Rolf Boldrewood - Babes in the Bush

This eventful colloquy concluded, settled daily employment commenced for all the denizens of The Chase. They rose early, and each one attended to the duties allotted by special arrangement. Breakfast over, Wilfred shouldered an axe and marched off with Dick Evans to some forest tree, to be converted into posts and rails for the fast-recovering dairy-yard.

Andrew had betaken himself to the renovation of the orchard and garden with grateful persistence, as he recalled his earlier feats at the English home of the family, duly thankful for the opportunity of exercising his energies in a direction wherein he could show himself capable.

‘It’s gra-and soil,’ he was pleased to observe, ‘and I hae nae doot whatever that I shall be able to grow maist unco-omon vegetables, gin I had some food – that is, manure – to gie the puir things. The trees are sair negleckit and disjaskit, but they’ll come round wi’ care and the knife. The spring is a thocht advanced, as that auld carle Evans has gi’en me to understand. I winna say he’s no auld farrand wi’ a’ the “bush” ways, as they ca’ them, but he’s an awfu’ slave o’ Satan wi’ his tongue – just fearsome. But gin ye’ll put me a fence round this bit park, Maister Wilfred, I’ll show yon folks here that auld Andrew Cargill can grow prize kail in baith hemispheres.’

‘We are going to split some palings before we are done,’ said Wilfred, smiling at the old man’s rounding off of his sentence. ‘Then we’ll pull this old fence down and take in more ground, so that you may exercise your landscape gardening talent.’

‘This bit garden will keep my body employed and my thochts frae unprofitable wanderings, brawly, during this season o’ inexperience. Ye see, Maister Wilfred, it wadna become me, as a pairson o’ reflection, to da-ash presumptuously into a’ matters o’ practice, but they canna haud me to obsairve and gather up the ootcome of thae bush maitters, and bide my time a wee, till the day comes when I can take my place at the laird’s right hand ance mair.’

‘No one will be better pleased than I shall be, Andrew,’ said Wilfred, heartily grasping the hand of his faithful servitor. ‘I’ll no deny that he kens maist things befitting a dweller in the wilderness. The de’il’s aye guid at gifts to his ain folk. But, wae’s me, he’s lightsome and profane abune a’ belief.’

The great event of the year, after all, was the arrival of the drays with the heavy luggage and the furniture reserved from sale.

Joy and thankfulness all too deep for words greeted the welcome wains, promptly unladen, and their inestimable contents brought into the shelter of the wide verandah before unpacking.

‘I never could have believed,’ said Mrs. Effingham, ‘that anything in Australia could have had the power to afford me so much pleasure. The refurnishing of our house at The Chase never produced half such pleasure as I now feel at the prospect of seeing the old tables and chairs, the sideboard, and my dear old davenport again.’

‘And the piano!’ cried Annabel. ‘What a luxury to us, who have been tuneless and songless all these months! Even the morning “scales” would have been better than nothing. I shall really go in for steady practising – I know I never did before. There is nothing like being starved a little.’

‘Starving seems to agree with you in a bodily sense,’ said Rosamond, ‘if I may judge from certain alterations of dresses. But you are right in believing that it gives a wonderful relish for mental food. Look at these two lovely boxes of books. The library was sold, but here are many of our old favourites. How I shall enjoy seeing their faces again!’

‘I am certain Jeanie must have stolen a quantity of things after the sale,’ asserted Beatrice, who had been examining the externals of the packages; ‘bedding and curtains, and every kind of thing likely to be useful. I expect my room will be so like the one at the old Chase that I shall never find out the difference of a morning, till I go downstairs and see the verandahs.’

‘There are no verandahs in England,’ said Guy, who was one of the ‘fatigue party,’ as Dick expressed it. ‘They ought to take a hint from the colonies – stunning places they make on a wet day, or a hot one, I can tell you.’

‘Where shall we tek this sideboard, mem?’ said Dick Evans, with his ultra-respectful, family-servant intonation.

‘Into the dining-room, of course,’ screamed the delighted Annabel. ‘Why, every room in the house will be furnished more or less; it will be quite a palace.’

Willing hands abounded, Mr. Evans in person superintending the opening of the cases, taking care to draw nails in order to fit the boards for future usefulness, so that, very shortly, the whole English shipment was transferred to its final Australian resting-place.

Robinson Crusoe, when he had made the last successful raft-passage and transhipment from the Guinea trader before she went down, could not have been more grateful than our deported friends when the litter and the cases and Dick and Andrew were cleared off, and they were free to gloat over their precious property.

How different the rooms looked! There was an air of comfort and refinement about the well-preserved furniture which was inexpressibly comforting to the ex-dwellers in tents. The large rooms looked perhaps a shade too bare, but in warm climates an Indian non-obtrusion of upholstering is thought becoming. The well-remembered tones of the piano, which glorified an unoccupied corner of the drawing-room, echoed through that spacious apartment, now provided with a carpet almost as good as new, which Jeanie’s provident care had abstracted from the schoolroom at The Chase. The dear old round table was there, ‘out of mother’s morning-room; the engravings from father’s study, particularly those favourite ones of “The fighting Temeraire” and “Talavera” – all were here. When the climbers grew up over the verandah pillars, shading the front windows with the purple masses of the wistaria, there might be a prettier room in Sydney, but in the bush they were sure it was unsurpassed.’

Nor were Andrew and Jeanie devoid of personal interest in the arrival of the treasure-waggons. Certain garden tools and agricultural implements, dear to Andrew’s practical soul, now gladdened his eyes, also a collection of carefully packed seeds. Besides all these, a rigorously select list of necessaries in good order and preservation, once the pride of his snug cottage, came to hand. For days after this arrival of the Lares and Penates, the work of rearrangement proceeded unceasingly. Mrs. Effingham and Rosamond placed and replaced each article in every conceivable position. Annabel played and sang unremittingly. Jeanie rubbed and polished, with such anxious solicitude, that table and chair, wardrobe and sideboard, shone like new mahogany. Beatrice had possessed herself of the bookcase, and after her morning share of housekeeping work was performed, read, save at dinner, without stopping until it was time to go for that evening walk which the sisters never omitted.

Once it fell upon a day that a gentleman rode up in leisurely fashion towards the entrance gate. He was descried before he came within a hundred yards, and some trepidation ensued while the question was considered as to who should take his horse, and how that valuable animal should be provided for.

Mr. Effingham, Guy, and Wilfred were away at the stock-yard, which by this time was reported to be nearly in a state of efficiency. Andrew had disappeared temporarily. The gentleman, for such plainly was his rank, was a stalwart, distinguished-looking personage, sitting squarely, and with something of military pose in his saddle. He was mounted upon a handsome, carefully-groomed hackney. He reined up at the dilapidated garden fence, and after looking about and seeing no appearance of an entrance gate, as indeed that portal had been long blocked up by rails, gathered up his reins, and clearing the two-railed fence with practised ease, rode along the grass-grown path to the front door of the house. At the same moment Dick Evans, who had just arrived with a load of palings, appeared from the rear, and took his horse.