Conflict of opinion in this case resulted in similarity of action, inasmuch as the two unregenerates, conscious that their hour was not yet come, conducted themselves with the immaculate propriety nowhere so apparent as in those Australian labourers who are confessedly saving themselves up for a ‘burst.’
Nothing could have been descried upon this lower earth more deeply impressive than the daily walk of these two ancient reprobates, as Andrew, in his heart, always designated them.
The sun never saw them in bed. Old Tom had his morning smoke while tracking the nightly wandering dairy cows long before that luminary concerned himself with the inhabitants of the district. As day was fairly established, the cows were in the yard, and the never-ending work of milking commenced. Andrew’s northern perseverance was closely taxed to keep pace in the daily duties of the farm with these two swearing, tearing old sinners.
All preliminaries having been concluded, which Mrs. Effingham declared fell but little short of those which preceded their emigration, the grand departure was made for their country town in what might justly be considered to be high state and magnificence.
First of all rode Rosamond and Beatrice on their favourite palfreys. Touching the stud question, Wilfred and Guy had gradually developed the love of horses, which is inseparable from Australian country life. The indifferent nags upon which the girls had taken their early riding lessons had, by purchase or exchange, been replaced by superior animals. Rosamond, whose nerve was singularly good, and whose ‘hands’ had reached a finish rarely accorded to the gentler sex, was the show horsewoman of the family, being entrusted with the education of anything doubtful before the younger girls were suffered to risk the mount. She rode a slight, aristocratic-looking dark bay, of a noble equine family, which, like themselves, had not long quitted the shores of Britain. Discharged from a training-stable upon the charge of unfitness to ‘stay,’ he had fallen into unprofessional hands, from which Wilfred had rescued him, giving in exchange a fat stock-horse and a trifle more ‘boot’ than he was ready to acknowledge. He had been right in thinking that in the delicate head, the light arched neck, the rarely oblique shoulder, the undeniable look of blood, he saw sufficient guarantee for a peerless light-weight hackney. This in despite of a general air of height rather than stability, which caused the severe critics of Benmohr and The She-oaks to speak of him as being unduly ‘on the leg.’
There are some metals which compensate in quality for lack of weight and substance; so among horses we find those which, indomitable of spirit and tireless of muscle, are capable of wearing out their more solidly-built compeers. To such a class belonged ‘dear Fergus,’ as Rosamond always called the matchless hackney with which Wilfred had presented her. Gay and high-couraged, temperate, easy, safe, fast, with a walk and canter utterly unapproachable, the former, indeed, assimilating to the unfair speed of a ‘pacer,’ while the latter was free, floating, graceful, and elastic as that of the wild deer, he was a steed to dream of, to love and cherish in life, to mourn over in death. Many an hour, in the gathering twilight, by the shores of the lake, had Rosamond revelled in, mounted upon this pink of perfection, when Wilfred jumped upon a fresh horse after his day’s work and called upon his sister to come for her evening ride. How anxiously, after the lingering, glaring afternoon, did Rosamond watch for the time which brought the chief luxury of the day, when she lightly reined the deer-like Fergus as he sped through the twilight shadows, over the greensward by the lake shore.
Beatrice had also her favourite, which, though of different style and fashion, was yet an undeniable celebrity. A small iron-grey mare, scarce above pony height, was Allspice, with a great flavour of the desert-born, from which she traced her descent, in the wide nostril, high croup, and lavish action. Guy picked her up at a cattle muster, where he was amazed at seeing the ease with which she carried a thirteen-stone stock-rider through the ceaseless galloping of a day’s ‘cutting-out.’ Asking permission to get on her back, he at once discovered her paces, and never rested till he had got her in exchange for a two-year-old colt of his own, which had attracted the attention of Frank Smasher, the stock-rider in question. Frank, returning with him to Warbrok, roped the colt, the same day putting the breaking tackle on him, and within a week was cutting out cattle, on the Sandy Camp, with no apparent inferiority to the oldest stock-horse there.
Whether Allspice had been broken in after this Mexican fashion is not known, but as she could walk nearly as fast as Fergus, trot fourteen miles an hour, and canter ‘round a cheese-plate,’ if you elected to perform that feat, we must consider that she was otherwise trained in youth, or inherited the talent which dispenses with education. The light hand and light weight to which she was now subjected apparently suited her taste. After a few trials she was voted by the family and all friendly critics to be only inferior to the inimitable Fergus.
Mr. Churbett had volunteered to come over the evening before and accompany the young ladies, as otherwise Guy would have been their only cavalier, Wilfred being absorbed in the grave responsibility of the dogcart and its valuable freight.
This sporting vehicle contained Mrs. Effingham and Annabel, together with an amount of luggage, easily calculable when the possibility of a few picnics, a couple of balls, and any number of impromptu dances are mentioned. Mr. Effingham also, and his sons, found it necessary upon this occasion to look up portions of their English outfit, which they had long ceased to regard as suited for familiar wear.