Rolf Boldrewood - Babes in the Bush

‘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 for you and the girls, he never married.’

A few miles only needed to be traversed before Mr. Evans triumphantly drove his team through the gate of the dilapidated garden fence surrounding the front of a large old-fashioned stone mansion, with wide verandah and lofty balcony, supported upon freestone pillars. A stout, elderly woman of decided aspect opened the creaking hall door, and casting a searching glance at Mr. R. Evans, made the strangers welcome.

‘I’m sure I’m very glad to see you, my lady,’ said she, bobbing an antiquated curtsey, ‘and you, sir, and the young ladies and gentlemen. I’ve done all I could to clean up the old barrack of a house; it was that lonesome, and made me frighted with ghosts, as I thought I’d never live to see you all; and Dick here, I knew there was no certainty of, as might have gone to Timor, or the Indies, and never let on a word about it. Please you to come in, my lady.’

‘My old woman’s temper is none of the best, Captain,’ said Dick, stating the fact with philosophical calmness, ‘but I’ll warrant she’s cleaned up as much as any two, and very bad it wanted it when Parson Sternworth brought us over.’

Now that a nearer view was afforded of the demesne and dwelling, it was evident that the place had been long abandoned to natural decay and sordid neglect. The fences were rotten, gapped, or fallen; the orchard, though the aged trees were high out of the reach of browsing cattle, had been used as a convenient species of stock paddock; the climbers, including a magnificent bignonia and a wistaria, the great laterals of which had erstwhile clothed the verandah pillars with beauty and bloom, were broken and twisted. In the rear of the building all the broken bottles and bones of the land appeared to be collected; while, with windows broken, shutters hanging on a single hinge, doors closing with difficulty, or impossible to open, all things told of the recklessness of ruined owners.

Still, in despite of all deficiencies, the essentials of value could not be overlooked. The house, though naked and desolate of aspect, was large and commodious, promising in its shingled roof and massive stone walls protection against the heat of summer, the cold of winter. The deep black mould needed but ordinary culture to respond generously. The offices might be mouldering and valueless, but the land was there, thinly timbered, richly grassed, well adapted for stock of all kinds. And though the gaunt limbs of the girdled trees looked sadly unpicturesque between the front of the house and the lake shore, some had been left untouched, and the grass was all the more richly swarded. The lake itself was a grand indisputable fact. It was deep and fresh, abounding in water-fowl, a priceless boon to dwellers in a climate wherein a lack of rivers and permanent reservoirs is unhappily a distinguishing characteristic.

Let it not be supposed that Wilfred and his mother, the girls and Jeanie were outside the house all this time. Very promptly had Dick unloaded the household stores, pressing all able-bodied persons, including his wife, into the service, until the commissariat was safely bestowed under shelter. His waggon was taken to the rear, his horses unharnessed, and he himself in a marvellously short space of time enjoying a well-earned pipe, and advising Andrew to bestow Daisy’s calf in a dilapidated but still convertible calf-pen, so that his mother might graze at ease, and yet be available for the family breakfast table in the morning.

‘The grass here is fust-rate,’ he said, in a tone of explanation to Andrew. ‘There’s been a lot of rain in spring. It’s a pity but we had a few good cows to milk. It would be just play for you and me and the young master in the mornings. Teach him to catch hold like and learn him the use of his hands.’

‘ Him milk!’ exclaimed Andrew, in a tone of horrified contempt. ‘And yet – I dinna say but if it’s the Lord’s will the family should ha’ been brocht to this strange land, it may be no that wrang that he should labour, like the apostles, “working with his hauns.” There’s guid warrant for’t.’

Meanwhile, inside the house important arrangements were proceeding. The sitting-room, a great, bare apartment, had an ample fireplace, which threw out a genial warmth from glowing logs. There was a large, solid cedar table, which Mrs. Evans had rubbed and polished till the dark red grain of the noble wood was clearly visible. Also a dozen real chairs, as Annabel delightedly observed, stood around, upon which it was possible to enjoy the long-disused comfort of sitting down. Of this privilege she promptly availed herself.

The night-draperies were disposed in the chief bedchamber, though until the arrival of the furniture it was apparent that the primitive sleeping accommodation of the road would need to be continued. Mr. Effingham and his sons were luxuriously billeted in another apartment, where, after their axle-tree experiences, they did not pity themselves.

Andrew and his family were disposed of in the divisions of the kitchen, which, in colonial fashion, was a detached building in the rear. Mr. and Mrs. Evans had, on their previous entry on the premises, located themselves in an outlying cottage (or hut, as they called it), formerly the abode of the dairyman, where their possessions had no need of rearrangement. Even the dogs had quarters allotted to them, in the long range of stabling formerly tenanted by many a gallant steed in the old extravagant days of the colony, when unstinted hospitality and claret had been the proverbial rule at Warbrok.