew,’ said he; ‘you and Jeanie, old
friend, will be the comfort of our lives in the land over-sea, and I
cannot say what fresh courage your determination has given me. But are
you sure it will be for your own advantage? You must have saved money,
and might take a farm and live snugly here.’
‘I was aboot to acquent ye, Laird,’ said the conscientious Scot, too
faithful to his religious principles to take credit for a
disinterestedness to which he felt but partially entitled. ‘Ye’ll see,
Laird, for ye’re weel acquent wi’ the Word, that the battle’s no always
to the strong, nor the race to the swift. Ye’ll ken that, frae your ain
experience—aweel, I winna just say that neither’—proceeded Andrew,
getting slightly involved between his quotations and his determination
to be ‘faithful’ to his erring master, and by no means cloaking his sins
of omission. ‘I’ll no say but what ye’ve been lettin’ ither folks lead
ye, and throw dust in ye’re een in no the maist wiselike fashion, as nae
doot ye wad hae dune wi’ the tenants, puir bodies, gin I had letten ye.
But touchin’ my ain affairs, I haena sae muckle cause to brag; for maybe
I was unco stiff-necked, and it behoved to chasten me, as weel’s
yersell; I hae tint—just flung awa’—my sma’ scrapin’s and savin’s, these
saxteen years and mair, in siccan a senseless daft-like way too!’
Here Andrew could not forbear a groan, which was echoed by an
exclamation from his master.
‘I am sincerely grieved—astonished beyond expression! Why, Andrew,
surely _you_ have not been dabbling in stocks and foreign loans?’
‘Na—nae ga-amblin’ for _me_, Laird!’ replied Andrew sourly, and with an
accentuation which implied speedy return to his ordinary critical state
of mind; ‘but if I had minded the Scripture, I wadna hae lost money and
faith at one blow. “Strike not hands for a surety,”’ it saith, ‘but I
trusted Geordie Ballantyne like a brither; my ain cousin, twice removed.
He was aboot to be roupit oot, stock and lock, and him wi’ a hoosefu’ o’
weans. I just gaed surety to him for three hunder pound!’
‘You were never so mad—a prudent man like you?’
‘And he just flitted to America, fled frae his ain land, his plighted
word, and left me to bear the wyte o’t. It’s nae use greetin’ ower spilt
brose. The money’s a’ paid, and Andra’ Cargill’s as puir a man’s when he
cam’ to The Chase, saxteen years last Michaelmas. Sae, between the
heart-break it wad be to pairt wi’ the family, and the sair heart I hae
gotten at pairtin’ wi’ my siller, the loss o’ a friend—“mine own
familiar freend,” as the Psawmist says—as weel’s the earnings o’ the
maist feck o’ my days, at ae blast, I hae settled to gang oot, Laird, to
Austra-alia, and maybe lay oot a wheen straight furrows for ye, as I did
lang syne on the bonnie holms o’ Ettrick.’
Here Andrew’s voice faltered, and the momentous unprecedented
conversation ended abruptly.
The unfeigned delight with which his wife and daughters received the
news did much to reconcile Mr. Effingham to his expatriation, and even
went far to persuade him that he had, in some way, originated the whole
idea. Nor was their satisfaction unfounded. Andrew, with all his
apparent sternness and occasional incivility, was shrewd, capable, and
even versatile, in the application of his industry and unerring common
sense to a wide range of occupations. He was the ideal colonist of his
order, as certain to succeed in his own person as to be the most helpful
and trustworthy of retainers.
As for Jeanie, she differed from her husband in almost every respect,
except in the cardinal virtues. She had been a rustic celebrity in her
youth, and Andrew occasionally referred still, in moments of unbending,
to the difficulties of his courtship, and the victory gained over a host
of rival suitors. She still retained the softness of manner and
tenderness of nature which no doubt had originally led to the
fascination of her masterful, rugged-natured husband.
For the rest, Jean Cargill had always been one of those servants, rare
even in England, the land of peerless domestics, whose loving, unselfish
service knew no abatement in sickness and in health, good fortune or
evil hap. Her perceptive tastes and strong sense of propriety rendered
her, as years rolled on, a trusted friend; an infinitely more suitable
companion for the mistress and her children, as she always called them,
than many a woman of higher culture. A tireless nurse in time of
sickness; a brave, clear-headed, but withal modest and cautious, aid to
the physician in the hour of peril. She had stood by the bedstead of
more than one member of the family, in the dark hour, when the angel of
death waited on the threshold of the chamber. Never had she slackened or
faltered, by night or day, careless of food or repose till the crisis
had passed, and the ‘whisper of wings in the air’ faded away.
Mrs. Effingham, with all her maternal fondness and devotion, had been
physically unable at times to bear up against the fatigue of protracted
watching and anxiety. She had more than once, from sheer bodily
weakness, been compelled to abandon her post. But to Jeanie Cargill,
sustained by matchless love and devotion, such a thing had never
occurred. At noon or midnight, her hand was ever ready to offer the
needful food, the vital draught; her ear ever watchful to catch the
faint murmur of request; her eye, sleepless as a star, was ever
undimmed, vigilant to detect the slightest change of symptom. Many
nurses had been heard of, seen, and even read of, in the domestic
circles of Reigate, but in the estimation of every matron capable of
giving an opinion, Jeanie Cargill, by countless degrees of comparison,
outshone them all.
That night, when Mrs. Effingham, as was her wont, sought relief from the
burden of her daily cares, and the crowding anxieties of the morrow,
‘meekly kneeling upon her knees,’ it appeared to her as if in literal
truth the wind had been tempered to the shorn lamb. That terrible travel
into the unknown, the discomforts and dangers of the melancholy main,
with the dreary waste of colonial life, would be quite different
adventures, softened by the aid and companionship of everybody’s ‘dear
old Jeanie.’ Her patient industry, her helpful sympathy, her matchless
loyalty and self-denial, would be well-springs of heaven-sent water in
that desert. Andrew’s company, though not socially exhilarating, was
also an invigorating fact. Altogether, Mrs. Effingham’s spirits
improved, and her hopes arose freshly strengthened.
No sooner was it settled that Andrew and his fortunes were to be wafted
o’er the main, in the vessel which bore the Effingham family, than, with
characteristic energy, he had constituted himself Grand Vizier and
responsible adviser. He definitely approved of much that had been done,
and counselled still further additions to the outfit. Prime and
invincible was his objection to leave behind a certain pet ‘Jersey coo,’
‘a maist extraordinar’ milker, and for butter, juist unco-omon. If she
could be ta’en oot to thae parts, she wad be a sma’ fortune—that is, in
ony Christian land where butter and cheese were used. Maybe the
sea-captain wad let her gang for the value o’ her milk; she was juist in
the height o’t the noo. It wad be a sin and a shame to let her be roupit
for half price, like the ither kye, puir things.’
Persistent advocacy secured his point. Daisy had been morally abandoned
to her fate; but Wilfred, goaded by Andrew’s appeals, had an interview
with the shipping clerk, and arranged that Daisy, if approved of, should
fill the place of the proverbial milch cow, so invariably bracketed with
the ‘experienced surgeon’ in the advertisements of the Commercial
Marine. Her calf also, being old enough to eat hay, was permitted to
accompany her.
Andrew also combated the idea that the greyhounds, or at least a pair,
should be left behind, still less the guns or fishing-rods.
‘Wasna the Laird the best judge of a dog in the haill country-side, and
no that far frae the best shot? What for suld he walk aboot the woods in
Australia waesome and disjaskit like, when there might be kangaroos, or
whatna kind o’ ootlandish game, to be had for the killing? Hoot, hoot,
puir Page and Damsel couldna be left ahint, nor the wee terrier Vennie.’
There was more trouble with the greyhounds’ passage than the cows, but
in consideration of the large amount of freight and passage-money paid
by the family, the aristocratic long-tails were franked. Andrew, with
his own hands, packed up the fowling-pieces and fishing-rods, which,
with the exaggerated prudence of youth, Wilfred had been minded to leave
behind, considering nothing worthy of removal that would not be likely
to add to their material gains in the ‘new settlement.’ He had yet to
learn that recreation can never be advantageously disregarded, whether
the community be a young or an old one.
Little by little, a chain of slow yet subtle advances, by which, equally
with geologic alterations of the earth’s surface, its ephemeral living
tenants proceed or retrograde, effected the translation of Howard
Effingham, with wife and children, retainers and household goods. Averse
by nature to all exertion which savoured of detail, reserving his energy
for what he was pleased to dignify with the title of great occasions, as
he looked back over the series of multitudinous necessary arrangements,
Howard Effingham wondered, in his secret soul, at the transference of
his household. Left to himself, he was candid enough to admit, such a
result could never have been achieved. But the ceaseless ministration of
Jeanie and Andrew, the calm forethought of Mrs. Effingham, the unsparing
personal labour of Wilfred, had, in due time, worked the miracle.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST CAMP
Whatever may be the loss or injury inseparable from misfortune, no one
of experience denies that the pain is lightened when the blow has
fallen. The shuddering terror, the harrowing doubts, which precede an
operation, far outrun the torture of the knife. Worse a thousandfold to
endure than actual misery, poverty and disgrace, is the dull sense of
impending doom, the daily anxiety, the secret dread, the formless,
unhasting, unsparing terror, which each day brings nearer to the victim.
Howard Effingham had, for weeks past, suffered the torments of the lost.
An unwise concealment of the coming ruin which his reserved temperament
forbade him to announce, had stretched him upon the rack. The acute
agony was now past, and he felt unspeakably relieved as, with increasing
completeness, the preparations for departure were accomplished.
After the shock of the disaster he commenced the necessary duties with
an unwontedly tranquil mind. He had despatched a bank draft for the
amount mentioned by his friend and counsellor the Rev. Harley
Sternworth. Prior to this needful act, he held various conferences with
the trustees of Mrs. Effingham’s settlement. In many instances such
authorities are difficult, even impracticable, to deal with, preferring
the minimum interest which can be safely procured in the matter of trust
money, to the slightest risk. In this instance, the arbiter of destiny
was an old gentleman, at once prudent yet liberal-minded, who did not
disdain to examine the arguments in favour of the Australian plan. After
reading Mr. Sternworth’s letter, and comparing the facts therein stated
with colonial securities, to which he had access, he gave in his
adhesion to the investment, and converted his coadjutor, a mild,
obstinate personage, who could with difficulty be induced to see any
other investment legally open to them but the ‘sweet simplicity of the
three per cents.’
Long was the last day in coming, but it came at last. Their stay in the
old home was protracted until only time was given for the journey to
Southampton, where the staunch, old-fashioned wool-ship lay, which was
to receive their condensed personal effects and, as it seemed to them,
shrivelled-up personalities.
Adieus were said, some with sore weeping and many tears; some with
moderate but sincere regret; some with the half-veiled indifference with
which any action not affecting their own comfort, interest, or
reputation is regarded by a large class of acquaintances. The minor
possessions—the carriages, the horses, the library, the furniture—were
sold. A selection of the plainest articles of this last requisite,
which, the freight being wonderfully low, their chief adviser had
counselled them to carry with them, was alone retained.
‘It will sell for next to nothing,’ his last letter had said, ‘judging
from my experience after the regiment had “got the route,” and you will
have it landed here for less than the price of very ordinary
substitutes. Bring all the small matters you can, that may be useful;
and don’t leave the piano behind. I must have a tune when I come to see
you at Warbrok, and hear Mrs. Effingham sing “Auld Robin Gray” again.
You recollect how our old Colonel broke down, with tears rolling over
his wrinkled cheeks, when she sang it?’
All was now over. The terrible wrench had been endured, tearing apart
those living fibres which in early life are entwined around hearth and
home. They had gazed in mournful farewell upon each familiar thing which
from childhood’s hour had seemed a portion of their sheltered life. Like
plants and flowerets, no denizens of hothouse or simulated tropic clime,
but not the less carefully tended from harmful extremes, climatic or
social, had the Effingham family grown and flourished. Now they were
about to be abandoned to the elemental forces. Who should say whether
they would wither under rude blasts and a fiercer sun, or, from natural
vigour and inherent vitality, burgeon and bloom beneath the Southern
heavens?
Of the whole party, she who showed less outward token of sorrow, felt in
her heart the most unresting anguish. To a woman like Mrs. Effingham,
reared from infancy in the exclusive tenets of English county life, the
idea of so comprehensive a change, of a semi-barbarous migration, had
been well-nigh more bitter than death—but for one source of aid and
spiritual support, unendurable.
Her reliance had a twofold foundation. The undoubting faith in a Supreme
Being, who ordered aright all the ways of His creatures, even when
apparently remote from happiness, remained unshaken. Firmly had she ever
trusted in that God by whom her former life had been guided. Events
might take a mysteriously doubtful course. But, in the wilderness, under
leafy forest-arches, beneath the shadow of the gathering tempest, on
land or ocean, she would trust in God and her Redeemer. Steadfast and
brave of mien, though with trembling lip and sickened heart, she
marshalled her little troop and led them on board the stout ship, which
only awaited the morrow’s dawn to spread her wings and sweep
southward—ever southward—amid unknown seas, until the great island
continent should arise from out the sky-line, telling of a land which
was to provide them with a home, with friends, even perhaps a fortune.
What a mockery in that hour of utter wretchedness did such hope
promptings appear!
After protracted mental conflict, no more perfect system of rest can be
devised than that afforded by a sea-voyage. Anxiety, however mordant,
must be lulled to rest under the fixed conditions of a journey, before
the termination of which no battle of life can be commenced, no campaign
resumed.
Toil and strife, privation and poverty, labour and luck, all the
contending forces of life are hushed as in a trance. As in hibernation,
the physical and mental attributes appear to rally, to recruit fresh
stores of energy. ‘The dead past buries its dead’—sorrowfully perchance,
and with silent weeping. But the clouds which have gathered around the
spirit disperse and flee heavenwards, as from a snow-robed Alp at
morning light. Then the roseate hues of dawn steal slowly o’er the
silver-pure peaks and glaciers. The sun gilds anew the dark pine forest,
the purple hills. Once more hope springs forth ardent and unfettered.
Endeavour presses onward to victory or to death.
To the Effingham family came a natural surprise, that, under their
circumstances of exile and misfortune, any cheerfulness could occur. The
parents possessed an air of decent resignation. But the younger members
of the family, after the first days of unalloyed wretchedness, commenced
to exhibit the elastic temperament of youth.
The seamanship displayed on the staunch sailing ship commenced to
interest them. The changing aspects of sea and sky, the still noon, the
gathering storm-cloud, the starry midnight, the phosphorescent
fire-trail following the night-path of their bark—all these had power to
move the sad hearts of the exiles. And, in youth, to move the heart is
to lighten the spirit.
Wilfred Effingham, true to his determination to deliver himself over to
every practical duty which might grow out of their life, had procured
books professing to give information with regard to all the Australian
colonies.
With difficulty he managed, after an extended literary tour involving
Tasmania, Swan River, and New Zealand, to distinguish the colony to
which they were bound, though he failed to gather precise information
regarding the district in which their land was situated. He made out
that the climate was mild, and favourable to the Anglo-Saxon
constitution; that in mid-winter, flowering shrubs and delicate plants
bloomed in spite of the pretended rigour of the season; that the heat in
summer was considerable, as far as shown by the reading of the
thermometer, but that from the extreme dryness of atmosphere no greater
oppressiveness followed than in apparently cooler days in other
climates.
‘Here, mother,’ he said, having mastered the latter fact, ‘we have been
unconsciously coming to the exact country suited to your health and
pursuits. You know how fond of flowers you are. Well, you can have a
winter garden now, without the expense of glass or the trouble of
hothouse flues; while you can cheat the season by abstaining from colds,
which you could never do in England, you know.’
‘I shall be happy to have a little garden of my own, my son,’ she
replied, ‘but who is to work in it? We have done for ever, I suppose,
with head and under gardeners. You and Guy and everybody will always, I
suppose, be at farm-work, or herding cattle and sheep, busy from morning
to dark. How glad we shall be to see your faces at night!’
‘It does not follow,’ replied Wilfred, ‘that we shall never have a
moment to spare. Listen to what this author says: “The colonist who has
previously been accustomed to lead a life, where intervals of leisure
and intellectual recreation hold an acknowledged place, must not
consider that, in choosing Australia for his home, he has forfeited all
right to such indulgences. Let him not think that he has pledged himself
to a life of unbroken toil and unremitting manual labour. On the
contrary, he will discover that the avocations of an Australian country
gentleman chiefly demand the exercise of ordinary prudence and of those
rudimentary business habits which are easily acquired. Intelligent
supervision, rather than manual labour, is the special qualification for
colonial success; and we do not err in saying that by its exercise more
fortunes have been made than by the rude toils which are supposed to be
indispensable in the life of an Australian settler.”
‘There, mother!’ said the ardent adventurer. ‘That writer is a very
sensible fellow. He knows what he is talking about, for he has been ever
so many years in Australia, and has been over every part of it.’
‘Well, there certainly seems permission given to us to have a
flower-garden for mamma without ruining ourselves or neglecting our
business,’ said Rosamond. ‘And if the climate is so beautiful as they
say, these dreadful February neuralgia-martyrdoms will be things of the
past with you, dearest old lady.’
‘There, mother, what do you say to that? Why, you will grow so young and
beautiful that you will be taken for our elder sister, and papa would be
ashamed to say you are his wife, only that old gentlemen generally marry
young girls nowadays. Then, fancy what a garden we shall have at The
Chase—we _must_ call it The Chase, no matter what its present name is.
It wouldn’t feel natural for us to live anywhere but at a Chase. It
would be like changing our name.’
* * * * *
On board ship there is always abundant leisure for talk and recreation,
especially in low latitudes and half calms. The Effinghams, after they
had been a month out, began to feel sensibly the cheering effects of
total change of scene—the life-breathing atmosphere of the unbounded
sea. The demons of Regret and Fear, for the most part, shun the blue
wave and lie in wait on land for unwary mortals. The ship was seaworthy
and spacious, the officers capable, the few passengers passably
agreeable. Gradually the tone was restored of Captain Effingham’s
nervous system. He ceased to repine and regret. He even beheld some
grains of hope in the future, black as the outlook had until now
appeared. While the expression of sweet serenity and calm resignation
which ever dwelt upon the features of Mrs. Effingham became heightened
and assured under the concomitants of the voyage, until she appeared to
radiate peace and goodwill sufficient to affect beneficially the whole
ship’s company. As for the two little ones, Selden and Blanche, they
appeared to have been accustomed since infancy to a seafaring life. They
ran about unchecked, and were in everybody’s way and every one’s
affections. They were the youngest children on board, and many a rough
sailor turned to look, with something like a glistening in his eye, on
the saucy brown-eyed boy, and the delicate little five-year-old fairy,
whose masses of fair hair floated in the breeze, or were temporarily
confined with an unwilling ribbon.
It seemed but the lengthening limit of a dream when the seaman at the
good ship’s bow was commanded to keep a lookout for land; when, yet
another bright blue day, fading into eve, and a low coast-line is seen,
rising like an evening cloud from out a summer sea.
‘Hurrah!’ said Wilfred Effingham, as the second mate pointed out the
land of promise, ‘now our life begins. We shall belong to ourselves
again, instead of being the indulgently treated slaves—very well
treated, I confess—but still the unquestionable bond-slaves of that
enlightened taskmaster, Captain Henry Fleetby of the _Marlshire_.’
‘We have been very happy, my dear,’ said Mrs. Effingham, ‘happier than I
should have thought possible in a ship, under any circumstances. Let us
hope our good fortune will continue on land. I shall always look back to
this voyage as the most wonderful rest that our poor wounded hearts
could have enjoyed. Your papa looks quite himself again, and I feel
better than I have done for years. I shall remember our captain, his
officers, and his ship, with gratitude, as long as I live.’
‘I feel quite attached to the dear old vessel,’ said Annabel, ‘but we
can’t go sailing about the world all our lives, like respectable Flying
Dutchmen. I suppose the captain must turn us out to-morrow. Who would
have thought we should regret coming to the end of the voyage?’
How calm was that last day of the long, but not too long, voyage, when
they glided for hours on a waveless sea, by a great wall of sandstone
cliffs, which finally opened, as if by magic, and discovered the portal
of an Enchanted Haven! Surely the prospect could not all be real, of
this wondrous nook, stolen from the vast, the limitless Pacific, in
which they discerned, through the empurpling eve, villas, cottages,
mansions, churches, white-walled and fantastic to their eyes, girt with
strange shrubs and stately forest trees of unknown aspect. As the
_Marlshire_ floated to her anchorage, threading a fleet of skiffs, which
made the waters gay with many a sail, the full heart of the mother and
the wife overflowed.
Involuntarily a fervent prayer of thanksgiving went up to that Being who
had safely guarded them o’er the waste of ocean; had permitted their
entrance into this good land, which lay ready to receive them in their
need.
Passengers concluding a short voyage are nervously anxious to land, and
commence the frantic enjoyment of existence on _terra firma_. Not so
with the denizens of the good ship _Marlshire_, which had been their
home and dwelling-place for more than a quarter of a year. Having grown,
with the strange adaptiveness of our nature, to love the gallant bark,
you revere the captain, respect the first officer, and believe in the
second. Even the crew is above the average of the mercantile Jack-tar
novel. You will always swear by the old tub; and you will not go on
shore till to-morrow morning, if then.
All things considered, the family decided to stay quietly on board the
_Marlshire_ that night, so as to disembark in a leisurely way in the
morning, when they would have the day before them in which to make
arrangements.
They talked of staying quietly on board, but the excitement of being so
near the land was too much for them. The unnatural quietude of the ship,
the calm water of the bay, the glancing lights, which denoted the
thousand homes of the city, the cries and sounds of the massed
population of a seaport, the warm midnight air, the woods and white
beaches which denoted the shore-line, the gliding harbour-boats, all
seemed to sound in one strangely distinct chorus: ‘Land, land, land at
last.’ All magically exciting, these sounds and scenes forbade sleep.
Long after the other members of the family had gone below for the night,
Wilfred and Rosamond paced the deck, eagerly discussing plans for the
future, and, with the sanguine temper of youth, rapidly following each
freshly-formed track to fortune.
No one was likely to indulge in slumber after sunrise. A babel of sounds
announced that the unlading of cargo had commenced. Their last ship
breakfast prefaced the actual stepping upon the friendly gangway, which
now alone divided them from the other side of the world. Before that
feat was performed, a squarely-built, grey-headed personage, in clerical
garb, but withal of a somewhat secular manner, walked rapidly from the
wharf to the deck and confronted the party.
‘Here you are at last, all safe and sound, Howard, my dear fellow!’ said
he, shaking hands warmly with Mr. Effingham. ‘Not so much changed
either; too easy-going for that. Pray present me to Mrs. Effingham and
the young ladies. Your eldest son looking after the luggage?—proper
place for him. Allow me to take your arm, my dear madam, and to conduct
you to the hotel, where I have engaged rooms for you. May as well set
off—talk as we go along. Only heard of the _Marlshire_ being signalled
the day before yesterday. Came a long journey—slightly knocked up this
morning, but soon recovered—splendid climate—make a young man of you,
Earl Percy, in a year or two. We always called him Earl Percy in the
regiment, Mrs. Effingham. Perhaps he told you. And all this fine family
too—two, four, six, seven. I can hardly credit my senses. Plenty of room
for them in this country—plenty of room—that’s one thing.’
‘We have every reason to be thankful for the comfortable way in which we
have voyaged here,’ said Mrs. Effingham; ‘and now that you have so
kindly come to meet us, I feel as if half our troubles were over.’
‘Your troubles are just commencing, my dear madam, but with Harley
Sternworth’s help something may be done to lighten them. Still I feel
sure that these young ladies will look upon difficulties in a sensible
way, not expecting too much, or being discouraged—just at first, you
know.’
‘Your country, my old friend, will have to look bad indeed if my wife
cannot find a good word to say for it,’ said Mr. Effingham, roused to
unwonted cheerfulness. ‘At any rate, it suits you well; you look as hard
as a west country drover.’
‘Never was better. Haven’t had a dose of medicine for years. Ride fifty
miles a day if necessary. Finest climate—finest country—under the sun.
Lots of parish work and travelling, with a dash of botanising, and a
pinch of geology to fill up spare time. Wouldn’t go back and live in a
country town for the world. Mope to death.’
All this time the reverend gentleman was pressing forward up a gentle
incline, towards the lower end of George Street, and after walking up
that noble thoroughfare, and discreetly refraining from mention of the
buildings which ornament that part of it, he turned again towards the
water and piloted his party successfully to Batty’s Hotel.
‘Here, my dear madam, you will find that I have secured you pleasant
apartments for a week or ten days, during which time you will be able to
recruit after the voyage, and do justice to the beauties of the city.
You are not going up country at once. A few days’ leisure will be
economy in the end.’
‘So we are not to start off hundreds of miles at once, in a bullock
dray, as the captain told us?’ said Rosamond.
‘No, my dear young lady, neither now nor, I hope, at any time will such
a mode of travelling be necessary. I cannot say too much for your
conveyance, but it will be fairly comfortable and take you to your
destination safely. After that will commence what you will doubtless
consider to be a tolerably rough life. Yes—a rough life.’
‘These young people have made up their minds to anything short of living
like Esquimaux,’ said Mr. Effingham. ‘I don’t think you will frighten
them. You and I saw curious backwoods places when we were quartered in
Canada, didn’t we? You will hardly match them in Australia.’
‘Nothing to be compared to it,’ said Mr. Sternworth earnestly. ‘We have
no winter here, to begin with; that is, none worth speaking about for
cold. Moreover, the people are intensely British in their manners and
customs, in an old-fashioned way. But I am not going to explain
everything. You will have to _live_ the explanation, which is far better
than hearing it, and is sure to be retained by the memory.’
It was decided that no move was to be made for the interior until the
baggage was landed, and arrangements made for its safe carriage by dray.
‘If you leave before all is ready,’ said their mentor, ‘you run risk of
the loss of a portion, by mistake or negligence; and this loss may never
be repaired. You will find your furniture of immense value in the new
abode, and will congratulate yourself upon having brought it. It is
astonishing with what different eyes you look upon a table or sideboard
here and in England.’
‘I was anxious to bring out some of our old possessions,’ said Mrs.
Effingham. ‘But I had hard work to persuade my husband that we might not
be able to procure such here. Your advice was most opportune. I feel
more pleased than I can say that we were able to act upon it.’
At lunch they were joined by Wilfred, who had discovered that there was
no chance of all the furniture coming ashore that day. He had arranged
with the captain that Andrew and his family should remain on board, as
also Daisy the cow, until everything was ready to load the drays with
the heavy baggage.
Andrew had expressed himself much pleased with the arrangement,
regarding the ship as ‘mair hamelike’ than the busy foreign-looking
city, to the inhabitants of which he did not take kindly, particularly
after an exploring stroll, which happened to be on the Sunday after
arrival.
‘A maist freevolous folk, given up to mammon-worship and
pleesure-huntin’,—walkin’ in thae gairdens—no that they’re no just
by-ordinar’ for shrubs and floorin’ plants frae a’ lands—walkin’ and
haverin’ in the gairdens on the Sawbath day, a’ smilin’ and heedless,
just on the vairge o’ happiness. Saw ye ever the like? It’s juist
fearsome.’
Upon the lady portion of the family, the city with its shops, parks, and
inhabitants made a more favourable impression.
Mr. Sternworth was untiring in showing them, in the excursions which
Mrs. Effingham and the girls made under his guidance, the beauties of
the city. They wandered much in the lovely public gardens, to Mrs.
Effingham’s intense delight, whose love of flowers was, perhaps, her
strongest taste. They drove out on the South Head road, and duly noted
the white-walled mansions, plunged deeply in such luxuriant
flower-growth as the Northern strangers had rarely yet beheld.
Wonderfully gracious seemed the weather. It was the Australian spring
with air as soft and balmy as that of Italy in her fairest hours.
How enjoyable was that halt between two stages of existence! Daily, as
they rose from the morning meal, they devoted themselves to fresh
rambles around the city, under the chaperonage of the worthy person.
They commenced to feel an involuntary exhilaration. The pure air, the
bright days, the glowing sun, the pleasant sea-breeze, combined to cause
an indefinable conviction that they had found a region formed for aid
and consolation.
The streets, the equipages, the people, presented, it is true, few of
the contrasts, to their English experience, which a foreign town would
have afforded. Yet was there the excitement, strong and vivid, which
arises from the first sight of a strange land and an unfamiliar people.
‘This town has a great look of Marseilles,’ said Wilfred, as they
loitered, pleasantly fatigued, towards their temporary home in the
deepening twilight. ‘The same white, balconied, terraced houses of pale
freestone; the southern climate, the same polyglot water-side
population, only the Marseilles quay might be stowed away in a hundred
corners of this wonderful harbour; and the people—only look at them—have
a Parisian tendency to spend their evenings in the streets. I suppose
the mildness of the climate tends to it.’
‘This kind of thing, I suppose, strikes you sharply at first,’ said Mr.
Sternworth; ‘but my eyes have become so accustomed to all the aspects of
my little world, that I cannot see much difference between it and many
English places I have known in my day. The variations noted at first
have long since disappeared; and I feel as much at home as I used to do
at Bideford, when I was quartered there with the old regiment.’
‘But surely the people must be different from what they are in England,’
said Beatrice. ‘The country is different, the trees, the plants—how
beautiful many of them are!—and the climate; surely all this must tend
to alter the character or the appearance of the people.’
‘It may in a few centuries have that effect, my dear young lady,’ said
the old gentleman, ‘but such changes are after the fashion of nature’s
workings, imperceptibly slow. You will agree with me in another year,
that many old acquaintances in men and manners are to be met with out
here, and the rest present only outward points of divergence.’
The days of restful peace had passed. The valuable freight—to them
invaluable—having been safely loaded, Mr. Sternworth unfolded the plan
which he had arranged for their journey.
‘You are aware,’ he said, ‘that Warbrok Chase, as the young ladies have
decided to call your estate, is more than 200 miles from Sydney. It lies
40 miles beyond Yass, which town is distant 180 miles from the
Metropolis. Now, although we shall have railways in good time, there is
nothing of the sort yet, and the roads are chiefly in their natural
state. I would therefore suggest that you should travel in a roomy
horse-waggon, comfortably fitted up, taking a tent with you in which to
sleep at night. I have procured a driver well acquainted with the
country, who knows all the camps and stopping-places, and may be
depended upon to take you safely to your journey’s end.’
‘No railways, no coaches,’ said Mr. Effingham; ‘yours is rather a
primitive country, Harley, it must be confessed; but you know what is
best for us all, and the weather is so mild that none of us can suffer
from the bivouac.’
‘I should not have hazarded it if there had been any risk to health,’
said the old gentleman, bowing courteously. ‘There are coaches, however,
and you might reach your destination in four days, after hurried
travelling. But the tariff is expensive for so large a party; you would
be crowded, or meet unsuitable fellow-travellers, while you could take
but little of your luggage with you.’
‘I vote for the overland journey,’ said Rosamond. ‘I am sure it will be
quite refreshingly eastern. I suppose Andrew and Jeanie and poor dear
Daisy and the dogs and everything can go.’
‘Everything and everybody you please but the heavy luggage. Your
servants will be able to sleep under a part of the waggon-tilt, which
will be comfortable enough at night. The cow will give you milk for your
tea. Even the greyhounds may catch you a wallaby or two, which will come
in for soup.’
‘There could not be a better scheme,’ said Wilfred exultingly. ‘My dear
sir, you are a second father to us. How long do you think it will take
us to get to Warbrok altogether?’
‘You will have to make up your minds to ten or twelve days’ travelling,
I am afraid—say, twenty miles a day. I really believe you will not find
it tedious, but, as with your water journey, get quite to like it.
Besides, there is one grand advantage, as far as the young ladies are
concerned.’
‘What is that?’ said Annabel, with added interest, but somewhat doleful
countenance. ‘Is there _any_ advantage in travelling like gipsies?’
‘It is this, then, my dear girls,’ said the old man, bending upon them
his clear, kindly beaming eyes, ‘that you will make acquaintance with
the rougher habitudes (and yet not unduly so) of country life in
Australia by this primitive forest journeying. When you arrive at your
destination you will therefore be proportionately satisfied with your
new residence, because it will represent _a settled home_. Your daily
journey will by that time have become a task, so that you will hail the
prospect of repose with thankfulness.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Annabel with a disappointed air. ‘Then we are to
undergo something dreadful, in order that something only disagreeable
may not look so bad after it. Is all Australian life like that? But I
daresay I shall die young, and so it won’t matter much. Is the lunch
nearly ready? I declare I am famishing.’
Every one laughed at this characteristic sequence to Annabel’s prophecy,
and the matter of the march having been settled, their friend promised
to send up the waggon-driver next morning, in order that the proper
fittings and the lamps—indispensable articles—and luggage might be
arranged and packed. A tent also was purchased, and bedding, cooking
utensils, provisions, etc., secured.
‘You will find Dick Evans an original character,’ said the parson, ‘but
I do not know any man in the district so well suited for this particular
service. He has been twenty years in Australia, and knows everything,
both good and evil, that can be known of the country and people. He is
an old soldier, and in the 50th Regiment saw plenty of service. He has
his faults, but they don’t appear on the surface, and I know him well
enough to guarantee that you will be wholly ignorant of them. His
manners—with a dash of soldier servant—are not to be surpassed.’
At an hour next morning so soon after dawn that Andrew Cargill, the most
incorruptible of early birds, was nearly caught napping, Mr. Dick Evans
arrived with two horses and his waggon. The rest of the team, not being
wanted, he had left in their paddock at Homebush. He immediately placed
the waggon in the most convenient position for general reference, took
out his horses, which he accommodated with nose-bags, and with an air of
almost suspicious deference inquired of Andrew what he could commence to
do in the way of packing.
The two men, as if foreseeing that possible encounters might henceforth
take place between them, looked keenly at each other. Richard Evans had
the erect bearing of which the recipient of early drill can rarely
divest himself. His wiry figure but slightly above the middle height,
his clean-shaved, ruddy cheek, his keen grey eye, hardly denoted the
fifty years and more which he carried so lightly.
A faultless constitution, an open-air occupation with habits of great
bodily activity, had borne him scatheless through a life of hardship and
risk.
This personage commenced with a request to be shown the whole of the
articles intended to be taken, gently but firmly withstanding any
opinion of Andrew’s to the contrary, and replying to his protests with
the mild superiority of the attendant in a lunatic asylum. After the
whole of the light luggage had been displayed, he addressed himself to
the task of loading and securing it with so much economy of space and
advantage of position, that Andrew readily yielded to him the right to
such leadership in future.
‘Nae doot,’ he said, ‘the auld graceless sworder that he is, has had
muckle experience in guiding his team through thae pathless
wildernesses, and it behoves a wise man to “jouk and let the jaw gae
by.” But wae’s me, it’s dwelling i’ the tents o’ Kedar!’
Dick Evans, who was a man of few words and strong in the heat of
argument, was by no means given to mixing up discussion with work. He
therefore kept on steadily with his packing until evening, only
requiring from Andrew such help and information as were indispensable.
‘There,’ said he, as he removed the low-crowned straw hat from his
heated brow, and prepared to fill his pipe, ‘I think that will about do.
The ladies can sit there in the middle, where I’ve put the tent loose,
and use it as a sofy, if they’ve a mind to. I can pitch it in five
minutes at night, and they can sleep in it as snug as if they had a
cottage with them. You and your wife can have the body of the waggon to
yourselves at night, and I’ll sleep under the shafts. The captain and
the young gentlemen can have all the room between the wheels, and nobody
can want more than that. I suppose your missis can do what cooking’s
wanted?’
‘Nae doot,’ Andrew replied with dignity, ‘Mistress Cargill wad provide a
few bits o’ plain victual. A wheen parritch, a thocht brose, wad serve
a’ hands better than flesh meat, and tea or coffee, or siccan trash.’
‘Porridge won’t do for me,’ said the veteran firmly, ‘not if I know it.
Oatmeal’s right enough for you Scotchmen, and not bad stuff either, _in
your own country_, but beef and mutton’s our tack in Australia.’
‘And will ye find a flesher in this “bush,” as they ca’ it, that we’ve
to push through?’ demanded Andrew. ‘Wad it no be mair wiselike to keep
to victual that we can carry in our sacks?’
‘Get plenty of beef and mutton and everything else on the road,’ said
Mr. Evans, lighting his pipe and declining further argument. ‘Don’t you
forget to bring a frying-pan. I’ll take the horses back to the paddock
now and be here by daylight, so as we can make a good start.’
It had been arranged by Mr. Sternworth that the boys, as he called them,
should set forth in the morning with Evans and the waggon, as also
Andrew and Jeanie, taking with them the cow, the dogs, and the smaller
matters which the family had brought. No necessity for Captain Effingham
and the ladies to leave Sydney until the second day. He would drive them
in a hired carriage as far as the first camp, which Evans had described
to him.
They would thus avoid the two days’ travel, and commence their journey
after the expedition had performed its trial trip, so to speak.
‘What _should_ we have done without your kind care of us?’ said Mrs.
Effingham. ‘Everything up to this time has been a pleasure trip. When is
the hard life that we heard so much of to begin?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Rosamond, ‘Mr. Sternworth is going to be like the
brigand in the romances, who used to lure persons from their homes. I
have no doubt but that there are “hard times” awaiting us somewhere or
somehow.’
‘My dear young lady, let me compliment you on your good sense in taking
that view of the future. It will save you from disappointment, and fill
your mind with a wholesome strength to resist adversity. You may need
all your philosophy, and I counsel you to keep it, like armour, well
burnished. I do not know of any evil likely to befall you, but that you
will have trouble and toil may be taken as certain. Only, after a time,
I predict that you will overcome your difficulties, and find yourselves
permanently benefited.’
The old gentleman, whose arrangements were as successfully carried out
as if he had been the commissary instead of the chaplain of his former
regiment, made his appearance on the following day in a neat barouche
drawn by a pair of good-looking bay horses, and driven by a highly
presentable coachman.
‘Why, it might pass muster for a private carriage,’ said Annabel. ‘And I
can see a crest on the panels. I suppose we shall never own a carriage
again as long as we live.’
‘This _is_ a private carriage, or rather was, once upon a time,’ said
Mr. Sternworth; ‘the horses and the coachman belonged to it. Many
carriages were put down last year, owing to a scarcity of money, and my
old friend Watkins here, having saved his wages, like a prudent man,
bought his master’s carriage and horses, and commenced as cab
proprietor. He has a large connection among his former master’s friends,
and is much in demand at balls and other festivities.’
The ex-coachman drove them at a lively pace, but steadily, along a
macadamised turnpike road, not so very different from a country lane in
Surrey, though wider, and not confined by hedges. The day was fine. On
either side, after the town was left behind, were large enclosures,
wherein grazed sheep, cattle, and horses. Sometimes they passed an
orangery, and the girls were charmed with the rows of dark green trees,
upon which the golden fruit was ripe. Then an old-fashioned house, in an
orchard, surrounded by a wall—wall and house coloured red, and rusty
with the stains of age—much like a farmhouse in Hertfordshire. One town
they passed was so manifestly old-fashioned, having even _ruins_, to
their delight and astonishment, that they could hardly believe they were
in a new country.
‘Some one has been playing Rip Van Winkle tricks upon us,’ said
Rosamond. ‘We have been asleep a hundred years, and are come back
finding all things grown old and in decay.’
‘You must not forget that the colony has been established nearly fifty
years,’ said Mr. Sternworth, ‘and that these are some of the earliest
settlements. They were not always placed in the most judicious sites;
wherefore, as newer towns have passed them in the race for trade, these
have submitted to become, as you see them, “grey with the rime of
years,” and simulating decay as well as circumstances will permit.’
‘Well, I think much more highly of Australia, now that I have seen a
_real_ ruin or two,’ said Annabel decisively. ‘I always pictured the
country full of hideous houses of boards, painted white, with spinach
green doors and windows.’
The afternoon was well advanced as the inmates of the carriage descried
the encampment which Mr. Evans had ordered, with some assistance from
his military experience. So complete in all arrangements for comfort was
it—not wholly disregarding the element of romantic scenery—that the
girls cried aloud in admiration.
The streamlet (or creek) which afforded the needful water meandered
round the base of a crag, jutting out from a forest-clothed hill. The
water-hole (or basin) in the channel of the creek was larger than such
generally are, and reflected brightly the rays of the declining sun. The
meadow, which afforded space for the encampment, was green, and fertile
of appearance. The waggon stood near the water; the four horses were
peacefully grazing. At a short distance, under a spreading tree, the
tent had been pitched, while before it was a wood fire, upon which
Jeanie was cooking something appetising. Wilfred and his brother were
strolling, gun in hand, up the creek; the cow was feeding among the
rushes with great contentment; Andrew was seated, meditating, upon a box
which he had brought forth from the recesses of the waggon; while Dick
Evans, not far from a small fire, upon which stood a camp-kettle at
boiling-point, was smoking with an air of conscious pride, as if not
only the picturesque beauty, but the personages pertaining to the
landscape, belonged to him individually.
‘I could not leave you more comfortably provided for,’ said their
‘guide, philosopher, and friend.’ ‘Old Dick may be trusted in all such
matters as implicitly as the Duke of Wellington. I never knew him at
fault yet in this kind of life.’
‘You must positively stay and have afternoon tea with us,’ exclaimed
Annabel. ‘It is exactly five, and there is Dick putting a tin cupful of
tea into the teapot. What extravagant people you colonists are! I never
drank tea in the open air before, but it seems quite the right thing to
do. I see Jeanie has made griddle-cakes, like a dear old thing. And I
know there is butter. I am so hungry. You _will_ stay, won’t you?’
‘I think, sir,’ said the ex-family coachman, looking indulgently at the
special pleader, ‘that we shall have time to get back to the Red Cow Inn
to-night, after a cup of tea, as the young lady wishes it. I’ll run you
into town bright and early to-morrow.’
‘Very well then, Miss Annabel, I shall have the honour to accept your
invitation,’ bowed the old man. ‘I go away more cheerfully than I
expected, now that I leave you all so comparatively snug. It will not be
for long. Be sure that I shall meet you on the threshold of Warbrok.’
The _al fresco_ meal was partaken of with much relish, even gaiety,
after which civilisation—as personified by the reverend gentleman and
the carriage—departed. Annabel looked after it ruefully, while Jeanie
and Mrs. Effingham took counsel together for the night. It was for the
first time in the family history. Never before had the Effinghams slept,
so to speak, in the open air. It was a novel adventure in their
uneventful lives—a marked commencement of their colonial career. It
affected them differently, according to their idiosyncrasies. Rosamond
was calmly resolute, Annabel apprehensive, and Beatrice indifferent; the
boys in high spirits; Mr. Effingham half in disapproval, despondently
self-accusing; while Mrs. Effingham and Jeanie were so fully absorbed in
the great bedding question that they had no emotions to spare for any
abstract consideration whatever.
The moon, in her second quarter, had arisen lustrous in the pure, dark
blue firmament, fire-besprinkled with ‘patines of bright gold,’ before
this important matter (and supper) was concluded. Then it was formally
announced that the tent was fully furnished, and had turned out
wonderfully commodious. The mattresses were placed upon a layer of
‘bush-feathers,’ as Dick Evans called them, and which (the small twigs
and leaf-shoots of the eucalyptus) he had impressed Wilfred and his
brother to gather. There was a lantern secured to the tent-pole, which
lighted up the apartment; and sheets, blankets, coverlets being brought
forth, Annabel declared that she was sure they would all sleep like
tops, that for her part she must insist on going to bed at once as the
keen air had made her quite drowsy. A dressing-table had been
improvised, chiefly with the aid of Mr. Evans’ mechanical skill. When
the matron and her daughters made their farewell for the night, and
closed their canvas portal, every one was of the opinion that a high
degree of comfort and effective lodging had been reached.
Mr. and Mrs. Cargill and family retired to the inmost recesses of the
upper waggon, where the ends of the tilt, fastened together, protected
them. Mr. Effingham and his sons joined Dick Evans at his briskly
burning fire, where the old man was smoking and occasionally indulging
in a refresher of tea as if he had no intention of going to bed till he
reached Warbrok.
‘We are having glorious weather to travel in, Evans,’ said Mr.
Effingham. ‘You have been in the service, Mr. Sternworth tells me; what
regiment?’
‘I was in the old 50th for many a year, Captain,’ he said, unconsciously
standing erect and giving the salute. ‘I served under Sir Hugh Gough in
India, where I got this slash from a Mahratta sabre. Didn’t seem a hard
cut neither; the fellow just seemed to swing his wrist, careless-like,
as he rode by, but it was nigh deep enough to take the “wick” out of me.
Their swords was a deal sharper than ours, and their wooden scabbards
kept ’em from getting blunt again. I had a great argument with my
sergeant about it once,’ continued the old man. ‘I couldn’t a-bear to
see our poor chaps sliced up by them razor-edged tulwars, while our
regulation swords was a’most too dull to cut through a quilted cotton
helment. Ah! them was fine times,’ said the old soldier, with so genuine
a regret in his tones that Howard Effingham almost believed he had, for
the first time in his life, fallen across a noble private, pleased with
his profession, and anxious to return to it.
‘I have rarely heard a soldier regret the army,’ said he. ‘But you still
retain zeal for the service, I am pleased to find.’
‘Well, sir, that’s all very well,’ said the philosophical man-at-arms;
‘but what I was a-thinking of was the “loot.” It’s enough to bring tears
into a man’s eyes that served his Queen and country, to think of the
things as we passed over. Didn’t Jimmy O’Hara and two or three more men
of my company get together once and made bold to stick up the priest of
one of them temples. No great things either—gold earrings and bangles,
and a trifle of gold mohurs, the priest’s own. There was a
copper-coloured, bronze-looking idol—regular heathen god, or some such
cretur—which the priest kept calling out “Sammy” to, or “Swammi.” The
ugly thing had bright glittering eyes, and Jim wanted to get ’em out
badly, but the priest said, “Feringhee wantee like this?” and he picked
up a bit of glass, and smiled contempshus like. At last we left him and
“Swammi,” eyes and all. I don’t ever deserve to have a day’s luck, sir,
agin, as long as I live.’
‘Why so?’ said Mr. Effingham, astonished at the high moral tone, which
he had not been used to associate with the light infantry man of the
period. ‘Not for taking the image away, surely?’
‘No!’ shouted the old man, roused from his ordinary respectful tone.
‘But for leavin’ him behind! That Sammy, sir, was pure gold, and his
eyes was di’monds, di’monds! Think o’ that. We left a thousand pound a
man behind, because we didn’t know gold when we seen it. It will haunt
me, sir, to my dying day.’
The boys laughed at the unsentimental conclusion of the veteran’s tale.
Their father looked grave.
‘I cannot approve of the plunder of religious edifices, Evans; though
the temptation was too great for soldiers, and indeed for others in
those days.’
The chief personages having retired, Mr. Effingham and his sons essayed
to make their couch under the waggon.
‘It is many a year since I had any experience in this kind of thing,’
said he; ‘but, if I remember rightly, it was in Spain that I bivouacked
last. This locality is not unlike Estramadura. That rocky ravine, with
the track running down it, is just where you would have expected to see
the muleteer stepping gaily along beside his mules singing or swearing,
as the case might be; and they do both with great vigour.’
‘I remember Don Pedro, Captain,’ said Dick. ‘I mind the wine-skins putty
well too. It wasn’t bad stuff; but I don’t know as dark brandy doesn’t
come handier if ye wants a stir up. But there’s one thing you can’t have
forgot, Captain, that beats this country holler.’
‘You must mean the fleas,’ said Effingham; ‘_they_ certainly could not
be surpassed. I hope you don’t mean to rival them here.’
‘Well, I don’t deny, Captain, that in some huts, where the people aren’t
particular, in a sandy country, in summer you will find a few, and
likewise them other reptiles, ’specially where there’s pine slabs, but
in a general way we’re pretty clean in this country, and you’ve no call
to be afeard to tackle your blankets.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, Evans,’ said Effingham, yawning. ‘I have no doubt
that your camp is always fit for inspection. I think we may say
good-night.’
Between the keen air of the forest, and the unwonted exercise, a
tendency to drowsiness now set in, which Mr. Effingham and his sons
discovered by the time that the blankets were drawn over them. The sides
of their apartment, represented by the wheels of the waggon, were
covered by the canvas tilt, the ceiling was low but sufficient. It was
the ideal chamber in one respect. Ventilation was unimpeded, while
shelter was secured.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW HOME
When Wilfred awoke from deep untroubled slumber, the sun seemed gazing
at the encampment with haughty, fixed regard, as of a monarch, enthroned
upon the summit of the purple mountain range.
Unwitting of the lengths (fortunately) to which the unsparing archer
could go in Southern lands, he essayed to commence dressing.
Rising hurriedly, he was reminded by a tap on the head from the
axle-tree that he was in a bedroom of restricted accommodation. More
guarded in his after-movements he crawled outside, first placing on the
dewy grass a rug upon which to stand. He commenced his toilette, and
cast a comprehensive glance around.
The first thing he saw was the upright form of Richard Evans, who,
returning from a search after his hobbled horses, drove them before him
towards the camp, at the same time smoking his pipe with a serene and
satisfied air. The morning was chilly, but he had not thought a coat
necessary, and in a check shirt and moleskin trousers calmly braved an
atmosphere not much above forty degrees Fahrenheit.
‘This must be a fine climate,’ said Wilfred to his father. ‘We shall be
well wrapped up till breakfast time, at any rate, and yet that old
buffer is wandering about in his shirt-sleeves as if he were in Naples.’
‘He is pretty hard-bitten, you may depend,’ said Mr. Effingham. ‘I think
some of our old “die-hards” are as tough samples of humanity as could
anywhere be met. I do not uphold the British soldier as a model, but
they were men in my time, beyond any manner of doubt.’
Dick marched up his team to the waggon, whence the lodgers had by this
time issued—Andrew to make a fire near the tent, and Jeanie to penetrate
that sacred enclosure, and presumably to act as tire-woman in the
interior.
The shafts, which had served Dick as a sleeping apartment during the
night, aided by a shroud of tarpaulin, were uplifted, and bagging being
thereon stretched, were converted into a manger for the chaff and maize,
which the horses quickly commenced to consume.
Presently Jeanie issued from the tent, and finding the camp-kettle
boiling, proceeded to make tea. Andrew, in the meantime, milked the cow.
The gridiron was brought into requisition, and certain mutton chops
broiled. Eventually Mrs. Effingham and her daughters issued from the
tent, fresh and dainty of aspect as if they had just left their bedrooms
at The Chase. Then the day commenced, and also breakfast.
‘Good-morning, O mother! Hail, O tender maidens! What do you think of
camping out?’ was Wilfred’s greeting, ‘Have you been sitting up weeping,
or did you forget everything till daylight, as we did?’
‘We all slept like tops,’ said Annabel. ‘I never was so sleepy in my
life. I was almost off before I could undress. I think it’s splendid.
And oh! what is there for breakfast?’
Grilled chops, smoking cups of tea, with bread and butter, constituted
the repast. Worse meals have been eaten. The appetites were, like the
travellers, highly respectable. By the time the meal was finished, Mr.
Richard Evans had harnessed his team, and bringing himself up to the
attitude of ‘attention,’ requested to know when the ladies would like to
make a start.
After consultation, it was notified to their guide and courier that as
soon as the tent was struck and the baggage packed, every one would be
ready.
The troops being in high health and spirits, in a comparatively short
space of time the march was resumed. Wilfred and Guy walked ahead,
fowling-piece in hand. Andrew drove the cow, which followed quietly in
the rear. The coupled greyhounds looked eagerly around, as if sensible
that they were now in hunting country. They were with difficulty
restrained when a wallaby, in two bounds, crossed the road and
disappeared in an adjoining scrub.
The dry air was pure and fresh, the unclouded sky blue as a sapphire
dome, the winding forest road free from all impediment but an occasional
ledge of sandstone. If there is any portion of the day ‘when the poor
are rich in spirits and health,’ when the heart of youth stirs, when age
is soothed with dreams of happiness, it is in that sweetest hour which
follows the early morning meal in rural Australia. Dawn is austere,
mid-day often sultry, but nowhere will he, whose heart and intelligence
respond alike gratefully to that charmed time, find its inspirations
more invigorating than in the early summer of Australia. Then the
fortunate traveller experiences coolness without cold, and warmth
without the heat which produces lassitude.
As the waggon rolled easily along, the horses stepping cheerily on the
track, the wayfarers paced over the unwonted herbage with an alertness
of mien which would have suggested a very different history.
‘How lovely the shrubs are that we see in all directions!’ said Mrs.
Effingham. ‘What should we have given for that golden flowering mimosa
at The Chase, or this blue-leaved, pink pointed tree, which I suppose
must be a young eucalyptus. Here they are so common that no one heeds
them, and yet there are rare plants enough to set up a dozen
greenhouses.’
‘Everything is so utterly different,’ said Rosamond. ‘I am most
agreeably surprised at the landscape. What erroneous ideas one has of
far countries! I suppose it is because we seldom feel sufficient
interest to learn about them thoroughly. I pictured Australia a sandy
waste, with burned-up reedy grass, and a general air of the desert. Now,
here we have woods, a pretty little brook rippling by, rocks and hills,
and in the distance a mountain. I could make quite an effective sketch.’
‘The country isn’t all like this, Miss,’ said Dick Evans, with a
deferential air. ‘If you was to go two or three hundred miles into the
bush, there’s no timber at all; you’ld find it all sand and
salt-bushes—the curiousest place ever you see.’
‘How can it be the “bush,”’ inquired Wilfred, ‘if there are no trees?
But we are not going so far, at any rate.’
‘Finest grazing land out,’ said Richard the experienced. ‘All the stock
rolling fat—no trouble in looking after ’em. If I was a young gentleman,
that’s the place I’d make for. Not but what Warbrok’s a pleasant spot,
and maybe the young ladies will like it better than the plains.’
‘I fancy we all shall, Richard,’ said Rosamond. ‘The plains may be very
well for sheep and cattle, but I prefer a woodland country like this. I
suppose we can have a garden there?’
‘Used to be the best garden in all the country-side, Miss, but the
Warleighs were a wild lot; they let everything go to wrack. The trees
and bushes is mostly wore out, but the sile’s that good, as a handy man
would soon make it ship-shape again.’
‘What are we to do for lunch?’ said Annabel, with some appearance of
anxiety. ‘If we are to go on roaming over the land from sunrise to
sunset without stopping, I shall die of hunger—I’m sure I shall. I keep
thinking about those cakes of Jeanie’s.’
‘My dear child,’ said her mother, ‘I daresay we shall manage to feed you
and the rest of the flock. I am pleased to find that you have such a
famous appetite. To be sure, you have not stopped growing yet, and this
fresh air acts as a tonic. So far, we must not complain of the climate.’
‘It’s only a few miles furder on, ma’am, to the King Parrot Waterhole,
where we can stop in the middle of the day, and have a bit to eat if the
young ladies is sharp-set. I always stop on the road and feed my horses
about twelve o’clock. And if the young gentlemen was to walk on, they
might shoot a pair of ducks at the waterhole, as would come in handy for
the pot.’
When about mid-day they reached the King Parrot Waterhole, a
reed-fringed pool, about as large as their English horse-pond, they
found Wilfred in possession of a pair of the beautiful grey-breasted
wood-ducks (_Anas Boscha_), a teal, with chestnut and black feathers and
a brilliant green neck, also a dark-furred kangaroo, which Dick
pronounced to be a rock wallaby.
‘Australia isn’t such a bad place for game,’ said Guy. ‘We found the
ducks swimming in the pool, three brace altogether, and “Damsel” caught
this two-legged hare, as she thought it, as it was making up that stony
hill. _I_ like it better than Surrey.’
‘We shall find out ever so many interesting things,’ said Rosamond. ‘I
shall never feel thankful enough to that good old Professor Muste for
teaching me the small bit of botany that I know. Now, look at this
lovely Clianthus, is it not enough to warm the heart of a Trappist? And
here is that exquisite purple Kennedya, which ought, in an Australian
novel, to be wreathed round the heroine’s hat. Do my eyes deceive me, or
is not that a white heath? I must dig it up.’
‘I believe, Rosamond, that you could comfort yourself on Mount Ararat,’
said Annabel. ‘Why, it will be _ages_ before those ducks can be picked
and roasted. Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, can’t we have them before tea-time? I
wish I had never seen them.’
‘If you like, you can help me take off the feathers, and spare Jeanie’s
everlastingly busy fingers,’ said Beatrice.
Here Annabel looked ruefully at her tiny, delicate hands, with a child’s
pout.
‘Oh, it’s no use looking at your pretty hands,’ said the more practical
Beatrice. ‘This is the land of work, and all who can’t make themselves
useful will be treated like the foolish virgins in the parable. It
always makes me smile when that chapter is read. I can fancy Annabel
holding out her lamp, with an injured expression, saying, “Well, nobody
told me it was time to get ready.”’
‘Beatrice, my daughter,’ said Mrs. Effingham gravely, ‘sacred subjects
are not befitting matter for idle talking; dispositions vary, and you
may remember that Martha was not praised for her anxiety to serve.’
At mid-day the kettle bubbled on the fire, kindled by the ever-ready
Richard, cakes and sandwiches were handed round, the tea—thanks to
Daisy—was gratefully sipped.
The sun shone brightly on the green flat, where the horses grazed in
peace and plenty. The birds chirped and called at intervals; all Nature
seemed glad and responsive to the joyous season of the southern spring.
Thus their days wore on, in peaceful progression, alike free from toil,
anxiety, or adventure. The daily stage was accomplished, under Dick’s
experienced direction, without mistake or misadventure. The evening meal
was a time of rest and cheerful enjoyment, the night’s slumbers
refreshing and unbroken.
‘What a delightful country this is! I feel quite a new creature,
especially after breakfast,’ exclaimed Annabel one morning. ‘I could go
on like this for months, till we reached the other side of the
continent, if there is any other side. Will it be as nice as this, I
wonder, at Malbrook, or Warbrok, or whatever they call it? Warbrok Chase
won’t look so bad on our letters, when we write home. I must send a
sketch of it to cousin Elizabeth, with a bark cabin, of course. She will
never believe that we have a real house to live in among the backwoods.
What sort of a house is it, Dick? Is it thatched and gabled and damp and
delightful, with dear little diamond casements like the keeper’s lodge,
or is it a horrid wooden barn? Tell me now, there’s a dear old man!’
‘We shall be there, Miss, the day after to-morrer, please God,’
responded Dick with respectful solemnity. ‘Parson Sternworth said I was
to say nought about the place, but let it come on you suddent-like. And
I’m a man as is used to obey orders.’
‘Very well, you disagreeable old soldier,’ said the playful maiden.
‘I’ll be even with you and the parson, as you call him. See if I don’t.’
‘Sorry to disobleege you, Miss Anniebell,’ said the veteran, ‘but if my
old General, Sir Hugh Gough, was to come and say, “Corporal Richard
Evans, hand me over the chart of the country,” I should have to tell him
that he hadn’t got the counter-sign.’
‘And quite right too, Evans,’ interposed Mr. Effingham, ‘to keep up your
good old habits in a new country. Discipline is the soul of the army.’
‘I was allers taught _that_, sir,’ replied Dick, with an air of military
reminiscence which would have befitted a veteran of the Great Frederick.
‘But when we reaches Warbrok my agreement’s out with the Parson, and
Miss can order me about all day.’
In spite of Annabel’s asseverations that the party would never reach the
spot indicated, and that she believed there never was any such place,
but that Dick would lead them into a trackless forest and abandon them,
the journey ended about the time specified. A rugged track, indeed, one
afternoon tried their patience. The horses laboured, the docile cow
limped and lagged, the girls complained, while Andrew’s countenance
became visibly elongated.
At length Dick Evans’s wooden facial muscles relaxed, as halting on the
hardly-gained hill-top he pointed with his whip-handle, saying simply,
‘There’s Warbrok! So the young ladies and gentlemen can see for
theirselves.’
How eagerly did the whole party gaze upon the landscape, which now, in
the clear light of the Southern eve, lay softly in repose before them!
The character of the scenery had changed with the wondrous suddenness
peculiar to the land in which they had come to dwell. A picture set in a
frame of forest and unfriendly thickets! Now before their eyes came with
magical abruptness a vision of green slopes, tall groves, and verdurous
meadows. It was one of nature’s forest parks. Traces of the imperfect
operations of a new country were visible, in felled timber, in naked,
girdled trees, in unsightly fences. But nature was in bounteous mood,
and had heightened the contrast with the barren region they had
over-passed, by a flushed abundance of summer vegetation. This lavish
profusion of herb and leaf imparted a richness of colouring, a clearness
of tone, which in a less favourable season of the year Warbrok must
perceptibly have lacked.
‘Oh, what a lovely, lovely place!’ cried Annabel, transported beyond
herself as she stood on tip-toe and gazed rapturously at the scene.
‘Those must be the Delectable Mountains. Dick, you are a Christian hero
[the old man smiled deprecatingly], I forgive you on the spot. And there
is the house, a _real_ house with two storeys—actually two—I thought
there were only cottages up the country—and an orchard; and is that a
blue cloud or the sea? We must have turned round again. Surely it can’t
be _our lake_? That would be too heavenly, and those glorious mountains
beyond!’
‘That’s Lake William, miss, called after His Gracious Majesty King
William the Fourth,’ explained Dick, accurate and reverential. ‘Fourteen
miles long and seven broad. You’ll find the house big enough, but it’s a
long way from being in good order; and it’s a mercy there’s a tree alive
in the orchard.’
‘Oh, never mind, we’ll soon put things to rights, won’t we, mamma? And
what splendid creatures those old trees will be when they come out in
leaf. I suppose it’s too early in the spring yet?’ continued she.
‘Dead—every one of ’em, miss,’ explained their conductor. ‘They’ve been
ring-barked, more’s the pity. They was beauties when I knowed ’em fust,
before the blessed tenants was let ruinate everything about the place. I
wonder there’s a stone of the house standing, that I do. And now, sir,
we’ll get on, and the young ladies can have tea in their own parlour, if
my old woman’s made a fire, accordin’ to orders.’
The hearts of the more reflective portion of the party were too full for
comment, so Annabel’s chatter was allowed to run on unchecked. A feeling
of despondency had been gradually stealing over Howard Effingham and his
wife, as for the two last stages they had pictured to themselves the
toil of building up a home amid the barren solitudes, such as, in their
innocence, they thought their new property might resemble. Now, here was
a spot in which they might live out their lives with cheerful and
contented minds, thankful that ‘their lines had fallen in pleasant
places’; having reason to hope that their children might dwell in peace
and prosperity after them.
‘We can never be sufficiently grateful to your dear old friend,’ said
Mrs. Effingham. ‘If he had not in the first place written you that
letter, Howard, and afterwards acted upon his opinion so boldly, what
might have been our fate?’
‘He always used to look after me when we were in the regiment,’ said her
husband acquiescingly; ‘I daresay he’ll find a similar pleasure in
taking charge of us now. Fortunately for you and the girls, he never
married.’
A few miles only needed to be traversed before Mr. Evans triumphantly
drove his team through the gate of the dilapidated garden fence
surrounding the front of a large old-fashioned stone mansion, with wide
verandah and lofty balcony, supported upon freestone pillars. A stout,
elderly woman of decided aspect opened the creaking hall door, and
casting a searching glance at Mr. R. Evans, made the strangers welcome.
‘I’m sure I’m very glad to see you, my lady,’ said she, bobbing an
antiquated curtsey, ‘and you, sir, and the young ladies and gentlemen.
I’ve done all I could to clean up the old barrack of a house; it was
that lonesome, and made me frighted with ghosts, as I thought I’d never
live to see you all; and Dick here, I knew there was no certainty of, as
might have gone to Timor, or the Indies, and never let on a word about
it. Please you to come in, my lady.’
‘My old woman’s temper is none of the best, Captain,’ said Dick, stating
the fact with philosophical calmness, ‘but I’ll warrant she’s cleaned up
as much as any two, and very bad it wanted it when Parson Sternworth
brought us over.’
Now that a nearer view was afforded of the demesne and dwelling, it was
evident that the place had been long abandoned to natural decay and
sordid neglect. The fences were rotten, gapped, or fallen; the orchard,
though the aged trees were high out of the reach of browsing cattle, had
been used as a convenient species of stock paddock; the climbers,
including a magnificent bignonia and a wistaria, the great laterals of
which had erstwhile clothed the verandah pillars with beauty and bloom,
were broken and twisted. In the rear of the building all the broken
bottles and bones of the land appeared to be collected; while, with
windows broken, shutters hanging on a single hinge, doors closing with
difficulty, or impossible to open, all things told of the recklessness
of ruined owners.
Still, in despite of all deficiencies, the essentials of value could not
be overlooked. The house, though naked and desolate of aspect, was large
and commodious, promising in its shingled roof and massive stone walls
protection against the heat of summer, the cold of winter. The deep
black mould needed but ordinary culture to respond generously. The
offices might be mouldering and valueless, but the _land_ was there,
thinly timbered, richly grassed, well adapted for stock of all kinds.
And though the gaunt limbs of the girdled trees looked sadly
unpicturesque between the front of the house and the lake shore, some
had been left untouched, and the grass was all the more richly swarded.
The lake itself was a grand indisputable fact. It was deep and fresh,
abounding in water-fowl, a priceless boon to dwellers in a climate
wherein a lack of rivers and permanent reservoirs is unhappily a
distinguishing characteristic.
Let it not be supposed that Wilfred and his mother, the girls and Jeanie
were outside the house all this time. Very promptly had Dick unloaded
the household stores, pressing all able-bodied persons, including his
wife, into the service, until the commissariat was safely bestowed under
shelter. His waggon was taken to the rear, his horses unharnessed, and
he himself in a marvellously short space of time enjoying a well-earned
pipe, and advising Andrew to bestow Daisy’s calf in a dilapidated but
still convertible calf-pen, so that his mother might graze at ease, and
yet be available for the family breakfast table in the morning.
‘The grass here is fust-rate,’ he said, in a tone of explanation to
Andrew. ‘There’s been a lot of rain in spring. It’s a pity but we had a
few good cows to milk. It would be just play for you and me and the
young master in the mornings. Teach him to catch hold like and learn him
the use of his hands.’
‘_Him_ milk!’ exclaimed Andrew, in a tone of horrified contempt. ‘And
yet—I dinna say but if it’s the Lord’s will the family should ha’ been
brocht to this strange land, it may be no that wrang that he should
labour, like the apostles, “working with his hauns.” There’s guid
warrant for’t.’
Meanwhile, inside the house important arrangements were proceeding. The
sitting-room, a great, bare apartment, had an ample fireplace, which
threw out a genial warmth from glowing logs. There was a large, solid
cedar table, which Mrs. Evans had rubbed and polished till the dark red
grain of the noble wood was clearly visible. Also a dozen _real_ chairs,
as Annabel delightedly observed, stood around, upon which it was
possible to enjoy the long-disused comfort of sitting down. Of this
privilege she promptly availed herself.
The night-draperies were disposed in the chief bedchamber, though until
the arrival of the furniture it was apparent that the primitive sleeping
accommodation of the road would need to be continued. Mr. Effingham and
his sons were luxuriously billeted in another apartment, where, after
their axle-tree experiences, they did not pity themselves.
Andrew and his family were disposed of in the divisions of the kitchen,
which, in colonial fashion, was a detached building in the rear. Mr. and
Mrs. Evans had, on their previous entry on the premises, located
themselves in an outlying cottage (or hut, as they called it), formerly
the abode of the dairyman, where their possessions had no need of
rearrangement. Even the dogs had quarters allotted to them, in the long
range of stabling formerly tenanted by many a gallant steed in the old
extravagant days of the colony, when unstinted hospitality and claret
had been the proverbial rule at Warbrok.
‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Annabel from her chair, ‘what a luxurious feeling
it is to be once more in a _home_ of one’s own! Though it’s a funny old
place and must have been a tempting refuge for ghosts wandering in
search of quarters. And then to think that to-morrow morning we shall
not have to move on, for ever and ever. I was beginning to get the least
bit tired of it; were not you, mamma? Though I would have died sooner
than confess it.’
‘Words cannot describe how thankful I am, my dear child,’ said her
mother, ‘that we have had the good fortune to end this land journey so
well. It is the first one of the kind I ever undertook, and I trust it
will be the last. But let us remember in our prayers to-night _whose_
hand has shielded us from the perils of the deep, and whatever dangers
we may have escaped upon the land.’
‘I feel as if we had all been acting a charade or an extended _tableau
vivant_,’ said Rosamond. ‘Like you, Annabel, dear, I am not sorry that
the theatricals are over, though the play has been a success so far. It
has no more nights to run, fortunately for the performers. Our everyday
life will commence to-morrow. We must enter upon it in a cheerful,
determined spirit.’
‘I cannot help fancying,’ said Beatrice, ‘that colonial travellers enjoy
an unnecessary amount of prestige, or some experiences must differ from
ours. We might have had a Dick who would have lost his horses or
overturned the waggon, and bushrangers (there _are_ bushrangers, for I
saw in a paper that Donohoe and his gang had “stuck-up,” whatever that
means, Mr. Icely’s drays and robbed them) might have taken us captive.
We have missed the romance of Australian life evidently.’
Howard Effingham felt strangely moved as he walked slowly forth at dawn.
He watched the majestic orb irradiate the mist-shrouded turrets of the
great mountain range which lay to the eastward. Endless wealth of colour
was evoked by the day-god’s kiss, softly, stealingly, suffusing the
neutral-tinted dome, then with magical completeness flashing into
supernal splendour. The dew glistened upon the vernal greensward. The
pied warbler rolled his richest notes in flute-like carol. The
wild-fowl, on the glistening mirror of the lake, swam, dived, or flew in
playful pursuit. The bracing air was unspeakably grateful to Howard
Effingham’s rurally attuned senses. Amid this bounty of nature in her
less sophisticated aspects, his heart swelled with the thought that much
of the wide champaign, the woodland, and the water, over which his eye
roamed wonderingly, called him master. He saw, with the quick projection
of a sanguine spirit, his family domiciled once more with comfort and
security. And not without befitting dignity, so long despaired of. He
prized the ability to indulge again the disused pursuits of a country
life. Though in a far land, among strange people, separated by a whole
ocean from the scenes of his youth and manhood, he now felt for the
first time since the great disaster that contentment, even happiness,
was possible. Once more he felt himself a country gentleman, or at the
least an Australian squire. With the thought he recalled the village
chimes in their lost home, and his wife’s reference of every
circumstance of life to the special dispensation of a benign, overruling
Providence occurred to him. With unconscious soliloquy he exclaimed, ‘I
have not deserved this; God be merciful to me a sinner!’
Dick Evans, with his horses, now appeared upon the scene, bells,
hobbles, and all. He bore every appearance of having been up at least
two hours.
‘What a wonderful old fellow that is!’ said Wilfred, who had joined his
father; ‘day or night seems alike to him. He is always hard at work at
something or other—always helpful and civil, apparently good at a score
of trades, yet military as a pipe-clayed belt. Mr. Sternworth admitted
that he had faults, but up to this time we have never discovered them.’
‘If he has none, he is such an old soldier as I have never met,’ said
his father mildly. ‘Longer acquaintance will, I suppose, abate his
unnatural perfection. But, in any case, we must keep him on until we are
sufficiently acclimatised to set up for ourselves.’
‘Quite so, sir! We cannot have our reverend mentor always at beck and
call. We want some one here who knows the country and its ways. Guy and
I will soon pick up the lie of the land, as he calls it, but at present
we are all raw and ignorant together.’
‘Then we had better engage him at once. I suppose he can tell us the
proper wages.’
‘Very possibly; but now I think of it, sir, hadn’t you better delegate
the executive department to me? Of course to carry out your
instructions, but you might do worse than appoint me your responsible
minister.’
‘My boy!’ said Effingham, grasping his son’s hand, ‘I should have made
the suggestion if you had not anticipated me. I cheerfully yield the
management to you, as you will have the laborious part of the work. Many
things will need to be done, for which I am unfit, but which you will
gradually master. I fully trust you, both as an example to Guy and
Selden, and the guardian of your mother and sisters.’
‘As God will help me in my need, they will need no other,’ replied the
eldest son. ‘So far I have led a self-indulgent life. But the spur of
necessity (you must admit) has been wanting. Now the hour has come. You
never refused me a pleasure; trust me to fulfil every duty.’
‘I never have doubted it, my boy! I always knew that higher qualities
were latent in your nature. As you say, the hour has come. We were never
laggards when the trumpet-call sounded. And now, let us join the family
party.’
As they reached the house, from which they had rambled some distance,
the sun was two hours high, and the smoke issuing from the kitchen
chimney denoted that culinary operations were in progress. At that
moment a serviceable-looking dogcart, drawn by a wiry, roan horse,
trotted briskly along the track from the main road, and in drawing up,
displayed in the driver the welcome presentment of the Rev. Harley
Sternworth.
‘How do, Howard? How are you, Wilfred, my boy? Welcome to Warbrok—to
Warbrok Chase, that is. I shall learn it in time. Very proper addendum;
suits the country, and gratifies the young ladies’ taste. Thought I’d
catch you at your first breakfast. Here, Dick, you old rascal—that is,
you deserving veteran—take Roanoke.’
The somewhat decided features of the old army chaplain softened visibly
as, entering the bare uncarpeted apartment, he descried Mrs. Effingham
and her daughters sitting near the breakfast table, evidently awaiting
the master of the house. His quick eye noticed at once the progress of
feminine adaptation, as well as the marked air of comfort produced with
such scanty material.
He must surely have been gratified by the sensation he produced. The
girls embraced him, hanging upon his words with eagerness, as on the
accents of the recovered relative of the melodrama. Mrs. Effingham
greeted him with an amount of warmth foreign to her usual demeanour. The
little ones held up their faces to be kissed by ‘Uncle Harley.’
‘We are just going to have our first breakfast,’ said Annabel. ‘Sit down
this very minute. Haven’t we done wonders?’
Indeed, by the fresh, morning light, the parlour already looked homelike
and attractive. The breakfast table, ‘decored with napery,’ as Caleb
Balderstone phrased it, had a delicately clean and appetising
appearance. A brimming milk jug showed that the herbage of Warbrok had
not been without its effect upon their fellow-passenger from the Channel
Islands. A goodly round of beef, their last roadside purchase,
constituted the _pièce de résistance_. A dish of eggs and bacon,
supplied by Mrs. Evans, whose poultry travelled with her everywhere, and
looked upon the waggon as their home, added to the glory of the repast.
A large loaf of fresh bread, baked by the same useful matron, stood
proudly upon a plate, near the roadside tea equipage, and a kettle like
a Russian _samovar_. Nor was artistic ornamentation wholly absent.
Annabel had fished up a broken vase from a lumber room, which, filled
with the poor remnants of the borders, ‘where once a garden smiled,’ and
supplemented with ‘wild buttercups and very nearly daisies,’ as she
described the native flora, made an harmonious contribution.
Before commencing the meal, as Mr. Effingham took his seat at the head
of his own table once more, humble as were the surroundings, his wife
glanced at the youngest darling, Blanche. She ran across to a smaller
table covered with a rug, and thence lifting off a volume of some
weight, brought it to their guest. His eyes met those of his old comrade
and of her his life’s faithful companion. The chaplain’s eyes were
moistened, in despite of his efforts at composure. What recollections
were not summoned up by the recurrence of that simple household
observance? His voice faltering, at first, with genuine emotion, Harley
Sternworth took the sacred volume, and read a portion, before praying in
simple phrase, that the Great Being who had been pleased to lead the
steps of His servants to this far land, would guide them in all their
ways, and prosper the work of their hands in their new home. ‘May His
blessing be upon you all, and upon your children’s children after you,
in this the land of our adoption,’ said the good priest, as he arose in
the midst of the universal amen.
‘Do you know that it was by no means too warm when I left Yass at
daylight this morning? This is called a hot climate. But in our early
summer we have frosts sometimes worthy of Yorkshire. Yesterday there was
rather a sharp one. We shall have rain again soon.’
‘Oh, I hope not,’ said Annabel. ‘This is such lovely, charming weather.
So clear and bright, and not at all too warm. I should like it to last
for months.’
‘Then, my dear young lady, we should all be ruined. Rain rarely does
harm in this country. Sometimes there are floods, and people who live on
meadowlands suffer. But the more rain the merrier, in this country at
least. It is a land of contradictions, you know. Your Lake William,
here, will never overflow, so you may be easy in your minds, if it rains
ever so hard.’
‘And what does my thoughtful young friend, Rosamond, think of the new
home?’ inquired the old gentleman, looking at her with affectionate
eyes.
‘She thinks, Uncle Sternworth, that nothing better for us all could have
been devised in the wide world, unless the Queen had ordered her
Ministers to turn out Sir Percy de Warrenne and put us in possession of
Old Court. Even that, though Sir Percy is a graceless kinsman, might not
have been so good for us, as making a home for ourselves here, out of
our own heads, as the children say.’
‘And you are quite satisfied, my dear?’
‘More than satisfied. I am exulting and eager to begin work. In England
I suffered sometimes from want of occupation. Here, every moment of the
day will be well and usefully employed.’
‘And Miss Beatrice also approves?’
‘_Miss_ Beatrice says,’ replied that more difficult damsel, who was
generally held to be reserved, if not proud, ‘she would not have come to
Australia if it could have been helped. But having come, supposes she
will not make more useless lament than other people.’
‘Beatrice secretly hates the country, I know she does,’ exclaimed
Annabel, ‘and it is ungrateful of her, particularly when we have such a
lovely place, with a garden, and a lake, and mountains and sunsets, and
everything we can possibly want.’
‘I am not so imaginative as to expect to live on mountains and sunsets,
and I must confess it will take me a long time to become accustomed to
the want of _nearly_ all the pleasures of life, but I suppose I shall
manage to bear up my share of the family burdens.’
‘You have always done so hitherto, my dear,’ said Mrs. Effingham; ‘but
you are not fond of putting forward your good deeds—hardly sufficiently
so, as I tell you.’
‘Some one has run away with Beatrice’s share of vanity,’ said Rosamond.
‘But we must not stay talking all the morning. I am chief butler, and
shall have to be chief baker too, perhaps, some day. I must break up the
meeting, as every one has apparently breakfasted.’
‘And I must have a serious business conversation with your father and
Wilfred,’ said Mr. Sternworth. ‘Where is the study—the library, I mean?
Not furnished yet! Well, suppose we adjourn to the ex-drawing-room. It’s
a spacious apartment, where the late tenant, a practical man, used to
store his maize. There is a deal table, for I put it there myself. Guy,
you may as well ask Dick Evans to show you the most likely place for
wild-fowl. Better bring chairs, Wilfred. We are going to have a
“sederunt,” as they say in Scotland.’
CHAPTER IV
MR HENRY O’DESMOND OF BADAJOS
‘Now, Howard, my young friend!’ said the worthy man, as they settled
themselves at a small table, near a noble mantelpiece of Australian gray
marble, curiously marked with the imprints of the fossil encrinite, ‘I
address you as I used to do in our army days, for, with regard to money
matters, I feel sure you are as young as ever. In the first place, I
must render an account of my stewardship. Observe, here is the
conveyance to you and your heirs for ever of the estate of Warbrok, a
Crown grant to Colonel Rupert Falkland Warleigh, late of Her Majesty’s
80th Regiment, dated as far back as 1805, comprising 5174 acres, 1 rood,
3 perches, by him devised in equal shares to his sons—Randal, Clement,
and Hubert. It was not entailed, as were most of the early grants. They
fell away from the traditions of the family, and lived reckless,
dissipated lives. Their education was neglected—perhaps not the best
example exhibited to them by the old Colonel—he was always a gentleman
though—what wonder the poor boys went wrong? They came to be called the
“Wild Warleighs of Warbrok.” At last the end came. Hopelessly in debt,
they were forced to sell. Here are their signatures, duly attested. Your
purchase money, at the rate of 10s. per acre—a low price, but ready
money was very scarce in the colony at the time—amounted to £2587:5s.,
mentioned as the consideration. Out of your draft for £3000 remained,
therefore, £412:15s.; expenses and necessary farm work done, with wages
to Dick Evans and his wife, have amounted to £62:7s. This includes the
ploughing and sowing of a paddock—a field you would call it—of 20 acres
of wheat, as the season had to be availed of. I hand you a deposit
receipt for £350:8s., lodged to your credit in the Bank of New Holland,
at Yass, where I advise you to place the rest of your capital, and I
thereby wash my hands of you, pecuniarily, for the present.’
‘My dear old friend,’ said Effingham, ‘it is not for the first time that
you have pulled me through a difficulty, though never before did we face
one like this. But how comes it that I have money to receive? I thought
the draft of £3000 would barely suffice to pay for the estate.’
‘You must know that I transacted this piece of business through a
solicitor, a shrewd man of business, who kept my counsel, making no sign
until the property was put up to auction. The terms being cash, he had a
decided advantage, and it was not known until after the sale, for whom
he had purchased. So the Warleighs having retired, we must see what the
Effinghams will make of it.’
‘There will be no riotous living, at any rate,’ said Wilfred; ‘and now,
as you have done with the Governor, please advise me as to our future
course. I am the duly-appointed overseer—I believe that is the proper
title—and intend to begin work this very day.’
‘Couldn’t do better. We may as well call Dick Evans into council. He was
hired by me at 18s. per week, with board and lodging. For this wage he
engaged to give his own and wife’s services, also those of his team and
waggon. The wages are under the ordinary rate, but he explained that his
horses would get fat here, and that he liked being employed on a place
like Warbrok, and under an ex-officer in Her Majesty’s service. I should
continue the engagement for a few months, at all events; you will find
him most useful.’
‘Up to this time he has been simply perfect,’ said Wilfred. ‘It’s a
pleasure to look at such an active worker—so respectful, too, in his
manner.’
‘Our experience of the Light Infantry man, Howard,’ said Mr. Sternworth,
‘must prevent us from fully endorsing Wilfred’s opinion, but Dick Evans
is a good man; at all country work better, indeed, than most of his
class. Let us hear what he says.’
Probably anticipating some such summons he was not far off, having
returned from showing Guy a flock of wild-fowl. He walked into the room
and, saluting, stood at ease, as if such a thing as a chair had never
been by him encountered in the whole course of existence.
‘Corporal Evans!—pshaw! that is, Dick,’ said the worthy ex-military
priest, ‘I have sent for you to speak to Captain Effingham, and Mr.
Wilfred, who is to be farm manager and stock overseer. I have told them
that you are the very man for the place, when you behave yourself.’ Here
the keen grey eyes looked somewhat sternly at Mr. Evans, who put on a
look of mild surprise. ‘Are you willing to hire for six months at the
same rate of wages, with two rations, at which I engaged you? You will
work your team, I know, reasonably; and Mrs. Evans will wash and help
the ladies in any way she can?’
‘Well, Mr. Chaplain, the wages is not too high,’ replied Evans, ‘but I
like the place, and my horses knows the run, and does well here. _You_
know I like to serve a gentleman, ’specially one that’s been in the
service. I’ll stay on at the same rate for six months.’
‘Well, that’s settled. Now, let us have a talk about requirements. How
to use the grass to the best advantage?’
‘There’s no better place in the country-side for dairying,’ said Dick,
addressing himself to his clerical employer, as alone capable of
understanding the bearings of the case; ‘it’s a wonderful fine season,
and there’s a deal of grass going to waste. There’s stray cattle between
here and the other end of the lake as will want nothing better than to
clear it all off, as they’re used to do, if we’re soft enough to let
’em. Many a good pick they’ve had over these Warbrok flats, and they
naturally looks for it again, ’specially as there’s a new gentleman come
as don’t know the ways of the country. Now, what I should do, if I was
the master, would be to buy two or three hundred mixed cattle—there’s a
plenty for sale just now about Yass—and start a dairy. We might make as
much butter between now and Christmas as would pay middlin’ well, and
keep other people’s cattle from coming on the place and eating us out of
house and home, in a manner of speakin’.’
‘Good idea, Richard,’ said Mr. Sternworth; ‘but how about the yard and
cowshed? It’s nearly all down, and half-rotten. Mr. Effingham doesn’t
want to engage fencers and splitters, and have all the country coming
here for employment.’
‘There’s no call for that, sir,’ said the many-sided veteran. ‘I had a
look at the yard this morning. If I had a man to help me for a fortnight
I’ll be bound to make it cattle-proof with a load of posts and rails,
that I could run out myself, only we want a maul and wedges.’
‘I’ll be your man,’ said Wilfred, ‘if that’s all that’s necessary. I may
as well learn a trade without delay. Andrew can help, too, I daresay.’
‘_He’s_ not much account,’ quoth Dick disdainfully. ‘He thinks he knows
too much already. These new hands—no offence to you, sir—is more in the
way than anything else. But if you’ll buckle to, sir, we’ll soon make a
show.’
‘I know a stock agent who can get the exact cattle you want,’ said Mr.
Sternworth. ‘He told me that Mr. O’Desmond had a hundred young cows and
heifers for sale. They are known to be a fine breed of cattle.’
‘The best in the country,’ said Dick. ‘Old Harry O’Desmond never had any
but right down good horses, cattle, and sheep at Badajos, and if we give
a little more for them at the start it will be money saved in the end.
He’s the man to give us an extra good pick, when he knows they’re for an
officer and a gentleman.’
‘Our friend Richard has aristocratic notions, you observe,’ said the
parson, smiling. ‘But Harry O’Desmond is just the man to act as he says.
You will do well to treat with him.’
‘Only too happy,’ said Effingham. ‘Everything arranges itself with
surprising ease, with your aid. Is this kind of settling made easy to go
on for ever? It was almost a pity we took the voyage at all. You might
have made our fortunes, it seems to me, as a form of recreation, and
left us to receive the profits in England.’
‘And how am I to be paid, you heedless voluptuary, may I ask, if not by
the presence of your charming family? Since I’ve seen them I wouldn’t
have had the colony lose them for twice the value of the investment.
Besides, seriously, if the seasons change or a decline takes place in
the stock market you’ll need all _your_ brains and Wilfred’s to keep the
ship afloat. Never lose sight of the fact that this is an uncertain
land, with a more uncertain climate.’
‘It’s all right if you don’t overstock, sir,’ spoke the practical
Richard. ‘But Mr. Sternworth’s right. I mind the ’27 drought well. We
was forced to live upon kangaroo soup, rice, and maize meal, with
marshmallers and “fat hen” for a little salad. But they say the
climate’s changed like, and myster than it used to be.’
‘Climates _never_ change in their normal conditions,’ said Sternworth
positively. ‘Any assertion to the contrary is absurd. What has been will
be again. Let us make such provision as we can against droughts and
other disasters, and leave the rest to Providence, which has favoured
this land and its inhabitants so far.’
‘The fences seem dilapidated. Ought they not to be repaired at once?’
said Wilfred.
‘By degrees, all in good time,’ said the old gentleman testily. ‘We must
not go deeply into “improvements,” as they are called here, lest they
run away with our money at the commencement of affairs. Dick will
explain to you that the cattle can be kept in bounds without fencing for
a time. And now I feel half a farmer and half an exhausted parson. So I
think I must refresh myself with another look at the lady part of the
establishment, have a mouthful of lunch, and start for home.’
‘It’s a murder you didn’t take to farming, sir, like Parson Rocker,’
said Dick, with sincere regret in his tones. ‘You’d ha’ showed ’em
whether sojer officers can’t make money, though the folks here don’t
think so.’
‘I have my own work, Richard,’ said the old gentlemen. ‘It may be that
there is occasionally rather more of the church militant about me than
is prudent. But the town and neighbourhood of Yass will be the better
for old Harley Sternworth’s labours before we say farewell to one
another.’
‘I can now leave you all with perfect confidence,’ he said after lunch,
as Dick Evans brought Roanoke and the dogcart to the door. ‘The next
time I come I must bring an old friend to pay his respects, but that
will not be till the furniture has arrived. I foresee you will make
astonishing changes, and turn The Chase into the show mansion of the
district. I must bring you some of my “Souvenirs de Malmaison” and
“Madame Charles.” “The Cloth of Gold” and others I see you have. I am
prouder of my roses than of my sermons, I think. I don’t know which
require most care in pruning. Good-bye, my dear friends!’
The roan tossed his head, and set off at such a pace along the
grass-grown track which led to the main ‘down the country’ road, as the
highway from Yass to Sydney was provincially termed, that it was easy to
see he had been making a calculation as to the homeward route. The girls
looked after the fast-receding vehicle for a while before recommencing
their household tasks. Howard Effingham and his wife walked to and fro
along the pleasant sun-protected colonnade of the south verandah. When
they separated, little had been said which was free from praise of their
tried friend, or from thankfulness to the Almighty Disposer of events,
who had shown them His mercy in the day of need.
This eventful colloquy concluded, settled daily employment commenced for
all the denizens of The Chase. They rose early, and each one attended to
the duties allotted by special arrangement. Breakfast over, Wilfred
shouldered an axe and marched off with Dick Evans to some forest tree,
to be converted into posts and rails for the fast-recovering dairy-yard.
Andrew had betaken himself to the renovation of the orchard and garden
with grateful persistence, as he recalled his earlier feats at the
English home of the family, duly thankful for the opportunity of
exercising his energies in a direction wherein he could show himself
capable.
‘It’s gra-and soil,’ he was pleased to observe, ‘and I hae nae doot
whatever that I shall be able to grow maist unco-omon vegetables, gin I
had some food—that is, manure—to gie the puir things. The trees are sair
negleckit and disjaskit, but they’ll come round wi’ care and the knife.
The spring is a thocht advanced, as that auld carle Evans has gi’en me
to understand. I winna say he’s no auld farrand wi’ a’ the “bush” ways,
as they ca’ them, but he’s an awfu’ slave o’ Satan wi’ his tongue—just
fearsome. But gin ye’ll put me a fence round this bit park, Maister
Wilfred, I’ll show yon folks here that auld Andrew Cargill can grow
prize kail in baith hemispheres.’
‘We are going to split some palings before we are done,’ said Wilfred,
smiling at the old man’s rounding off of his sentence. ‘Then we’ll pull
this old fence down and take in more ground, so that you may exercise
your landscape gardening talent.’
‘This bit garden will keep my body employed and my thochts frae
unprofitable wanderings, brawly, during this season o’ inexperience. Ye
see, Maister Wilfred, it wadna become me, as a pairson o’ reflection, to
da-ash presumptuously into a’ matters o’ practice, but they canna haud
me to obsairve and gather up the ootcome of thae bush maitters, and bide
my time a wee, till the day comes when I can take my place at the
laird’s right hand ance mair.’
‘No one will be better pleased than I shall be, Andrew,’ said Wilfred,
heartily grasping the hand of his faithful servitor. ‘I’ll no deny that
he kens maist things befitting a dweller in the wilderness. The de’il’s
aye guid at gifts to his ain folk. But, wae’s me, he’s lightsome and
profane abune a’ belief.’
The great event of the year, after all, was the arrival of the drays
with the heavy luggage and the furniture reserved from sale.
Joy and thankfulness all too deep for words greeted the welcome wains,
promptly unladen, and their inestimable contents brought into the
shelter of the wide verandah before unpacking.
‘I never could have believed,’ said Mrs. Effingham, ‘that anything in
Australia could have had the power to afford me so much pleasure. The
refurnishing of our house at The Chase never produced half such pleasure
as I now feel at the prospect of seeing the old tables and chairs, the
sideboard, and my dear old davenport again.’
‘And the piano!’ cried Annabel. ‘What a luxury to us, who have been
tuneless and songless all these months! Even the morning “scales” would
have been better than nothing. I shall really go in for steady
practising—I know I never did before. There is nothing like being
starved a little.’
‘Starving seems to agree with you in a bodily sense,’ said Rosamond, ‘if
I may judge from certain alterations of dresses. But you are right in
believing that it gives a wonderful relish for mental food. Look at
these two lovely boxes of books. The library was sold, but here are many
of our old favourites. How I shall enjoy seeing their faces again!’
‘I am certain Jeanie must have _stolen_ a quantity of things after the
sale,’ asserted Beatrice, who had been examining the externals of the
packages; ‘bedding and curtains, and every kind of thing likely to be
useful. I expect my room will be so like the one at the old Chase that I
shall never find out the difference of a morning, till I go downstairs
and see the verandahs.’
‘There are no verandahs in England,’ said Guy, who was one of the
‘fatigue party,’ as Dick expressed it. ‘They ought to take a hint from
the colonies—stunning places they make on a wet day, or a hot one, I can
tell you.’
‘Where shall we tek this sideboard, mem?’ said Dick Evans, with his
ultra-respectful, family-servant intonation.
‘Into the dining-room, of course,’ screamed the delighted Annabel. ‘Why,
_every_ room in the house will be furnished more or less; it will be
quite a palace.’
Willing hands abounded, Mr. Evans in person superintending the opening
of the cases, taking care to draw nails in order to fit the boards for
future usefulness, so that, very shortly, the whole English shipment was
transferred to its final Australian resting-place.
Robinson Crusoe, when he had made the last successful raft-passage and
transhipment from the Guinea trader before she went down, could not have
been more grateful than our deported friends when the litter and the
cases and Dick and Andrew were cleared off, and they were free to gloat
over their precious property.
How different the rooms looked! There was an air of comfort and
refinement about the well-preserved furniture which was inexpressibly
comforting to the ex-dwellers in tents. The large rooms looked perhaps a
shade too bare, but in warm climates an Indian non-obtrusion of
upholstering is thought becoming. The well-remembered tones of the
piano, which glorified an unoccupied corner of the drawing-room, echoed
through that spacious apartment, now provided with a carpet almost as
good as new, which Jeanie’s provident care had abstracted from the
schoolroom at The Chase. The dear old round table was there, ‘out of
mother’s morning-room; the engravings from father’s study, particularly
those favourite ones of “The fighting Temeraire” and “Talavera”—all were
here. When the climbers grew up over the verandah pillars, shading the
front windows with the purple masses of the wistaria, there might be a
prettier room in Sydney, but in the bush they were sure it was
unsurpassed.’
Nor were Andrew and Jeanie devoid of personal interest in the arrival of
the treasure-waggons. Certain garden tools and agricultural implements,
dear to Andrew’s practical soul, now gladdened his eyes, also a
collection of carefully packed seeds. Besides all these, a rigorously
select list of necessaries in good order and preservation, once the
pride of his snug cottage, came to hand. For days after this arrival of
the Lares and Penates, the work of rearrangement proceeded unceasingly.
Mrs. Effingham and Rosamond placed and replaced each article in every
conceivable position. Annabel played and sang unremittingly. Jeanie
rubbed and polished, with such anxious solicitude, that table and chair,
wardrobe and sideboard, shone like new mahogany. Beatrice had possessed
herself of the bookcase, and after her morning share of housekeeping
work was performed, read, save at dinner, without stopping until it was
time to go for that evening walk which the sisters never omitted.
Once it fell upon a day that a gentleman rode up in leisurely fashion
towards the entrance gate. He was descried before he came within a
hundred yards, and some trepidation ensued while the question was
considered as to who should take his horse, and how that valuable animal
should be provided for.
Mr. Effingham, Guy, and Wilfred were away at the stock-yard, which by
this time was reported to be nearly in a state of efficiency. Andrew had
disappeared temporarily. The gentleman, for such plainly was his rank,
was a stalwart, distinguished-looking personage, sitting squarely, and
with something of military pose in his saddle. He was mounted upon a
handsome, carefully-groomed hackney. He reined up at the dilapidated
garden fence, and after looking about and seeing no appearance of an
entrance gate, as indeed that portal had been long blocked up by rails,
gathered up his reins, and clearing the two-railed fence with practised
ease, rode along the grass-grown path to the front door of the house. At
the same moment Dick Evans, who had just arrived with a load of palings,
appeared from the rear, and took his horse.
The stranger briskly dismounted, and knocked at the hall door with the
air of a man who was thoroughly acquainted with the locale. He bowed low
to Mrs. Effingham who opened it.
‘Permit me to make myself known as Henry O’Desmond, one of your
neighbours, my dear madam,’ said he, with the high-bred air of a man of
the world of fashion, who possesses also the advantage of being an
Irishman. ‘I presume I am addressing Mrs. Effingham. I have anticipated
the proper time for paying my respects; but there has been a matter of
business named by my agent, in which I hope to be able to serve Captain
Effingham. He is quite well, I trust?’
Mrs. Effingham explained that her husband had been perfectly well that
morning; furthermore, if Mr. O’Desmond would give them the pleasure of
his company to lunch, he would be enabled to make his acquaintance.
That gentleman bowed with an air of heartfelt gratitude, and asserted
that it would give him the sincerest gratification to have such an
opportunity of meeting Captain Effingham, to which he had looked
forward, since hearing of the good fortune that was about to befall the
district, from his respected friend the Rev. Mr. Sternworth.
Being introduced to the young ladies, Mr. O’Desmond, a handsome,
well-preserved man, promptly demonstrated that he was capable of
entertaining himself and them until his host should think fit to arrive.
Indeed, when Mrs. Effingham, who had left the room for reasons connected
with the repast, returned, having captured her husband, and
superintended his toilet, she found her daughters and their guest
considerably advanced in acquaintance.
‘Oh, papa,’ said Annabel, ‘Mr. O’Desmond says there’s such a lovely view
about ten miles from here—a ravine full of ferns, actually _full_ of
them; and a waterfall—a real one! It is called Fern-tree Gorge; and he
has invited us all to a picnic there some day.’
‘Very happy to make Mr. O’Desmond’s acquaintance,’ said Effingham,
advancing with a recollection of old days strong upon him. ‘We are
hardly aware yet in what consists the proper proportion of work and play
in Australia; and in how much of the latter struggling colonists can
indulge. We shall be very grateful for information on the subject.’
‘And right welcome you are, my dear sir, to both, especially to the
latter. They’ll tell you that Harry O’Desmond is not unacquainted with
work during the twenty years he has spent in this wild country. But for
fun and recreation he’ll turn his back on no man living.’
‘Here is my lieutenant, and eldest son; permit me to introduce him. He
is burning to distinguish himself in the practical line.’
‘Then he couldn’t have a better drill instructor than my old
acquaintance, Dick Evans—wonderfully clever in all bush work, and
scrupulous after his own fashion. But, see here now, I came partly to
talk about cows, till the young ladies put business clean out of my
head. I’m told you want to buy cattle, Mr. Wilfred; if you’ll mount your
horse and take old Dick with you to-morrow morning, he’ll show you the
way to Badajos, and I’ll pick you the best hundred cows this day in the
country.’
This was held to be an excellent arrangement, and lunch being now
proclaimed, a temporary cessation of all but society talk took place.
Every one being in the highest spirits, it was quite a brilliant
symposium. It was a novel luxury to be again in the society of a
pleasant stranger, well read, travelled, and constitutionally agreeable.
O’Desmond sketched with humour and spirit the characteristic points of
their nearest neighbours; slightly satirised the local celebrities in
their chief town of Yass; and finally departed, having earned for
himself the reputation of an agreeable, well-bred personage; a perfect
miracle of a neighbour, when ill-hap might have made him equally near
and unchangeably disagreeable.
‘What a delightful creature!’ said Annabel. ‘Didn’t some one say before
we left home that there were no gentlemen in Australia—only “rough
colonists”? I suppose that English girls will call us “rough colonists”
when we’ve been here a few years. Why, he’s like—oh, I know now—he’s the
very image of the Knight of Gwynne. Fancy lighting on a facsimile of
that charming old dear—of course Mr. Desmond is not nearly so old. He’s
not young though, and takes great care of himself, you can see.’
‘He’s not so _very_ old, Annabel,’ said Beatrice mischievously. ‘That is
the kind of man I should advise you to marry. Not a foolish boy of
five-and-twenty.’
‘Thank you, Beatrice,’ said Annabel, with dignity. ‘I’ll think over it
and let you know. I don’t think it’s probable I should ever marry any
one only a little older than myself. What could he know? I should laugh
at him if he was angry. But Wilfred is going over to Badajos, or
whatever is the name of the O’Desmond’s place, to-morrow, so he can
bring us back a full, true, and particular account of everything, and
whether Rosamond, or you, dear, would be the fitter helpmate for him.
I’m too young and foolish at present, and might be more so—that is,
foolish, not young, of course.’
‘I notice that the air of this climate seems to have a peculiar effect
upon young people’s tongues,’ said the soft voice of Mrs. Effingham.
‘They seem to run faster here than in England.’
Mr. Desmond’s property, Badajos, was nearly twenty miles from Warbrok
Chase. As it had been clearly settled that Wilfred should go there on
the following day, arrangements had to be made. Dick must accompany him
for the double purpose of confirming any selection of cattle. That
veteran cheerfully endorsed the idea, averring that now the yard was all
but finished, and the fencing stuff drawn in, leave of absence could be
well afforded. He therefore put on a clean check shirt, and buckled a
pea-jacket in front of his saddle, which he placed upon his old mare,
and was ready for the road.
Provided with a stock-whip, taken from his miscellaneous possessions,
with lighted pipe and trusty steed, his features wore the expression of
anticipated happiness, which distinguishes the schoolboy out for a
holiday. He passed Andrew Cargill with an air of easy superiority, as
that conscientious labourer, raising his moistened brow as he delved at
the long-untilled beds, could not refrain from a look of astonishment at
this new evidence of universal capacity, as he marked Dick’s easy seat
and portentous whip.
He muttered, ‘I wadna doot but that the auld graceless sorrow can ride
through braes and thickets, and crack yon muckle clothes-line they ca’ a
stock-wheep like ony lad. The de’il aye makes his peets o’ masterfu’
men, wae’s me.’
A difficulty arose as to Wilfred’s steed. Mr. Sternworth had declined
the delicate task of remount agent. Thus The Chase was temporarily
unprovided with horseflesh. However, Dick Evans was not a man to be
prevented from carrying out a pleasant expedition for want of a horse to
ride. Sallying out early, he had run in a lot of the ownerless animals,
always to be found in the neighbourhood of unstocked pastures. Choosing
from among them a sensible-looking cob, and putting Wilfred’s English
saddle and bridle on him, he led him up to the garden gate, where he
stood with his ordinary air of deep respectability.
‘I was just wondering how in the world I was to get a horse,’ said
Wilfred. ‘I see you have one. Did you borrow, or buy, or steal one for
my use?’
‘I’ve been many a year in this country, Mr. Wilfred, without tekkin’
other people’s property, and I’m too old to begin now. But there’s 2C on
this chestnut pony’s near shoulder. I’m nigh sure it’s Bill Chalker’s
colt, as he lost two years ago, and told me to keep him in hand, if ever
I came acrost him.’
‘Then I may ride him without risk of being tried for horse-stealing, or
lynched, if they affect that here,’ said Wilfred gaily. ‘I shouldn’t
care to do it in England, I know.’
‘Things is quite different on the Sydney Side,’ said Mr. Evans with mild
dogmatism.
Wilfred did not consider this assertion to be conclusive, but time
pressing, and the ready-saddled horse inviting his approval, he
compounded with his conscience by taking it for granted that people were
not particular as to strayed horses. The fresh and spirited animal,
which had not been ridden for months, but was (luckily for his rider)
free from vice, snorted and sidled, but proceeded steadily in the main.
He soon settled down to the hand of a fair average horseman.
Noticing fresh objects of interest in each flowering shrub, in the birds
that flew overhead, or the strange animals that ever and again crossed
their path, about each and all of which his retainer had information to
offer, the time did not hang heavily on hand. They halted towards
evening before a spacious enclosure, having passed through which, they
came upon a roomy cottage, surrounded by a trim orchard, and backed up
by farm buildings.
‘Here’s Badajos, Mr. Wilfred,’ said his guide. ‘And a better kept place
there ain’t in the whole country side.’
‘Welcome to Badajos, Mr. Effingham,’ said the proprietor. ‘William, take
this gentleman’s horse; you know your way, Dick. We’ll defer business
till the morning. I have had the cattle yarded, ready for drafting;
to-morrow you can choose the nucleus of a good herd. I shall be proud to
put you in the way of cattle-farming in the only true way to succeed—by
commencing with females of the right kind.’
As Wilfred followed his entertainer into the house, he felt unaffectedly
surprised at the appearance of elegance mingled with comfort which
characterised the establishment. The rooms were not large, but arranged
with an attention of detail which he had not expected to find in a bush
dwelling. The furniture was artistically disposed. Books and periodicals
lay around. High-class engravings, with a few oil-paintings, which
recalled Wilfred Effingham’s past life, hung on the walls. Couches and
lounges, of modern fashion, looked inviting, while a Broadwood piano
stood in the corner of the drawing-room, into which he followed his
host.
‘I am a bachelor, more’s the pity,’ said Mr. O’Desmond; ‘but there’s no
law against a little comfort in the wilderness. Will you take some
refreshment now? Or would you like to be shown to your room?’
Wilfred accepted the latter proposal. In a very comfortable chamber he
proceeded to divest himself of the traces of the road, after a leisurely
and satisfactory fashion. He had barely regained the drawing-room, when
a gong sounded with a melodiously reminiscent clang.
The dinner was after the fashion of civilised man. Soup and fish, fresh
from a neighbouring stream, with meritorious entrées and entremets,
showed skill beyond that of an ordinary domestic. While the host, who
had sufficiently altered his attire for comfort, without committing the
_bêtise_ of out-dressing a guest, as he recommended a dry sherry, or
passed the undeniable claret, seemed an embodied souvenir of London,
Paris, Vienna, of that world of fortune and fashion which Wilfred was
vowed to forsake for ever. Next morning the sun and Mr. W. Effingham
arose simultaneously. Dick Evans had anticipated both, and was standing
at ease near the stable.
‘This place is worth looking at, sir. You don’t see nothing to speak of
out of order—tidy as a barrack-yard.’
Wonderfully trim and orderly was the appearance of all things. The
enclosure referred to was neatly gravelled, and showed not a vagrant
straw. The garden was dug, raked, and pruned into orderly perfection.
The servants’ quarters, masked by a climber-covered trellis, were
ornamental and unostentatious. The dog-kennels, tenanted by pointers,
greyhounds, collies, and terriers, were snug and spacious. The stables
were as neat as those of a London dealer. It was a show establishment.
‘Mr. O’Desmond’s servants must be attached to him, to work so well,’
said Wilfred.
‘Humph!’ replied the veteran, ‘he makes ’em toe the line pretty smart,
and quite right too,’ he added, with a grim setting of his under jaw.
‘He was in the colony afore there was many free men in it. Shall we walk
down to the milking-yard, sir?’
The full-uddered shorthorn cows, with their fragrant breath and mild
countenances, having been admired in their clean, paved milking-yard, a
return was made towards the cottage. As they neared the garden,
O’Desmond rode briskly up to the stable door, and dismounting, threw the
reins to a groom, who stood ready as a sentinel.
‘The top of the morning to you, Mr. Effingham; I trust you slept well? I
have had a canter of a few miles, which will give me an appetite for
breakfast. I rode over to the drafting-yards, to make sure that the
cattle were there, according to orders. Everything will be in readiness,
so that you can drive easily to Warbrok to-night. You can manage that,
Dick, can you not?’
‘Easy enough, if you’ll send a boy with us half-way, Mr. O’Desmond,’
replied Dick. ‘You see, sir, Mr. Effingham’s rather new to
cattle-driving, and if the young heifers was to break back, we might
lose some of them.’
‘Quite right, Dick; you are always right where stock are concerned—that
is, the driving of them,’ he added. ‘I look to you to stay with Mr.
Effingham till his dairy herd is established. I shall then have the
pleasure of adding his name to that of the many gentlemen in this
district whose fortunes I have helped to make.’
‘Quite true, sir,’ assented Dick heartily. ‘The Camden sheep and the
Badajos cattle and horses are known all over the country by them as are
judges. But you don’t want me to be praising on ’em up—they speak for
themselves.’
Breakfast over, as faultless a repast as had been the dinner, it became
apparent that Mr. O’Desmond held punctuality nearly in as high esteem as
comfort. His groom stood ready in the yard with his own and Wilfred’s
horses saddled, the shining thorough-bred, which he called his hackney,
offering a strong contrast to the unkempt though well-conditioned animal
which his guest bestrode.
As they rode briskly along the winding forest track, Wilfred, observing
the quality of his host’s hackney, the silver brightness of his bit and
stirrup-irons, the correctness of his general turn-out, remembering also
the completeness of the establishment and the character of the
hospitality he had enjoyed, doubted within himself whether, in course of
time, the owner of Warbrok Chase might ever attain to such a pinnacle of
colonial prosperity.
‘How incredible this would all appear to some of my English friends!’ he
thought. ‘I can hardly describe it without the fear of being supposed to
exaggerate.’
‘Here we are,’ said O’Desmond, reining up, and dismounting at a
substantial stock-yard, while a lad instantly approached and took his
horse. ‘I have ordered the heifers and young cows to be placed in this
yard. We can run them through before you. You can make your choice, and
reject any animals below the average.’
‘They look rather confused at present,’ answered Wilfred; ‘but I suppose
Dick here understands how to separate them.’
‘I’ll manage that, never you fear, sir—that is, if you and Mr. O’Desmond
have settled about the price.’
‘I may state now,’ remarked that gentleman, ‘that the price, four pounds
per head, mentioned to me on your account by your agent is a liberal
one, as markets go. I shall endeavour to give you value in kind.’
‘It’s a good price,’ asserted Dick; ‘but Mr. O’Desmond’s cattle are
cheaper at four pounds all round than many another man’s about here at
fifty shillings. If he lets me turn back any beast I don’t fancy, we’ll
take away the primest lot of cattle to begin a dairy with as has
travelled the line for years.’
‘I will give you my general idea of the sort of cattle I prefer,’ said
Wilfred, not minded to commence by leaving the _whole_ management in any
servant’s hands, ‘then you can select such as appear to answer the
description.’
‘All right, sir,’ quoth Mr. Evans, mounting the fence. ‘I suppose you
want ’em large-framed cattle, good colours, looking as if they’d run to
milk and not to beef, not under three, and not more than five year old,
and putty quiet in their looks and ways.’
‘That is exactly the substance of what I was going to say to you,’ said
Wilfred, with some surprise. ‘It will save me the trouble of
explaining.’
‘We may as well begin, sir,’ said Dick, addressing himself to the
proprietor. Then, in quite another tone, ‘Open the rails, boys; look
sharp, and let ’em into the drafting-yards.’
The cattle were driven through a succession of yards after such a
fashion that Wilfred was enabled to perceive how the right of choice
could be exercised. By the time the operation was concluded he felt
himself to be inducted into the art and mystery of ‘drafting.’ Also, he
respected himself as having appreciably helped to select and separate
the one hundred prepossessing-looking kine which now stood in a separate
yard, recognised as his property.
‘You will have no reason to be dissatisfied with your choice,’ said
O’Desmond. ‘They look a nice lot. I always brand any cattle before they
leave my yard. You will not object to a numeral being put on them before
they go? It will assist in their identification in case of any coming
back.’
‘Coming back!—come back twenty miles?’ queried Wilfred, with amazement.
‘How could they get back such a distance?’
‘Just as you would—by walking it, and a hundred to the back of that. So
I think, say, No. 1. brand—they are A1 certainly—will be a prudent
precaution.’
‘Couldn’t do a better thing,’ assented Dick. ‘We’ll brand ’em again when
we go home, sir; but if we lost ’em anyway near the place, they’d be all
here before you could say Jack Robinson.’
A fire was quickly lighted, the iron brands were heated, the cows driven
by a score at a time into a narrow yard, and for the first time in his
life Wilfred saw the red-hot iron applied to the hide of the live
animal. The pain, like much evil in this world, if intense, was brief;
the cows cringed and showed disapproval, but soon appeared to forget.
The morning was not far advanced when Wilfred Effingham found himself
riding behind a drove, or ‘mob’ (as Dick phrased it), _of his own
cattle_.
‘There goes the best lot of heifers this day in the country,’ said the
old man, ‘let the others be where they may. Mr. O’Desmond’s a rare man
for givin’ you a good beast if you give him a fair price; you may trust
him like yourself, but he’s a hard man and bitter enough if anybody
tries to take advantage of him.’
‘And quite right too, Dick. I take Mr. O’Desmond to be a most honourable
man, with whom I shouldn’t care to come to cross purposes.’
‘No man ever did much good that tried that game, sir. He’s a bad man to
get on the wrong side of.’
CHAPTER V
‘CALLED ON BY THE COUNTY’
When the important drove reached Warbrok, great was the excitement.
Wilfred’s absence was the loss of Hamlet from the play; his return the
signal for joy and congratulation. The little commonwealth was visibly
agitated as the tired cattle trailed along the track to the stock-yard,
with Dick sitting bolt upright in his saddle behind them, and Wilfred
essaying to crack the inconveniently long whip provided for him.
The girls made their appearance upon the verandah; Andrew looked forth
as interested, yet under protest. Guy walked behind, and much admired
the vast number and imposing appearance of the herd; while Captain and
Mrs. Effingham stood arm in arm at a safe distance appreciating the
prowess of their first-born.
‘Now, sir,’ quoth the ready Dick, ‘we’ll put ’em in the yard and make
’em safe to-night; to-morrow, some one will have to tail ’em.’
‘Tail them?’ said Wilfred. ‘Some of their ears have been scolloped, I
see; but surely it is not necessary to cut their tails in a hot climate
like this?’
‘S’cuse me, sir,’ said Dick respectfully, ‘I wouldn’t put the knife to
them for pounds; “tailing” means shepherdin’.’
‘And what does “shepherding” mean? I thought shepherds were only for
sheep?’
‘Well, sir, I never heerd talk of shepherdin’ at home, but it’s a
currency word for follerin’ anything that close, right agin’ their
tails, that a shepherd couldn’t be more careful with his sheep; so we
talk of shepherdin’ a s’picious c’rakter, or a lot of stock, or a man
that’s tossicated with notes stickin’ out of his pocket, or a young
woman, or anything that wants lookin’ after very partickler.’
‘Now I understand,’ said Wilfred. ‘It’s not a bad word, and might be
used in serious matters.’
‘No mistake about that, sir. Now the yard’s finished off and topped up,
we’ll soon be able to make a start with the dairy. There’ll be
half-a-dozen calves within the week, and more afore the month’s out.
There’s nothin’ breaks in cows to stop like their young calves; you’ll
soon see ’em hanging about the yard as if they’d been bred here,
’specially as the feed is so forrard. There’s no mistake, a myst season
do make everything go pleasant.’
When the cattle were in the yard, and the slip rails made safe by having
spare posts put across them, Wilfred unsaddled his provisional mount and
walked into the house in a satisfactory mental condition.
‘So, behold you of return!’ quoted Rosamond, running to meet him, and
marching him triumphantly into the dining-room, where all was ready for
tea. ‘The time has been rather long. Papa has been walking about, not
knowing exactly what to do, or leave undone; Guy shooting, not
over-successfully. The most steadily employed member of the household,
and the happiest, I suppose, has been Andrew, digging without
intermission the whole time.’
‘I wish we could dig too, or have some employment found for us,’ said
Annabel; ‘girls are shamefully unprovided with real work, except
stocking-mending. Jeanie won’t let us do anything in the kitchen, and
really, that is the only place where there is any fun. The house is so
large, and echoing at night when the wind blows. And only think, we
found the mark of a pistol bullet in the dining-room wall at one end,
and there is another in the ceiling!’
‘How do you know it was a pistol shot?’ inquired Wilfred. ‘Some one
threw a salt-cellar at the butler in the good old times.’
‘Perhaps it was fired in the good old times; perhaps it killed some
one—how horrible! Perhaps he was carried out through the passage. But we
know it was a shot, because Guy poked about and found the bullet
flattened out.’
‘Well, we must ask Evans; very likely old Colonel Warleigh fired pistols
in his mad fits. He used to sit, they say, night after night, drinking
and cursing by himself after his wife died and his sons left him. No one
dared go near him when his pistols were loaded. But we need not think of
these things now, Annabel. He is dead and gone, and his sons are not in
this part of the country. So I see you have had flower-beds made while I
was away. I declare the wistaria and bignonia are breaking into flower.
How gorgeous they will look!’
‘Yes, mamma said she could not exist without flowers any longer, so we
persuaded Andrew, much against his will,—for he said “he was just fair
harassed wi’ thae early potatoes,”—to dig these borders. Guy helped us
to transplant and sow seeds, so we shall have flowers of our own once
more.’
‘We shall have everything of our own in a few years if we are patient,’
said Wilfred; ‘and you damsels don’t want trips to watering-places, and
so on. This life is better than Boulogne, or the Channel Islands, though
it may be a trifle lonely.’
‘Boulogne! A thousandfold,’ said Rosamond. ‘Here we have life and hope.
Those poor families we used to see there looked liked ghosts and
apparitions of their old selves. You remember watching them walking down
drearily to see the packet come in—the girls dowdy or shabby, the old
people hopeless and apathetic, the sons so idle and lounging? I shudder
when I think how near we were to such horrors ourselves. The very air of
Australia seems to give one fresh life. Can anything be finer than this
sunset?’
In truth, the scene upon which her eyes rested might have cheered a
sadder heart than that of the high-hearted maiden who now, with her arm
upon her brother’s shoulder, directed his gaze to the far empurpled
hills, merging their violet cloud masses and orange-gold tints in the
darkening eve. The green pastures, relieved by clumps of heavy-foliaged
trees, glowed emerald bright against the dark-browed mountain spur. The
dying sun-rays fell in fire-flakes of burning gold on the mirrored
silver of the lake. Wrapped in soft tremulous mist lay the hills upon
the farther shore, vast with the subtle effect of limitless distance. At
such times one could dream with the faith of older days—that Earth, the
universal mother, loved her children, and breathed forth in growth of
herb and flower her smiling welcome.
That night, as the Effinghams sat around their table, an unconscious
feeling of thankfulness swelled each heart. The parents saw assurance of
a well-provided suitable home for the little troop, the probable
disbanding of which had cost such sad forebodings. The sons, strong in
the faith of youth, saw a future of adventure, well-rewarded labour,
perhaps brilliant success. The girls felt that their lives would not be
henceforth deprived of the social intercourse which had once been an
ordinary condition of existence.
‘How did you fare at Mr. O’Desmond’s, my son? What kind of an
establishment does he keep?’ inquired Mrs. Effingham.
‘You will all be rather astonished,’ answered Wilfred mysteriously.
‘What should you think, Annabel? You are a good hand at guessing.’
‘Let me think. He is very aristocratic and dignified, yet he might live
in a hut. Men are so independent of rooms or houses, almost of
looking-glasses. Now a woman in a poky little place always shows it in
her dress. I should say he lives in a comfortable cottage, and has
everything very complete.’
‘And you would be right. We shall have to mind our manners and dinners
when he comes again. He lives like a club bachelor, and is as well
lodged as—let us say—a land steward on an absentee nobleman’s estate.’
‘You must be romancing, Wilfred,’ said Beatrice. ‘Where could he get the
luxuries that such a great man as you have described could procure? What
a wonderful difference a few thousand miles makes! We think ourselves
not so much worse, essentially, than we were in England; but we must be
deteriorating.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, my dear Beatrice,’ said Rosamond. ‘Is it not a
little vulgar to attach so much weight to externals? As long as we are
doing our duty, why should there be any deterioration? It will be our
own fault if we adopt a lower level of manners.’
‘Oh, but how can any one expect to be the same in colonial society?’
exclaimed Annabel. ‘See how insignificant even the “best people” are out
here. Why, I was reading yesterday about a “country baronet,” and even a
“well-meaning, unfashionable countess,” being looked down
upon—positively laughed at—in England. Now think what tremendous
potentates they would be out here! I’m sure that proves what I say.’
‘Your propositions and proofs are worthy of one another, my dear,’ said
Wilfred. ‘But as to society, I shan’t be sorry when more of our
neighbours call.’
‘Now that the house is fit to receive them I shall be pleased, my dear
son, to see the people of the land. I am sure I hope there are some nice
ones.’
Wilfred rose early next morning to indulge himself with another look at
the new cattle. He was only just in time, as Dick had breakfasted,
caught his horse, and was about to let out the imprisoned drove.
‘I’ll tail ’em for the first few days, sir,’ he said, ‘till I give ’em
the way of camping under them big trees near the little swamp. It will
make a first-rate camp for ’em, and learn ’em to run handy to the place.
After that we must get some sort of a lad to foller ’em. It won’t pay
you to keep me at blackfellow’s work.’
‘What’s that?’ inquired Wilfred.
‘Why, simple work like this, that any black boy could do, if he didn’t
give his mind to ’possums. Besides, we wants a horse-yard, and a bit of
a paddock, and another field cleared, to plough for next year.’
‘That seems a good deal of work to carry on, Richard. Won’t it take more
hands? Remember, we must go economically to work. My father is by no
means a rich man.’
‘That’s quite right, sir; no one should run themselves out of pocket,
high or low. But if we had some one to go with these cows till the
calves come, and that won’t be long, you and I could do what work I’ve
chalked out.’
‘Why should not Guy “tail” the cows, as you call it?’ suggested Wilfred,
pleased with the idea that they would be able to provide labour from
their own community. ‘It would do him no harm.’
‘Perhaps the young gentleman mightn’t like it,’ said Dick, with deep
respect. ‘It’s dull work, every day, like.’
‘Oh, he _must_ like it!’ decided Wilfred, with the despotic elder
brother tone. ‘We have come out here to work, and he must take his
share. He may find it dull for a time; but he can shoot a little and
amuse himself, as long as he doesn’t come home without them, like Little
Bo-peep. What would a boy cost?’
‘About six or eight shillings a week, and his rations, sir, which would
come to as much again. But the young master needn’t stay out after four
o’clock.’
‘Then we make a saving at once of say sixteen shillings a week. Guy
never earned so much in his life before. He will be quite proud of his
value in the labour market. You and I can begin splitting and fencing at
once.’
‘But we shall want some more cattle, sir,’ suggested Dick.
‘More cattle!’ said Wilfred in amazement, to whom a hundred head was an
awe-striking number. ‘What for?’
‘Why, to eat! It don’t do to buy meat every time you want a roast or a
steak. Cheapest to kill your own. If we was to buy a mob of common
cattle, they’d cost nothing to speak of; the bullocks soon fatten, and
the cows would breed you up a fair mixed herd in no time.’
‘Well, but we have these cattle you have just let out,’ pleaded Wilfred,
looking admiringly at the red, white, and roan shorthorn crosses, which,
spreading over the rich meadow, were feeding quietly, as if reared
there.
‘Them’s all very well, sir; but it’ll be years before you kill a bullock
out of that lot; they’ve got to come, all in good time. But the quiet
steers, and the worst of the cows, in a mixed herd, will be fat before
you can look round, in a season like this, and your beef won’t cost you
above a penny a pound.’
It was decided that Guy was to ‘tail’ or herd the new cows at present.
Upon this duty being named to him, he made no objection—rather seemed to
like it.
‘I suppose as long as I don’t lose them I can do anything I like,’ he
said; ‘hunt ’possums, shoot, ferret out ferns for Rosamond, or even
read.’
‘The more you lets the cattle alone the better, Mr. Guy,’ said Dick. ‘As
long as they don’t sneak away from you, you can’t take it too easy.
There’s fine feed all roads now, and after the first hour or two they’ll
fill theirselves and lie down like working bullocks. But you’ll want a
horse.’
‘That I shall,’ said the boy, beginning to take up the fashions of the
bush, and to rebel at the idea of going on foot, as if mankind was a
species of centaur.
‘Must have more horses too, sir,’ announced Dick, with a calm air of ask
and have.
‘How many?’ returned Wilfred uncomplyingly; ‘it seems we shall want more
horses—we haven’t any, certainly—more cattle, more tillage, more yards,
more paddocks; it will soon come to wanting more money, and where to get
_that_ I don’t know.’
‘Horses are dirt cheap, sir, just now, and can’t be done without, nohow.
You’ll want a cob for the Captain to potter about on, a couple of hacks
for yourself, one apiece for Mr. Guy and the young ladies—they’d like a
canter now and then afore Christmas. I hear Mick Donnelly’s selling off,
to clear out for Monaro. You couldn’t do better than ride over and see
his lot; they’ll be pretty sure to live on our grass, if any of the
neighbours gets ’em, and you may as well have that profit out of ’em
yourself.’
The conversation having come to an end, Mr. Evans was about to move
after his cattle, now indulging in a pretty wide spread, when a horseman
joining them, greeted Wilfred.
‘Good-morning, sir,’ said the stranger, with loud, peculiar, but not
unpleasant voice, having a note of culture too. ‘Glad to make your
acquaintance; Mr. Effingham, I believe? We’re neighbours, on the south,
about ten miles from Benmohr. You haven’t seen a chestnut pony about,
branded 2C? He used to run here in Hunt’s time. Why, hang me! if he
isn’t coming up to show himself!’
The chestnut pony which had borne Wilfred so successfully in the journey
for the new cattle now trotted up, having followed Evans’s mare, to
which animal he had attached himself, after the manner of horses, prone
to contract sudden friendships.
Wilfred, about to disclaim any knowledge of the strange gentleman’s
chestnut, not dreaming that the estray which had come in so handily
could be his property, and as yet not given to reading at a glance 2C or
other hieroglyph, felt rather nonplussed, more especially when he
noticed the stranger’s eye attracted to the saddle-mark on the pony’s
fat back.
‘I must confess to having ridden your horse, if he be so, a short
journey. We were not aware of his ownership, and I had no horse of my
own. I trust you will forgive the liberty.’
‘He _has_ rather nice paces. How did you like him?’ inquired the
stranger urbanely, much as if he had a favour conferred upon him. ‘I’ll
run him into the yard now with your permission, and lead him home.’
‘Pray come in, and allow me to introduce you to my people,’ said
Wilfred, satisfied, from the stranger’s bearing, that he was a desirable
acquaintance. ‘With the exception of Mr. O’Desmond, from whom I bought
these cattle, we have not seen a neighbour yet.’
‘Know them all in time,’ said the stranger; ‘no great shakes, some of
them, when you _do_ know them. My name’s Churbett, by the bye—Fred
Churbett, of The Oaks; cattle station on Banksia Creek, used to be
called She-oak Flat—had to change it. Nice cattle O’Desmond let you
have; got good stock, but makes you pay for them.’
‘How you have improved the old place!’ continued Mr. Churbett, as they
approached the house. ‘Who would believe that so much could have been
made of it? Never saw it in the palmy days of Colonel Warleigh, though.
Seems to have run in the military line of ownership. The old boy kept up
great state. Four-in-hand always to Yass, they say. Coachman, butler,
lots of servants—convicts, of course. Awful temper; cursed freely, drank
ditto. Sons not behindhand, improved upon the paternal sins—gambling,
horse-racing, Old Harry generally. Had to clear out and sell. Great pull
for the district having a family straight from “home” settled in it.’
‘I trust the advantage will be mutual,’ said Wilfred. ‘We hope to be
neighbourly when we are quite settled. But you will understand that it
has taken us a little time to shake down.’
‘Thought of that,’ said Mr. Churbett, ‘or should have had the pleasure
of calling before. Trotted over to look up master “Traveller” for the
muster, or should have waited another week.’
Mr. Churbett’s horses having been disposed of, he was duly introduced.
He proved if anything a greater success than Mr. O’Desmond. He was
musical, and the sight of the piano immediately brought up talk about
the last opera he had heard in London. He was also a great reader, and
after touching upon half a score of authors, promised to bring over a
new book which he had just got up from town.
‘Really,’ said Annabel innocently, ‘this is a surprise. I never dreamed
of getting a new book in the bush. Why, it only came out just before we
left. I was longing to read it; but, of course, we were too miserable
and worried. How can it have got here so quickly?’
‘Just the same way that we did, I suppose,’ said Beatrice—‘in a ship.
You forget the time that has passed since we landed.’
‘Still, it is a pleasant surprise. I shouldn’t wonder, perhaps we may
get some new music soon. But I should as soon have thought of a
book-club in the moon.’
‘Talking of book-clubs,’ said Churbett, ‘we are trying to get up one; I
hope you will join. With twelve members, and a moderate subscription, we
can import a very fair lot of books every year. A brother of mine in
London can choose them for us; I am to be librarian. The books are
divided into sets, which each subscriber sends on in turn.’
Annabel clapped her hands. ‘How delightful! Wilfred, of course, will
join. Fancy, dear, _clean_ new books every month. Really, life is
becoming quite intoxicating, and I thought we should die of dulness and
ennui.’
‘No; did you, though?’ echoed Mr. Churbett compassionately. ‘I confess
to feeling inclined to cry when I came up to Murson Creek and saw the
hut I was to live in for the first year. But one’s feelings get
wonderfully altered after a while.’
‘And are you _quite_ resigned, that is contented, to give up operas and
picture galleries, clubs and travel, all the pleasant parts of English
life?’ asked Rosamond.
‘It _was_ hard at first, Miss Effingham; but here I have independence,
with the prospect of a fortune. In England such was not the case,
particularly the independence. Operas and other memories recall a fairy
realm which I may yet re-enter. Meantime, I ride about all day, work now
and then, smoke and read at night, and if not exactly happy, am decently
cheerful.’
‘What the world calls pleasure you never see, I suppose?’ said Beatrice
philosophically.
‘Do we not? I forgot one compensation in our virtuous, self-denying
lives. Once a year, at least, we have races in Yass, which is our
metropolis. Then we all meet together, as a solemn, social obligation.
Pilgrimage to Mecca, and so on. Very few true believers absent. Balls,
picnics, any amount of dancing, flirtation, what not. Enough to last for
the rest of the year. After a week or two we go home sorrowfully,
staying at each other’s houses on the way, to let down the excitement by
degrees.’
‘Where do the ladies come from?’ asked Annabel. ‘I suppose there are
very few?’
‘Very few!’ said Mr. Churbett in tones of horror. ‘_Ever_ so many. Is it
possible you have never heard, even in Europe, of the beautiful Miss
Christabel Rockley, the fascinating Mrs. Snowden, the talented Mrs.
Porchester? Ladies! They abound, or how should we remain civilised? Yass
is well known to be the home of all the graces. Could O’Desmond retain
his _grand seigneur_ air but for the advantage of refined association? I
wish I could take you round, Miss Effingham, on an introductory tour.
What a book we could write of our experiences!—“Travels and Sketches in
the Upper Strata of the Social System of the Yass District, by Miss
Annabel Effingham, illustrated by F. Churbett, F.R.Y.A.S.S., Fellow of
the Royal Yass Analytical Squatting Society,” reads well.’
‘Quite delicious,’ said Annabel. ‘But everything that is nice is
improper, so, of course, I shouldn’t be let go. Not even Rosamond, who
is prudence personified. I’m afraid there is no more liberty for poor
women in a new country than an old one. That _is_ the bell—I was sure of
it. Mr. Churbett, allow me to invite you to dinner—an early one, which
is about the extent of my privileges.’
Mr. Churbett accepted the invitation, as he no doubt would have acceded
to any proposition emanating from the speaker even less manifestly
beneficial. He kept the whole party amused, and lingered until he
declared he should have to gallop Grey Surrey all the way home to get
there before dark.
‘He’s like me,’ he explained, upon being charged with cruelty; ‘he only
does a day’s work now and then, and he doesn’t mind it when it does
come.’
Resisting all invitation to stop for the night, on the plea that the
effort necessary in his case must be made some time and might as well be
undergone now, he departed in the odour of high consideration, if not of
sanctity.
In order that no opportunities might be lost, Wilfred commenced the
habit of rising at dawn and joining Dick at the stock-yard, where the
old man had initiated a dairy, with the aid of the few cows of the
O’Desmond brand which had produced calves. Here he was attended by
Andrew, who sturdily proceeded to take his share of the work, in spite
of Dick’s sarcastic attitude. He evidently considered the dairy to be
his province, and regarded Andrew as an interloper.
‘Na, na, Maister Wilfred,’ said Andrew, ‘I hae been acquent in my time
wi’ a’ manner o’ kye, and had a collie following me these thretty years.
It’s no because we’re in a new land that I’m to turn my back on ilka
occupa-ation that will bring in profit to the laird and his bairns.
Jeanie can mak’ as sweet butter as ever a gudewife in Lothian, and we
hae to depend maistly on the butter-keggies, for what I see.’
‘You’ll find that garden of yours, when the weeds come up, quite enough
for one, I’m thinking. There’s enough of us here, if Mr. Wilfred takes
to it kind, as he seems to do. But if you’re such a dab hand at milking,
you can tek that red cow that’s come in this morning.’
‘And a gra-and show o’ milk she has,’ quoth Andrew, ‘maist unco-omon!’
Dick commenced, with a stolid expression, to arrange the slip-rails,
which apparently took time to adjust. Andrew, meanwhile, proud of the
opportunity of exhibiting his familiarity with the art and science of
milking, moved the red cow into one of the bails, or stalls, in which
cows are ordinarily milked in Australia.
Sitting upon a three-legged stool, he commenced his ancient and
classical task. He had succeeded in, perhaps, drawing a pint from the
over-full udder of the red cow aforesaid, when she suddenly raised her
hind leg and caught him with such emphasis that man and milk, pail and
stool, went clattering down into the corner of the yard.
‘Gude save us!’ exclaimed Andrew, picking himself up, and rubbing his
person, while he collected all that was recoverable of the scattered
properties. ‘What garred the fell beastie act sae daft-like. I hae
milket a hunner coos, and ne’er was whummled like yon.’
‘Perhaps they was Scotch cows, and understood your talk, Mr. Cargill,’
said Dick, with great politeness, covering a grim enjoyment; ‘but in
this country we mostly _leg-ropes_ cows when we bail ’em up, for fear of
accidents.’
‘Weel, I winna say that these queys, being brocht up in a mair savage
fashion than in bonnie Scotland, wadna need head and heel fastenings.
But, ma certie, they would glower in my part of the country, gin ye tied
a coo’s leg like a thrawn ox at the smithy.’
‘I suppose “we must do at Rome, etc.,” and all the rest of it, Andrew,’
said Wilfred. ‘Here, Dick, make a beginning with your cow, and Andrew
and I will put a leg-rope on this one. Never too late to mend. I’ll back
Andrew to hold his own yet in the milking-yard, or anywhere else.’
Old Dick, having satisfied his grudge by compassing the downfall of
Andrew, whom he had shrewdly guessed never to have been accustomed to a
leg-rope, condescended to instruct Wilfred in the proper way to knot it.
The cows were eventually milked _secundum artem_, and when the full
buckets, foaming over with creamy fluid, stood on a bench outside the
yard, Wilfred saw with distinct gratification the first dividend from
the cattle investment.
‘We must calculate now, Andrew,’ he said, as they walked over to the
house, ‘how much butter can be made from the milk of these cows. It is a
small matter, of course; but multiplied by ten—as we shall have at least
fifty cows in milk, Dick says, before Christmas—it will not be so bad.’
‘After conseederin’ the matter maist carefully,’ said Andrew, ‘I am free
to give it as ma deleeberate opeenion that gin the pasture keeps aye
green and plenteous we may mak’ baith butter and cheese o’ the best
quality. As to price, I canna yet say, havin’ nae knowledge o’ the
mairkets.’
‘Well, we have made a beginning, Andrew, and that is a great matter. If
we can only pay current expenses, without employing more hands, we shall
be doing well, I consider.’
‘We must work gey and close at the first gang aff, Maister Wilfred, and
then dinna ye fear. Wi’ the Lord’s blessing, we’ll be spared to set up
our horn on high, as weel as thae prood Amalekites, that have had the
first grip o’ this gra-and Canaan. I was doon yestreen and lookit at the
field o’ victual—the paddock, as yon auld carle ca’s it. It’s maist
promising—forbye ordinar’—maist unco-omon.’
Among the list of indispensable investments which Dick Evans had urged
upon Wilfred, but which he had not at present thought it necessary to
undertake, were another lot of cattle, a dozen horses (more or less),
and some kind of taxed cart, or light vehicle. Apparently these would be
advantageous and profitable, but Wilfred had determined to be most
sparing in all outlay, lest the reserve fund of the family should come
to a premature end.
On this day it seemed that the advanced guard of the neighbouring gentry
had commenced to lay formal siege to Warbrok Chase. On his return to the
house in the afternoon, Wilfred descried two good-looking horses hanging
up to the garden fence, and upon entering the sitting-room beheld their
owners in amicable converse with his mother and sisters. He was promptly
introduced to Mr. Argyll and Mr. Charles Hamilton. Both men were well,
even fashionably dressed, and bore about them the nameless air which
stamps the holder of a degree in the university of society.
‘We should have called before,’ said Mr. Argyll, a tall fair-haired man,
whose quick glancing blue eye and mobile features betrayed natural
impetuosity, kept under by training; ‘but my partner here is such an
awfully hard-working fellow, that he would not quit the engineering with
which he was busied, to visit the Queen of Sheba, if she had just
settled in the neighbourhood.’
‘I was not aware,’ said Mr. Hamilton coolly, and with an air of settled
conviction upon his regular and handsome features, ‘of the extent of my
sacrifice to duty. I may venture to assure Mrs. Effingham that my
neighbourly duties for the future will not be neglected.’
‘I hope not,’ said Mrs. Effingham; ‘for, now that the excitement of
settling in such a very different world has passed away, we begin to
feel rather lonely—may I say dull?’
‘No, mamma,’ said Rosamond, ‘you must not say that. We are all so fully
occupied, from morning to dusk, that we have no time to be dull.’
‘Oh, but we cannot get on without society,’ remarked Annabel. ‘I feel in
the highest spirits as long as there is so much to do, that there is no
time for thinking; indeed, I hate to have a moment to myself. But in the
afternoons, when papa and the boys are out, I begin to realise our
solitary position, and the feeling becomes oppressive.’
‘Very naturally too,’ said Mr. Argyll. ‘But as yet you have no idea of
the social resources which you will be able to draw upon when you are
acquainted with everybody.’
‘And who is everybody?’ asked Beatrice. ‘How can we be sociable if
people don’t come to see us? Suppose you tell us who are the nice people
of the district, and we shall be able to enjoy them in anticipation.’
‘You will see most of them within the month; but I shrink from
describing them. Charles, you are afraid of nobody, suppose you give us
a _catalogue raisonné_.’
‘Certainly, if Miss Effingham wishes it,’ assented Mr. Hamilton, who had
the imperturbable look which goes with a temperament difficult to
surprise or intimidate. ‘I shall have great pleasure in trotting out our
friends for her information. We have been here only three years, so in
case of mistakes you must be considerate.’
‘Oh, we shall be most discreet,’ said Annabel; ‘besides, we have no
acquaintance yet to chatter to—that’s the best guarantee for prudence.’
‘I think I may take your solemn affirmation not to betray me,’ said Mr.
Hamilton, looking admiringly into Annabel’s lovely eyes, ‘and even then
I would face the risk. First, there is Captain Snowden with his wife. He
was in the navy, I think; he has rather more of the sailor about him
than—what shall I say?—the courtier, though he can be very agreeable
when he likes. Madame is extremely lady-like, clever, travelled, what
not. You must see her and judge for yourself.’
‘Are there any more ladies?’ asked Rosamond. ‘They possess an absorbing
interest for us.’
‘Ever so many more,’ laughed Hamilton. ‘Mrs. Porchester, who is rather a
“blue”; Mrs. Egremont, who is a beauty; the Misses Carter, who are
good-nature itself. The others, I think, you must find out by degrees.
In Yass there are some very nice families, particularly that of Mr.
Rockley. He is the leading merchant in these parts, and rules like a
benevolent despot. His wife is hospitable and amiable beyond compare;
his daughter, Miss Christabel, dangerously beautiful. I _must_ leave
something to the imagination.’
‘I assure you we are most grateful to you as it is,’ said Mrs.
Effingham. ‘It is really encouraging to find that there are so many
charming people in the neighbourhood. We should hardly consider them in
the same county at home; but here they don’t seem to mind riding any
distance.’
‘I am mistaken,’ said Hamilton, ‘if you do not find people riding
wonderful distances to visit Warbrok. We are less than twenty miles
away, I am thankful to say, so you will see us as often as you care for.
By the way,’ turning to Wilfred, ‘did I hear you say you were going to
Donnelly’s sale? If you buy stock there, you had better stay a night at
Benmohr on your return. It is just a fair stage.’
‘Thanks. I shall be most happy. Do you think it a good idea to invest at
Donnelly’s?’
‘If I were in your place I should buy all his cattle and a few horses.
They can’t fail to be a profitable purchase, as you seem to have any
amount of grass. But we must be going. We shall expect you at Benmohr
the day after the sale. Mrs. Effingham, I shall do myself the honour of
another visit, after you have been able to verify my portraitures.’
‘What gentlemanlike young men!’ said Mrs. Effingham, when the guests
were fairly away. ‘I am so sorry that your papa was out. He would have
been so pleased. Mr. Argyll seems so clever, and Mr. Hamilton is very
handsome—both wonderfully well dressed for the bush.’
‘I should say Mr. Argyll was disposed to be sarcastic,’ said Rosamond;
‘and I am mistaken if he has not a fierce temper. He told us he was a
Highlander, which accounts for it.’
‘Mr. Hamilton is one of the nicest-looking men I have seen for a long
time,’ said Annabel; ‘what splendid eyes he has! He is very particular
about his gloves too; gives time and reflection to his toilet, I should
say.’
‘I have heard Dick say that he is the hardest-working squatter in the
district,’ said Wilfred. ‘He is devoted to ploughing, digging,
navvy-work, horse-breaking—“all manner of slavery,” as Dick says.’
‘Who would have thought it!’ exclaimed Mrs. Effingham in tones of
astonishment. ‘From his appearanc
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