‘We shall find out ever so many interesting things,’ said Rosamond. ‘I shall never feel thankful enough to that good old Professor Muste for teaching me the small bit of botany that I know. Now, look at this lovely Clianthus, is it not enough to warm the heart of a Trappist? And here is that exquisite purple Kennedya, which ought, in an Australian novel, to be wreathed round the heroine’s hat. Do my eyes deceive me, or is not that a white heath? I must dig it up.’
‘I believe, Rosamond, that you could comfort yourself on Mount Ararat,’ said Annabel. ‘Why, it will be ages before those ducks can be picked and roasted. Oh, Jeanie, Jeanie, can’t we have them before tea-time? I wish I had never seen them.’
‘If you like, you can help me take off the feathers, and spare Jeanie’s everlastingly busy fingers,’ said Beatrice.
Here Annabel looked ruefully at her tiny, delicate hands, with a child’s pout.
‘Oh, it’s no use looking at your pretty hands,’ said the more practical Beatrice. ‘This is the land of work, and all who can’t make themselves useful will be treated like the foolish virgins in the parable. It always makes me smile when that chapter is read. I can fancy Annabel holding out her lamp, with an injured expression, saying, “Well, nobody told me it was time to get ready.”’
‘Beatrice, my daughter,’ said Mrs. Effingham gravely, ‘sacred subjects are not befitting matter for idle talking; dispositions vary, and you may remember that Martha was not praised for her anxiety to serve.’
At mid-day the kettle bubbled on the fire, kindled by the ever-ready Richard, cakes and sandwiches were handed round, the tea – thanks to Daisy – was gratefully sipped.
The sun shone brightly on the green flat, where the horses grazed in peace and plenty. The birds chirped and called at intervals; all Nature seemed glad and responsive to the joyous season of the southern spring.
Thus their days wore on, in peaceful progression, alike free from toil, anxiety, or adventure. The daily stage was accomplished, under Dick’s experienced direction, without mistake or misadventure. The evening meal was a time of rest and cheerful enjoyment, the night’s slumbers refreshing and unbroken.
‘What a delightful country this is! I feel quite a new creature, especially after breakfast,’ exclaimed Annabel one morning. ‘I could go on like this for months, till we reached the other side of the continent, if there is any other side. Will it be as nice as this, I wonder, at Malbrook, or Warbrok, or whatever they call it? Warbrok Chase won’t look so bad on our letters, when we write home. I must send a sketch of it to cousin Elizabeth, with a bark cabin, of course. She will never believe that we have a real house to live in among the backwoods. What sort of a house is it, Dick? Is it thatched and gabled and damp and delightful, with dear little diamond casements like the keeper’s lodge, or is it a horrid wooden barn? Tell me now, there’s a dear old man!’
‘We shall be there, Miss, the day after to-morrer, please God,’ responded Dick with respectful solemnity. ‘Parson Sternworth said I was to say nought about the place, but let it come on you suddent-like. And I’m a man as is used to obey orders.’
‘Very well, you disagreeable old soldier,’ said the playful maiden. ‘I’ll be even with you and the parson, as you call him. See if I don’t.’
‘Sorry to disobleege you, Miss Anniebell,’ said the veteran, ‘but if my old General, Sir Hugh Gough, was to come and say, “Corporal Richard Evans, hand me over the chart of the country,” I should have to tell him that he hadn’t got the counter-sign.’
‘And quite right too, Evans,’ interposed Mr. Effingham, ‘to keep up your good old habits in a new country. Discipline is the soul of the army.’
‘I was allers taught that, sir,’ replied Dick, with an air of military reminiscence which would have befitted a veteran of the Great Frederick. ‘But when we reaches Warbrok my agreement’s out with the Parson, and Miss can order me about all day.’
In spite of Annabel’s asseverations that the party would never reach the spot indicated, and that she believed there never was any such place, but that Dick would lead them into a trackless forest and abandon them, the journey ended about the time specified. A rugged track, indeed, one afternoon tried their patience. The horses laboured, the docile cow limped and lagged, the girls complained, while Andrew’s countenance became visibly elongated.
At length Dick Evans’s wooden facial muscles relaxed, as halting on the hardly-gained hill-top he pointed with his whip-handle, saying simply, ‘There’s Warbrok! So the young ladies and gentlemen can see for theirselves.’
How eagerly did the whole party gaze upon the landscape, which now, in the clear light of the Southern eve, lay softly in repose before them!
The character of the scenery had changed with the wondrous suddenness peculiar to the land in which they had come to dwell. A picture set in a frame of forest and unfriendly thickets! Now before their eyes came with magical abruptness a vision of green slopes, tall groves, and verdurous meadows. It was one of nature’s forest parks. Traces of the imperfect operations of a new country were visible, in felled timber, in naked, girdled trees, in unsightly fences. But nature was in bounteous mood, and had heightened the contrast with the barren region they had over-passed, by a flushed abundance of summer vegetation. This lavish profusion of herb and leaf imparted a richness of colouring, a clearness of tone, which in a less favourable season of the year Warbrok must perceptibly have lacked.
‘Oh, what a lovely, lovely place!’ cried Annabel, transported beyond herself as she stood on tip-toe and gazed rapturously at the scene. ‘Those must be the Delectable Mountains. Dick, you are a Christian hero [the old man smiled deprecatingly], I forgive you on the spot. And there is the house, a real house with two storeys – actually two – I thought there were only cottages up the country – and an orchard; and is that a blue cloud or the sea? We must have turned round again. Surely it can’t be our lake? That would be too heavenly, and those glorious mountains beyond!’
‘That’s Lake William, miss, called after His Gracious Majesty King William the Fourth,’ explained Dick, accurate and reverential. ‘Fourteen miles long and seven broad. You’ll find the house big enough, but it’s a long way from being in good order; and it’s a mercy there’s a tree alive in the orchard.’
‘Oh, never mind, we’ll soon put things to rights, won’t we, mamma? And what splendid creatures those old trees will be when they come out in leaf. I suppose it’s too early in the spring yet?’ continued she.
‘Dead – every one of ’em, miss,’ explained their conductor. ‘They’ve been ring-barked, more’s the pity. They was beauties when I knowed ’em fust, before the blessed tenants was let ruinate everything about the place. I wonder there’s a stone of the house standing, that I do. And now, sir, we’ll get on, and the young ladies can have tea in their own parlour, if my old woman’s made a fire, accordin’ to orders.’
The hearts of the more reflective portion of the party were too full for comment, so Annabel’s chatter was allowed to run on unchecked. A feeling of despondency had been gradually stealing over Howard Effingham and his wife, as for the two last stages they had pictured to themselves the toil of building up a home amid the barren solitudes, such as, in their innocence, they thought their new property might resemble. Now, here was a spot in which they might live out their lives with cheerful and contented minds, thankful that ‘their lines had fallen in pleasant places’; having reason to hope that their children might dwell in peace and prosperity after them.
‘We can never be sufficiently grateful to your dear old friend,’ said Mrs. Effingham. ‘If he had not in the first place written you that letter, Howard, and afterwards acted upon his opinion so boldly, what might have been our fate?’
‘He always used to look after me when we were in the regiment,’ said her husband acquiescingly; ‘I daresay he’ll find a similar pleasure in taking charge of us now. Fortunately