‘If he has none, he is such an old soldier as I have never met,’ said his father mildly. ‘Longer acquaintance will, I suppose, abate his unnatural perfection. But, in any case, we must keep him on until we are sufficiently acclimatised to set up for ourselves.’
‘Quite so, sir! We cannot have our reverend mentor always at beck and call. We want some one here who knows the country and its ways. Guy and I will soon pick up the lie of the land, as he calls it, but at present we are all raw and ignorant together.’
‘Then we had better engage him at once. I suppose he can tell us the proper wages.’
‘Very possibly; but now I think of it, sir, hadn’t you better delegate the executive department to me? Of course to carry out your instructions, but you might do worse than appoint me your responsible minister.’
‘My boy!’ said Effingham, grasping his son’s hand, ‘I should have made the suggestion if you had not anticipated me. I cheerfully yield the management to you, as you will have the laborious part of the work. Many things will need to be done, for which I am unfit, but which you will gradually master. I fully trust you, both as an example to Guy and Selden, and the guardian of your mother and sisters.’
‘As God will help me in my need, they will need no other,’ replied the eldest son. ‘So far I have led a self-indulgent life. But the spur of necessity (you must admit) has been wanting. Now the hour has come. You never refused me a pleasure; trust me to fulfil every duty.’
‘I never have doubted it, my boy! I always knew that higher qualities were latent in your nature. As you say, the hour has come. We were never laggards when the trumpet-call sounded. And now, let us join the family party.’
As they reached the house, from which they had rambled some distance, the sun was two hours high, and the smoke issuing from the kitchen chimney denoted that culinary operations were in progress. At that moment a serviceable-looking dogcart, drawn by a wiry, roan horse, trotted briskly along the track from the main road, and in drawing up, displayed in the driver the welcome presentment of the Rev. Harley Sternworth.
‘How do, Howard? How are you, Wilfred, my boy? Welcome to Warbrok – to Warbrok Chase, that is. I shall learn it in time. Very proper addendum; suits the country, and gratifies the young ladies’ taste. Thought I’d catch you at your first breakfast. Here, Dick, you old rascal – that is, you deserving veteran – take Roanoke.’
The somewhat decided features of the old army chaplain softened visibly as, entering the bare uncarpeted apartment, he descried Mrs. Effingham and her daughters sitting near the breakfast table, evidently awaiting the master of the house. His quick eye noticed at once the progress of feminine adaptation, as well as the marked air of comfort produced with such scanty material.
He must surely have been gratified by the sensation he produced. The girls embraced him, hanging upon his words with eagerness, as on the accents of the recovered relative of the melodrama. Mrs. Effingham greeted him with an amount of warmth foreign to her usual demeanour. The little ones held up their faces to be kissed by ‘Uncle Harley.’
‘We are just going to have our first breakfast,’ said Annabel. ‘Sit down this very minute. Haven’t we done wonders?’
Indeed, by the fresh, morning light, the parlour already looked homelike and attractive. The breakfast table, ‘decored with napery,’ as Caleb Balderstone phrased it, had a delicately clean and appetising appearance. A brimming milk jug showed that the herbage of Warbrok had not been without its effect upon their fellow-passenger from the Channel Islands. A goodly round of beef, their last roadside purchase, constituted the pièce de résistance. A dish of eggs and bacon, supplied by Mrs. Evans, whose poultry travelled with her everywhere, and looked upon the waggon as their home, added to the glory of the repast. A large loaf of fresh bread, baked by the same useful matron, stood proudly upon a plate, near the roadside tea equipage, and a kettle like a Russian samovar. Nor was artistic ornamentation wholly absent. Annabel had fished up a broken vase from a lumber room, which, filled with the poor remnants of the borders, ‘where once a garden smiled,’ and supplemented with ‘wild buttercups and very nearly daisies,’ as she described the native flora, made an harmonious contribution.
Before commencing the meal, as Mr. Effingham took his seat at the head of his own table once more, humble as were the surroundings, his wife glanced at the youngest darling, Blanche. She ran across to a smaller table covered with a rug, and thence lifting off a volume of some weight, brought it to their guest. His eyes met those of his old comrade and of her his life’s faithful companion. The chaplain’s eyes were moistened, in despite of his efforts at composure. What recollections were not summoned up by the recurrence of that simple household observance? His voice faltering, at first, with genuine emotion, Harley Sternworth took the sacred volume, and read a portion, before praying in simple phrase, that the Great Being who had been pleased to lead the steps of His servants to this far land, would guide them in all their ways, and prosper the work of their hands in their new home. ‘May His blessing be upon you all, and upon your children’s children after you, in this the land of our adoption,’ said the good priest, as he arose in the midst of the universal amen.
‘Do you know that it was by no means too warm when I left Yass at daylight this morning? This is called a hot climate. But in our early summer we have frosts sometimes worthy of Yorkshire. Yesterday there was rather a sharp one. We shall have rain again soon.’
‘Oh, I hope not,’ said Annabel. ‘This is such lovely, charming weather. So clear and bright, and not at all too warm. I should like it to last for months.’
‘Then, my dear young lady, we should all be ruined. Rain rarely does harm in this country. Sometimes there are floods, and people who live on meadowlands suffer. But the more rain the merrier, in this country at least. It is a land of contradictions, you know. Your Lake William, here, will never overflow, so you may be easy in your minds, if it rains ever so hard.’
‘And what does my thoughtful young friend, Rosamond, think of the new home?’ inquired the old gentleman, looking at her with affectionate eyes.
‘She thinks, Uncle Sternworth, that nothing better for us all could have been devised in the wide world, unless the Queen had ordered her Ministers to turn out Sir Percy de Warrenne and put us in possession of Old Court. Even that, though Sir Percy is a graceless kinsman, might not have been so good for us, as making a home for ourselves here, out of our own heads, as the children say.’
‘And you are quite satisfied, my dear?’
‘More than satisfied. I am exulting and eager to begin work. In England I suffered sometimes from want of occupation. Here, every moment of the day will be well and usefully employed.’
‘And Miss Beatrice also approves?’
‘Miss Beatrice says,’ replied that more difficult damsel, who was generally held to be reserved, if not proud, ‘she would not have come to Australia if it could have been helped. But having come, supposes she will not make more useless lament than other people.’
‘Beatrice secretly hates the country, I know she does,’ exclaimed Annabel, ‘and it is ungrateful of her, particularly when we have such a lovely place, with a garden, and a lake, and mountains and sunsets, and everything we can possibly want.’
‘I am not so imaginative as to expect to live on mountains and sunsets, and I must confess it will take me a long time to become accustomed to the want of nearly all the pleasures of life, but I suppose I shall manage to bear up my share of the family burdens.’
‘You have always done so hitherto, my dear,’ said Mrs. Effingham; ‘but you are not fond of putting forward your good deeds – hardly sufficiently so, as I tell you.’
‘Some one has run away with Beatrice’s share of vanity,’ said Rosamond. ‘But we must not stay talking all the morning. I am chief butler, and shall have to be chief baker too, perhaps, some day. I must break