"_I'LL WRITE A LETTER HOME._"
The summer wore away, autumn came, the harvest was made good, and in
spite of the drought it turned out well; for the paddocks chosen for
agricultural produce seldom lacked moisture, lying as they did on the
low lands near the creek, and on rich ground reclaimed from the scrub.
Our Bushmen were congratulating themselves on the success of their
farming; for the banking account of all three was building itself, so
to speak, slowly, but surely.
Archie was now quite as wealthy as either of his companions; for his
speculations, instigated by his friend Winslow, had turned out well;
so his stock had increased tenfold, and he had taken more pasture to
the westward and north, near where Bob's and Harry's sheep now were;
for Craig's advice had been acted on.
None too soon though; for early in the winter an old shepherd arrived
in haste at the homesteading to report an outbreak of inflammatory
catarrh among the flocks still left on the lower pastures.
The events that quickly followed put Archie in mind of the "dark
days" at Burley Old Farm, when fat beasts were dying in twos and
threes day after day. Sheep affected with this strange ailment lived
but a day or two, and the only thing to do was to kill them on the
very first symptoms of the ailment appearing. They were then just
worth the price of their hides and tallow.
Considering the amount of extra work entailed, and the number of
extra hands to be hired, and the bustle and stir and anxiety caused
by the outbreak, it is doubtful if it would not have been better to
bury them as they fell, skin and all.
This was one of the calamities which Winslow had pointed out to
Archie as likely to occur. But it was stamped out at last. The
sheep that remained were sent away to far-off pastures; being kept
quite separate, however, from the other flocks. So the cloud passed
away, and the squatters could breathe freely again, and hope for a
good lambing season, when winter passed away, and spring-time came
once more.
"Bob," said Archie one evening, as they all sat round the hearth
before retiring to bed, "that fire looks awfully cosy, doesn't it?
And all the house is clean and quiet--oh, so quiet and delightful
that I really wonder anyone could live in a city or anywhere near the
roar and din of railway trains! Then our farm is thriving far beyond
anything we could have dared to expect. We are positively getting
rich quickly, if, indeed, we are not rich already. And whether it be
winter or summer, the weather is fine, glorious sometimes. Indeed,
it is like a foretaste of heaven, Bob, in my humble opinion, to get
up early and wander out of doors."
"Well," said Bob, "small reason to be ashamed to say that, my boy."
"Hold on, Bob, I'm coming to the part I'm ashamed of; just you smoke
your pipe and keep quiet. Well, so much in love am I with the new
country that I'm beginning to forget the old. Of course I'll
always--always be a true Englishman, and I'd go back to-morrow to lay
down my life for the dear old land if it was in danger. But it
isn't, it doesn't want us, it doesn't need us; it is full to
overflowing, and I daresay they can do without any of us. But, Bob,
there is my dear old father, mother, Elsie, and Rupert. Now, if it
were only possible to have them here. But I know my father is wedded
to Burley, and his life's dream is to show his neighbours a thing or
two. I know too that if he starts machinery again he will be
irretrievably lost."
Archie paused, and the kangaroo looked up into his face as much as to
say, "Go on, I'm all attention."
"Well, Bob, if I make a pile here and go home, I'll just get as fond
of Burley as I was when a boy, and I may lose my pile too. It seems
selfish to speak so, but there is no necessity for it. So I mean to
try to get father to emigrate. Do you think such a thing is
possible, Bob?"
"It's the same with men as with trees, Archie. You must loosen the
ground about them, root by root must be carefully taken up if you
want to transplant them and you must take so much of the old earth
with them that they hardly know they are being moved. Sarah, bring
the coffee. As for my own part, Archie, I am going back; but it is
only just to see the old cottage, the dear old woods, and--and my
mother's grave."
"Yes," said Archie, thoughtfully. "Well, root by root you said,
didn't you?"
"Aye, root by root."
"Then I'm going to begin. Rupert and Elsie will be the first roots.
Roup isn't over strong yet. This country will make a man of him.
Bob and you, Harry, can go to bed as soon as you like. I'm going out
to think and walk about a bit. Stick another log or two on the fire,
and as soon as you have all turned in I'll write a letter home. I'll
begin the uprooting, though it does seem cruel to snap old ties."
"Well," said Harry, "thank goodness, I've got no ties to snap. And I
think with you, Archie, that the old country isn't a patch on the
new. Just think o' the London fogs. You mind them, Sarah."
"I does, 'Arry."
"And the snow."
"And the slush, 'Arry."
"And the drizzle."
"And the kitchen beetles, boy. It would take a fat little lot to
make me go back out o' the sunshine. Here's the coffee."
"Keep mine hot, Sarah."
Away went Archie out into the night, out under the stars, out in the
falling dew, and his kangaroo went jumping and hopping after him.
The sky was very bright and clear to-night, though fleece-shaped,
snow-white clouds lay low on the horizon, and the moon was rising
through the distant woods, giving the appearance of some gigantic
fire as its beams glared red among the topmost branches.
There was the distant howling or yelling of dingoes, and the low,
half-frightened bleat of sheep, and there was the rippling murmur of
the stream not far off, but all else was still.
It was two hours before Archie found his way back. The kangaroo saw
him to the door, then went off to curl up in the shed till the hot
beams of the morning sun should lure him forth to breakfast.
And all alone sat Archie, by the kitchen table, writing a letter home
by the light of candles made on the steading.
It was very still now in the house--only the ticking of the clock,
the occasional whirr of some insect flying against the window,
anxious to come into the light and warmth and scratching of the young
man's pen.
Surely the dog knew that Archie was writing home, for presently he
got slowly up from his corner and came and leant his head on his
master's knee, in that wise and kindly way collies have of showing
their thoughts and feelings. Archie must leave off writing for a
moment to smooth and pet the honest "bawsent" head.
Now it would be very easy for us to peep over Archie's shoulder and
read what he was writing, but that would be rude; anything rather
than rudeness and impoliteness. Rather, for instance, let us take a
voyage across the wide, terribly wide ocean, to pay a visit to Burley
Old Farm, and wait till the letter comes.
* * * * * *
"I wonder," said Elsie with a gentle sigh, and a long look at the
fire, "when we may expect to hear from Archie again. Dear me, what a
long, long time it is since he went away! Let me see, Rupert, it is
going on for six years, isn't it?"
"Yes. Archie must be quite a man by now."
"He's all right," said the Squire.
"That he is, I know," said Uncle Ramsay.
"He's in God's good hands," said the mother, but her glasses were so
moist she had to take them off to wipe them; "he is in God's good
hands, and all we can do now is to pray for him."
Two little taps at the green-parlour door and enter the maid, not
looking much older, and not less smart, than when last we saw her.
"If you please, sir, there's a gentleman in the study as would like
to see you."
"Oh," she added, with a little start, "here he comes!"
And there he came certainly.
"God bless all here!" he cried heartily.
"What," exclaimed the Squire, jumping up and holding out his hand,
"my dear old friend Venturesome Vesey!"
"Yes, Yankee Charlie, and right glad I am to see you."
"My wife and children, Vesey. Though you and I have often met in
town since my marriage, you've never seen them before. My brother,
whom you know."
Vesey was not long in making himself one of the family circle, and he
gave his promise to stay at Burley Old Farm for a week at least.
Rupert and Elsie took to him at once. How could they help it? a
sailor and gentleman, and a man of the world to boot. Besides,
coming directly from Archie.
"I just popped into the house the very morning after he had written
the letter I now hand to you," said Captain Vesey. "He had an idea
it would be safer for me to bring it. Well, here it is; and I'm
going straight away out to the garden to smoke a pipe under the moon
while you read it. Friend as I am of Archie's, you must have the
letter all to yourselves;" and away went Vesey.
"Send for old Kate and Branson," cried the Squire, and they
accordingly marched in all expectancy.
Then the father unfolded the letter with as much reverence almost as
if it had been Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Every eye was fixed upon him as he slowly read it. Even Bounder, the
great Newfoundland, knew something unusual was up, and sat by Elsie
all the time.
ARCHIE'S LETTER HOME.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,--It is to you I write first, because I know that
a proposal I have to make will 'take you aback,' as my friend Winslow
would say. I may as well tell you what it is at once, because, if I
don't, your beloved impatience will cause you to skip all the other
parts of the letter till you come to it. Now then, my own old mummy,
wipe your spectacles all ready, catch hold of the arm of your chair
firmly, and tell Elsie to 'stand by'--another expression of
Winslow's--the smelling-salts bottle. Are you all ready? Heave oh!
then. I'm going to ask you to let Rupert and Elsie come out to me
here.
"Have you fainted, mummy? Not a bit of it; you're my own brave
mother! And don't you see that this will be only the beginning of
the end? And a bright, happy end, mother, I'm looking forward to its
being. It will be the reunion of us all once more; and if we do not
live quite under one roof, as in the dear old days at Burley Old
Farm, we will live in happy juxtaposition.
"'What!' you cry, 'deprive me of my children?' It is for your
children's good, mummy. Take Rupert first. He is not strong now,
but he is young. If he comes at once to this glorious land of ours,
on which I am quite enthusiastic, he will get as hardy as a New
Hollander in six months' time. Wouldn't you like to see him with
roses on his face, mother, and a brow as brown as a postage stamp?
Send him out. Would you like him to have a frame of iron, with
muscles as tough as a mainstay? Send him out. Would you like him to
be as full of health as an egg is full of meat? and so happy that he
would have to get up at nights to sing? Then send him here.
"Take poor me next. You've no notion how homesick I am; I'm dying to
see some of you. I am making money fast, and I love my dear, free,
jolly life; but for all that, there are times that I would give up
everything I possess--health, and hopes of wealth--for sake of one
glance at your dear faces, and one run round Burley Old Farm with
father."
This part of Archie's letter told home. There were tears in Mrs.
Broadbent's motherly eyes; and old Kate was heard to murmur, "Dear,
bonnie laddie!" and put her apron to her face.
"Then," the letter continued, "there is Elsie. It would do her good
to come too, because--bless the lassie!--she takes her happiness at
second-hand; and knowing that she was a comfort to us boys, and made
everything cheery and nice, would cause her to be as jolly as the
summer's day is long or a gum tree high. Then, mother, we three
should work together with only one intent--that of getting you and
father both out, and old Kate and Branson too.
"As for you, dad, I know you will do what is right; and see how good
it would be for us all to let Roup and Elsie come. Then you must
remember that when we got things a bit straighter, we would expect
you and mother to follow. You, dear dad, would have full scope here
for your inventive genius, and improvements that are thrown away in
England could be turned to profit out here.
"We would not go like a bull at a gate at anything, father; but what
we do want here is machinery, easily worked, for cutting up and
dealing with wood; for cutting up ground, and for destroying tree
stumps; and last, but not least, we want wells, and a complete system
of irrigation for some lands, that shall make us independent to a
great extent of the sparsely-failing rains of some seasons. Of
course you could tell us something about sheep disease and cattle
plague, and I'm not sure you couldn't help us to turn the wild horses
to account, with which some parts of the interior swarm."
Squire Broadbent paused here to exclaim, as he slapped his thigh with
his open palm:
"By St. Andrews, brother, Archie is a chip of the old block! He's a
true Broadbent, I can tell you. He appreciates the brains of his
father too. Heads are what are wanted out there; genius to set the
mill a-going. As for this country--pah! it's played out. Yes, my
children, you shall go, and your father will follow."
"My dear Elsie and Rupert," the letter went on, "how I should love to
have you both out here. I have not asked you before, because I
wanted to have everything in a thriving condition first; but now that
everything is so, it wants but you two to help me on, and in a year
or two---- Hurrah! for dad and the mum!
"Yes, Elsie, your house is all prepared. I said nothing about this
before. I've been, like the duck-bill, working silently out of
sight--out of your sight I mean. But there it is, the finest house
in all the district, a perfect mansion; walls as thick as Burley Old
Tower--that's for coolness in summer. Lined inside with
cedar--that's for cosiness in winter. Big hall in it, and all the
rooms just _fac-simile_ of our own house at home, or as near to them
as the climate will admit.
"But mind you, Elsie, I'm not going to have you banished to the Bush
wilds altogether. No, lassie, no; we will have a mansion--a real
mansion--in Sydney or Brisbane as well, and the house at Burley New
Farm will be our country residence.
"I know I'll have your answer by another mail, and it will put new
life into us all to know you are coming. Then I will start right
away to furnish our house. Our walls shall be polished, pictures
shall be hung, and mirrors everywhere; the floors shall glitter like
beetles' wings, and couches and skins be all about. I'm rather lame
at house description, but you, Elsie, shall finish the furnishing,
and put in the nicknacks yourself.
"I'm writing here in the stillness of night, with our doggie's head
upon my knee. All have gone to bed--black and white--in the house
and round the Station. But I've just come in from a long walk in the
moonlight. I went out to be alone and think about you; and what a
glorious night, Rupert! We have no such nights in England. Though
it is winter, it is warm and balmy. It is a delight to walk at night
either in summer or winter. Oh, I do wish I could describe to you my
garden as it is in spring and early summer! That is you know, our
garden that is going to be. I had the garden laid out and planted
long before the house was put up, and now my chief delight is to keep
it up. You know, as I told you before, I went to Melbourne with the
Winslows. Well, we went round everywhere, and saw everything; we
sailed on the lovely river, and I was struck with the wonderful
beauty of the gardens, and determined ours should be something like
it. And when the orange blossom is out, and the fragrant verbenas,
and a thousand other half-wild flowers, with ferns, ferns, ferns
everywhere, and a fountain playing in the shadiest nook--this was an
idea of Harry's--you would think you were in fairyland or dreamland,
or 'through the looking-glass,' or somewhere; anyhow, you would be
entranced.
"But to-night, when I walked there, the house--our house you
know--looked desolate and dreary, and my heart gave a big
superstitious thud when I heard what I thought was a footstep on the
verandah, but it was only a frog as big as your hat.
"That verandah cost me and Harry many a ramble into the scrub and
forest, but now it is something worth seeing, with its wealth of
climbing flowering plants, its hanging ferns, and its clustering
marvellous orchids.
"Yes, the house looks lonely; looks haunted almost; only, of course,
ghosts never come near a new house. But, dear Elsie, how lovely it
will look when we are living in it! when light streams out from the
open casement windows! when warmth and music are there! Oh, come
soon, come _soon_! You see I'm still impulsive.
"You, Elsie, love pets. I daresay Bounder will come with you. Poor
Scallowa! I was sorry to hear of his sad death. But we can have all
kinds of pets here. We have many. To begin with, there is little
Diana, she is queen of the station, and likely to be; she is
everybody's favourite. Then there are the collies, and the kangaroo.
He is quite a darling fellow, and goes everywhere with me.
"Our laughing jackass is improving every day. He looks excessively
wise when you talk to him, and if touched up with the end of a brush
of turkey's feathers, which we keep for the purpose, he goes off into
such fits of mad hilarious, mocking, ringing laughter that somebody
has got to pick him up, cage and all, and make all haste out of the
house with him.
"We have also a pet bear; that is Harry's. But don't jump. It is no
bigger than a cat, and far tamer. It is a most wonderful little
rascal to climb ever you saw. Koala we call him, which is his native
name, and he is never tired of exploring the roof and rafters; but
when he wants to go to sleep, he will tie himself round Sarah's
waist, with his back downwards, and go off as sound as a top.
"We have lots of cats and a cockatoo, who is an exceedingly
mischievous one, and who spends most of his life in the garden. He
can talk, and dance, and sing as well. And he is a caution to
snakes, I can tell you. I don't want to frighten you though. We
never see the 'tiger' snake, or hardly ever, and I think the rest are
harmless. I know the swagsmen, and the sundowners too, often kill
the carpet snake, and roast and eat it when they have no other sort
of fresh meat. I have tasted it, and I can tell you, Rupert, it is
better than roasted rabbit.
"I'm going to have a flying squirrel. The first time I saw these
creatures was at night among the trees, and they startled me--great
shadowy things sailing like black kites from bough to bough.
"Kangaroos are cautions. We spend many and many a good day hunting
them. If we did not kill them they would eat us up, or eat the
sheep's fodder up, and that would be all the same.
"Gentleman Craig has strange views about most things; he believes in
Darwin, and a deal that isn't Darwin; but he says kangaroos first got
or acquired their monster hindlegs, and their sturdy tails, from
sitting up looking over the high grass, and cropping the leaves of
bushes. He says that Australia is two millions of years old at the
very least.
"I must say I like Craig very much. He is so noble and handsome.
What a splendid soldier he would have made! But with all his
grandeur of looks--I cannot call it anything else--there is an air of
pensiveness and melancholy about him that is never absent. Even when
he smiles it is a sad smile. Ah! Rupert, his story is a very
strange one; but he is young yet, only twenty-six, and he is now
doing well. He lives by himself, with just one shepherd under him,
on the very confines of civilisation. I often fear the blacks will
bail up his hut some day, and mumkill him, and we should all be
sorry. Craig is saving money, and I believe will be a squatter
himself one of these days. Etheldene is very fond of him. Sometimes
I am downright jealous and nasty about it, because I would like you,
Rupert, to have Etheldene for a wife. And she knows all about the
black fellows, and can speak their language. Well, you see, Rupert,
you could go and preach to and convert them; for they are not half so
bad as they are painted. The white men often use them most cruelly,
and think no more of shooting them than I should of killing an old
man kangaroo.
"When I began this letter, dearest Elsie and old Roup, I meant to
tell you such a lot I find I shall have no chance of doing--all about
the grand trees, the wild and beautiful scenery, the birds and beasts
and insects, but I should have to write for a week to do it. So pray
forgive my rambling letter, and come and see it all for yourself.
"Come you must, else--let me see now what I shall threaten. Oh, I
have it; I won't ever return! But if you do come, then in a few
years we'll all go back together, and bring out dad and the dear
mummy.
"I can't see to write any more. No, the lights are just as bright as
when I commenced; but when I think of dad and the mum, my eyes will
get filled with moisture. So there!
"God bless you all, all, from the mum and dad all the way down to
Kate, Branson, and Bounder.
"ARCHIE BROADBENT, C.O.B.
"p.s.--Do you know what C.O.B. means? It means Chip of the Old
Block. Hurrah!"