Briton as he was to the core, he had, during the third year of their furlough, been often impatient, often aweary, of an aimless life—that of a gazer, a spectator, a dilettante. Truth to tell, the strong free life of the new world had unfitted him for an existence of a mere recipiency.
A fox-hunter, a fisherman, a fair shot, and a lover of coursing, he yet realised the curious fact that he was unable to satisfy his personal needs by devoting the greater portion of his leisure to these recreations, perfect in accessories and appointments, unrivalled in social concomitants, as are these kingly sports when enjoyed in Britain.
Passionately fond of art, a connoisseur, and erstwhile an amateur of fair attainment, a haunter of libraries, a discriminating judge of old editions and rare imprints, he yet commenced to become impatient of days and weeks so spent. Such a life appeared to him now to be a waste of time. In vain his brother Courtenay remonstrated.
‘I feel, my dear Courtenay, and it is no use disguising the truth to you or to myself, that I can no longer rest content in this little England of yours. It is a snug nest, but the bird has flown over the orchard wall, his wings have swept the waste and beat the foam; he can never again, I fear, dwell there, as of old; never again, I fear.’
‘But why, in the name of all that is exasperating and eccentric, can you not be quiet, and let well alone?’ asked Courtenay, not without a flavour of just resentment. ‘You have money; an obedient, utterly devoted father-in-law, of a species unknown in Britain; a charming wife, who might lead me like a bear, were I so fortunate as to have been appropriated by her; troops of friends, I might almost say admirers—for you must own you are awfully overrated in the county. What in the wide world can urge you to tempt fortune by re-embarkation and this superfluous buccaneering?’
‘I suppose it is vain to try and knock it out of your old head, Courtenay, that there is no more buccaneering in New South Wales than in old South Wales. But, talking of buccaneers, I suppose I am like one of old Morgan’s men who had swung in a West Indian hammock, and seen the sack of Panama; thereafter unable to content himself in his native Devon.
‘You might as well have asked of old Raoul de Neuchamp to go back and make cider in Normandy, after he had fought shoulder to shoulder with Taillefer and Rollo at Hastings, and tasted the stern delight of harrying Saxon Franklins and burning monasteries. I have found a land where deeds are to be done, and where conquest, though but of the forces of Nature, is still possible. Here in this happy isle your lances are only used in the tilt-yard and tournament, your swords hang on the wall, your armour is rusty, your knights fight but over the wine-cup, your ladye-loves are ever in the bowers. With us, across the main, still the warhorse carries mail, the lances are not headless, and many a shrewd blow on shield and helmet rings still.
‘I am in the condition of “The Imprisoned Huntsman”—
‘My hawk is tired of perch and hood,
My idle greyhound loathes his food,