Thirty Years in Australia. Ada Cambridge
account of the poor horse, whose master's voice and whip I could hear in the distance behind me from time to time; and I was not at all alarmed. I had prepared myself for the savageness of a savage country. I imagined that this was the sort of thing I should have to get accustomed to. Now and then I sat down to recover breath and to wring my sopping skirts, and to wait for the sound of the cart advancing, after the frequent silences that betokened bogs.
By the way, I hear nothing nowadays of those bogs which, in their various forms, made our winter drives so exciting – the "glue-pots," the "rotten grounds," the "spue-holes," worst of all, indicated by a little bubble-up of clayey mud that you could cover with a handkerchief, but which, if a horse stepped on it, would take his leg to the knee, or to any depth that it would go without breaking. "Made" roads and drainage-works seem to have done away with them this long time, for the other day I met a resident of the locality who did not know, until I told him, what a spue-hole was.
At last it was all silence. I waited for the cart, and it did not come. I called – there was no answer. At the end of an hour – it may have been two or three hours – the situation was the same. What had happened was that the horse was at last in a bog that he could not get out of, and that bog was miles away. I could not go back to see what had happened. I did not know where I was. I conjectured that I had turned off the track somewhere, and that my husband was travelling away from me; that I was lost in the Bush, where I might never be found again – where I should have to spend the night alone, at any rate, in the horrible solitude and darkness and the drenching rain.
Appropriately, in this extremity, and just as dusk was closing in, I heard a splashing and a crashing, and my knight appeared – one of those fine, burly, bearded squatter-men who were not only the backbone of their young country, but everything else that was sound and strong. He drew rein in amazement; I rose from my log and stood before him in the deepest confusion. Finally I explained my plight, and in two minutes all trouble was over. Bidding me stay where I was for a short time longer, he galloped away, and presently returned in a buggy loaded with rugs and wraps, and bore me off to his house somewhere near, telling me that he would return again for my husband, and had sent men to the rescue of the cart and horse, now so buried in the bog that not much more than his head and neck were visible.
Ah, those dear Bush-houses – so homely, so cosy, so hospitable, so picturesque – and now so rare! At least a dozen present themselves to my mind when I try to recall a perfect type, and this one amongst the first, although I never was in it after that night. They were always a nest of buildings that had grown one at a time, the house-father having been his own architect, with no design but to make his family comfortable, and to increase their comfort as his means allowed. And this must have been the golden prime of the squatter class in Victoria, for the free selector had but lately been let loose upon his lands, and the consequent ruin that he prognosticated had not visibly touched him. In the early stages of home-making, his home-life had been rough enough; but there was no roughness in it now, although there was plenty of work, and although the refinements about him were all in keeping with his hardy manliness, his simplicity, and sincerity of character. I used to be much struck by the contrast of his cherished "imported" furniture with its homely setting – the cheval glass and the mahogany wardrobe on the perhaps bare, dark-grey hardwood floor – incongruities of that sort, which somehow always seemed in taste. Never have I known greater luxury of toilet appointments than in some of those hut-like dwellings. In the humblest of them the bed stood always ready for the casual guest, a clean brush and comb on the dressing-table, and easy house-slippers under it. And then the paper-covered canvas walls used to belly out and in with the wind that puffed behind them; opossums used to get in under the roof and run over the canvas ceilings, which sagged under their weight, showing the impression of their little feet and of the round of their bodies where they sat down.
The country-houses become more and more Europeanised, year by year. The inward ordering matches the outward architecture, and, although Australian hospitality has survived the homes that were its birthplaces, one hesitates to present one's self as an uninvited guest at the door with the electric bell and the white-capped maid, who asks, "What name, sir?" when you inquire if the family are at home. There is an off-chance that you may be unwelcome, or, at any rate inopportune, whereas it was impossible to imagine such a thing in what we now lovingly call "the old days."
I came in, an utter stranger, out of the dark night and that wet and boggy wilderness, weary and without a dry stitch on me, to such a scene, such a welcome, as I could not forget in a dozen lifetimes. The door had been flung wide on the approach of the buggy, and I was lifted down into the light that poured from it, and passed straight into what appeared to be the living room of the family, possibly their only one. The glorious log fire of the country – the most beautiful piece of house-furniture in the world – blazed on the snowy white-washed hearth, filling every nook with warmth and comfort; and the young mistress, a new-made mother just up from her bed, in a smart loose garment that would now be called a tea-gown, came forward from her armchair to greet me as if I had been her sister, at the least. The table was spread for the dinner, to which the husband had been riding home when I encountered and delayed him; and what a feature of the charming picture it was! I remember the delicious boiled chicken and mutton curry that were presently set upon it, and how I enjoyed them. But first I was taken into an inner bedroom, to another glowing fire, around which were grouped a warm bath ready to step into, soft hot towels, sponge and soap, and a complete set of my hostess's best clothes, from a handsome black silk dress to shoes and stockings and a pocket-handkerchief. In these I dined, and, retiring early, as she had to do, found a smart nightgown, dressing-gown, and slippers toasting by my fire. And I sank to rest between fine linen sheets, and slept like a top until crowing cocks, within a few feet of me, proclaimed the break of day.
That day was Sunday, and G. had to preach at morning service some eight or nine miles away. So we were early seated at a good breakfast, and a light buggy and a pair of strong, fast horses were brought round, to take us in good time to our destination. Our host himself drove us, and incidentally taught us what Bush driving meant. I remember how we made new roads for ourselves on the spur of the moment to avoid bogs, and how gamely we battled through those that were unavoidable; how we flew over the treacherous green levels that the expert eye recognised as "rotten," where, had the horses been allowed to pause for a moment, they would have sunk and stuck; and how finally we dashed in style into the township and up to the parsonage-gate, where a venerable archdeacon was anxiously looking for the curate whom he had almost given up for lost. The church-bell had not yet begun to ring. In fact, the family were still at breakfast when we arrived.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST HOME
We had to wait in lodgings for a few weeks, during which time we made acquaintance with the place and people.
Our lodgings were very comfortable. Sitting-room and bedroom, with a door between, our other door opening upon a big plot of virgin bush, alive with magpies, whose exquisite carolling in the early hours of the day is the thing that I remember best. There is no bird-song in the world so fresh and cheery. I seldom hear it now, but when I do I am back again, in imagination, at breakfast near that open door, drinking in the sweetness of the lovely September mornings which were the morning of my life. Never had I known such air and sunshine, or such health to enjoy them; and never do I feel so much an Australian as when I go to the Bush again and am welcomed by that fluty note. The spirit of happy youth is in it, and of those "good old times" which we old colonists have so many reasons to regret to-day. No song of English nightingale could strike deeper to my heart.
Speaking of breakfast reminds me of the luxury we lived in, in respect of food. Never was such a land of plenty as this was then, when no one dreamed of butter and beef at what is their market rate this day. We had young appetites, in fine order after the sea-voyage, and the more we ate the better was our landlady pleased. It hurt her as a hostess and housewife to have any dish neglected. And she simply stuffed us with good things; the meal prepared for us two might have served half-a-dozen, and given bilious attacks to all. One mistake only did she make in the arrangement of her bill of fare – she gave us too many quinces; apparently they were a superfluity in her garden, as they have since been in nearly all of ours. At first they were a novel and welcome delicacy, but when we had had them at every meal for weeks – in jam, jelly, tart, pudding, and pie, with cream,