Plain Living

CHAPTER XV

So at Windāhgil and Wantabalree the calm, uneventful bush life went on as usual. That life so peaceful, so wholesome for the spirit, so chiefly free from the sharp cares and anxieties of city existence – where the eye is refreshed daily with nature pictures, at once grand and consoling. The early morn, so fair and fresh, when the sun first glorifies the pale mists of dawn, changing all the Orient with magic suddenness to opaline hues and golden flame. The green gloom, the august solitude of the boundless forest, the glowing sunshine which pierces even its inmost recesses at midday; the wavering shadows, born of the inconstant breeze; the tender eve when a solemn hush falls alike on stream and valley, on mountain-side or wildwood glade, and all the ancient majesty of night awes the senses. For the Windāhgil family, the placid days came and went, lightened, as of old, by the regularity of customary home duties, by books and music, by walks along the rippling river, by rides and drives through the winding forest paths. Occasional expeditions to Wantabalree made salutary change for all. As the summer months wore on – as the days lengthened, and the mid-day heat became intense; as the fiercer sun rays commenced to wither the bush herbage of the river meadows, the many-hued wild flowers of heath and hill; as the watercourses, fed by spring showers, commenced to trickle faintly – there was a tendency to complain of the tyrant Summer, and yet to long for the Christmas-tide as a period of mirth and enjoyment – this year invested with a special charm.

For had not a telegram from some unknown, unknowable place, and costing quite a small fortune, arrived, which stated that Hubert, the bien aimé, would return at Christmas – actually return? “Like the prodigal,” as Linda said, “only that it was the reverse in everything except the coincidence of its being ‘from a far country.’”

“The coincidence being so very slight, Linda,” said her mother, “perhaps it would have been as well to refrain from Scriptural parallel altogether. Don’t you think so, Miss Dacre? I had given up expecting him after his last letter, in which he said there were insuperable difficulties in the way.”

“He has managed to surmount the insuperable apparently,” said Linda. “Hubert always was a wonderful boy for accomplishing things just at the last moment. I don’t think I ever knew him beaten by anything he made up his mind to do, though he used to leave things rather too long.”

“That is one of Hubert’s worst points – or rather, most pronounced weaknesses,” said Laura; “he won’t be wise in time except on what he thinks are occasions of importance. It seems a defect with people of energy and resource. For instance, I can’t imagine Hubert saying he will cross a river or accomplish a journey and failing to carry out his purpose, whatever happened. He is one of those people who seem made for difficulties.”

“But difficulties which come upon the unprepared are apt to be disastrous,” said Miss Dacre; “for my part, I am strongly in favour of taking every imaginable precaution before the time of need.”

“The principle is good, but it doesn’t apply to Hubert,” said Linda, still unconvinced. “Difficulties and impossibilities only stimulate his resources, which are innumerable. When another man would lie down and die, he would be quite in his element, ordering, inventing, combining, and finally pulling through triumphantly.”

“It must be interesting to watch such a tour de force,” said Miss Dacre; “but I prefer the generalship which surveys the field, and places the battle in advance. Hit or miss, conquerors find their Moscow some day.”

“Hubert has made a glorious campaign this time,” said Laura. “What a day of days it will be when he shows his brown face at Mooramah again! Doesn’t it seem an age since he went away, Rosalind?”

“I am sure papa and Willoughby will be very glad to see him again,” said she. “I know they wish to have his advice about the sheep and the season. They are getting quite anxious.”

No! The engine did not break down. The steamer with the Chinese name, from the far north, the Ly-wang-foo, did not founder or take fire. The floods did not sweep away the railway bridges. There was not even an earthquake. All these phenomena and abnormal occurrences were, in Linda’s opinion, almost certain to happen because Hubert was coming home to spend Christmas with the family, and envious Fate would be certain to interfere. Everything had gone so prosperously hitherto that Destiny must be propitiated by sacrifice. Mr. Barrington Hope was coming up also, as he had looked forward to a holiday – of course he would be disappointed, and so on.

Wonderful to relate, a few days before Christmas, again the family trap was in requisition, driven by one of the boys.

The door of the first-class carriage opened, and a bronzed, Indian-officer-looking man stepped out. The boys at first did not know him. But when a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, who followed him, proposed to send a porter for their luggage, the younger boy shouted out – “Why, it’s Hubert! Hubert! What a lark! We didn’t know him. Why you have changed! You’re ever so much thinner, and your eyes are larger, and your face browner. What have you done to yourself? We’ve come for you and Mr. Hope. Is this him?”

“Yes, this is he, Master Maurice. Your grammar appears to have stood still, though you have grown such a big fellow. See about the luggage, and have it put in the buggy; it will hold it all, unless it has got smaller. Well, how are mother and father and Laura, and Linda, and Waterking, and everybody? Why didn’t they come?”

“Well – they thought they’d be hugging you before all the people, and they’d better wait and do it at home. So they sent me and Val with the buggy. You’d better drive.”

“That is my intention, Maurice. I prefer to drive, though I know you can handle the reins. But tell me about Windāhgil. What is the grass like? Had much rain?”

“Only enough for sprinkling the garden these three months. I heard old Jerry, the shepherd, tell Paddy Nolan that he thought it was going to set in dry – the west wind was always blowing. We’ve lots of feed yet.”

“Old Jerry is a good judge of the weather at Mooramah; he’s been watching it these fifty years. And how are they at Wantabalree?”

“Very poor, almost starving.”

“What?” said Hubert. And then laughing at the boy’s strictly pastoral ideas, he said – “You mean the sheep in the paddocks, I suppose.”

“Yes, of course; they’re getting as bare as your hand. What they’ll do with all those sheep in another month or two nobody knows. Half of ’em’ll die before winter.”

“You seem to take a practical view of things, Maurice,” said Mr. Hope. “Are matters as bad as all that?”

“Well, I’m about a good deal, and I can’t help seeing. It’s a pity, too; they’re so nice, all of them.”

Hubert at home again! After all the doubts, fears, delays. Maurice had not exaggerated the amount of hugging, as he disrespectfully expressed it, which the returning hero had to undergo, and which would probably have created a stoppage on Mooramah platform. Mr. Hope stood by with a tolerant air, and even made some light remark to Miss Dacre as to their being left out of the extremely warm greetings which prevailed. A very short time, however, was suffered to elapse before all due apologies were made to their guests, and the cordiality of Laura’s manner perhaps caused Barrington Hope to overlook any overweening measure of love bestowed upon the long-absent brother.

“How her eyes sparkled, how her cheek glowed, how she seemed to devour the young fellow with her eyes!” he said to himself. And he argued favourably, knowing something of womankind, of the probable devotion to her husband should she ever condescend to endow mortal man with that supreme and sacred title.

It was in vain to expect much general conversation that day. If the visitors had been less sympathetic persons they might easily have been aggrieved at the predominance of Hubert’s personal adventures, opinions and experiences in all subsequent intercourse.

For the moment, everybody thought him much altered and changed, wasted even in frame, sunburned, blackened by exposure, but, on the whole, improved. There was a determination in his expression which had not so habitually marked his features before – a look as of a man who has confronted the grim hazards of the waste – who has dared the odds which in the desert land of the savage are arrayed against him; dared them only to conquer. It was the face of the conscript after the campaign and the battle-field. If there was less than the old measure of schoolboy gaiety and frolicsome spirits, there was an added infusion of the dignity of the man.

Then his adventures. He must relate some of them. Even Miss Dacre joined in this request. Like the knife-grinder, “story he had none to tell,” but could not escape owning to having been laid up in a bark hut with fever and ague, that had pulled him down so; nearly drowned in crossing a flooded river; had a brush with the blacks, who rose up from the tall grass all round him; horse speared under him, and so on. All this, though Hubert made light of it with characteristic modesty, seemed to his hearers of the nature of thrilling and exciting romance.

“Hubert must feel like a troubadour of the Middle Ages,” said Linda, “reciting before the lady of the castle and her maidens. It must have been an awful temptation to improvise situations, and I dare say they did. Fancy if we had no books, and were dependent entirely upon wandering minstrels!”

“It mightn’t be altogether such a bad thing, Miss Linda,” said Barrington Hope. “A handsome young troubadour would be more entertaining than a dry book, or even an indifferent novel.”

“It wouldn’t be such a bad trade for the unemployed,” said Laura; “but I suspect neither their manners nor their education would be found suitable.”

“Some of the swagmen in Queensland would fill the requirements so far,” said Hubert. “I have seen more than one ‘honourable’ on the tramp. Only it would not do to trust them too near the sideboard.”

“What a pathetic picture,” said Miss Dacre; “fancy the son of a peer trudging along the road, with his knapsack on his back, actually begging from door to door!”

“It is not regarded as begging in outside country,” said Hubert. “It is the recognised mode of locomotion for labourers and artisans.”

“And can they not procure steady employment?” said Miss Dacre, in a tone of deep anxiety. “Surely it only needs some one to take an interest in them, and give them good advice. Now, don’t smile in that provoking way, Mr. Stamford, or I shall think you have brought back unimpaired one of your least amiable traits.”

“Forgive me, Miss Dacre, for presuming on my part to hint that you do not appear to be cured of what I supposed you would have learned by this time to distrust – an unlimited trust in your less favoured fellow creatures. The men of whom I speak live at free quarters when they travel, are occasionally received on equal terms, and are paid, when they condescend to do work, at the ordinary high rate of wages, viz., from thirty shillings to two pounds per week, with board and lodging.”

“And are they not encouraged to save this? They could soon put by quite a small fortune.”

“Their misfortune is that they never do save. They invariably gamble or drink – generally the latter – till all is gone. Once lapsed, they follow the habits of the uneducated working man with curious fidelity.”

“What a terrible condition! What a terrible country where such things can take place!”

“On the contrary; it is the best land attainable by the confirmed prodigal. In England, I take it, the dissipated, improvident men of their order go rapidly and thoroughly to the bad, passing swiftly out of knowledge. Here they have intervals of wholesome labour and compulsory sobriety, which recruit the constitution and give them opportunity for repentance, if they ever do repent.”

While this conversation was proceeding, Mr. Stamford and Barrington Hope had been having a quiet semi-business talk, and this being concluded, Miss Dacre was persuaded to open the piano, after which Mr. Hope gave them some of the latest Parsifal morceaux fresh from Bayreuth, where he had a musical correspondent, having spent there some of the days of his youth. Music now absorbed all attention for the rest of the evening, everybody being more or less of an amateur; and even Hubert showing that he had not been wholly without the region of sweet sounds by bringing back and displaying two new songs.

“Who played the accompaniments for you, Hubert?” said Linda. “Somebody did, or you couldn’t have learnt them so well.”

“Do you suppose there are no ladies in the ‘Never-Never’ country?” said he. “Quite a mistake. People of culture abound.”

The next day was adjudged by common consent to be spent at Wantabalree. Miss Dacre was anxious to get home, and would by no means consent to stay another day at Windāhgil. Mr. Hope thought he would like to see Wantabalree, of which celebrated station he had heard so much, and to pay his respects to the Colonel. So it was arranged that Hubert should drive Miss Dacre and Linda, while Laura went under Mr. Hope’s guidance in the Windāhgil trap. Mr. and Mrs. Stamford elected to stay at home to take care of the house, and talk quietly over Hubert’s return, personal appearance, prospects, and generally interesting belongings.

Arrived at Wantabalree, the Colonel met them with his usual courteous and hospitable manner. He congratulated Hubert on his safe return from Queensland, and hoped he had not taken up all the good country, as it seemed to him that other people would have to migrate, if the season did not improve.

“Not for another year or two, Colonel, at any rate,” said Hubert, cheerily; “you’ve plenty of water here, and Willoughby must do a little ‘travelling’; anything’s better than throwing up the sponge.”

“I see little else for it,” said the Colonel, who had come to wear an anxious expression. Miss Dacre grew grave as she marked her father’s face, but she controlled herself with an effort, as it seemed to Hubert, and telling Linda to go into the drawing-room and admire her flowers, followed her guests. The men remained outside and lounged into the stable yard, where the horses and traps were being arranged, looking about them, and chatting on indifferent subjects before going to the house.

“What a pretty situation you have here!” said Hope. “The accomplished Mr. Dealerson, of whom I have heard so much, must have been a man of taste. How picturesquely the creek winds round the point near that splendid willow; the elevation is just sufficient, and the flat seems made on purpose for a few fields and the fruit-garden. The view of the distant mountain-range completes the landscape. Capital stabling too.”

“Oh! confound him!” growled Willoughby; “he was sharp enough to see that a smart homestead like this was just the thing to catch ‘new-chum’ buyers. It’s not bad in its way, but I hate the whole thing so, when I think of the price we shall have to pay for it, that I could burn the house down with pleasure.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” said Hope; “it doesn’t do to be hasty in realising in stock matters any more than in purchasing. You and Hubert had better have a good talk over accounts before I leave, and if he can suggest anything, perhaps we may manage to tide over for a while. He’s quite a rising man of business, I assure you.”

“I wish to heaven the governor had remained in Sydney with my sister, and sent me out to Queensland with him,” said the young man; “but it’s too late to think of that now. We must make the best of it. But I won’t stand grumbling here all day, Mr. Hope. Come in and we’ll see if there’s any lunch to be had. ‘Sufficient for the day,’ and so on?”

Hubert had found his way into the drawing-room before this colloquy had ended, and was looking over a collection of Venetian photographs which Miss Dacre had collected during their last visit to that city of the sea.

“I wonder if I shall ever see the Lion of St. Mark again?” she said. “I feel as if we were in another planet.”

“It is difficult to say where we shall all be in a few years’ time,“ said Hubert. ”I am not going to stay here all my life. But you won’t run away from Australia just yet, Miss Dacre?”

“I should think not,” she replied, cheerfully; “matters don’t look like it at present. The doubt in my mind is whether we shall ever be able to leave it. I don’t say that I am dissatisfied, but I should like to see the Old World again before I die.”

“When Willoughby has made his fortune, or other things come to pass, you will be able to go home and do all sorts of fascinating travel,” said Hubert. “We must look forward.”

“I feel certain you are not laughing at me, Mr. Stamford,” she said, fixing her eyes upon him with a wistful expression; “but if I did not know you so well I should suspect it.”

“Nothing, of course, is farther from my thoughts,” said the young man, meeting the gaze with equal directness; “but I really see no reason to doubt your seeing Europe within the next five years, so many changes take place in this Australian world of ours.”

“Hardly such a change as that,” she replied, smiling apparently at the absurdity of the idea; “and now I think I hear the luncheon bell. You must have thought I meant to starve you all.”

That no intention of this kind had actuated the fair hostess was made apparent as they were ushered into the dining-room, a large and handsome apartment wherein the furniture and appointments were in keeping with the general plan of the house. Everybody was in capital spirits; youth and hope were in the ascendant in the majority of the party, and as their conversation became general, everybody seemed as joyous as if Wantabalree were the best paying and the most fortunate station in the district.

“What a lovely place this is altogether!” said Linda. “Mr. Dealerson must have had some good in him after all. If father and Hubert had not been so prejudiced against him, he might have married and settled in the district. I believe he’s not so bad-looking.”

“I should never have come to see you, for one,” said Hubert, “if you had been the lucky girl that carried off such a prize. But I should like to have condemned him to work out this place, with its present stock, in a dry season; that would have been a truly appropriate punishment for his iniquities. The ancients used to think of fitting fellows in another world in their own line. But this savours of shop. Willoughby, did you get any snipe this spring?”

“Made two or three capital bags, but they went off as soon as the weather got dry. Hares are getting plentiful too, and I was going to get up a couple of greyhounds, but all that sort of thing’s knocked on the head now.”

“Oh! nonsense; you mustn’t give up your shooting. ‘Never allow your business to interfere with your pleasure’; we have little enough recreation in Australia. You should have seen the brown quail in the Mitchell grass in our new country. I used to put up bevies of them looking like partridges. I must take some setters up next time.”

“Isn’t the heat very dreadful up there?” inquired Miss Dacre.

“Rather tropical,” said Hubert; “but there is a freshness in the air that carries you through. The mosquitoes and sandflies, are perhaps the worst evils. But with a good pisé house, which you could shut up and keep cool, they might be greatly reduced.”

“Then the blacks; they seem nearly as bad as the North American Indians?”

“Not quite. I suspect ‘Sitting Bull’ or ‘Red Cloud’ would have given us a deal more trouble. Not but what we have to be careful. The best way, I find, is to treat them with perfect justice, to keep your word with them for good or evil. They learn to respect you in the end. After a while we shall have no trouble with them.”

During the afternoon, which was devoted to nothing in particular, a very agreeable arrangement which leaves guests at liberty to amuse themselves as they feel inclined, Hubert found himself in Miss Dacre’s company at the end of the lower walk of the orchard which followed the winding bank of the creek.

The bank was high at this particular spot, having been partially worn away by flood waters, leaving a wide, low shore at the opposite side. A deep pool had been formed, which now gleamed and sparkled in the lowered sun rays. A grand weeping-willow, self-planted, perhaps, in the earliest days of the occupation of the station, shaded it with trailing green streamers.

“Wantabalree is certainly the show station of the district,” said Hubert. “You were fortunate in some respects in having so pleasant a home in which to make your first Australian experiences.”

“I have been very happy here,” said she; “but that will make it all the more painful to leave, as I fear we shall be obliged to do at no distant period. I do not so much care for my own sake, but it will be discouraging to Willoughby, and my father is certain to feel the change more than any of us.”

“Matters look bad, and we are going to have another dry season, I believe,” replied Hubert. “I don’t like these westerly winds, and clouds coming up without rain. Still there is hope.”

“But had we not a drought two years before – just before my father made this purchase?”

“Quite true, but of late years, unfortunately, that has been no reason why another should not follow in quick succession. It is rather unfair of Madre Natura, but there is no help for it.”

“And what shall you do at Windāhgil, for I suppose we shall all be in the same boat?”

“I shall persuade my father to start every sheep he has, with the exception of the best flock, for my new country. The Wantabalree sheep had better take the road too. I must have a talk to Willoughby.”

“Oh, I do so wish you would, Mr. Stamford. I am sure he and papa are growing very troubled about our prospects. Willoughby and I can bear all that may come, but it will be a terrible blow to poor papa.”

“Miss Dacre, if you will permit me to confide in you – I have been concocting a little plot. If carried out it may – I say only it may – perhaps serve to improve the aspect of things. If you thought the Colonel would like to consult with me and Willoughby about the coming difficulty, I should be very glad to make the attempt.”

“Nothing would give my father more pleasure, and, indeed, tend to relieve his mind. I feel certain he has been anxious to consult you, Mr. Stamford, but hardly likes to begin the subject.”

“We must have a council of war then, which will include Mr. Barrington Hope. He is a tower of strength, as I know by experience, and it’s a piece of luck his being here now.”

“We should be grateful to you all the days of our lives, you may be sure, whatever happens, for the interest you have always shown in our welfare. If your advice had been taken in the first instance, all would have been well.” And here the young lady looked at Hubert with such an approving expression of countenance, that he felt as if he could throw up the new country and devote himself to the Sisyphean task of getting Wantabalree out of debt, if only she would promise to repay him by an occasional smile such as this one, the memory of which he felt certain would haunt him for an indefinite period.

“I can’t, of course, guarantee success, but I think I see my way towards lightening the ship and getting steerage way on her.” This nautical simile had probably been derived from his late maritime experiences, and was, perhaps, not altogether appropriate; but Miss Dacre was evidently not by any means in a critical frame of mind, for she again looked approvingly at him, and then led the way to the verandah, where Laura and Willoughby, Mr. Hope and Linda, were apparently having such an animated conversation that they seemed to be trying who could make the most noise.

The principal contention was whether a town or country life was the more wholesome and enjoyable. Laura and Willoughby were in favour of rural felicity, while Linda and Mr. Hope brought all the arguments they could think of in favour of cities – greater stimulation of the intellect, removal of prejudice, leaning towards altruism; in fact, higher general development of the individual. When Miss Dacre arrived, she, being appealed to, in the capacity of referee, unhesitatingly gave her decision in favour of a country life, stating her arguments so clearly that she completely turned the scale, besides causing Hubert the keenest enjoyment by, as he supposed, thus laying bare her own predilections.

After this contest of wits the Colonel appeared on the scene, having returned from his usual afternoon’s ride; and Hubert, with some address, managed to interest him in a discussion on station management, and the probable profits of agriculture, listening with deference to his senior’s ideas and suggestions.