‘You have come back to a land of plenty, my son,’ said Mr. Effingham, ‘as you have doubtless observed. If you had known that such rain was to fall, it might have saved you all the journey.’
‘My dear sir,’ answered Wilfred, ‘don’t flatter yourself that, myself excepted, one of our old society will be contented to live here again. The land we have reached opens out such an extensive field that no sane man would think of staying away from it. Rockley will follow, and half Yass, I believe. No one will be left but you and I and the Parson.’
‘What an exodus! It amounts to a misfortune,’ said Rosamond. ‘It seems as if the foundations of society were loosened. We shall never be so happy and contented again.’
‘We never may,’ said Wilfred; ‘but we shall be ever so much richer, if that is any compensation. Stock of all kinds are fetching fabulous prices in Port Phillip. By the bye, how is Dr. Fane? His store cattle are now worth more than the Benmohr fat cattle used to be.’
‘We had Vera here for a whole month,’ said Rosamond. ‘She is the dearest and best girl in the whole world, I believe, and so handsome we all think her. She said her father had sold a lot of cattle at a fine price, and if he didn’t spend all the money in books, they would be placed in easy circumstances.’
As Wilfred paced the verandah, smoking the ante-slumber pipe—a habit he had rather confirmed during his journeyings and campings—he could not but contrast the delicious sense of peaceful stillness with much of the life he had lately led. All was calm repose—amid the peaceful landscape. No possibility here of the wild shout—the midnight onset—as little, perhaps, of lawless deeds as in their half-forgotten English home. A truly luxurious relief, after the rude habitudes and painful anxieties of their pioneer life.
The night’s sound sleep seemed to have concentrated the repose of a week, when Wilfred awoke to discover that all outer life was painted in rose tints. That portion of the herd which had been left behind had profited by the unshared pasturage to such an extent that they resembled a fresh variety. Daisy and her progeny looked nearly as large as shorthorns, and extreme prices had been offered for them, old Andrew averred, by the cattle-dealers that now overspread the land.
A field of wheat, by miraculous means ploughed and harrowed, since the Hegira, promised an abundant crop.
‘Weel, aweel!’ said Andrew, who now appeared bearing two overflowing buckets of milk, ‘ye have been graciously spared to return from yon fearsome wilderness, like Ca-aleb and Joshua. And to think o’ that puir laddie, juist fa’en a prey to thae Amalekites, stricken through wi’ a spear, like A-absolom! Maist unco-omon—ane shall be taen and the t’ither left. It’s a gra-and country, I’m hearin’.’
‘The finest country you ever set eyes on, Andrew. The Chase seems a mere farm after it. If it was not for the family, I should soon pack up and go back there.’