THE GOLDEN VINEYARD.
On a summer's morning, almost before the dew had left the grass on the
north side of the forest, or the belated opossum had gone to his nest,
in fact just as the East was blazing with its brightest fire, Sam
started off for a pleasant canter through the forest, to visit one of
their out-station huts, which lay away among the ranges, and which was
called, from some old arrangement, now fallen into disuse, "the heifer
station."
There was the hut, seen suddenly down a beautiful green vista in the
forest, the chimney smoking cheerily. "What a pretty contrast of
colours!" says Sam, in a humour for enjoying everything. "Dark brown
hut among the green shrubs, and blue smoke rising above all; prettily,
too, that smoke hangs about the foliage this still morning, quite in
festoons. There's Matt at the door!"
A lean long-legged clever-looking fellow, rather wide at the knees,
with a brown complexion, and not unpleasant expression of face, stood
before the door plaiting a cracker for his stockwhip. He looked pleased
when he saw Sam, and indeed it must be a surly fellow indeed, who did
not greet Sam's honest phiz with a smile. Never a dog but wagged his
tail when he caught Sam's eye.
"You're abroad early this morning, sir," said the man; "nothing the
matter; is there, sir?"
"Nothing," said Sam, "save that one of Captain Brentwood's bulls is
missing, and I came out to tell you to have an extra look round."
"I'll attend to it, sir."
"Hi! Matt," said Sam, "you look uncommonly smart."
Matt bent down his head, and laughed, in a rather sheepish sort of way.
"Well, you see, sir, I was coming into the home station to see if the
Major could spare me for a few days."
"What, going a courting, eh? Well, I'll make that all right for you.
Who is the lady,--eh?"
"Why, its Elsy Macdonald, I believe."
"Elsy Macdonald!" said Sam.
"Ay, yes, sir. I know what you mean, but she ain't like her sister; and
that was more Mr. Charles Hawker's fault than her own. No; Elsy is good
enough for me, and I'm not very badly off, and begin to fancy I would
like some better sort of welcome in the evening than what a cranky old
brute of a hutkeeper can give me. So I think I shall bring her home."
"I wish you well, Matt," said Sam; "I hope you are not going to leave
us though."
"No fear, sir; Major Buckley is too good a master for that!"
"Well, I'll get the hut coopered up a bit for you, and you shall be as
comfortable as circumstances will permit. Good morning."
"Good morning, sir; I hope I may see you happily married yourself some
of these days."
Sam laughed, "that would be a fine joke," he thought, "but why
shouldn't it be, eh? I suppose it must come some time or another. I
shall begin to look out; I don't expect I shall be very easily suited.
Heigh ho!"
I expect, however, Mr. Sam, that you are just in the state of mind to
fall headlong in love with the first girl you meet with a nose on her
face; let us hope, therefore, that she may be eligible.
But here is home again, and here is the father standing majestic and
broad in the verandah, and the mother with her arm round his neck, both
waiting to give him a hearty morning's welcome. And there is Doctor
Mulhaus kneeling in spectacles before his new Grevillea Victoria, the
first bud of which is just bursting into life; and the dogs catch sight
of him and dash forward, barking joyfully; and as the ready groom takes
his horse, and the fat housekeeper looks out all smiles, and retreats
to send in breakfast, Sam thinks to himself, that he could not leave
his home and people, not for the best wife in broad Australia; but then
you see, he knew no better.
"What makes my boy look so happy this morning?" asked his mother. "Has
the bay mare foaled, or have you negotiated James Brentwood's young
dog? Tell us, that we may participate."
"None of these things have happened, mother; but I feel in rather a
holiday humour, and I'm thinking of going down to Garoopna this
morning, and spending a day or two with Jim."
"I will throw a shoe after you for luck," said his mother. "See, the
Doctor is calling you."
Sam went to the Doctor, who was intent on his flower. "Look here, my
boy; here is something new: the handsomest of the Grevilleas, as I
live. It has opened since I was here."
"Ah!" said Sam, "this is the one that came from the Quartz Ranges, last
year; is it not? It has not flowered with you before."
"If Linnaeus wept and prayed over the first piece of English furze
which he saw," said the Doctor, "what everlasting smelling-bottle
hysterics he would have gone into in this country! I don't sympathise
with his tears much, though, myself; though a new flower is a source of
the greatest pleasure to me."
"And so you are going to Garoopna, Sam?" said his father, at breakfast.
"Have you heard, my dear, when the young lady is to come home?"
"Next month, I understand, my dear," said Mrs. Buckley. "When she does
come I shall go over and make her a visit."
"What is her name, by-the-bye?" asked the Doctor.
"Alice!"
So, behold Sam starting for his visit. The very Brummel of
bush-dandies. Hunt might have made his well-fitting cord breeches, Hoby
might have made those black top-boots, and Chifney might have worn them
before royalty, and not been shamed. It is too hot for coat or
waistcoat; so he wears his snow-white shirt, topped by a blue
"bird's-eye-handkerchief," and keeps his coat in his valise, to be used
as occasion shall require. His costume is completed with a cabbage-tree
hat, neither too new nor too old; light, shady, well ventilated, and
three pounds ten, the production, after months of labour, of a private
in her Majesty's Fortieth Regiment of Foot: not with long streaming
ribands down his back, like a Pitt Street bully, but with short and
modest ones, as became a gentleman,--altogether as fine a looking young
fellow, as well dressed, and as well mounted too, as you will find on
the country side.
Let me say a word about his horse, too; horse Widderin. None ever knew
what that horse had cost Sam. The Major even had a delicacy about
asking. I can only discover by inquiry that, at one time, about a year
before this, there came to the Major's a traveller, an Irishman by
nation, who bored them all by talking about a certain "Highflyer" colt,
which had been dropped to a happy proprietor by his mare "Larkspur,"
among the Shoalhaven gullies; described by him as a colt the like of
which was never seen before; as indeed he should be, for his sire
Highflyer, as all the world knows, was bought up by a great
Hunter-river horse-breeder from the Duke of C----; while his dam,
Larkspur, had for grandsire the great Bombshell himself. What more
would you have than that, unless you would like to drive Veno in your
dog-cart? However, it so happened that, soon after the Irishman's
visit, Sam went away on a journey, and came back riding a new horse;
which when the Major saw, he whistled, but discreetly said nothing. A
very large colt it was, with a neck like a rainbow, set into a splendid
shoulder, and a marvellous way of throwing his legs out;--very dark
chestnut in colour, almost black, with longish ears, and an eye so
full, honest, and impudent, that it made you laugh in his face.
Widderin, Sam said, was his name, price and history being suppressed;
called after Mount Widderin, to the northward there, whose loftiest
sublime summit bends over like a horse's neck, with two peaked crags
for ears. And the Major comes somehow to connect this horse with the
Highflyer colt mentioned by our Irish friend, and observes that Sam
takes to wearing his old clothes for a twelvemonth, and never seems to
have any ready money. We shall see some day whether or no this horse
will carry Sam ten miles, if required, on such direful emergency, too,
as falls to the lot of few men. However, this is all to come. Now in
holiday clothes and in holiday mind, the two noble animals cross the
paddock, and so down by the fence towards the river; towards the old
gravel ford you may remember years ago. Here is the old flood, spouting
and streaming as of yore, through the basalt pillars. There stand the
three fern trees, too, above the dark scrub on the island. Now up the
rock bank, and away across the breezy plains due North.
Brushing through the long grass tussocks, he goes his way singing, his
dog Rover careering joyously before him. The horse is clearly for a
gallop, but it is too hot to-day. The tall flat-topped volcanic hill
which hung before him like a grey faint cloud, when he started, now
rears its fluted columns overhead, and now is getting dim again behind
him. But ere noon is high he once more hears the brawling river beneath
his feet, and Garoopna is before him on the opposite bank.
The river, as it left Major Buckley's at Baroona, made a sudden bend to
the west, a great arc, including with its minor windings nearly
twenty-five miles, over the chord of which arc Sam had now been riding,
making, from point to point, ten miles, or thereabouts. The Mayfords'
station, also, lay to the left of him, being on the curved side of the
arc, about five miles from Baroona. The reader may, if he please,
remember this.
Garoopna was an exceedingly pretty station; in fact, one of the most
beautiful I have ever seen. It stood at a point where the vast forests
which surround the mountains in a belt, from ten to twenty miles broad,
run down into the plains and touch the river. As at Baroona, the stream
runs in through a deep cleft in the table land, which here, though
precipitous on the eastern bank, on the western breaks away into a
small natural amphitheatre bordered by fine hanging woods just in
advance of which, about two hundred yards from the river, stood the
house, a long, low building densely covered with creepers of all sorts,
and fronted by a beautiful garden. Right and left of it were the
woolsheds, sheepyards, stockyards, men's huts etc. giving it almost the
appearance of a little village; and behind the wooded ranges begin to
rise, in some places broken beautifully by sheer scarps of grey rock.
The forest crosses the river a little way, so Sam, gradually descending
from the plains to cross, went the last quarter of a mile through a
shady sandy forest tract, fringed with bracken, which leads down to a
broad crossing place, where the river sparkles under tall over-arching
red gums and box-trees; and then following the garden fence, found
himself before a deep cool-looking porch, in a broad neatly-kept
courtyard behind the house.
A groom came out and took his horse. Rover has enough to do; for there
are three or four sheep dogs in the yard, who walk round him on tiptoe,
slowly, with their frills out and their tails arched, growling. Rover,
also, walks about on tiptoe, arches his tail, and growls with the best
of them. He knows that the slightest mistake would be disastrous, and
so manoeuvres till he gets to the porch, where, a deal of gravel having
been kicked backwards, in the same way as the ancients poured out their
wine when they drank a toast, or else (as I think is more probable) as
a symbol that animosities were to be buried, Rover is admitted as a
guest, and Sam feels it safe to enter the house.
A cool, shady hall, hung round with coats, hats, stockwhips; a gun in
the corner, and on a slab, the most beautiful nosegay you can imagine.
Remarkable that for a bachelor's establishment;--but there is no time
to think about it, for a tall, comfortable-looking housekeeper, whom
Sam has never seen before, comes in from the kitchen and curtseys.
"Captain Brentwood not at home, is he?" said Sam.
"No, sir! Away on the run with Mr. James."
"Oh! very well," says Sam; "I am going to stay a few days."
"Very well, sir; will you take anything before lunch?"
"Nothing, thank you."
"Miss Alice is somewhere about sir. I expect her in every minute."
"Miss Alice!" says Sam, astonished. "Is she come home?"
"Came home last week, sir. Will you walk in and sit down?"
Sam got his coat out of his valise, and went in. He wished that he had
put on his plain blue necktie instead of the blue one with white spots.
He would have liked to have worn his new yellow riding-trousers,
instead of breeches and boots. He hoped his hair was in order, and
tried to arrange his handsome brown curls without a glass, but, in the
end, concluded that things could not be mended now, so he looked round
the room.
What a charming room it was! A couple of good pictures, and several
fine prints on the walls. Over the chimneypiece, a sword, and an old
gold-laced cap, on which Sam looked with reverence. Three French
windows opened on to a dark cool verandah, beyond which was a beautiful
flower garden. The floor of the room, uncarpeted, shone dark and
smooth, and the air was perfumed by vases of magnificent flowers, a
hundred pounds worth of them, I should say, if you could have taken
them to Covent-garden that December morning. But what took Sam's
attention more than anything was an open piano, in a shady recess, and
on the keys a little fairy white glove.
"White kid gloves, eh, my lady?" says Sam; "that don't look well." So
he looked through the bookshelves, and, having lighted on "Boswell's
Johnson," proceeded into the verandah. A colley she-dog was lying at
one end, who banged her tail against the floor in welcome, but was too
utterly prostrated by the heat and by the persecution of her puppy to
get up and make friends. The pup, however, a ball of curly black wool,
with a brown-striped face, who was sitting on the top of her with his
head on one side, seemed to conclude that a game of play was to be got
out of Sam, and came blundering towards him; but Sam was, by this time,
deep in a luxurious rocking-chair, so the puppy stopped half way, and
did battle with a great black tarantula spider who happened to be
abroad on business.
Sam went to the club with his immortal namesake, bullied Bennet
Langton, argued with Beauclerk, put down Goldsmith, and extinguished
Boswell. But it was too hot to read; so he let the book fall on his
lap, and lay a-dreaming.
What a delicious verandah is this to dream in! Through the tangled
passion-flowers, jessamines and magnolias, what a soft gleam of bright
hazy distance, over the plains and far away! The deep river-glen
cleaves the table-land, which, here and there, swells into breezy
downs. Beyond, miles away to the north, is a great forest-barrier,
above which there is a blaze of late snow, sending strange light aloft
into the burning haze. All this is seen through an arch in the dark
mass of verdure which clothed the trellis-work, only broken through in
this one place, as though to make a frame for the picture. He leans
back, and gives himself up to watching trifles.
See here. A magpie comes furtively out of the house with a key in his
mouth, and, seeing Sam, stops to consider if he is likely to betray
him. On the whole he thinks not; so he hides the key in a crevice, and
whistles a tune.
Now enters a cockatoo, waddling along confortably and talking to
himself. He tries to enter into conversation with the magpie, who,
however, cuts him dead, and walks off to look at the prospect.
Flop, flop, a great foolish-looking kangaroo comes through the house
and peers round him. The cockatoo addresses a few remarks to him, which
he takes no notice of, but goes blundering out into the garden, right
over the contemplative magpie, who gives him two or three indignant
pecks on his clumsy feet, and sends him flying down the gravel walk.
Two bright-eyed little kangaroo rats come out of their box peering and
blinking. The cockatoo finds an audience in them, for they sit
listening to him, now and then catching a flea, or rubbing the backs of
their heads with their fore-paws. But a buck 'possum, who stealthily
descends by a pillar from unknown realms of mischief on the top of the
house, evidently discredits cocky's stories, and departs down the
garden to see if he can find something to eat.
An old cat comes up the garden walk, accompanied by a wicked kitten,
who ambushes round the corner of the flowerbed, and pounces out on her
mother, knocking her down and severely maltreating her. But the old
lady picks herself up without a murmur, and comes into the verandah
followed by her unnatural offspring, ready for any mischief. The
kangaroo rats retire into their box, and the cockatoo, rather nervous,
lays himself out to be agreeable.
But the puppy, born under an unlucky star, who has been watching all
these things from behind his mother, thinks at last, "Here is some one
to play with," so he comes staggering forth and challenges the kitten
to a lark.
She receives him with every symptom of disgust and abhorrence; but he,
regardless of all spitting, and tail swelling, rolls her over, spurring
and swearing, and makes believe he will worry her to death. Her
scratching and biting tell but little on his woolly hide, and he seems
to have the best of it out and out, till a new ally appears
unexpectedly, and quite turns the tables. The magpie hops up, ranges
alongside of the combatants, and catches the puppy such a dig over the
tail as sends him howling to his mother with a flea in his ear.
Sam lay sleepily amused by this little drama; then he looked at the
bright green arch which separated the dark verandah from the bright hot
garden. The arch was darkened, and looking he saw something which made
his heart move strangely, something that he has not forgotten yet, and
never will.
Under the arch between the sunlight and the shade, bareheaded, dressed
in white, stood a girl, so amazingly beautiful, that Sam wondered for a
few moments whether he was asleep or awake. Her hat, which she had just
taken off, hung on her left arm, and with her delicate right hand she
arranged a vagrant tendril of the passion-flower, which in its
luxuriant growth had broken bounds and fallen from its place above.--A
girl so beautiful that I in all my life never saw her superior. They
showed me the other day, in a carriage in the park, one they said was
the most beautiful girl in England, a descendant of I know not how many
noblemen. But, looking back to the times I am speaking of now, I said
at once and decidedly, "Alice Brentwood twenty years ago was more
beautiful than she."
A Norman style of beauty, I believe you would call it. Light hair, deep
brilliant blue eyes, and a very fair complexion. Beauty and high-bred
grace in every limb and every motion. She stood there an instant on
tiptoe, with the sunlight full upon her, while Sam, buried in gloom,
had time for a delighted look, before she stepped into the verandah and
saw him.
She floated towards him through the deep shadow. "I think," she said in
the sweetest, most musical little voice, "that you are Mr. Buckley. If
so, you are a very old friend of mine by report." So she held out her
little hand, and with one bold kind look from the happy eyes, finished
Sam for life.
Father and mother, retire into the chimney corner and watch. Your day
is done. Doctor Mulhaus, put your good advice into your pocket and
smoke your pipe. Here is one who can exert a greater power for good or
evil than all of you put together. It was written of old,--"A man shall
leave his father and mother and cleave unto his----" Hallo! I am
getting on rather fast, I am afraid.
He had risen to meet her. "And you, Miss Brentwood," he said, "are
tolerably well known to me. Do you know now that I believe by an
exertion of memory I could tell you the year and the month when you
began to learn the harp? My dear old friend Jim has kept me quite AU
FAIT with all your accomplishments."
"I hope you are not disappointed in me," said Alice, laughing.
"No," said Sam. "I think rather the contrary. Are you?"
"I have not had time to tell yet," she said. "I will see how you behave
at lunch, which we shall have in half an hour TETE-A-TETE. You have
been often here before, I believe? Do you see much change?"
"Not much. I noticed a new piano, and a little glove that I had never
seen before. Jim's menagerie o wild beasts is as numerous as ever, I
see. He would have liked to be in Noah's Ark."
"And so would you and I, Mr. Buckley," she answered, laughing, "if we
had been caught in the flood."
Good gracious! Think of being in Noah's Ark with her.
"You find them a little troublesome, don't you, Miss Brentwood?"
"Well, it requires a good deal of administrative faculty to keep the
kitten and the puppy from open collision, and to prevent the magpie
from pecking out the cockatoo's eye and hiding it in the flower bed.
Last Sunday morning he (the magpie) got into my father's room, and
stole thirty-one shillings and sixpence. We got it all back but half a
sovereign, and that we shall never see."
The bird thus alluded to broke into a gush of melody, so rich, full,
and metallic, that they both turned to look at him. Having attracted
attention, he began dancing, crooning a little song to himself, as
though he would say, "I know where it is." And lastly he puffed out his
breast, put back his bill, and swore two or three oaths that would have
disgraced a London scavenger, with such remarkable distinctness too,
that there was no misunderstanding him; so Sam's affectation of not
having caught what the bird said, was a dead failure.
"Mr. Buckley," said she, "if you will excuse me I will go and see about
lunch. Can you amuse yourself there for half an hour?" Well, he would
try. So he retired again to the rocking-chair, about ten years older
than when he rose from it. For he had grown from a boy into a man.
He had fallen over head and ears in love, and all in five minutes,
fallen deeply, seriously in love, to the exclusion of all other
sublunary matters, before he had well had time to notice whether she
spoke with an Irish brogue or a Scotch (happily she did neither).
Sudden, you say: well, yes; but in lat. 34 degrees, and lower, whether
in the southern or northern hemisphere, these sort of affairs come on
with a rapidity and violence only equalled by the thunder-storms of
those regions, and utterly surprising to you who perhaps read this book
in 52 degrees north, or perhaps higher. I once went to a ball with as
free and easy, heart-whole a young fellow as any I know, and agreed
with him to stay half an hour, and then come away and play pool. In
twenty-five minutes by my watch, which keeps time like a ship's
chronometer, that man was in the tragic or cut-throat stage of the
passion with a pretty little thing of forty, a cattledealer's widow,
who stopped HIS pool-playing for a time, until she married the great
ironmonger in George Street. Romeo and Juliet's little matter was just
as sudden, and very Australian in many points. Only mind, that Romeo,
had he lived in Australia, instead of taking poison, would probably have
"Took to drinking ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Baily,"
for full twenty-four hours after the catastrophe.
At least such would have been the case in many instances, but not in
all. With some men these suddenly-conceived passions last their lives,
and, I should be inclined to say longer, were there not strong
authority against it.
But Sam? He saw the last twinkle of her white gown disappear, and then
leant back and tried to think. He could only say to himself, "By Jove,
I wonder if I can ever bring her to like me. I wish I had known she was
here; I'd have dressed myself better. She is a precious superior girl.
She might come to like me in time. Heigh ho!"
The idea of his having a rival, or of any third person stepping in
between him and the young lady to whom he had thrown his handkerchief,
never entered into his Sultanship's head. Also, when he came to think
about it, he really saw no reason why she should not be brought to
think well of him. "As well me as another," said he to himself; "that's
where it is. She must marry somebody, you know!"
Why was she gone so long? He begins to doubt whether he has not after
all been asleep and dreaming. There she comes again, however, for the
arch under the creepers is darkened again, and he looks up with a
pleasant smile upon his face to greet her.
"God save us! What imp's trick is this?" There, in the porch, in the
bright sun, where she stood not an hour ago in all her beauty and
grace, stands a hideous, old savage, black as Tophet, grinning; showing
the sharp gap-teeth in her apish jaws, her lean legs shaking with old
age and rheumatism.
The colley shakes out her frill, and, raising the hair all down her
back, stands grinning and snarling, while her puppy barks pot-valiantly
between her legs. The little kangaroo rats ensconce themselves once
more in their box, and gaze out amazed from their bright little eyes.
The cockatoo hooks and clambers up to a safe place in the trellis, and
Sam, after standing thunder-struck for a moment, asks, what she wants?
"Make a light," [Note: "See"] says the old girl, in a pathetic squeak.
Further answer she makes none, but squats down outside, and begins a
petulant whine: sure sign that she has a tale of woe to unfold, and is
going to ask for something.
"Can that creature," thinks Sam, "be of the same species as the
beautiful Alice Brentwood? Surely not! There seems as much difference
between them as between an angel and an ordinary good woman." Hard to
believe, truly, Sam: but perhaps, in some of the great European cities,
or even nearer home, in some of the prison barracks, you may chance to
find a white woman or two fallen as low as that poor, starved,
ill-treated, filthy old savage!
Alice comes out once more, and brings sunshine with her. She goes up to
the old lubra with a look of divine compassion on her beautiful face;
the old woman's whine grows louder as she rocks herself to and fro.
"Yah marah, Yah boorah, Oh boora Yah! Yah Ma!"
"What! old Sally!" says the beautiful girl. "What is the matter? Have
you been getting waddy again?"
"Baal!" says she, with a petulant burst of grief.
"What is it, then?" says Alice. "Where is the gown I gave you?"
Alice had evidently vibrated the right chord. The "Yarah Moorah"
coronach was begun again; and then suddenly, as if her indignation had
burst bounds, she started off with a shrillness and rapidity
astonishing to one not accustomed to black-fellows, into something like
the following: "Oh Yah (very loud), oh Mah! Barkmaburrawurrah,
Barkmamurrahwurrah, Oh Ya Barkmanurrawah Yee (in a scream. Then a
pause). Oh Mooroo (pause). Oh hinaray (pause). Oh Barknamurrwurrah Yee!"
Alice looked as if she understood every word of it, and waited till the
poor old soul had "blown off the steam," and then asked again:
"And what has become of the gown, Sally?"
"Oh dear! Young lubra Betty (big thief that one) tear it up and stick
it along a fire. Oh, plenty cold this old woman. Oh, plenty hungry this
old woman. Oh, Yarah Moorah," &c.
"There! go round to the kitchen," said Alice, "and get something to
eat. Is it not abominable, Mr. Buckley? I cannot give anything to this
old woman but the young lubras take it from her. However, I will 'put
the screw on them.' They shall have nothing from me till they treat her
better. It goes to my heart to see a woman of that age, with nothing to
look forward to but kicks and blows. I have tried hard to make her
understand something of the next world: but I can't get it out of her
head that when she dies she will go across the water and come back a
young white woman with plenty of money. Mr. Sandford, the missionary,
says he has never found one who could be made to comprehend the
existence of God. However, I came to call you to lunch; will you give
me your arm?"
Such a self-possessed, intrepid little maiden, not a bit afraid of him,
but seeming to understand and trust him so thoroughly. Not all the
mock-modesty and blushing in the world would have won him half so
surely, as did her bold, quiet, honest look. Although a very young man,
and an inexperienced, Sam could see what a candid, honest, gentle soul
looked at him from those kind blue eyes; and she, too, saw something in
Sam's broad noble face which attracted her marvellously, and in all
innocence she told him so, plump and plain, as they were going into the
house.
"I fancy I shall like you very much, Mr. Buckley. We ought to be good
friends, you know; your father saved the lives of my father and uncle."
"I never heard of that before," said Sam.
"I dare say not," said Alice. "Your father is not the man to speak of
his own noble deeds; yet he ran out of his square and pulled my father
and uncle almost from under the hoofs of the French cavalry at
Waterloo. It makes my cheeks tingle to tell of it now."
Indeed it did. Sam thought that if it brought such a beautiful flush to
her face, and such a flash from her eyes, whenever she told it, that he
would get her to tell it again more than once.
But lunch! Don't let us starve our new pair of turtle-doves, in the
outset. Sam is but a growing lad; and needs carbon for his muscles,
lime for his bones, and all that sort of thing; a glass of wine won't
do him any harm either, and let us hope that his new passion is not of
such lamentable sort as to prevent his using a knife and fork with
credit and satisfaction to himself.
Here, in the dark, cool parlour, stands a banquet for the gods, white
damask, pretty bright china, and clean silver. In the corner of the
table is a frosted claret-jug, standing, with freezing politeness,
upright, his hand on his hip, waiting to be poured out. In the centre,
the grandfather of watermelons, half-hidden by peaches and
pomegranates, the whole heaped over by a confusion of ruby cherries
(oh, for Lance to paint it!) Are you hungry, though? If so, here is a
mould of potted-head and a cold wild duck, while, on the sideboard, I
see a bottle of pale ale. My brother, let us breakfast in Scotland,
lunch in Australia, and dine in France, till our lives' end.
And the banquet being over, she said, as pleasantly as possible, "Now,
I know you want to smoke in the verandah. For my part, I should like to
bring my work there and sit with you, but, if you had rather not have
me, you have only to say that 'you could not think,' &c. &c., and I
will obediently take myself off."
But Sam didn't say that. He said that he couldn't conceive anything
more delightful, if she was quite sure she did not mind.
Not she, indeed! So she brought her work out, and they sat together. A
cool wind came up, bending the flowers, swinging the creepers to and
fro, and raising a rushing sound, like the sea, from the distant
forest. The magpie having been down the garden when the wind came on,
and having been blown over, soon joined them in a very captious frame
of mind; and, when Alice dropped a ball of red worsted, he seized it as
lawful prize, and away in the house with a hop and a flutter. So both
Sam and Alice had to go after him, and hunt him under the sofa, and the
bird, finding that he must yield, dropped the ball suddenly, and gave
Sam two vicious digs on the fingers to remember him by. But when Alice
just touched his hand in taking it from him, he wished it had been a
whipsnake instead of a magpie.
So the ball of worsted was recovered, and they sat down again. He
watched her nimble fingers on the delicate embroidery; he glanced at
her quiet face and down-turned eyelids, wondering who she was thinking
of. Suddenly she raised her eyes and caught him in the fact. You could
not swear she blushed; it might only be a trifling reflection from one
of the red China roses that hung between her and the sun; yet, when she
spoke, it was not quite with her usual self-possession; a little
hurriedly perhaps.
"Are you going to be a soldier, as your father was?"
Sam had thought for an instant of saying "yes," and then to prove his
words true of going to Sydney, and enlisting in the "Half Hundred."
Truth, however, prompting him to say "no," he compromised the matter by
saying he had not thought of it.
"I am rather glad of that, do you know," she said. "Unless in India,
now, a man had better be anything than a soldier. I am afraid my
brother Jim will be begging for a commission some day. I wish he would
stay quietly at home."
That was comforting. He gave up all thoughts of enlisting at once. But
now the afternoon shadows were beginning to slant longer and longer,
and it was nearly time that the Captain and Jim should make their
appearance. So Alice proposed to walk out to meet them, and, as Sam did
not say no, they went forth together.
Down the garden, faint with the afternoon scents of the flowers before
the western sun, among petunias and roses, oleander and magnolia; here
a towering Indian lily, there a thicket of scarlet geranium and
fuschia. By shady young orange trees, covered with fruit and blossom,
between rows of trellissed vines, bearing rich promise of a purple
vintage. Among fig trees and pomegranates, and so leaving the garden,
along the dry slippery grass, towards the hoarse rushing river, both
silent till they reached it. There is a silence that is golden.
They stood gazing on the foaming tide an instant, and then Alice said,--
"My father and Sam will come home by the track across there. Shall we
cross and meet them? We can get over just below."
A little lower down, all the river was collected into one headlong
race; and a giant tree, undermined by winter floods, had fallen from
one bank to the other, offering a giddy footway across the foaming
water.
"Now," said Alice, "if you will go over, I will follow you."
So he ran across, and then looked back to see the beautiful figure
tripping fearlessly over, with outstretched arms, and held out his
great brown hand to take her tiny fingers as she stepped down from the
upturned roots on to the soft white sand. He would like to have taken
them again, to help her up the bank, but she sprang up like a deer, and
would not give him the opportunity. Then they had a merry laugh at the
magpie, who had fluttered down all this way before them, to see if they
were on a foraging expedition, and if there were any plunder going, and
now could not summon courage to cross the river, but stood crooning and
cursing by the brink. Then they sauntered away, side by side, along the
sandy track, among the knolls of braken, with the sunlit boughs
whispering knowingly to one another in the evening breeze as they
passed beneath.--An evening walk long remembered by both of them.
"Oh see ye not that pleasant road,
That winds along the ferny brae?
Oh that's the road to fairy land,
Where thou and I this e'en must gae."
"And so you cannot remember England, Mr. Buckley?" says Alice.
"Oh dear, no. Stay though, I am speaking too fast. I can remember some
few places. I remember a steep, red road, that led up to the church,
and have some dim recollection of a vast grey building, with a dark
porch, which must have been the church itself. I can see too, at this
moment, a broad green flat, beside a creek, which was covered with
yellow and purple flowers, which mother and I made into nosegays. That
must be the place my father speaks of as the Hatherleigh Meadows, where
he used to go fishing, and, although I must have been there often, yet
I can only remember it on one occasion, when he emptied out a basket of
fish on the grass for me to look at. My impression of England is, that
everything was of a brighter colour than here; and they tell me I am
right."
"A glorious country," said Alice; "what would I give to see it?--so
ancient and venerable, and yet so amazingly young and vigorous. It
seems like a waste of existence for a man to stay here tending sheep,
when his birthright is that of an Englishman: the right to move among
his peers, and find his fit place in the greatest empire in the world.
Never had any woman such a noble destiny before her as this young lady
who has just ascended the throne."
But the conversation changed here, and her Majesty escaped criticism
for the time. They came to an open space in the forest, thickly grown
with thickets of bracken fern, prickly acacia, and here and there a
solitary dark-foliaged lightwood. In the centre rose a few blackened
posts, the supports of what had once been a hut, and as you looked, you
were surprised to see an English rose or two, flowering among the
dull-coloured prickly shrubs, which were growing around. A place, as
any casual traveller would have guessed, which had a history, and Sam,
seeing Alice pause, asked her, "what old hut was this?"
"This," she said, "is the Donovans' old station, where they were burnt
out by the blacks."
Sam knew the story well enough, but he would like to hear her tell it;
so he made believe to have heard some faint reports of the occurrence,
and what could she do, but give him the particulars?
"They had not been here a year," she said; "and Mrs. Donovan had been
confined only three days; there was not a soul on the station but
herself, her son Murtagh, and Miss Burke. All day the blackfellows were
prowling about, and getting more and more insolent, and at night, just
as Murtagh shut the door, they raised their yell, and rushed against
it. Murtagh Donovan and Miss Burke had guessed what was coming all day,
but had kept it from the sick woman, and now, when the time came, they
were cool and prepared. They had two double-barrelled guns loaded with
slugs, and with these they did such fearful execution from two
loop-holes they had made in the slabs, that the savages quickly
retired; but poor Miss Burke, incautiously looking out to get a shot,
received a spear wound on her shoulder, which she bears the mark of to
this day. But the worst was to come. The blackfellows mounted on the
roof, tried to take off the bark, and throw their spears into the hut,
but here they were foiled again. Wherever a sheet of bark was seen to
move they watched, and on the first appearance of an enemy, a charge of
shot at a few yards' distance told with deadly effect. Mrs. Donovan,
who lay in bed and saw the whole, told my father that Lesbia Burke
loaded and fired with greater rapidity and precision than her cousin. A
noble woman, I say."
"Good old Lesbia!" said Sam; "and how did it end?"
"Why, the foolish blacks fired the woolshed, and brought the Delisles
upon them; they tried to fire the roof of the hut, but it was raining
too hard; otherwise it would have gone hard with poor Miss Burke. See,
here is a peach-tree they planted, covered with fruit; let us gather
some; it is pretty good, for the Donovans have kept it pruned in memory
of their escape."
"But the hut was not burnt," said Sam; "where did it stand?"
"That pile of earth there, is the remains of the old turf chimney. They
moved across the river after it happened."
But peaches, when they grow on a high tree, must be climbed for,
particularly if a young and pretty girl expresses a wish for them. And
so it fell out, that Sam was soon astride of one of the lower boughs,
throwing the fruit down to Alice, who put them one by one into the
neatest conceivable little basket that hung on her arm.
And so they were employed, busy and merry, when they heard a loud
cheery voice, which made both of them start.
"Quite a scene from 'Paradise Lost,' I declare; only Eve ought to be up
the tree handing down the apples to Adam, and not VICE VERSA. I miss a
carpet snake, too, who would represent the D----, and make the thing
complete.--Sam Buckley, how are you?"
It was Captain Brentwood who had come on them so inaudibly along the
sandy track, on horseback, and beside him was son Jim, looking rather
mischievously at Sam, who did not show to the best of advantage up in
the peach-tree; but, having descended, and greetings being exchanged,
father and son rode on to dress for dinner, the hour for which was now
approaching, leaving Sam and Alice to follow at leisure, which they
did; for Captain Brentwood and Jim had time to dress and meet in the
verandah, before they saw the pair come sauntering up the garden.
"Father," said Jim, taking the Captain's hand. "How would that do?"
"Marvellous well, I should say;" replied the Captain.
"And so I think, too," said Jim. "Hallo! you two; dinner is ready, so
look sharp."
After dinner the Captain retired silently to the chimney-corner, and
read his book, leaving the three young people to amuse themselves as
they would. Nothing the Captain liked so much as quiet, while he read
some abstruse work on Gunnery, or some scientific voyage; but I am
sorry to say he had got very little quiet of an evening since Alice
came home, and Jim had got some one to chatter to. This evening,
however, seemed to promise well, for Alice brought out a great book of
coloured prints, and the three sat down to turn them over, Jim of
course, you know, being in the middle.
The book was "Wild Sports of the East," a great volume of coloured
lithographs, worth some five-andtwenty guineas. One never sees such
books as that now-a-days, somehow; people, I fancy, would not pay that
price for them. What modern travels have such plates as the old
editions of "Cook's Voyages"? The number of illustrated books is
increased tenfold, but they are hardly improved in quality.
But Sam, I think, would have considered any book beautiful in such
company. "This," said Alice, "is what we call the 'Tiger Book'--why,
you will see directly.--You turn over, Jim, and don't crease the pages."
So Jim turned over, and kept them laughing by his simple remarks, more
often affected than real, I suspect. Now they went through the tangled
jungle, and seemed to hear the last mad howl of the dying tiger, as the
elephant knelt and pinned him to the ground with his tusks. Now they
chased a lordly buffalo from his damp lair in the swamp; now they saw
the English officers flying along on their Arabs through the high grass
with well-poised spears after the snorting hog. They have come
unexpectedly on a terrible old tiger; one of the horses swerves, and a
handsome young man, losing his seat, seems just falling into the
monster's jaws, while the pariah dogs scud away terrified through the
grass.
"That chap will be eaten immediately," says Jim.
"He has been in that position ever since I can remember," says Alice;
"so I think he is pretty safe."
Now they are with the British army on the march. A scarlet bar
stretches across the plain, of which the further end is lost in the
white mirage--all in order, walking irresistibly on to the conquest of
an empire greater than Haroun Al Raschid's, so naturally done, that as
you look, you think you see the columns swing as they advance, and hear
the heavy, weary tramp of the troops above the din and shouting of the
cloud of camp-followers, on camels and elephants, which surrounds them.
Beyond the plain the faint blue hills pierce the grey air, barred with
a few long white clouds, and far away a gleaming river winds through a
golden country, spanned with long bridges, and fringed with many a
fantastic minaret.
"How I should like to see that!" said Alice.
"Would you like to be a countess," said Jim, "and ride on an elephant
in a howitzer?"
"Howdah, you goose!" said Alice. "Besides, that is not a countess; that
is one of the soldiers' wives. Countesses don't go to India; they stay
at home to mind the Queen's clothes."
"What a pleasant job for them," said Jim, "when her Most Gracious
Majesty has got the toothache! I wonder whether she wears her crown
under her bonnet or over it?"
Captain Brentwood looked up. "My dear boy," he said, "does it not
strike you that you are talking nonsense?"
"Did you ever see the old King, father?" said Jim.
"I saw King George the Third many times."
"Ah, but I mean to speak to him."
"Once only, and then he was mad. He was sitting up with her Majesty,
waiting for intelligence which I brought. His Royal Highness took the
despatches from me, but the King insisted on seeing me."
"And what did he say, father? Do tell us," said Alice eagerly.
"Little enough, my love," said the Captain, leaning back. "He asked,
'Is this the officer who brought the despatches, York?' And his Royal
Highness said 'Yes.' Then the King said, 'You bring good news, sir; I
was going to ask you some questions, but they are all gone out of my
head. Go and get your supper; get your supper, sir.' Poor old
gentleman. He was a kindly old man, and I had a great respect for him.
Alice, sing us a song, my love."
She sang them "The Burial of Sir John Moore" with such perfect taste
and pathos that Sam felt as if the candle had gone out when she
finished. Then she turned round and said to him, "You ought to like
that song; your father was one of the actors in it."
"He has often told me the story," said Sam, "but I never knew what a
beautiful one it was till I heard you sing it."
All pleasant evenings must end, and at last she rose to go to bed. But
Sam, before he went off to the land of happy dreams, saw that the
little white glove which he had noticed in the morning was lying
neglected on the floor; so he quietly secured and kept it. And, last
year, opening his family Bible to refer to certain entries, now pretty
numerous, in the beginning; I found a little white glove pinned to the
fly-leaf, which I believe to be the same glove here spoken of.