Thirty Years in Australia

by Ada Cambridge

THE THIRD HOME

On the 1st of January 1872 G. ceased to be a curate. On the 4th—and with thankfulness, I must confess—we left W—— for our own first parish.

It comes back to me, as if it were yesterday, the departure from Como. One of the numerous kind friends who seemed sorry to part with us lent us a roomy buggy, into which we packed many things besides ourselves—the small treasures of the house that we did not like to entrust to the waggons sent on before us with our modest stock of furniture. The last offerings of fruit and flowers being stowed on the top of these, the last good-byes said, we set off at a quiet pace, and took the whole day to the journey. It was all Bush track amongst the hills, and the weather, for midsummer, was kind. Twice we made a camp in a shady spot, sprawled on the grass while the horse grazed and the billy boiled, and ate our picnic meal luxuriously; and for miles we walked beside and around the buggy, fern hunting and curiosity gathering on behalf of the sister-in-law, whose main interest in Australia was centred in these things. It was our intention to make a holiday of the occasion, and we carried the intention out. But, oh, how tired we were when at last we sighted our destination! That is the moment that I remember best, when we crawled down that break-neck "gap" which was the gateway to our valley, and saw across it on the other side, sitting on a soft slope, with a great blue mountain behind it, the little stone church and parsonage-house which were our bourne. In pity for our worn-out horse, we three elders were afoot, hobbling stiffly and uttering involuntary moans of exhaustion; only the dear baby, from whom we had not had a cry, lay fast asleep in the bottom of the buggy, in no way upset by his adventures.

The picture is before me now, bathed in the last lights of the summer day. It is one of the most beautiful that Australia can show. A newly-arrived bishop, being in the same spot as we were, and also for the first time, said he could not understand how we, having been privileged to live in such a place, had voluntarily left it! for we had left it then, because, as we reminded him, man needs more than scenery to satisfy him in this world. The little township nests in its fertile valley, and from the top of the gap you look down upon it and see no prosaic details, only that it is in itself a detail, completing the charm of the natural scene, the scheme of colour of which the lovely mountain blue is the dominant note—that blue which flames celestial pink in parts when the sun goes down. An awful trap to the amateur Jehu was that gap in those days; we realise it now far better than we did then. A metalled road, cut out of the hillsides and fenced, now winds through it, but it still calls for a good driver and a strong brake. We used to blunder down it, as down a wrecked staircase, in the darkest nights, and think nothing of it; no, although we were shown the spot where a coach, whose horses missed their footing, was hurled down the ravine to utter smithereens with all hands. The fact was that in those days and in that part of the country we had to do these foolhardy things all the time, or we should never have got about at all. When confronted with a tight place—a gully almost as steep as a house wall, or a river which was continually changing its soon-washed-out crossing-place, without putting up a guide post—we just "started in" and chanced it. It was the custom of the country, and the custom which made its drivers what they are, skilful and fearless beyond any in the world, unless we except the Americans, who built the vehicles that we used, the only sort capable of such use as we put them to. I do not remember that we worried in the least over the dangers to life and limb that we saw quite plainly before us; we were too well used to them. Now, when we recall our exploits, we tell each other that nothing would induce us to repeat them.

Descending the Gap for the first time G. led the Bush-horse, which was an old stager if we were not, calmly taking things as they came; and the Bush harness, on which life so often depends, was equal to its responsibilities (the owner was to be trusted to see to that). So we arrived safely at the door of what looked like the principal inn—the place and we were as yet strangers to each other—and there we camped for the night. Beds were our crying need. Everything else had to wait until sleep had recruited us. We were fairly dead beat.

But next morning we were all alive and vigorous again, in a fever of impatience to get home—completely home. The vans with our furniture had not arrived; the parsonage was shut and empty; we had designedly kept ourselves and our movements unannounced, so there was no one to show us the way about. Still, we lost not a moment after breakfast in getting the buggy re-packed, getting the keys of the house and church, and driving thither—through the tiny town, over the bridge spanning the willowy creek, and up the hilly road—firmly resolved to sit down by our own hearthstone forthwith, for good and all. But we always did that. In all our movings and re-furnishings, the first proceeding was to go in ourselves; a shakedown and something to eat, and we set to work from the centre and not from the outside. It is far the best way. And if there is one thing I love more than another it is the whole process of shifting camp—odd as I am sure it must appear: I grudge to miss a bit of it.

What a morning we had! Although the vans had not come, there was plenty to do in examining the premises, planning out rooms, and utilising the contents of the buggy, now put up, with the horse, in our own good brick stables. We were charmed with our house, which was nearly new and very complete in its appointments. Its walls of dressed granite made it very sound and cool; it was papered and painted as well as it could be, and the garden and young orchard were laid out with the same care to have all of the best; while its situation was almost unmatchable. The outlook from the French windows and the verandah outside them down the valley of the town to the Gap beyond, and backwards to the blue range behind, was one of ever-changing but constant beauty; none of our eight Australian homes had a lovelier setting. The brilliance and purity of the mountain air enhanced the complexion of it all, as well as the healthful capacity of the seeing eye. Down that grassy slope to the front gate big bushes of spiræa billowed in the spring; their overlapping wreaths were enormous; their masses of white gleamed right across the valley, visible from the Gap road. Everything one planted seemed to flourish there, and particularly the vineyards on some of the hillsides. Fine wines went out from that little town, to win medals and honourable mentions at the industrial exhibitions of the world. The manufacturer combined the professions of vigneron and doctor—in our time the only doctor for many miles around. He was a German gentleman who had left his country to escape some difficulty connected with military service, and was debarred from returning thither by the knowledge that he would thereby land himself in a fortress. Not that he had any hankerings for the Fatherland; he might have been born where we found him, so attached was he to his little town and the interests he had gathered about him; he lived there for over forty years, I believe, and is buried there, in the hill cemetery above our old home. Cut off as he seemed to be from the intellectual world, he yet kept touch with it; with all the work of his practice and his wine-making, he found time for scientific studies, not reading only, but writing for magazines and newspapers; and his active mind was absolutely free and fearless. Of course he never came to church—his English wife did—but that made no difference in the relations between us. No one was more welcome to the house than he, and his company was the salt that gave savour to the social life of the out-of-the-way little place. In his old age he became an ardent spiritualist, much to my surprise and puzzlement, and he died in that faith. His death was described to me by the doctor who attended him, a mutual friend. The good old man was seized with something which his medical knowledge told him must prove fatal within a given number of hours. He made no fuss or bother about it, and allowed no one else to do so, but chatted cheerfully with his colleague until speech failed him, with no more emotion than if he was preparing to go to bed and to sleep as usual.

His vineyards—doubled and quadrupled as time went on—were carved out of virgin Bush, and that Bush was a paradise for wild flowers and ferns. From creek gullies close by I used to gather armfuls of maiden-hair for church decoration, some fronds of which, measured on the dining-room table, spanned the whole width from side to side. One Christmas Eve I made the church a bower of it; every window was veiled in the green lace. Unfortunately, it was withered by morning—the usual condition of church decorations, on the actual day of festival, in this country.

The church, which we also rummaged over without loss of time, was of a piece with the house. Here we found the same careful arrangements and completeness of equipment, the lack of which in other colonial churches had so much surprised us, coming to them with our English eyes and notions; the stamp of the mind and quality of the first incumbent was plain in every direction (he was an Oxford man, expatriated for his health). A year or two ago I was there again; it and the house had faded and been neglected, and I was struck by the unexpected smallness of them both; but even then they were a pleasant contrast to those at W——, as they were in '72. And regarding the beauty of their situation, I found that memory had played no tricks with the records.

In the middle of our rummagings we realised that we were starving. That air was the hungriest we had ever breathed, and we had no food with us except the baby's. G. was despatched on a foraging expedition to the town, and presently returned with bread, butter, cheese, beer, meat, and a frying pan, together with smaller trifles, all in his own arms and pockets—for he never minds what he carries or where he carries it—the sister-in-law and I having prepared a fire in his absence. Shortly afterwards we enjoyed the meal which stands out amid the records of the past as the meal of my life—my only excuse for mentioning it. Soon the parish woke up to the fact of our presence in its midst, and invitations and offers of assistance poured in upon us; but I am always pleased to think that we got that wonderful scratch lunch first. It is a delicious memory.