‘I was allers taught that, sir,’ replied Dick, with an air of military reminiscence which would have befitted a veteran of the Great Frederick. ‘But when we reaches Warbrok my agreement’s out with the Parson, and Miss can order me about all day.’
In spite of Annabel’s asseverations that the party would never reach the spot indicated, and that she believed there never was any such place, but that Dick would lead them into a trackless forest and abandon them, the journey ended about the time specified. A rugged track, indeed, one afternoon tried their patience. The horses laboured, the docile cow limped and lagged, the girls complained, while Andrew’s countenance became visibly elongated.
At length Dick Evans’s wooden facial muscles relaxed, as halting on the hardly-gained hill-top he pointed with his whip-handle, saying simply, ‘There’s Warbrok! So the young ladies and gentlemen can see for theirselves.’
How eagerly did the whole party gaze upon the landscape, which now, in the clear light of the Southern eve, lay softly in repose before them!
The character of the scenery had changed with the wondrous suddenness peculiar to the land in which they had come to dwell. A picture set in a frame of forest and unfriendly thickets! Now before their eyes came with magical abruptness a vision of green slopes, tall groves, and verdurous meadows. It was one of nature’s forest parks. Traces of the imperfect operations of a new country were visible, in felled timber, in naked, girdled trees, in unsightly fences. But nature was in bounteous mood, and had heightened the contrast with the barren region they had over-passed, by a flushed abundance of summer vegetation. This lavish profusion of herb and leaf imparted a richness of colouring, a clearness of tone, which in a less favourable season of the year Warbrok must perceptibly have lacked.
‘Oh, what a lovely, lovely place!’ cried Annabel, transported beyond herself as she stood on tip-toe and gazed rapturously at the scene. ‘Those must be the Delectable Mountains. Dick, you are a Christian hero [the old man smiled deprecatingly], I forgive you on the spot. And there is the house, a real house with two storeys—actually two—I thought there were only cottages up the country—and an orchard; and is that a blue cloud or the sea? We must have turned round again. Surely it can’t be our lake? That would be too heavenly, and those glorious mountains beyond!’
‘That’s Lake William, miss, called after His Gracious Majesty King William the Fourth,’ explained Dick, accurate and reverential. ‘Fourteen miles long and seven broad. You’ll find the house big enough, but it’s a long way from being in good order; and it’s a mercy there’s a tree alive in the orchard.’
‘Oh, never mind, we’ll soon put things to rights, won’t we, mamma? And what splendid creatures those old trees will be when they come out in leaf. I suppose it’s too early in the spring yet?’ continued she.
‘Dead—every one of ’em, miss,’ explained their conductor. ‘They’ve been ring-barked, more’s the pity. They was beauties when I knowed ’em fust, before the blessed tenants was let ruinate everything about the place. I wonder there’s a stone of the house standing, that I do. And now, sir, we’ll get on, and the young ladies can have tea in their own parlour, if my old woman’s made a fire, accordin’ to orders.’
The hearts of the more reflective portion of the party were too full for comment, so Annabel’s chatter was allowed to run on unchecked. A feeling of despondency had been gradually stealing over Howard Effingham and his wife, as for the two last stages they had pictured to themselves the toil of building up a home amid the barren solitudes, such as, in their innocence, they thought their new property might resemble. Now, here was a spot in which they might live out their lives with cheerful and contented minds, thankful that ‘their lines had fallen in pleasant places’; having reason to hope that their children might dwell in peace and prosperity after them.