Walking through the garden to the lower end of the slope upon which the homestead of Benmohr was built, Wilfred saw that the course of the creek, dignified with the name of a river, had been arrested by a wide and solid embankment, half-way up the broad breast of which a sheet of deep, clear water came, while for a greater distance than the eye could reach along its winding course was a far-stretching reservoir, lake-like, reed-bordered, and half-covered with wild-fowl.
‘Here you see our greatest difficulty, Effingham, and our greatest triumph. When we took up this run a shallow stream ran in winter and spring, but in summer it was invariably dry. This exposed us to expense, even loss. So we resolved to construct a dam. We did so, at some cost in hired labour; a spring flood washed it away. Next year we tried again, and the same result followed. Then the neighbours pitied and “I told you so’d” us to such an extent that we felt that dam must be made and rendered permanent. We had six months’ work at it last summer; during most of the time I did navvy work, wheeling my barrow up and down a plank like the others. It was a stiff job. I invented additions, and faced it with stone. That fine sheet of water is the result of it; I believe it will stand now till the millennium, or the alteration of the land laws.’
‘I quite envy you,’ said Wilfred. ‘A conflict with natural forces is always exciting. I am quite of your opinion; the great advantage of this Australian life is that a man enjoys the permission of society to work with his hands as well as his head.’
Leaving the water for an isolated wooden building in the neighbourhood of the offices, Mr. Hamilton opened the upper half of a stable-door and discovered to view a noble, dark chestnut thoroughbred in magnificent condition.
‘Here is one of my daily tasks,’ said he, removing the gallant animal’s sheet and patting his neck. ‘In this case it is a labour of love, as I am passionately fond of horses, and have a theory of my own about breeding which I am trying to carry out. Isn’t he a beauty?’
Wilfred, looking at the satin skin of the grand animal before him, thought he had rarely seen his equal.
‘You observe,’ said Hamilton, ‘in this sire, if I mistake not, characteristics not often seen in English studs. Camerton combines the perfect symmetry, the beauty and matchless constitution of the desert Arab with the size and bone of the English thoroughbred.’
‘He does give me that idea, precisely,’ said Wilfred. ‘Wonderful make and shape. His back rib has the cask-like roundness of the true Arab; and what legs and feet! Looking at him you see an enlarged Arab.’
‘His grand-dam was a daughter of The Sheik, an Arab of the purest Seglawee strain of the Nejed, imported from India many years ago by a cavalry officer, whose charger he was. He has besides the Whisker, Gratis, and Emigrant blood. In him we have at once the horse of the new and of the old world—the size and strength of the Camerton type, the symmetry of the Arab, and such legs and feet as might have served Abdjar, the steed of Antar.’
When they re-entered the cottage they saw Mr. Churbett, who had intended to go home that morning, but finding the witty Canon such pleasant reading, thought he would start in the afternoon, finally making up his mind to stay another day and leave punctually after breakfast. There was nothing to do—he observed—and no one to talk to, when he did get home, so there was the less reason for haste.