After consultation, it was notified to their guide and courier that as soon as the tent was struck and the baggage packed, every one would be ready.
The troops being in high health and spirits, in a comparatively short space of time the march was resumed. Wilfred and Guy walked ahead, fowling-piece in hand. Andrew drove the cow, which followed quietly in the rear. The coupled greyhounds looked eagerly around, as if sensible that they were now in hunting country. They were with difficulty restrained when a wallaby, in two bounds, crossed the road and disappeared in an adjoining scrub.
The dry air was pure and fresh, the unclouded sky blue as a sapphire dome, the winding forest road free from all impediment but an occasional ledge of sandstone. If there is any portion of the day ‘when the poor are rich in spirits and health,’ when the heart of youth stirs, when age is soothed with dreams of happiness, it is in that sweetest hour which follows the early morning meal in rural Australia. Dawn is austere, mid-day often sultry, but nowhere will he, whose heart and intelligence respond alike gratefully to that charmed time, find its inspirations more invigorating than in the early summer of Australia. Then the fortunate traveller experiences coolness without cold, and warmth without the heat which produces lassitude.
As the waggon rolled easily along, the horses stepping cheerily on the track, the wayfarers paced over the unwonted herbage with an alertness of mien which would have suggested a very different history.
‘How lovely the shrubs are that we see in all directions!’ said Mrs. Effingham. ‘What should we have given for that golden flowering mimosa at The Chase, or this blue-leaved, pink pointed tree, which I suppose must be a young eucalyptus. Here they are so common that no one heeds them, and yet there are rare plants enough to set up a dozen greenhouses.’
‘Everything is so utterly different,’ said Rosamond. ‘I am most agreeably surprised at the landscape. What erroneous ideas one has of far countries! I suppose it is because we seldom feel sufficient interest to learn about them thoroughly. I pictured Australia a sandy waste, with burned-up reedy grass, and a general air of the desert. Now, here we have woods, a pretty little brook rippling by, rocks and hills, and in the distance a mountain. I could make quite an effective sketch.’
‘The country isn’t all like this, Miss,’ said Dick Evans, with a deferential air. ‘If you was to go two or three hundred miles into the bush, there’s no timber at all; you’ld find it all sand and salt-bushes—the curiousest place ever you see.’
‘How can it be the “bush,”’ inquired Wilfred, ‘if there are no trees? But we are not going so far, at any rate.’
‘Finest grazing land out,’ said Richard the experienced. ‘All the stock rolling fat—no trouble in looking after ’em. If I was a young gentleman, that’s the place I’d make for. Not but what Warbrok’s a pleasant spot, and maybe the young ladies will like it better than the plains.’
‘I fancy we all shall, Richard,’ said Rosamond. ‘The plains may be very well for sheep and cattle, but I prefer a woodland country like this. I suppose we can have a garden there?’