Babes in the Bush. Rolf Boldrewood
was the last day in coming, but it came at last. Their stay in the old home was protracted until only time was given for the journey to Southampton, where the staunch, old-fashioned wool-ship lay, which was to receive their condensed personal effects and, as it seemed to them, shrivelled-up personalities.
Adieus were said, some with sore weeping and many tears; some with moderate but sincere regret; some with the half-veiled indifference with which any action not affecting their own comfort, interest, or reputation is regarded by a large class of acquaintances. The minor possessions – the carriages, the horses, the library, the furniture – were sold. A selection of the plainest articles of this last requisite, which, the freight being wonderfully low, their chief adviser had counselled them to carry with them, was alone retained.
‘It will sell for next to nothing,’ his last letter had said, ‘judging from my experience after the regiment had “got the route,” and you will have it landed here for less than the price of very ordinary substitutes. Bring all the small matters you can, that may be useful; and don’t leave the piano behind. I must have a tune when I come to see you at Warbrok, and hear Mrs. Effingham sing “Auld Robin Gray” again. You recollect how our old Colonel broke down, with tears rolling over his wrinkled cheeks, when she sang it?’
All was now over. The terrible wrench had been endured, tearing apart those living fibres which in early life are entwined around hearth and home. They had gazed in mournful farewell upon each familiar thing which from childhood’s hour had seemed a portion of their sheltered life. Like plants and flowerets, no denizens of hothouse or simulated tropic clime, but not the less carefully tended from harmful extremes, climatic or social, had the Effingham family grown and flourished. Now they were about to be abandoned to the elemental forces. Who should say whether they would wither under rude blasts and a fiercer sun, or, from natural vigour and inherent vitality, burgeon and bloom beneath the Southern heavens?
Of the whole party, she who showed less outward token of sorrow, felt in her heart the most unresting anguish. To a woman like Mrs. Effingham, reared from infancy in the exclusive tenets of English county life, the idea of so comprehensive a change, of a semi-barbarous migration, had been well-nigh more bitter than death – but for one source of aid and spiritual support, unendurable.
Her reliance had a twofold foundation. The undoubting faith in a Supreme Being, who ordered aright all the ways of His creatures, even when apparently remote from happiness, remained unshaken. Firmly had she ever trusted in that God by whom her former life had been guided. Events might take a mysteriously doubtful course. But, in the wilderness, under leafy forest-arches, beneath the shadow of the gathering tempest, on land or ocean, she would trust in God and her Redeemer. Steadfast and brave of mien, though with trembling lip and sickened heart, she marshalled her little troop and led them on board the stout ship, which only awaited the morrow’s dawn to spread her wings and sweep southward – ever southward – amid unknown seas, until the great island continent should arise from out the sky-line, telling of a land which was to provide them with a home, with friends, even perhaps a fortune. What a mockery in that hour of utter wretchedness did such hope promptings appear!
After protracted mental conflict, no more perfect system of rest can be devised than that afforded by a sea-voyage. Anxiety, however mordant, must be lulled to rest under the fixed conditions of a journey, before the termination of which no battle of life can be commenced, no campaign resumed.
Toil and strife, privation and poverty, labour and luck, all the contending forces of life are hushed as in a trance. As in hibernation, the physical and mental attributes appear to rally, to recruit fresh stores of energy. ‘The dead past buries its dead’ – sorrowfully perchance, and with silent weeping. But the clouds which have gathered around the spirit disperse and flee heavenwards, as from a snow-robed Alp at morning light. Then the roseate hues of dawn steal slowly o’er the silver-pure peaks and glaciers. The sun gilds anew the dark pine forest, the purple hills. Once more hope springs forth ardent and unfettered. Endeavour presses onward to victory or to death.
To the Effingham family came a natural surprise, that, under their circumstances of exile and misfortune, any cheerfulness could occur. The parents possessed an air of decent resignation. But the younger members of the family, after the first days of unalloyed wretchedness, commenced to exhibit the elastic temperament of youth.
The seamanship displayed on the staunch sailing ship commenced to interest them. The changing aspects of sea and sky, the still noon, the gathering storm-cloud, the starry midnight, the phosphorescent fire-trail following the night-path of their bark – all these had power to move the sad hearts of the exiles. And, in youth, to move the heart is to lighten the spirit.
Wilfred Effingham, true to his determination to deliver himself over to every practical duty which might grow out of their life, had procured books professing to give information with regard to all the Australian colonies.
With difficulty he managed, after an extended literary tour involving Tasmania, Swan River, and New Zealand, to distinguish the colony to which they were bound, though he failed to gather precise information regarding the district in which their land was situated. He made out that the climate was mild, and favourable to the Anglo-Saxon constitution; that in mid-winter, flowering shrubs and delicate plants bloomed in spite of the pretended rigour of the season; that the heat in summer was considerable, as far as shown by the reading of the thermometer, but that from the extreme dryness of atmosphere no greater oppressiveness followed than in apparently cooler days in other climates.
‘Here, mother,’ he said, having mastered the latter fact, ‘we have been unconsciously coming to the exact country suited to your health and pursuits. You know how fond of flowers you are. Well, you can have a winter garden now, without the expense of glass or the trouble of hothouse flues; while you can cheat the season by abstaining from colds, which you could never do in England, you know.’
‘I shall be happy to have a little garden of my own, my son,’ she replied, ‘but who is to work in it? We have done for ever, I suppose, with head and under gardeners. You and Guy and everybody will always, I suppose, be at farm-work, or herding cattle and sheep, busy from morning to dark. How glad we shall be to see your faces at night!’
‘It does not follow,’ replied Wilfred, ‘that we shall never have a moment to spare. Listen to what this author says: “The colonist who has previously been accustomed to lead a life, where intervals of leisure and intellectual recreation hold an acknowledged place, must not consider that, in choosing Australia for his home, he has forfeited all right to such indulgences. Let him not think that he has pledged himself to a life of unbroken toil and unremitting manual labour. On the contrary, he will discover that the avocations of an Australian country gentleman chiefly demand the exercise of ordinary prudence and of those rudimentary business habits which are easily acquired. Intelligent supervision, rather than manual labour, is the special qualification for colonial success; and we do not err in saying that by its exercise more fortunes have been made than by the rude toils which are supposed to be indispensable in the life of an Australian settler.”
‘There, mother!’ said the ardent adventurer. ‘That writer is a very sensible fellow. He knows what he is talking about, for he has been ever so many years in Australia, and has been over every part of it.’
‘Well, there certainly seems permission given to us to have a flower-garden for mamma without ruining ourselves or neglecting our business,’ said Rosamond. ‘And if the climate is so beautiful as they say, these dreadful February neuralgia-martyrdoms will be things of the past with you, dearest old lady.’
‘There, mother, what do you say to that? Why, you will grow so young and beautiful that you will be taken for our elder sister, and papa would be ashamed to say you are his wife, only that old gentlemen generally marry young girls nowadays. Then, fancy what a garden we shall have at The Chase – we must call it The Chase, no matter what its present name is. It wouldn’t feel natural for us to live anywhere but at a Chase. It would be like changing our name.’
On board ship there is always abundant leisure for talk and recreation, especially in low latitudes and half calms. The Effinghams, after they had been a month out, began to feel sensibly the cheering effects of total change of scene – the life-breathing