Mr. Sternworth was untiring in showing them, in the excursions which Mrs. Effingham and the girls made under his guidance, the beauties of the city. They wandered much in the lovely public gardens, to Mrs. Effingham’s intense delight, whose love of flowers was, perhaps, her strongest taste. They drove out on the South Head road, and duly noted the white-walled mansions, plunged deeply in such luxuriant flower-growth as the Northern strangers had rarely yet beheld. Wonderfully gracious seemed the weather. It was the Australian spring with air as soft and balmy as that of Italy in her fairest hours.
How enjoyable was that halt between two stages of existence! Daily, as they rose from the morning meal, they devoted themselves to fresh rambles around the city, under the chaperonage of the worthy person. They commenced to feel an involuntary exhilaration. The pure air, the bright days, the glowing sun, the pleasant sea-breeze, combined to cause an indefinable conviction that they had found a region formed for aid and consolation.
The streets, the equipages, the people, presented, it is true, few of the contrasts, to their English experience, which a foreign town would have afforded. Yet was there the excitement, strong and vivid, which arises from the first sight of a strange land and an unfamiliar people.
‘This town has a great look of Marseilles,’ said Wilfred, as they loitered, pleasantly fatigued, towards their temporary home in the deepening twilight. ‘The same white, balconied, terraced houses of pale freestone; the southern climate, the same polyglot water-side population, only the Marseilles quay might be stowed away in a hundred corners of this wonderful harbour; and the people—only look at them—have a Parisian tendency to spend their evenings in the streets. I suppose the mildness of the climate tends to it.’
‘This kind of thing, I suppose, strikes you sharply at first,’ said Mr. Sternworth; ‘but my eyes have become so accustomed to all the aspects of my little world, that I cannot see much difference between it and many English places I have known in my day. The variations noted at first have long since disappeared; and I feel as much at home as I used to do at Bideford, when I was quartered there with the old regiment.’
‘But surely the people must be different from what they are in England,’ said Beatrice. ‘The country is different, the trees, the plants—how beautiful many of them are!—and the climate; surely all this must tend to alter the character or the appearance of the people.’
‘It may in a few centuries have that effect, my dear young lady,’ said the old gentleman, ‘but such changes are after the fashion of nature’s workings, imperceptibly slow. You will agree with me in another year, that many old acquaintances in men and manners are to be met with out here, and the rest present only outward points of divergence.’
The days of restful peace had passed. The valuable freight—to them invaluable—having been safely loaded, Mr. Sternworth unfolded the plan which he had arranged for their journey.
‘You are aware,’ he said, ‘that Warbrok Chase, as the young ladies have decided to call your estate, is more than 200 miles from Sydney. It lies 40 miles beyond Yass, which town is distant 180 miles from the Metropolis. Now, although we shall have railways in good time, there is nothing of the sort yet, and the roads are chiefly in their natural state. I would therefore suggest that you should travel in a roomy horse-waggon, comfortably fitted up, taking a tent with you in which to sleep at night. I have procured a driver well acquainted with the country, who knows all the camps and stopping-places, and may be depended upon to take you safely to your journey’s end.’
‘No railways, no coaches,’ said Mr. Effingham; ‘yours is rather a primitive country, Harley, it must be confessed; but you know what is best for us all, and the weather is so mild that none of us can suffer from the bivouac.’