Perhaps, though with enthusiasts his steady march is disregarded, old Time may possibly have had something to do with the decrease of enthusiasm. Mrs. Wilfred does not approve of her husband riding so hard as in the brave days of old. She herself, from circumstances, is often absent, and scarcely enjoys lending Emigrant, still nearly as good as ever, to lady visitors. A heavy autumn shower, too, acted unfavourably upon the health of the M.F.H., and explained practically what lumbago most closely resembles.
Still Howard Effingham, nobly loyal to his ideal, presses gallantly forward to the realisation of his hopes. The coming year will see an opening meet of the Lake William hounds, such as, in one respect, at least, was never ridden to in Australia before.
On some grey-hued, red-dawning May morn, freshly recalling, like the verse of an old song, how many a hunting day of yore, will he view a fox away from the upper corner of the ti-tree covert, on the rocky spur of the yellow-box range—a real fox—as red, as wiry, with as white a tag to his brush as ever a straight-goer that stretched across the pastures before the Pytchley or the Quorn. Nevertheless Australian born and bred.
Standing in his stirrups, he watches the leading hounds pour through the paddock fence, the remainder settling to the scent, or at silent speed sweeping over the forest parks that border the lake meadows. Rosamond St. Maur is far away, alas! and Fergus out at grass; but Major-General Sir Walter Glendinning, on leave from India, is trying the speed of the best Arab in the Mofussil. Mrs. O’Desmond is watching her husband anxiously, Guy is home from Port Phillip, with Bob Clarke and Ardmillan, each on a horse ‘fit to go for a man’s life,’ and wild with frolic spirits. Mrs. Vera Effingham is out, and, as luck would have it, ready and willing to remind Emigrant of old Black Mountain days. John Hampden, taking The Caliph by the head, now snow white, but still safe across timber, echoes back Wilfred’s ‘Forrard, forrard, away!’ as he sails off with the lead, and forgetting his wife and family, feels perfectly, ecstatically happy. Then, and then only, will Howard Effingham acknowledge that he has at length achieved the position of which he has so often dreamed—then will he hold himself to be in real, completest earnest—an Australian Squire.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh
BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD.
Crown 8vo. 6s. each.
WAR TO THE KNIFE; or, Tangata Maori.