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.”