There was something of the Robinson Crusoe element in Archie’s present mode of living, for he and his friends had to rough it in the same delightfully primitive fashion. They had to know and to practise a little of almost every trade under the sun; and while life to the boy—he was really little more—was very real and very earnest, it felt all the time like playing at being a man.
But how am I to account for the happiness—nay, even joyfulness—that appeared to be infused in the young man’s very blood and soul? Nay, not appeared to be only, but that actually was—a joyfulness whose effects could at times be actually felt in his very frame and muscle like a proud thrill, that made his steps and tread elastic, and caused him to gaily sing to himself as he went about at his work. May I try to explain this by a little homely experiment, which you yourself may also perform? See, here then I have a small disc of zinc, no larger than a coat button, and I have also a shilling-piece. I place the former on my tongue, and the latter between my lower lip and gum, and lo! the moment I permit the two metallic edges to touch I feel a tingling thrill, and if my eyes be shut I perceive a flash as well. It is electricity passing through the bodily medium—my tongue. The one coin becomes en rapport, so to speak, with the other. So in like manner was Archie’s soul within him en rapport with all the light, the life, the love he saw around him, his body being but the wholesome, healthy, solid medium.
En rapport with the light. Why, by day this was everywhere—in the sky during its midday blue brightness; in the clouds so gorgeously painted that lay over the hills at early morning, or over the wooded horizon near eventide. En rapport with the light dancing and shimmering in the pool down yonder; playing among the wild flowers that grew everywhere in wanton luxuriance; flickering through the tree-tops, despite the trailing creepers; gleaming through the tender greens of fern fronds in cool places; sporting with the strange fantastic, but brightly-coloured orchids; turning greys to white, and browns to bronze; warming, wooing, beautifying all things—the light, the lovely light. En rapport with the life. Ay, there it was. Where was it not? In the air, where myriads of insects dance and buzz and sing and poise hawk-like above flowers, as if inhaling their sweetness, or dart hither and thither in their zigzag course, and almost with the speed of lightning; where monster beetles go droning lazily round, as if uncertain where to alight; where moths, like painted fans, hover in the sunshine, or fold their wings and go to sleep on flower-tops. In the forests, where birds, like animated blossoms, living chips of dazzling colours, hop from boughs, climb stems, run along silvery bark on trees, hopping, jumping, tapping, talking, chattering, screaming, with bills that move and throats that heave even when their voices cannot be heard in the feathered babel. Life on the ground, where thousands of busy beetles creep, or play hide-and-seek among the stems of tall grass, and where ants innumerable go in search of what they somehow never seem to find. Life on the water slowly sailing round, or in and out among the reeds, in the form of bonnie velvet ducks and pretty spangled teal. Life in the water, where shoals of fish dart hither and thither, or rest for a moment in shallows to bask in the sun, their bodies all a-quiver with enjoyment. Life in the sky itself, high up. Behold that splendid flock of wonga-wonga pigeons, with bronzen wings, that seem to shake the sunshine off them in showers of silver and gold, or, lower down, that mob of snowy-breasted cockatoos, going somewhere to do something, no doubt, and making a dreadful din about it, but quite a sight, if only from the glints of lily and rose that appear in the white of their outstretched wings and tails. Life everywhere.
En rapport with all the love around him. Yes, for it is spring here, though the autumn tints are on the trees in groves and woods at Burley. Deep down in the forest yonder, if you could penetrate without your clothes being torn from your back, you might listen to the soft murmur of the doves that stand by their nests in the green gloom of fig trees; you would linger long to note the love passages taking place among the cosy wee, bright, and bonnie parrakeets; you would observe the hawk flying silently, sullenly, home to his castle in the inaccessible heights of the gum trees, but you would go quickly past the forest dens of lively cockatoos. For everywhere it is spring with birds and beasts. They have dressed in their gayest; they have assumed their fondest notes and cries; they live and breathe and buzz in an atmosphere of happiness and love.
Well, it was spring with Nature, and it was spring in Archie’s heart.
Work was a pleasure to him.
That last sentence really deserves a line to itself. Without the ghost of an intention to moralise, I must be permitted to say, that the youth who finds an undoubted pleasure in working is sure to get on in Australia. There is that in the clear, pure, dry air of the back Bush which renders inactivity an impossibility to anyone except ne’er-do-wells and born idiots. This is putting it strongly, but it is also putting it truthfully.
Archie felt he had done with Sydney, for a time at all events, when he left. He was not sorry to shake the dust of the city from his half-wellingtons as he embarked on the Canny Scotia, bound for Brisbane.
If the Winslows had not been among the passengers he certainly would have given vent to a sigh or two.
All for the sake of sweet little Etheldene? Yes, for her sake. Was she not going to be Rupert’s wife, and his own second sister? Oh, he had it all nicely arranged, all cut and dry, I can assure you!