Now it had been crossed; the promised land won—a land of milk and honey as far as they were concerned—of olives and vineyards—all the biblical treasures—no doubt looming in the future.
For this prosperity the discovery of Port Phillip was accountable, conjointly with the lavish, exuberant season. The glorious land of mountain and stream, valley and meadow, laden with pastoral wealth and bursting with vegetation, had been in a manner gifted to them by the gallant, ill-fated Hubert Warleigh. They were all revelling in the intensity of life, forming stations, buying and selling, speculating and calculating, and where was he? Lying at rest beneath the sombre shade of the forest giant, far from even the tread of the men of his race. Left to moulder away, with the fallen denizens of the primeval forest; to fade from men’s minds even as the echo of the surges, as the spring songs of the joyous birds!
It seemed increasingly hard to realise. As he approached the well-known track that led from the main road to Warbrok he could see the very tree near which he had waved a farewell at their first meeting. There was the gate through which they had ridden on the occasion of his second visit, when he had been received on terms of equality by the whole family.
‘How glad I am now that we did that!’ Wilfred told himself. ‘We tried our best to raise him from the slough into which he had fallen, and from no selfish motive; how little we thought to be so richly repaid! One often intends a kindness to some one who dies before it is fulfilled. Then there is unavailing, perhaps lifelong regret. Here it was not so, thank God! And now, home at last——’
Of that happy first evening what description can be given that faintly shall suggest the atmosphere of love and gratitude that enveloped the family, as once more Wilfred sat among them in the well-remembered room? Speech even died away, in that all might revel in an uninterrupted view of the returned wanderer. How improved, though bronzed and weather-beaten, he was after his wayfaring!
‘And to think that Wilfred has returned safe from those dreadful blacks! And oh, poor dear Hubert Warleigh! That fine young man, so lately in this room with us, full of health and strength, and now to know that he is dead—killed by savages—it is too dreadful!’
‘Mamma! mamma!’ said Annabel, sobbing aloud, ‘don’t speak of it. I can’t bear it.’
Here she arose and left the room.
‘She is very sensitive, dear child,’ said Mrs. Effingham. ‘I do not wonder at her feeling the poor fellow’s death. I can’t help thinking about him, as if he were in some way more than an acquaintance.’