Plain Living

Harold Stamford put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and looked with loving pride into his clear eyes and bold, frank brow. “God in His mercy be thanked for our prosperity, my son!” he said. “May He keep us in health of body and mind, and long preserve us to each other. I feel, also, as if my cup was almost too full. May He aid us to enjoy and use wisely the benefits He has conferred on us!”

The young man turned and wrung his father’s hand silently.

“Great Heaven!” thought Mr. Stamford to himself, as he noted the clear bronzed cheek, the manly, frank impression, the muscular frame of his first-born, the whole figure instinct with the splendid health and graceful vigour of early manhood when developed to maturity amid the wholesome influences of a country life. “What a contrast does he present to Carlo Grandison! Surely I am wise in shielding him from the disturbing forces, the crowding temptations, with which wealth besets mankind. I dislike every aspect of deception, but surely the postponing the dangerous knowledge, which would relieve these children from all necessity for self-denial, is a justifiable exercise of my discretion as the head of the household. It will, it must, I feel convinced, be for their ultimate advantage.”

By the time the train of reflection induced by this consideration had come to an end, the river was forded – tolerably high indeed; so much so as to cause the new domestic some natural misgivings, but the strong, temperate horses breasted the swirling current, and landed them safely, under Hubert’s experienced guidance, upon the pebbly beach of the farther shore.

“So far, so good,” said the charioteer; “we couldn’t have done that yesterday, and it’s not every pair of horses that would fancy all that rushing and bubbling of the stream. Don’t you remember Mr. Round nearly making a mess of it last year at night in this very place, with the governess and all the children too? He had a pretty bad quarter of an hour after he broke his pole. Now look at the grass, that’s something like, isn’t it?”

Mr. Stamford had seen such things before in his pastoral experience. Not for the first time did he look upon the marvellous transformation wrought in “dry country” by forty-eight hours’ rain. But he could not avoid an exclamation of surprise when he gazed around him. Was this the same place – the same country even, which he had driven over so lately to catch the train, with the self-same pair of horses too?

Then the river trickled in a thin rivulet from one pond to another in the wide, half-dry bed of the stream; then the dusty banks were lined with dead sheep; the black-soiled alluvial flat was innocent of grass in root or stalk or living herbage as the trampled dust of a stockyard. Now a thick, green carpet of various verdure covered all the great meadow as far as eye could see, and brought its bright green border to the very verge of the sand and shingle of the river shore.

The half-flood which had resulted from the rainfall nearer the source had swept away the carcases of the sheep and cattle and deposited all saddening souvenirs of the drought amid the reed beds of the lower Mooramah. All was spring-like and splendidly luxuriant, though as yet but in the later autumn season. It was a new land, a new climate, a region recovered from the waste.

CHAPTER VI

In ten minutes Mr. Stamford was deposited safely at the home which he had quitted with such gloomy forebodings, such dreadful doubt and uncertainty. Then he had asked himself, ‘Should he be enabled to call it his own on returning? Was not Ruin’s knell already sounding in his ears?’

A few short weeks had elapsed, and how different was the outlook! When he beheld again the true and tender wife, the loving daughters, the joyful children, his heart swelled nigh to bursting. An unspoken prayer went up to heaven that he might ever remain worthy of the unselfish love, the trusting faith which had been his since first he had acquired a household of his own. How unworthy are the best of men of such treasures – the purest, the richest, which are granted to mortal man!

When his affairs were at the worst, had he not always known where to receive wise counsel, tender consolation, heartfelt sympathy? When a ray of sunshine broke through the cloud-wrack which environed his fortunes, had not a double brilliancy been added to it by those loving hearts which took their colour so readily from his every mood? Now all was joy, peace, magical transformation. The storm-clouds had passed over, the menacing powers had vanished like evil dreams. All was hope and sanguine trust in the future. He was a monarch restored to his throne, a leader once more in front of his faithful band, the head of a household which care and pain, in certain forms, could never more approach.

“So, father, you have deigned to return to us!” said Mrs. Stamford, smiling the bright, loving welcome which had never failed her husband. “We began to think that the ‘pleasures and palaces’ were becoming too much for the ‘home, sweet home’ side of the question. Didn’t we, Laura? But how wonderfully well you look, darling! We are all ready to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Barrington Hope, as it seems he has wrought all these miracles.”

“Yes, indeed, dear old dad,” cried Laura; “I would have put up his image in my bedroom, and done a little private worship if I had had the least idea of what he was like. But you never vouchsafed any sketch of his personal appearance. You haven’t brought a photo, have you? That would be something.”

“Mr. Barrington Hope is a very fine man, pussy, as you will see probably, one of these days – a good deal out of the common in every respect.”

“Young, is he?” queried Linda, who, having climbed on her father’s knee, was patting his face and smoothing his hair. “He isn’t a horrid old man, or married? Good gracious! we never thought of that, did we? Oh! don’t say he is bald or grey, or unromantic. Laura and I would never get over it. We have fixed on him for our hero, like Guy in the Heir of Redclyffe. Surely some one said he was young!”

“He is a good deal more like Philip, but there is nothing of the prig about him, as I fear there was about that estimable young man,” replied her father. “But what does his personal appearance matter, I should like to know?”

“But it does, it matters everything,” returned the enthusiastic damsel. “Oh! he can’t be plain, surely not – after all he has done for us. You mustn’t knock down the romance we have all been building up.”

“He is a very fine man, a few years older than Hubert, that is all. I can’t give any inventory of his features, but he is tall and distinguished looking. Isn’t that enough?”

“Oh! splendid!” Here Linda clapped her hands in childish glee. “Fate is too kind! Our preserver is all that we could wish. Nothing was wanting but that. We are the happiest family in New South Wales – in the world.”

“Amen!” said Mr. Stamford. “Now you may unlock my portmanteau and turn out a few presents I have brought my little girls. I shall be ready for lunch when it comes in, I may venture to remark. The bush air is still keen, I perceive.”

In accordance with his well-studied programme, Mr. Stamford informed his family, in general terms, that the arrangements he had made with Mr. Barrington Hope were of a satisfactory description. That gentleman had behaved most liberally and courteously in all respects. The rain having so fortunately arrived on the top of all this, had enabled him even to improve on his first terms, which were nearly all that could be wished. They would therefore be warranted in allowing themselves a few indulgences such as, had the season continued dry, could not have been so much as thought of.

After lunch, or rather dinner, the mid-day meal being of that unfashionable description, Mr. Stamford and Hubert took a long drive round the run. The appearance of the pastures, as also of the sheep they encountered, was such as to draw forth exclamations of surprise and delight from their possessor.

“I never remember such a season since the year I bought the run,” he remarked to his son. “You were quite a little fellow then, and Laura hardly able to walk. It puts me quite in mind of old times – of the happy days which I thought had fled for ever.”

“Well, please goodness, governor, we’ll knock something out of the old place this year that will make up for past losses. Sheep are rising fast, and, as we can’t help having a fine lambing and a good clip, you’ll see what we’ll rake in. We must put up a new washpen, though, and enlarge the shed a bit. It won’t cost much, as I’ve put a first-rate man on. He’s a Swede, been a ship’s carpenter, and the quickest worker, when he understands what you want done, that I ever saw. Not one of your cabinet-making humbugs who are all day morticing a gate-head. I’ll draw in all the round stuff, and you’ll see how soon we’ll knock it up.”

“All right, my boy; any improvements in reason, only we mustn’t spend all our money before we make it.”

“Trust me for that, dad; you won’t find me spending a penny that can be saved. We shall want no extra hands till shearing time. All the paddocks are right and tight, so the sheep will shepherd themselves, and do all the better, too. How jolly it is to have no bother about water, isn’t it? And what a bit of luck we had that dam in the hill paddock finished just before the rain came.”

“Nothing like doing things at the right time, Hubert,” replied Mr. Stamford, with an air of oracular wisdom. “You had half a mind to leave that same dam till next year.”

“Well, I must confess I hadn’t much heart to go shovelling and picking that gravelly clay – hard as iron – with the weather so hot too, and looking as if rain was never coming again. But you were right to have it done, and now we have the benefit of it. Got a pretty fair paddock of oats in too. It’s coming up splendidly.”

“How did you manage that without a team?”

“Hired a carrier’s for a week or two. He was short of cash, and wanted to spell his bullocks; besides we ripped over the ploughing in no time. Then I made a brush harrow and finished it with the station horses. The main thing was to get in the seed the first break of dry weather, and now we shall have a stack that will last us two years at least.”

“Well done, my boy; dry seasons will come again some day; we must prepare for them, though everything looks so bright, or rather so delightfully cloudy, just now. We shall have to invent a fresh set of proverbs to suit Australia, shall we not, instead of using our old-fashioned English ones?”

“Yes, indeed. Can anything be more ludicrous than ‘Save up for a rainy day?’ ‘Look ahead in case of a dry season,’ should be our motto. This carrier was rather a smart chap, and understood similes. ‘Will that bullock go steady on the near side?’ I asked him the other day. ‘Oh! he’s right,’ he said; ‘right as rain!’ That was something like, wasn’t it? By the bye, dad, you didn’t forget those books of mine, did you?”

“No, my son! I bought a few more in addition. In fact, there’s a box of books coming up by the train.”

“A box of books! Hurrah! What times we shall have, when the evenings get longer. But, I say, dad! isn’t that rather extravagant? You’ll have the mater on to you if you begin to buy books by the box.”

“They will have to last us some time, Hubert; you will find a good deal of stiff reading among them. But if things go well generally, I won’t stint you in books. We must charge them to the rain account this time.”

“I suppose we can save out of something else, but I really have found it hard, the last year or two, to do without a new book now and then. It’s so tantalising to see the names and read the reviews when you’re not able to get them. But of course it couldn’t be helped when things looked so bad.”

“I have a notion, Hubert, that things will never look so bad again. However, we must not be led away by temporary good fortune. Perseverance is, after all, the great secret of success. Without that mere cleverness is misleading, and even mischievous.”

It was so far fortunate for Mr. Stamford, and it certainly made his allotted task the easier, that he had always been somewhat reticent as to business details.

They were subjects concerning which he disliked conversation extremely, so that although he confided in his wife and family as to every change in their pecuniary position, he was wont to ignore special explanation, much more the repetition of detail.

When he announced therefore in general terms, from time to time, to his family that things were going well, and that Mr. Barrington Hope’s financial plan, coupled with that extraordinary advance in the value of pastoral property occasioned by the rain, enabled him to raise the standard of their house-keeping, they were satisfied, and did not press for further information.

Now commenced for Harold Stamford the ideal country life towards which he had always aspired, but from which, latterly, he had been further removed than ever. He enjoyed the advantages of the dweller away from cities without the drawbacks which so often tend to render that idyllic life monotonous and depressing.

He had daily outdoor exercise in sufficient quantity to produce the wholesome half-tired feeling so necessary to repose.

At the same time, he was entirely freed from dominant and engrossing dread, a state of mind which had for years past coloured so large a portion of his waking thoughts. How hard it had been to fall asleep with endless plans coursing through his tired brain, having for their central idea the admitted fact of bankruptcy. How were they to act? What was there to support the family while he sought for employment? Employment, too! To what occupation could he betake himself, now that middle age was reached, and much of the vigour and activity of manhood departed? He had acquired “experience.” There was a grim irony in the expression – of what use would it be to him without capital? A managership of the station of another? True that might be possibly attained after weeks and months of effort, or years, as the case might be.

He was familiar with the appearance of saddened men who haunted the offices of stock-agents and merchants – the waiting-rooms of bankers, the steps of clubs whence their more prosperous comrades walked forth redolent of solvency. He had noticed such men growing shabbier, more hopeless of aspect as the months rolled on. He had heard them alluded to with contemptuous pity as “Poor old So-and-so! Not up to much now, younger and smarter men to be had,” &c. He had wondered whether such might be his fate, whether with his fall he should drag down those beloved ones, who, whatever might be the trials they had undergone together, had always enjoyed the fullest personal freedom and independence.

Such dreary reflections had been his companions in the past – daily, hourly, as well under the light of the sun as in the night watches, when silence lends to every reproach of conscience, every signal of danger, a treble force and distinctness.

In those terrible years of doubt and dread, of ruin and despair, what tragedies had been enacted before his eyes, among his friends and comrades, dwellers in the same region, dependent upon the same seasons, betrayed by the same natural causes! But the other men had not, like him, been shielded by the soft encircling influence of a happy home. A logical mind, a sanguine spirit, combined with a philosophical habit, had perhaps proved his safeguard. However that might be, and Harold Stamford was the last man to boast to himself or to others, his bark had battled with the angry waters while others had become dismal wrecks, or had foundered suddenly and irrevocably.

Despair had written its tale in the chronicles of the district, in reckless deep drinking, in suicide, in brain-ruin.

All these things had he seen and known of. From these and other evils, not less deadly, but of slower effect, had he been preserved.

When he looked around and saw himself on a pinnacle of prosperity, safe in the possession of all that he held most dear – the lands he had so loved – the life of labour and of leisure so happily apportioned, which he had so fully appreciated – the assured position of respect and consideration, which it is not in mortal man wholly to undervalue, he could with difficulty restrain his feelings. His heart swelled with thankfulness to that Supreme Ruler who had so mercifully ordered all matters concerning him and his, and again he vowed so to shape his future life that he might be held in some degree worthy of the blessings which had been showered upon him all unworthy.

This adjustment of ways and means he found nearly as difficult in its way as the former trial. He often smiled to himself as he found what an amount of conscientious reluctance to accept the unwonted plenty he was compelled to combat. Did he effect a surprise of a few rare plants for his flower-loving wife, she would calculate the railway charges, and ask gravely if he was sure he could afford it. Did he order a new riding-habit for Laura, a hat or a summer dress for Linda, they were sure they could make the old ones do for another season. It was interesting to watch the conflict between the natural, girlish eagerness for the new and desirable and the inner voice which had so long cried “refrain, refrain!” in that sorely tried household.

However, in spite of their virtuous resistance, by the exercise of a little diplomacy, Harold Stamford had his way. The garden was dug over, the trees were pruned, the parterre refilled with choice varieties of the old loved flowers that the drought had slain. Even a bush-house and a fernery were managed – put up indeed by the man who had been temporarily retained as gardener, and whom Mrs. Stamford, deeply as she appreciated the enjoyment of once more beholding trim alleys and well-tended beds, could not help regarding in the light of a superfluity.

Then there was the American buggy, a wonderful vehicle, in which so many journeys had been made over roads that were rough or smooth, ways that were short or long, as need was, wherein all the family had been closely packed in the days of their childhood, still strong and serviceable, but woefully deficient in paint and varnish. This family friend, and a friend in need had it been, found its way to the coachmaker’s, whence it issued resplendent, nearly as distinguished in appearance, Mrs. Stamford conceded, as when, in the earlier days of their wedded life, they had been secretly proud of their handsome carriage and well-matched, fast-trotting pair.

“It quite brought back,” she averred, “the old days of love in a cottage, with all their precious memories.”

Gradually, and unobtrusively, was the master of the establishment enabled to compass these and other desirable repairs and refittings. All things that had become shabby were dismissed or replaced after the same piecemeal manner. As time wore on, the process ceased to alarm his wife or children, more especially as, aided by the bounteous season and Hubert’s ceaseless energy, the general prosperity of the station was marked and gratifying.

The increase of the stock was unexampled. The anxious, toilsome period of shearing was passed successfully.

The new washpen answered beyond the most sanguine anticipation. The clip was heavy, and “got up” so as almost to resemble raw silk – a pardonable exaggeration – so free from dust and all contamination had sleepless vigilance and care on Hubert’s part “turned it out.” The crop was as “high as the fence,” Maurice averred, and the haystack, consequently, a colossal and imposing pile of fragrant fodder. The spring was sufficiently showery to lay the dust and keep the matted grass green at the roots. Water was abundant, both “out back” as well as on the frontage. “All went merry as a marriage bell,” and when the last high-piled waggon-load had moved slowly away, on which was imprinted “Windāhgil, First Combing, 348,” with other suggestive and satisfactory legends, Mr. Stamford put his arm round his wife’s waist, and remarked, “My dear, I think a trip to Sydney would do you and the girls so much good. As I am compelled to see Mr. Hope on business, we may as well all go together.”