‘Well, they are soft, and yet piercing, which is unusual; but that is all.’
‘On second thoughts I won’t say, lest I might be thought less sensible even than I am. I have no capital to fall back upon in that respect.’
‘You do say such odd things, my dear Annabel. I think you ought to get on with our last duet. You only half know your part.’
That a certain reaction follows hard upon the most unalloyed pleasure is conceded. The dwellers at The Chase recognised a shade of monotony, even of dulness, falling upon their uneventful lives as the friends and visitors departed.
CHAPTER XVI
‘SO WE’LL ALL GO A-HUNTING TO-DAY’
The cheering results of this season of prosperity were not without effect upon the sanguine temperament of Howard Effingham. Prone to dismiss from his mind all darkly-shaded outlines, he was ever eager to develop projects which belong to the enjoyments rather than to the acquisitions of life. Few human beings had commenced with a smaller share of foresight. He required no exhortation to refrain from taking heed for the morrow and its cares. For him they could hardly be said to exist, so little did he realise in advance the more probable evils.
The time had arrived, in his opinion, to dwell less fixedly upon the problem of income. The greater question of cultured living could no longer be neglected. All danger of poverty and privation overtaking the family being removed, Mr. Effingham for some time past had devoted his mind to the assimilation of the lives of himself and his neighbours to those of the country gentlemen of his own land. Something he had already effected in this way. He had received a shipment of pheasants and partridges, which, in a suitable locality, were making headway against their natural enemies. Much of his time was spent, gun in hand, clearing the haunts of the precious Gallinæ from the unsparing dasyurus (the wild cat of the colonists), while Guy’s collection of stuffed hawks had increased notably. Orders had been given to shoot every one that could be seen, from the tiny merlin, chiefly devoted to moths and grasshoppers, to the wedge-tailed eagle eight feet between the wings, discovered on a mighty iron-bark tree, thence surveying the bright-plumaged strangers. Hares, too, and rabbits had been liberated, of which the latter had increased with suspicious rapidity.
Coursing, fishing, shooting, all of a superior description, Howard Effingham now saw with prophetic vision established for the benefit of his descendants at The Chase. They would be enabled to enjoy themselves befittingly in their seasons of leisure, and cadets of the House, when they visited England, would not have to blush for their ignorance of the out-door accomplishments of their kinsfolk. In imagination he saw
The merry brown hares come leaping
Over the crest of the hill,